I know that I really wanted to start reading longer books with my dd when she was that age, even though we still read huge stacks of picture books every week. Some of the titles that she and ds have enjoyed that were very innocent are: Mr. Popper's Penguins Charlotte's Web The Trumpet of the Swan Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Pippi Longstocking some of Beatrix Potter's books

It's not a chapter book, but The Valentine Cat by Clyde Robert Bulla comes to mind. It's a long picture book (62 pages).

I wouldn't take money of our retirement fund unless we were in truly dire circumstances and it was the last resort. I do think that shared family fun and vacations are very important. I think renting or borrowing a camper is a great idea.

:party:I hope it's a great day!

Oh, I didn't mean to make it sound as if *I* would be teaching the piano lessons. I have very limited music knowledge. In fact, I plan on taking lessons *with* them to learn to play the piano myself. I just meant that I would be arranging for a piano teacher to come to our house and give us lessons.:001_smile: I love the idea of watching a teacher for one lesson before deciding. Thanks for the input.

and looked at the new Sonlight Catalog last night. And I am not having a curriculum confusion meltdown! I'm not spazzing out and questioning myself. I'm not tempted to use Sonlight! This is a huge milestone for me. Disclaimer: I do not have anything against Sonlight or Sonlight users. I have just had emotional issues closely connected to the Sonlight catalog, in the past.

Thanks. This is very much my dh's attitude toward history at this age. I guess I just need to relax and read the book with her.

I love dh for so many reasons, but right now I really appreciate what a great provider he is. He has been working such long hours recently because he is working his full-time, very demanding job and working to open two small businesses. Our hope is that someday he will be completely self-employed. He has an amazing ability to make ideas and goals into reality. And when he is able to spend time with us, we really, really love it. He just makes the whole atmosphere of our home more animated and cheerful.

I am curious to know if there are other people who have consciously chosen not to start a blog and why. I seriously contemplated starting one at the beginning of January, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I have heightened (probably bordering on unreasonable) fears about putting pictures of my kids on the internet, even with limited access. I just know that somehow is going to figure out where we live and come to harm us. I also fear that I wouldn't have anything significant to say or that I wouldn't know how to portray myself authentically. I have really enjoyed visiting blogs written by posters here, and I especially find it helpful and interesting to see what others are doing in their homeschools. I wouldn't want to become a part of what MFS calls the "Mommy blogs". And, believe it or not, I tend to be a very introverted, private person. I'm just not sure I want to put it all out there for the world to see and read. But, yet I am very appreciative that many of you do just that.

I like the narration jar idea. I bet dd would, too. :)

I think you hit the nail on the head in the last sentence. Consistency has been lacking greatly. Thanks for the input!

Thanks. This is a helpful perspective. She did enjoy watching a dvd on Ancient China that we got from the library this week. And she has really enjoyed any picture books that we have read to go along with what we were studying in history. I think it really is the narration that is holding us back. So, I'm going to think of other areas in which we could do narration more agreeably. I think she might enjoy narrating books that she has read in a "Reading Rainbow" sort of way. I could have her draw illustrations to go with her narrations and put them together in a reading log for her to share with her aunt and grandparents. Sometimes, just thinking about these things out loud really helps. I appreciate your input.

We have been reading through the Old Testament stories in order, too. I guess I never thought of that as part of our history studies. We definitely will be able to finish the history pockets. I'm thinking the important thing right now is just exposing her to the ancient history stories so that she'll have those "pegs" on which to hang greater information when she is older. So, I think I'll relax on the narrations and try to finish SOTW as more of a read-aloud with occasional mapwork/activity as appropriate. I'm such an all-or-nothing person; it's often hard for me to realize that dd would benefit from hearing the rest of the book, even if we *never* did another narration. I don't feel as if I have to do every project or read every suggested book, but I never really gave myself permission to skip narration or mapwork.

Oh, I can feel your nervousness. But you can really do this. What do you usually do for her birthday? If you normally make plans ahead of time and do something with her, then I think explaining why you can't do something this weekend and maybe even asking about visiting next weekend would seem fine and natural. The biggest factor, in my opinion, is making your voice sound natural, no matter what you say. And maybe call at a time when one of the kids could suddenly really "need" you if you feel the conversation is going in the wrong direction? I'm not sure this was any help, but I wish you the best of luck! What a sweet sister you are to plan a big surprise!

:iagree: Well said.

I had planned to start piano lessons for both dc in the fall when our home addition is complete and our piano is back in our home, instead of being stored in the garage. But tonight then ds tells me that he really wants to take violin lessons. He will be five in October. Will that be a good age to start?

Well, I can't say that money is of no concern, but I was thinking that if it were a reasonable amount I might ask for it to be my birthday/Christmas gifts. I have read so many organization books that it isn't funny. I just can't implement them. I thought it might help to have an outside person whose job it is to make sure I implement something. But honestly, I do think that once we build onto our house, it will be a lot easier. We moved to a dramatically smaller house almost 2 years ago. Despite the fact that we sold furniture, gave away a lot of items, and put a lot of stuff in storage, we just don't have enough room for everything here. So not everything has a place, which results in a lot of piles of clutter and a general feeling of disorganization. Once we have a place for everything, I don't think it will be as challenging to keep everything in it's place. You're right, I'll just save my money for useful things like bookshelves, cubbies, and a desk, and try to use one of the great organization books I have found at the library. Our addition should be completed by fall, if we get to start on time, so hopefully next school year will be an organized one!

I've heard that if you have hardwood floors you really need a canister vacuum. Is this true? Why? Also, which canister vac. is your favorite? Which is the best value for the money? Thanks.

I'll try to make a long story short. Because of medical issues which necessitated doctor's appts./physical therapy three times a week for a few months, our school schedule was very much altered in the fall. We stayed on track with the basics (reading, spelling, grammar, math, handwriting). We also did a great job of fitting in science. But we have never gotten into a groove with history, even after our schedule became normal again. We have finished 14 chapters in SOTW, but we decided to take a break about a month or so ago because, well, we just really haven't hit a groove. I either didn't require dd to do a narration at all, or I made it overcomplicated and felt as if we were doing high school level work in first grade. She never like doing history, unless it was a day when she got to do one of the "tests" as a review sheet. She likes worksheets, I guess. So I bought the Evan Moor History Pockets Ancient Civilizations to sort of do a little review and make history fun. The problem is, it isn't really fun. Dd usually loves crafty things, but she doesn't want to do all the cutting and gluing this requires. I'm not sure why.:confused: So, history has gotten dropped again. I really want to stay on track with the four year history cycle, so I'm trying to decide what to do. No matter how hard we work now, there is no way we could finish SOTW before our summer break. So, I've considered continuing it all summer, but even then we wouldn't finish until about October. I've thought about having a history "camp": a few week period in which we do just history (and math) to try to catch up. Also, I'm wondering if it would be okay to not require a narration for every section. Since this is mainly about exposure, I guess just reading it and perhaps supplementing with other books and activities would be the most important thing, but I also think narration is such a necessary and important skill to learn, and this is the only subject in which I require narration. I recently checked out some dvd's from the library about ancient civilizations which the kids have really enjoyed, but somehow SOTW (which I personally really like) has never clicked with dd. I'm not sure what to do.

That's too funny! I'm all for parent teacher "conferences" with the father of my pupils on a regular basis!

He is 4 and weighs 34 pounds, too. Here's a link to it. http://http://products.howstuffworks.com/cosco-summit-high-back-car-seat-22-260-review.htm

:iagree: :iagree:I was thinking cheesecake, especially chocolate cheesecake, or chocolate chip cheesecake, or white chocolate raspberry cheesecake. Do you sense variations on a theme here? :001_smile:

We are pretty spontaneous, but thoughtful people. The field trips just kind of flow with the rest of our lives. We do things that interest us, but often they do fit nicely with what we are studying. In December, we visited a botanical conservatory that was featuring an exhibit about ancient civilizations and famous architectural wonders from ancient times. It fit in nicely with our history studies, but we sort of discovered this after already deciding to go. We were simply looking for a fun day trip, and it was a happy coincidence. I had been wanting to take the children to hear a symphony orchestra, so when I found out that the symphony orchestra in the city nearest us was having a Mozart festival one weekend in January, we decided to go to one of the evening concerts. Mozart is one of the composers we were studying in our classical music studies, so it fit in well. I also found out in January that there was a very special exhibit at the museum of art in the nearest city which feautred some of Monet's paintings and works of artists who had been influenced in some way by Monet and his impressionism. I had been wanting to take the children to this art museum and I love Monet. It was a unique opportunity because this particular exhibit was only going to be shown in one other museum, in Paris, France. So, even though we hadn't studied Monet or impressionism in art, we took advantage of the wonderful opportunity. We have also gone hiking to see caves and waterfalls somewhat nearby, and we purchased a membership to the local interactive children's museum. Last year we had a membership at the science museum in the city. Later this spring we plan to return to the botanical conservatory for a Butterfly exhibit, just because we want to see all the butterflies and maybe buy the little butterfly kit to raise and release our own. It will complement our science studies, since we did a unit on butterflies and moths earlier this year. And, I want to see all the beautiful Chihuly glass pieces they have in their collection. We go to the zoo in the summer, but we'll probably get a membership this year because ds loves animals and I know he will want to go more than once this year. Within the next year I would love to take the kids back to the symphony, perhaps to an opera, to the theater to see a play, and back to the art museum to see more of their permanent collection. I also just found out about a geology museum that I think ds would love. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I do try to lay a bit of a foundation for the experience to prepare the kids, if we know in advance that we will be doing something new. But I have found that my dc are most receptive to expounding on the experience afterwards. For example, when we went to the symphony we had listened to some of Mozart's works, talked about what the concert would entail and what kind of special behavior was required (being very quiet and still, particularly emphasized with the 4yo). We were privileged to hear a very talented soprano perform one of the Queen of the Night arias from the Magic Flute. We were all enthralled by the majestic way in which she used her voice as an instrument, and we went around the house imitating (weakly, I'm afraid) her performance for weeks. Now, if I had tried to make the kids listen to the Magic Flute before the performance, it would probably have been a miserable experience without much receptivity or meaningfulness. But after the concert, we read a picture book retelling of the story and listened to the accompanying cd together over the course of a week. And we were all waiting with much anticipation to hear the particular aria we had heard at the concert. Similarly, when we went to the art museum I prepared the kids by reading some relevant books with them in the week beforehand (e.g. Visiting the Art Museum, and a few story books featuring some of Monet's paintings). After the visit, I had some non-fiction library books ready which went into much more detail about Monet's life, career, and art. Dd eagerly read several of these to us over the following week for reading time in school. I'm sorry this post became so long, but I hoped it has helped in some way. It's certainly fun for me to recount our adventures!

Sometimes I read in the mornings before the kids get up. Sometimes I find little pockets of time throughout the day when the kids are content to play together for awhile. Sometimes I read in bed at night before going to sleep, but not every night. If I take dd to gymnastics by myself (if dh can watch ds), I take a book along. I get a lot more reading done in the warm weather. I take a book outside with me and read while the kids play with the neighborhood kids in the yard. Ds frequently asks me why I am always reading a book. To test him, I just asked him what I like to do most in my free time. He quickly replied, "Reading!"

How much did you have to spend? Did it really help you long-term? We are getting ready to add on several rooms to our house, which I think will help our clutter situation tremendously, but I still am not by nature an organized person. I'm wondering if I could afford to hire someone to help me organize the new and old spaces so that we can really thrive in our spaces. Right now, the clutter and disorganization is depressing, and I think it is thwarting my productivity.