I <3 MEP! We've been using MEP for a few years now and I appreciate it so much. It is very thorough. Don't let the fact that it is free deceive you. It is quality. Basically you do one lesson per day. The teachers book has lessons that you teach the child and then they do a work page mostly independently. Every fifth day is completely independent review work (good for skipping if you're doing an easy week). The teachers part is tempting to skip but some of the worksheet assignments won't make a lot of sense without them. New concepts are always taught through the teacher's lessons first. They are also where the students practice speed drill and mental arithmetic.

I'm not sure what is easier, making a 5yo focus or a 5yo levitate.

I can usually get some work done. Look at my signature and you'll see that I've got a nice challenging age spread. I usually do work that requires my attention in the morning and the two older ones take turns babysitting. In the afternoon I send off the older ones to start their independent work. It's definitely a challenge and most definitly the housework lags behind and my meals are BORING (pb sandwiches or rice and beans is pretty regular here). This stage may be difficult but I'm sure you won't regret it when you look back 10 or 20 years from now.

I've got some friends that are a part of the Mennonite denomination that produces CLE and R&S material and I just want to say that this is absolutely true. They are actually explicitly opposed to evangelizing children because they believe that they are all a part of God kingdom until they reach adulthood.

I'd love some help here. My 12yo son is struggling with writing. He has been doing independent written summaries of his history book for awhile now and I've been hoping to begin using WWS, which I own, but I can see that it's going to be awhile yet before he'll be able to tackle that much writing. His writing is stilted in style and contains plenty of grammar and spelling issues. He likes to be as brief as possible but ends up omitting important details. The easiest thing here might be for me to give you an example. Here is a summary he wrote for a chapter of The Story of Mankind (I intentionally picked below grade level reading for him to do summaries from): The Rise of Rome The Roman empire was an accident. The Romans would rather stay at home and farm. But when they were obliged to they would fight. So finaly they owned all the land surounding the mediterrenian sea. What do you think? Is this as poor and I think that it is? Should I just continue having him write summaries or should I branch out into a formal writing curriculum? What are my options? I like to avoid curriculum that uses a lot of fairy tales or banal silliness. Occasional occurances aren't a big deal to me though.

As a Canadian, I would appreciate a mixed volume. We use a a book called "The Story of Canada" by George W Brown published in 1950 during our elementary school years. If you haven't seen this book you might appreciate it as it's a similar style to the SOTW. That said, I would appreciate a follow up book that would cover more US history without just diving into US-centric Amercian patriotism with stuff like the deification of the founding fathers. Children's book especially seem to frequently try to pound in as much patriotism as possible.

How about picking out some good books that are bellow their reading level so that they're reading quality but it's still easy reading? Something like Mr. Popper's Penguins comes to mind. I require my children to read all the non-fiction I pick out from the library before they can get any more fiction. There are different ways you can work it.

I hate socks. They're always odd, growing holes or find their way into ever corner of the house (or the kitchen table, under my pillow, my purse, etc). I've joked with my dh that they childresn's socks need dummy strings like their mittens. We need some new ones right now and I was hoping for some suggestions for brands that won't grow holes in a week. If you know of any brands that don't become odd or walk around my house that would be great too. :D

My oldest boy still hasn't had one. He thinks that "tea" is GROSS and wants nothing to do with that and is fully aware that boy-girl relationships are meant to end up that way (as in marriage). He says he's going to be single for life and work as a bicyle mechanic. lol. I'm just waiting for puberty to change his mind. DS and DD also mercilessly tease each other about who they are each going to end up marrying. It's pretty funny. I think that there may be more going on in DS's mind then he's letting onto.

I'm seconding MEP. The pages do not look intimidating. There are no full pages of drill. If one activity on the page is stressful at least the child will probably find one easy and encouraging. You can also make the worksheets less intimidating by following the teachers instructions for walking the child through the excersise. This usually hasn't been necessary for me but sometimes my math phobic daughter has benefited from sitting with her through the exercises.

I tried to skip it but discovered that it was nearly impossible to explain how to correctly place commas without at least a little knowledge of grammar. My dd like to put them everywhere and my ds never uses them. It's just not natural for them. I think that studying grammar is helping them get a feel for how the English language works so that some of those basic things, like good punctuation, can flow naturally. I must say that whenever I write about grammar I get a little nervous about my post writing. I'm not the greatest writer and I'm trying to learn along with my children. I don't even know myself where to add commas all the time. I'm learning the grammar so that I can teach it to my children so that the don't fumble around as much as I do when they're adults.

I'm trying to lose a little baby weight before I get pregnant again but I'm nursing two babies at the moment and am struggling with low blood sugar headaches. I'm wondering if I brute force my through a few weeks of this if they'll eventually go away. Do you think that my body will adjust or do you think that my diet should adjust? :) Thanks all!

I'M HUNGRY! Ok. Scream over. This is challenging. You should have seen my bowl of oatmeal this morning. It was so full. I doctored it up with peanut butter, flax and raisins. It looked like something Jethro on the Beverly Hillbillies would have eaten. I'm hungry now though and there is an hour still until lunch.

This is a topic dear to my heart at the moment. As you can see in my signature I have two babies. The older one is adopted and I chose to nurse him from birth while I was pregnant. I thought that given the fact that I was nursing my toddler that I would have enough milk for him, or at least maybe for the first month but discovered that I didn't even have enough to keep him happy for two days! I got a supplemental feeder and fed him at my breast through a tube for next five months. When my youngest baby was born our sweet adopted baby was able to nurse like a champ! Praise the Lord! We did it! From my experience and research, I would guess that at some point your son will be getting next to no milk. The supply and demand principle doesn't seem to apply during pregnancy. If nursing is just for comfort this may not phase him but it will probably be an easier time for him to wean if you choose to go that direction.

This is so helpful. Thank you all. Does anyone else have experience with any others?

I've never heard of this before today. I think I'll give it a try. I've never tried a marketed diet before, just the good old eat less, move more diet. I've got some baby weight to lose though, about 10-15lbs. I don't know if I'll get to posting what I eat every day though. My main downfall is the seconds. We rarely do sweets and my snacks are usually apples or something else innocuous. I'm nursing two babies at the moment so we'll see how well I do. My plates might be VERY full but I kind-of like the really full feeling. That's probably my biggest food downfall. I might also just stick to one plate full on weekends but allow sweets on those days if they come about. I'll see how the extra restriction goes and tweek it if necessary. Failing on an S-day isn't really failing after all.

I'm just finishing up two matching wool jackets for my babies. I salvaged the wool from some adult clothes. I love sewing for babies because it's so easy to make things turn out cute. I think that this has been one of my favourite projects ever. Next up is hemming some curtains. I've got 7 sets to hem and I'm going to be paid $150. I haven't done anything for pay in years! Thankfully they're thick cotton and not something nasty to work with. After that is some jumpers for my two year old. The females in our family only wear dresses so I feel like I'm always sewing dresses. At least little dresses are cute. :)

I think that I would love to see a basic overview of the problem presented as concretely as possible and then a discussion, possibly engaging the audience, about what a child can do with or without the support of a parent. For example, rather than discussing the use of vehicles (parents need to lead this) he could discuss how children can turn out the lights when they leave a room. It bugs me to no end when schools or anything else pits children against their parents. It reminds me of Mao's China or the Nazis. I'm not suggesting that he's setting out to do this just hoping to encourage him not to do so inadvertently.

I think that the title says it all. What do you think of R.M Ballantyne's writing? They look like decent historical fiction. Are they war heavy? If you like him, what books in particular would you recommend?

Let's talk middle school science. I've noticed several threads lately (and started one myself) about this topic and each time one pops up I learn about another curriculum that is available. Let's put it all together and discuss the merits of every middle school (~gr5 - gr9) curriculum you have any experience with. Just list them out with pros and cons. Feel free to repeat others if you have your own opinions. I'll start. Answers in Genesis (AIG) - Pros: It's easy to use, doesn't take much prep, short lessons, activities are simple, easy to use with multiple ages simultaneously, cheap. Cons: too much YE apologetics, too young for middle school, too much trivia, not good at presenting the big picture, no written questions for the children to answer. I'm giving it a 3/5 star rating.

The Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter on Librivox is pretty good. BenHur on Librivox is excellent. It's done my Mark Smith so imagine that any other books that he's done would be good too. My children love this one. Does anyone know of a good Pilgrim's Progress?

I'd love to hear some answers to this too. :)

I couldn't have stated it better. :)

I think that it's an age thing. I've got an 11yo dd and an 11yo ds (not twins-dd is adopted). They've been bickering like crazy. It's like they're in a constant contest to prove who is the most mature and they take pride in how snide their remarks can be. It's so exhausting! One thing that has helped to some extent here has been some heart to hearts with them. When things get bad I send the worst offender away (separating them for the arbitration is vital) and then talk to them each privately about how their behaviour is making the other one feel. I think that sometimes they're just oblivious to this and sometimes they think that their comments are just playful when really it's just a sly kind of rudeness. I've also told them that when they bicker so much it make me want to get away from them. This definitely has an influence on them. Really I suppose what helps the most is when I remain calm and can help them arbitrate the conflicts. If I listen to them and acknowledge that their complaints are legitimate and then explain how they could have handled the situation better then they respond well. When I screw up then things can turn pretty miserable.

I've got a great one. When my two big kids were about 2 I took them into a thrift store. I took them both into a change room to try on a shirt. I wasn't wearing a bra that day (I'm more of hippy then my avatar might suggest ;)). My boy was surprised and said, "NIPPLES, I want to touch them!" Horrified, I quickly bent down to shush him when my daughter said, "Naked hug! I want a naked hug too!" My dh and I had been in the habit of giving our little one "naked hugs" after their baths because post-bath toddlers are so cute. Needless to say we stopped that then and there. So embarrassing! :o