She can go by any nickname she wants at school and pretty much anything at her age. I say let it be her offical nickname for all to call her and tell her when she is 18 she can have her birthday gift be a legal name change. That way she can see if she really likes it or not. I was a kid who wanted to change her name because I dispised my boring one syllable name. Thank god it was not legally changed becuase while I still like my nickname...it is NOT one I would want as an adult. ... I was too young to know that the name I liked was .... well pretty much reserved for porn stars .... LOL!!!!:lol: of course.... what would one expect from a person who likes to go by Samba2nite? and yes.... I wanted to be called Samba my mom could not bring herself to call me it.... but friends did and teachers at school so that was good enough for me.

Oh yes and one last thing..... scale.... Scale of furniture in relationship to the space a room has to offer is HUGE! Furniture that is the wrong size for a room can make or break it...there is lots of newer style peices that are small scale and will make a room seem much much larger. Much of the furniture out on the market are constructed for large track mcmansion type of homes and can eat up a room... Okay i think I am really done now! Looking forward to reading others comments.

Oh yes my suggestion.... for kids as soon as they are old enough....mine were 2.5.... bunkbeds where they sleep on top and play underneath..some places call them loft beds. It can really make good use out of a small kids room. Also multifuntional furniture. Couches that can be pull out beds. Ottomans with storage inside. Tables with backets underneath. eliminating freestanding showers if you have a tub in the bathroom and converting it to a shower over tub and making the old shower into a huge closet (if it is next to a hallway you can split the storage half hall closet half bathoom closet. Pull down stairs in a hallway to have access to your attic....even a small low roof line can have hidden storage space to store items. Gotta love the pull down stairs. Underbed storage for adults...low plastic bins like the ones you store wrapping paper in are great for this purpose. For us if it cannot serve a dual purpose it is placed on the look for something more efficent list.... and ya gotta love craigslist for that!

Okay as a real estate professional I get asked all the time for my opinion on what house size for a XX sized family. So here are my observations. It many countries outside of the US it is perfectly normal for a family including extended family to live in less than 400 sq ft. As americans we are used to bigger is better. This is not always the case. I have learned that square footage does NOT necessarily equal to useful space. I would take a small well laid out floor plan over a large but poor floor plan anyday. I often tell cleints to "humor me" and look at a smaller home becuase it has a wonderful floor plan and also tell cleints to not get hung up on the squarefootage and instead look at the functionality. By US standards, most people find that 400 sq feet per person in the house works for them. Again, these are US big is better rule of thumb. Does this mean that your family will live in the home better if you have 400 sq ft for each person....NO....just that there will be a lot more "stuff" and it will not seem so tight. I am in the camp of less to clean and weeding through what you do not need. We sold our old house which had more square footage for a home with 300 less sqaure feet becuase the new house was laid out so that we would use every single room...instead of living in only two rooms of our old house. Now we use every inch with none wasted. We have six of us living in the house fulltime...with the two older girls coming and going making it 8 when they are home...it does get a little tight with 8 and I tend to get a little more grouchy... I find as long as the space is clean and organized then I can tolerate my space. DH and I work out of the house and each have our own office. His is outside (guest house...aka guest shack) and mine is the size of a large closet. We live in CA and the house is 2000sq ft and the shack is 275 sq ft I would love to have more space and I joke about it becuase one of my ongoing reoccuring dreams is that I find a room I never noticed before and cannot believe I found extra space that is unused. As usual I wake up in a funk that my new room was just a dream. My husband thinks I am a nut case....but hey I am!

My son has some fine moter OT issues that we are working on. He would rather have a root canal than write. Can anyone think of ideas to encourage him to write? My son is 8 and in second grade.

I'm considering buying some used SOTW on CD to listen to when we are in the car. Not sure if we would listen to them after we have read the book or what....but I think my kids would like them since they like books on tape. Who has listened to them and how did you use them? As a supplement? As the main history source? In the car? On an Ipod?

Okay you all have my interest peaked....what is HOD? I thought I was familiar with most history programs out there....

I'm still working out the kinks in our schedule...but here is what we are doing each week. second grade yahoos - Kumon math everyday sonlight core 1/2 history - readers - realouds Story of the world volume one *planning science fridays - in the works - we just bought sonlight science 1 & 2 Pre K Yahoo - Kumon math and reading sonlight core K history - readers - re alouds * will participate in science fridays Ideally, I want to layout a schedule that outlines each night of the week and what we will do for that night. I want it to look like fun for the kids and really do want it to be fun for them....(that is the readings, history and science parts of what we do)

We started the series with my two second graders and they LOVE the books. There has been no issues whatsoever with their comphrension or understanding. Now, my soon to be five year old? Nope no interested. No pictures....No sit still LOL!!!

Tricia welcome. For us to make it simple, I see my job in afterschooling to fill in the gaps where our PS is lacking, augment what they are learning in PS and help out in their weak areas. I found that I really like sonlights core program for their grade levels. It works great for history, geography and supplemental reading. I bought their core 1/2 program for my second graders and plan on taking 2 years to complete the one year program. Their programs are grouped by age levels not class levels per se. I am starting their K program for the younger ones. The thing I that drew me to sonlight was it as all inclusive and took all of the planning and thinking out of it....as a working mom I love that! I also like that I can shuffle things to fit our needs. We also are a Kumon math family and it is clearly paying off in spades for the kids in terms of standouting out in the PS for math. samba

My daughter lives for math and my son loathes it....they work on math M-F 1 - 1.5 hour a day and weekends 30 minutes. We are using Kumon for math enrichment and one is doing saxon and the other harcourt which I hate!

I'm really curious on this one. I have a soon to be five year old (in six weeks) and her span to keep her attention on reading or math work or simply listening to a book is about 10 minutes. IT is sad but I cannot remember how long my last two yahoos were able to stay at attention but I think it was about 20 minutes at this age....but maybe I am dilusional or am just getting old! So if you have a four year old five year old or six year what are their attentions spans for staying on task or listening. Thanks

My experience with the lapbooks concept is for our family. The girls like them and my son hates them. He hates anything that requires fine motor skills and looks like an art project. The girls LOVE them. Also in terms of planning....well I bought a program in a box so to speak and tweak it as I see fit. I have found that it works well for me .... oh yes and the yahoos! We are using www.sonlight.com I know there are many many out there, but I loved the idea that it came with everything start to finish and all I had to do was open and start reading and teaching. The schedule, the timelines, the guides, the books and all are in one big box.

Greetings Alicia...looks like we are both here in the big tomato. For my five year olds I am working on phonics, alphabet memorization and basic counting math. I have no set curriculm other than what my 8 year olds twins did at their former private school. I take what I liked and duplicated it and them agument. The youngest team will start kindergarten in september and I want them to be ready. The youngest set are english as a second language so phonic and alphabet stuff is huge. We read every night. I have all four narrative after I read to them. We just bought the sonlight core 1/2 program and am moving them over to that using SOTW which they love and beg me to read to them. At this point I would be called an afterschooler instread of a home schooler for the older two since they are in PS fulltime and in the evenings we read and discuss history, literature and science. The three areas they love but to not to get learn in second grade PS. samba

Thanks for all of the great wisdom and suggestions on new approaches. It is all so helpful!

I bought this book and we are on lesson 8 and it is a stuggle. She turns five next month and is quite interested in reading. She is always asking me to help her with reading words and wants to read like her two older siblings. The problem I am have with the book is that my brain does not work the way the book does. It find it very dry and very hard to understand...I know what sounds crazy. I am a relatively smart person with a graduate degree from Stanford, but darn this book is a real challenge. I have a have a hard time keeping my daughter intersted in the book. I am able to get her to point and sound out with me and after me....but she is not interested and it takes major bribing to get through it. After we spend our 5 - 15 minutes...more on the five side of things we move to the bob books. She likes to the bob books. We have been working on this for the past month. Any suggestions on helping get through the book? I think it has merit to stick with it and am open to getting past my hickup with how it works.... Insight and wisdom greatly welcome

Heck NO you are not being selfish or the like.... it is perfectly normal in asian cultures to remove your shoes before you enter a home. Even is some nothern european countries it is perfectly normal to remove your shoes before you enter a home. It is here in the US where we get hung up on it. I say you go smart sister and save yourself the headache. If you want offer a basket by the front door to place their shoes and offer booties or socks if they need them

I'm going to chime in here living in the big tomato in northern CA. I would say between $75K - 100K. I would say here in CA the biggest cost is housing. You can live here in the big tomato, for under 2000K grand a month but it will not be the greatest neighborhood in town. It will be a working class starter neighborhood with a weak elem school which will keep values down. But as a HS....that small detail is not important. So pack your bags and head for the tomato :-):lol: Now we manage just fine on 80K but that included second hand store clothes (which I love) ebay, craigslist and shopping at the famers markets, walmart and the grocery outlet. I am the queen on bargin hunting and while I could pay more----I do not wish too! Prices here can be expensive if you are not shopping savvy.

Thanks... Y'all I just figured it out!!!

Really? I would love to buy used SL programs....how do you find the yahoo groups????

I'm looking for a Science program I can "afterschool" for my science junkie yahoos. I'd love to hear about what others are using for their homeschool science program. Insight and wisdom is requested and welcome. Thanks!!

Yes Yes and Yes! When my yahoos were under four years old. I would take 75% of their toys and put them away. Every two weeks I would rotate their toys. They loved it! It was like new toys every time. They were so happy and I found that they really played well with the toys they had access to. Now if only I could figure out a way to get away with it now at 8 years old... Hummmmmm samba in sac

Ria, thank you for sharing!! I will check out your suggestions. samba in sac www.talesfromthebigtomato.blogspot.com

Ria, and others thanks for sharing what you are doing. I am interested in science at home. I'd love ot hear what you are are doing and or useing for science material? And how you dove tail it in to what you are doing or are you looking at it as a stand alone. I love science and my son does too. But as a second grader he does not really get any exposure and I want to give him some information he loves to learn about in addition to the history, geography and reading that we are doing.... your thoughts on science? samba

Email me privately and I can forward you a list of things to watch for to protect yourselves. The first thing you want to make sure is that you are not paying too much. 90% of the FSBO homes on the market are priced too high for the market place. FSBOs tend to think that their homes are worth more than then are. Not all but many. This is very critcal becuase you will be getting an apprisal and these days they are very very important. You cannot get a loan if the home price is too high. YOu should run comps in the area for like homes. To make sure the price is inline. Next, you will want to make sure that you are getting the home for at least 3%- 6% under the market price or asking price(if it is inline for the market). Why? becuase that is what they are pocketing by selling it as a FSBO. As a FBSO they are saving 6% - 7% on selling the home and they should be willing to at least split that savings with you becuase buying a FSBO places you at a higher risk and you should be compensated for that. The easiest way to do this is to have them reduce the price 6% or credit back in escrow the 6%. Do NOT waiver on this...if they used an agent they would have to pay 6% so they should either reduce the price or share the savings with you. You also want to make sure that they pay all of the closing costs. I often see FSBO take advantage of buyers who do not know that sellers (especially in a buyers market like today) pay all closing costs including some of the buyers costs! Why becuase it is a buyers market where sellers are at the mercy of buyers. Again, not all FSBOs are this way but you need to protect your self becuase you do not have a professional protect you. Having an attorney review information is not enough. They do not practice buying and selling real estate -- just contracts and you need to protect yourself about the process and price. You will want to get your home inspections, roof inspections, sewer inspection and pest inspection. You will want to have the sellers buy a home warranty, 2 year roof cert and clear section one pest on the home. let me know if you have any other questions. I am here to help! Samba in sac