I definitely wouldn't. If we're enjoying something and it's working, we stick with it.

I love the dig site and ice dig! You guys are doing a great job with the activities and projects! My daughter is 10 and we've been doing SOTW over the summer when we're not busy with our main curriculum. Of course, our summers are pretty busy with other things, too, but we average like 5 chapters per summer. This is our third summer doing it, and we just finished Chapter 15. My daughter recently made a diorama of the Red Sea, made "pretend colored glass" by putting crayon shavings and colored threads over a picture she colored (one of the SOTW coloring pages), and made Phoenician (pita) bread. She loves doing SOTW and doesn't even mind that she's doing school stuff over the summer when we do SOTW. And I enjoy doing this stuff with her. It's fun. :)

Being as I already have several, and being as my husband is a tattoo artist who owns his own shop, and being as my 10 y/o daughter has wanted to be a tattoo artist since she was 5.... I'd say reactions would range from interest to excitement to non-reactions over here. :D

Yes, I do censor now and then what I read aloud to my 10 y/o daughter. It doesn't happen often, but there's definitely been a few times where it's come up in the course of the hundreds of books we've read together in the past few years, where I've skipped over something or replaced it with something else. Like someone else said, though, when that does come up, it would depend on whether it was central to the story or gratuitous.

We usually start the day of or the day after Labor Day. We like to enjoy our summers. The winters sure are long enough here in PA!

I'm sure Jesus would have totally approved of that <eyeroll>. Sorry that happened to your son. Makes me really glad for my inclusive, non-religion-oriented homeschool group where we really can all get along and live and let live no matter what our religious beliefs (or lack thereof) are.

LOL...welcome to the club!

Just ordered the first one through interlibrary loan since my library doesn't have it!

We were doing the chapter on the Phoenicians for SOTW1. We read in the Usborne Book of World History: "Occasionally in times of great trouble, the Phoenicians sacrificed children to their gods. The burnt remains were placed in pottery urns, like these, and buried." Alexa, my 10 year old, looked horrified. She exclaimed, "They burned their own children?! Thank God you're not a Phoenician!" :lol:

Well then I'm going to have to check out that Karen Marie Moning series since I have the feeling I will like your recommendation lol. Is Darkfever the first in the series...?

Ours came out good! I think a little too thick though, we probably should have flattened them more before baking... but other than that, we liked it!

:iagree: My son's had informal "preschool" if you want to call it that from the time he was a toddler through now (he's 5.8 years old). It hasn't involved a program or curriculum, just interacting with him, playing with him, talking to him, answering his questions, pointing things out, offering educational and fun manipulatives, toys, games, activities and so on, letting him help me around the house, taking him on field trips, lots of free play and imaginative play time, arts and crafts, read alouds, preschool shows,... all the kinds of things moms just do anyway. He's picked up tons of stuff along the way. This fall we'll be starting a Kindergarten curriculum (not an overly academic one, it's more gentle and Waldorf-inspired in the early years) and we'll just keep going from there. Preschool never needed to be very structured or formal.

Thanks! Well, I let it go for about an hour and 15 minutes, we punched it down, formed into like 10 balls, set aside about 10 minutes, then flattened them into mini pizza shapes as suggested and put in the oven. We'll see what happens lol.

Personally, I think SOTW1 (from having done the first 15 chapters or so so far with my daughter) is great for kids in like 4th grade and up. Maybe third if you had a kid who was really into it. I know it says it's good for K and up but I just can't see any K or 1st grader getting much out of it (and apparently you say your 2nd grader isn't either). My daughter and I are really enjoying SOTW but she's 10. I'd hold off on it for another year or two and then see what your kids think.

LOL! That's funny! Then allow me to HIGHLY recommend JR Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood series for more vampire stuff, and Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series cause it's just the best series ever! :D

So, we're doing that pita bread recipe from SOTW1 and it says to let it rise 2 hours. It's only been like 40 minutes and it looks like it's already significantly increased in size. Do I have to wait 2 hours? What's the shortest amount of time I can wait? (It occurred to me after the fact that if I wait the two hours, it won't be finished rising until 5 PM, and we're supposed to leave at 5:15 for swimming lessons, which won't leave enough time to finish making the bread. So, either I let it rise for maybe an hour and a half instead, or I have to leave it sitting for more like 4 1/2 - 5 hours before baking it. Which is better? Thanks, Nance (who is not much of a cook, baker or bread maker by any stretch of the imagination and who apparently should have managed her time better). :D

I checked my friends and some of their friends... this is a hard game!

lol well I'm not looking either... you just pretend you're looking and write an ad as if you were!

I always recommend Weight Watchers. 1. They don't utilize "meal replacements," shakes, pills, "bars," etc- just regular food. 2. They don't cut out any food groups or make you eat special foods. 3. Like someone else said, it's just a simple healthy balanced diet if you follow it correctly. 4. Easy to transition into "maintenance" as you were eating regular food all along. 5. With their new plan, it's even better because it gets you spending those "points" on healthier foods now that all points are not created equal so to speak (and you can reach for fruit at any time without feeling like you're "wasting points" on it, which then has you feeling ok with spending more points on bigger servings at meals, which then has you feeling fuller and eating less of the "100 calorie snack pack" kind of junk for snacks. 6. It's a well known and pretty respected program, not just a fad, and it does work.

You might also like The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk: Starhawk's epic tale, set in 2048, California. In a time of ecological collapse, when the hideously authoritarian and corporate-driven Stewards have taken control of most of the land and set up an apartheid state, one region has declared itself independent: the Bay Area and points north. Choosing life over guns, they have created a simple but rich ecotopia, where no one wants, nothing is wasted, culture and cooperation are uppermost, and the Four Sacred Things are valued unconditionally. But the Stewards are on the march northward, bent on conquest and appropriation of the precious waters. It’s the love story of Bird the musician and warrior and Madrone the healer, and of Maya, Bird’s grandmother, ninety-eight year old story teller, whose vision provides a way for them to defend their city from invasion without becoming what they are fighting against. And this one's a much older book, but did you ever read The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood? "In a startling departure from her previous novels, respected Canadian poet and novelist Atwood presents here a fable of the near future. In the Republic of Gilead, formerly the United States, far-right Schlafly/Falwell-type ideals have been carried to extremes in the monotheocratic government. The resulting society is a feminist's nightmare: women are strictly controlled, unable to have jobs or money and assigned to various classes: the chaste, childless Wives; the housekeeping Marthas; and the reproductive Handmaids, who turn their offspring over to the "morally fit" Wives. The tale is told by Offred (read: "of Fred"), a Handmaid who recalls the past and tells how the chilling society came to be. This powerful, memorable novel is highly recommended for most libraries. BOMC featured alternate. Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., Va. Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title." ETA: Oh, and I really loved Stephen King's Gunslinger/Dark Tower series... have you read those??

What book did you read last, what book are you currently reading, and what book will you read next? The last book I read was: Hit List by Laurel K. Hamilton (latest in the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series). The book I am currently reading is: The Help by Kathryn Stockett. The book I plan to read next is: A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin (the third in the series- I loved the first two, waiting for this one to be available at my library). And just for fun, most recent Read Aloud in my house was: James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. Your turn!

The Rules: 1. Write a personal ad for yourself. 2. Everything you say has to be true. 3. The object is to make yourself look as BAD as possible. --- (SNIP) --- Now play along and don't make me look like a fool all by myself. :lol: ETA: Okay I edited mine out since you all DID let me look like a fool by myself instead of playing along. Thanks a lot! LOL. If anyone else decides to play, I'll add mine back.

You might like a young adult book called "Unwind" by Neal Shusterman. "Set in the future, the second civil war is fought over abortion. To end the war, a compromise is reached that ends the practice of abortion but creates an alternative called "unwinding." Between the ages of 13 and 17, parents or guardians can choose to have their children unwound, which involves having every part of their bodies harvested to be "donated" to another person so, technically, they don't really die. The complex and compelling plot follows three teens whose stories intertwine when they escape while on their way to the harvest camps. Fifteen-year-old Connor's parents can no longer control him. Lev, a tithe, was raised by religious parents for the sole purpose of being unwound. Risa, a ward of the state, is a victim of shrinking budgets since she is not a talented enough musician to be kept alive. Neal Shusterman's engrossing novel (S & S, 2007) is narrated in an even cadence and matter-of-fact tone that suits the author's straightforward narrative style. His wide array of voices makes the involved story line, which is left wide open for what is sure to be an interesting sequel, easy to follow. This gripping, thought-provoking novel is guaranteed to lead to interesting discussions about abortion, adoption, organ donation, religion, politics, and health care.—Karen T. Bilton, Mary Jacobs Memorial Library, Rocky Hill, NJ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title."

When I first pulled my daughter out of public school toward the end of her third grade year I worried about it some but I really haven't much in the more than two years since. 1. I can see that my kids are learnIng, happy and thriving. 2. My daughter has scored right where she should (and better than average) on standardized testing. 3. My local school districts are below state average pretty much across the board on THEIR standardized testing. 4. My evaluator, who has been evaluating for many years and who has evaluated for us at the end of the past three school years in a row (and who also runs a small private school) always makes very favorable comments about our portfolios. 5. I've read plenty of homeschooler success stories. 6. I've heard, seen, and experienced how horrid public schools can be. 7. Public schools care about nothing but standardized testing and therefore no longer provide a well rounded education. 8. I have a vested interest in my kids, care about what happens to them, give them individual attention and allow them to be individuals. 9. My family is together, and we are having fun. Try to relax. Try to think positive. Try to read positive things about it. You aren't screwing your kids up (public school would do a much better job than that).

No, I wouldn't force it. (And I have to say, an old, black and white, silent, subtitled movie sounds boring to me, too. I wouldn't want to watch it).