My 5 y/o son got a talking to yesterday when one of my almost 8 y/o nephews came inside and informed me, "Ben just peed on the side of the house." (like on the walkway between the houses). I called Ben (my 5 y/o) in and asked him what the heck did he think he was doing and told him that's gross and he'd better not ever pee on the side of the house again, and that we have a bathroom right here thank you very much and he'd better come in and use it when he has to go. His response? "Caleb did it, too." My almost 5 y/o nephew had followed him in and I told him sternly, "Well, don't you do it again either! NONE of you better pee outside in the yard again, if you have to go to the bathroom, come in the house!!! That's not appropriate!" Fast forward to a little while ago. Ben wanted to go in the backyard with his cousins and I reminded him, "You better come in the house if you have to pee, you hear me?" So a few minutes ago, what do I see when I look out the kitchen window into the backyard to check on them? I see my son's bare butt and he's got his front pressed up against the fence and he's PEEING INTO MY NEIGHBOR'S BACKYARD!! wth?!?! All I could think was, I hope they aren't looking out their window! :svengo: So I called him in and made my nephew go home and yelled at him and plopped him into a time out on the steps... I swear, my girls didn't do things like this!!

I wonder if you can put child safety latches on most of the drawers and cupboards but clean out one lower cupboard/cabinet that you can fill with things that he's ALLOWED to get into. Not toys, either. Just.. things. Wooden cooking spoons that he can bang on pot lids. Measuring cups and funnels. Little tools and utensils and things that he can play with. Some of the other things, well, I remember having had to do some creative childproofing that was not very attractive but which was only temporary after all. :) Hang in there! He'll be older before you know it.

So far, I really don't have insecure days. I'm happy with and confident in what we're doing. (And, yes, I do feel lucky that that is the case). I expect there is a possibility I may feel more insecure at times when high school years come along but I'm really not stressing over elementary and middle school right now (with my son only being 5 and my daughter only being 10).

We took the kids for a walk around the block to a local park. At the park and on the way, we cleaned up litter and cigarette butts. We also dropped off our recycling at the same time as the bins are across from the park. I used the site 123certificates.com to print some "You Made A Difference" type certificates for them when we got home and I printed out wallet sized pics of them cleaning up litter to glue onto the certificates. They got a kick out of that. :) I also got the book 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do To Save The Earth from The EarthWorks Group to continue going through and we will see what we can implement in the future from that book. One thing we have agreed to implement from the long term, which we've been really bad about, is using reusable shopping bags for when we go grocery shopping, instead of all the plastic shopping bags we always get.

Sounds fine to me! (I wanted to be cremated but I guess composted is okay too lol).

Thanks for this thread :)

We've been having fun with the Melissa and Doug Magnetic Calendar http://www.amazon.com/Melissa-Doug-Deluxe-Magnetic-Calendar/dp/B000NV6D7A

We have a place in our county called ______ County Council For The Arts. They have adult classes all year and kid's classes/camps in the summer. Do you have something like that near you? We also have a montessori school that does art classes and camps in the summer (among other things). The YMCA occasionally does art-related stuff. And some pottery type places might do pottery classes or something. You might even be able to contact your area public school and request an email address or contact number for the art teacher and see if they can point you in the right direction. Or see if you can come across some high school or college art students that might want to "tutor"/give lessons. Worst case scenario there are always DVD or computer based art programs! Good luck!

No specific story but when my 5 y/o son was born at a hospital here in PA (my older two had been born in NY), it was a WONDERFUL hospital. It was a really good experience overall. :)

I always thought it was "Speaking Of..." :D

I agree with the others. You'll learn as you go. You'll find that you are learning (or sometimes re-learning) right along with your children as you teach them, look up answers to their questions when you don't already know, show them how to find information, follow rabbit trails and so on. It'll be fine. :)

I think you need to tell him these things very forthrightly- and very firmly. That you have NO interest in working 50 plus hours per week and leaving your children to someone else to raise just so you guys can have fancier "toys." Tell him you are willing to help budget for reasonable things, you are willing to help save where you can, but that being home with the kids is important to you and that you need him to respect and support that. Focus on homeschooling after you acknowledge continued stay-at-home-parenting. Then start showing him things about the benefits of homeschooling and the cost of saving on private school and so on and so forth. Also, go ahead and homeschool over the summer- by this I do not mean start doing things beyond your kids' level just to try to impress your husband- have fun with the kids!!- but get your feet wet and show yourself and him that you're perfectly able to and willing to educate your young children on your own. Good luck!!

It's fantastic!! I love it, too! :) And he's a cutie! Happy birthday, Logan!

How To Talk So Teens Will Listen and Listen So Teens Will Talk http://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Teens-Will-Listen/dp/0060741260/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1303412035&sr=8-1

Not only is it okay to walk away, it's important to walk away. Tough love! I would tell him, "I am sorry, but I cannot have contact with you any longer while you are using. I love you, but I will not help you, I will not enable you, and I will not expose my kids to the things you are doing. If you ever want help getting clean- finding a rehab for example- please contact me. But until you are ready to make serious changes in your life, which I hope for your sake that you do, I have no choice but to cut off contact with you entirely." Then that's it. No visits, no rides (unless it's to a rehab or an NA meeting or something!), no money, no favors etc. And yes, I've been through drug addiction with a close relative, too. :grouphug: ETA: I would ALSO make an attempt to tell the other relatives that they are not helping him by giving him money or items or places to stay or any such thing while he's using, that he pretty much HAS to hit rock bottom before he'll decide "I better get help." And if he doesn't get that help, he may end up killing himself. Literally. And they are helping him do it, if they are giving him money that he is darn well using for drugs or to replace money already spent on drugs. You could probably find some helpful brochures and printouts on that fact and just give it to them if that's easier.

Well, see, that's the thing. "Granted we need to build on those skills b/c they are weak." It sounds from your post like she NEEDS to work on skills she's already learned in a way that helps her learn them better and in a way that boosts her confidence and lowers her math-anxiety, right? This will do that for you. TT will ALWAYS contain things the kids already learned- with TT, they introduce some new material every lesson, but they also cover past material- in every lesson. Each lesson will cover old stuff, add something new. Cover old stuff, add something new. Just a few problems of each per lesson. But there's reinforcement and repetition and that helps them get it. REALLY get it. And not be afraid of it, and not be anxious about it. And at the same time- they have fun with it. Math doesn't seem like a chore anymore. No-one dreads math at my house anymore! Math is now on my daughter's list of favorite subjects and if you only knew how much that is saying! I've seen a lot of people here say that TT is "behind." I've seen a lot of people here say that they would buy a grade ahead because of that. But I thought TT would be a good fit for my daughter (and it is!), and I decided to stay ON grade level even if she already knew a lot of the stuff because my number 1 goal at the time was helping my daughter BUILD CONFIDENCE in math and not continue with the "I hate math, math is hard" attitude she was starting to develop. I figured eventually she'd catch up and in the meanwhile she'd be GETTING it. That was a huge, huge deal to me. Way more important than presenting newer, harder material and watching her struggle to get it. So we bought TT5 for 5th grade, and yes a lot of it was stuff she already knew, but you know what? She LIKES math now. She doesn't think she's BAD at math now. She doesn't think math is TOO HARD now. And to top it all off, here's the icing on the cake. She took her standardized test this year and this non-mathy kid scored as well as or better than 82% of all the kids who took that particular standardized test in her overall math scores. And those weren't all kids using "TT;" they were using a huge variety of math curricula I'm sure. Know what her percentile was last year when we weren't using TT btw? 59%. She's improved vastly- attitude, ability, all of it. Just some food for thought :) P.S. If you find that thread, you'll see other people talking about how well their kids did on SAT's etc after using TT. People seem to have this thought process that math has to be hard to be effective. But to me, that's not the case. ETA: P.S.S. I don't know enough about the other programs you mentioned to directly comment on them, so I'm not saying those WOULDN'T work for you! I'm just telling you my experience since my daughter had the same problems with math that yours did, and this is what worked for us.

My 10 year old daughter will be: Continuing with her library book club Retaking her Level 4 swim lessons as she didn't pass last year Participating in a Movie & Discussion Club I'll be running at home Taking a one week Spanish class at a Montessori camp/school Taking a one week Sculpture class at a Montessori camp/school Taking a one week Creative Writing & Theater class at a Montessori camp/school My 5 year old son will be: Finishing up the teeball season Marching in a couple of parades with his teeball team Moving on to his Level 2 swim lessons Taking a one week Nature & Environment class at a Montessori camp/school Taking a one week Engineering class at a Montessori camp/school Starting the fall soccer season at the end of August. As a family, we will be: Going on at a three night camping trip Hosting two Fresh Air Fund children for a week (and taking them camping, too) Going to the lake for the day here and there Going to the town pool here and there Going on various field/day trips on our own and with our homeschool group. Some that are already scheduled include: Public gardens, an amusement park, a farm tour, a historical house, a water treatment facility tour, a wildlife park, and the renaissance faire.

You might want to consider Teaching Textbooks. It is GREAT for kids who aren't very strong in math- it is a computer CD animated kind of thing that will show AND tell very patiently and efficiently how to do the work. My daughter loves it. It's really built a lot of confidence in her this year, her math scores have increased dramatically over last year since we started TT this year... AND she finds it fun. No more complaining about math! And it frees me up too since I don't have to actively teach it- the program does it all for me! More of a review with specifics, pics etc here: http://nancextoo.livejournal.com/124221.html

I haven't read that one, sorry! I did try to note if I came across references to things in some of the books being maybe not so appropriate for younger readers, but I have not read everything on the list by any means, although we are currently working our way through some of the list ourselves. :)

Well, every kid is different, I suppose! The girls I hosted last year didn't complain about anything like that and enjoyed the places we visited.

Oh my gosh, that poor kid! I am SO sorry that happened!!!

I really don't know! That could be one reason. I've also heard people say that it seems "too easy" but if you ask me, it's not that it's "too easy," it's that it's SO well-explained and easy to grasp with the way this program is set up that the kids don't struggle with it. This is a GOOD thing. You don't have to struggle with math, hate math, or dread math for it to be effective. I promise, you don't lol. With TT, my daughter has fun, she easily gets it the majority of the time, she's built SO much confidence, and even though she's not a very mathy kid and I'm not a very mathy parent, she then turned around and got good scores on the math portion of her test. Just from a year of TT- used at grade-level with no supplementing of anything else. You'll never hear me say anything but good things about this program! :)

So, last night we got to talk to the little boy we'll be hosting on the phone. Oh my gosh he was SO CUTE. He's turning 6 next month and he was so friendly and chatty. He told me he wants to dig for a treasure chest in the sand and that he loves to dance (his mother says he loves Michael Jackson). Then he and my son, Ben, talked on the phone and they were adorable, talking about the toys and games and TV shows they like. We will get to talk to the girl we'll be hosting on Saturday. We're so looking forward to this! :)

Bump :)

I was the one who said that lol.... And I actually have a list on my blog of books featuring homeschooled characters: http://nancextoo.livejournal.com/167361.html That's the link to Titles A-M; when you get to the bottom, you'll see a "Continue To Part 2" link for titles N-Z. :)