This is actually one of the reasons why I chose to start homeschooling :) My husband goes to work a little before 1 PM. And he works til anywhere from 8-10 PM, sometimes later. So he comes home at or after the kid's bedtimes. And he works every Saturday. So I was always feeling like they didn't have enough time together. Now that I homeschool, the kids at least get to spend mornings with him before he leaves for work in the afternoon, and they get to spend all day Monday with him, which is one of his days off (Sundays and Mondays).

My 4 y/o announced to a room full of people at my nephew's birthday gathering this evening: "I'm a c*ock!" To which everyone started laughing, which only encouraged him to repeat it over and over. And over. This stemmed from us eating lunch in a chinese restaurant a few days ago and my 9 y/o reading that paper menu that tells you what year you are... like year of the dragon, the ox, etc. I guess you already know what year my son is.

Thank you all, for the replies and nice comments! I was LOLing at needing a mini van for the dogs. The GPS just for kids? AWESOME idea!!! I swear, I would totally buy that!!! elise lol....well, I have my 9 y/o in the third row and she won't bother anyone in front of her. I have my 4 y/o in the middle row in his carseat, and he won't be able to turn around in that carseat and annoy his sister. My teen will be up front with me unless another adult is in the car, and then she'll sit in the middle with the 4 y/o since I think they'd be less likely to be on each other's nerves than the 9 and 4 y/o would be.... I'm staying positive here! Anyway, I got the minivan today, drove it home...it is comfortable, rides nice, the automatic was a nice change, kids were excited.... I'm happy! If anyone is even remotely interested, you can see pics in today's livejournal entry by clicking the link in my sig line :D

My daughter was 8 when I started letting her do that, but she had to stay within a certain number of houses etc. This year, at age 9, she's allowed to go up and down our whole block. The rules are, she can't go off of our block. She can't play or go into the street. She can't be out front unless she's with friends (not alone). And if she's going to go somewhere else, like in a neighbor friend's house or backyard, she has to come let me know, so I know where she'll be at all times. She's been asking lately if she can go "around the block" with her friends, who, at 9 and 10, just started being allowed to do that this year. I told her maybe next spring/summer. We'll have to think about it! ETA: My 4 year old (will be 5 in about three months) is still not allowed to play out front without an adult, not even with his sister. He's allowed to play in the backyard with his sister/cousins, or in a cousin's/friend's backyard if he's with his sister or someone else is watching him, but I won't trust him out front yet, not to go too far or to step into the street or to talk to strangers and so on.

Maybe you could ask her if instead of a baby shower before the baby is born, maybe you could have a "welcome baby" thing afterward (if you think you would feel up to that, some moms are good with company after having a baby, some aren't!) and see if instead of traditional gifts, as you don't need anything, maybe they'd be willing to bring meals instead, the kind that you can freeze and heat for the next week or two, so that you don't have to worry about cooking with a new baby in the house?

I have that book sitting on one of my bookcase shelves, and neither I, my 9 year old, or my 4 y/o (who doesn't read yet anyway) have ever gotten around to reading it yet. Maybe I'll make it the next read-aloud over here and try reading it to both of them! (We're currently reading "On The Banks Of Plum Creek," so maybe after we finish that one)!

On shelves in a closet that I took over for arts and crafts supplies, a homeschooling file cart, and board games and puzzles and things of that nature.

Were you ever driving along with your kids in the car and had to listen to a conversation that goes something like this? He's touching me! She's kicking me! She's leaning on me! Tell her to stop touching my carseat! Don't touch me! Move your legs! This is my side! Tell him to stop! Get off of me! Ow, he hurt me! Mom! WILL YOU ALL SHUT UP ALREADY?! I'M TRYING TO DRIVE! I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT ANYMORE!!!! ...Cough. Yeah. You know. THAT kind of conversation? Where you start wondering why you ever wanted to take them somewhere to begin with and why you didn't just stay home? I used to dream of driving around in a jeep or a convertible with the top down. Now I dream of driving a minivan so I can split my kids up into different rows.... where nobody can kick, touch, lean on or annoy anyone else, encroach on anyone else's space, or otherwise make me want to smack them all (not that I would do that haha). Well... TODAY IS THE DAY! We went to look at a used Dodge Caravan last night, left a deposit, and will be picking it up today! My Toyota Matrix (which is nice but try putting a teen, a tween, and a preschooler in a carseat into the back seat!) will become my husband's main car for getting back and forth to work (he was driving a way older one that's not in great condition), and I'll be rocking my "new" minivan! We'll even be able to take along a friend or relative now and then with the extra room/seats we'll have, which a family of 5 never could do in a standard car! I'm totally excited. My husband is totally making fun of me. "Three kids, homeschooling, a minivan...you have arrived!" :lol: ETA: Oh, and did I mention it's automatic? Yeah, driving a stick shift was kind of fun when I was younger, but now it's just inconvenient/annoying, especially in traffic, on hills etc, so that's going to be a nice plus, too!

Do they both read independently? Tell them to find a word they don't know/understand in their reading each day and look it up (maybe on yahoo kids online dictionary for fun and ease) and learn what it means, try to memorize how to spell it, and try to use it in conversation at least once that day. A "word of the day" kind of thing, maybe?

Hm. You know, I'd say it's pretty equal. We've both "gotten our way" depending on how adamant/serious someone was/how important it was to them to go one way or another. We've both had our share of giving in and backing down. Not that it comes up very often to begin with!

And I'll throw in my standard "I second that!" in regard to Oak Meadow :lol: If you click on my blog link in my signature and look to the sidebar to the left, I have a fairly detailed review of Oak Meadow under the "Reviews" section, and under the "Misc." section I have a detailed sample schedule for OMK, OM4, and OM5 showing what a typical day is like. The OM4 link even includes some pictures. We really loved OM4 last year and are looking forward to starting OM5 this year. It's not dry or boring and allows for a decent amount of hands on, creative things, which we really like about it.

Last year, we started the day after Labor Day and finished in early May. We'll be doing the same thing this year.

Pauline's site is great... are you on any of the email lists she post on? There's a PA Homeschoolers email list where we share stuff like this, including Pauline. Also a PA Unschoolers email list which I like to read emails from even though I don't exactly unschool.

Until you try to find parking. :lol:

Here in PA, especially in Lancaster County, you can do a "farm stay" vacation! I'm not sure if that's something that's already part of your lifestyle or if it would be an interesting, educational novelty! We're actually doing that next weekend :) I did it once before, when my son was just a baby and my daughter was 5 or 6. Now that she's almost 10 and he's almost 5, I thought they'd both get a kick out of going to another one! http://www.afarmstay.com/ And of course there are the Amish attractions, and Hershey Park isn't so far away, and either is Dutch Wonderland.

I totally understand! I'm in PA, too, and my first year homeschooling, they told me if I didn't give them a copy of my diploma, it could "hold up the approval process." As you already established, there is no "approval process." There is also no requirement for me to give them my diploma- all I technically have to do is state in my affidavit that I HAVE one. In the interest of not rocking the boat, I gave them the copy of my diploma- but I also gave them a letter from the PDE stating that I didn't have to. I told them I was giving it to them in the interests of a good working relationship with them but that I wanted them to see that letter from the PDE for their reference. Then, at the end of that first year, my district tried telling me that I didn't submit enough (samples) and I should "just bring in everything, he wants to see all of your work." YEAH RIGHT. The law very clearly specifies SAMPLES. I held my ground on that one without giving in at all. I told them they had the samples required by law, that they had a letter from my evaluator stating that an appropriate education was being received, and that they could send me a certified letter if they didn't think that was the case, and that we'd take it from there. The secretary said they'd been trying to avoid going that route and that she'd pass along the message. I waited all summer to see if I'd get a certified letter. Instead, in early September, I received the standard form letter about how my portfolio had been accepted and demonstrated an appropriate education and I could pick it up at any time and yadda yadda. This year I sent in the same minimalist portfolio, with about 3-5 samples from each subject... and this time I also included a photocopy of a paper with parts of the Home Education Law cited, and I used a pink highlighter to highlight the word "SAMPLES"... haha. So far so good, I haven't heard anything from them, and I'm figuring no news is good news! They sure to like to ask for things they aren't entitled to!

It is reusable. The only thing is it can only be installed X number of times or some such before the password won't work anymore. At that point, you would have to call Teaching Textbooks to tell them you bought it used and that you need them to help you with the code so it would work on your computer. They will need to know the name/address of the person YOU bought it from, because that's what they'll have under their records. So when it gets mailed to you, keep that return address til you make sure it works!! I had to do this when I bought TT5 used recently, and I had no problem calling TT and getting them to make it work for me, but I did have to give the address of the person I bought it from.

My daughter learned at 5 because she went to public school for Kindergarten through most of third grade, and they taught her. My son is only four and I have not started teaching him to read yet. I'll be starting Oak Meadow K with him next month and that just focuses on learning the upper case letters of the alphabet through stories and drawings and hands on activities. In 1st grade we'll start focusing more on word families and phonics and whatnot and see how it goes. With that said, I'm really not worried, there's a whole school of thought that you shouldn't even start formally teaching your child to read til they're like 8 anyway, and that kids who do learn at 8 or 9 or 10, they tend to learn faster/more easily than the little ones did, and a couple of years later, you'd never ever be able to tell who learned early and who learned late, they catch up. At least, that's what I read when I read the book "Better Late Than Early" by the Moores, which made for an interesting read even if you don't follow their school of thought. :)

I must have missed this thread when it was first posted. I'm glad to see it now since I'll be starting K with my little guy next month! We're doing Oak Meadow K with my son and it's very laid back/easy going, more of a hands on preschool than an academic K. So our first day of school is going to consist of: 1) A craft: We will be making a fall seasonal table. We'll go for a walk and find things that remind us of fall (and perhaps I'll pick up some things in advance from a craft type store, too if need be) and we'll decorate our fall table for the season. 2) Health. We'll be starting a topic on our bodies- talking about how to protect them, safety equipment, etc., reading a book about bodies, and using scales and tape measures to see how tall each family member is, how long their feet are, how much they weigh etc. This will work out great with someone's idea of taking a kid's height and weight measurements anyway and putting them on a card or paper or something with his grade. I think I'll also have him put his handprint there in colorful paint, and then take a school picture which I will print and attach to the first day of school card/sign thingie. That's going to be the extent of our first day of Kindergarten! We've got a light K schedule planned. Craft and health on Mondays, "language arts" on Tuesday and Wednesdays (which will consist of stories, poems, drawings, and starting to learn the upper case letters of the alphabet, in hands on ways, like drawing them in the dirt with a stick, forming them out of clay, etc.), Science on Thursdays (nature related, hands on things mostly, and stories, too), and math and music on Fridays (math is learning numbers in hands on ways similar to how we'll be learning letters, and music will be Wee-Sing songs and fingerplays). I'm excited to do this with him, and interested to see how it goes doing K and 5th grade at the same time!

We haven't studied any artists formally as of yet. For composers, we use the site: http://www.makingmusicfun.net/ There's a section called "Meet The Composer" and when you click on that, it brings up a list of composers by era (Baroque Era, Classic Era, Romantic Era, and Modern Era). And you can click on each composer and it will bring you to a printable "mini bio." So my daughter and I would read about a different composer each week for our music class, and then we'd go on Youtube and listen to samples of that composer's music. (The site usually tells you at least one song to go listen to on Youtube). There are also printable activity sheets to go with many of the composers. And it's free. :)

I wait til they're ready. My son didn't really start consistently using a potty til two months before his fourth birthday. She'll probably get the hang of it, right around then. Right when you're going "oh man they're about to turn four, they're never going to be potty trained!" :)

Well, as an update, we saw Chris today for the first time since this came up. My husband handled it. He walked up to him on the sidewalk (he was right near our house anyway) and very gently and in a friendly (not angry or mean or anything) manner, said something like: "Hey, Buddy, I need you to do me a favor- when you're hanging out with Alexa, I just need you to think about what you're saying to her, before you say it...some conversations, like about condoms, are not appropriate for her, okay? And that whole thing about the silly bands being made from condoms- that's not even true." The kid interjected "Oh, my sister told me about that!" And my husband said, "Well, if you hear something like that, that sounds a little silly or gross or weird to you, you should ask your parents about it before you tell it to other kids. It isn't true. Anyway, that was all I wanted to say, we'll see you later okay?" The kid said "ok" and that was that!

I think they're cute. My kids and all the kids on our block love them and trade them. I think some of the shapes are really fun and neat. We can get packs of 12 or 15 (I forget) for between $1.49 and $3.00 a package, depending on what store you go into. Parents should be careful of their kids wearing a bunch of them too tight/for too long as they can cause circulation problems in some cases. and you might end up having to discuss birth control with your children sooner than you intended, be forewarned. haha. (See my posts for the "Well, my 9 year old knows about birth control" thread if you're so inclined). :D

I have two bookcases in my computer room, both of which are full of books for my kids. I have one of those 'ottoman' things where the top comes off for storage inside filled with 'little kid books' for my preschooler. My daughter has an egg crate full of books up in her bedroom, my son has a rocking chair/glider with pockets stuffed with books in his bedroom, and I have my personal bookcase stuffed to the brim in my bedroom- and we make regular visits to the library for books to borrow. I can't imagine not having plenty of books in your home for your kids!

Well, with my 9 year old last year for fourth grade, what we did was during our regular visits to the library, she would select some sort of excercise video. Sometimes it was yoga, sometimes it was aerobics, sometimes it was dance instruction, sometimes it was an in-home walking program, etc., and she'd do those videos. Sometimes we'd do them together. Sometimes she'd do them on her own. Sometimes she'd do them with her little brother. Simple, fun and free fitness plan :) If you already subscribe to something like Netflix, then there will be an even bigger variety of choices- they've got instruction videos in martial arts, all kinds of dance, and typical exercise/aerobics type things. You could maybe make up obstacle courses and mazes in your backyard, do relay races, organize games of kickball and whatnot, and have fun that way. You could check if your YMCA has a homeschool gym class (mine does) and what the cost is. You could put on music and dance around. Or you could just keep walking as you're already doing, that's a great way to be fit. Maybe your older kids would want to ride bikes instead as you walk.