BigMamaBird, Oh, yes, I liked that candy bar scene too! LOL. CharlesWallace, I can't believe I forgot Fringe! We do already watch that one and very much like it! I just edited my original post to add that as one of the ones we already watch and enjoy. I never did watch X-Files, though, and I'm not sure why... I probably would like it!

I'd have no problem tossing "math papers" and "practice" but anything particularly creative, creative writing, sweet pictures they made and so on, I'd never be able to toss! And if I felt I had to, I'd either scan it or take pictures of it first so I could at least store it digitally. Good luck with your process lol.

Hm I hadn't really thought about it, but I do see your point. My first instinct was that homeschoolers pay school taxes and should be able to participate. But I agree that it wouldn't be fair for them to not have to prove the same things public schooled kids have to prove in order to participate. And I certainly WOULDN'T want to have that level of accountability to the schools. So if that were the case I would have to see how serious my kid was about it. As a hobby though, or just for fun, I wouldn't raise a fuss. I'd skip it and sign up for like the town sports instead of the school ones. The towns have summer baseball and soccer for instance.

So after hearing so many rave reviews about "Lost," my husband and I finally got around to starting to watch it a while back (it's available to "play now" on Netflix). We are currently pretty early into Season 5. Last night we watched the scene where Hurley was heating up a Hot Pocket or something in the microwave. Ben showed up in his kitchen and said, "Hello, Hurley," startling Hurley who screamed like a girl, turned and FLUNG his Hot Pocket at Ben. He missed. Ben's expression was priceless. My husband and I about died laughing. We rewatched it like four or five times. Maybe I have a stupid sense of humor, but that was like the funniest freakin thing I've ever seen. I'm dying to know what the outtakes were like on that one... surely they couldn't have done that scene with a straight face at first! Anyway! Being as we're going to be finishing up "Lost" pretty soon (since we watch like an episode or two each night!), I am starting to think about what TV series we should start watching next, via Netflix. Some of our favorite television series in the past were: Oz The Sopranos Queer As Folk Six Feet Under Prison Break Lost Day Break (I was so disappointed when they canceled that so early on!) Law & Order SVU Fringe I enjoyed The 4400, as well as Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives. My husband, not so much when it came to those. So with that said, any recommendations for what series we should start watching together next? Some I'm considering are Nip/Tuck, Dead Like Me, Big Love, Heroes, Dexter, Rescue Me, and Weeds. But I'm open to other suggestions, too. So what's my next Must-See-Series? :)

Oh and you could get face paints at a place like Michael's... maybe even Walmart.... and look up "pirate face painting" online and do it, it's pretty simple to face paint a bandanna, eye patch, whiskers and a scar.

If you can find a parrot template or coloring page online that you can copy and cut out, the kids can decorate or color their parrots, and glue them to a clothespin, which can then attach to their shirt collars over by the shoulder, so they can have parrots on their shoulders.

My 9 y/o does not have assigned chores, chore lists, chore charts or anything like that. With that said, whenever I want or need her help with something specific, I ask her to do it, and she does. It's very easy! Some of the things I may ask her to help with at any given time are: setting/clearing the table (most days) putting away the silverware from the dishwasher (most days) doing general picking up, particularly of toys, in the living room (most days) putting away her own laundry (always!) and sometimes her little brother's sweeping the kitchen floor (once in a while, other times I do it myself) vacuuming the living room (once in a while, other times I do it myself) cleaning her own room (when I think it's getting too ridiculous) taking out the garbage and putting a new bag into the can (often). Sometimes she'll ask me if she can clean the windows, mirror, etc, and I'll say sure. Sometimes she'll start sweeping off the front porch on her own. I just haven't really found a need to tell her she has specific, assigned, regular chores. I find it easy enough to just ask my family for help on an as-needed and age appropriate basis, and we get done what needs to be done between us. Works for me!

What's the age of the kid? I have a game called "Make A Pie" which deals with fractions, it's a pretty simple game for younger kids (it says 6+).

If the coaches would like for the homeschooled kids to play, and the principal is being a butt about it, I would write a letter to the superintendent of the school district, or call his or her office and request an appointment with them, and then I would very politely discuss the issue with them. I'd let them know that we as school taxpayers are interested in having our homeschooled children participate in some of the school's extra-curricular activities. I'd let them know that MANY schools allow this. I'd let them know that our children are very interested and would make an asset to the team. I'd let them know that the coaches, both head and assistant, are in favor of this. Then I'd let them know that the principal is against it because she is against homeschooling in general and that I think it is a shame that her personal homeschooling prejudices are causing her to make a decision that is against what the parent, child and coach like, and can the superintendent do anything to help us out. It may work! I would definitely try that before even considering putting a kid back into public school just for the sports. But if all else failed and I had a high school student who REALLY thought high school sports would be college scholarship material and that was the route THEY wanted to follow, and they were ASKING to go to public school because of this- then I would not stand in their way.

Would you tell your daughter she shouldn't read books about boys and their adventures? If not, who cares if your son wants to read books that are about girls and theirs? If he's interested in it, let him read it! If you have specific "quality" books you'd like him to read, why not pick one up and offer to read it aloud with him? Or get it on an audiobook? The books he reads for fun on his time should be books he picks himself- if he's reading at all, that's great and definitely to be celebrated! With my daughter, the Oak Meadow curriculum "assigns" a particular book every three weeks. We read those aloud together. I will also sometimes select books that I think she will enjoy and we read those aloud together, as long as she's interested (she usually is). But I don't ever tell her what she can or should read on her own reading time, I just appreciate the fact that she likes to read and will do so for fun. What she reads is up to her! So far, at ages 8 and 9, they have been things like: Choose your own mystery books Diary of a Wimpy Kid books A-Z mystery books Encyclopedia Brown books Pippi Longstocking books Books of fairy tales, myths, or fables Joke books Magic Treehouse books American Girl books Wayside School books etc. When I was a kid I loved to read. Nobody influenced my reading choices, I read what I wanted to, and continued doing so into adulthood, and I've enjoyed it every step of the way. And somewhere along the way I've read most of the "classics" in addition to all the "fluff" I selected. I'm sure my kids will, too. And yours! :)

We haven't actually started it yet, but I do have TT5 here for my daughter to use this coming fall, and just based on checking it out and the website samples and demos and all, and the many positive reviews I've read, we're both very much looking forward to using it! My daughter's actually excited about math! And as for me, I'm relieved, because math isn't MY strong point. :) Mind you, I've read plenty of negative reviews, too. Most of those tend to be about whether it is rigorous enough or whatever. I've heard that it tends to be a year "behind" other math curricula and that some people think maybe if you're going to use it, you should do the placement tests and maybe put them in a higher grade level etc. But my thought process is that I'm going to put her in the grade she's IN and if it IS a year behind or something, I don't really care- I figure if it ends up being "easy" for her, this can be considered a year of review and, more importantly, of confidence building. If she spends this coming year finding math fun and thinking it is "easy" and that math isn't all that hard or bad after all, then I will consider it a successful year, and I will just continue on assuming that by the end, when all is said and done, she'll know what she needs to know. And if not, we can do some sort of extra review, or get a tutor or whatever the case may be when she's much older. For now, I'm happy with this plan, and will definitely be paying attention to how it goes when she's actually USING the program so I can be more useful at answering these kinds of questions down the road. :D

I only just completed my first full year homeschooling. The year prior, I'd only homeschooled like 2 1/2-3 months out of the year after pulling her out of public school. And we haven't officially started this coming year yet. With that said, I didn't spend tons of money on curriculum stuff, especially since I pretty quickly settled on Oak Meadow, bought K-8 used for a great price, and tend to buy other supplies at Walmart instead of fancy expensive places. I think I spend the most money on field trips and outings, we do tons of those, often more than once per week.

You ALL- you, husband, son- agreed that this would be a trial and that if he didn't like it, he could come home. Right? Your son doesn't like it. He wants to come home. So, I say keep YOUR promise, and bring him home. Your husband may be doing some passive-aggressive "Fine! Take him out!" thing which you are translating as "I don't want you to"- but I wouldn't start playing that head game with myself or him. He already agreed previously. And he's SAYING "fine, take him out." So take that at its face value, particularly based on your previous agreement with him, and take the kid out. That's what I'd do, anyway!

We usually cut them up and use them for pictures, collages, and other arts and crafts. My daughter likes to cut a picture out, paste it to a piece of paper, and then draw or color in the rest of the background/scenery that she thinks would be around that picture. We make things like healthy meal collages, labor day (occupation) collages and so on. For math, she's cut things out and then assigned them prices and then did math problems based on her "catalog" and so on. Eventually when they were all cut up/used up, I'd throw them away.

At our town pool, they have Red Cross swimming lessons each summer, for groups, organized by "level." It is two weeks worth of swimming lessons, and each lesson is 30 minutes. It cost me $25.00 for my daughter to take these swim lessons each year. This year she is taking her Level 4, and I decided to sign my son up for Level 1, and when I confirmed with them that it would cost $50.00 for the two of them, they said no, that the first child was $25.00 but the second was only $15.00. So it's only costing me $40.00 for two children to take two weeks worth of swimming lessons. So $50 a child sounds high to me! ETA: Hm well then again your lessons are longer, so maybe it works out to almost the same.

Wow, yeah, a WTM team would be pretty cool!!! I already signed up as a family but I like that idea. Whoever organizes could post the user name and password so that other WTM'ers could log in to post their minutes. Of course, the problem with that is that they send out a free game at the end as I'd mentioned and they'd only send it to whoever is listed as the organizer. Whereas if you all sign up for your own families, you'll all get a free game. (I'm assuming, anyway! That's what they did last year, sending me a "Buzzword Bits" game. This will be my second year participating).

http://www.millionminute.com/ I participated last year and at the end, they even sent us a free game for participating :) Check it out! (And for those of you who hate clicking links without having an idea of what that link is, here's a summary from the website) ... September 1 - December 31, 2010 Registration for the 2010 Million Minute Family Challenge™ has begun. Participation is easy: 1) Get together a group of friends or family that will commit to playing a non-electronic game at least 20 minutes sometime from September through December. 2) Sign up on this website to receive your free organizer kit by mail. 3) After you play games, come back to this website and log your minutes of game play. Every minute your group plays and logs contributes to our goal of reaching 1 million minutes of game play across the United States and Canada before December 31, 2010! We know people enjoy the entertainment and education value of non-electronic games and here is your chance to prove just how popular they are! The Million Minute Family Challenge provides a simple, but fun way for family and friends to enjoy the benefits of board games and card games. Learn about the many benefits. Read what others have to say about participating in the Million Minute Family Challenge. View the results/highlights of the 2009 Million Minute Family Challenge. "You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation." -Plato, Greek philosopher ...so, sign up now, and mark your calendars for 9/1 so you can start logging those minutes! :)

Anything by John Taylor Gatto?

Let them approach any and all water activities on their own terms, in their own way, in their own time, with NO pressure or sense of being "forced." Otherwise, if you haven't already, you may be setting them up for a lifelong phobia. Drop the lessons immediately. You need to stop putting them through what is obviously a trauma for them.

I'll third the DS lite. My 9 y/o daughter has one. I think for her next b-day we might get her a better one with more features; she's been making noises about those as some of her friends have the more advanced ones. If we do that, we'll give her little brother her old one- he's only 4 (5 in early November) but already he'd much rather play her DS than something like his V-Smile)!

My husband has one that he sometimes uses at work. So far, after homeschooling from March 2009 - July 2010, *I* have only used the laminator one time for homeschooling purposes. That was when my daughter did a project where she collected different kinds of leaves, pressed them for a few days between the pages of a phone book, and then wanted to put them into her science "main lesson book." So we laminated them (with some crayon shavings for some extra color/to make it pretty) and then put them into her lesson book. That's the only time I've ever used it and to be honest if I hadn't had one, I'm sure I could have come up with some other way. So if you don't think you'd use one, don't bother lol. P.S. One other "function" I can see is if you want to make your kids "school ID cards" or some such. But like you, I can't think of anything else I'd do with one either!

I think a chapter a week is pretty reasonable (make sure you check with your library a couple of chapters in advance each week to see if they have the supplemental reading materials; if not, they may have to order from interlibrary loan, and that takes a while). For me, some chapters take more than one week because we do a decent amount of the supplemental reading and like to take our time with the crafts and whatnot... so I wouldn't try to do more than one chapter a week personally. ...but you could always continue into the summer or start SOTW before the rest of your school year. My daughter and I do most of SOTW over the summer anyway, and we usually have fun with it.

When I was a stay-at-home-mom who wasn't homeschooling, sometimes I felt lonely, and sometimes I felt like maybe I didn't have as much "purpose" in life as I could have- I know, weird! Parenting is definitely a great purpose! But I couldn't help how I felt. I liked that I didn't have to work, but sometimes I missed adult companionship, which made me almost a little envious of those women who got dressed each day and went off to work. One of the first things I did that really helped, was joining an active stay-at-home-moms meetup group and getting out regularly, having other moms to chat with while the kids played. Even if I didn't have much else in common with them, even if we didn't become best friends, we had parenting in common, and we could make small talk that allowed me to speak in more than one or two syllables, and I really needed that. Once I started homeschooling, I felt more fulfilled. Like I was parenting, but I was parenting with more of a purpose, I was doing something more active, and it felt like I therefore had more purpose in my life. Maybe especially since I used to think that being a teacher was something I might enjoy doing with my life. Now I'm doing it. Not for pay of course. But still. :) Homeschooling also inspired me to begin writing articles for Secular Homeschooling Magazine (I've always loved writing journals, essays, poems, and short stories anyway), and even though the pay isn't high, it still felt quite fulfilling to see my 'work' published, and to receive a check for it. That gives me still further purpose. I continue to be very active in a meetup group, this time a homeschooling one. That's very important for me. *I* need that socialization. And lastly, I took on an attitude right from the beginning (in regard to homeschooling) that i wanted homeschooling to be as relaxed and fun as possible. I'd never be brave enough to go the unschooling route, but I like a lot of its ideals. So by keeping things fun and hands on and creative to whatever extent possible, by doing lots of fun outings and field trips and things we enjoy, by being active in my meetup group, by being willing to drop everything and go do something fun at any given time- by doing school around life, and not living life around school, I feel very, very content with my life these days.

I agree with those who said "relax." Don't stress over curriculum for a four year old. Enjoy her. Enjoy life. Get speech therapy, and then do some pre-K stuff with her as she's willing and able, but not with a lot of pressure or expectations--- arts and crafts, nature walks, music, gentle exercise, conversation, lots of reading, games, hands on activities, free play, being outdoors, imagination, manipulatives, and so on. If she were going to public school, she wouldn't even be able to start until NEXT year due to her age, right? If you must use a curriculum, go with a gentle, hands on, creative one if possible (I LOVE Oak Meadow K for that!!!)... but seriously, it isn't even necessary yet. If you let yourself feel all this pressure over school for a four year old, can you imagine what it will be like as that child gets older? This is the time to just enjoy each other!

4H here has a "cooking club," so I'd give that a shot!