Well. I don't know. I'd have to take it with a grain of salt, and not be too bothered by it, I guess. If you're going to put an opinion out there in such a public way, you're going to get public response. And some of it will be in agreement with what you've said, and some of it won't. I mean people always respond to posts and comments people put on their facebook pages, regardless of whether it's an "I don't believe in God" type comment or an "I washed my car today" type comment. It's just kind of the nature of something like facebook, right? By the way, I just noticed that same quote in someone's signature in the past day or two and I liked the quote, myself! But I wouldn't go post it on facebook or a blog or myspace or whatever and reasonably expect that no-one would comment on it, good or bad.

Sigh. :iagree:

Like, for example, so far this year we've done the following: Made "Texture Books"- we found all different textured materials and stapled, taped, or glued them into a folded cardstock booklet, so the kids could turn the pages and feel the different textures. My 9 y/o wrote her own adjectives for her textures, my 4 y/o described them to me and so on. Made an "Our Backyard Nature Book"- we'd take pictures (or find pictures online after identifying them) of the various birds and wildlife that we saw in our own backyard- quite a few different kinds of birds, a groundhog, a rabbit, a mole, and things like that. I'd print the picture and tape it onto the folded cardstock pages, and then I'd look up information about that particular bird or animal online so I could compose a few interesting facts/sentences about it to include with the picture. When we spot a new creature, we add it to the book. Made an "About Me" book- I did this one with my 4 y/o- I wrote in a few details like his name and age and weight and so on, and then we had different pages where he did things like drew his "self-portrait," there was a "Things I Like" page where we looked through magazines and he'd pick things he liked and we'd cut it out and glue it in, we put his handprint (using paint) on one page, we did a "my favorite color" page where he picked a color and we glued things of that color onto the page, and we did a "my family" page where we glued in pictures of his dad and sisters and I, things like that. Made "Horn Books" - after my 9 y/o learned about colonial times, we made hornbooks, I put the alphabet on my 4 y/o's, and my 9 y/o copied a poem onto hers. Made a "Day In The Life Of Photo Journal" book - I did this one with my 9 y/o. I let her take a bunch of pictures throughout the day (and some I took for her) and at the end of the day we printed different pictures that summed up what her day was like, from what she ate to where we went to what she did etc, and we put all the pictures in a small album with captions). Made a "poetry booklet" - after doing a weekly summer poetry workshop last summer for my daughter and a couple of her friends, we put together a poetry booklet with all the poems the kids had written over the course of the workshop and distributed them to each kid. Anyway we've enjoyed making those books, and the kids always enjoy looking back on them. Does anyone have any more ideas for "books" along those lines that we can make?

My daughter is 9 1/2. She is allowed to play/ride bikes out front under the following conditions: She can't go/play in the street, only on the sidewalks in front of the house (we don't have front yards, only sidewalks... and backyards). She can't go off our block. I want to be able to go out on the front porch and look for her or call for her, and see her or get a response. She can't be out front all alone. Only if she's out there playing with other kids from the neighborhood. If they go inside, she comes inside (or goes out into the backyard instead). I think last year was the first year I started letting her do those things- so 8 when she was allowed out front under those conditions. My 4 1/2 year old is not allowed out front at all without me or his dad. He is allowed to play in the backyard if his sister/older cousins or someone is out there playing with him, or if I'm out there with him. If he's with a sibling/cousin, I just keep checking on them out the window and reminding them not to leave the backyard. But he's not allowed to be out front under supervision of other children because he's just not old enough to be trusted to NOT go further than I'd want him to, or to NOT ever step into the street, and I wouldn't want people driving by to see a child that young outside without an adult etc. Starting probably this year I have very rarely/occasionally left my 9 y/o home for up to like five minutes at most while I ran out to grab a pizza I'd ordered from two blocks away or something like that. So if you have a 9 y/o I'd say it's fine to leave her while you walk the dog around the block, if she feels secure with that. I don't know when I'd let her babysit her younger brother without me being home, other than like "play in the backyard with him" with me being right in the house. And I'm sure that depends so much on the individual child's interest and maturity and ability to pay attention to what's going on and to respond appropriately and on how long it would be for and whether there was a trusted relative or neighbor right nearby they could go to just in case and so on. I'd just have to play that one by ear. It definitely wouldn't be now. She gets distracted easily, and sometimes she gets annoyed by him, and he wouldn't listen to her the way he would to me.

Deborah, the editor of "Secular Homeschooling Magazine," is doing an "American Secular Homeschoolers Geographic Survey" on her blog. She's asked that people pass the word around to try to get other secular homeschoolers (or people who homeschool secularly- as in their primary reasons for homeschooling are NOT religious, even if said people ARE religious) to participate in the survey. All she wants to know is what city and state you homeschool in, and what sort of area it is (urban, suburban, rural). You can post that information in a "comment" on her blog, or you can email her. Details here: http://www.madeditor.com/2010/06/american-secular-homeschoolers.html

You can only unschool and classical school at the same time if the unschooled child desires a classical education :D Of course... you can offer up classical things to the unschooled child without waiting for them to request it to see if s/he goes for it, but if not, you can't say "Well, you have to do this" even if the child does not want to... or it isn't unschooling. ETA: My definition of unschooling is entirely child/interest led learning. When the child has an interest in a particular subject or topic, you do everything you can to help them fully explore that. You can certainly suggest/offer things without the child first asking, but whether they take you up on those suggestions or use the things you are offering is entirely up to them. You trust that they will learn what they need to learn when they need to know it and you don't force anything. You can't say (for example) "I unschool with everything except I make them learn to read" - that's not unschooling. If your child has zero interest in learning to read, and you're a true unschooler, you say to yourself, "Okay. Well, when he wants/needs to learn to read, he will." And you might leave things around/available that might tempt him to learn to read, and you're willing to teach it when he's ready, and you're willing to read to him in the meanwhile if he wants you to, but you don't force the issue of reading. If your child wants to do nothing BUT read for a whole school year and wants nothing to do with math, you don't say "you have to do math, too." Well you get the idea. That's my definition of unschooling!

hm we've never done Tennis lessons so I have no clue whatsoever what the going rate is, but it sounds like he did give a pretty good discount for subsequent children. And like the other poster said, if that breaks down to $20.00 an hour per child, that doesn't seem so bad. Especially since it's supposed to be $35.00 an hour if it were just one child.

Isn't this a given? Seriously? lol. You'd think parents would already know that they are responsible for their child's conduct, wherever they are! But if it must be added, then I would think a simple, straightforward line saying just that would be all that is needed: "Parents, remember, you are responsible for your child's conduct at all group gatherings, including field trips. It is not the field trip leader's responsibility."

All I can say, is I'm SO glad that the homeschool group I am a part of is the way it is. No "statements of faith." No exclusionary tactics. See, my family has a Jewish background, not a Christian one, and our lifestyle is not a particularly religious one... but I'm a mom. I homeschool. I want to be around other homeschooling moms, and I want my kids to be around other homeschooling kids, and I want to chat about how homeschooling is going, and help organize fun activities and things of that nature- and I'm glad I have the opportunity to do all of that. The majority of the women in my group are Christian. And that's fine. I respect their beliefs, and fortunately, they respect mine. I enjoy chatting with them on topics other than religion, they know I'm not Christian and yet we can still 'hang out' and socialize and our kids can still enjoy each other's company. They know I'm a nice person. They know my kids are friendly kids. They know I'm not going to corrupt their children, that I'm not trying to lure them away from Jesus in some devious plot for their souls, and that Jewishness isn't contagious haha... I'm not some horrid, immoral person they need to watch out for at all costs. I'm just another homeschooling mom. I mean, why do people have to think and feel and believe just like everybody else to get together in a homeschooling group? Why does it have to be some "Christians only" exclusive club? I mean I guess if people want to be a part of that... more power to them. But is tolerance and acceptance and diversity really so awful? I'm glad that the people in my group aren't like that, because I've made some good friends in this group- Christian and otherwise. And I like to think that I've had a lot to OFFER the group, too, since I've been made a co-organizer and do a lot of planning and helping when it comes to our classes, activities and field trips. I wouldn't sign a "statement of faith." I wouldn't join a group that required one. And I'd never start a group that required one, either. And my kids and I would probably have been pretty discouraged/hurt/lonely these days if the only group we'd been able to find in our area was one that didn't want any part of us because we came from a Jewish background (or whatever)...and making someone feel like that doesn't seem very "Christian" to me. ETA: After reading the two posts below I want to add that I would not mind an informal statement that basically meant that I understood that members might talk about their religion, pray, etc., and that I shouldn't teach anything in a class that was against their religious beliefs, etc. That stuff is fine and not the same as "You must believe X or you can't join."

Hello, I can't recommend Oak Meadow highly enough! I haven't looked through their second grade curriculum yet, but I've looked through all of OMK which I plan to do with my son in the fall, and I absolutely adore it. All of it. The nature, story, hands on, creative, artsy, get out there and do things feel- it's great! I just finished using OM4 with my daughter, and I've looked through all of OM5 which we'll be using in the fall, and I'm very pleased with it. And while OM4 started having more writing and things like that than I hear the younger grades do, it still also had a LOT of hands on, get out and about, creative stuff about it, and that's what I love about it. So she didn't have to spend hours sitting still even in 4th grade- so I highly doubt yours would have to in 2nd! ...I do have an older, used version of the 2nd grade curriculum in my possession (well, upstairs in my closet lol) as I had bought K-8 used from the same person all at once. If you have any specific questions or really want to know more about what the 2nd grade curric is like, feel free to email me at sahmiam3@hotmail.com ...things are about to get more hectic here for me as tomorrow our Fresh Air Fund Child comes and we've got lots planned for when she's here, so I don't know how often I'll get to get on this message board, but I will check email regularly and I will try to help out if you need me to in regard to OM. Take care, Nance

That's definitely not "very good." I'd get a refund!

I would think any of those stores would have them!

haha yeah that is kind of funny! Parrothead, I'm not sure how often they change... I don't remember to look as often as I should! I know they used to in past years have more free samples up at a time, five or six or seven or so, now it seems like there's only three, and I'm not sure how often they change it. But maybe try checking once a week and see what happens!

I haven't, but hopefully if you are at their door first thing in the morning (before they have to start trying to track you down) and apologize and make up some excuse, hopefully they won't make an issue of it.

Actually, I tend to agree with you. When my now 9 y/o was just barely 5, she went to public school Kindergarten. She was away from home over 7 hours a day. She spent most of that day doing worksheets and such. Gone are the days of MY kindergarten where we played and learned to share; now Kindergarten is more like 1st or 2nd grade was for us. She only got a 15 minute recess each day, and that was if she didn't lose some or all of it as discipline for talking too much in the classroom. She couldn't talk at lunch because they had "silent lunches." So they could hurry up and grab that 15 minutes of recess. If they hadn't already lost it. So they could hurry back to their desks for more academics. She'd come home on a bus, tired, not getting home til close to 4 PM. 1st Grade, at age 6, was more of the same. Plus homework. Plus a "demerit" for talking too much, as opposed to just losing recess. 2nd and 3rd grades were better in that she was more capable of sitting quietly when she was supposed to and she wasn't losing recess and she had nice teachers, but now they were really pushing the standardized test preparation and she was getting stomach aches every day, getting stressed out, worrying about some stupid score- and for what? Oh and she was bringing home at LEAST an hour's worth of homework a day. It was REALLY eating into our limited family time, and her limited personal time. These were some of the reasons I ended up finally pulling her out toward the end of third grade and beginning to homeschool instead. I DO believe she was deprived of much opportunity to just be a kid. To explore her world, to be outside, to imagine and create, to be with loved ones, to explore her own interests, to daydream, to pretend, to play, to make decisions, to be a little more independent. They don't allow for any of that in school anymore. It's sad. And by the time they get home from school, there's so little time for any of it, especially amidst the dinner rush and the "getting ready for school tomorrow" routine. Reading the Moore's book "Better Late Than Early" really reinforced what you're saying, too- they really believe that it's much better to delay formal academics until around age 8 or so and they list lots of good reasons why (some even physiological). It also mentioned things like Mejane said, that studies showed that children who didn't learn certain things til a few years later still caught up to their peers, and did it more easily to boot. It was an interesting read, it really makes you think. And I don't agree that delaying formal academics is depriving children of an opportunity to learn... it's just allowing them to learn in different, more natural ways. But then again, homeschool tends to be different than public school anyway. I think... I would HOPE... that most homeschooling moms don't make their 5 year olds sit at desks for 6 hours or so a day like public schools do anyway, and that those five year olds ARE getting much more opportunity to just "be a kid" than they would be were they to be in public school like my daughter was. Anyway, I don't plan to totally put off formal academics with my son (who's almost 4.8) but I DO plan to start him off with Oak Meadow Kindergarten, which is a much more hands-on/creative story and nature based curriculum than many others, and is much slower paced in the very early years (so their K program is really more like a hands on preschool curriculum) and so on. So I think he'll have a much more FUN Kindergarten year than my daughter had! And of course we'll spend MUCH less time "doing school" than she had to, and much more time just, well, "being a kid." :)

Thanks for the replies! :)

Glad it went well for you :) I'm in PA, too, we just did our eval this past Monday, but it was our second time using our guy. Ours is in the Lyons/Lyon Station area which is a bit of a hike for me but it's only once a year, and what I like about him is that he is affiliated with a small private religious school, and he said that at the end of our homeschool career, as long as we've continued to use him as an evaluator and meet the requirements of however many "credits" you need for each subject etc, that he can issue a "real" diploma to our daughter at the end, which I really like. (And he knows my family is Jewish, not Christian, and has no problem with that, which is a plus for us. So she'll have a diploma from a private religious school, but that's fine by me). And we don't have to use any particular curriculum to get those credits, we can cover them however we normally would. My plan as of now (with my daughter only entering fifth grade) is to just continue using Oak Meadow.

I love raw green beans and sugar snap peas!

I've never done Jenny but have had good success with Weight Watchers, so I'd recommend that :)

Think simple and easy. For about 12 people. How do I make it? Please and thank you! :)

You may all already know about this, but just in case.... Go to http://www.walmart.com, click on "in stores now" over on the left (under "See All Departments"), and you'll see this rectangular box that has "New In Stores," "Free Samples," "Rollbacks," and "In Store Events." Click on Free Samples. Currently they are giving free samples of Starbucks Coffee and two different heartburn medications. Just click on the link, fill out the short form, and it'll come in the mail. You have to keep checking back as those things will change- I've gotten all different samples from them in the past... mostly things like hair care products, feminine hygiene products, and things like that, but they vary. By the way I've always put my real email address and I've always clicked the box that said I WOULD be willing to review/rate the product or whatever it asks- and I've never received junk mail OR a request to rate/review the product. I've just always received the product itself and that was that. Just an FYI!

I have this on my Netflix queue, it's even got the "play now" feature!

Mine's only 9 1/2 and she doesn't have one (nor has she asked for one) but if she got to be like 12, 13 or so and she asked for a bank account, I would let her start her own savings account. You don't even need a minimum for a kid's savings account, I don't think. And they can accrue interest and will get statements telling them what they've accrued, I'm sure it's very educational :D ETA: Happy birthday to your son!

Not in any particular order: Philippa Gregory Jodi Picoult JK Rowling Stephen King Michael Crichton John Grisham Laurel K. Hamilton J.R. Ward Diana Gabaldon Charlaine Harris Piers Anthony (in particular, his "Incarnations of Immortality" series. That was really interesting, even though I don't read a lot of fantasy in general)! I'm sure there are more but those come to mind first.

I went to bed last night and dreamed that I was at this "meetup" gathering with a woman I just met, only it wasn't my meetup gathering, it was hers. It was her very first one and she was nervous, and I was sort of like guiding her through it... some family came in and she was like "do I assign them seating?" and I was like "No, just introduce yourself and let them sit where they want..." And then I started showing her the forum/calendar for my meetup group so she could see how it worked. It was weird. I think it was because of you and your post haha. Too funny!