Oh, that's a good one! I like that song, too! Thanks :) I'd still appreciate more ideas as I may want to use more than one song!

The middle back seat is safest. I won't even let my 9 1/2 year old sit in the front seat until she's like 12.

We're going to be hosting an inner-city child at our home for a couple of weeks this summer, through The Fresh Air Fund. She'll be a 9-10 year old girl as my 9 1/2 y/o wanted it to be a girl her age. I already know that when she goes back home, I want to send her with a DVD that consists of a slide show of pictures from her stay here and the things we do together. I'm trying to think of what song/s would be good for background music and I'm drawing a blank. Can anyone think of any songs I could use? You know, stuff pertaining to summer, memories, friendship, etc., that would be appropriate for and relevant to a couple of nine year old girls for this purpose. I'd appreciate it if anyone can give me some ideas :) Thanks so much! Nance

Not only did my husband not go to college, he is a high school dropout. Today he owns his own business (after apprenticing himself first), and while we are not rich by any means, he's doing well enough that we can afford for me to be a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom and to have the things we need and a decent amount of what we want. I only have a two-year degree myself from when I attended a business college to learn how to be a secretary. For a while I worked as an administrative assistant, a legal secretary, now I'm home with my kids and not using that degree. I've had a few articles published in a homeschooling magazine and I'm starting to explore whether I can branch out with that a little bit. It's mostly still just for fun and for a little bit of extra pocket money but when I write something and get something published, it stems from natural talent, not a college education. I have a cousin who has been going to college for what seems like forever, very smart, good grades, more specialized field- she can't find a job. College is not the be all, end all. It just isn't. I agree that it's not the only, and sometimes not even the best, way. Especially for the amount of debt it puts you into and the difficulty you could have finding work anyway. Of course, it depends largely on the individual and what they want to do with their lives to begin with.

Couch or air mattress usually; sometimes we'd offer a kid's room depending on who it was and let the kids sleep on the floor in our room.

I already resubscribed in March, this will be my second year using the site. There's lots of great stuff on there, I really like it!

It sounds more than fine to me!

Thanks again for the feedback! I think he'll probably be okay with the original/episode 4 based on what's been said here. He watched "Where The Wild Things Are" and "How To Train Your Dragon" without being scared so I don't think the scenes mentioned here would be too scary for him (although I might just edit out the cantina scene, the rest I don't think would be too bad for him). We'll probably just watch that one and then wait til he's a little older to see the rest of the movies. Thanks again! :)

We've only made it through the first nine chapters of SOTW Volume 1 as of yet, but so far I don't find it too Christian at all (speaking as a not-particularly-religious Jew) :D We did those 9 chapters last summer. We stopped over the school year to focus on our Oak Meadow curriculum. We plan to go back to SOTW in the next week or two, after we wrap up OM.

My kids like when I put out stuff for tacos and they can make their own, ham and cheese melts/grilled cheese, egg salad, tuna sandwiches, putting toppings on pizza bagels/pizza muffins, good old PB&J, pierogies, fish sticks/chicken nuggets. Sometimes they like having what amounts to a snack tray- when I give them plates full of different cheeses, cold cuts, fruits, crackers and stuff like that. They like soup, sometimes they like just yogurt and fruit or some such. Sometimes we eat leftovers from whatever was for dinner the night before.

Hi, thanks for the responses so far. We're talking about the original Star Wars movie- the original three movies, I guess if the first one ends up seeming okay. I guess now they are called "4, 5 and 6." We'd be starting with the first original movie (4?) and seeing how that went, so mostly I guess I'm asking about that one! Thanks again :)

Yesterday while shopping at Walmart, we allowed each of our kids to select a poster for their rooms. My teen wanted a "Twilight" poster, my tween wanted a "Justin Bieber" poster, and my 4 1/2 year old wanted Star Wars. However, he's never seen Star Wars, and my husband convinced him to get a "How To Train Your Dragon" poster instead (since we did just take him to see that recently). My husband commented "You can get a Star Wars poster after you see the movie." Now my 4 1/2 year old has it in his head that he wants to see Star Wars (and then he wants to get the poster lol). My husband wants to rent it and have all of us watch it together. I know I must have seen it many many years ago but I can't remember enough of it to determine whether it would be okay for my little guy. Mostly I just want to make sure it wouldn't be too scary for him, I can't remember if there was anything in it that might scare a four year old or that would be highly inappropriate. I know there is some "violence" but I don't recall it being anything over the top or gory or anything. Thoughts? Thanks!

Your kids are already in the real world ;) They will be fine. Don't let her get to you.

I agree with "Outlander" by Diana Gabaldon. Fantastic, fantastic series! The characters have so much depth, and the stories contain everything you could possibly want in a book all rolled into one (extremely well-written) story. Sex, yes. But also romance, drama, suspense, fantasy, action, history... everything. I love those books. Love them! I also like all the books I've read by Philippa Gregory so I second those suggestions, too :)

My son is 4 1/2 and he rarely draws either. Once in a while I can get him to sit down with crayons- he especially likes to try to do mazes or tracing shapes kind of thing. He might scribble a little. I think like 3 times ever I've managed to talk him into drawing a person. The rest of the time it's just sort of a scribble or something that looks like it might be fire lol... and it's not often he wants to be bothered at all. He'll get more excited about coloring with chalk on the sidewalk or finger painting or water color painting than he will about drawing or coloring. He has no developmental delays and he's very bright, I think it's just not his thing. I wouldn't worry about it.

Hmm I really don't know! I will say that my 9 1/2 year old would not be left alone in a public place anytime in the foreseeable future, I would not feel comfortable with that at all. She's never even been left alone at home for more than ten minutes tops, if that, either, and that's only if I'm running to my brother's house 3 houses away or once in a while to quick pick up a pizza at a shop like two blocks away and coming right back home (knowing that the aforementioned brother is just three houses away if there were any problems in the 5 or 10 minutes I was gone).

I am so so sorry :(

We'll be starting 5th grade in the fall. We will be using Oak Meadow. We are just finishing up Oak Meadow 4 for fourth grade this year and really loved it. We're looking forward to continuing with it for fifth grade. It's very hands on/creative. The only difference will be that I will be using Teaching Textbooks for math in fifth grade instead of Saxon (which is what my older version of OM had planned for fifth- they had their own math through fourth and then Saxon from 5th on. I understand the newer versions of the curriculum have their own OM math though now through the later grades). Over the summer we do SOTW, and this summer we'll also be checking out Times Tales to try to improve her times tables memorization.

Wow yeah you have to go back to their parents and tell them what happened, that it was definitely NOT an accident, that these incidents of bullying and injuring your children have happened repeatedly and are getting worse, that you are at the point where you are afraid to let your children be anywhere near theirs, that you will have to watch yours much more closely now whenever they are together so that they don't get hurt, and that you really need them to do the same to prevent their children from hurting other children. I also agree that you should absolutely yell at/speak firmly to their kids and tell them very sternly they better not ever put their hands on your children again if you ever see them doing anything even remotely harassing or hurtful again. And if it happens at church, I might even ask the pastor or whoever to refuse to allow those particular children to be left unattended since they can't be trusted not to hurt other children and that you are done with having your kids be the ones to get hurt. (I also agree with Chris that you can't be threatening anything to do with "assault," that sounds silly when it's against a 4 year old and you won't be taken as seriously).

Yes, it would probably bug me. Not if it was a "now and then" kind of thing but if it happened on a frequent basis, I wouldn't like it. I'd want him to eat dinner with his family. But I say "probably" because we hardly ever get to eat dinner with my husband anyway. He works from 1 PM til 8 or 9 PM or so, sometimes later, and is only home for dinner two nights a week most of the time anyway.

Do you feel like she has a good enough grasp of the math that she doesn't really NEED extra practice? If so, I don't think you have to give her more algebra over the summer just because she didn't complete every problem in a book. That's just "busy work" and with summer coming, she's probably ready for a break from that! And aren't you as well? How many essays does a kid need to write? It sounds like she's already written some and now you're going "Oh! I forgot to have her write about this and that topic! Maybe I should make her do it!"... yeah. Don't. lol. Give her a break. Maybe she'll do some writing on her own over the summer if she enjoys writing. Maybe she won't. One of the previous posters has a good point about Spanish though, if you're going to use it as a credit, have her finish that up at some point before moving on to the next language, unless it's such a ridiculous amount of catch up to do that you don't see the point since she no longer wants to take Spanish. Which is all to say that yes, of course it is okay to say you are done when you decide she's done enough! You can use whatever books you are using as a guideline for what you want her to learn and if you think she's learned it well enough that she's not going to be struggling with it and in need of summer reinforcement, then pack it away. It doesn't have to be plodded through to the bitter end at all costs, it just has to be covered and understood :)

How about doing an in-home walking program like a Walk Away The Pounds video on the days you have him with you? Sometimes I do those, and my kids have even been known to do them with me (wandering away when they get bored).

I have pics all over mine! And I do use my kid's real first names. I don't use last names or mention the town I live in though.

I like Crystal and Lee the best of this year's contestants (I also liked Siobhan). But I have to say that overall this is not one of my favorite seasons contestant wise. Like, I LOVED David Cook, and I LOVED Chris Daughtry- this year there's no one I would say I LOVE.

There's a math operations game called Totally Tut (board game) that my daughter enjoys.