That is nice of them to help your friend move! I hope that your son feels better soon! That sounds and looks soooo delicious! :D I am sure he will appreciate it! I wanted to edit my post to put a picture up, too, of the letter my daughter wrote and the picture she drew, but it wouldn't let me add an attachment to an edited post, so I will just add it to this one! This is the letter she typed to Shirley at the food pantry, and the picture she drew on the back of the letter! We'll be mailing the letter/picture and the gift certificate out in the morning!

My 11 year old daughter went to public school for K through most of 3rd grade before I pulled her out and began homeschooling (and she went to preschool as well). I then got fed up enough with a bunch of things that I decided to pull her out and homeschool instead. I've now homeschooled her for the rest of 3rd, all of 4th, all of 5th, and we are currently doing 6th, and I've never looked back. I foresee homeschooling at least through eighth and playing it by ear as to what we do about high school (and taking her wishes into account, too). My 6 year old son, on the other hand, has never been to preschool and is doing Kindergarten with me at home this year. I am glad he, at least, is home with me from the beginning! And my 19 year old special needs daughter is still in school- a specialized school where she gets to do work mentorship, life skills, special education, Special Olympics, field trips- has a fantastic teacher and friends... I love it for her and think it is the best thing for her. I will be sad when she is 21 and has to graduate at the end of next year!

As I suspected, my daughter thought that was a fantastic idea and she is typing up a letter for Shirley now and will draw a picture to go with it. We will mail it out tomorrow! Looking forward to hearing about the things the rest of you guys do over the course of the week!

Or is it a hopeless cause? Thanks in advance! Eta as in I took the video from my iPhone 4 and it accidentally got deleted. Any way to get it back?

That's hilarious! You should also consider getting him the movie Gnomeo and Juliette (sp?) (which, I confess, my whole family really enjoyed)!

Melissa, glad to hear you have had no trouble with it! Kolamum, well, you learn something new every day lol. Well, I'm kinda nervous but glad to have something different to try- I have nothing bad to say about Weight Watchets but I AM over "counting points" and such for now.

So, last week, my homeschool group visited a local food pantry. I had set up a tour for our group to go in and see what it was like, and to learn about what they do and so on. Each family who came, including mine, also donated some food while we were there, which, of course, was an 'act of kindness'...but doesn't count for this challenge since it was before this challenge started! (As a heads up, though, we were told that they get lots of donations around the holidays, but very few over the summer, in case you as a family or you as a homeschool group want to keep that in mind)! (Getting off track here, on the flip side, very few people donate blood over the busy holiday season, in case you want to consider that this time of year :D). Anyway...while we were there, we met an older woman named Shirley who said she has been volunteering there for 12 or 13 years, since her husband died. She was really nice and she gave the kids snacks, and told us how she puts 20 or 30 hours a week into volunteering at this food pantry, and told us about the kind of work she puts into it and so on. She is SO dedicated to it! I think I would like my family's first "random act of kindness" to be for Shirley. I will get back to you on what we end up doing exactly, I have to talk to my 11 y/o daughter about it first to see how she feels about it, which I will do when she wakes up, but she's got a gift certificate to Friendly's she won in a hula hoop contest a while back that never got spent and I think it might be nice to "feed" the woman who feeds so many others, and I have a feeling my daughter might be willing to give up her gift certificate. And if she's not, that's okay...I will find another way of going about it. :) But my idea is to send some sort of handwritten card or letter thanking her for what she does and including some sort of gift certificate type thing. If my daughter doesn't want to give up hers, I have a couple of other similar things lying around for like free desserts and such at this place and that (I don't know why we accumulate these things but somehow we do lol).

Pamela, I am sure the email will be appreciated! In fact, something similar may be much appreciated with the bus drivers, too! I know people do little gifts and such over the holidays with teachers and bus drivers and all, but how many people take the time to write a sincere letter of appreciation, both to a person...AND to a person's boss/supervisor letting them know what a great job that person does? Probably very few! Maybe something like that would be just the thing!

Really?! Nobody wants to gush over the pop quiz math clock?! I'm so shocked lol.

I think she's out of her mind.

You COULD make a "suntanned turkey." Just sayin! http://www.delish.com/entertaining-ideas/holidays/thanksgiving/unique-thanksgiving-turkey-recipes We actually tried it a couple of years ago, but we didn't start it right away as we didn't think of it til it had been cooking a while, so the tan lines didn't come out anywhere near that obvious unfortunately. So we ended up bringing our turkey over in its "bathing suit" instead haha because we'd come up with all these props- we'd gone so far as to tuck a clean square of dishtowel over one wing like a beach towel, and put a shot glass with a paper umbrella in it under the other, and took a mini travel size bottle of conditioner and made a construction paper "suntan oil" label for it... it was pretty funny and we knew our small family would get a big kick out of that kind of thing, which they did. Hmm, we should give it another try, as a matter of fact...:lol:

I don't like that the schools don't offer a well rounded education and focus on nothing but standardized testing- to the point that they're cutting "specials" like art and music and gym and not allotting much time to history and science. And to the point where even Kindergarteners get only 15 minutes of recess and do too much deskwork and bring home homework, all in preparation for it, and where third graders get stomach aches from all the stress of the "big test." And the kicker is, around here at least, it isn't even worth it because whatever they are doing isn't working. The test results are dismal and the districts are "on warning" for scoring too low. It's not worth it. I want my kids to have a well-rounded, hands-on, more interest-led education. I want them to have more of a real childhood, more time to do the things that matter (testing isn't high on that list for any of us), more time to get out in the world and do things. Even more time to play. More time for family, themselves, etc. I want them to be able to think more independently. We are enjoying each other, enjoying our freedom, enjoying the ability to go at our own pace and follow our own interests. We're enjoying homeschooling. P.S. We are not Christian, we homeschool secularly. My daughter went to public school from K through most of third before I pulled her out- she's now in 6th. My son is in K and never went to school. We live in a highly regulated state where my daughter still has to take standardized tests in certain years and has to have evaluations each year etc and she's doing VERY well, so I can say without a doubt that what we are doing works, and it works better than what she was doing when she was in public school. And we're all much happier. :)

Most of these "52 Week Challenge" things start around the New Year but what better time of year than Thanksgiving to start a challenge like this? This year we're going to do a Random Act of Kindness A Week for 52 Weeks Challenge. It doesn't matter how big or how small your Random Act of Kindness is over any given week. The idea is to just improve somebody's life, mood, spirits, week, or day in some way, no matter how big or small. Happiness is contagious. By doing nice things for other people, you're bound to make not just them feel good, but yourselves, too! And by involving the kids, the whole family, you'll be making THEM feel good, and teaching them to do good, too...it's a win/win! It doesn't matter who the recipient is. It can be a friend, a relative, someone in your own household, a complete stranger, an animal friend. It can be someone truly needy, or truly deserving, or it may be one of those weeks where it is just someone you allow in front of you on the checkout line. Just DO something to brighten somebody's day each week. I hope you'll join in on this challenge and post to the threads I'll be posting each week to let us all know what you did! This way, we can both pool ideas and give each other some well-deserved recognition, and to share fun stories of how people reacted and so on. :) What will you do this week? ETA: Week 1 runs from Sunday, November 20 to Saturday, November 26

Glad to see a few more of you joining in! I am starting the thread for this week now! So please go there to discuss your Random Acts of Kindness for this week! And, Starr, you made me do a double take, but, this IS the General Board :lol: ETA: Here's the thread for week 1: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=326027

Just wanted to remind you all that week 1 of 52 starts tomorrow! :) I will be posting a thread for week 1 tomorrow morning, and you can post to it for the week of Sunday, November 20th through Saturday, November 26th to let us know what you did the first week. Share your random acts of kindness with others to give and get inspiration! I am looking forward to hearing from you all! :)

:lol:

This is definitely the cutest Thanksgiving craft ever :D http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/count-it-down-674675/

I have not. I came to this forum initially with a question about SOTW which a friend recommended to me as something I might find interesting (and she was right, I did find it interesting)! I later returned when I wanted to check out the WTB/FS forums. I ended up poking around the message boards, and found that there were other more "relaxed/eclectic" homeschoolers, like me, and stuck around. I never claimed to be a "classical homeschooler" yet still really enjoy this forum and many of its members and have gotten lots of help and made lots of forum friends here. :) (Still never read WTM. Still use SOTW). :D

Now that's just weird LOL

My first instinct is to say "No way!" I live in PA now and I already hate how cold it is here in the winters, and every winter I go on a rant about how I want to move to Florida lol. But in truth it depends. If we really did struggle financially currently, and the move would make a big difference in our financial quality of life, then, of course, I would have to go along with it.

No, and no! (Then again, I don't iron ANYTHING)!

Yeah, I figure at least it's only temporary so how bad can it be, right? We'll see. My book actually ended up coming a day early (arrived today) and I've started reading it already. Maybe I'll start the day after Thanksgiving.

Do you think "upmost" was a typo, or do you think he doesn't know the word is actually "utmost?" Sorry. I sort of got stuck on that. :lol: I do feel bad for the employees who are being forced to work longer hours ON Thanksgiving instead of being with their families now that stores are deciding to start their sales at like midnight instead of the traditional 4 AM or so. Personally, I'm so over Black Friday and will not be leaving my house that day (except to take my daughter to her local guitar lesson)!

Well, you fed them, right? LOL. It's not the end of the world provided it's not a daily thing. :D

Well, you have to be reasonable in your expectations, of course. I wouldn't ask my husband to wash the windows, dust the entertainment center, vacuum the bedrooms, clean the tub after a hard day's work. These things can be let go for a while. But if you are really laid up with an illness, it is reasonable to expect that you can ask other members of your household to do the dishes, take out the garbage, do a load of laundry, sweep a kitchen floor, prepare a meal, put some of their own clutter away and so on. 7, 10 and 12 year old kids are all old enough to be expected to help with most of that stuff and I do find that if I say nothing, almost nothing gets done, but if I ask my husband to please do this and my daughter to please do that, they will oblige. I know what you mean, though.