thankyou so much for your replies...it has helped me to narrow down where to start. I had not thought to think ahead to highschool. it makes sense to rebuild the room with that in mind. yes we had 3 laptops that we will replace. At last count we lost 300 books and we were not done yet. we were reading aloud yesterday and encountered a word we did not all know and my son said "ah man no dictionary" it was a profound moment because what I had hoped would become second nature was.

Imagine for a moment that your dc were in a school and not at home. They would have had to "learn" through all of your difficulty. Schooling would have been hard for them. You homeschool for flexibility and relationship right? your oversight is impressed right? then stop and prioritize. What is most important right now? is it taking an additional 2 weeks to holiday, or hurrying through school. Remember what your reasons for homeschooling are and then determine what to do. We had a fire in our home and lost all of our school materials and I spent the first 3 weeks overwhelmed. I determined to take a longer holiday now and go to a year round schedule starting when all of our materials were replaced. The emotional aspects of schooling are just as important as the academic ones. Enjoy your baby too...that time goes very quickly and you worked awfully hard to get him here. be encouraged you are doing a good job.

I hate to oversimplify because I do not wish to offend anyone...but when you are homeschooling you are a fulltime teacher. particularly if you endevour (sp?) to teach in a classical style. If you subscribe to a service or use all box curriculum you could probably do it. But I would take time off to learn how to homeschool before attempting to do both. It would be like taking on 2 fulltime jobs and only knowing one of them really well. Now if your job is such that you can schedule 3 12 hour shifts back to back then it might be easier...but remember there is still laundry and vacuuming and everything you do now that will need to get accomplished it takes time to figure out how to do it all and decide what you can't do.

we work on one book at a time. I leave it somewhat open ended depending on the child. As an example..."Ok today we will make a book about the eye. please write /dictate 3 sentences about what you remember about the eye." I generally begin helping them fold their little books and offer design suggestions but each child remembers different things and i make a vocabulary list for my youngest to trace or write but they decide how it fits into the book. it is very similar to narrating only they do it in a small book format. i hope that helps. once we have completed several little books then we take one day where we assemble them into a lap book. The little books sit in a bin on the children's work shelf during the unit until we assemble.

I recently had a house fire and everything will soon be gracing the bottom of a dumpster. I have the unique privlidge of rebuilding my entire homeshcool collection. I am overwhelmed with the possibilities. I have 12yob 11yog 9yob and 6yob. I am trained in early childhood and thus had lots of hands on manipulatives. So the ? here for the hive is; if you were to start over, what would you make sure you replaced? What things are an absolute must have and why? not curriculum but the additional extra things you have around to do. I think reading a few responses from others will help me get my brain around things. oh and yes everyone is ok. we weren't home when the fire happened. The firefighters even got my cat out ok. Thanks

Anybody have any ideas for a hands on project for the invention of the printing press? My little boys are 6 and 9 and I was hoping to spend 2 afternoons this week on a hands on project for this. I haven't found much that I thought they could do. Any ideas would be appreciated thxs. I have stamps but wasn't sure it really applied.

When I worked in a pre k setting we would work in 20 minute blocks of time. we tried hard not to make anyone go for longer than 20 minutes without a wiggle break or a change in activity. It is hard to get in the groove but it is do able. Break the 2hours or so you are trying to do into really small chunks and reward yourself when you get it half done then work up from there. I wore my baby in a sling for some of schooling when we were in that stage.

Had a lactation consultant help me with some supply issues and she suggested Madela pumps. Said they last forever and it helped me. had a knob that regulated the suction.

Thank goodness somebody else is out there who deals with this! I was beginning to think I was a mutant or something. I'm told it does get better.

The other Bolelyn girl in the grip of grace the shopaholic series a biography about Janette Oke and just finished Enemy of God about King Arthur (actually this is a series too and I finished the whole) how is that for eclectic?

If it is thick like a zuccinni you can slice it thinly and layer it in a veggie lasagna (or add meat too). I add it to mexican skillets like fajitas, with the peppers and onions. Also you can cube it and add it to a black bean salad. Sometimes if it's particularly sweet we slice it and dip it in hummus raw. also good with a horseradish dip the rounds go nicely in pita bread. hth

Thankyou for the link!!!!!

I am very practical and since they fed you I would suggest a grocery gift card...or if you know they have a SAMS or Costco membership send a gift card for that. other wise if you know they like something else specific like reading or music send an amazon giftcard or starbucks or itunes something to allow a small splurge they may not normally do.

If you don't need the space leave it for a day or two then try to tie it up again. Give it a little time to recover before you mess too much, it might bounce back a bit.

Is there a local farmer market near you? I take $40 with me and buy whatever is available and usually get enough produce to feed 6 of us (total 4 kids 2 adults) for a whole week. Now my kids eat. They don't pick at food. Last saturday I bought corn,tomatoes,green beans,yellow beans, broccoli,onions, zuccinni,yellow squash,eggplant,and green onions. If I took $60 I could by extra and freeze it for summer but I just haven't been that motivated lately. Maybe you could try a local farmer's market or a corner farmer stand?

Are there any gardeners out there. I have about 8 mustard greens plants that are producing boat loads of greens. Spicy yummy but too many. Could I just chop them and freeze them and use them later? or is this one of those things that does not do well freezing? Any help would sure be appreciated.

Perhaps you should go out of town for the first holiday this year as a "breather" and then see what develops for the next holidays. Sometimes people do the same thing every year without stopping and evaluating if it is still the best thing for everyone to do. Maintaining a friendship with mom is still possible but gaining some space for everyone else may be a good thing. Incidenty I have observed this phenomenon with many kids who leave homeschooling and go to ps. It seems like (my own opinion) everything associated with hs-ing is considered weird so the kids try to blend in as much as possible and distance themselves from the entire hs-ing world.

We checked out a cd set from the library called "the story of classical music" by Darren Henley. It starts at the beginning of classical and covers most of the major composers and periods. It was very listenable and we used it as a jumping off point to go and get more music and books about the specific composers whom piqued our curiosity. Now my dc say hey that sounds like(fill in composers name) when they hear a piece. It was a really good basics of classical music kind of tool. and it was fun to listen to.

I just thought of mine and my dh grandmother's names here goes... Charlotte Virgininia (ginny for short) Barbara (bobbie for short) Beverly and I also like Chariss(pronounced Kare iss) Lillian Miriam Loraine (lori for short) Josephine (josi for short) Emmanuela (emma for short)

having waited to "perfect" with one and gone on to cursive with one..I would recomend going on to cursive. Sometimes barring any fine motor issues the print is messy because it takes longer and moving on to cursive improves the handwriting because once they are proficient with it is faster. Btw I would recomend handwriting without tears. If it is still very hard for your dc then I would look at whether there are issues with fine motor skills.

Maybe set a timer, and stagger the together time. Like work on history for 30 min then have them work independently for 30 min. Still give your list worker a list, he can get his independent stuff done and only have to wait for a small portion. I think this is a valuable skill to learn. Rarely at a job does a person work entirely independently. Many,many times one has to collaberate with others who work more slowly,or just differently and one has to wait patiently for them to get to a point where one can work together with them. Most of the time the collaborative is valueable but one sees it as a hinderance until one gets what is needed from that meeting or whatever was done together. I choose to do some things together,to help my dc learn better how to work with others. But I set a timer or do other things that accomadate each individual personality. Get r done people are terriffic but I personally often feel hurried by them...so maybe I am overly sensitive, and my advise should be taken with a grain of salt. hth

How about bicycles without a helmet Pay phones Calling time and temperature on the phone A watch (believe it or not all the adults I know don't where one anymore because the time is on thier cell phone)

First I am not very good at female relationships. I never have been. I am a very straight-forward person who just comes out and says what she thinks. My dd is like me. Since we homeschool, she has never had to learn to navigate the world of girls. (she is the only girl in the house) Lately she has been playing with a girl in the neighborhood. This little girl is nice as long as an adult is within earshot, and/or as long as she is the one calling all the shots. Dd "crossed" her yesterday. Dd didn't want to do what she wanted and said so. This little girl told the adult in charge that my daughter hit her and said nasty things about her. Two other little girls stood behind "queen bee" and said my dd was saying nasty things. Adult in charge told dd that her house is a safe place for everybody to play and that she needed to be nice to everyone. Dd said your house is like that and I was being nice. she was sent home. Then all 3 of the other little girls were confrontational and rude to her, telling her she was mean and nasty. Dd is dazed and confused. She really doesn't understand what happened. Dd is generally a kind and thoughtful peace maker kind of a kid. She usually tries to compromise and find a workable solution when there is an argument. I don't know what to tell her. The "queen bee" keeps picking a confrontation or show down with dd, where all the other little girls are behind her standing in a row facing dd. Dd feels ganged up on and bullyed...and they are telling her it is because she is mean. Help!! Dd is also the kind of kid who will admit when she is wrong and try to make it right. I don't know how to help her. I would wait for it to blow over but it is the 3rd time this summer and it gets worse each time it happens. oh and to complicate matters "queen bee's" parents don't speak english so there is no help from them

We used the scout law and oath as copy work. He needed to memorize it anyway. All three boys are involved. My dmil has dubbed me a "scout widow" because dh is gone so often with scouting. He is cubmaster and an assistant scout master. I think that part of the bear exerience is being with other den members and understanding how a scout interacts with others not just getting through the levels. Bears are young yet and lots of that curriculum is hands on and fun. As far as mb for a substitute for school....I think it has its place it can be a very useful starting off point and encourage boys to dig deeper when learning something new. For instance my ds 11 was not interested in practicing trumpet until he saw he could get a bugler badge, now I don't even have to remind him because he wants that badge. It is nice to think that a boy would see the mb work is fun and then the connection that learning is fun is made and on top of that they get to wear a badge to show they learned. But does this put homeschooled boys at an unfair advantage over boys who don't homeschool?

Cam Jansen, Horrible Harry, Junie B. Jones, also if you have a Sonlight catalog they have a decent list in thier lower levels, they have titles for LA and History