That actually strikes me as quite a bad idea. Are the laptops designed for the smaller hands of children? Does anyone at the school know anything whatsoever about ergonomics? I suspect that a lot of those kids are going to get repetitive stress injuries from hours of work with improper posture and using tools designed for adult hands.

A lot of schools have dropped it. Which doesn't make a lot of sense to me--cursive is what's meant to be written, it's faster and easier than printing. We only teach printing first because that's what letters look like in books and we're teaching reading at the same time, and we teach it so young.

I'm a librarian, and I took two in library school--one on upper elem. lit and one on YA. I didn't take a picture books class. They were very good--I especially learned a lot in the first class, but a lot of it was about marketing books to kids in a library. I also read a lot of children's lit analysis/history for fun.

That's an odd review. It starts with the voodoo/who do joke and says it makes no sense. But that bit is a riff on an old comedy act--if he'd said "the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true" it would have been a similar gag. I also felt that it missed the point of the movie, which is that Sarah's fairy-tale dreams are all very well, but she needs to pay attention to the joy around her IRL and quit being such a selfish brat. When she gets her wishes, she doesn't like it so much. Anyway, I let my kids watch Labyrinth--I loved it when I was a teenager.

Sorry, I'm late! It's pretty much appropriate for all ages--it's a fairy tale really. Except for the one bit where the baby is taken out to sea--I didn't let my kids watch that bit for a while.

I suggest looking for the Secret of Roan Inish, which is one of my all-time favorite movies ever, but I have no idea if it's available online. Aha, it's in installments on youtube.

Two of my brothers do it. I just can't quite bring myself to--my brain knows the food is OK, my gut just can't take it.

Hm, I just noticed that my head has changed to a different Irish folk tune. I wonder when that happened. I don't like this one quite so much.

Hy husband and I pray together in the evening, we should in the morning too but at that time we have family prayer.

Right now my head is playing an Irish folk song, no words. I don't know the name, but it's in the Secret of Roan Inish movie and it's one of the tunes often played at the Irish dance lessons my daughter takes. I always have something playing in my head, and it varies a lot. Sometimes I would like quiet, but that doesn't seem to be an option.

This is a good general response; if you want to get more specific, you can say something about outside classes/groups and friends. With close friends, I will talk a little bit about how I do think it's necessary for a homeschooling parent to be a bit more assertive about making sure their kids are playing with friends and so on. You will probably find that you need to call people for play-days more often than they call you. That's part of the job, IMO.

Yeah, I know. :sad:

I just started The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt, and it's LONG. 700+ pages. Will have to find something short to read to break it up.

I finally finished The Swan Thieves, along with a Pterry book and a book on Saxon math.

Nah. I've seen what those kids do to each other. Pick nose, then hold hands, then rub heads and roll in the sand. A teacher's hands cannot compare.

I have a problem: I want to read something Irish for March--as per your suggestion and anyway my daughter is in Irish dance and so we always spend March in a very Irish mood--but I just got the new A. S. Byatt book from the library, where I had to wait in line forever, and it's huge. Sigh. Maybe I'll read a little Yeats... :D

Little guy should be with his dad.

It doesn't; I think that's kind of the point. I am devoutly religious, but my main reasons for homeschooling are not religious ones. I homeschool because classical education grabbed me and wouldn't let go. :) So, one may indeed be religious, but not the stereotypical "evangelical opposed to public school and hs'ing for religious reasons." (Not that I'm opposed to that; but it's awkward when people assume I'm evangelical-- I am, in fact, LDS.) :iagree: Most certainly.

It's a bit of a shock for you. Take some time to absorb it before you make any big decisions. :grouphug:

How do you mean? Are you getting random friend requests or are random people actually showing up on your friends list without you putting them there? The first one, you hit 'ignore.' It's spam. The second one, you report to the FB admins.

I think you forgot 3) a group I don't like. Which isn't a good definition, but one that many people use.

I finally got my blog post up. I read Sarah Ruden's new book "Paul among the people" and I totally loved it, it was great. (OK, also depressing because it was describing ancient Greco-Roman culture, but really interesting! And I learned a ton!) I also read Daniel Pinkwater's "Alan Mendelsohn, boy from Mars" which is an old favorite. I'm currently still slogging through the Swan Thieves and I still have 100+ pages to go. Gah. It's our book club pick, but none of us had actually read it. I think it's going to go over like a lead balloon.

That's two different questions really. Many people teach Latin, not so many have an LCC. I'll let someone else tackle that part, or you could go There are a lot of benefits to Latin, but people focus on different things. Here is a summary of why we should study Latin from Memoria Press. And here's Dorothy Sayers on the subject (I prefer her reasons to MP's). I went through MP's entire article archive before deciding to try Latin, and then I was hooked once we did try it. Like most Americans with PS educations, the idea of studying Latin was entirely foreign to me! Short list of reasons to study Latin--pick your favorite: Latin is the root of many modern languages and makes studying them much easier Has a lot of grammar--good for learning other languages and English too Very structured--teaches careful thinking and logic Most of the difficult words in English are Latin-based, so great for vocab. and SATs Major language of Western civilization--history and religion in a package

I don't know the answers to those questions, but...LUCKY! Wow!

You might look at Calvert science. I know nothing about it, except that it's secular and a package, so this isn't an endorsement or anything. Funny, I was just posting elsewhere explaining that while there are a zillion amazing science resources for secular homeschoolers, you have to work to pull them together. There's a lack of packaged curricula that you can just get and go. (In response to that AP article on homeschoolers and science, which I have to say I think was very badly done and inaccurate.)