I find them maddening too. I think they hate me. My husband never has any trouble. :glare:

I enjoyed that; well said. (Though I found the dark blue background a little difficult to read from.) I will be sending that link to many people!

I like it cool too. With all the people in one room, it can get stuffy and warm pretty fast. Our church often has trouble in the winter--someone arrives early, turns on the heat, but doesn't open the chapel doors. By the time church starts, it's about 90 degrees in there! My husband spent most of one winter in the foyer, because it was so hot it made him feel faint.

This is a book I've been wanting to read. I was an exchange student myself and it certainly did play a huge part in my education and growing up. I'll still read it, but I would agree that the quotes above are nonsense. You can't learn how to learn without content. I would argue that a classical education is, in fact, actually doing what this slogan advocates--that's what the trivium does, only it can't be done without a lot of grist for the mill. I read a good article on just this idea the other day, and now I can't find it! Argh!

I enjoyed the story very much, but it's certainly true that the writing bogged down in places. I didn't need to know all about his first girlfriend. Very inspiring story, and I think he's a great person.

We had good luck at Target the other day--for once they have some fairly plain jeans and some very nice cords. And some cute tees that don't have horrible words on them! As always, there's some trash, but I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of stuff I could really consider buying.

We quit 9yo's dance classes in May when we ran out of money. We're looking forward to going back, hopefully soon, but the dancing is not worth going into debt over.

Fooey, I miss everything fun. :(

I think I'm going to do History Odyssey, but the Ancients looks a little light for a 6th grader. I'd supplement it with more reading.

Pretty good. Decent school day, 9yo's music class, pumpkin muffins, and the best part--I got Indian food for dinner. My husband is gone for 2 weeks (he's employed, yay!) and I promised myself a yummy Indian dinner in the middle of the second week. We haven't been able to afford fun dinners for a long long time, so it was a very big treat.

Turns out you can get corks at a big hardware store--our Lowe's carries them.

You are doing what needs to be done and you're doing what's best for him. So, go Mom go! That said it sounds horrible and I think you should take yourself out to dinner. :grouphug:

Lagaan! Great movie, 4 hours long, totally worth it. Or, if you only have 3 hours, Veer-Zaara. :001_smile:

I haven't read Breaking Dawn, only the summaries. The childbirth stuff totally skeeved me out, even more than the honeymoon. I'd say NO FREAKING WAY, but go ahead and read it yourself to judge.

In my state, you can go to conservative Christian conferences or hippie unschooling conferences. Since I'm not really a hippie or an evangelical, and the speakers all seem to assume rather a lot, I mostly go to the vendor halls and only attend the actual conference if SWB is speaking. I find that most other speakers are so irrelevant to my homeschooling needs as to be a waste of time; I'm familiar enough with both philosophies that I don't feel I need to pay to learn more about them when I want to be browsing through books.

They're getting there. Ivy is Julie's best friend (San Fransisco, 1970's). Sonali is Chrissa's other friend. And the Just Like You dolls come in every race.

Ask around your friends--somebody might have one in their closet somewhere. You can also try emailing this lady to see if she has anything for sale.

Curious--So do you also object to, say, Kit's story? Growing up in the Depression, worried about her family, has hobo friends? I've found Kit to be a great inspiration for my older girl--she loves Kit's stories and several times when she was feeling discouraged and scared about something she thought she couldn't do, I've asked her what she thought Kit would think about it. Kit is a very spunky girl who never gives up, so that's been a helpful motivator for her. Addy is another favorite and also someone to aspire to be like. Also they named my mom's chickens after their dolls. There were 6 chickens, 2 of 3 different breeds, so we named them Beezus and Ramona, Kit and Felicity, and Ivy and Bean. :001_smile:

My girls each have one (Felicity and Kit)---that was pretty much all they got for Christmas last year. They do play quite a lot with them--I've sewn a lot of clothes, and we got some hand-me-down beds and a horse, and they act out stories and have them watch movies with them, etc. We haven't bought any accessories. I also got a used Molly doll and cleaned her up, sewed new clothes, etc. for my little niece. I've never had any interest in dolls, but I sure learned a lot about doll restoration last year. The other day they had a friend over and spent the entire afternoon making a doll movie, called the Adventures of Meena and Katerina. It was pretty hilarious. Quill, if you look at the AG catalog, Gwen doesn't have any specific accessories to buy. Sonali doesn't either, though Chrissa has enough for all of them. I expect that for the short-term 'friend' dolls, they don't bother.

I have a similar advanced reader girl. I do like Classical Writing, and the first two years are not heavy. Aesop only happens every other week, so you can do other stuff on the off week, like give her a creative writing prompt and see what she comes up with. I have no experience with IEW and I have not been terribly impressed with the Writing Strands books I've seen, so I can't be any more helpful than that, sorry.

I don't know about kits, but here's how to extract DNA at home!

Wow, that is really stinky. Bummer. I'm so sorry that happened to you. And after you'd given them free tickets to an event! They were rude on so many levels I can't even count them!

I'm using it with a first-grader. The writing requirements are a little high for a 6yo who doesn't like writing, so I take some dictation in spots. I really like it. Each week has a short literature selection--a poem, a couple of paragraphs, a psalm, etc. 1st and 3rd days have a fable from Aesop (in the Autumn Primer), which the child illustrates, 2nd day is nature study, and 4th is art appreciation. A small lesson on some aspect of spelling or grammar is also included in most days. It's very CM, and my 6yo likes some and doesn't like some. She currently has a weird prejudice against poetry, and anything that doesn't involve math, science, or Star Wars is not popular anyway. She does enjoy the drawing and the fables!

Gwen is Chrissa's friend, and Chrissa is the girl of the year this year. Her story is about how she moves to a new town and is targeted by the class' group of mean girls. She makes friends with Gwen, and at the very end of the book finds out that Gwen and her mom had been homeless for some months, but had gotten help and now have an apartment. I can't say I see anything wrong with that storyline (my 9yo enjoyed the books). And they usually make a doll from the best friend. I don't see why it should be particularly weird, and anyway they'll have a new girl of the year in January. And Chrissa and Gwen will no longer be dolls. ETA: looking at the AG website, I see that Chrissa's other good friend, Sonali, is also featured as a doll, and Gwen doesn't have any extra accessories. She comes with a headband, shoes, and undies, and nothing else is listed for her.