I really enjoyed Les Mis, too. Currently reading : Raising Your Spirited Child. by Mary Kurcinka (I have a very TWO two-year-old) Drawing With Children. by Mona Brookes Great thread!

Oo! Yes, definitely Ender's Game!

What does he view as "the point of manners"? To him, are they a way of making others comfortable? Or, are they for acting proper and "better" than others? Barb F. brought up a good point. To clarify, when I was a teen I didn't recognize that manners were for making others comfortable. It took watching and reading Jane Austen for me to get it! This is a very good discussion. Glad you posted! :)

The Good Earth--excellent Cry the Beloved Country--also excellent For Willa Cather, I really enjoyed My Antonia. Night. Elie Wiesel Spoonriver Anthology. Edgar Lee Master The Killer Angels. Michael Shaara Good free reading: Summer of My German Soldier Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes Tears of a Tiger The Power of One. by Bryce Courtenay (another book set in South Africa) A Confederacy of Dunces Watership Down

You mentioned in your post that dyeing hair took time and money. I just wanted to emphasize that letting one's hair go grey is okay, a woman can still "look good". But, if you feel better dyeing your hair, then go for it! :) My MIL and one of my favorite teachers have both said they will be redheads until their dying day so long as Revlon makes red hair dye. :D

The woman who denigrated thrift store clothing spoke without thinking. Where does she send her clothes she's tired of wearing? :confused: Perhaps aiming to "look good" won't take quite as much time and money as you think. It sounds like you feel daunted by all the input. My grandma never dyed her hair. She felt that since she was going to grow old with her husband that she might as well go grey along with him. She is one of the most beautiful women I know. Who says you need to wear make-up to "look good"? :) What is your vision of "a woman of influence"? How does she carry herself?

Right now my kids' favorite is The Pirates of Penzance, either the filmed stage production or the movie with Angela Lansbury as Ruth. My 2-year-old likes to sing "I am a Pirate Kiiiiiiiiiing!" and "Dake another g-ation!" White Christmas (yes, we watch that any time of the year)

It sounds like she is testing you, in a way, for trustworthiness. Or, she's acting like "a friend" who says the meanest things to a person under the guise of being "helpful". Either way, it's rather rude, I think, and someone be watchful of. Yes, if they consider you a kind of 'unpaid counselor', like Jean mentioned. Do any of them strike you as a possible 'kindred spirit'? I would say just with that lady. That said, a true friendship involves reciprocation, as others have said. :grouphug:

It is absolutely worth the time and money. I have a degree in English Education and a minor in History. Having my degree and having the experiences I had in college broadened my horizons on so many levels--intellectual, social, personal. I was able to participate in so many activities and discover so many things by attending college--large choirs, intramural sports, ballroom dance, cultural activities in art, drama, music at student rates, classes outside my major (microbiology, biology, chemistry, horticulture, gifted education). I enjoyed being in an environment where I could engage with people who shared my interests and who challenged my thinking in ways I never would've expected. My husband and I still look in some of our old textbooks (microbiology, chemistry, etc.) to answer questions we have in some of our discussions. Going out on my own helped build my self-confidence and further develop my character. My wonderful husband and I met at a ballroom dance social. My education has also given me experiences and perspectives that I use daily in my relationships with my children, husband, and friends. On a pragmatic level, though, having a degree in English Education is a good safety net. Heaven forbid something horrible happen to my husband, but I do have a way to support my family should something happen. My children, regardless of gender, will be expected to go to college. My daughter knows I went to college and got a degree in English Education and then made the choice to stay home. She hears how both experiences have enriched my life (and hers considering college is where I met her daddy. :) ).

Boy, that's hard. Can I triple major? English (my English Education major was a joke in terms of reading a wide range of literary masterpieces), Classical Studies, History. I wish I had taken Latin, too. Now I just need to make time to learn it now... Oh, a friend of mine majored in Ethics--that would be a very interesting subject to study, I think. I have always enjoyed learning about history. Recently, I have discovered Cicero. Not once in all my schooling did I read anything by him. "On Friendship" would've helped me think through peer pressure and the nature of friendship and may helped me avoid, or at least cope better, with heartaches.

Quote from the article: "First, courts, and particularly the federal courts, have never granted the existence of the “right to homeschool.†9th amendment: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." :001_huh:

I second this. Could she have lessons with a nearby school orchestra teacher?

We just finished watching the 1970 'Santa Claus is Comin' to Town' Christmas special. In it, Baby Claus is found by the Kringle elf family. They teach him his three Rs and how to make toys. Pretty neat, huh? Even Santa was homeschooled! :lol: Merry Christmas!

I'm reading a very interesting book called NurtureShock by Po Bronson. Some of the chapter titles/topics: the inverse power of praise, the effects of less sleep on children, talking to kids about race, why kids lie, and other child development topics. Here's a portion about the surprising effects of some kinds of educational tv shows: "Relational aggression, at the preschool age, involved saying things like, "You can't play with us," or just ignoring a child who wanted to play, and withdrawing friendship or telling lies about another child--all of which attack a relationship at its core. Verbal aggression included calling someone a mean name and saying things like "Shut up!" or "You're stupid"--it often accompanied by physical aggression. [Dr. Jamie] Ostrov corss-referenced what his observers recorded with teacher ratings of the children's behavior, the parents' own ratings, and their reports on how much television the children were watching. Over the course of the study, the children watched an average of eleven hours of media per week, according to the parents--a normal mix of television shows and DVDs. At first glance, the scholars' hypotheses were confirmed--but something unexpected was also revealed in the data. The more educational media the children watched, the more relationally aggressive they were. They were increasingly bossy, controlling, and manipulative. This wasn't a small effect. It was stronger than the connection between violent media and physical aggression. Curious why this could be, Ostrov's team sat down and watched several programs on PBS, Nickelodeon, and the Disney Channel. Ostrov saw that, in some shows, relational aggression is modeled at a fairly high rate. Ostrov theorized that many educational shows spend most of the half-hour establishing a conflict between characters and only a few minutes resolving that conflict. "Preschoolers have a difficult time being able to connect information at the end of the show to what happened earlier," Ostrov wrote in his paper. "It is likely that young children do not attend to the overall 'lesson' in the manner an older child or adult can, but instead learn from each of the behaviors shown." ... ...The more kids watched, the crueler they'd be to their classmates. This correclation was 2.5 times higher than the correlation between violent media and physical aggression. Essentially, Ostrov had just found that Arthur is more dangerous for children than Power Rangers. ...[Dr. Cynthia] Scheibe's analysis subsequently revealed that 96% of all children's programming includes verbal insults and put-downs, averaging 7.7 put-downs per half-hour episode. Programs specifically considered "prosocial" weren't much better--66.7% of them still contained insults. Had the insult lines been said in real life, they would have been breathtaking in their cruelty. ("How do you sleep at night knowing you're a complete failure?" from SpongeBob SquarePants.) We can imagine educational television might use an initial insult to then teach a lesson about how insults are hurtful, but that never was the case, Schiebe found. Of the 2,628 put-downs the team identified, in only 50 instances was the insulter reprimanded or corrected--and not once in an educational show. Fully 84% of the time, there was either only laughter or no response at all." (p. 181-182) Wow. This book has really opened my eyes to many things how kids grow and learn and about parenting and family relationships, etc etc. But this portion about tv shows really surpised me. I have really started evaluating the things I let my kids watch now, so I can either choose different media for them to watch or to use some of these situations as teachable moments!

Your post resonated with me. Thanks for sharing the article, too-it was quite good. I have brown hair and hazel eyes, yet my favorite dolls growing up had strawberry-red hair and green eyes. And my Barbies were all blondes. A child's doll shouldn't have to look 'just like her' for her to enjoy playing with it.

We made a serviceable frame loom out of a picture frame and some brads. Perhaps a loom like this would 'make do' until a better loom can be acquired. Here's where we found the loom project: http://unplugyourkids.com/2009/01/11/picture-frame-loom/

My friend's son attends a year-round school. They have periodic 4-week vacations, with maybe 1-2 week vacations thrown in occasionally, too. He has school over part of the summer, but then has vacations when other schools are in session. I think they learn in 6 or 8 week segments and then get a vacation. My friend thinks he retains far more of what he is learning due to the year-round set-up. On a side note, I just read in NurtureShock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman about a method of teaching that is having impressive results in Kindergarten classes--Tools of the Mind. There is a great deal of educational scaffolding, students learn habits of attention and self-control--apparently the program is so successful they keep losing their funding because the kids are no longer 'at risk' by the end of the year. http://www.mscd.edu/extendedcampus/toolsofthemind/index.shtml

My grandma taught in a one-room school for a few years. She really enjoyed it and thought the kids learned a great deal (she had also been a student in a one-room). The school was maybe 25 kids spread over 8 grade levels. She gave the kids quite a bit of individual attention and independent work. They worked to mastery. Then, every Friday they had a free hour where they could work on a project--sewing, woodworking, etc. My dad also learned in a one-room schoolhouse. He really enjoyed it, too. He liked listening in on the older kids' lessons and trying to answer himself the more challenging questions they were given. This might work even in larger districts if the kids were divided up in this way, even if it only worked in the elementary schools. A PP included the fabulous idea of classifying kids by levels instead of grades and allowing kids to 'pass out' of classes--I think this idea would work really well in a one-room school kind of model. I think that PP idea was outstanding! Write a letter to the Dept of Ed!! :)

Eleanor Anneke Audrey Elizabeth Anne Ethan Nathanael Isaac Solomon

I, personally, would go with a freestanding gas stove/oven (which is what I have now--yaaaaayyyy!). I had a wall oven and separate range in our last house and hated it. Reasons: I am fairly short and had a terrible time loading/unloading very large items (the turkey, for instance) into the oven. I had to lean around the scorching hot lowered oven door while holding at full extension whatever it is I wanted to bake. The oven was also several steps away from the range. I did not like walking to set heavy and very hot items down. I would rather pull things out of the oven and be able to set them directly on the stovetop in front of me. The wall oven was also very small. I could not load multiple things at one time--maybe 3 loaves of bread max versus the 6 I can get in my oven now. If you have a well-planned kitchen layout and are taller than 5'4" and plan to get one that can bake a lot of things at one time, then maybe you'll like a separate stove/oven. To be fair, that separate range/oven I used was ancient, so maybe things are better designed nowadays. Enjoy the research! What fun to be getting a new appliance!

I like this idea. Sometimes I got lost in my stories, though, and the assignment still took longer than it was 'supposed' to take! :lol: Can he color it creatively? Can the clouds be silver and pink and purple because of a sunset he created in the background? Can the clown's shirt have stripes and polka dots even if the lines and circles aren't provided? Can he add his own drawings to the provided one? I preferred blank paper to coloring books as a kid. Perhaps he could color on the back whatever he wanted if he completed the required work 'correctly' and quickly.

My dd is 4 going on 5 in a few months. We do a lot of manipulatives. Here are some of the things we do: For snacks I sometimes use an egg carton with the numbers 1-12 written in the bottom of each space. DD then likes to count out and place the correct number of Cheerios, raisins, and other finger foods into each spot. We play with dice and add up various combinations of thrown die. We use dominoes--sometimes adding the dots on one side to the dots on the other side of the bar, sometimes putting them in order from least to most and vice versa. Family chore math--place settings, number of potatoes I'll need for a recipe, how many socks are in 3 pairs, etc.

My daughter is also 4 and she just lost one of her bottom teeth. The one next to it is loose. Some kids just lose teeth early, especially if they get their teeth early. My dd got her first baby tooth at 3 months. Our dentist said it was fine and a child development site I looked at when the tooth was loose but hadn't fallen out yet said it was normal, too; early, but normal. Here comes the Tooth Fairy! Have fun! :) (My mom gave our dd fairy stickers for the special occasion.)

Depends on how much older. :) We lived in a neighborhood that had been built in Tempe in the 50s. Our house hadn't been updated since then either. We had FANTASTIC neighbors--very friendly, neighborhood block parties twice a year, etc. The critter neighbors, not so nice. We had pest control come every 3 months and we still had probably 12 scorpions get into the house. We had black widows in the backyard on 2 different occasions. And, under my planters in the backyard we discovered an army of cockroaches when we decided to move the planters. Ewww. My 80-year-old neighbor lady got stung by a scorpion that was in her sink. And our backyard neighbor also had a run-in with a scorpion in his house. Thank goodness the lizards are cute! We also had lovebirds visit our feeders, and cute little hummingbirds had nests in our tree.

1. Weather (in Tempe, AZ) Do you like heat? I mean really, really hot dragon breathing in your face heat? It's only that hot between about May/June to September/October. Winter temps in Phoenix get down to the 50s and 60s. 2. People I suppose you'll find the sort of people you'll expect to find. :) We found a good number of excellent people down in Tempe. We rented a house fairly close to the ASU campus. 3. Cost of living About comparable in some ways at least to western PA. We bought water because we thought the tap water in Tempe tasted yucky, so that was an extra expense. Fuel for the car was about the same price but I drove around a lot more. Cooling a house can get very expensive. 4. Housing prices To buy a house may still cost SCARY expensive in most of the Valley. We moved to PA from AZ 1 year ago, so I don't know whether or not the prices have dropped that much. We rented a nice 3 bedroom house for a little over $1000. That same modest house could probably have sold for over $300,000 while we were living there. One across the street from us was on the market for over $400,000, if I recall. I am SO glad we rented! Where we're renting now in PA is only slightly less than what we paid down in Tempe. 5. Good neighborhoods around Phoenix Tempe, parts of Mesa, Chandler, Scotsdale, Ahwatukee (the area south of South Mountain). The zoo is at the northern edge of Tempe, if that's a draw for you. The Tempe library is also really good. 6. Homeschool laws..friendly or not? Friendly to my knowledge. My eldest is 4 so I hadn't really researched the laws much, but I remember hearing that the state is pretty friendly in that regard. 7. Anything else you can think of that I should know before considering a move to AZ. How important is the change of seasons to you? How much do you enjoy snow in your yard? Gardening takes some doing--will that bother you? If I think of anything else, I'll add it. It's late and my tired brain isn't thinking so well. :)