Thanks! This is helpful.

My two sons have finished 7th grade Saxon math going to a University Model school (two days a week they are taught at school then they work at home with me three days a week). It seems that after each lesson Saxon typically has a handful of problems regarding what they just learned but often it is not very many. They have additional problems in the back of the book for some lessons but not very many. Then they have a ton of review problems after each lesson. The teacher at the UM school usually just assigned problems from the review section after each lesson which would include maybe 2-3 problems of what they just learned in that lesson, plus other review problems from other lessons. Sometimes she would assign the lesson specific problems but there are normally not very many of them. I would like to find something that would give them more practice of the math they have been learning this year, before they move on to next year. Any ideas?

This is exactly what I was looking for but I couldn't remember the name of them! Thanks so much!!

They (two sons) are currently attending a University Model school, who uses Fix It Grammar, two days a week and working from home Mon, Wed, Fri. I don't think the way it is being used has been very successful. I should have intervened earlier and worked with them more at home but they only have 6 weeks left of the school year. When they were younger we used First Language Lessons and CLE. I homeschooled up through Jan of 6th grade, when we moved to the University Model.

What would you use to cover a grammar review over the summer for 13 year olds / rising 8th graders? We need some review and practice here this summer.

We have been using IEW since 2nd or 3rd grade for writing and it is really going well. My two sons started attending a University Model school half way through 6th grade, so they now go to school on Tuesday and Thursday and work from home with me as their "co-teacher" on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Looking ahead, I see they plan to switch from IEW to BJU in 9th grade (they are currently almost finished with 7th, so one more year of IEW before they intend to switch). I am not too happy about this because they are doing really well with IEW and it just seems to be such a great program. Has anyone else switched from IEW to BJU in 9th grade and, if so, what has your experience been? Anyone able to compare the two? I have never used any BJU materials so not sure what to expect, other than what I have read on Cathy Duffy Reviews. Thanks!

Thanks!

That's great information, thanks. Where would I find the Lego user groups?

I had a male and female half siblings that grew up together. When they were younger, they loved each other, played all the time and cuddled together all the time. When they got older, he would sometimes attack her for no reason. I felt bad for her. She died at around 12 years old but he lived to 18. I missed her so much that I got a female kitten that looked just like her (so he was around 12 at the time). He hated the kitten. The kitten would try to play with him and he wanted no part of her. She would jump all over him and he would just be trying to get away. He was older and weaker so it was not a good situation and I ended up having to keep them separate for years which was not easy. I would definitely recommend not getting a kitten with an elderly cat. I don't think it is a good mix at all.

If so, I am wondering who you used and what your experience was. I am preparing ours to sell and planning to use Decluttr. Wondering if anyone has used them before.

I think I would take the spot I wanted and, if she says anything, I would say "I get here early so I can get the spot I want. If your friends want to have the spot they want, they should get here early too"...or something like that. I would be totally annoyed if someone was saving spots for that many people, ESPECIALLY if they didn't even bother to show up sometimes. If they want a special spot, they should arrive early like you do. Please let us know what happens:).

I had mine out when I was in first grade (I'm 55 now). I have bad allergies (grasses, trees, pets, etc.) so I have had plenty of sore throats, strep, sinus infections, ear infections and even ended up having to have sinus surgery a few years ago and then had surgery to repair a hole in my eardrum earlier this year from a bad cold I had last summer. I'm can't know if it made a difference for me or not but I still get sick, even without them. My sister (who is an RN) was here for a visit recently and was reading a page out of one of my husband's medical journals (he is a doctor). It was an article about tonsillectomies and how studies are now showing that people who had them often end up having other complications....I'm sorry I can't remember the details and I don't know where the article is. I'm just throwing this in the mix and agreeing with others that she should see an ENT before making the decision and ask about both pros and cons, in case they are learning more info about it these days. I was a skinny little kid and my mom said they worried about me after the surgery because I would only eat gravy for quite a while...and I didn't want ice cream because it hurt too badly.

We started taking our two 12 year old sons to the ortho for check ups when they were probably around 8ish. I knew there were some things that need to be fixed early and if they are not, it can be more expensive or painful later so we just started taking them without even asking our ped dentist. For the first couple of years, they just had free consults/checkups and said come back next year. Eventually, one son needed an appliance kind of like a retainer to adjust the position of his jaw and correct his bite when he was probably 10 or so. It is something he wears at night while he sleeps. The ortho said it would probably mean one year less of braces later. They will be 13 this fall and one of them is getting close to being ready. The ortho has always had him come back yearly for a free checkup but this last time he said come back in 6 months. The other son with the appliance he wears at night is still only going yearly because some of his permanent teeth are still coming in.

Thank you! I knew I could count on the hive to provide some good titles. Some of these we have read but many we haven't so this should keep us busy for a little while. HomeAgain, we love Peter Pan and have read it over and over again many times. Great book! Thanks for all of the recommendations everyone!

We loved those also, thanks!

What would you recommend for really interesting read alouds for 12-13 year old boys? Something inspiring with great life lessons. Something really interesting, gripping that we won't want to put down?

I have two sons (both 12) and I feel your pain. I won't even use out powder bath. I will walk all the way to the back of the house to the master bath before I will use the powder bath because I have a very keen sense of smell and I just can't stand it. It seems that no matter how well they clean it, I can still smell it. We built this house and I seriously regret not insisting on having wall tile from the floor up to above the toilet everywhere there is a toilet in our house. It is just painted sheetrock and I think it is disgusting...no matter how many times it is washed. I have them take turns cleaning the powder bath and their upstairs bathroom. I normally clean the master and the guest baths, unless someone received a chore for a consequence and this is next on the list of chores. But they don't do it well enough in my opinion, especially one of them. Honestly, I have kind of given up....hence using the master bath instead of the powder bath. I have had close relatives come over and I tell them they should go use my bathroom and they poo poo that idea and say they can't smell it...not sure if they are being honest or not but it must not bother them too badly because both the master and guest bathrooms are just down the hall and they normally choose to use the powder bath. All that to say, I commiserate with you and if you hear of a solution I am all ears. Actually, I like the idea of making them use a black light. I think I will start doing that. Much easier for them to see if they got it all.

This is great, thanks Rachel!

No flaming from me:). We thought long and hard about this before finally deciding to do it. For a long time we said they would not have a cell phone until they were driving and then it would be a flip phone. But on one of the threads on this forum one mom was talking about how this is how kids communicate and make plans now days, mostly with texting each other, whereas when I was young we were on a land line with long cords that we would stretch around the corner and sit and talk to our friends for hours. I wanted to give them some independence when it comes to their friends, to talk, keep in touch, make plans to get together, rather than me having to talk to a mom to make a "play date"....I think they are a little too old for that. And many households now days do not have a land line so if my son's friend wants to contact him he has to call my cell phone. That is not likely to happen. Actually, we do have a land line at our house but what I am seeing is that they don't really call each other much. They text more than anything and when I went through my son's texts, they were just fun, silly boy conversations that would not have happened over a phone. I know not everyone agrees with this thinking and that's OK. Everyone has to make the decisions they feel are right for their own family. Definitely not something to flame about. I can see both sides of this coin very clearly.

As for the app that my son download, it is call CM Launcher and the purpose is to give this "cool" 3D effect when clicking around different areas on the phone.

Wow, that's great to know. I will research how to do this but thanks so much for letting me know that it is possible. Every blockade I can put between them and "the bad stuff" is one more hurdle that has to be overcome before they can reach "the bad stuff", so I am definitely willing to give this a try. Thanks!

Thank you for sharing all of this. I had no idea that you could set their phones up that way. What kind of phones do you have for your kids? We have Samsung for our sons. I will have to investigate this further.

I really wish cell phone companies would make phones similar to computers, where there is an Admin login to do certain administration things that the actual end user cannot do/change, unless they are Admin. One would think with all of the kids who have cell phones now days, they would be thinking about how to protect kids, from the world and from themselves, and provide functionality to parents through an Admin login that would allow parents to set it up with the protections they see fit. For adults, they could just be the Admin account all the time and have things the way they wanted them. As my mom used to say, if wishes were fishes we would all have a good swim.:)

Wow, that is terrifying. Thankfully my two sons are not that tech savvy...at least not yet. They also go to a very small university model school that does not allow cell phones so I am hopeful they won't run into this type of thing. Their friends' parents seem like they are all pretty much like us in their beliefs and the way they are trying to raise their kids, although the one texted at 3:00 in the morning is new to the area, lives nearby and they met him on their baseball team. I did look at their text messages when I was checking out their phones and it was all typical 12 year old boy goofy stuff. You just never know when that might change.

It is frightening. I have a computer science degree but the technology changes so quickly that, if it is not a hobby also, it is really impossible to keep up with...and I have been retired from working outside the home for the past 12 years. My husband is pretty computer savvy but it still takes a huge effort to keep up and stay ahead. This router is supposedly having an update soon (or maybe it has already; not sure) where it somehow protects them when they are away from home also. Not sure how in the world they can do that but that is what I read. I am hopeful that will be the case but I may also possibly get a better parental control app to use also.