What do I need? Do I need the student book and teacher's guide or can I get just the student book?

I am going to be using the same two curriculums this upcoming year. My third grader did Apologia Astronomy with his older sisters and co-op when he was in K. The co-op we are attending this year is using it again, so we are going to be doing the reading at home while letting him do the experiments at co-op. So we are just using Astronomy lightly. We are going to be focusing our attention on Christian Kids, and plan to do it 2 maybe 3 times a week. I think either plan you have will be good. Doing Apologia on Friday's only or expanding it to two years. There is a free lapbook that you can find online, I can't remember where right now, that goes along with Astronomy. We did this the last time and my kids enjoyed it much more than they did the Notebooking activities.

The police officer just sort of seemed disinterested yesterday. I am not sure what they told him but he seemed even less concerned with it after talking to them. Which is frustrating, and made me wonder if it was the right thing. We have already agreed to have only DH or myself outside with the kids. We go as far to lock our glass doors and our main door when we are at home already. Everything stays locked up tight as it is so hopefully all will work out.

Our house faces the main street, and he lives on the side street beside us. He's about three houses down on the opposite side of the street. You can stand in our backyard and see into their front yard. I have no idea on how long he has lived here. We just moved here in January, we know the neighbor who owns the goal because she coached DD 14's softball team, the neighbor behind us introduced herself once, we are friendly with the neighbors across the street and next to us (all elderly couples with no kids), but we don't have any real "friends" on the street if you know what I mean. We basically keep to ourselves so there isn't a whole lot of people who will be able to tell me too much about the boy.

I am not sure how big it was. My DS8 has a collection of knives that were started by a great-grandfater, they are locked up where he can't get to them and only gets to get them out to look at them with an adult. We often use it as bribery, "Do this and we will let you look at your knives." :tongue_smilie: Anyhow, my DD14 says it looks like one of DS's knives which would be just a regular pocket knife and DD 11 says it was a switch blade knife (they know about these because they are not allowed at our house). DS 18 says he wasn't really looking at what type of knife it was because he was more concerned with watching the boy's face and trying to focus on calming him down.

I am watching it. I like it so far, but am waiting to see where they take it.

This is pretty much a rule at our house. DH is outside with them now. Either DH, oldest DS or myself has to be outside with them. It just feels awful to me to have to do that to them.

Thank you all for the replies and making me feel like I am not overreacting. It seems so awful to me to have to call the police on the boy. I hadn't thought about calling the police a second time about the father. I did plan to mention it to the juvenile dept. when they called, which is suppose to be early in the week according to the police officer yesterday. I had thought about a restraining order but didn't know how to go about filing one, if the police officer didn't mention one yesterday and I didn't think to ask. I had also planned on talking to the juvenile dept. about it when they called as well. How would that work since we are the very corner house, and they would obviously have to pass our house to get to their own, which is what they did today? I have no clue how things like this work and really wish I wasn't in this situation. I had already wished I had a picture of the incident today but there would have been no way to get one. Plus, I am sure they would have somehow construed it as me harrassing them.

Backstory: We live on a corner lot, and the neighbor (who is good friends of ours) has a basketball goal on the side street that neighborhood kids play on. On our kids (ages 8, 11, and 14) only play on it when we are out there or our older son who will be 18 next week is outside. It is directly across the street from us. We live in a good neighborhood, low crime, no gangs, etc. Anyhow, in late August the kids were playing basketball and a kid who is 6th grade started playing with them. He seemed like a nice kid, and the next day he was in the backyard with our kids. We were in the same yard and my husband notices him trying to hit my 8 year old in the back of the head with an aluminum baseball bat. He stopped it and sent the boy home. Yesterday: All four of my kids plus my neice were outside playing basketball. The kid comes up, my youngest comes in and asks do we need to come in since he is out there. We say no, as long as almost 18 year old is there it's okay. According to my almost 18 year old the boy started cussing and calling the younger kids names. My DS told him "Hey, let's not talk like that around the younger kids". Boy keeps on, and my DS says he told him again to cool it. The kids say the boy proceeded to pull out a knife and tell them to shut up because he was going to slash all their throats. The youngest come running inside, and we get out there to see my 18 yo DS backing away with his hands up telling the kid "We don't want any trouble, you just need to go on home." The boy starts yelling "You don't own the street and can't make me go home." I ask him where he lives and he tells me, proceeding to call me a "B**". I decide to call the police, who came out to fill out a report. They went down and talked to the boy. When they returned they said he had a totally different version of the story. Great, I knew he wouldn't admit it but still. They said the juvenile dept. will call us at the beginning of the week. So today, my husband and I are outside. The boy and his dad ride by, staring. Husband waves being nice, he would like to work this out between us and not involve the police but I don't think it's a good idea. Anyhow the boy's dad gives us the middle finger. Really? With the boy in the front seat beside him. This just infuriates me even more. I am sorry for the long post, but I just don't know what to think or do. I am worried about the safety of my kids. Will this boy try to hurt them in the future? Should we worry about reprecussions from the boy's family? What if the juvenile dept. doesn't believe my kids since the boy's story is different? Maybe I shouldn't have called the police but this is the second incident and I wanted it documented because I was afraid it could happen again? I am stressed over what could have happened both times, had the boy hit my son in the head with the bat or had he stabbed my other son yesterday. Am I overreacting? What would you do?

Most stores will give overage now, Wal-Mart has changed it's policy to allow it. The reasoning behind it is that the store will be reimbursed for the full amount of the coupon plus a handling fee for taking the coupon. I don't use a lot of coupons that give overage but I have done so for a few cents here or there but I make sure I have enough other items to absorb the overage. I don't know to me getting overage just seems wrong.

I have The Modern Day Mom that is just basically a blog about day to day life. I do a lot of cooking and crafting posts.

I laughed when I read it to - but only because it seemed like something that I would do. I did get a little concerned the other night when we did a corn maze.

I post from time to time but am mainly a lurker but I'm always here!

For blackberries you don't need a pressure cooker, just a water bath canner that can be bought at Wal-Mart for less than $20. I know most people prefer to freeze blackberries but I can mine whole in juice so that they are easy to use for pies and cobblers. I also make blackberry jam, and have made blackberry pancake syrup in the past. I am planning on trying to make some blackberry ice cream using them this summer, unfortunately my blackberries aren't in yet. This is my Razzleberry Pie recipe, you could easily make it with just blackberries Here is how to make and can blackberry jam And here is how to can blackberries whole

We watched it this afternoon, and we loved it. It really held the kids attention. I agree that parts may seem a little scary to sensitive kids.

Honestly, this was my first thought as well but if you don't think this is the case I would say no, especially with her not wanting to tell you what the money is for.

Things haven't gone quite like we have intended, and I will be going back to work as a nurse on 3rd shift. We have finished this school year and I have the summer to prepare for next school year. While my husband is on board to help where he can, and my older children are pretty much indpendent I am still needing some more courses that are less teachers intensive for my 4th and 1st grader. My 4th grader is dyslexic so indpendent work is hard for her. We use Shurley Grammar, which I plan to stick with but I am looking for something for the other subjects. I am thinking about Math U See for math, as I am thinking it would be pretty hands off, and maybe Rosetta Stone for foreign language. Any thoughts?

We started a journal this year, since it is recommended in Shurley English. I gave each kid a regular spiral notebook, and give them about 5 to 10 minutes each day for them to write in them. I let them draw a picture, write a story, tell about their day, whatever. I must admit I don't read them, and they know that I do not read them. I want their journal to be their private thing. I just make sure they do it. My great-grandmother wrote in a journal every day of her life. She was a school teacher, and started out teaching in a rural one room schoolhouse. I loved reading her journals, which I did with her permission. For me it was a look at her life, and a way for me to get to know her. I loved that idea, and I hope that I am laying down the foundation for my children to develop a life long habit of journaling.

Thank you! Somedays it's hard to keep all of my abbreviations straight! :001_smile:

At the risk of sounding stupid what is CD? I am sure once I read the answer I will realize I should have known the answer but I have to ask. I have a future veternarian on my hands as well...;)

With my 9 year old, yes I would let her continue reading and count it as school. Now if it were my 12 or 16 year old, I would make them stop and do school. I am more relaxed when they are younger, and make school more disciplined when they are older.

You've already had a bunch of responses but I thought I would throw my two cents in as well. :) I also say go for it! We school year round, taking days, weeks off as we need them, and I generally take a break from the week before Thanksgiving until after New Years. Like the previous poster we start new curriculum at different times throughout the year. When we are a few weeks from ending our 2nd grade math book, I will order the 3rd grade book, that way we can head right into it seamlessly. Although for the little ones we do have a celebratory "we finished the book" dessert when they finish it. I try not to let it go by unnoticed that they accomplished finishing it.

:tongue_smilie: 3 of our 4 kids have managed to touch the electric fence in one way or another. DS 6 still swears my husband pushed him into it. :D DD 12 put her head to close to it when she was locking the gate up. She laughs about how it made her slam her mouth shut. Then DS 16 plugged the fence in after we had unplugged it to work on it, and then decided to grab it to see if it was working. :lol: Like you we laughed afterwards but at the time it wasn't so funny. Except for when my 16 year old did it, I have to admit I laughed pretty hard at him for trying it.

:iagree: Although I do draw the line at potty humor at the dinner table! My ds is 6 so right now he thinks it's the funniest thing ever. We were doing phonics the other day and one of the pictures was a gas tank, and he had to write the word gas. Which he thought was absolutely hilarious!

How about Christian Kids Explore Biology?