My kids (5 & 3) can both play the Cars, Animal Genius Dora & Math Missions. I have heard great things about the kindergarten cartridge, but have no first hand experience with it. I think what your 4 yo would enjoy would depend a lot on his/her tempement. My 5 year old doesn't like to play around to figure things out, but my 3 year old doesn't mind pressing buttons until he figures out how the games work.

Church wear would be great. I just saw a show and there were people dressed as casually as jeans with a collared shirt and as nicely as church-appropriate clothes. I didn't see any truly fancy clothing.

Does he specifically want to ride that bike and is it a far enough distance to warrant using it? If not, could he piece together a commuter bike? Something super cheap that he doesn't mind riding in bad weather and it wouldn't be a horrible loss if it's stolen? We have several nice bikes and if I were ever using one in a commuter situation, it would be the only junky one we own - my 10 year old beat up mountain bike. If he does want that bike, he will need a U-lock and to take the front wheel off at a minimum. He will also need to make sure the rear wheel is locked in with the lock. Depending on where he will be locking it up, he may also want to take off a saddle bag (if he has one -- for spare tubes, etc) and his saddle (assuming it's quick release).

For anyone who missed this yesterday, I thought I would let you know that the downloads are available for a few more hours still!

These books are very similar in style to the Rainbow Fairy books (length, difficulty, and small pictures every page or two). If it matters to you, these are not quite as formulaic as the Rainbow Fairies and tell a different story with each book. (I've read both sets and though I don't enjoy reading either, if I had to choose, I would choose these hands down.) http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?sid=391645

They are generally not compatible. We bought new leather furniture about 5 years ago and our cats destroyed it. After they destroyed it, we thought to put on furniture covers, but at this point we will need new furniture if we want to take the covers off.

We just got an American Girl doll catalog yesterday. My daughter, who never plays with dolls, declared she wanted a doll that dressed like her, to which I replied no. She continued flipping through the catalog and found a doll wearing a dress very similar to one she already owns. She then proceeded to go upstairs, put on the dress and cut the picture of the doll out of the catalog. She put the doll in a basket and carried her around for a couple of hours. She even made me put a blanket over her before bed. Her name is Princess Sparkle and I suspect she provided just as much entertainment as one of the $100 dolls would have!

So glad you're having good luck! I had to remind my kids at every house (they're only 5 & though). We put out a big bowl on our porch at 6:20 and came home at 7:15 to find it empty. I think a couple of kids have a whole lot of candy which is really disappointing because I was looking forward to handing out candy for another hour still. I don't know what I was thinking to put out all of it.

I don't know if it will still be open at that time of year, but I wanted to add Grant's Farm (parking is $11, but entry is free). I always park about 1/2 mile away and walk down the trail and the entire visit is free. You get to take a ride around the grounds and then visit some animals and/or catch an animal show. There are free Anhueser Busch beer and the AB clydesdales at the end.

You have great suggestions already. We love the City Museum, the Magic House and the Science Center. The zoo is free and shouldn't be crowded at that time of the year. You should be able to print half off coupons for Magic House from familyattractionscard.com. You can probably find half off Imax show coupons to, if you scour the web. Unfortunately, I've never been able to find coupons for the City Museum and it's kind of expensive (but well worth it!!). If it's warm outside you could head to Laumiere Sculpture Park.

I kept thinking that it was just something wrong with my connection and that when it finally came back up, I was going to have a whole day worth of activity to wade through.

I would sell it to the first person who came with cash in hand, but make sure they are both aware of that so that the guy doesn't drive from Indy to find that it's already gone when he was expecting you to hold it for him. I had a friend who had a person call her from an hour away saying that he was coming to buy an item and in the mean time someone local came over, paid and picked it up. Needless to say, the guy who drove the hour for the item was angry (rightfully so, IMO). She ended up calling the police because he was standing outside her door screaming profanities at her.

I knew someone would post this question! I'm used to checking in at least several times a day. :D

It looks like SWR is the way to go - I'm off to do more research. Thank you :)

I thought SRW seemed like an obvious one to look at based on the name, but I don't actually know anything about the program. Anyone else have any ideas? Thanks.

My 5 year old is learning to read, but she has a much easier time with spelling than reading (she will see a word and not know how to pronounce it, but then I will spell the word for her and she immediately knows what it is). Is there are certain learning style associated with this? Are there any reading or spelling programs that might work well for her? We used HOP K and are now halfway through HOP 1st grade because that's what I bought before I discovered all of the other fabulous programs out there. She seems to enjoy it well enough so we haven't switched (that said, I think the HOP 1 is pretty easy and probably is truly a later K level). Thanks for any advice! Angie DD5, DS3

Yes, there is definitely a bit of truth to this statement. I'm starting to feel like I've done my time with picture books and I'm ready to move on (though I read picture books to my son on a daily basis). I've read a lot of picture books over the last 5 years -- my daughter is definitely a reader and would sit and listen for 2 hours straight from a very young age if I were willing to read for that long). I guess I don't have to jump from picture books all the way to the longer classics. There are shorter books we have read and both enjoyed (Family Under the Bridge, Five True Dog Stories & The Hundred Dresses from Songlight's K reading list) I've requested Honey for Your Child's Heart from the library so I can get more ideas. Also, my husband and I do split up bedtime reading, but that only amounts to about 20 minutes and my daughter chooses the book. Sometimes she will choose good literature and other times it's twaddle. She is open to my suggestions though. Thanks for the great discussion.

I was secrectly hoping for someone to tell me that I am not going to forever damage my kids by allowing them to hear the abridged version of some stories. Part of my problem is that with my 3 year old running around all day, I just don't have enough time in the day to read extensively to my daughter (and while he won't sit through long chapter books, he will sit through longer stories with pictures). The minute I try to do anything with her, he is climbing all over me. Aurerlia--We checked the James Heriot Treasury out from the library a while back and I just adored that book -- possibly more than my kids! (And that was one my son would pick up and ask me to read to him.) I guess I will not stress about reading some abridged classics, but at the time try to find more of the full length versions that she enjoys. We did read The Wizard of Oz and Charlottes Web using the unabridged version and that went over well. I think where I went wrong was attemping Alice in Wonderland (because we were going to see the play and I wanted her to have some background) and that just failed miserably and then I started to doubt myself. Thank you for all of your advice - it is great to see all different points of view! Angie DD5, DS3

I'm just wondering how others feels about reading shortened versions of the classics to their kids. My daughter turned 5 about a month ago and loves to read. We've read a lot of lengthy stories and I found the Young Illustrated Classics version of The Secret Garden and read it to her and she loved it -- we've read it 3 times now. Additionally, we have the Great Illustrated Classics version of Heidi that we just finished and she has already requested to re-read it. Am I making a mistake reading these rather than going for the full version? We do read some long books, but it's books along the lines of the Ramona series or Homer Price -- nothing that is both long and complex. We tried Anne of Green Gables (the long version) and quit after a few chapters as I think it was just oo much for her. Would I be better off reading shorter, easier classics for now? She has enjoyed these shortened classics that I've read so much that I'm tempted to run out to the used book store and see what else they have. Am I just over-thinking this? Thanks for any advice! Angie mom of DD5 & DS3

I do not have both, but I do want to point out that the First Encylopedia of Science has a 4-8 age range while the Little Encyclopedia has a 9-12 age range. I just ordered the First Encyclopedia of Science for my 5 year old and we already have the First Encyclopedia of the Human Body and the level is perfect for us. HTH even though it wasn't exactly what you were asking.

Oh, and after all that I wrote, I never commented - I think their request is ridiculous and I wouldn't worry about building a fence without tying on, it's not necessary if the fence is on the property line. If their fence is several inches on their side of the property line then it could be a problem since you would have a gap (although the suggestions of a thorny bush may solve that problem).

When we built our fence, we were specifically told that we could not tie onto our neighbor's (city rules, I think). So our fence sits directly next to theirs and one of their sides is shared by us, but nothing is actually connected (maybe 1" apart? Not enough of a distance that anything could ever get through.) We had some storms a couple of years ago and a section of the shared fence was knocked down--the neighbors asked my husband to share in the cost of the repair. He agreed, although I was a little shocked that they actually asked him. Sure, we benefit from their fence, but it was because their fence is many years old that came apart anyway. In the end, they fixed the fence and other parts of the fence in their yard, so they must have re-thought the request.

Personally, I would back off for a few months and try again. I tried teach my newly turned 4 year old to read and it was a nightmare for both of us. She could make it through a phonics lesson and sound out simple words, but it was torture. I think stopped and waited until she was 4.5--at which point she flew through HOP K. By 4.75, she was halfway through HOP 1--but she would groan every single time I would mention it was time to read. She's now 5 yrs and we haven't done any phonics work for 4 months because she just dreads it. I wish I would have just waited and started teaching her to read now. She also says she wants to learn to read--but it's always "I want to learn to read tomorrow." Just because your daughter says she wants to read, doesn't necessarily mean she really wants it bad enough to do the work required. At 4, I wouldn't force her to do something she doesn't want to do. (I eventually stopped because it wasn't worth risking my daughter hating reading because she was forced to do something she just wasn't ready to do.)

At the rate I'm going, it's going to take me a year to get to 50 posts. (But then again I don't have anything to sell, so it doesn't really matter.) I do spend a fair bit of time lurking, I just don't have much to add to most discussions at this point.

I was making it for a while, but I finally had to put a stop to it. I was using a little over 1/2 the sugar recommended each time I had to add sugar and it still turned out great. It was still sweet, not quite so cake-like.