:crying:

Sigh....Root canal it is, then.

Sigh....Root canal it is, then.

Not one single dentist in our town offers nitrous anymore.

It's not the farthest back molar; I think there are 2 behind it. I have a major dental phobia and 2 hours in the chair for a root canal sounds like torture.

Love it!

Huh? I would totally meet with the teacher, taking with me a dictionary to provider her with the definitions of both antonym AND strawberry. "Obviously, Mrs Blank, you are confused on the meaning of one of the words. Let's clear this up so you don't embarrass yourself further in front of your students."

I hate, hate, HATE that MO requires us to track hours. I sometimes find myself focusing on how long things are going to take rather than just learning and having fun with it. Some days my kids can do math in 15 minutes, while other days, the very same set of problems would take them an hour. And some nights I sit in front of my log, racking my brain, trying to think of every little thing we did that day. I so wish we tracked days instead of hours. Learning and understanding are not measured by time.

Is this post invisible? I find it hard to believe it has no views yet.

I am typing up an end-of-year survey to give to my 11yo about our homeschool. You know, what she liked that we did this year, what she didn't like, what she would like to do differently next year...but she doesn't do well with open-ended questions like that. What are some specific questions I could include on the survey?

Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond. This is a good question. And yes, the disabled adult is looking into assistance but, of course, the wait will be months. There is plenty of free time, several hours each day. The kids get to play outdoors, participate in sports, play with friends, etc.

Oh, no, no! I really think the Memoria Press catalog is lovely. And the products are probably lovely. I just know that they wouldn't work for *my family.* And I'm sad that they won't. Seriously, you should take a look. http://www.memoriapress.com/

Before you try anything expensive, you might try filling a cup with vinegar, setting it on the top rack, and running the dishwasher through a cycle. That can really help clean the lines. The next step would be to try something like Dishwasher Magic.

I know better too, and that's why I haven't ordered. But still, every time I look at it, I think how nice it would be to have everything pulled together and not always be running around at the last minute trying to coordinate resources...Sigh.

Can someone link the other thread or the article that you all are using to size yourselves?

Leap Frog DVDs. Letter Factory is my favorite, then there's Talking Words Factory. Now there are some new ones, too, like Numberland, Phonics Farm, and Word Caper. Some are on Netflix as well.

Their catalog really is lovely. If nothing else, get it for the articles!

It would never work for us because we are not Christian. But I just love the way all their products seem to tie together to complement one another. Sigh. I need more willpower.

If a person works full time, homeschools 2 kids, ages 11 and 6, also has a 4yo, has a disabled spouse who can't walk and is generally pretty depressed (understandably), shuttles kids to ball practices/games and other activities, how much help is it reasonable to expect from the kids? Right now, the 6yo helps with general picking up and helps put away laundry when told to. The 11yo feeds the family pets, makes sure there are drinks in the fridge, puts away own laundry, sometimes hangs laundry out on the line, and once a week or so vacuums the floors. Would it be unreasonable to add washing dishes (by hand) once per day? What else? Where is the line between helping and contributing because you are a member of the family and dumping responsibilities onto the children that really belong with the parent?

Sad.

Sad.

For my 5th grader, I bought The Writer's Jungle and 5 issues of The Arrow to start with. I chose issues of The Arrow that were books I wanted us to read this year anyway. I also ordered through Homeschool Buyer's Coop to take advantage of the discount.

Hunter, I think I love you.

Wow. I've been gone for a few days and certainly didn't expect to see all this when I logged on today. Thank you for all the thoughtful responses and I will be back later to respond more. I should have mentioned, though, that I was intending to read the Golden Children's Bible aloud to my 11, 6, and 4 yos. So, I don't really mind if it is a bit "whitewashed" because we will cover it again more in depth when we use The Bible and Its Influence later on. While I agree that they will eventually need to read the original, I'm okay with putting that off for a few years. Sort of like how we read Mary Pope Osborne's The Odyssey and Rosemary Sutcliffe's Iliad before we read the original.

Thank you all very much. I ended up choosing one that was new, from a third-party seller, but fulfilled by Amazon. I paid a bit more to get the one that was fulfilled by Amazon, but I knew that I would have instant tracking information (which is important to me), and it qualified for Prime shipping.