Thanks! I'll keep checking Target. Ours seems to only have the college stuff out right now so maybe they just don't have them in yet. 15.00 is a much better price than 50.00! Thanks again!

Hey guys, I checked my local Target and Walmart and did not see globes out anywhere this week. I know I've seen them there before... Does anyone know what section they usually keep them in? Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place. If not, does anyone know a good place to buy a low cost globe? The ones on the internet all seem to be over 50 dollars and we were hoping not to spend too much. Thanks! Hailey

After a while you just get used to it... :lol:

My daughter and I are both lactose intolerant. My daughter gets stomach pain, followed by gas and diarhea. I only get the last two. Lactaid is helpful for us. We can also eat hard cheeses and tolerate some yogurts as long as we don't overdo it. Rarely we have ice cream but we sometimes it's worth the consequences ;) I have a friend who is lactose intolerant who ends up with severe stomach pain after ingesting ANY dairy. She is ill for hours. I think it's a spectrum, just like anything else I guess.

I noticed that Homeschool Buyers Co op has a group buy for the Critical Thinking Company. I've seen good reviews of Building Thinking Skills before... If I am doing Developing the Early Learner do you think it's necessary to also do Building Thinking Skills or Mindbenders for a Ker, or does DEL pretty much cover what she needs in that category? Thanks! Hailey

We got the coromega chocolate ones and my daughter hates them but I think they're yummy, LOL!

I just sent in the NOI for my Ker because she was receiving special ed services from the school system. If I had said I was only holding her out one year they would have wanted to continue to provide special ed services, which were really more of a drain on our time and theirs than anything else due to her unique issues. In any case, my NOI noted that my Ker would not need to be tested this year because she is not yet 6. There is a form letter on the VaHomeschoolers website that gives exact details of how to word this... But you're not required to provide testing results for your Ker unless they are 6 by a certain date (more info on the Vahomeschoolers site because I don't remember the exact date).

Thank you so much for the ideas! I love the idea of just letting her eat quiche or deviled eggs, and I think she'd really like that breakfast casserole and potatoes with sausage recipe. Thanks you guys so much! I'm heading for the grocery store now.

Hey guys- I have a child who's gotten very picky lately. She is allergic to wheat, corn, almonds and cashews. She also needs a high protein breakfast in order to behave during the day. Cereal alone is a recipe for disaster. We usually eat one of the following for breakfast: -bagel with cream cheese -peanut butter toast with a tiny bit of honey or agave -high protein choboni plain yogurt with blueberries and agave nectar -eggs, toast and bacon (on a saturday) -smoothie with frozen blueberries, peanut butter, flax seeds and milk She's on a strike. This morning she wanted nothing but cereal for breakfast and I had to threaten to keep her home from the pool today to get her to eat peanut butter toast. Does anyone have any ideas of what I could do to expand our breakfast choices? Maybe a high protein muffin recipe or something? I was thinking of trying to make her some gluten free egg mcmuffins. That's the only other thing I could think of... I looked at different cereals and can't find a high protein one with no corn or wheat. If you have a nongluten free high protein muffin idea I might be able to adapt the recipe. Thanks in advance for any help you can give me! Hailey

We loved the Signing Time videos and taught our child to sign using the videos. In reality, my husband and I learned the signs from the videos and then taught them to Grace, because she wasn't really into TV at the time. But those videos were so much more entertaining and easy to learn from than the boring adult videos, LOL. I strongly encourage you to teach signing. Our daughter has auditory processing delays and we never realized anything was wrong until we pushed the spoken language and stopped signing to her. Her verbal speech was delayed but we were certain that she was just attached to sign language so we started to speak verbal words only to her. Only then did we realize there was an issue. However, to this day I wonder how her intelligence, social skills and processing would have been changed if she did not have that visual window for communication. It hurts my heart to think that she could have been unable to understand us at all for so long if we hadn't taught sign. How lonely that could have been for her. But she was able to understand our signs even though our words were too fast and jumbly for her. To this day I am so, so grateful that I taught her sign language. You never know what benefits might come from teaching a skill. If you can do it, why not? You could be so thankful later that you did.

The only thing I would say is to investigate the amount it takes to own a dog year to year. They don't seem expensive, because you're mostly talking dog food, but the vet bills and vaccines really add up. Throw in an illness and teeth cleaning and you can really have an unexpected expense. We paid 1000 dollars a year or two ago to have our dog's teeth cleaned with surgery to remove a number of rotted ones. We adopted her and her previous owners had not fed her well so she has had lifelong issues with her teeth. Just make sure you can afford to spend a good amount unexpectedly, so that you don't have to cut something out of your budget all the sudden. The other con is the hair. Everywhere. All the time. I vacuum DAILY. We have one dog. I have come to loathe vacuuming simply because I can vacuum and turn around to find more hair an hour later. Yes we brush and bathe her, she's just a sheddy dog. Also walking, rain or shine, hot or cold. Even with a fenced backyard they do need a stroll around the block for exercise. Pros: We love our dog. She's our daughter's best friend. She cleans up anything you drop on the floor. I haven't had to clean up cat vomit since she showed up (I know it's gross and I don't encourage it but the dog will follow the cat if he hears her start to dry heave, LOL). We just love her. She's getting older and more expensive as she ages due to more frequent vet visits and elderly issues, but we love her.

I make my bed because if I didn't I would probably feel overwhelmed. No matter what we have to do that day, or how much work is ahead of me, if I have made my bed for some reason I feel more capable of handling it. I don't care if my daughter makes hers.

The father should have immediately alerted you that he had been in your home and his reasons for being there. In this day and age, you just do not spend time with other people's children without their parent's knowledge for any reason.

Would it help if you modified flylady into a weekly/monthly checklist? Post it on the fridge and check it off, then when they're all checked wipe it off and start over? That's how I modified it to work for us.

I'm in Virginia and say "don't be ugly" but it's because my grandmother from Arkansas used to say it. I also have heard people say someone was being "ill" but I don't say it myself. A little spin off to the "nasty" connotation- we used to tell my daughter that we don't watch tv shows where people are naughty (some kid shows have rude kids, etc), and one day I heard her tell people that her daddy "likes to watch naughty shows" because she sometimes catches him watching action movies (fight scenes, etc.) when he thinks she's not around. SOOO embarrassing!

:lol:

Nevermind! I just found one on www.birdfeeds.com that I could print out and laminate.

Does anyone know where you could find a chart with common northeastern birds on it? Preferably something that is small enough to laminate and put on the kitchen table? We really want to learn to identify the birds at our back porch feeder, and it seems they are most often present while we're sitting there eating breakfast and dinner. We have a book, but I'm hesitant to leave it out on the table where it could get food or drink on it.

I agree with that. I just was trying to figure out if we could get our stuff done by noon or so, and lay out a guideline to it that has breaks incorporated. But I wholeheartedly agree: never stop a good read aloud session ;). I'm planning on using the workbox method too. I like the idea of putting the most important things first, plus I need some sort of pattern or routine or I start to forget what we are supposed to do... I'm the same with housework. If I don't follow the routine the house starts looking rough in short order. So it sounds like it's OK to take some time on Friday afternoon or Saturday to sort of go over the ideas for the following week and make sure you've got that stuff together, but you don't need to map out everything in fine detail for the entire year. The friday afternoon thing would work for me. I just want to make sure I'm not being a slacker, LOL. Thanks for helping me out. It's a little scary starting out.

All of my extended family live several states away. I envy how they have this large family network and bunches of cousins for the kids to play with all the time. I wish I had that. It seems the ideal way for a child to grow up and I wish my daughter could experience it. But I don't feel any actual closeness to many of my cousins. I don't really know them well enough. I think this is a phenomenom of the last few generations as people have started to travel away from their hometowns in greater numbers for their careers. There are many people who no longer have much interaction with their extended family simply because of distance. It seems the first set of people, usually the parents, try to keep the ties, but the children usually don't feel the same level of attachment, and their children feel less so, and so on.

I put that we were more classical in philosophy but since we were just beginning our homeschool journey it might change. I don't see how it could change too much though. Grace may like unschooling but she still has to work within the confines of what I am comfortable with, and that includes a teacher's manual, LOL. I don't think the answers you put on the application are going to make or break whether you get in... I think it's more of an informational thing for the instructors.

I am starting K with my daughter this year. She's 5 1/2, so she'll be a bit of an older kindergartener. Here is what we have on tap: Rightstart Level A Cursive First Phonics Road 1 or AAS Level 1 (whichever one she responds to best) Classical Conversations Story of the World 2 Sonlight PreK 4/5 read alouds I got a lesson planning book and started writing things out, but then I worried that if we have to spend more time reviewing something I will mess up the whole lesson plan book. So in light of that, I started thinking maybe I can just come up with a plan like: 9-9:30 Phonics Road with Cursive First incorporated 9:30-9:35 CC Memory Work 9:35-10 Read Alouds 10-10:30 Break 10:30-11 Math 11-11:10 CC Memory Work 11-11:20 SOTW as matches up with CC memory work 11:20-11:30 Read Alouds 11:30 Break, lunch, household chores 1 pm: Field Trip (nature walk, zoo, museum, playground, etc) Then I would just go along in the lesson plans as they are listed, but I won't actually have a plan that lists which actual lesson on which day. My issue is that Grace can sometimes get stuck on a concept for several days to a week before it clicks, so the lesson plans would end up being "off" and I'd feel like I had to push her to catch up. Do any of you do your plans this way? Does it seem reasonable to you? Just need some tips from those who've BTDT. Thanks so much!!!! :001_smile:

This might be it, thanks! I heard there was something like "week one read pages x," but I am not sure. My director just had a baby so I don't want to bother her with questions right now. I figured I'd try to find out on the board first since you guys always seem to be able to help. I don't know if I would be homeschooling at all if I had never found this board, LOL. I'd be too scared I'd make a mistake without being able to ask any question at any time and find the answer on this board. It's harder to be scared with you guys around ;)

I know someone posted this already but I searched and can't find it. Does anyone know where to find the Story of the World lesson outline that correlates to Classical Conversations? I know someone mentioned that a mom has made a lesson plan that correlates them and that it is posted somewhere. I just can't remember where they said it was posted... Thanks in advance! Hailey

We did this as well. Love it!