I'm a Christian, homeschooling mommy of 4 blessings--3 awesome boys and 1 precious girl. One major goal in my life is to raise these children, whom God has entrusted to me, to first love and serve Him and second to become life-long learners. Only by God's grace am I given this awesome and very rewarding experience! It's my joy and pleasure to share some of my journey in this blog. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lauramb/ en-us Homeschool Blogger Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:53:00 -0500 Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:53:00 -0500 I'm not sure if this will stick.  I am repeatedly reminded about the Homeschool Blogger site everytime I read my Old Schoolhouse magazine, or when I talk to my friends IRL who blog.  I "used to" awhile back (as you can see) but I have let it slip by the wayside.  The problem is time!  I really enjoy reading blogs and typing my own entries, but it takes me SO much time and frankly I don't have the extra time.  I am serious when I say I have NO extra time (I shouldn't be using this time right now to type this since my son is supposed to be doing his independent work but has strayed from the table!!).  But I "THINK" I am going to try to come back to it.  I wish I had some guidelines to keep things simple and short and to the point.  Or a set of tips to help me manage my time here.  Some sort of formula to help me post and still feel like I haven't squandered 30 to 45 minutes (or more!) of my time! I read today an article I received in an e-mail from Crosswalk.com about a homeschooling mom who was desperate for friendship and connections.  She found it on HomeschoolBlogger!  I feel that lack of connection at times.  So I felt a draw to the blog again.  Will I find it again?  Do I have time to find it again?  My kids are older, but that doesn't necessarily mean I have more time! Pondering and thinking and praying for an answer! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lauramb/735754/ Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:53:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lauramb/735754/     Here is Caleb and his sticker sheet.  When he asks to go potty, or we tell him to go potty, and he goes and is dry he gets a sticker!     After experiencing a lot of tears and accidents with potty training our first son about 3-4 years ago, I always said that I would NEVER go through that again.  My biggest headache/stress in parenting (right now) is the fear of going through potty training again.  Needless to say, I always said I would not potty train Caleb (our second son) until I knew he was absolutely ready.  I always said I wouldn't do it until he could tell me, "mommy, I need to go to the potty and I don't want to wear diapers anymore, etc."    Well, that's exactly what happened on March 29th.  Caleb was in the bathtub and said he needed to go pee-pee.  I wasn't too sure, but he has never asked me while in the tub (he has told me this when a cousin or his brother needed to go--kind of a mimicking thing).  This time it was different, and it was real.  So I got him out of the tub, let him stand on a stool and he did in fact pee-pee in the toilet.  I asked him if he'd like to try big boy training pants today and he said yes.  I haven't put a diaper on him since (well, at night I have, but that has turned out to be unnecessary, too!).    He started potty training on that Wednesday, he had a number of accidents that day.  On Thursday he had one accident.  Now, one-and-a-half weeks later, he is potty trained, with having only a few accidents in that amount of time (the three times I can think of he was side-tracked with either a video or playing outside).  Now, having a BM in the toilet is another matter, but staying dry and telling us when he needs to "go" has been a goal reached.  I am thrilled!    I can say that this experience has been night and day compared to Joshua.  I KNOW that children are different, and Caleb has always been a bit more mature for his age.  But I am convinced that waiting until HE was ready and asking for it was the key to this success.  And I'm going to do the same thing with Daniel, and Miriam.  I'm going to wait and wait and wait until I see something similar.  I'm not going to push them or tell them we're going to potty train.  I'm not going to say, "today we're going to try to wear big boy pants."  I'm going to let them tell me.  No more headaches, no more tears, no more yelling or frustration.  It was a breeze and I am so thankful!    Caleb filled in three sticker charts like the one above.  The first one awarded him a special cookie that daddy has for his lunches.  The second chart awarded him a treat from Dairy Queen.  And the last chart awarded him a new package of Spiderman underwear.  He is VERY proud of those Spiderman underwear.  He's asked for another chart, but he has this down, and charts aren't necessary anymore.  I think he's disappointed about that.  As long as he doesn't figure out that by having accidents I might have to go back to the chart!! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lauramb/115714/ Mon, 10 Apr 2006 15:41:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lauramb/115714/ I have been less than organized in having daily lessons with Joshua on Bible.  At one time I had bought a Bible "curriculum" and we tried to drudge through it.  It was geared towards early elementary grades and had Bible stories, suggested songs to sing, verses to memorize, and questions to answer.  I felt so mechanical in these lessons and we didn't make it 1/4 through the book.  I think I may have it up on a shelf somewhere.  It might be useful if I ever teach a Kindergarten-aged Bible class at church.After shelving that book, I waited around and researched a little in hopes of finding the "perfect" Bible study guide or devotional book for me and Joshua to do together.  And I waited and waited, all the while Joshua was getting no real study of Bible at home.  We were doing some teaching of Bible when it came to disciplining or in daily conversations about God and behavior.  And while this is very good and much in-line with our admonishment in Deutoronomy to "train up a child," I felt that we weren't doing enough of getting into the Word of God and learning from it every day.Then it hit me last week that I should just get the Bible out and start reading with Joshua every day.  Last week we started in Matthew, chapter one.  Joshua read straight from his OWN Bible which is in the NIrV (New International readers Version).  I really like this Bible because he can read it with little to no help from me (names of places and a word here or there has been the only issues).  Today we were reading into chapter four and learning about how after Jesus was baptized and then sent into the desert and tempted by the devil, he went out into the world preaching to the people.  We learned about turning from the darkness and walking toward the light."What does it mean to turn from the darkness, Joshua?" I asked after he'd read the passage."It means turning from our sins," Joshua replied."And when we turn to the light, what is Jesus talking about here," I inquired further."It means that we turn to God and follow Jesus," Joshua immediately responded.BINGO, I say in my head with a huge smile on my face.  And with that, we have had our daily Bible study and we moved easily into the other lessons of the day with a good solid foundation of hearing the Word of God and holding it fast inside our hearts.  This is what "studying the Bible" is going to mean for us for awhile.  And I think it is working out beautifully!  I look forward to these precious moments together every single day!!! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lauramb/108214/ Tue, 28 Mar 2006 21:36:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lauramb/108214/ Spring Break, last week, really put a kink in things.  The nice weather has been hard on us as well.  So we've not been keeping up with school work as faithfully as I had planned.  But you know what, that's ok!  Over the last three weeks I've let Joshua have several days to just play outside.  That's one of the blessings of homeschooling.  The freedom to enjoy each and every day for what it has to offer.Now during Spring Break (DH is a school teacher and so we follow his school's schedule), I had hoped to do a FEW things throughout the week.  Well, you know what, the books and activities were never even broached!  Ah, well, so we're just a tad behind.  But again, that's ok.  They joys of homeschooling include the fact that we can continue schooling on Saturdays or into the summer--which I'm planning to do anyway.These last few days of schooling have been especially rewarding.  Even though we've been on a break last week, Joshua picked right back up with school work.The most exciting thing that has changed as of this week, is that I've deliberately set aside a subject/time for Bible.  I'm tired of not doing anything in the area of Bible study with Joshua.  I have been waiting for the "right" curriculum to do Bible, and so I have just not done anything.  I tried to have a "Bible time" in the morning hours where we'd sing songs and pray together, but that wasn't happening.  So this week I put a new line on our subject board--"Bible."  And on it I put a scripture to cover every day.  This week we were specifically addressing Respect and Obedience since Joshua has had a little difficulty in showing both to our neighbors (his friends' parents).  We covered Ephesians 6, and passages in First Peter as well as a passage in Second Corinthians.  And I will say that the time spent was both beneficial to me as well as to Joshua.  Where I plan to go with this next week I'm not exactly sure yet.  Steve suggested that I follow a "Life of Christ" chart of some sort and read through his life over a period of weeks/months.  I was thinking of starting in the book of Matthew.  I'm not sure.  But what I do plan to do is have us read together a passage of scripture and talk about it generally and maybe go specifically into a topic that might apply for the moment.  If not we'll just read and then move on.  We did buy Joshua a great Bible that he can read himself called "The Adventure Bible for Young Readers."  In other areas of study Joshua just continues blossoming.  READING: We have finished Book 2 of the Pathway Readers for 2nd grade.  His reading is just moving right along.  He still does not do much reading silently, but I KNOW that that will come in time, because I do see him perusing through magazines and books and he's bound to be doing some "reading."  He just has not tackled chapter-type books on his own, yet.  But it will come, I feel 100% confident of that!  So I'll continue to conduct our reading lessons with him reading them aloud to me.MATH:  Our first lesson back this week after Spring Break did take Joshua nearly an hour to complete--due to distractions.  But the last two days of this week Joshua has been self-motivated to finish his worksheet and has done excellently.  However, next week I'm going to have him review over his addition facts.  It seems he has relapsed just a tad and I'm not sure he's able to recall them as readily as he once did.HANDWRITING:  We're coming near the end of his second handwriting manual in Handwriting Without Tears.  His handwriting continues to improve and he doesn't complain about doing this work as they are not lengthy assignments.  But today he made the most interesting comment.  Yesterday while I was preparing some cards to send to relatives, Joshua showed an interest in writing two little cards to be included in my mailings to his grandparents and another to his cousins.  On both he included a short little note which he wrote himself with my help for spelling.  When he was finished I told him that we should do this more often and use it as his writing assignment.  And Joshua, so matter-of-factly, said, "yeah, and it would be so much for fun and useful than doing workbooks."  And that's always exactly how I have felt, but it's so hard to follow through on that.  This is a whole other topic for another post!GRAMMAR:  Joshua has shown more interest in the "First Language Lessons."  I really like this book because the lessons are simple and require no preparation and are short and easy to do.  And I will say over this last week I have continued to be impressed with Joshua's ability to memorize.  He has two poems memorized and has a grasp on all the things that I am teaching him via this book.  We will stick with this one for the coming year!HISTORY:  Joshua made a funny comment today.  Sometimes I allow him to pick the order that we will do lessons, and so today he set the order of his work.  He went through the list of reading and math and piano and science and grammar and put history last, "because," as he put it, "then I can just relax."  He enjoys listening to the stories and today he even ran to the map to find where Carthage was and Rome and the Alps.  It was a lot of fun.  This is another book/curriculum that we'll be keeping for the coming year!SCIENCE:  After weeks of having science on Hold, I finally went onto Lesson 12.  We talked about tadpoles.  It was impressive when Joshua ran off into the playroom and came back with a book and--using the Table of Contents, all on his own--he showed me a very well illustrated section on the metomorphosis of the life of a frog from an egg to an adult.  He knew exactly which book this was found in and brought it right to me when we had our discussion.  It saved me some time of having to look it up on-line, which is what I had planned to do!  I was so very much pleased.  (However, I'm thinking of "ditching" this curriculum next year.  I'll likely discuss what I'm hoping to do next year in an upcoming post.)PIANO:  We're working on learning the lines and spaces.  Joshua's GOOD memory is showing itself in this area as well.  We're using flashcards and Joshua has grasped the lines very well and is currently working on the spaces.  We'll continue working on this over the next few weeks before we move forward in the book!Have I mentioned lately that  I LOVE HOMESCHOOLING?!  Well, I do.  This is such a joy and I just cannot imagine my life any other way!  I thank God for this opportunity! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lauramb/102275/ Fri, 17 Mar 2006 22:29:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lauramb/102275/ So I guess I need to update my Orchestra pursuits!It's been two weeks now since I auditioned.  In answer to the comment regarding what piece I played, I performed the last half of the Finale in the Carl Reinecke Flute Concerto in D.  We are all our worst critic are we not?!  And I am my worst.  I played about at 3/4 of my ability.  I don't like making excuses, but I had them this time.  The room was warm and my mouth became completely dry.  Not just sort-of dry, but no moisture what-so-ever in my mouth dry.  I was trying to lick my lips during rests and swallow, hoping to produce more saliva, but it just wasn't happening.  When the air is passing over dry tongue and lips the tone is affected, and mine was.  And to top that all off, this room was a nightmare for beautiful sound.  The walls and high ceiling sucked all my sound into nothing.  No reverb, no nice echo of sound (this room was designed as a recording studio!).  So my rhaspy, airy, dry tone was left with nothing to "fill" it up.  And the further into the concerto I got, my mind started to tell me all of this.I did fine technically.  I did fine in interpretation, but my tone lacked SO much.  After coming away from the audition I realized I should have stopped and told the five gentlemen that I really needed a drink of water.  This wasn't some high school all-state audition.  This was a professional gig and we were all adults.  They would certainly have excused me to get some water.  And I could have at least started on the last page.  If they had frowned on such a request, that would have been fine.  At least I could have had the opportunity to play my best.Anyway, so I was disappointed that I didn't show them my real ability.  However, I did get a call sometime last week from the conductor (who is French Canadian and difficult to understand) and he invited me to play Flute 2 on the concert.  The piece that requires a 2nd flute is the overture to the Marriage of Figaro.  There are two other pieces on the concert--a string serenade and the Symphony No. 40 by Mozart.  I was really hoping to be able to play the Symphony--but it only calls for one flute.So now my curiosity is up as to who is first flute.  Is it someone from the symphony 70 miles away (where the conductor is also director), or is it someone local.  I'm very curious.Well, I just keep asking myself, what if I had done my best, would it have made a difference?  Would I have been asked to play the first part, and play on the Symphony?  I don't know.  I just regret that I didn't get to play my best.But I'm not complaining, per se.  I'm glad to be playing at all and playing in the orchestra on some real music again!  AND getting paid!  Who knows, maybe they are going to "audition" each concert (four a year) and I'll get an opportunity on further concerts to play first.Anyway, I am excited.  My sister-in-law was asked to play horn 2 on the overture as well.  Steve has not been contacted yet, but they do not require trombones on the first concert anyway.  They were only getting an idea of the talent in the area for future concerts. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lauramb/91797/ Tue, 28 Feb 2006 11:16:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lauramb/91797/     I think it's about time I put in a little something about my life beyond my children.  Our little (but growing) town is trying to start up a fully professional symphony orchestra.  There are many talented musicians in the area and there is an established large city orchestra about an hour out-of-town (where many of our string players will be coming from).      This coming Sunday the orchestra board will be holding auditions for all instrumentalists for the upcoming 2006-2007 season.  The inaugural performance will be on April the 4th in the theater downtown.  This appears to be a big deal and hopefully the group will indeed succeed and become a thriving organization.    I plan to audition for a spot as a flutist.  I have not auditioned for something in a long time.  I have selected a concerto piece I played for my senior recital in college (11 years ago!) and I will be playing one of the orchestral excerpts that they require as well.  I feel pretty good about my playing.  I have played on-and-off for the last 10 years--of course nothing like I was in college when I would practice anywhere from one to four hours in a day!    The exciting thing about this is that it is going to be professional and each concert (they plan to have four concerts a year starting off) will be a paid gig.  And they will be playing challenging orchestral work--something I have missed doing all these years.    I've always wanted to play in a major orchestra.  One of my dreams--before I became absolutely passionate about raising a family and being a stay-at-home, homeschooling mommy--was to be a flute professor at a university and to play in a symphony orchestra full time.  But I gave that up when I married Steve.  I could never have continued devoting my life to playing the flute and had a life as a wife and mother.  I couldn't be passionate and successful at both to the degree to which I desired.    Well, this little orchestra is nothing major, but this might be my chance to play professionally.  It might be a wonderful opportunity for me.  I still love to play my flute and I feel confident about my playing.  I may not play on the scale of a top musician, but I'm sure I'm above-average.    Oh, and by the way, Steve is also auditioning for a trombone spot.  So we'll see what happens.  We should know results by the end of next week! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lauramb/84832/ Wed, 15 Feb 2006 13:46:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lauramb/84832/ So, does this blog feel neglected?  I truly mean to get on here once a week and journal our school.  Sometimes, though, I feel like there is just nothing to say.  But that's not true.  Certainly I can come up with a moment of praise, an instance of frustration, an "ah-ha" moment, a neat answer or fun lesson to share.  I will try harder, because I continue to be pleased and thrilled with our homeschooling endeavor and I would like to preserve the times that we share learning together! Since I last wrote in late January, we have maintained a similar schedule.  Joshua does some independent work every morning.  This usually consists of a handwriting practice page and a page in the math workbook (unless we're going over a new concept and that has to wait until we have uninterrupted time alone!).  Sometimes he also gets his piano practice in during the morning hours if he feels so inclined. The afternoons are devoted to our reading lesson, science lesson, history reading, and our new grammar exercises.  I finally broke down and ordered the First Language Lessons by Wise (The Well-Trained Mind).  We are currently on lesson eight and I'm not jumping for joy over the curriculum, but it does seem to fit Joshua's learning style very well, and it fits my teaching style to a "t"!  Joshua does get "annoyed" with all the repetition--and no wonder--he knows the definition or poem we have to memorize by the second day.  And so the countless days of repeating the definition of a noun three times EACH day truly vexes him and he insists that he says the definition on his own without having to listen to me say it over and over or even to say it along with me. And I have truly found that Joshua's memory skills to be superb!  He memorized a short poem called "The Caterpillar" from lesson two (I believe) in just two lessons.  He had the definition of a noun down in two days as well.  In piano it took him less than one day to have the lines of the treble and bass clef memorized.  And he has all his addition math facts memorized.  I've been just as impressed with his ability to memorize Bible verses as easily.  So memorizing is definitely a strong point where Joshua is concerned!  But again, First Language Lessons is about exposure and not mastery.  And that is exactly where I'm going with Joshua's schooling these early years. In math, Joshua has learned how to read digits up to the hundreds of thousands.  It took him about two days to comprehend the 10,000s and 100,000s.  It was very difficult at first, but a breeze now.  He also knows how to find the Perimeter of an object.  Math is a fairly "easy" subject for Joshua. Joshua is continuing to read well.  He still requests that we do his reading lessons aloud.  He reads the stories aloud to me and we go over the questions in the workbook that evaluate his comprehension of the story.  We're almost done with book two of the Pathway Readers at the second grade level.  This is impressive to me because the Pathway Readers are touted to be advanced as readers go.  However, I think at some point he should read silently in his head (right?).  When do I need to push that transition?  He does a little silent reading on his own (the "Magic Tree House" series), but I don't think he's reading word for word.  I really believe he's skimming and just grasping the story by scanning the text.  But he should learn to read alone and silently--at some point, I believe.  But is he ready?  How can I tell?  One thing that does concern me is that as he reads aloud I still do have to correct him from time to time.  The main problem is that he tends to read quickly and pass over words or "concludes" on his own what words are coming up and insert them.  This is what gives me the idea that he skims/scans text when he is reading silently.  He does a little of it while reading aloud with me.  But he does read aloud very well, with the minor slips here and there (although, these slips can cause considerable changes in the meaning of the text!). That's probably my biggest "concern" right now with Joshua's schooling.  All other subject areas are going well. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lauramb/82345/ Fri, 10 Feb 2006 22:25:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lauramb/82345/ *I'm actually doing something a little different today.  I'm entering a post about something beyond our homeschooling.  I have always said I wanted to do more than just journal our school days, so this is a start.  Maybe this will be a start and I can start posting some deeper topics of discussion.* We have moved two babies into older sibling rooms in the past three years.  I really enjoy the fact that our three boys share the same room.  Currently their ages are 7 1/2, 3 1/2 and just turned 2.   Here is how we did it. When we were about a month and a half from the due date of our third son, Daniel, we decided to move our second son, Caleb—then 15 months—into his older brother, Joshua's room (then 5).  This transition went very smoothly.  We did make their bedtimes the same time and had a clear and constant routine at bedtime.  Of course, many nights became “party” time because sharing a room was new to them.  But Caleb was still in a crib and so the “party” consisted of them “reading” books in bed or tossing stuffed animals in and out of the crib. Having them share a room was actually a great thing to do, in my mind, because it really helped them bond as brothers.  This transition was so smooth.  We never had any troubles.  If Caleb woke during the night, which he did do from time to time, I was amazed that Joshua would sleep right through it (loud crying and all!).  Of course, he is an extremely heavy sleeper! In the mornings, Joshua would get out of bed as he normally would and come find me, like he was already doing.  Caleb was either still asleep or would be calling out to me to get him out of the crib.  It wasn’t long before Joshua learned how to take Caleb out of the crib and they would both come out of the room together in the mornings.Then when our fourth child was about due we put our third son, Daniel, into the big boys’ room (he was about 16 months at that time).  The older boys were almost 3 and 6.  Again we stuck to a strict bedtime routine, made all their bedtimes the same (8:30) and the transition went smoothly.  There is a “party” in there about three or four nights a month.  But as long as they are not coming out of their room and as long as the noise is kept low we allow it.  Both older boys seem to be heavy sleepers because Daniel cries at night sometimes, still, and they don’t wake and I come in to get him. We have contemplated moving Joshua out into his “own” bedroom (the playroom), but I so enjoy seeing all three of them together in the same room.  The dynamics of their relationship is enriched I think by them sharing the same room.  And none has ever asked to be removed or have their own place.  But Joshua is only seven (almost eight) and he may start feeling that way soon.  We’ll see. We’ve also considered moving Joshua’s bedtime to 9:00 and keeping the younger ones’ bedtime at 8:30.  We would like some one-on-one time with Joshua.  And we think it will work.  There have been a few evenings when the younger kids have gone to bed and Joshua will be out with family and come home a little late.  When he goes into his room (as long as the other 2 are asleep) and gets into bed, it’s all just fine.  I even whisper a goodnight to him and tuck him in (remember we have heavy sleepers in this house!).  But I imagine if the later bedtime was still early enough that the younger two were not asleep yet, it might cause a problem with them waking up fully again. Well, this has gotten really long.  I have been trying to see if I can remember everything we have done.  Right now Joshua is in a twin bed, Caleb is in a toddler bed, and Daniel is in a crib (at 26 months—we’re not ready to move him out yet!).  And we’ll probably keep it that way awhile until Daniel IS ready for a toddler bed. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lauramb/77018/ Wed, 1 Feb 2006 16:28:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lauramb/77018/     We've been chugging along these last two weeks.  I have been pleased with our "new" schedule.  Instead of letting the boys ramble around ALL morning playing (because I didn't seem to get anything done if I tried to "organize" them), these last two weeks I have had Joshua do some morning lessons at 10am when Miriam goes down for her nap.  The lessons cannot be lessons that require a lot of attention on my part.  So he does work that can be done on his own with minimal help from me.     This means that at 10am he usually gets a handwriting exercise done, a page in the math book done, and maybe a little science lesson (in which we TRY to include the younger boys).  He might also get in a little bit of piano practice during the morning, as well.     This usually leaves only his reading lesson and history lesson for the afternoon.  Sometimes we have to do math in the afternoon because it requires me to teach a new topic.  But that only occurs every few days or so.  This has really improved our time spent in the afternoon.  Instead of feeling bogged down and tired by naptime and trying to cram in all the work, we get about an hours worth done in the morning leaving a little bit of down time in the afternoon.     This system has worked well.  Joshua has been able to focus despite the distractions going on around him.  On one occassion, however, I did have to move him into another room.  He hasn't griped about doing work in the morning, either (like I thought he might--he's missing out on playtime).  I think he realizes the more work he gets done in the morning the less work he has to do in the afternoon.         Just a few notes on his work, handwriting appears to be slipping a tad.  The workbooks are requiring him to write on a smaller ledger and he's gotten sloppy.  Not sure if this should require more practice or just more opportunities to write in general.  In piano, Joshua is now learning the lines and the spaces.  He has worked very diligently at learning the lines of the bass clef and knows them well.  He took to that with excitement and energy.  In math, Joshua has done excellent with adding numerous two and three digit numbers.  Science and history continue to be "fun" topics for absorbing material.     Joshua's reading lessons have gotten lengthy and more challenging.  We are in the Second Grade book 2 and I'm wondering if we're moving along too quickly.  He has some difficulty reading the stories.  I asked him if he preferred to continue reading them aloud to me, and he said "yes."  As he reads he skips words or changes them slightly.  Sometimes resulting in a complete change in the meaning of the sentence.  I end up correcting him frequently.  If I were to slow down, I'm not sure how to do that.  We've been reading three stories a week.  Now that they are longer and more difficult, maybe it's time to slow down the pace.  Joshua is an excellent reader, but maybe this is too far past his ability level at this point?  Not sure--will look into it! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lauramb/71189/ Sat, 21 Jan 2006 00:33:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lauramb/71189/ "...because that means I get to spend more time with my family" This was said by my 7-year-old son while we were headed to the park after lunch on this very beautiful (albeit, very windy) January day!  Then he went on to say, "Not all families can do that because both the daddy and the mommy have work they have to do." http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lauramb/70531/ Thu, 19 Jan 2006 15:57:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lauramb/70531/