When I looked at the first link, she seems to be using graphotherapy as a form of meditation. If you're focusing on the forms you're making, yes, I think it can make a difference. Meditation in a wide variety of forms has a well established track record of making a difference. As for changing your handwriting, I'd have to ask if you spend enough time writing that it will make a difference. When I think back over the last few days, I've signed my name (on checks & cc slips), made a shopping list, and marked up a couple of my daughter's papers (Nice Job! or We need to talk!), but other than that, I've pretty much done all my writing on the computer (like now). I don't journal, in any form, except as required. For me, changing my writing probably wouldn't do much. If you spend enough time writing by hand, for whatever reason (budding writer? keep a personal or dialectic journal? taking a class and handwrite copious notes?) and you are making a conscious effort to make a change in your handwriting for the purpose of making a change in your life, then I'd say it's very much like consciously squaring your shoulders to make a change. You're making a deliberate change to provoke a chosen response. It brings the desired personal change to your mind every time you make the written change. So how much time do you spend writing each day? Sara P.S. I also noticed that the book you linked to is not one of the books she recommends. Have you been looking into this for a while, that you've "chosen" your own book?

My not very strong in math daughter just finished Jacob's Algebra, so we're just now starting Alg II (deciding to do an Alg I, Alg II, then Geometry & Trig sequence). When we looked at books, including Lial, Foerster, Dolciani, & LoF, she went to Foerster as the most like Jacob's and wants to work through it for Algebra II. Since Jacob himself apparently (according to the forum:)) recommends Foerster after his Algebra I text, I take that as a second opinion that it will follow well. I'll let you know at the end of the year (which will be too late for you, sorry:tongue_smilie:). Sara

If he needs to learn to be quick & accurate on the keyboard and he's fighting you, buy Typershark. It's by Popcap games and is not expensive. I bought this for my daughter after reading about it and it was great. She never had to be nagged to "work" on it, but she is now the fastest touch typist among her friends. Basically, it's a game in which the kid (or adult - I play it too) dives for treasure and has to "blow up" sharks and other obstacles in their path by accurately typing the letters which show up on their side. She also has lousy handwriting (although she has finally agreed to work on it with the prospect of SAT looming:laugh:) so she now hands in everything but math typed. Far fewer fights (how can I tell if you understand the material if I can't even read the response!), more willing to revise/expand, etc. For the rest with completing assignments and working independently, :bigear:. Has anyone read URthemom's information on independent learners? Is it worth the money (does it WORK?) Sara

:iagree: It's amazing what you find! Mine had a Smithsonian microchem set, unopened from what I could see. Sara

Bonita, I went to the website. Does it indeed work as advertised to encourage the student to self-guide? How does it differ from a standard student planner? Sara

I'm going to be watching the post and hoping others weigh in. Mine's in 9th, and I have wondered about having to go through twice. Does it cement it more thoroughly through repetition? Do they need time to let it sink in before going on?

and I presume JAG is Junior Analytical Grammar? But don't hold me to that one. We tried R&S briefly in 5th grade, but DD hated it and fought me every step. When I found AG, I decided to try it and really liked it. DD is now in 9th and has a very firm grasp of grammar, so I'm happy with the result. I can't say she liked AG, but she did grasp the concept of "only a few weeks a year of study, then just review EOW," which seemed to make it worth her while.:tongue_smilie: I will also say that she actually decided to read Mark Twain after reading the excerpt in the book, so we sneaked a little lit in there too. My understanding is that AG doesn't want you to reproduce, but buy one workbook for each kid. At the end they do wind up with a quick reference guide to grammar - you rip out the completed workbook pages and are left with the explanation to refer to in the future. Having said that it is apparently now in a binder so the temptation to buy one and copy for other kids would be...strong. Sara

I was really impressed by it. It was a very complete course which did not require me to learn grammar before we came to it in the book. I came of age in the 1970's when grammar wasn't big, at least in Florida. Truly, I don't remember ever learning what a gerund was and I know I never diagrammed a sentance. But the explanations were simple and clear, and the course emphasized DD taking responsibility for checking and reworking her own work as needed. It's supposed to be a three year program, but they also explain how to compress it for high school students. By the end of it all, the student winds up with a nice little refresher book of all the explanations to keep. Once they finish, there are refresher books to review throughout high school to be sure they keep the knowledge in there. Good luck! Grammar isn't an exciting subject for many students but it is so very important. Sara

Thank you so much, Amy & Jennifer. Amy, I don't know how I missed Elaine and those threads, except that there is so much posted about literature (and obviously, I need to get better at boolean searches so I can find it!) that I overlooked her. Thank you for pointing me in her direction. And Jennifer, thank you for your suggestions. DD's been China-mad ever since we had an opportunity to tag along on a business trip my husband took and plans to study Mandarin this year along with the eastern history. I think these will make her very happy. Sara

and it has really worked well to study Great Books and history together previous years. Problem is, I don't have a clue what books I should have her read. She'll be in 9th grade. We'll be using Human Odyssey for a spine (quickly through western world to keep our place in history, linger on eastern) along with watching Teaching Company From Lao to Mao for history of China. My thought is about half the year on China, then about 1/4 each on Japan and India. To me these are the three big cultures, with the others intersecting and interacting with them. Any thoughts / recommendations for literature to accompany? I want about 6-7 books and some short literature to flesh out our studies. What have you read and enjoyed? What have you found great to bring these cultures to life? Sara

What lectures are you talking about? I've used TWTM as a base for our homeschool and would love to hear SWB talk about writing. We started late (middle school) so I haven't gotten her writing program since it looked as though it was geared more for younger - what have I missed? How can I get her lectures on CD? My own experience with IEW was that it was too formulaic, and I didn't like the predictability of what she wrote. Since trying that, I've pretty much cobbled together writing and used a tutor for some of it. Sara

Watching this thread with interest - mine is in the HS pipeline! Sara:party:!:D

My daughter is in love with America in the Revolutionary War time period. We're moving on over her protests - I keep trying to tell her she needs to learn a bit more American history than pre-1800 and she keeps trying to tell me she doesn't.:tongue_smilie: So what I'm looking for is recommendations for books she can read on her own. She loves historical fiction but also devours non-fiction about this time period. Anything you know of that reads really well? I don't really care about the level - she read and loved Avi, Jean Fritz and Johnny Tremaine, and considers Churchill's American history series to be curl up and read stuff so all she really wants is a well written book. I'm no good - history really isn't my thing. Recommendations? Sara

Laura, your explanation did make it clear what they are in English, which is half the battle. I guess the Romans figured if it's completed it's more perfect than if it's ongoing?:glare: Can you maybe help remembering the endings in Latin? Trying to remember whether -bat or -vit is perfect or imperfect is confusing. Is there a jingle or hint to help us remember? Sara

I think both. We keep mixing up the endings to the words, and I really think part of that is not understanding just what "perfect" and "imperfect" mean. I looked them up on the internet but am still confused. Maybe if I understood the difference I'd be able to remember the endings better. Sara

We're working our way through Cambridge Latin and are having trouble with the past tense verb endings. Perfect vs imperfect is something of which I have a very IMperfect grasp.:sad: Can someone out there who's a bit more advanced help me with this? Sara

Just to be sure whether we have the same edition of Jacobs... Is the answer to 6i. y=12-x and the answer to 6j. y=20/x? If so, no, it's not obvious but can be guessed (with the help of lots of paper and stubbornness:tongue_smilie:). About the concern it generates... my feeling with the book is that Jacobs wants the student to try to figure things out on their own without a detailed explanation before he gives that detailed explanation. He has explained everything so far clearly enough that my decidedly non-"mathy" daughter understands it, but does tend to toss things out there to look at before providing the explanation. We didn't use Saxon so I can't say for sure, but from what I have seen of it when choosing programs, that seems to be very different from Saxon's approach. I'd say keep trying. You may like his approach once you adjust. My daughter does. She says that it's a lot closer to fun than any other books she's seen.:) Sara

My daughter came home because we watched her become more and more a misfit at school (not socially - she's great at that - but scholastically) and we thought we could do better at home. She was 5th grade. This year we're looking at high school (8th grade). It's hard. She's interested in physics, which I can't do justice at home. She's interested in the local magnet school, which requires full time public school attendance (even though in our area she would only attend it two days/week, the other days are required to be at her "home" high school). After talking it over with my husband, we finally decided that if she gets into the magnet school, then we will deal with the rest of full time school. However, if she doesn't, we will continue to homeschool and find other ways to get her science. She won't have the option of full time at our local school. I'm more confident in my ability to find/make a way to get her the level of science instruction she will need than in the local high school's ability to really teach her the things we want her to learn in high school, academically and non-academically. That's not a slam on the school. We have good schools locally. That's recognizing that the goals of modern school do not necessarily fit with our goals in raising a thinking and considerate member of society. And that doesn't even get in to the joy of seeing her grow and change up close and personal.:001_smile: OK, that's my two cents worth. Let us know what you decide, please, and why. Sara

Analytic Grammar. DD can now diagram at the drop of a sentance. Sara

Thanks so much for supplying the link! I've been looking at microscopes - we're starting Biology this year - had no idea what the different features actually meant in terms of usefulness. This is very helpful to educate me! Sara

It does, thanks. I had hoped my knowledge of algebra was enough to get by with just the student and test set, but guess I'll have to spring for the whole set. Sara

I have Elementary Algebra and the Test Masters for it. We're working our way through and having very little trouble with the Set I & Set II problems. However, we're also trying to do Set IV and frankly, I can't figure out how to solve a couple of those. Is there a resource that at least gives the answers out there? With the answers I could probably work out the method. Thanks. Sara

OK, this is disturbing. I'm a product of public schools in the 1960s and '70s, and to think that my great-aunt (who would have been the right age to take this test) learned so much more while she was in school is, well, disturbing! Not the least is that I had never encountered the word "Orthography" before. No wonder my grandmother & great-aunts seemed so smart! Sara

Thank you for posting. I'm always in search of this type of help. Sara

Last year we did BF Early American & World History (title may not be exactly right). While we read (almost) all the books, I picked and chose among the writing. We used the questions as springboard to discussion and I chose whether to have her write out the essays or do other writing that week. This year we're combining Spielvogel and the later American history in a similar fashion, and in writing we're using Writing for 100 Days. We're reading and doing the first day's lesson in Writing, then she's expected to apply the topic (word choice, etc) to her week's writing in history, science, etc. I expect her to show a rough draft then mark it herself to edit, applying the lesson learned in writing. Since I expect 1-2 short (1 page) essays a week, she should have sufficient application, I hope. By doing this, I hope to show her how to use the writing lesson in her everyday writing, while not taking up valuable time adding in a "writing for the sake of writing" essay (which drives her crazy. She is ultimately a science kid [this year, at least]). Sara