I know nothing. Take that into consideration. We are doing Teaching Textbooks for now and much of it is on the computer. The answers are typed in and the grades are kept all within the computer. With the dyspraxia could you take tiles with numbers on them and have her use the tiles to work out the math problems on a magnetic board? It would be sort of like AAS but with numbers. Then she could type in the answer to the TT....or any other math curriculum of your choice. Just a thought.

I completely agree with you about it meshing well. The little I know about Classical ed makes me think that it easily leads right into higher order thinking. What books would you suggest someone read when learning the basics? (I am ordering the TWTM since my friend moved years ago.) Can you explain how a novice teacher learns how to "teach, interact and discuss" with their students to move in that direction? Truthfully, I consider myself successful if I get the list done for the day. I have kids under 6th grade and my daughter is just learning to self manage her day. I would like to know how to improve in this area since some days even oral narrations do not get done well. I do not think I could do TOG because it is sooo intimidating to me but I noticed right away when I looked at it that it goes for the more complex learning skills. As I was consdering all of our curriculum, FLL was heads above some of our other subjects for the same reasons. Some curriculum just seem to naturally adapt the expectations. In your opinion, are there some that are better at this than others?

Thank you. Have you used this? Is there a place where I can find an inside view of it? Looks like a great start for reading. After dinner I thought of a way to describe what I am trying to understand. Bloom's Taxonomy has several levels......(I vaguely remember a thread a few years ag about Bloom's being out of date and another list was posted.) knowledge understand apply analyze evaluate create So for example......how does a curriculum expect a student to use them? I was thinking of Math. The student learns the math facts. Then they learn to analyze word problems and apply an algorithm to it. Maybe they look at another person's math solution and can evaluate it. Or they can create a solution to a novel problem that has not been solved before. Math lends itself to higher order thinking. Do other subjects not lend themselves to these types of learning? Lets use History. You can learn the history facts and time line. You can narrate it out and "understand" it. But can you apply history. I guess you can analyze it.....evaluate it. I wouldn't say you could create it unless that was another way to narrate it creatively. I am just wondering. How do you decide that your curriculum is helping your child to develop the skills of higher order thinking? What does it look like if it is and are there subjects that you do not strive for this in? I think this may be me looking at the transition between grammar and logic stage. You needs in curriculum must change at this point and I am not sure how the new level should look. Thank you for the link!

Yep. It was lost. Sorry. Back to the basics.....how to you define depth? How I measure it maybe different than what you are looking for. I would use measurements like.... ...quality of book selection. ...length of time spend on one book. ...length of time spent on a time period. ...use of skills ...and demand of higher order thinking vs simple rote memorizing or the like. Would that cover all of them? Anything I am missing?

I am confused and need someone to answer some questions or send me to a thread here that helps me mesh higher order thinking with specific curriculum. I am looking at Bloom's Taxonomy (which may or may not be the best place to start) and trying to find out how that actually relates to a curriculum. How do you know if your curriculum is demanding higher order thinking from your student? (this is a dumb question.....but how do *you* find out.) Are there curriculum that are well know to require this from the student? Is there an age when you need to take this into consideration? (I read TWTM years ago on loan from a friend but I only took in the grammar stage and I am now looking at a logic age student. So, yes, I have ordered new edition of TWTM.) Does depth = higher order thinking? Can you give examples from your own homeschooling that help me understand this in action? Links? Threads? Opinions? Discussion? Thanks!

Thank you, that does help. I am in a perpertual state of imbalance. First I think I have it covered. Then I do not. The Extension can have some pretty mature themes in the books.....I am thinking of war mostly. My dd is finishing 6th but she is still 11yrs old. She works the journaling well on her own but when I read the Extension books out loud to her she is not interacting much with the content (she hears it but does not work with it). We selectively leave out some of the Science, Bible, Geography and the Poetry. I intend to get back to the Geography though. :blushing: I really have enjoyed seeing her bloom with the independence!!! That has been worth every cent to me.

Mine is working downstairs.....which he would be doing even if I wasn't spending.....er, I mean drooling and planning.....yeah, those last two. :D

Not sure if you were asking the OP or me so I answered. Do you think that is enough for a 11 year old? Now am feeling unsure, again. We are doing VP with my son and DD sits in on the reading. We are doing (causually) Mapping the World by Heart.....which we love. We are only a little behind on Geography in HOD.

This is my story, too. It is clear that I am the "big dog" in the house and I think that has something to do with it. This is our first dog and she facinates me. She seems to know the social rules and heirarchy. Cats are NOT like that. ETA: I agree.....it is very sweet. You are a lucky dog owner!!!

Dear Susan Wise Bauer, Thank you for publishing curriculum which help me educate my kids and myself well. Without PHP and "The Boards" I would be lost. I will be putting my wallet where my mouth is and supporting you again and again and again. Please know that your voice of reason and careful Christian behavior is neccesary and appreciated. May you have all the time and strength you need to do your many jobs well! :001_smile:

I could have written this word for word. However, I do add in IEW writing for the 5-8 sentence writing assignment. Our Geography will be done this summer as fun school work. The poetry maybe done then as well. I do like the R&S at the slow pace, but I am not fond of it anyway so doing it slower is OK with me. CTC is full!! People may not realize it until they actually try to get their child to actually do it all in one day. It is a smorgasboard to pick and choose from. Have fun working out what fits for you! Only you know what your son will enjoy and what is most important for you.

I'm right there with you. It is nasty out there and spring should be HERE already. Hang in there! Stay dry!!! Hopefully this year will not be an issue and the melt will be slow and nuisance free.

My first was 12 and half hours. I was dialated to 3cm for the whole month before and had very strong Braxton Hicks for the last three months. It felt like I was in labor for those months but I wasn't. :001_smile:

I have used both SL Core 1 and 2 as well as CTC of HOD (and Bigger and Beyond). I don't feel well equiped to answer your questions, but I will give it a try. Please look at both websites to see the samples of both. HOD has a much stronger Christian world view than SL. SL had the bible as a separate subject which you could take out if you wanted. HOD is steeped in the Christian faith and it crosses many subject lines (Geography, Grammar, History and Science). SL had a longer list of books for reading out loud and I think for self reading. I liked the books chosen and the "feel" of them is different than the HOD choices. My daughter is doing HOD at a higher level so she is starting to work independently. As a result, I do not always know what she is reading. With SL in the early years, I read every one of the books to my daughter several times.....she loved being read to. HOD's book are a bit more old fashioned, I guess, with many Yestarday's classics. HOD has a slightly classical approach to History.....four year rotation in chronological order. SL, from what I remember, does partly chronological and partly geographical split (so they have a year of Eastern History and a year of Western History). SL was more interactive and even closing in on the Socratic Method. As I recall, each book came with many questions that the teacher asked. Some of those questions were content, some required more thinking and analysis. I could imagine in the middle and later SL cores that you would come closer to developing the students thinking and narration skills. The depth was impressive in SL. I like the visual display of HOD over SL. SL was hard to follow visually. HOD has two page layout per day. My daughter has found a rhythm that is easy for her because of the page lay out, so her independence is budding effortlessly. In my opinion, that is one of the pluses of HOD. HOD has the student work on a journal all year in History (in RTR there is also one about Shakespear). I do not remember SL having an equivalent finished product. As far as combining.....I have not tried to combine with SL as my son was too little. I did combine my two oldest in HOD with Bigger and Beyond and it was not hard at all. Perhaps my son did not do work pages to the same skill level as my daughter but he took it all in. He is not doing CTC though because at the start of the year I felt he could not handle the journaling work. He is able to now and I may change my approach another year. If your kids are writting, I would not hesitate to combine the History Art, Poetry and Science portion of HOD. Just do the grade appropriate Math, Spelling and Grammar and it should be fine. The read alouds may be harder to wiggle if the subject is sensitive (ie The Hittite Warrior is a little hard for younger kids and I would do another book if I was combining) Carrie is really good about highlighting books that may contain sensitive material. I still do not feel very confident about how helpful this would be for you but I gave it a shot. Choosing a curriculuum is hard. Good Luck!!

My daughter struggled with Grade 4 R&S as well, at about the half way mark. I switched to FFL 3and 4 and we loved it. I am currently trying to go back to R&S 5 and it is OK but not as enjoyable or effective as FFL. Carrie at Heart of Dakota recommends that the student works at a slower pace through R&S as it is fairly advanced and I think dry. R&S stops at Grade 10 and you would still have space to finish in a typical eduation if you just slowed down until the student was ready.

Thank you! That does look good.

Thank you, Jean. I have not spent much time with her polishing this one, but truthfully I do not feel confident in this area. I am so pleased that she learned how to organize her paragraph with IEW since being able to do this was something that helped me in university so many years ago. I often wish I could write more myself just so I can cement the rules before I try to help her learn them but all of that requires time and feedback for me as well. I also wish I had a quiet space without my youngest talking in the backround. My brain gets so distracted. Thank you!

Thank you. I am feeling very insecure these days and really do not feel like I am helping my kids much. There is so much I do not know and my daughter is starting to become independent on some subjects which makes my lack of knowledge that much more obvious when she asks for help. Writing is real worry for me, especially the mechanics like punctuation. I have always felt behind with her because of our rocky start and now that she is happy to do school I am not sure I can help guide her well. Math is a never ending catch up. I finally bought TT7 for her and she is doing it but then I saw a whole bunch of people on these boards that think it is behind. I mean she is behind so it isn't going to make a problem but I still feel like it is not helpful if she is happy to use it. Odd, I know. I should know better after all this time. Have you looked at her writing on the other forum? Would you say that it is close to grade level?

That's what I though but it worked because I looked at all the links in the signature. Acckkk! I'm such a fool. It's a computer selling purses.

Take this for what it is worth, you may not want to compare youself to me as I am a clssic underacheiver when it comes to order.....I do mine about three times a year; Christmas, the fall and the spring. I occassionally get it back to working order other times of the year but it is never as thorough a job. Mine's so full right now that I cannot do anything at it so I do school on the couch with all three of my kids. To be fair to me....my five year old has been using it as well and it is (mostly) his stuff making the clutter. Yeah. Let's say that.

This is the position I have been taking this year. Happy learning is better than forced learning but reading some comments here about what people are doing I start to feel like somehow I may be able to get more out of them if I approached it better or differently more organized maybe. Maybe it is the end of the year insecurities.......I should test them and strengthen the weaknesses after I know what they really are. But then I start thinking that some weaknesses would not show up on the standardised tests....like writing, spelling and really Science because I would do a core test with them. I have not thought of more audiboosk but we are doing some stuff by audio......Cats of Bubastes, What in the World, MOH. He loved to listen to them in the morning when I am getting up for the day, but he has stopped lately. Maybe he has listened too much, and needs new audibooks. If anyone else is interested in being helpful.....I posted an example of my daughter's writing on the K-8 subforum Writers Workshop. (?)

I just found this subforum and I thought I would post something that dd has written in the past month. She is sixth grade (not quite 12 years old) and just finishing IEWA. This one she shared orally so the final polishing has not been done. We will get to that. What's the difference Early Greek people ate very much the same food as we do. For example a tipical Grecian breakfast would include goat's milk and barley bread while we might have cow's milk and toast spread with butter. What do you normally have for dinner? Chances are it would not be much different from what the early Greeks would eat. A grecian dinner would have pork, beef, peas, onions and rye bread, cheese, olive oil, and huny. No strange food there! As in most homes in the 21st century greek familys would wash their hands before eating. It was very importand because they did not have forks or spoons to eat with. They also did not have napkins so they used dough instead. That's right, Greek people used dough for napkins. Although greeks had some different customs than us, we all ate and eat very much the same food. Seems that there maybe some punctuation in there that I missed due to the crossing out. The last sentance seemed stilted because of the IEW instruction to repeat and reflect two to three key works. I would have her go back over that to help get it smoother with the tense. It is based on a HOD writing exercise 5-8 sentences long....she has written longer ones when following exercises in writing with IEW. What do you think? Please be ruthless......I need to know the truth, even if it is painful.

I am hoping you get feedback that I can mull over as well. I have a sixth grader and I am struggling with whether I expect enough from her. Perhaps I am going to feel fine with things next week but this week has been hard on me. I could try to give you feed back, but I doubt I am a good one for the job. :bigear:

I am always knocking against what my kids seem available to do. They show signs of shutting down by 2 or 3 o'clock on a regular school dayand although I would go on they cannot. We start around 9 or 10 but we do not always get everything done. By the end of the day they have activities, such as piano, TKD and swim team. My husband says these are important parts of their day as well and should not be dropped. My daughter (6th grade) is slightly behind in Math and Spelling due to some sensory issues we had to work out early on, but she is doing fine in Grammar, History and Word Roots. She manages in writing but she struggles sometimes. We are doing IEW with her and just finished SWI A. We will do the Medieval book next year. She hates Science but is doing it willingly now and I think knows more than she lets on. My son (3rd grade) is doing OK in everything but is not excelling the way I thought he would. He appeared soooo smart at first but his smarts are unfocused and I fear that that is my fault. He can keep himself entertained for hours looking over encyclopedias but it struck me today that he does not know how to narrate well and does not reach for fictional books. My last son is five, but his birthday is late September. I will start Kindergarten with him next fall. He picks up things in our read alouds, but does not put pencil to paper willingly. He knows more that the other two did at the same age but he does not write or color anything including his letters. When do you know that you need to do more even if they protest? I enjoyed this year since each of them were willing to actually do their work without too many protests but I'm panicing now because perhaps I should have pushed still more. Anyone out there with experience that can give me some wisdom?

Nutrition and if I could become a chef in University then that, whatever it is called. :)