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annegables

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Everything posted by annegables

  1. I say this as someone who regularly uses a wafflemaker...What is with registering for (or gifting) very specific, mono-functional kitchen items??? I have never had a kitchen big enough to store so many random gadgets. We received an iced tea maker, several waffle makers, and a hot chocolate maker, very specific platters like for deviled eggs, a bajillion different types of stemware, and other things I have forgotten. For "entertaining". I must be a very boring person. I think there is a very small percentage of people who actually use these items regularly. The rest is just projecting our fantasies onto some bride or mother to be.
  2. To quote you again... If you are Christian (or not and want to read a classic Christian book), I recommend The Screwtape Letters for helping to find themes. The chapters are really short and themes are explicitly laid out as Screwtape and Wormwood discuss the nature of humans. Oh, snap - that's what materialism looks like! Thanks, Screwtape.
  3. Gah. I feel so silly. This thread has been a big light bulb moment for me. I have educated myself on some of the Great Books in a meaningful way, and I dont know why I didn't connect that with how I want to educate my son until this post. Good grief. I just kept looking at these Great Courses type classes and thinking that I wanted that for my son, except more how I did it for myself. Normally I am not this slow on the uptake.😜
  4. It has chapters like: "When in doubt, It's from Shakespeare", "...Or The Bible", "It's more than just rain or snow", "Is that a symbol", "Never stand next to the hero", "If she comes up, it's baptism", "Yes, she's a Christ figure, too", and "It's never just heart disease...and rarely just illness". This book was helpful and funny. I got to see so many things I had missed in books I have read.
  5. Thank you for saying this better than I could. I far prefer used items as gifts in almost every circumstance. I think about the economically disadvantaged people who might have made the item. I think about all the waste. I think about the limited life span. And most importantly, I enjoy looking at the stuff I have and seeing my story weaved together with the previous owners'. I should add that I think these things and I am not very sentimental nor super hippy. I just dont like new stuff. I also really dislike showers and managed to not have any for my 3 kids. I dislike being the center of attention with receiving gifts. The entire experience is so uncomfortable for me; I cringe just thinking about it.
  6. I first encountered the Anne books as an adult. I consider her a personal friend as those books have helped me navigate some of my adult milestones. It is also where I first really learned about WWI (all my high school history stopped at the Civil War). Those stories got into my bones and shaped me. For years I would read those books by candlelight, as an almost sacred ceremony.
  7. I am an intelligent and voracious reader. And I am a very literal reader (and am nowhere near the autism spectrum). As an adult, I have a difficult time finding themes in books. In AP English something, I read all of the Scarlet Letter without realizing that the A wasn't just embroidery like a monogram. Just this summer I read the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid. Thanks to the Close Reads podcast covering The Odyssey, I finally got to see the deeper meanings and themes. Before that podcast I had vague thoughts of "there seem to be a lot of looms in this book." Once I pick up on the theme, then I can run with it (or BS about it, which is what I learned to do in AP Lit). That podcast and How to Read Literature Like a Professor have been enormously helpful in helping me understand deeper meanings in lit.
  8. We are planning sisters! My kids adore educational videos, and Great Courses are on the far end of educational videos. With regard to the bolded, something I just started doing with my DS is to give him his essay topic at the start of the book, so that his reading will be more focused. For instance, we are reading The Screwtape Letters, and I gave him the essay topic of "CS Lewis wrote this book in 1941. Lewis fought in WWI. How does the Screwtape Letters reflect his experience with war?" This way gives my kid a more narrow framework for taking notes. Because there are (as I see it) two main kinds of academic note-taking. The first is to study for something, and this involved detailed notetaking on everything. The second is notetaking for writing a paper/grant/etc. You are still reading the book, but it is much more for a specific purpose.
  9. This is helpful! I read The Well educated Mind a few years ago, but it was intimidating then. I appreciate your strategy. I love nerding out over books - that is a big reason I dont want to outsource. Why would I pay money for someone else to do this with my son?😂 This is another reason I want to DIY. We like blazing our own trails. I figured I would not be a good fit for Omnibus partly because I probably wouldn't like what they were emphasizing, even if we read the same selection of books. Thank you for the thoughtful responses.
  10. That was my other big hangup with Omnibus - the theological bent. Thank you for your response - this was beneficial in helping me become more comfortable with DIY.
  11. My son never did Alcumus. He got more than enough practice from the book that I never saw a need. YMMV. My son also did Khan Academy algebra, so he actually finished 2 algebra programs, but he was quite young and we were not in a rush.
  12. Thank you so much for all of this. You are a gem. With regards to the bolded, lots of the lit selections look really boring to me, and I really enjoy reading. One of my big struggles with those lists for middle school kids (like on Omnibus), is to read such difficult material at an age where they cannot appreciate much of it, only understand some of it, and enjoy little of it (at least my kids) seems like an exercise in futility.
  13. Oh man, you and I have had a very similar weekend:). I just posted in the high school thread something along these lines. I could have written everything you said, except for the "what we are doing" part.
  14. Thanks! Thanks to some past threads I perused, Spielvogel is in my Amazon cart. As I wrote this, the Amazon guy just dropped off Our Young Folks Josephus, which will start for read alouds in March (possibly mom-edited for intensity), after I do Leon Garfield's Shakespeare Stories.
  15. Yes:). I guess I am trying to figure out what the cost of Omnibus/RR gets me other than an instructor, which I am not dismissing. Just isn't for me. It seems like your response is that my approach would be just fine and I am not missing out on anything, is that correct? I like striking my own path, but then I start to wonder if my kid is going to miss out on some amazing learning just because I was unaware of a certain flibbity-jibbit.
  16. What do you mean by "independently"? My son did AoPS algebra not online and it went fine. He watched the videos online, read the section, and did the problems. I would help him a bit, but not a ton. If he got stumped on a problem, the solutions manual was great! I had him read me the problem, discuss what he did, and then I (looking at the solutions manual) could help him unstick himself. I know algebra quite well, but I did not have time to work out all the problems myself or to in-depth teach him the material. My kid is a math kid, however. But I think my approach would work for others just fine. The videos are not totally necessary. Also, if it is a challenge (and this advice goes a bit against the AoPS discovery method) to get her on the computer, what about having her watch all the videos for the chapter in one fell swoop for her math that day? That way, she can see where she is headed and it gets all the videos over with. This is what we are doing for Counting and Probability and it works well. I watch their videos that way so that I can help my kid.
  17. I am thinking ahead for next year (7th) and the following years. I have read TWTM several times and have spent this past year reading some of the Great Books. When I look ahead for my son, I want him to read the Great Books, but Omnibus (Veritas Press) seems so exhaustive. Like reading to check as many boxes as possible (which is what it would become for us). I looked at Roman Roads and like that approach better. However... I like doing my own thing with my kids. I love reading good books together and then having deep conversations. I dont want to outsource this - it is the reason I am homeschooling! I like assigning my own writing assignments. I strongly dislike quizzes and prefer doing my own assessment for understanding. We also have a subscription to Great Courses Plus, which has loads of courses on the ancient world to the present day. Say I cobble together a course using 4 GCP courses (1 per quarter - this is a very doable pace for us), selected works from Omnibus/RR/other lists, and then have deep conversations and meaningful writing assignments. What would I be missing that Omnibus offers? Other than an outsider doing all the work😂 ? Some of my feeling is how can I make my kid read Eusebius because "it is important to have read him and understand him" when I had never even heard of the guy until 6 months ago? I need to read this stuff as well, and if I am going to read it, I dont want to pay loads of money for a class for my kid.
  18. Where I live, I think some of this is a reaction to the observation that it seems like the local school system tends to grind kids up and spit them out. And many are aware of it. Far too many kids emerge without an important part of them intact, whether it be their moorings, mental health, physical health, etc. Many of them have either gotten a sub-par education by anyone's standards or have received so competitive an education that it is crushing. Families are being pulled apart at the seams as the children spend upwards of 10hours a day with almost exclusively their peer group. Kids are being exposed to harmful things at far too young an age (peer pressure, p*rn, bullying, etc). And many of my friends feel stuck in this situation; a sense of fatalism abounds. "Well, this is just the way things are. Of course my 5th grader is going to get exposed to all of the awfulness on the internet because of unlimited data and busses/lunch/et." "Of course my kid will emerge from high school not sharing my values." I am not saying that homeschooling is a panacea for all of this, but at least some of us can have a sliver of hope. In the course of human history, it is a very recent concept that parents and a close community are not the primary transmitters of values to their children. I am all for "do what works best for your family", but I think the canary in the coal mine is that the bolded above is broken.
  19. How is it that we can send people to the moon and not have a decent, affordable pair of boobs (approved by insurance companies - no offense to the knitted ones) for breast cancer patients? This technology cannot be that difficult. Our health care system is a disaster.
  20. I think this is what the USians have been trying to communicate in this thread about our population. Not to assume negative motives an value judgments where none are intended. Ditto with this.
  21. This thread has me thinking in so many different directions and tangents. @..................., none of this is directed towards you (meaning it isn't personal), merely a jumping off point. I think the original post in touching on a lot of these things and the comments are circling around some of them. 1. Young adults having increased agency for difficult things, like going to the ER by oneself. This involves knowing when to go and how to get oneself there. This also can include traveling by oneself because of the multitude of small decisions that must be made, including navigating public transit. 2. Young adults having increased agency in the small areas of day-to-day life that might be "easier" to achieve when living on one's own vs with parents (paying bills, grocery shopping, etc). 3. The role of boredom and how that has changed in our society. On one hand, bored people can waste loads of time on screens, etc, and young adulthood is a scandalous thing to waste. On the other hand, boredom is the mother of invention. It is good to experience boredom. I find it tragic that screens allow us to fulfill our boredom with something passive. 4. Having interesting and self-actualizing opportunities (the "first world problems" part of it). Here is the sticky wicket. The experiences that I find to be deeply satisfying are not those that society (or myself) value at first glance. For instance, caregiving is neither glamorous nor "fun." Much more enjoyable is stuff centered around my preferences being met and fulfilling my inherent selfishness. My assumption is that this is the most controversial piece. 5. Working towards moving into adulthood through work or continuing education. This can include the other 4 points. In an age of distraction, how can we use our time well? It is our most precious resource. Youth is wasted on the young, and all that. How do we help our kids navigate these choices to become interesting and functioning full members of society giving our limitations and theirs?
  22. I only want to address the bolded. Yes, there are many people at home and abroad who have truly awful lives; who would pay money for your worst days. Who would love to have their kid going to the ER alone because it would mean prompt and appropriate medical care. However, you live and interact in the first world. These are your problems. Just because there are people in horrific situations doesn't mean these decisions dont have a significant impact on your life. Just because there are people starving doesn't mean I can give up on cooking for my family and feed them Alpo. I am still responsible for functioning within the system and culture and people I am around. Otherwise, all of my decisions would fall to the lowest common denominator of "at least we are not living in a box".
  23. I could hug you! Thank you so much for this. The amount of money I have spent on math curriculum... I own Lials and Larson, but I think I am going to buy Foersters and AoPS for Alg 2. What I might end up doing (I have not seen either yet) is comparing Foersters and AoPS and figuring out what is covered in both. Then doing the stuff in Foersters and using AoPS for additional challenge. He enjoys challenging math, but it is not his first love.
  24. Wow. I just clicked on the links and it is so reassuring that I am doing what was actually recommended by the author! I thought I was giving up or just not trying hard enough. I cannot believe that we are actually using a curriculum the way the author intended! This day will go down in history... As to the bolded, I wonder that as well. Some of the initial lessons were so easy. I think what we might do is go back through some of the sentences that he did not diagram, and do those as review. The main thing my DS needs to review is just the nitty-gritty of sentence diagramming, not, say, irregular verbs or past perfect. I can see starting a new school year with a new book. But I wonder if instead of redoing it all right away, if moving back and forth between GWTM and something like Killgallon would be more beneficial. I love that with Killgallon I can see the point to learning grammar.
  25. I could have written your exact post. We are at lesson 50 and we just switched to Killgallon for a break and to review good writing strategies. I have no idea what the answer is. I just know that my kids are super sciency and the type of grammar instruction that is really helpful to their needs is the Killgallon approach. I have really appreciated how much sentence diagramming has benefitted my son and me for helping us see how it all hooks together. So when we go over Killgallon, I can talk through how the sentence would be generally diagrammed. That being said, I genuinely dont understand the need to know all the nitty-gritty of grammar. I have never once needed to know what a modal verb is or how to diagram it. Some of this knowledge seems so esoteric to me. Whereas with Killgallon, I am finally understanding why commas go in certain places. I have intuited these rules, and now I know them (my other kids has been doing Killgallon since Sept). I have found it enormously helpful to know the different types of clauses and phrases, because those can be put to use to improve writing. That, combined with WTM grammar up to lesson 50 at least, has helped us have a better grasp of what is going on. Sorry I am no help in answering your actual question.😁
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