Some of the parties are a joke/rort. They get funding for every vote. We do end up with some interesting wild cards in the debate though!

We only had 5 on our green form, I think, we're a super safe seat so barely any campaigning...

Yikes!!

So Australia had it's federal election yesterday, counting is still ongoing and it is neck and neck between the two major parties - neither of which have enough seats to form government yet! We are looking at deals with minor parties needing to be done (again), or a hung parliament and back to the voting booths! If anyone is studying the Westminster parliamentary system and/or modern Australia, you may be interested! (Note - I haven't commented at all on the political positions of any party and am not interested in a cat fight <3) http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2016/ http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HouseDefault-20499.htm

Haha, love love love it! *stealing*

Asking for the most important part isn't a test, the correct answer is whatever part the child thought was most important (I mean, within reason!) I wouldn't just read one paragraph for it personally. Also, doing narrations from both children from a longer passage shouldn't be a problem, especially if you're asking a different question (albeit only slightly different). I'll come back in a little while to elaborate!

I teach piano veeeeeeeeery part time with a select few students. Because I have 4 kids to raise and homeschool. I also do all the paperwork for our property/upcoming family business. Sometimes I stop procrastinating and clean something... not right now of course...

Almost exactly the same here. Dd was born 5 days before my 21st, then I was 23, 26 and 29 for my 4th.

1. It doesn't bother me but I don't really see the point! 2. My dh shares his father's name and was vehemently opposed to it for our children. No bad experiences beyond mail etc, he just feels that there is plenty of different names to go around. 3. I do like patterns but it was difficult for more than 2 kids so our definition of meeting the pattern became more fluid lol. I don't know that we'd worry so much if we had another kid to name. Our naming style isn't such a strict pattern like all j's.

My pleasure! She's my oldest so it's my first time trying to teach this stage and I think I finally have my head around what I'm doing at the moment. I listened to swb's writing lectures (over and over lol), took notes, went back through the complete writer taking notes and I finally came up with a full mental picture of what I'm doing and why... it's a nice feeling!I also do some diagramming with her, we diagram one of the dictation sentences. She's great at the MCT 4 level analysis but we are doing some traditional diagramming too, to add to the logical stuff. I still use some cw because I really like it, but I'm less concerned about doing the whole workbook and rather just focus on the goals from the teacher text, if that makes sense. Eta- I know that this thread is about history but to see writing as a whole I also need to say that she does a daily narrative summary, we're slow reading through A Midsummer night's dream and she writes a narration and copies her favourite lines each day. So in a week for writing she has 4x narrative summaries and copy work, 1x dictation and diagramming, 1x outlining, rewriting, editing and final draft-ing.

Forgot to quote!

Yes, she does. I get her to outline 3 or 4 paragraphs from the reading, main point and one supporting point. I don't expect complex paragraphs at this point, so I am careful with what she chooses to outline. We're still in the beginning of logic so the figuring out main points and supporting arguments are fairly new for her. Last week she rewrote 3 paragraphs from tiner's exploring the world of biology. The editing stage is a lot of discussion because she is still learning to logically organise her thoughts into paragraphs that flow. Then I have her reread hers and reread the original (tiner) paragraphs to illustrate in her mind what they did differently/more effectively.

Dd is 5/6 ish, I also keep history light at the moment. I tend to alternate the [outline paragraphs - rewrite draft- final copy] as per wTM between history, science and literature. So she'll do one 3-4 paragraph paper rewriting from her outline a week (lit is slightly different structure but the idea is one 1 page paper a week). On the off history weeks I have her do narrative summaries of each section of her history reading/research and whatever projects or extra reading we decide on together. I also do dictation every now and then to keep it sharp. We only do history twice a week (unless it's the writing paper for history week) At the moment we are taking a break from Diana Waring's RRR to do RFWP's Plague! So lots of varied assignments. She's really enjoying it.

Yep. I'm sorry for what you went through. My dad is on marriage number 3, my stepmother, this one seems to be a keeper - they married nearly 20 years ago now. She is nice and they seem happy. My mum has been married and divorced 4 times. I'm actually not sure if the paper work has been done for the last one, but they split 13 years ago (the weekend before my wedding...) There was a marriage before my dad, then the guy after my dad lasted longer - about 10 years, until I was 12 - probably because he beat the crap out of my mum regularly and she was too frightened to leave. Then the last one who was a weirdo and they only lasted a year - I was 17 and moved out by then. Not to mention the boyfriends in between, the ones who smoked drugs and walked around naked in front of their girlfriend's teenage daughters. Many in my family are divorced, 3/6 of my mother's siblings, and my grandparents too. Not surprisingly, few of many cousins bother getting married - though I haven't heard of any divorces there yet. No one in Dh's family is divorced, except one abusive cousin.

My kids loved: Alice in wonderland Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's library and The Island of Dr Libris. Gregor the overlander series At the back of the north wind Just so stories Tom's midnight garden Eta Swallows and Amazons and Treasure Island were great too!

The normal narnia audios are great. Patrick Stewart reads The Last Battle!

Yes it does help, thank you! The examples are very helpful. I'm just posting my musings, trying to sort out my thoughts... I'm coming from the perspective of a natural writer with a fairly poor education so much of what people call 'highschool writing' is foreign. We did the 5 paragraph thing - though it was never explicitly taught - and university essays seemed less 'writing paper' to me, if I'm understanding the distinction. University essays were basically just longer 5 paragraph essays... I think at the same point you were 5 years ago - figuring out what exactly constitutes an education in writing and how to implement it. I'm getting a lot of new vocabulary and concepts (from here, wtm, writing curriculum etc) to describe vague intuitions I always had which made me able to write passably when many classmates struggled. So, when you talk about the different tools used to create the writing paper, I'm going to have to think on that for a little while. I don't think I've ever sat and considered a difference between the two, reflecting now, I guess I'd thought of the writing paper as a more mature/sophisticated version of the 5 paragraph, but now I'm realising that they employ different skills for different purposes and those differences can be explicitly taught - even if there is overlap. I really appreciate this thread, thanks for taking the time to answer.

Haha! Yes, unfortunately the money fountain doesn't flow fast enough for all the curriculum... Yes, I've realised with my oldest that a lot of the practice needs to come from discussion first. That discussing IS practising skills. And it is a real asset in homeschooling to be able to have the deep, one on one discussions. Truthfully, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the reading/writing papers thing... I'm not sure whether la types (intuitive with writing/language) naturally turn their reading essays into more writing ones - when given enough time? Or, maybe I'm just not clear, is it the deliberateness in writing beautifully and/or to a particular audience? More proactive than reactive? Surrounding them with good examples fits the schole ideas too, giving them an appetite for beautiful writing so their inclination will be towards the good. In theory...

Have you looked at the upper levels of MCT, especially the new post-voyage level? There's a lot of analysing speeches and examples of excellent writing in there. There are also a few ancillary MCT/rfwp books in that vein like the one I have about Jefferson.

Love this update, thanks so much for taking the time! The aops info is fascinating! How very cool to see him become a great writer that way! We are doing a mish mash inspired by SWB (wwe and wws and the complete writer and the lectures all buzzing in my mind) and by CW. We sort of pitch back and forth between the two depending on what else is happening in school and life! We just spent months working with CW's poetry, we're about to move forward with a SWB inspired writing in science/history. Lots of dictation, outlining, grammar etc. I also like to chuck in some of the assignments in the MCT books to mix things up. We wing it quite a lot around here...

I like it mostly. However it has been more difficult than expected. Part of that is craziness of life intruding... if we had a stable house (moving and building) and stable routine (jobs and rotating shifts) it would be infinitely easier. But then, dh and I don't ever do things the easy way. Probably a bad month for me to answer this question.

2 sounds good to me except for the fence and the possibly annoying landlord. The size wouldn't bother me, I prefer smaller houses. We are currently in a similar sized house and it is small but doable. Hardwood floors and shorter commute are big huge draws, I hate carpet. The fence thing would bother me, it would mean that playing outside is difficult - and with the small inside space the outside will be a lifesaver (ask me how I know!) But I don't know how normal that is for your area, it's virtually non existent here...

I'm so sorry, what a kick in the guts. I know what that feels like (thanks mum). Raging is completely understandable. Be gentle with yourself *hugs*

Pretty much this. Neither dh or I are big swearers, but the kids have heard some through music or movies. I've also had to explain heroin/junky and innuendo (I know that she is saying ice cream but she doesn't mean ice cream and repeating it isn't a great idea!) Lol. It's not a big deal here.

I'm so sorry. Yes, it happened to me. I lost two pregnancies between 7-8 weeks and didn't know anything was wrong until 12-13 weeks. One miscarriage I completed at home after pessaries (cannot remember the name of the drug at the moment). The other, I had a d&c. The doctors were not comfortable leaving it completely naturally, in fact, the at home miscarriage was not easy and I came close to requiring a d&c anyway - I had a lot of bleeding. I'm really sorry, it is scary and difficult. *Gentle hugs*