Hi. I found this thread that had some great help, too. I also got The Ocean Book and Study Guide and the VanCleave Oceans. I'm in the process of lesson planning to keep us all together, but add to the Middle School workload with all the materials. I'll get VanCleave from the library, as I am only using few chapters from there. Great stuff all around, but I don't want the oceanography focus that VanCleave offers. Just waiting on the The Ocean Book in the mail. I'll post when I have the plan all done. Thanks again for all the suggestions both past and present.

Thank you. We're working on it. Improvements all around, and great tests of patience. I appreciate every prayer!

I should have loads of blogging time this summer :) No school for me! It's so nice to be missed...hee hee. :grouphug:

Monica, thank you so much. That is just what I was hoping for: investigation, drawing, and joy! I'll be researching for certain. In appreciation, Tina

On the yahoo groups, there is a list of additional work for anatomy that really beefs it up. I am hoping for the same kind of increase for swimming creatures. Makes for a nice and easy base, then depth in other places, while keeping dd interested and on the same page as ds. Def. not enough on its own for middle school in our house.

Hi, friends. I miss ya'll so much. I'm getting my ducks in a row for next year and can't imagine that I don't need to get much, muchless have the time to hang out with ya'll! I'm supposed to be glued to the Forum in March! My how time changes things! My extras left me in December so I could go to school full-time and devote all my time to my own family. They are doing well and my kids appreciate the extra mom time. I'm in school full-time and making great grades (even though I know most of the material from home schooling!) I'll have my AA by May and am currently making application fo

Hi, friends. I miss ya'll so much. I'm getting my ducks in a row for next year and can't imagine that I don't need to get much, muchless have the time to hang out with ya'll! I'm supposed to be glued to the Forum in March! My how time changes things! My extras left me in December so I could go to school full-time and devote all my time to my own family. They are doing well and my kids appreciate the extra mom time. I'm in school full-time and making great grades (even though I know most of the material from home schooling!) I'll have my AA by May and am currently making application fo

Hi, friends. I miss ya'll so much. I'm getting my ducks in a row for next year and can't imagine that I don't need to get much, muchless have the time to hang out with ya'll! I'm supposed to be glued to the Forum in March! My how time changes things! My extras left me in December so I could go to school full-time and devote all my time to my own family. They are doing well and my kids appreciate the extra mom time. I'm in school full-time and making great grades (even though I know most of the material from home schooling!) I'll have my AA by May and am currently making application fo

I love the Phonics Road series b/c it brings the whole of language arts to life. Phonics doesn't stop...it grows to reading and spelling, doesn't stop...grows to sentences, to paragraphs, etc. Comprehensive and fabulous. LOVE IT after trying many,many, many other things over the years.

You will find the approach in PR and IEW to be quite similar. Take a glance at my blog and you'll find many examples of PRs writing, especially in PR3. GREAT stuff that produces sound paragraphs. The sentence analyzing is a focus early on and teaches children to identify the work of parts of speech, which will later encourage more vibrant sentences. It works. And the style is easily transposed across the board and applied in history, science, and other areas where writing for understanding is appropriate. FWIW, I'm ending PR4 now and very pleased with my dds writing ability. She will

PR is completely comprehensive in the language arts. By the end of the program you have handwriting, spelling, grammar, light lit. analysis, vocabulary and word root studies. It's brilliant! Been off the boards b/c I'm in school full time right now, but my blog has a lot to offer about PR, including a great review of just how comprehensive PR really is.

The style of handwriting matters not with PR ;) More hand holding than many others, and great for visual learners b/c of DVDs. No need at all for additional grammar w. PR and always received with more excitement than RS ever was in our home. Love PR.

Hi, friends. I miss ya'll. :grouphug: Did anybody do Swimming Creatures w/ supplements of additional reading? Got a lesson plan? I'm getting the notebook, but would like to beef it up in the same way we beefed up anatomy w/ the free lesson plans at the yahoo group. I checked there first, to no avail. Thanks. Tina

And HHMI is included in my schedule.

Just piping in w/ my experience. Dec. and Sept are the worst months to find a renter. Nobody is looking to spend the $ b/c of Christmas and school.

Look at the home school launch in my siggy. There are some living books and movies worked into Apologia High School Bio on my page ;)

No. And I might hesitate to send my kinesthetic learner there unless I was sure there would be a lot of projects and less writing (than we do in the very classical parts of our schooling). Hi, btw ;) Miss you ladies!

That's a great idea. Try and find the positives while your nurture your body. GET WELL SOON! :grouphug:

I think you might be missing the "build up to" part of TOG. THere is always some transition time built into the program. In other words, the upper grammar student who is 3rd year upper grammar should easily knock out that reading, but a new UG student may have to read about 1/2 the material himself and you read aloud the other half. Also, you can never look at TOG in 1-week to get a feel. Often times, when there is a lot fo reading one week, there is little in surrounding weeks. It's okay to spread it out a bit. It's also okay to skip some of the literature. There are weeks when our

Ladies, You said it all for me! Great job at the BEE! That's a tough one! Sad. This KILLS me. Honestly, the work I saw from a local 3rd grader shouldn't even be called "writing;" yet she received high marks. Cruddy handwriting, cruddy spelling, cruddy sentence structure, cruddy paragraphs....but HEY! She's writing --- NOT. :iagree: :iagree:

totally different....I parent and my mom tried to make us friends. I was not raised in a Godly environment and I was raised to be very egocentric. We have Christ, serve others, and understand authority. I did get my servant's heart and my desire to have FUN with my kids from Mom, though! And my work ethic from my dad, who worked 7 days most of my childhood.

She meant it matter of fact and as reference to a lifestyle -- not to the potential or character of her children. Appreciation as in recognition, not adoration. Yes, she does refer to some qualities in a negative light....comotose tv kids who run solo or are locked in the crib net for hours and hours give way to negative opinion that I happen to agree with and also have witnessed again and again and again. Ever heard the song Chicken Fried? Redneck heaven, huh? Her descriptions were appropriate adjectives in this case and representative of an entire Culture and Lifestyle. I suppose having rai

I found "trade off" worked well. Require certain reading and then allow the twaddle.....Magic Tree House is pretty good (Cap. U. is not an option over here ;) ) Even twaddle is getting them reading! Baby steps! 9 is young to "enjoy" classics. One of mine (classically educated his entire life) didn't want to read anything of true content until 7th grade (might have been 8th)! great post. It IS culture shock. I'm not sure that people understand just how much of a culture in and of itself a ghetto lifestyle truly is. And if they do get it, they understand that ghetto is not defamatory, simple

I have successfully done this (see my blog). Our situation is different in that the ghetto mom is moving forward and we are in agreement about what to do with the dc. We're in year 3 of home schooling the eldest boy and we made RADICAL turn arounds in social and academic areas. You would hardly know (other than apparel and music selection of the family) that they had ever been deeply ghettofied. In fact and as encouragement, I actually heard the 6yo use proper past tense form this week...a real improvement! Keep your expectations about 6m--1year below what you would expect from your dc. I ha

Dropping in to share some good news. I miss this place. I'm just too busy to have hardly any computer-fun time. Our hope has been to utilize various dual enrollment options offered by a local 4-year, state college as soon as our children were spiritually and academically fit. You might remember me struggling through (typical) teenage boy gunk (lazy, unmotivated, chaotic...driving me batty kinda stuff) so I wasn't sure when that was going to happen...ever (tee hee). Well, with a little help from me, who got a TON of help from the Hive, he's turned into a wonderful young man. Okay, so