No, I do not use the poetry books. I used the first two with dd12. The second poetry book is a great deal more work than the first. In order for the poetry books to be useful to me I would need a practice book to accompany them in the same way the grammar books have Practice Island, Practice Town, etc. I found that we just weren't that into poetry either. The first vocab book is really just an intro book. The rest of the vocabulary books in the program are much more concrete in discussing, memorizing and applying words/stems. Although I like them, we don't use the vocabulary books since we have an online vocabulary program and a child only needs so much vocab work. :D

It is brand new so no one would have used it yet (unless they ran a beta or trial program?) I ordered it for my ds who will be 5 in a couple months. The first shipment is set for later this week. They are also going to offer a set of consumable workbooks in case you have more than one child using the program. (I am considering combining ds and dd who just turned 6 last month.) ~Melissa

The boards are usually slow on Sundays - I'm sure you will get several answers tomorrow. I have used MCT on and off for five years. I have worked through the first three levels with dd12 and will begin Magic Lens I later this year. Each of the four books (grammar, vocab, poetry, writing) can be used independently, so it depends on what you are looking for. I am currently using only the grammar book with my dd10 and the grammar and writing books with dd12. I think the grammar program is excellent. I've never found anything I like better. The individual books could really be combined with any program - however you want to pull language arts together.

I went to Eckerd for marine biology. I loved the school and would be happy to see my kids going there - BUT I came from a northern, conservative (Catholic) background and I found the college to be much more liberal and informal than I was used to. Saying that, I found a great group of kids and had a wonderful experience - after getting used to tank tops and flip-flops (or no shoes at all) in classrooms and a wide variety of opinions in all matters. If things haven't changed, each student is assigned a mentor - a teacher that looks out for the student the full four/five years. I found my mentor to be a great help while I was there. Most of the state colleges in Florida have pretty good Biology/Marine Biology programs. FGCU is the smallest and most conservative (but that may be because the average age is older) and has more of an environmental science focus.

abbeyej - If you don't mind, what does your daily schedule look like? What does it mean when you say lessons two days and homework two days? And your reading list - do you have an requirements for the books from the WTM list? Do you assign time each day for reading? Thanks!

dd12 & dd10 - 8 hours dd6 & ds4 - 11 hours

I didn't even realize all of the Olympics events were only on one channel. We can't pick up NBC either. Are the other channels allowed to show reruns or highlights or anything? My kids are going to be disappointed. :glare:

7th grade: Math - online class, finish Singapore Primary Mathematics Latin - online class Greek - online class French - First Start French (finish I and perhaps begin II) English - Magic Lens I / 4Practice I Science - Oak Meadow, finish Environmental Science History - online class, finish History Odyssey Modern 2 Geography/Art - online class, continue Mapping the World with Art Literature - Excellence in Literature 2 Religion - online class

KISS grammar http://home.pct.edu/~evavra/KISS.htm The website is difficult to follow but it is a free program, there is a yahoo group if you have questions and there are printable workbooks available (I believe grades 2-4 are ready and grades 5-11 are coming.) Even without the workbooks for the upper grades, the material is all there - it is just more difficult to pull together.

We gave all our girls Ipods last Christmas. They only get one gift each from us, so I didn't feel they were being over-indulged. The youngest dd was five at the time. The ones we gave have a password protected volume control. We set all three of them. I haven't noticed any addictive quality. The only times they tend to use them are on longer car rides, at bedtime and occasionally doing chores such as room cleaning. My dh does all uploading of music and stories so they are well monitored. FWIW, we don't do any video games and allow very little TV use here as well. The ipods have a good deal of classical music and music and stories in other languages (French and Latin) along with a wide selection of more popular music as well.

This is what I had always thought too - that social studies and history were 'in essence' the same category. We recieved our original information from Collegeboard.com's college search. We couldn't find the high school requirements on the U of Miami website, but the college board website had them. I just went and checked Cornell's website and they only have 3 credits of social studies listed (and suggest two history courses within the social studies category.) So, I think you are right and that makes much more sense to me! We will definitely contact the colleges directly at a later time, but it is a relief to know I don't likely have to consider adding sociology or geography classes to an already full schedule!

Thanks for the help. I'm afraid we haven't really ever considered social studies. :glare: We were looking up the requirements/recommendations for University of Miami and they would like 2 History and 3 Social Studies credits. Then we checked Cornell University and the site says 3 History and 3 Social Studies! I'm sure these are full year credits so we are going to have to shift our plans a bit and perhaps add a geography class for high school. We are just working on a broad plan right now. In a couple of years dd will contact the colleges she is most interested in and see what they would like to see for 'social studies.' I just hadn't realized it was a category different from history. Thanks again.

I had U.S. Government penciled in under history - can that be either or is it usually considered social studies? DD is also planning to take Ethics and Humanities I and II at the CC, would any of these be social studies or are they considered electives? Thanks!

We were checking college requirements and most of the colleges dd is interested in require 2 credits of history and 3 credits of social studies. In general, what classes would be considered social studies classes? I always thought that was a term used for elementary school studies that grouped history/geography/social skills/etc. into one class.

If you like SOTW and have the AG, I think that is the better route as both programs are so similar and the AG has more projects. Even with history as your focus I can't imagine it being worth it to try and do both. And the SOTW chapters are not in sequence in HO so that would be confusing to schedule as well. In History Odyssey I believe SOTW is meant to be used as more of a supplement and without the AG. We use History Odyssey, because I really don't care for SOTW or history projects. We don't use the SOTW text at all. So we have CHOW and Usborne as spines, map pages, notebooking pages, coloring and reading suggestions and definitions to work on. We don't do the History Pockets at all either. It is just the right amount of history for us, as history is not the center or highlight of our school.

Hi Mariann, Is that your Christmas photo at the bottom of your page? That is an adorable picture! My three girls are enrolled in CLAA. DD12 is enrolled in five classes, DD10 in three classes and DD6 in the Petty School program. My opinion of the quality is that it is excellent. They are some of the best classes I have found in seven or so years of constant curriculum research. :) The author and his wife respond quickly to both questions you might have as a parent and also to any student questions. Many of the students are in daily contact with the Michaels to discuss questions with their lessons. The classes are all new. But there is a webboard for questions which the Michaels and also the other parents respond to daily. Any errors or fuzzy areas in the curriculum are discussed and if needed corrected in a very timely matter. Many of the classes are difficult, even at the very basic level. Catechism and Chronology only require about 30 minutes each per day to make steady progress. But even at 12 years old, the basic grammar and vocabulary classes take 2+ hours daily of sincere study to make steady progress. Our daily goal is to spend 1.5 hours on grammar and 45 min - 1 hour on vocabulary. Even with these times it can take two weeks or more to pass each lesson. It is time intensive and there aren't any "fun" activities or any such things. As to whether my kids like it - some days better than others. But overall, yes they like it. In a six month period they learn more Latin than they would have in two or three years of another program. It suits my eldest the best - it covers the basics and does it well. She loves the geography program and really has no complaints about any of the other classes either. DD10 struggles a bit more because she was never a details sort of person. In school work (and in life) she tries to get a summary of the whole idea and move on. But the amount of detailed memory work in claa classes holds her back. DD6 loves it, but she loves anything that has to do with school. She is the child that moans and groans on hearing it is not a school day. I have every intention of continuing the classes throughout my children's time with me at home. Every week the school is growing and expanding. Next year there will be a writing curriculum and I am looking forward to that as well!

We give our kids one gift for Christmas and one gift for birthday, they have a great deal of input in what they get - all three girls have birthdays near Christmas. dd12 - cell phone for Christmas and telescope for birthday dd10 - desk (for her room) for Christmas and rock tumbler for birthday dd6 - doll house rug - a rug with the layout of a house so small dolls (or the Littlest Pet Shop animals she is getting from her grandparents ;) can be played on it) for Christmas and stationary set (journal, notecards, bookmark, pens, etc.) for birthday

Congratulations on such a wonderful accomplishment! Your post came at a great time for me, as both my older dds have chosen not to participate in a sport this coming term. I've just told them they will then participate in the Couch25K program! As an incentive, I will do the program with them. They both know they can outrun me. :lol: They are both comfortable mile runners and participate in children's races, but I haven't been able to get them to the next level. This is a perfect time and program for doing that. They will have to run a 5K at the end in order to complete the program. I think they will enjoy it more than they currently realize. Thanks again for the post!

Yes, the practice books come after the grammar books are completed. We work on a three term system - so term one is the grammar book and terms two and three are the practice books.

Excellence in Literature Have you had a chance to look through the sample unit (Unit 3) on the IEW website? Every unit is layed out in nearly the same way. There is one primary book, one additional honors book and the context materials. There is usually an author profile, a short paper of some sort and a longer paper for each unit. You can pick and choose the units you use, but the papers get longer and more difficult as you progress. (This really isn't difficult to modify.) There are no worksheets or answers. There are a few broad discussion questions for each unit to be considered throughout the book. I found this to be a perfect program for us, but it has the drawbacks of the parent grading the essays (there is a rubric in the back of the book) and having to read the books if you want to engage the student in discussion. (Although all of the books are classics and probably have free cliff note type pages online.) I have found the books and discussion questions to be suitable to all ages. We have found nothing objectionable anywhere in the program. We are still working through the first level - although I have read through all three levels currently available. It is not difficult to skip a unit if you've covered the books already or simply don't want to. We are going to save Fahrenheit 451 for when dd is older and just skip that unit. The American and British programs can be matched with history as they progress fairly chronologically. This is a program that probably works better for a motivated reader/literature student. It doesn't require a less motivated student to dig deep into the novels the way a program with specific questionaires or discussion questions would do. Yet, while a less motivated student would get less out of the program, it is broad and would expose any student to a large number of classic works, their authors and other art/music of the time period. Sorry this is a bit vague, if you have any more specific questions just let me know!

Laura, There is a yahoo groups for MCT programs. MCTLA - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MCTLA/ In my opinion Magic Lens I / Word Within the Word I would be a great fit. We are only doing grammar this year and it takes about 15 minutes per day if we do it daily. I dropped vocabulary for the younger years, but am still on the fence about Word Within the Word next year. How long it takes will depend on how you want to use it. You can do it all orally or have the student write out some of the responses. If we decide to use the vocabulary next year I am going to budget about 30 minutes daily or an hour 3 days per week for Word Within the Word I. I agree that the writing program at that level will not be helpful to you. It is very format driven and much would not even apply. I haven't seen the poetry book at this level as I decided not to pursue the poetry after using the first two books. Best Wishes, Melissa

Thanks AndyJoy!!

I found an item I am looking for on half.com for $2.00. I've never ordered from them before. The store front says they are affiliated with ebay. Is half.com an actual store? Are the items all new? Does it work like Amazon - where their items are new, but they list other people selling the same item used? Or is each item listed sold by a different person (with no actual half.com store) and they just start listing items with the lowest priced seller? If they are a store and selling new items are they reputable? Thanks!

My copy does not. Each story is two pages. The left had page has a paragraph or two to be translated and the right hand page has a vocabulary list (Latin to English) to go with the story.

(Sorry for the hijack) Hi Sue, Is this your plan for 10th through 12th? Which campus? It is what my daughter plans to do, possibly transferring to UF as a junior. I talked to Mr. Webster from the Tarpon Springs office earlier this week to see what we would need to do and when. He was quite supportive. It sounded as if not many homeschoolers around here actually do dual enrollment - he leaned more toward Early College. But when I assured him we would be doing dual enrollment not Early College - he was still informative and sounded supportive. Do you know any homeschool families currently in dual enrollment? I'm wondering how they find the level of classes and campus atmosphere? I just spent the last week rearranging our schedule. If dd wants to transfer as an entering junior for a science degree she has to take a minimum of six science and four math classes at SPC. We were not originally planning on so many! We are just going to follow the suggested number of credits for our high school transcript. As she plans to take the AA - it really won't matter much what her high school transcript has on it. But, of course I will put it together as plans can always change. Thanks for any info or opinions you can share on SPC.