but my post on who else doesn't belong and how badly we need them from the original rigour thread might be added in here.

I've used PM, a few of the Keys to Algebra, and NEM 1, 2, and we're now working on 3. Then my older one will do pre-calc at CC his senior year, and calc at college. He isn't quick at math and had to start entirely over in 5th grade. I have from time to time posted about the gaps in PM/NEM. You can search these boards and the old boards (if they still exist) for Nan in Mass and hopefully find them. If you can't, I'll see if I kept copies. Keys to Algebra will give you a little bit of the US terminology (not very different) and phrasing, and some drill, but doesn't cover anything not covered in NEM 1 and 2. I am not worried about the gaps because I'm planning on doing NEM1-3, a proof-based geometry, then CC for my engineer child. By the time he's done pre-calc at CC, he will have covered any gaps. The gaps won't be a problem for the SATs. I like the way the material is presented very much in NEM.

I'm starting an anti-thread. This is sort of like anti-matter. Don't post here. It doesn't exist in our visible half of the universe. The title of the thread is "Why I don't belong here". I just think probably everyone feels like they don't really belong here, and perhaps if we all post our why-I-don't-belong-on-TWTM-board posts in anti-matter instead of here, then we will all feel better, and maybe the anti-ness will anti us all into a cohesive group. Nan, who doesn't feel like she belongs here either and is using her normal silly backwards logic to try to cheer everyone, including herself, up (Not that I don't think is isn't a good idea to talk about these things from time to time...)

I think the problem is that nobody fits into labels very well. Myrtle says she's not doing TWTM and not doing classical, and yet we need her and Charon's expertese (sorry about spelling) on math. They are providing guidance on rigourous, classical math. Tina in Ouray and Plaid Dad don't seem to be doing TWTM because it isn't classical enough (forgive me if I'm wrong) but we need their guidance for logic and Latin, and for other definitions of classical. Jane in NC is more science oriented than TWTM, but we need her input on doing science classically. Ellie isn't doing TWTM but she has a vast experience with the legalities of homeschooling. I AM doing TWTM more closely, but am not rigorous or academically minded. Lisa NY was doing TWTM fairly but her oldest is in public high school now. Abbyej isn't doing TWTM because her children are academically gifted, but she herself was homeschooled and is generous with her very sensible advice. Someone on the curriculum board (don't want to mangle her name so I'll skip it) has the energy to do research, especially about French programs, and offers the results of her hard work to us all, but she has very young children and isn't really doing much academic work yet. And so on and so forth. So many valuable people. And these are only the ones I thought of off the top of my head! If you rolled us all into one, then we would be rigorous WTMers. LOL -Nan PS I think we all have to remember that SWB and JW offered us the best curriculums they could find that weren't too expensive, weren't too hard for your average bear, and were easily available at the time they wrote the book. Many of the board posters' modifications are because options now exist. That's a huge function of this board - to help keep TWTM updated and to help us all personalize our choices. Don't I remember SWB saying she wasn't going to do any more updates of her book because the board was doing a fine job at that? (If I misremembered, please forgive me SWB.)

We do lots of our reading in the summer. That lets the summers still be summers, but eases up the rest of the year tremendously. I also usually pick an art or music project to do. That gives us some of the extras. And my older one travels during the year, so he usually winds up finishing his math book over the summer. We hate that, though, and I don't recommend it :).

We've found rigor to be a sneaky fellow as well. :)

He's brightish, so I had to choose whether to go farther or broader with him when he was in elementary school. I chose broader, taught him French, got him robotix, had him read almost the whole children's non-fiction section in the library, taught him to draw, did piano, etc... Now that he is older, I'm having to make a new sort of decision, more like the one you described. I've decided that although we will encourage the engineering-type things out of "school", for school, our approach will be, for the sake of his creativity, to give him the things he won't get once he is in his vocational program in college. That means an emphasis on art, music, more languages, great books, and anthropology/geography/travel. Not that we will neglect the science and math; just that we won't let courses in them take up all his time. We made a similar decision with my 17yo., who is also headed for something other than liberal arts. So far, these seem to be the right decisions. My 13yo is very happy to be able to speak French and is now tackling Arabic. He has decorated the livingroom cabinets with comics he has drawn. Whenever he is a little bored, he heads for the piano and makes up pieces. All this seems to balance his almost incessent building very nicely, just as his gymnastics seems to be necessary because it allows him to be able to sit still and focus the rest of the time. These things all seem to feed into each other. He transfers one thing to another and makes it look like he is especially creative to outsiders who don't see the source. It is a very difficult decision, though. Often, I make it the other way round, opting to let them excell at something they are good at rather than spend the time making them mediocre at something they are bad at, allowing them to be lopsided rather than "well rounded". In the end, there is no way mine are going to be well rounded people. They were born extreme lopsiders. I'm just trying to give them some inner richness to sustain them through the boring bits of life, and crossover creativity. This has been an interesting discussion. Every time we do something like this on the board, I learn tons. -Nan

And there are several others, too, who have done it. Someone here recommended it to me, when I asked. The drawing/nature journal piece, the project, and the reading would be fine for middle school (at least mine). The problems might come when you have to answer the questions for each chapter of reading. Those require that you see the overall purpose of what the scientist was doing in each chapter. My son had trouble doing this in 9th grade and I had to help him a lot at first. He did catch on after a while. He was notoriously slow at doing things like that, though, until he turned 17 and suddenly got better at them. His 13yo brother would probably have an easier time than he did, but I still think he might have trouble with the essay questions. It's packed away, or I'd give you a concrete example. I think it depends how much experience your child has had with answering essay questions that aren't just questions about the content of the reading. It might just be my particular children who struggle with this. I don't have anyone to compare them to, so it is hard for me to tell. Sorry I can't be more helpful. -Nan

I'm very odd, too. I feel supported, though, in my oddness, by some of my particular friends here. I know they are doing things differently than I am and have different goals, but some of the people here are fantastic at offering me kind advice on how to do what *I* want to do, warning me about rocks they think I might be headed for, and helping me to feel that what I am doing, weird as it may seem, is a good path for my particular children. This only works, though, if you tell people what your family is like, and sometimes that feels pretty scary or disrespectful of your children and is hard to do, especially as your children get older. -Nan

This is what I learned from TWTM, too. That is my safeguard against failure. It is the reason TWTM feels like a more workable, more sure version of unschooling to me. It is what allows me to morph "school" into "education" and flex things to the max. No matter how much I've flexed them, I try really hard to make sure we cover that list of skills, and usually, I find that SWB's recommendations are the most efficient way of doing that, provided I make allowences for my older child's slower brain wiring and both children's capacity to become deeply depressed by depressing literature and historical events. This is probably because SWB's recommendations are a good cultural match for my own family. -Nan

Of course there is room for both. It is just (at least in my case) that sometimes one of them seems a little scarce.

We do PM/NEM. I have had to put a significant amount of effort into getting my children to write equations for things, both in math and in physics. They can solve the problem, but are reluctant to actually show me how. I know this is often a problem, but it is even more of a problem with Singapore, I think. On the other hand, I would far rather have children who could solve the problem without an equation than ones who can only do it by the rote writing of algorithms.

I noticed the board switching to less of a real books/spine focus (a la TWTM), more of conservative Christian focus, more of a textbook-type curriculum for history and literature. This happened several years ago. I think, as others have said, that homeschooling became more popular, especially amongst conservative Christians, and highly motivated hard workers that they are, they wrote lots of curriculums to make things easier for people, especially ones with more or younger children and a heavy load of charity work and to approach things from their own particular beliefs. I, too, am taken aback when people post on *TWTM* board asking for advice on the best way to do literature, but I think this board has just morphed into something more versatile to suit the larger population of homeschoolers. And I suppose that is good. When I began homeschooling, what I prayed for was creativity, the creativity to take full advantage of the freedom that homeschooling gave us. TWTM served as a guide to how to do an education creatively and a safeguard against missing something critical and failing. As you can see, my goals aren't classical at all. (Or, I guess you can say that I've been lazy enough not to even explore the issue, TWTM having done it for me. I'm also somewhat allergic to the label "classical" because my mother had a "classical" education and is still complaining that it was dry as dust.) Was it Gwen who told the story of not doing a classical education and having children in college who considered themselves classically educated? I've found the same thing, even before mine have gotten to college. I hope I am providing lots of laughs for our dear SWB. And I have my own funny story: When I was growing up, UU and Roman Catholic were about as far apart as you could get and still be Christian, but here, I find I feel much closer to the Catholics than to anyone else LOL. Funny how these things work out. But that is beside the point... I think everyone does a splendid job of being polite and supportive and non-judgemental, and it is no wonder lots of homeschoolers, TWTM oriented or not, want to be here on this board. With the greater number of posts, I've just learned to be selective about which ones I read. I inhabit the high school board because I have children doing high school work, and the accelerated board, not because mine are accelerated, but because some of the odd traits of the gifted children there, like chewing holes in their shirts and extreme upset over historical events and depressing literature, match my just-brightish children. On the high school board, I know which people have similar goals and higher standards, and I read those posts and the posts from people who sound like they could use my help. One of the nice things about cyber space is that there is room for everybody. :) -Nan

A story line is an absolute must for us. We are doing and liking Ecce Romani. We have used some Cambridge for reading practice, since that also has a story line. We also have read some Lingua Latina. If I were learning Latin on my own, I would use LL, which with all its reading would work really well for me, but I need more complete grammar explainations for the children. *I* can understand the grammar, but the children can't and I can't explain it to them. ER's explainations are at a lower level. Lots of people like Cambridge who don't like anything else. I haven't seen Oxford, so I can't compare that one. Just wanted to put in a good word for story line based curriculums. They are fun, the grammar is easier to understand in context, they attack Latin from both whole to parts AND parts to whole (at least Ecce does), review is built in because as you read, you use everything, and vocabulary is easier to memorize when you are using it to read. HTH -Nan

I should add that I feel lucky that I actually have the time to do this.

It forces me to discuss the math. I also work each example problem out on paper for them, rather than just pointing in the book. That forces me to talk my way through the problem for them. NEM is rather good at forcing me to do this, too, by having class activity sections. I've never worried about NEM/PM needing more teacher involvement because I know my children would quickly become a mass of misconceptions if I weren't an active part of their math learning. It is only by talking that I can tell where their thinking has gone astray. They see patterns that work fine in the examples shown, but won't work for more complicated things that they haven't gotten to yet. I have to watch for that and explain. I also have to remind them of the bits they've forgotten, and make sure they aren't just memorizing the algorithms but really putting the pieces together into the big picture, and make sure they understand how things can be applied. NEM helps me to do all these things. -Nan

I agree. Awful, but great at getting writing-resistent children writing, with very clear instructions.

If he isn't writing well, then start short. You can ask if he noticed anything interesting about his reading. If he did, have him tell you about it. Ask questions about anything he has said that you yourself don't understand. Then, if it is an interesting point, have him write it down in a paragraph. This means that he needs a topic sentence (his point) and details. He should include background info, a quote or two illustrating his point, and the implications of it. If that doesn't work, then you can have him write a logic stage book report. Look at the list of questions in the logic stage literature chapter. They are good beginning discussion questions that help you to summarize the plot and decide how you feel about the book. You don't need to read the book to use them because you are going to ask the questions and he has to do the answering. Unless he point blank says, "I don't know," and gives you absolutely nothing to work with, you can draw out the answer just by getting him to explain the parts you don't understand. In the process of telling you about the book, he will clarify it for himself. When he gets done, have him write a summary of the book (the questions should help him figure out what to put in and what to leave out) and add a few sentences to the end about whether he liked the book and why. They have to be specific reasons using examples from the book. If that is too overwhelming to start with, then pick one particular part of the book and use that. When he can do that without too many problems, go to pinkmonkey, a free internet site that is rather like the old Cliff Notes. It will have a list of essay topics for the book, among other things. He can write a 5 paragraph essay on one of those topics. I wouldn't have him write about every book. Have him just read some, and for some do a project. If he likes to draw, he could do some illustrations. If it is a book with a particular style, he could try to write a bit of fiction imitating that style. He can do some research on something about the background of the book, like the clothing people wore at that time, or what warfare was like, or something like that, and write a brief report about one bit of what he learned. He could do a biography of the author. He could write a report about something that happened in history that influenced either the author or the characters in the book. He could compare different translations and write a paragraph about which one he liked best and why. He could make something. My son made a reed boat model for Gilgamesh. If you are struggling with writing, Jensen's Format Writing is cookbook. It doesn't produce the best sort of writing and the examples are so bad that even my children noticed, but it works. It doesn't take too long to do, the directions are pretty clear, and it is cheap. It begins with how to write different sorts of paragraphs and then extends that to 5 paragraph essays and then tackles different sorts of writing, like presis, business letters, resumes, research papers, and book reports. After they actually are writing fairly easily and quickly, then you can work on style or whatever, but this is great at getting them going because it really spells out what to write for each sentence and each paragraph. Just make sure you practise each thing more than once so you memorize the format. If having him just read the history bothers you, then have him write an answer to one of the questions at the beginning of each chapter in Spielvogel. They make good essays. They are called something like "Questions to think about" or something like that. If you want to grade his writing, then get one of the writing rubrics and use that. I sometimes have my children fill out the rubric for themselves. I don't give grades, but that lets them know what the goals are and where they need to improve. Someone asked about writing rubrics earlier on this forum, so you should be able to do a search and find them. HTH -Nan

Check your car insurance and make sure you aren't paying for anything you don't need. If you own the car, you can decide to do things like NOT have comprehensive and have a high deductable. We set ours so we are covered for accidents to people and other cars, but with a high deductable (of something like $2000), and if our own cars (old used ones) get hit, we buy a new car. By consistently doing this over the years, we've saved thousands of dollars, even though we've had the occasional accident (or rather, our teen have). -Nan

It marks the passage of time for me. When my son was in Japan for 3 months, I kept one, just jotting down a few things I saw daily. It recorded the passing of a season, the length of time he would be gone, and helped me see that the time was indeed passing as we got towards the next season. I've (almost) always lived in New England and think of time in terms of the seasons, so this works for me. I've also kept a nature journal, a more extensive one, less regular one, at other times. -Nan

Thank you!

This child isn't interested in chess, unfortunately. I think, also, that it isn't recognition practice that he needs but memory practice. I'm thinking two sets of tanagrams might be more helpful. One person builds something, shows the other, and then covers it, and then the other tries to build the same pattern from memory. Or draw it. Or something. I am now very much regretting not doing the "picture study" with him when he was little. At the time, I thought it was about building observation, something we did constantly by watching nature, so I wasn't too interested in it. I completely missed the memory building bit. -Nan

Are there other sorts of games mixed in with the memory ones and is it possible to play just the memory ones or do you have to wade through math fact drills, etc. to get to the memory games? Thank You! -Nan

You might look at Florida's PASS curriculums. They might be easy enough to do on good days through the fog, and go quickly enough that you could check off a few boxes. I would look not at completing things that normally get done in 9th grade, but at completing things that are easy or she doesn't care about enough to mind doing a just-enough course for. Or you could look at doing the bits of courses that she can manage and keep careful track of them. Can she colour with coloured pencils when her head isn't hurting too much? She could maybe do The Geography Coloring Book and get half a social studies credit, especially if she combined it with a few easy projects. Can she do a few projects in other subjects that later would count towards those projects? Can she listen to books on tape? Perhaps she could get some of her reading for literature classes out of the way. Then, later, when she is well again, she could write some 5 para papers and count it towards her English credits. I know a literature credit in our family only requires writing about some of the books read, not all of them, so maybe she could listen to the ones she isn't planning on writing about. Anyway, you get the idea - pick the easiest and lightest of the reading and projects for all her high school classes and try to do those now, while she isn't feeling well. Then she can do the hard bits later. It is just a matter of keeping track. Meanwhile, as far as your state is concerned, can you fudge a bit by giving them a portfolio? Perhaps you could present them with a reading list and one example paper (perhaps something done earlier) for the English credit piece of a portfolio, and an example project for social studies, etc. Perhaps she could fill out the credits with a drawing class. You could get Artistic Pursuits or Draw Squad or something and have her draw while she listened to literature tapes. That would be an efficient use of her better-feeling time, work towards 2 credits at once, and perhaps not bother her head too much. I know from my own experience that drawing isn't as bad as reading, and that listening to fiction isn't nearly as hard as listening to a Teaching Company lecture. Just some thoughts. I do hope she gets well soon. -Nan

I've presented them as something fun to entertain us on the way to gymnastics rather than something required, and I've carefully selected courses that my son is interested in. I think building a future adult self-education habit is more important than actually using these for a manditory class. They are an awesome resource and as such, I don't want to waste them on high school education and possibly discourage my children from using them the rest of their lives. The government one we are listening to right now fits in beautifully with my son's great books reading, and we are pausing and discussing quite a lot, but if we don't finish it or he decides to try something else instead, I'm going to bite my tongue. -Nan