I have never held Mathematics Made Meaningful and rarely had success with EU, so double "meh." We have enjoyed Miquon (alongside MM), though, and the "Queasy" rods are very, very effective.

Wildcat Creek park has nice wading/swimming and a sandy beach-type area. If you read SOtW 4 (or not) you might be interested in stopping by Tippecanoe Battlefield where Wm. H. Harrison fought Tecumseh's assembled men. There is a museum and small nature center. Also, you can walk down to a hiking trail along the Wabash River. If you plan on going to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, you may want to stop at Lafayette's Imagination Station and get a membership, which is then reciprocal at Science and Industry. This is apparently a good deal for many families. Celery Bog Nature center has a nice interpretive center and some easy hiking trails. Purdue campus has a few tree trails, I think pamphlets are available on-line. If you do go to campus it would be worthwhile to stop at the new solar system sculpture that was just installed next to the campus police station. Cool and huge and shiny-new. There are a number of smaller parks and hiking areas. If you want to pm me specific dates I can see if there are any events happening that I am aware of. Want to meet a fellow-boardie at a park some afternoon?? Then we can vouch for each other on here.

I seem to remember that you have at least one younger child? If not, disregard. At the library they have Pettson's Inventions (2?) I love that. My kids do too, because it would be unseemly for a woman of my advanced age to hog the kids' tablets, but it is okay for me to watch over shoulders and make suggestions. There is a task that needs to be done (which is presented visually in a brief video clip) and a bunch of miscellaneous parts on the side to accomplish it. It is more like a puzzle than straight-up tinkering, but you can test it as you go to see what is still needed. My K-er plays often, but my 10 yos still play on occasion. It is not quite educational in my mind, but definitely encourages problem-solving.

Essentially yes. She says that 1700 to WWII would take 4 volumes at the rate she has been going. She didn't say it would never happen, but didn't say anything like it would happen, either.

Hahaha, sorry. I was one of those 74. I hate posting incorrect information, so I shy away unless I'm sure and it is awkward to multitask on my phone. Excuses aside, SWB has a blog post about this. I seen to recall she was going to split the ...forget it, my memory stinks. I'm pulling out the real computer, back in a moment... Find SWB's March 19, 2012 blog post and you can share the sad news with your dh.

We go to a small optometrist's shop. We don't see the Dr., just the fabulous technician who fits glasses. However, we have eye coverage benefits that pay for a pair of glasses every two years or so. The prices tagged on the frames are WAY outside your $20 Wal-Mart price. I wonder if you could go try frames to see what you like, then explain that they are all outside your price range and you'll have to look around. That would give you some direction for online comparison.

If you do the deadbolts how will the black cat be able to race into town and find you at the grocery to tell you Buddy has fallen in the well!?!

As a mom, I would like to see a total goal (which ours does), and also some bi-weekly type drawings. I am careful to make our goals challenging, but a little disheartened by seeing some kids whip through their goals in two weeks. The prizes can be small, my kids sell themselves cheap, haha. I love Heartlikealion's idea of a "quest" or cumulative goal of some kind. One of our libraries has the standard reading-time goal with coupons for prizes for everybody. Another local library has killer prizes donated by all sorts of area businesses. At the end of the program they do this complicated raffle thing. The prizes are "larger", but not everyone gets one. Idk, we often participate in both (our house rules are that you have to read twice the number of books), but not sure one is better than the other.

You are not alone. Check out this older thread for some ideas of how other people have used WWS 1. I'm expecting to move into WWS1 next year(ish) so I'm following these threads with interest.

Perfect timing, thanks for posting. We watched a nice, short, overview of Wegener's work two weeks ago at The Kid Should See This website.

Avatar and the Clone Wars

I so love this idea. How about: Read three issues of a magazine, or newspaper. Read a book in another language (don't know how that would play out wherever you live...)

What a great idea, and what cool challenges! I'll have to think on that a while. I wonder if your local paper might be interested in running a picture of the tower winner(s)? Perhaps a local ice cream store would donate a coupon for a free cone? Other restaurants might give you "free kids meal with purchase" type coupons. I wonder if a local bookstore would be interested in supporting your contest? ETA What about reading a DIY or project book and completing a project?

I totally agree with Cat. We've had to make tours a rule for my dh, the comments can really get him riled up. Who has that kind of free time to be making all these comments?? I've got some laundry they could fold. The spelling bee sounds like a neat thing!

For the first book, when we finished a lesson, before I put the book away, I flipped through the next lesson to get a feel for it and whether I needed anything. That was it. Of course there were occasional surprises, but worst case we just delayed the next lesson a couple of days. There are no external books that are required (I don't remember any). Look for subject books that are appealing to your family, for general interest and background. I think I bought a magnet set that included iron filings and a rock and mineral kit. The internet can be your friend, too! Don't miss the website The Kid Should See This.

Do I understand correctly that this was a test you were allowed to administer at home and then submit for grading? I'm unfamiliar with this test, so any background would be helpful. Thanks

Based on my experience, I would look at Miquon, MM (likely to be 50% off during HSBC sale in August if the past is any indicator for the future), or MEP which is free for the printing. In any of those I would tailor the program to your dd, skipping unnecessary review and taking subjects out of order according to interest. All the have worksheets and carrying levels of teacher involvement. MEP is difficult to understand until you print a set of lesson plans and the relevant set of student pages.

All of you past the first book might be interested in the free American Chemical Society middle school chem curriculum that Farrar introduced me to. Sorry I can't link on my phone, but it is easy to find, or pm me and I'll log on from a regular computer. It is one huge document with activities and worksheets (we all tweak these things to suit ourselves, right?). There are six chapters and they align well with some of the chemistry chapters in BFSU books 2 and 3. My dd has expressed an interest inchemistry, so I'm happy to spend some extra time on those chapters.

I will have two 5th graders in my first foray into middle school. Also, a first grader. I'm trying to keep history somewhat aligned. My history curriculum collection is starting to rival my elementary math shelf! Haha, I have a similar collection.

I try to do science about twice a week with summers off, and going into book three we have spent about 2 years per book. Normally we spend about an hour per session, but I don't watch the clock, since it is the end of our day, so that is just a rough average. I try to check out books on the subject, so sometimes my dc come into a lesson with all the insights and it is more of a discussion time. In any one lesson we usually go through 1 or 2 "parts" per class time. Starting with book two, I have been putting together pseudo-worksheets with pictures and space for some written work. With the books' intentional lack of pictures it can be dry and tricky to describe. So now I go through the lessons a few weeks ahead and think about what I want them to get out of each lesson, and what might be useful to have on paper. Google Image is my crutch for this. This also makes it more open-and-go, which makes it easier for me to tackle during the week. I didn't need that in book 1.

Sewing might be good! My kids and my mom made light-up book lights from the book Sew Electric. There are a lot of craft idea type books at our library, maybe you can find one that appeals to you? Oh, printing and stamping might be fun too!

OUP also has a medieval series if she wanted to continue that.

BA would be hard to use as a supplement because you can't easily pick and choose problems, there is nothing superfluous in there. Whether you use it as a supplement or a spine Orr alone, I would start with 3A. I'm your position, I would get BA 3A and try it out, getting one set is not terribly expensive. You could let her choose between the two, or work BA this summer and put off the decision. With my ds, I have him do BA and MEP and I ruthlessly edit down MEP when it covers topics we've already seen in BA. My dd uses MM and it is a good fit for her. When she gets frustrated with math it is tricky to keep her from shutting down, so BA might not be a good fit.

A long time ago (four years, I guess) there was a lapbook on the internet that somebody put together for SOTW 1. That was mostly cutting and gluing, but with a"thing" for each chapter. There was talk of PHP hosting/selling it, so if you can't track it down you might email them and ask. My dc pulled that out to go through it every few months, which was a nice, voluntary review. For science, I have the book "730 Easy Science Experiments" Occasionally I will find something there that correlates with what we are working on. For math, maybe you could have done days where you just play games -board, card, or video? I can't see the age of your ds, so this could be way off the mark.

I purchased some older Math Kangaroo exams which we worked through occasionally. My dc called it puzzle-math. There is little computation, but a lot of logic. This would be a supplement, obviously. I have one that uses BA, it is well done.