I dunno -- I'd think it was totally normal. Unless one knew the teacher to be weird otherwise. FB is just a way of staying in touch with people and sharing things they think are important. My kids are FB friends with all sorts of adults in their lives. FB, despite its "privacy" settings, is often very public. So the rule of thumb is don't put anything up there you wouldn't want the entire world seeing. If one is already practicing that rule, there shouldn't be anything there that it would be necessary to hide from a particular person. In fact, having a few grown ups around may make the whole experience more, um, "grown up".

But I think ELCA tends to be open. And as the ELCA is about twice the size of the LCMS, it's more likely that's what you'd run into.

I've tried the Loganberry site before. The only thing they list that looks remotely like this book I'm thinking of is Tide in the Attic -- which isn't the right book.

Here's another one: I read a book about the dikes breaking in Holland. Maybe it was set in the 1953 flood? The main character was a girl who slept in what seemed to be a closet. After the flood, her family decided she was all grown up and deserved her own room. Anyone know what this book is?

That would be great if you have the time! I have such trouble finding anything on that site. Our 9th grade: Math: Precalculus Latin: well, we meant to. Maybe we still will. It would be Cambridge Latin 2. Spanish: Destinos (probably counting as Spanish 2) and Pimsleur French: a few kids videos (Bonjour Mes Amis?) and Pimsleur English: Lots of reading. A few essays and creative writing. (the books have ranged from Gilgamesh to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn) History: US - A History of US and world history (by watching videos and reading Spielvogel) Both are probably half year. We started with these in 8th grade and will finish up sometime this summer or early next year. Literature: Oh, I put that under English Science: Conceptual Physics (Hewitt) (we did biology last year so we needed something not too heavy for this year before launching in math oriented chem for next year) Music: music theory was supposed to happen but hasn't really gotten too far yet. Otherwise, she's doing piano, violin, flute, and choir as her main instruments. Electives: computers and photography Extracurricular: Band and Theater

Calc III -- only a non graphing calculator was allowed on tests. They could use anything for the homework (including things like Mathematica software). This often made the homework doable. Otherwise, it would have taken more time than was available. The AP Calc tests require a graphing calculator. If the student means to take one of these tests, I'd advise getting one and using it a lot in the Alg 2 and Pre-Calc years as it takes a lot of time getting used to. I haven't heard of restrictions in the physics or engineering classes in recent years. Ten years, when I took more advanced physics, we weren't allowed to use graphing calculators but everyone did anyway. Well, except me, because I didn't have one, and it definitely showed in my grade. That professor was an idiot, though (or he would have noticed how the rest of the class was using graphing calculators right under his nose). Fortunately, he left the college, to everyone's relief. He was basically incompetent in a lot of areas.

Well, Animal Farm is short. http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/animalfarm/study.html Has he really read nothing but Rime of the Ancient Mariner? sparknotes has lots of questions/themes etc for all sorts of books. Maybe he'd be better off racking his brains to remember some book he's already read, if he can't figure out what to do with the ancient mariner. The albatross is an obvious thing to write about in that poem. Or maybe -- what's the significance of the wedding? Or who is the person the mariner is telling his story to? And why right at that moment? Or why is Kubla Khan in the poem? This is actually the thing I hate most about literary analysis: coming up with a topic that seems worth writing about.

I grew up in California with no dryer. My mother still doesn't have a dryer there. But since I've moved to the midwest, I've found a dryer to be a big help for our allergies. When I've hung clothes on the line to dry, it either rains, or I have to leave them out so long that they get covered in allergens. If we all weren't so allergic, I might be more inclined to do it, but it's no fun having clean clothes that make us sneeze. We got a hand me down dryer from the neighbors. I have never used dryer sheets, but they did. It took WEEKS for the smell of dryer sheets to get out of that dryer completely. At first, it worse than hanging the clothes outside to pick up dust and pollutants. For awhile, I only dried towels in there because of the smell.

Wow, what a lot of informed people! It's so great to be on this board. One little anecdote to relate -- I never did get my high schooler to do physics at home, math based OR conceptual. This year, as a high school senior, she's been taking the calculus based physics at the local college. Despite having absolutely no physics background, she's done very well in it. I think what helped her succeed is having finished Calc I and II before attempting it (and doing Calc III concurrently). It looks like it's the math background that makes the big difference. She's not struggling with the math so much that she can't get the concepts. Other kids who only had Calc I to start (and are taking Calc II concurrently) don't seem to have as much grasp of either the concepts or the math. For her, taking conceptual physics beforehand wouldn't have made much difference. OTOH, it's a nice intro if you want to do science but your student isn't ready for calc based physics. My high school freshman is now doing Hewitt's Conceptual Physics. It does require a good basis in algebra, and geometry is helpful. This doesn't necessarily mean the student needs to have had Alg II, only that the concepts of Alg I need to be very firm in their mind. The one complaint I have about conceptual physics is that at times it gets a little difficult to understand -- there are some concepts that just seem like "magic" because the math isn't there to explain it. And a complaint I have about Hewitt is that he will go on talking and talking, confusing the issue, when he had a perfectly good figure and caption that explained the concept before all his words got in the way and convinced my daughter that she didn't understand it after all. This isn't just Hewitt, though. It's a problem I've seen with a lot of "easy" texts.

That about sums up how to write a paper. The only difference when I write is that I do most of this in my head. However, I can see where it would be helpful to write all the steps out the first few times through the process. Thanks for the info.

From fiddling with different scenarios on the FAFSA, I came to the conclusion that parental assets aren't being weighted all that heavily. It's the current income that seems to matter most. So saving for college probably doesn't do much to reduce the need based aid. (As long as it's saved in the parents' name). CLEP -- I was seeing that few colleges are taking much CLEP credit now. Is it maybe more common at the public universities?

The two local colleges near us that teach Latin have ditched Wheelock. One is now using Ecce Romani, the other Latin for a New Millennium (is that the exact title?). My own experience with Wheelock is that it worked real well for about the first half. In the second half, I got bogged down because it just didn't explain enough for the self-learner. The latinstudy groups were a help, but I still couldn't understand why things were translated one way and not another. If I'd had a live teacher, it might have made a difference. My kids liked Cambridge Latin better. There was more reading practice. There are also lots of resources to go with Cambridge. They have a nice website with activities that are helpful too. It used to be free. It's now 10 dollars per year for individuals. The local high schools around here use Cambridge and the kids I've talked to seem to like it. The books don't drill the grammar to death, but there are lots of tables so you could drill yourself if you thought that was necessary. (Or use Wheelock to teach the Latin and something like Cambridge to reinforce it with reading. Although the 38 Latin stories to go with Wheelock was very helpful, it just wasn't enough reading for me.)

The published risk of those "somethings" is generally WAY below the risk of getting severe complications or death from the disease. That's the whole point of vaccination. There would be major fatalities from these diseases in the US if no one was getting vaccinated. The reason "no one gets those" diseases anymore is because most of the people in this country are vaccinated. We're more and more likely to encounter these diseases if fewer people are getting vaccinated. I've even heard doctors make this mistake. I've waffled about vaccination because I know that with most other people getting vaccinated, we could probably get away with not -- we'd just depend on the herd immunity. But if enough people felt that way, the herd immunity wouldn't work anymore.

My husband has really bad astigmatism and his glasses from zennioptical are just fine. We originally went to an online source because all the eyeglass places near us are just awful. The local places mess things up, won't admit it, and then get abusive. They certainly aren't worth the price they charge. The online experience was a lot nicer. When I picked out frames online, I measured my old frames and got new ones that were sort of in the ball park. That way I thought they'd be more likely to fit my head. My "bifocal" progressives are just fine, fitwise. I don't know how trifocals would be, but I'm beginning to suspect that a lot of the measurements they do at the local stores are more smoke and mirrors than anything useful. (A lot of what they're doing is measuring the PD.) When I first got progressive lenses (at a local store), I couldn't adjust to them. Since the local store wouldn't do anything about it, I had to drive some distance to get another store in the chain to look them over. They made adjustments, but it was just a matter of moving the nosepiece. The problem really was that the midrange area is just too darn small for me and the reading area isn't quite the right correction for me. However, I've been told by my eye doctor that that's just how it's going to be. They can't make it any better because of how bad my eyes are. I had to get separate glasses for the computer. I read with no glasses at all. (And my close up vision is too good. When I try to read the computer by leaning in real close with no glasses, all I see is pixels. They don't resolve into anything useful.)

I've ordered glasses from http://www.zennioptical.com/home.php They were definitely cheaper. I've ordered both single vision and progressive lenses. They've all been just fine. So far. You have to know your pupillary distance. By law, you're supposed to be able to get this from where you ordered glasses last time. If that isn't possible, you can get someone else to measure it just by holding up a ruler. (We actually took a digital photo with the ruler in the picture because we were having difficulty with having our eyes move during the measuring.) The only problem I've had with the glasses I've ordered is that the nosepieces are adjusted to sit too high on my face. This is easily adjusted, though. I know the optical places make a big fuss about "fitting" the glasses, but all they've ever done for me is move that nosepiece around. With cheap frames, I've gotten single vision glasses for $8, progressive lenses for 36. I think shipping was 5.

US History (AP) Govt (.5) World History Archaeology(Teaching Company lectures; Women's Work; In Small Things Forgotten; and a few other things I forget now) Ancient History (in more depth than above) (.5) Biology in History (readings such as Guns, Germs, and Steel; Collapse; Plagues and Peoples; Chiles to Chocolate; Seeds of Change) The Use of History (The Use and Abuse of History (Macmillan); Lies My Teacher Told Me; After the Fact) (.5) We wanted to do: Linguistics Psychology of Gender but we didn't get to either of those We probably could have counted British History too, but I couldn't fit the transcript on one page anymore.

I think you're right that Pimsleur is very much improved if you have a way of looking up the words and seeing them in writing. This is why, when I'm doing a Pimsleur language, I've usually tried to combine it with something else. I've gotten the farthest with Spanish. As Spanish is written so phonetically, I've found that I no longer have to look new words up when they show up on the Pimsleur CD. Chinese has been another matter. I feel a bit like I'm "cheating" when I looked up the pronunciation in the Roman alphabet, but I sort of need to do it. My daughter is starting Russian with Pimsleur, but I think she's going to need to learn the alphabet to do it.

Are they panic attacks, or heart palpitations, irregularites, or fibrillation? I suspect they feel similar. The question is, does the racing heart make you panic? Or does the panic make your heart race? Palpitations can very definitely be brought on by allergies, food and otherwise, but they might be symptoms of other things. Or they might just... happen. For a lot of people, wine and chocolate will bring them on, as will any stimulant like coffee, Coke, etc. Dehydration is often a trigger. You might want to be sure you're getting enough water.

I couldn't get through it. Too much sex -- and I'm not really offended by that sort of thing in the "normal" way. I just don't like a lot of sex in my reading because it signals to me that the author really has nothing else to say. They're just trying to cover that up by wowing the audience with R rated material. My book club loved it, but after hearing their description of the ending I was just as glad I left it. (And whenever my book club starts going on about some wonderful book because of the "romance" ( "didn't you just love the sex scenes!") I decide not to read the book if I haven't already gotten to it. They're suckers for soft porn, but because it's in book form, they don't see it that way. They think it's literature. There are certain ladies in that club whose reading suggestions I never take because that seems to be all they're interested in. On the surface they seem like thinking, literate people...) Pride and Prejudice, by the way, is a great book -- but you have to be prepared to laugh at all the characters. Even Elizabeth is laughable. I find it hard to believe people think she's such a perfect heroine. The first few chapters of Pride and Prejudice are a bit slow going just because you have to figure out who all the characters are. It gets easier after that.

Great Expectations is great in the beginning and great at the end. The middle is slow and boring. If you can just slog through that, it turns out to be a good book. There would be a lot to discuss about life choices and social class and what it means to be a good person. Along with other things, I'm sure. We didn't find it that hard to read, though. It's just getting through that middle section...

ASL resources: Beginning ASL VideoCourse TITLE: Beginning ASL VideoCourse WITH: Billy Seago and the Bravo Family FROM: Sign Enhancers It's really expensive, though. We managed to get it from the library. That might not be an option where you are. My daughter is using Signing Naturally in her college class. It wouldn't work for self study. There's no glossary, and although the signs are introduced in the book, they are NEVER translated. You can guess, but you're likely to be wrong. It's not an immersion course, it just assumes you'll have a teacher, so you'll never figure a lot of it out unless you have someone to tell you what the signs are. Here's an ASL dictionary: http://www.aslpro.com/cgi-bin/aslpro/aslpro.cgi It won't help you figure out the Signing Naturally book , though, because you have to know the word in English to look it up (at least, as far as I can tell). Even the sign language in the US and Australia are very different. I've been told that ASL is actually closer to the sign language in France than it is to the one in Australia.

In addition to Spanish (Destinos and Pimsleur) and French (French in Action, Pimsleur), we're also doing some ASL (Billy Seago's ASL tapes -- can't remember the title) and Latin (Cambridge Latin). I was hoping for Greek and Chinese, but no one was interested. One kid also has her heart set on Russian, but it hasn't happened yet. The senior has done one year of Latin, 3 of Spanish (give or take), 3 semesters of college ASL, and one semester of college French. Some kids just like languages. I suspect most colleges will accept Latin or ASL as a high school language, although there are some that won't accept either as a college language. During our application adventures, we discovered that most colleges, although they might have strict rules against it as a college language, were happy to accept it for the high school language. The only problem that I would see with using Latin or ASL is that you wouldn't be able to place into a class in it in college and get out of a few semesters of the college language credit (if the student even ends up at a school that still has that requirement. There are a few, at least, leaving that behind.)

Every time we dust, the kids get allergy attacks. I figure it's better to leave it lie. So we do it when company is coming. We get a lot more dust than we used to. We are in a different house, with newer carpeting, but there's also just more biomass in the house as the kids have gotten bigger. A lot of dust is skin cells and clothing bits. Bigger people have bigger skins and bigger clothes. I've always figured that's the cause of our growing problem. Also, as homeschoolers, we spend a lot more time at home than most people. Even if it's not us "shedding", we're kicking up the dust and it settles on the dark furniture.

This sort of working back and forth is what works for me. However, I think this whole to parts- parts to whole dichotomy is thoroughly misleading. A good language program will do both, whatever they call themselves, and most language programs that I've looked at do seem to do both. (Even Pimsleur covers some grammar, in a basic way.) There seems to be some sort of mantra in the homeschool world that one "way" is better than the other. But you need both. It's rather like the argument over reading by doing phonics vs. whole words. You really need both to get it to click, but some odd and vehement arguments have built up over the two methods. (I kind of wonder if the same people who tell you you have to do parts to whole for foreign language learning are the same people who think you can only teach reading using phonics and nothing but phonics.) If you got a language program that seriously only did one method or the other, you probably wouldn't learn anything useful.

Someone really should fix that. The use of "larvae" for the singular has been bothering me for some time. It's -- um -- embarrassing to have a prominent mistake like that on a homeschool board.