Thanks for the help - I've never heard of reflexive pronouns before today. :blush5: Looking at the answer key again, it looks like they offer two possible answers for number 1: Either "Ellos nos abrazamos" which still doesn't make sense to me or "Ellos se abrazan" which does make sense after you explained the reflexive pronouns. I'll just ignore the first option for now. Yeah, RS has its weaknesses, but my kids enjoy it. As long as I stay up with them and cross-reference the grammar book, it is working well.

We are working our way through Rosetta Stone and I am stumped. We're also using a grammar book to supplement. Today we wrote out and discussed the indirect object pronouns (me, te, le, nos, le, les) using the grammar book. I thought I understood them, until I got to this section of the lesson... Example: El padre abraza a su hijo. El hijo abraza a su padre. Ellos se abrazan. I have no idea how "se" is used here. RS doesn't explain grammar well. 1. Mi madre abraza a mi padre. Mi padre abraza a mi madre. Ellos ______. Their answer is "Ellos nos abrazamos." I thought they were wanting the English equivalent of "they hug each other". Am I correct that their answer means "They hug us"? If so, maybe I just don't get what they are wanting. 2. El esposo besa a la esposa. La esposa besa al esposo. El esposo y la esposa ______________. Their answer is "se besan". Again, I don't understand se. Can anyone help me with this?

A good friend and fellow HS mom in Bastrop has been evacuated and doesn't know if her home is destroyed or not. I'm in south Austin and surrounded by fires (not close - I'm safe) but I've got my school books packed just-in-case.

Looking forward to the day that I can be seen as wise... in anything. Congratulations!

Donna's right. I've never used MFW, just Notgrass. I can tell you that American was significantly harder reading than world... but we did American before first :D

I don't know if Luann in ID is following this thread, but I can tell you about our experience. The course if basically free. The only cost is for the study guides and the books, if you need them. There aren't any teacher helps except for the study guides (which are really, really good) and a few online quizzes. If you look at the list of required resources in the curriculum, you can see which books have an accompanying study guide - they are marked with an *. The rest is just reading/self education.

Oh, me too. Notgrass (who write the texts for MFW) recommends that you start with EWH (world history) then EAH (American history). I can see why this is confusing!

I think it was the subject. We had already covered The Thinking Toolbox and The Fallacy Detective - both of those were very interesting and provided immediate real-life applications. TL, however, was much more theoretical. It became very, very detailed in book two and my son could find very little real-life application. We still go back to TTT and TFD in our daily conversations and speech & debate, but only the beginning of TL is every referenced. I did not go through all the material with my son and that made grading nearly impossible for me. Many assignments are to write several examples of what was being taught, and it was all I could do to go back and try to make sense of the chapter so I could see if my sons examples were correct or not. I'm sure that if I went though the course with him, we could have discussed it and that would have helped tremendously. Good luck.

We did them both in the same year. Ds was glad when it was over.

I agree with pre-heating. Still, almost everything sticks when you first put it in - meat, potatoes, french toast, etc... The trick is to let it cook and brown before you disturb it. If I turn meat or potatoes before they develop a crust, I just loose whatever crust was starting. If I wait, the crust will separate itself from the skillet after it is nice and golden. Hope that helps.

Just to be clear... I was writing about the Con Law online class , not the DVD series.

I really like the Oxford School series by Oxford University Press. They have lots of side notes explaining not only old English words, but also phrases, context, and literary allusions.

In the class? No. He started with background, Articles of Confederation, etc... The he pretty much went through the constitution discussing cases concerning the various articles and amendments, from beginning to end. In the second half he covered more recent/hot topic issues: religion, association, homosexual rights, 4th amendment, property rights and parental rights.

I haven't seen it, but my son LOVED his online Con Law class. I would think that if you want a broad overview, then the DVDs would be nice. But if you really want to dive into Con Law cases, then the class is a must. My son already wanted to be an attorney, now he really wants to study Constitutional Law. The kid briefs SC cases for fun. :cool: You know, there are two sides to every story. That's the whole point of having both a petitioner and a respondent appear before the court. In many cases there isn't a "conservative" or a "liberal" side. Is it "conservative" or "liberal" to value the 4th amendment protections? It's hard to say. But, in General, Mike Farris will give you a different perspective than you will get in most law school classes. There is a huge difference between the "strict constructionist" and "the Constitution is a living document" point-of-view. I can say that if you haven't heard Dr. Farris before, you might be surprised. He's a real thinker and doesn't mind poking fun at closed-mindedness on both sides of the aisle.

Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no. I let ds fail last year in an online research paper class - he got a low "C". Usually, I stay involved and all papers go through me BEFORE they are turned in online. When I do that, he gets A's. I would never pay him for the A because I have edited his work several times before he turns it in. I think this is the best way for him to learn editing or studying skills, but sometimes I don't have the time. When that's the case, I tell him AHEAD of time, "You are on your own" - so he knows what to expect. Some classes have turned out to be less rigorous than I expected, so I required the work is done to my level of expectations. For outside classes, I make my kids put every bit of their assignment on their planners for the week and show/explain it to me for the first several weeks of class. FWIW, ds thought my grading was unfair until I let him fail the research paper class and a few other things. He really needed to see that others would find fault in his work as well as me. That has been really helpful. Now we have the policy that if he wants my help, he has to show me his work ahead of time. I am no longer staying up until midnight to help him edit a big assignment the night it is due... no matter how many tears are shed. :nopity:

We used it. I really like Write-at-Home in general, but the research paper class could have been better. I felt they spent way too much time on the thesis and sources - and I agree that is the most important step - but that left only one week for the rough draft. So, my son received corrections on his rough draft, then the final draft was due. There were no other revisions in between those two. I think two or three revisions would have been much better. Tracie

So, I just calculate his GPA for the 7.0 credits, but show a total of 7.5 credits for the year? Sorry to be so dense, I just don't want to mess this up. :)

Just starting to work on a transcript... Ds took 7.5 credits last year. The .5 credit science lab was pass/fail. How do I calculate that into his GPA? Do I just leave both the "pass" and the .5 credit hour out of my calculations, and find his GPA for the other 7.0 credits? Thanks, Tracie

We used this in 9th. We thought the text was a little dry, but I felt all of it was necessary. We did skip much of the lit, but I added in WAY more than I skipped. FWIW, I thought Uncle Tom's Cabin was a really good book. I wouldn't skip it. My biggest complaint with Notgrass is that the quizzes are way too picky... too detail-oriented and not enough big-picture. I relied more on discussions with ds than his quiz scores.

We had one of the earlier versions and hated it. I sold it quickly. In a moment of weakness I decided to try it again (Sonlight had it on sale) and we are very happy with the newer version. I bought version 3, homeschool edition, and we are all using it. It comes with a weekly lesson plan, including worksheets which can be printed at home. So easy to use! It even comes with an audio CD we use in the car for review.

Where do you live? Are there many Spanish-speakers near you? What does your son hope to study? I live in Texas, so Spanish is very useful here. And, I know a little so we can actually practice it in real life - not just during class. All of my kids studied Latin when they were younger, but we've traded it in high school for Spanish. My youngest - science minded child - is staying with Latin longer b/c I thought it would help him with scientific terms. Now I'm learning that most science is conducted in English and German, so I may have him take German in high school.

I really don't know what I'm looking for... I'm just collecting documentation of all our high school courses in a transcript folder for now. What ISN'T helpful are RS's descriptions of how great, interactive, colorful and engaging the program is. I just want to show what course material is covered. Actually, your link to Rainbow Resource's review was help. It had a brief description of what is covered at each level. Thanks, Tracie

I've emailed and called them and they can't help me find one. I have the new homeschool version, and it even comes with a year-long lesson plan. I can't believe they don't have a course description for it. Have any of you had better luck obtaining that info from RS?

Me, too. Especially in the writing department. Obviously, no one cares as much about your child's writing ability as you do. Ds took a research paper class. The teacher was very gentle and he followed all her corrections, then still ended up with a B. I think it was just too much trouble to point out ALL of the editing needed. Only a mother would be that persistent. It would be difficult to take those A's and show your daughter where she could improve. I would say your work is finished. Congratulations!

I don't have a good answer for you. We went through the same thing in 8th & 9th grades. Now that my son is entering 10th it is starting to get better. My favorite tactic is nagging, but it doesn't work at all. We've had lots of heart-to-heart talks about his goals for the future (he wants to be an attorney) and what it takes to get there. That sometimes works for a day or two, but sometimes he just dissolves into tears and gets nothing done for hours. I ask if he wants to do something different with his life that will require an easier work load, but he always says, "No." I really think he wants to have the moon, but do minimal work... but, don't we all? Maybe the most effective tactic I've used is searching for things he can have or do if he completes his work, but that I can also withhold if the doesn't. I got pretty tired of making the whole family give up outings because this one child drags his feet, so we started going places without him. We do have to leave one parent home, so this isn't perfect, but at least the other kids aren't getting short-changed. When have a movie to watch, we go ahead and watch it then it goes back to Netfix. Ds just misses it. Period. We go swimming without him if he's not finished. We go to music jams without him. That sounds awful, but it seems to be what he needed. It is really hard for me to do this!!! Now we're entering debate season and he believes me when I tell him that if his school isn't finished, he won't be debating with his brothers and team. (He's doing LD this year partly so he can miss if he needs to without disappointing a partner.) It is getting better. My younger kids don't seem to have this problem, yet. Maybe they have learned from watching their older brother.