I agree. These children of mine do not know what they want to do in life, so they don't have a focus yet. I also think that when you don't want to do something, any excuse will do. I should revise what I said about Ds, he does like math - ok he tolerates it. Dd is the math hater in the house ...she is much like her mother was once upon a time. They are those who are either in college or have degrees in the liberal arts/humanities. My son had a discussion with our Youth Leader's wife and an assistant that they see no use in their life for Algebra. I wish I had been there to challenge what they said, but he just me about it today. I suppose the point was that they can get by without using Algebra in their daily lives. We did go over some example of how we use Algebra to find the unknown. I guess I am looking for more.

I am readly to scream! :banghead: My children don't want to do their math, Algebra is challenging it makes you think ...hard. I get that, but I tell them it is important. That this is just the beginning of Mathmatics everything up to this point was just the "phonics" of math. I expect them to look at me with two heads when I tell them that they need to progress through the harder concepts, it helps you to thing logically, etc. I know that they don't believe me and that is fine, I get it, they are teenagers and they question everything. It is not a question on how to get them to do the work, for they will do the work and they will learn, but of how to appreciate the relevance of what they are learning. What is driving me crazy is that some of the adults in their lives specifically at church, some young -youth group leaders, some older and much respected, have expressed to my children that Algebra is useless. :confused:. That they have no use in "real" life for Algebra, it is a class to pass and then forget. The thread on truth, virtue and beauty is really helping me to think a lot these last few days. I just talked to ds about this, I think he gets what I am saying, but I am not strong in math. Some of these ideas a new to me and I need some expert help.

Dd is doing this, she took Apologia Bio last year and is now studying Marine Biology. She is very happy with her choice. It has given dd the perspective and time she needed to want to do chemistry next year.

Tapestry of Grace Year 4 goes up to President Obama

Thanks for the update! I have been hoping you'd pop in, so glad you are doing well!

I was feel discouraged today after reading another thread, thanks for posting! I am going to go listen to this now.

Our enrichment co-op meets 2x/month. Classes we have offered highschoolers: Art Gym Girls Fitness Music (Last year we did a Musical - Godspell) Cooking Public Speaking Drama Literature - Shakespeare, Narnia Writing workshop Every year we offer a Science Lab this year was Chemestry Spanish Conversation Psychology Home and Life Skills Crime Scene Investigation Legislature Volunteer/ Public Service Yearbook/Newsletter Photography SAT Prep Finaces Some of our higschoolers have taught classes to the younger children as well, or assisted in classes one student is teaching sign language to dd5's class, she loves it.

I have been to 6 countries. Dh has been to at least 9.

This is our 4th year using TOG, we are currently in year 3 and will start the 2012-2013 school year with Unit 4 of year 3 and then move on to Y4. This fall I will have 1 R / 1D/ 2 UG and 1 LG student. We do not participate in a TOG Co-op.

+ :grouphug: I see you have a newborn and 4 other dc. Life is very busy in your house, ask me how I know ;). When ever we had a new baby in the house, it always seemed like after the first few months, I would start to notice how "behind" we were, how much was not getting done around the house, the laundry, dishes, science.....I would panic. So, first I want you to know that you need to give yourself time to work out a new normal for your house, every baby seems to alter the family dynamic and you need time to find what works now. I found that my children could learn through games, puzzles, stories on cd, science videos. Things they could do independently of Mom. I would try to cover the 3 r's as best I could each day giving priority to the oldest children. I found that my littles were able to make up for lost time easily as long as they learned to respect table time (school time). I tried packaged curriculum, but the schedules drove me crazy because I could not keep on schedule--too many variables. So, when my children were young I found as many resources that were a) pick up and go, b) non-consumable, and c) easy to use for mulitiple ages. OPGR, SOTW, and Jim Weiss cd's are things we still use for this reason. Now that my children are older, we follow many of these principles, and we use some dvd lessons as well. My children know that they must "MELT" every day M- math, E- english, L- latin, and T-tunes (piano practice). It takes time to establish habits, and we are still working on it, but doing these things has helped me feel like we are progressing. I have found the TOG works well for me because it is planned enough to keep us on track, moving forward, but not so scheduled that I feel like I am "behind". MUS has also been a big hit here, but you must find what works best in your house. Hope this helps, I know I have wasted too much time worrying and looking for better curriculum when I could have :chillpill: and just allowed myself to do the best I could.

I think that from what you said, you could make it work without much trouble. Anytime you change programs there are differences you have to accomodate. I'd say you are on the right track.

I have not used the reinforcement books, but my understanding is exactly what beachnut said. There is no instruction, only sentences to parse and diagram.

Maybe she could just share the recipe with us, and then you could keep your job!

I knew a woman who tested her children according to the grade that they had completed not their current grade. So a child tested in the spring of 4th grade would be tested with the 3rd grade test. I have no opinion on which is better, we haven't tested our children in years.

If we don't stay on topic with this thread, it will be deleted. I think your post is moving toward dangerous territory. RE: Political Threads SWB says: I don't want to see political threads here that have nothing to do with home schooling. It was the last presidential election that forced us to ban political avatars, slogans, and partisan discussions. I'm already seeing threads that appear to be posted simply to start political arguments. Not interested, people. Chat about something else, here. Or go talk about politics, somewhere else. Simple. :001_smile:

Me three! I don't think I ever stop buying, it must be the nature of the curriculum I use.

It is stand alone unless you are giving high school credit, then you would add the Linga Latina for additional credit hours and translation practice. For those that want to do both, you would start LL after lesson10.

Tapestry of Grace, Math U See, Writing with Ease/Writing with Skill, Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, Spelling Power , Spelling Workout, Rod and Staff Grammar, FLL, and Story of the World are staples in our house. Visual Latin, BJU Spanish, Analytical Grammar are new for us this year and are working well. Most of what works for us is things I can pick up and do the next thing, TOG is the only subject that takes more time and it takes me less time to read teacher's notes than to read all of dc's books. What works best in our house is TOG's mantra of "plan your work and work your plan", teaching my older children to work independantly and to plan out their work and be resposible has been the most valuable thing I have done in our homeschool.

We have Tindall's America and William Bennett's history book, but we haven't used them much.

TOG is our spine, I use TC dvd's as a supplement for the most part. For history I look at the threads, people, and topics for the week and see what lectures I have that correspond. Somtimes I preview a lecture and see if it stays on topic for us or if it goes in a direction we don't need to go into. Sometimes a lecture goes way deeper than our studies need to take us. For literature I do the same thing, if I have a lecture that covers our book, then we read the book and then watch the lecture. This leads to some good discussion and some good writing topics. As far as how I decide when to use them, I try not to overwhelm my dc with too many of the lectures on top of TOG. I don't have any set way of using them, I have a lot of lectures too many for one student. Sometimes dd will ask for a lecture, sometimes I don't have all the books I need, so we will read from Western Civ or an American History resource and then watch a lecture. I use them like I do most of the resources that I own, as they fit into our daily rhythm. In some ways I guess I am unstructured in what resources we use, dc read and study the week's topic and then I pull it together with the discussion outline. I like having so much to choose from in my home library and in TOG, I think it allows for my dc to become more independant in their learning and discerning in bias and worldview in the resources that they use.

I am using this book to help me with some of the lit and I had dd read some of it as well when we did Guilliver's Travels. http://www.amazon.com/Invitation-Classics-Always-Wanted-Masterworks/dp/080106810X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325560656&sr=1-3 this I studied more of the Year 3 books in High School and College, so I feel more confident using TOG and making changes to their lists. I check WTM and Ambleside for ideas. We did not do all the R level Shakespeare from Y2, so I will probably add a play this semester as well. I found this book to be helpful http://www.amazon.com/Brightest-Heaven-Invention-Christian-Shakespeare/dp/1885767234/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325561009&sr=1-1 We also have some of the Teaching Company lectures, dd will sometimes watch a lecture and then we will discuss or sometimes we just move on. We use these for history and literature. When we have a really crazy week, I will just have dd listen to Pop Quiz or watch a lecture and we move on. I feel a burden is lifted off of me now that I really make TOG work for me. I used to feel like I was chasing the TOG train down the tracks, now it chases me!

Here is the timeline book http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_9?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=timetables+of+history&sprefix=timetable For Lit, we are trying something new as we have just started Y3 today. I have dd read A Tale of Two Cities, which is not schedlules, we will do Pride and Prejudice but I will not use all of the R level lit questions. Some of the R level stuff just makes my head spin! So, I will use WEM and have dd write something and we will discuss picking and choosing. Must go right now will post more in a few

Here is the what I see you saying, you really like TOG, your kids have issues with it. So why not address the issues instead of hopping to something new? If you were saying you hated TOG then I could see changing. Why do I tell you this? MY R level Dd does not like TOG either, so I made changes and let her choose some of her books. I really wanted Dd to make a timeline, she had no interest. I purchased the Timeline book in WTM and she loves it...looks up all of the timeline sections on the TOG assignment page. I let her read WTM R section on Great Books and HIstory, now she makes history pages with notes and I pick a few questions from the SAP to either discuss or as a writing assignment. I spend a lot less time planning TOG, and now I start with the discussion outline and choose what I see as important and we focus on that. I spent all summer trying to find a way to teach all levels well without TOG, it was time wasted I found I could use TOG and not tie my students to the things they hated about it. I have used MFW (not highschool) I have written about it in the past and I don't want to start a debate with MFW users. I only advise that you look at the books that they use and be sure that you like them, otherwise you will be in the same boat as now except you will not have alt resources that are scheduled for you. I don't see this as the issue, I really hate to see people pay more money for curriculum when they don't have to. If you had MFW and liked it I would suggest ways to make it work. Allow yourself to use TOG as an outline for what you study and allow your students to feel free from restrictions. Hope this helps! :grouphug::grouphug: (Eta: I don't want to give the impression that there is somethng wrong with MFW, it is a very good curriculum it did not work for us.)

I remember Ree from the old board days as well. I always liked her and am happy for her success.

Not ridiculous at all, I really think that is what the author intended all along. I also need TOG to keep us on topic and moving forward. Glad I could help!!