I use mine all the time for the answer key. I'm not about to spend the time trying to figure out myself if all the words are highlighted correctly.

Hmmm....not sure what happened to the op's comments. My youngest just turned 14 and she tells me she still has to often stop and think which way to make a b and d. When she was younger, I showed her the bed idea. In watching that video alibild posted, I never realized people actually made the b and d with their hands in order to form the bed (and I never heard of turning that upside down to make a pig). We just wrote the word "bed"...you can see the b is the headboard and the d is the footboard (you can even throw on a little pillow on the bed) and when you look at it and say the word bed, the b comes before the d in the word. I hope that makes sense. I always thought it worked well...but who knows...now that I find out my 14 year old still has trouble with it. :lol: I'm going to show her the video with the c d and the honey bee. I thought that was a clever idea.

Thanks everyone! Hey...don't push me over to the high school board just yet! I've got the rest of this school year before I gotta go over there. It's going to be a rough transition when the time comes. :crying: :lol:

Maybe we are late to the ball game, because my daughter is 14, but she just coded a google and loved it. :001_smile: Now she wants to do more coding. I just signed her up at the free site coding.org, but I'm wondering about Tynker. Is it worth it, being that it's not free? It is on sale right now and I may be willing to get the year subscription, if it's really worth it. Or maybe it's for younger kids, I'm not sure. I guess I don't know too much about what's out there and maybe there's enough available for free. Any help would be great. Thanks!

I'm so glad this was reposted. My daughter is obsessed with painting. She learns from The Art Sherpa videos on youtube. My questions: I see videos for this artist on youtube...am I right in assuming that the many videos he has for free on youtube are just little snippets of what he offers at his site with the membership?? I definitely want to get the $97 subscription. Does it expire after a year?? Here are just two of the many acrylic paintings my daughter has painted recently. At my office, I have the tree in a frame. It's our November "Painting of the Month". I switch them out monthly. My coworkers love her paintings. BTW, she will be posting them on her blog soon.

I really like Delightful Dictation with Spelling. I got it on Amazon.

I'm just seeing this now. I came up with a list off of an eBay auction. They called these "all of the additional literature titles recommended by Winter Promise and scheduled as extras/optional enrichment in the daily schedule": Justin Morgan Had a Horse Misty of Chincoteague Brighty of the Grand Canyon The Black Stallion Great Horse Stories Black Beauty My Friend Flicka The Red Pony Black Horses for the King Leonardo's Horse I'm not sure all of these really are used in the program or not. If you could check, that would be great. Thank you!

Oh, ok. Thank you!

Sooo.....what I ended up deciding on is...well, I guess I didn't really completely decide. I ordered an Exercises in English, another level of Fix It Grammar, and Journey Through Grammar Land. So....I guess I'll decide after I get these what we'll use...or maybe all 3. Call me crazy (it won't be the first time)...

Could you explain why your returned it...what didn't you like? I'm very uncertain about it since I can't find any samples. I did see some samples of the sentence combining on their website....and I just don't know....

I haven't heard of Thinking Through Grammar. I really like that there are 4 levels for high school too. It looks like the other book (not the high school ones) is for grades 5th and 6th. Is there anything for 7th and/or 8th?? I wish there were samples of this online somewhere.

Please. I know the main books that go with it, because they are listed at their website. But, are there chapter books (or other books they don't list) that are to be read along with this?? If so, can you please tell me what they are? How much Bible is discussed in this program? Thank you!

Thank you all for these suggestions. I'll definitely look into them.

I need something fairly independent for my daughter this next school year (8th grade...turning 14 in October). I won't totally let her fly solo with grammar....but there will be days, because of my work, that she'll need to do it on her own and I'll check it & discuss it with her when I get home. I've literally only had like 5 minutes to think about this, so I'm appealing to you for ideas. One option is Fix It Grammar (we've used it here and there for the past two years. I *think* she could do this independently (??). Another option, that I just remembered 3 minutes ago, is Growing with Grammar. I think that's fairly easy, so it should be good to use independently (in fact, I think it's meant to be at this age??). It needs to be secular for our school to buy it. We tried Easy Grammar this year and it was a flop. And, BTW, I just realized that this coming school year will be the last year I'll be on this K-8 board. :crying:

That's a great idea! I think my daughter would really like that for a change.

I was hoping to get some good ideas with this thread. But the one suggested the most...Grammar Island...is the one series my daughter literally shed tears over. Go figure! For younger kids, The Sentence Family is well worth it. It really helped my daughter understand the parts of speech. The Humpties is also light and fun (little egg shaped parts of speech "people" you place above the words)...but it's difficult to find. Winston Grammar has cards you set out, so it's a bit interactive. The grammar my oldest daughter had enjoyed the most when she was in school was Shurley English (she loved the Q & A flow).

I guess I'll be the odd one out here....I didn't like the book we got. I see that there are a lot more choices now, so maybe they've added new things to the books. When I ordered a book it was the Do-It-Yourself Homeschool Journal...and, I'm pretty sure, that's the only one they had (different coves but same pages inside). I like the cover. A few of the pages inside are cute. I'm not sure where the book is right now, so I don't exactly remember, but there are....let's say 10 pages with maybe 8 of those pages to fill in. Those same 8 pages are repeated again, and again, and again throughout the entire book. So, you might think you're getting a book with a lot of pages of activities, but it's the same ones over and over. I know you are supposed to use different books for each set of repeated pages....but I couldn't understand why the pages couldn't have at least been made to look different....especially with the outrageous price I paid for it. I was totally disappointed and my daughter didn't even like it. I still have it....somewhere. If I find it I'll probably sell it, but I may actually feel bad to have someone buy it from me. Maybe the other books have been improved upon, I don't know. Of course, this is just my opinion...but there you have it.

Pianimals

I've never heard of this. It does look fabulous. I think it might be a little too pricey even for the school though....

Thank you....I'll take a look at those.

I'll be the first to answer myself. :001_smile: I saw this Intro to Chemistry Kit that pairs with this Chemistry Equipment Kit. These look nice....

My daughter has never cared for science...which baffles me, because I think science is so cool. Today she completely surprised me...she dug out her microscopes and slides and was having so much fun. BTW, this was sparked by her reading two Calpurnia Tate books (wait until she reads Flavia De Luce, LOL!). I'd really like for our school to order her some fun science stuff for next school year. Do you recommend any science kits, including chemistry and microscope activity kits? I'm looking for ones that work, can be done mostly by herself, and aren't geared mainly for little kids. I have a few ScienceWiz kits....I'll get those out for her. Maybe I'll just get more of those. Thanks for any ideas...

Lori, this was very helpful...thank you so much! I'm glad to find out more information about those books. Thanks for your list....I will definitely take a look at them. I was glad to see a few we've already read, so I added a couple of comments. Your list is sooo good. Now what am I going to do!? There's going to be way more than 30 books that I'll want her to read! :001_smile:

Last summer, when I was finalizing our school order, I thought how I really wanted to sign my daughter up for a book subscription (she was 12 at the time). I thought it would be fun for her to get a new surprise book each month. I found several sites that offer such a thing....but I didn't like that I would have no idea what the books would be. I was hoping to find a site that had several options that you could choose from each month, but maybe only one place offered that. Most of them I was able to view past books that had been sent to the subscribers, and sometimes up to half of them I didn't really feel were appropriate for her. Also, for the price of the subscription...I figured I could find my own books for much cheaper. So that's what I decided to do. After a lot of searching and reading reviews, I had our school order about 20 + books. She had no idea what I had chosen. I had found several tubes of wrapping paper from a garage sale and wrapped each book. When she finishes one, she gets to choose another (as long as she's keeping up with her BkSk history readers and the rest of her school work...which she does). She LOVES this surprise book idea and wants me to do it every year. This has greatly increased her desire to read and she has found so many "keeper" books that she just loves and will never part with. She is always overcome with excitement when she's about to unwrap a book...she's literally jumping up and down and then breaks out into oohhs and aahh's when she sees her new book. This simple idea has added so much to our school year this year. I can't recommend it enough. I'm on my search again for books for next school year. If you'd like to see the list of potential books, I posted about that here. I'd love some feedback on those books I'm considering, since I have only read 1 of them. Here is a recommended list of the favorites my daughter has read this year, and some of these were from last year or so. So, age-wise she was 12, with some read at late age 11 and early age 13 (she turned 13 in October). She has also started to write book reviews on her blog...so check that out if you'd like, it's in my signature. The Green Ember (probably her most favorite right now) The Doldrums The BFG North of Nowhere A Year Without Autumn The Wild Robot Nooks and Crannies The Kite Fighters Wolf Hollow The One and Only Ivan The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles The Doll People series The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (I pre-read this book before giving it to her, because to be honest...I wasn't exactly sure what they meant by "evolution". It's a wonderful book! Very much into science and nature...a wonderful relationship between a grandfather and his granddaughter) The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate (she is currently reading this one now, and I will read it when she's done...I really enjoyed the first one) Escape From Mr. Lemoncello's Library Mr. Lemoncello's Library Olympics The Rise and Fall of Mt Majestic Book Scavenger (she doesn't know it, but Book Scavenger The Unbreakable Code is still wrapped up for her to read) The Wollstonecraft Detective Agency the Case of the Missing Moonstone (the next one, The Case of the Girl in Grey, is also a wrapped up surprise) One of the sweetest things she's said to me lately was just last week. She said, "Mom, just think...if you wouldn't have forced me to read Shilo last year...and if you wouldn't have gotten all of these books...I probably still wouldn't be a reader and I would have missed out on so many great books!!" It's true...prior to me basically making her read, she just didn't want to read. She did, and still does, love for me to read to her...but she was not a book lover reading on her own until probably late age 11. So, if you are facing something similar...there is hope!

I'm putting together a reading list for next school year. My daughter will turn 14 this October. These are not the only books she will be reading....we use BookShark Reading with History, so there's a lot of books she reads with that. These are just strictly "fun" books for her to read. I posted about my "surprise book" idea I had this year....so check that out, if you'd like (that post also includes some books my daughter recommends). In searching for books to get, I don't usually know where to begin...unless a book she's read is a hit and I know there is a sequel. Other than that, I find a book that looks good on Amazon and then that takes me to what other buyers have bought, which takes me to another list, etc. It's quite time consuming. I've also google searched for book lists for this age. The problem is, I have never read any of these books. There will probably be some of these books that I will end up pre-reading before giving them to her, if I'm a little unsure about them,. Kindly look at this list and let me know if there are any that you know are really good and shouldn't be missed. Also, if you see a book listed that you do not recommend, please let me know. Feel free to share other book ideas as well. Here are my stipulations though: I'm really trying to avoid books with teen boy/girl crushes, flirting, dating, etc. I see no reason for her to be reading books like that right now. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against someone in the book falling in love....I just don't want teen dating books. This is a difficult age to find wholesome books, because the YA type books usually have the crushes and dating going on....buy younger books don't always hold her interest. I also am trying to avoid overly magical books and I don't want anything supernatural. This is a big list so far....she tells me to get at least 30 books for next year, but we'll see. These first two are the sequel and the prequel to her favorite book The Green Ember: Ember Falls The Black Star of Kingston The Case of the Counterfeit Criminals Wollstonecraft Detective Agency book 3 (this is a continuation of a series she has) Flavia de Luce books (these look right up her alley....kind of spy/sleuth, sciencey, suspenseful...I think I might want to read them too...but I don't know, are they inappropriate??): The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag A Red Herring Without Mustard I Am Half-Sick of Shadows Speaking from Among the Bones The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust Thrice the Brinded CAt Hath Mew'd Perfume Princess Island Girl by Sandra Byrd Catching Raindrops by Crystal Hoblit Princess Academy The Detective's Assistant The Great Wide Sea Far North Downriver Go Big or Go Home A Long Way From Chicago A Year Down Yonder These next 5 are by Richard Peck....the first two I'm a little uncertain about, but reviewers seemed to like them. The last one might be more adult, not sure: The Teacher's Funeral Here Lies the Librarian Secrets at Sea The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail Amanda/Miranda Girl of the Limberlost I Capture the Castle The Princess Bride (I have actually read this one, years ago) The Neverending Story Little Women The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian Lucky Strikes As Brave as You Scar Island Some Kind of Courage When the Sea Turned to Silver These two sound kind of sci-fi/futuristic: Dark Life Rip Tide The Poet's Dog Wish by Barbara O'Connor Pax Hour of the Bees Once Was a Time Beautiful Blue World Eight Keys Love, Aubrey Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea Wingfeather Saga books (there are 5 in the series....not sure if these are too scary and/or too magical??) Rain Reign All the Answers The Double Cross The Inside Job