Right, real linguists here please forgive me, as I'm self-taught and am certainly about to embarrass myself.... The study of grammar for the past century has been the study of the rules underlying spoken language: that is, the rules internalized by native speakers of a language. This field is part of linguistics. Traditional English grammar also focuses on rules of the English language, but "rules" not in the sense of rules that are necessarily discoverable by examining how native speakers actually speak and understand language. Rather, these rules are a mixture of fairly arbitrary categorization (e.g. "the 8 parts of speech"), structural requirements derived from Latin as well as English, the features of privileged local dialects (chiefly London area and Northeast U.S.), usage and stylistic advice, and conventions of written English (e.g. punctuation). The most obvious feature of traditional grammar as taught to children is the determination of a "part of speech" primarily or solely through analysis of the meaning of the word. In modern grammar, lexical and grammatical categories (roughly, parts of speech and features of those parts of speech, such as tense or number) are analyzed chiefly through an analysis of the structure of the words, phrases, and sentences (inflection and distribution). As a crude example, in traditional grammar, a noun is initially defined as "a person, place, or thing"; in a linguistic study of grammar, a noun might be defined as a word that can replace X in the sentences "I want the X," or "He has some X," or "X is fun," and except for mass nouns, can be made plural, usually with the signal -s. Sometimes these approaches are described as "descriptive" versus "prescriptive" grammar. This isn't really an accurate description, though. Linguistics-based grammar is prescriptive when used to teach non-native speakers; and recognition that Standard English is just one dialect among others doesn't mean that it can't, or shouldn't, be taught to pupils. Traditional grammar seems to work well enough at the lower grades, with the kind of artificial sentences found in grammar books. But as a student becomes more advanced, the arbitrary categories and "rules" that aren't actually the rules people use start to break down (there was a thread recently in which we saw the disaster that ensued when the MCT curriculum tried to analyze a sentence with a modal in it). At this point, a pupil who has learned grammar through a linguistic approach will find the going much smoother. And if one isn't starting grammar until the teen years anyhow, I vote for just getting a modern grammar textbook and avoiding the whole traditional grammar mess. YMMV.

"Partial homeschooling can provide the best of both worlds, Ruf says. If they're fully removed from school, "bright students will miss out on knowing what ‘real people' are like. We want our future policymakers to be grounded in real life without having to sacrifice their own high abilities and talents."" Well okay then.

Bumping the thread. Cause maybe I need to spend more $ on curriculum than I already have.

No, no. I've compared enough notes with Sunday School teachers among my Baptist sisters to know that the core messages of all children's teaching for their church and mine are Baptist: Obey your parents. Catholic: Be quiet at mass.

The relationship between unhealthy sexuality and very conservative religiosity sometimes goes the other way: men may see the latter as a cure or control for the former.

14. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. When I got to the end, I felt a strong impulse to go back to the beginning and read it again. Somehow I've ended up in the middle of several books right now, which I try to avoid. One is a library book and another belongs to our rental, so I have only a week left to finish them both, and had thus better move those two to the top of the reading list: R.L. Stevenson, The Master of Ballantrae John Prebble, The Highland Clearances http://www.amazon.co.uk/Highland-Clearances-John-Prebble/dp/0140028374

[Caution: extreme minority view] If I were starting grammar with a 12-year-old, I'd be tempted to go straight to a linguistics-based grammar text, such as Wardhaugh's Understanding English Grammar, or Borjars' Introducing English Grammar.

The original (2-vol., not the later textbooks) AoPS books I believe were written for self-study by students wanting preparation for math competition. I think that should count as "homeschooling."

The world will tell you that fighting is healthy, that argument and conflict are inevitable, and that venting is necessary. None of this is true. Married 20 years.

I've noticed with all my girls an inverse correlation between comfiness of seating and sprightliness of intellectual faculties. So we work at the cleared dining table, with white board on the wall, natural light streaming in from three sides, and hard, straight-backed chairs. The comfy couch is for reading only - and even then, not reading that needs careful study and retention.

Aarghhh.... It's all gone again. Problem unfixed.

I'm so glad! Let's hope peace reigns.

Off topic, but - Giraffe, are you okay? I listened to the BBC this morning and thought of you. I know Turkey's a big country, but I'd like to know you don't have any cause for anxiety.

I find it easy to recall instances of people's rudenesses to me, but I tend to think of myself as polite and considerate. Extrapolating and generalizing from this, and assuming I'm actually a fairly average specimen of humanity at best, I come to the twin conclusions that (a) I'm much less considerate and more self-absorbed - bluntly, ruder - than I think; and ( b ) much of what I consider rudeness looks very different to the other person, who would very likely be mortified to see their behavior from my vantage point. Following from these, I think I can best contribute to making the world less rude by paying more attention to my own behavior and how it affects others; and by being less quick to assume rudeness as the best explanation for others' behavior (or, when that's just not possble, quickly forgiving it and moving on). I expect I'll continue to fail at both of these. On behalf of all the rude people in the world, to those on this thread whose lives are made less pleasant by rudeness, I apologize.

The problem seems fixed. Gratias tibi agamus, o Iohannes!

Washer #1: Kenmore front loader, died after 10 years of heavy use when the spider (the framework that holds the drum in place) died - a frequent cause of front loader fatalities. Our appliance guy was astounded it lived so long - apparently they had a reputation for early demise. He recommended we replace it with... Washer #2: Whirlpool Duet front loader. Total lemon. Had to replace the door gasket twice, and after only three years the spider fell to pieces. I thought the drum was going to leap out and fling itself out the window. Our appliance guy felt horribly guilty. This time we did research, agreed with an article by an engineer claiming US machines have the spider fall apart because American consumers want a load done quickly compared to Europeans who will wait much longer for a load to go through, so the machines just tear themselves to pieces - and the US manufacturers use cheap spiders to begin with. Miele was tempting, but reviewers said it was really hard to get parts and service. So we went with Washer #3: Samsung, plus an extended warranty (which Consumer Reports, in a volte-face, now recommends for large appliances). Has washed beautifully, if more slowly, for a year. Also, when it finishes a load of laundry it plays Schubert's Die Forelle, which I think you will not find as a feature in the Whirlpool.

Third grade is when we've started doing the TOPS science units that use activity sheets (radishes [botany], electricity, magnetism). It does take some scrounging to assemble the various materials you need; but since all the TOPS units use basically the same things, once you've got your 'TOPS Box' of paper clips, straws, thread, rubber bands, paper cups, etc., you're pretty much good to go. It's hands-on and very doable by the student; the directions are clear, the experimental results are good, and the activities/experiments really convey the concepts.

Alfred Church's The Odyssey for Boys and Girls is free from both the Baldwin Project and Google Books. He has a shorter version ("The Adventures of Ulysses") in Stories of the Old World, also free on Google Books. Padraic Colum's The Adventures of Odysseus is very good, and once again, free on Google Books.

My plans for Wee Girl are basically a continuation of this year: MATH Continue with Miquon, augmenting with occasional Singapore and math games ENGLISH LLATL Red, Primary Language Lessons, My Book House MUSIC Cello lessons, choir RELIGION St. Joseph's Baltimore Catechism, Bible stories EVERYTHING ELSE I think I may just turn to the Core Knowledge curr. as outlined by the Baltimore Curriculum Project, and combine their activity ideas with our home library. Art, science, history, geography, and the like general subjects are just things I'm terrible at in the early primary years.

150 pages away from the end of The Brothers Karamazov! And I checked out some R. L. Stevenson from the library, in honor of the Mystery Spot where we currently are. (Hint: Yesterday Middle Girl was terribly excited when we saw this: http://www.astoft2.co.uk/edinburgh/rls.htm ). I'm getting a surprising amount of reading, for me, done on trains, when I'm not distracted by glorious countryside.

Book House: Much depends on the edition. Later editions, it seems to me, are less challenging than the earlier; also, it was printed with different numbers of volumes. We have the 6-volume 1920 edition that you can find on Google Books, and we're reading The Treasure Chest (vol. 4), sometimes aloud and sometimes Middle Girl reading to herself. She is a little advanced I think as a reader, but it's still very challenging for her: it includes selections from Dickens, George Eliot, and Tolstoy, among others. So much of it is literature not originally intended for children. She still very much likes to re-read from the earlier volumes, even vol. 1. Wikipedia has a complete listing of the various Book House editions in the Olive Beaupre Miller entry. Golden Guides: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Guides These are nice hand-sized books, and I hope the ones I've picked out will introduce much of the middle-school-level science that isn't learnable through the discovery method TOPS uses. How To Introduce (etc.) doesn't need anything except the music itself, most of which is common enough that it can be borrowed (from the library or friends), found on Youtube, or bought cheaply used or from Amazon. Hope this helps!

(Duplicate post from thread in Middle Grade forum) ENGLISH Galore Park, So You Really Want to Learn English, Book 1 (analysis, composition) Drums, Scribner School Ed. with study guide (close reading) Poetry with Pleasure (poetry) Word Wealth Junior (vocabulary, spelling) 1920 My Book House, 1902 Young Folks' Library, Alfred Church children's classics (literature) FRENCH Weekly lesson BJU French LATIN Artes Latinae Memorization of mass prayers GREEK Athenaze MATH AoPS Intermediate Algebra, Counting and Probability Math team SCIENCE TOPS: Graphing; Analysis; Pressure & Buoyancy; Pi in the Sky; Earth, Moon, and Sun; Cohesion/Adhesion Golden Guides: Botany, Zoology, Ecology, Weather, Geology MUSIC Piano lessons How to Introduce Your Child to Classical Music HISTORY/CIVICS Landmark history series Everyday Law for Young Citizens RELIGION My Catholic Faith (catechism) The Mass Explained to Children (liturgy) PHYSICAL EDUCATION Running, swimming (Not all of these, every day!)

Thanks for asking that - I'd been quietly wondering. There's an active "What are you doing for 5th grade" thread on the Logic Stage board right now, to which I hope others contribute, as I'm always curious to see what everyone else is doing. Speaking of, somebody please start a First Grade thread here, because I am at sea. ETA: ... or I could just look at the board and see that the thread now exists.

I believe a modern guide to grammar (like the Cambridge) would identify "purple" in your sentence as a predicative complement, which would be modifying the entire phrase "painted the race car" rather than any particular word in that phrase. This would be easy to diagram using a tree-structure diagram. What would be the traditional way of diagraming it? Now I'm curious.

I don't know anything about the course, but Great Girl just got an A in her course (Discrete Math) with Dr. Starbird. She loves him. They all do. He's apparently a fantastic teacher who makes the obscure clear. It wasn't 70% off, though, I can tell you that. But it included office hours.