Thanks. I should have been more specific: the friend request is on the WTM forum here. I was just mentioning FaceFriendBookTube as an example of other interweb things I don't understand fully.

I must be an idiot. How do I accept a friend request? I have the "Accept selected friend requests" clicked on, and then click on "Save changes," and the little wheel swirls, and... nothing changes, the friend notification is still up. What am I doing wrong? Also, an etiquette question, never having before been on FaceTube or WebBook or whatever ... am I now supposed to send a friend request to the same person? Or is it automatically reciprocated? Or what? I don't want to be stand-offish or rude. And what does having a friend mean, anyhow? I don't mean that as a deep moral question. :001_smile:

I thought at first "types of words" meant font, and I was going to say it had indeed impacted our choice, when buying a German dictionary: the older used ones have that old-fashioned type I can't make out at all.

My dh got called up and was the only person knocked out of the pool immediately based on his occupation. Apparently there's no need on juries for people who make their living spotting the flaws in arguments. :D

The Godfather. I can't wait for someone to say Groundhog Day.

I came to Austin in 2nd grade, so I feel free to call myself a Texan. Almost everywhere. But when I'm visiting family in New Mexico, I say that I was born in Albuquerque and living for now in Texas. I get along better that way.

6th grade, first year of middle school. We had come from different elementary schools, and I was quite peeved to hear talk about this boy being "the smartest kid in school." I was pretty sure that was supposed to be my reputation. It was very annoying years later in high school when he got a higher SAT score. He was the only reason I got through trig and calculus with As; he'd taken them years before but sat in on the class and helped the teachers with explanations when they got lost. He would sit by my desk and quietly write things that made sense on my paper while the befuddled calculus teacher stared at the overhead and tried to figure out where he'd gone wrong. :D He would tell me it wasn't my fault I was confused; math was taught badly in high school. I didn't have to work hard to win him over to homeschooling!

http://www.bookfinder.com . "The Google of dead books."

My world history teacher, a/k/a P.E. coach, in our Texas high school simply used the textbook as a springboard for talking about himself and sports. My biology teacher used the textbook as a springboard for avoiding the entire subject of evolution by skipping that chapter, pleading lack of time, and no doubt concerned about the upcoming change in the composition of the ISD Board of Trustees. (A friend's bio teacher assigned their class to "read about evolution and write a paper saying what you believe." CYA.) More reasons we homeschool.

Austin could only ever be where it is. A while back I saw a pickup driving down Guadalupe that had a Greenpeace bumper sticker and a rifle rack. You ain't gettin' that in Vermont. And where else can you get decent vegan food with great salsa?

... likes to cook as his relaxation when he comes home. ... is even more a sucker for used book-buying than I am. ... loves doing math with all his girls, to the point I practically have to throw him out of the house in the morning to go to work--he can't resist the chorus of "Oh please let's do a little more math, Daddy!" "Dad, help me with this proof." "Peez Daddy count my toes Daddy AGEN Daddy." :lol:

I like how the editors of the Golden Children's Bible clearly thought carefully about where they should have the words of the KJV verbatim. For instance, at the Crucifixion (going from memory here), it says "He gave up the ghost." Elsewhere the editors don't use "ghost" for spirit; but where the phrase has become part of English idiom, they supply the obsolete wording. Even though we're Catholic, and don't use the KJV for devotion (& need to use other resources for the other OT books), I really treasure the Golden Children's Bible for its preservation of literary biblical English.

:bigear:

~Sharon (who is delighted to find Amazon.uk only takes one day to deliver a book: hello, PLL!) ~Sharon (who just woke up to another beautiful Scottish morning, and wonders if the UK version of La Migra would notice if she just never went back to Texas)

There's a somewhat less hysterical and conclusory article on it all at The New York Times. What a time to be out of town, missing all the excitement. I love the smell of textbook infighting in the morning. :D

Oh, yeah. Last semester my dh was actually on sabbatical for research, but we didn't tell the kids because he can't get work done in the house and I can't get the dds to settle down to do anything until he's gone. He would just look at his watch each morning, announce "Off to campus!" and head to his office. The teenager finally figured it out, becoming suspicious that Daddy was having such an easy time taking off afternoons for various things. A couple years ago, the city dug out our entire street and six feet into our yards on either side to put in new storm sewers. Gigantic diggers were involved, and later super-gigantic machines (if I had boys, I suppose I'd know what they were called) for lifting immense concrete pipes into place. The dds sat on the back of the sofa all day every day, staring out the window at it all. I think nothing got done for the entire month.

About GeoPuzzles: I bought some of the puzzles and we didn't get around to opening them for a year. One of them had pieces that were mis-cut, with the edges set off from the borders instead of following them, and badly warped. I e-mailed the company and heard back from Bob himself (the founder), who was happy to send me a new one, shipping paid, not minding that I had no receipt and it had been a year, and asked how the weather was--turns out he's a displaced Austinite. A new puzzle came promptly, pieces perfect. Now that's customer service!

Thanks to all for the valuable tips on Scottish history books. I will be dropping by the W. H. Smith in town and checking out Amazon.uk (I'm already ordering books to our temporary address, I'm such an incurable. I think we're going to have to lug a very heavy book bag through the Edinburgh train station on the way out). Dd loved The 39 Steps even before we arrived; great reading suggestion. (And skip the recent BBC remake!) I myself brought Scott's Waverley, for my edification and penance whilst in Alba, hoping I might like it more than I liked The Heart of Midlothian. On page 150 now with no discernible plot in sight. :ack2: My dh more wisely is reading Dunnett's King Hereafter, which he recommends for older high schoolers and parents alike.

Learning other bases can give you a deeper understanding of arithmetic in general. For example, if you already know the divisibility-by-9 test of a number in based 10 (add the digits and see if the sum is 9), you can then see that you have a divisibility-by-7 test in base 8 (the sum of the digits is 7), where there is no such test for 7 in base 10.

Our standard laundry rhyme: They that wash on Monday Have all the week to dry. They that wash on Tuesday Are not so much awry. They that wash on Wednesday Are not so much to blame. They that wash on Thursday, Wash for shame. They that wash on Friday, Wash in need. And they that wash on Saturday, Oh ! they're sluts indeed. Admittedly the last line is, these days, subject to ambiguity. Some days, I just find myself shouting instead, "I'm doing laundry!!" Those are the same days when loading the dishwasher is accompanied by cries of "Spoooooon!" But I didn't learn those from a human person. :D

Lisa, My dd14 is actually expected to write a paper after all this, so we can put half a credit of "Scottish History: Wars of Independence Through the Reformation" on her high school transcript with a straight face. She's planning to write something about the importance of technological differences in weaponry at the Battle of Flodden Field. Books she's found useful are Flodden 1513 by Niall Barr, and James IV by Norman MacDougall. Both are part of series: Tempus Publishing also has The Battle of Falkirk 1298 and The Battle of Bannockburn 1314, for those who like things military. The MacDougall is part of a series called The Stewart Dynasty in Scotland. I really do need a reliable general history of Scotland, though. I'm not expecting anything from dd like the rigor that would be expected from a Scottish student for her GCSE--she's only a rising 9th-grader--but I'd be interested, too, to know what text people might recommend for an American high schooler going from zero to sixty in Scottish history.

Aaaaagh! Did I say 'English'?? :willy_nilly:

I take a half-point off in tests; I'm merciful if she forgets/adds a macron in a paradigm and repeats the error throughout the paradigm, only taking off the half-point once. Half a point is just enough to make her feel a little annoyed with herself, and she generally remembers that word correctly next time. Outside of tests, I just mark the correction and let it go.

The Golden Guides, for older children. The Golden Press King Arthur, Gods and Heroes, Iliad and Odyssey (mentioned above), Robin Hood (Pyle), and Canterbury Tales.

We have taken, or are preparing to take, nearly all of the suggestions offered in this thread. We've seen Stirling Castle, where they were doing some historical reenactments from James V's court (the weapons demonstration was a hit); Edinburgh Castle; and yesterday, Lochleven Castle, where Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned and forced to abdicate. We really wanted to see the Mary King's Close tour, but they don't admit children under 5, so I would need to wait until my husband could come too. We're also planning on visiting Caerlaverock Castle, as everybody is very anxious to see the life-sized replica of the Warwolf, the trebuchet so terrifying the Scots tried to surrender before it had even been completely built. Another attraction we plan to visit is the Falkirk Wheel, which my kids think may be the coolest thing ever built. In a few weeks, the Orkneys, with high hopes to see the puffins. Public transport has been easy and cheap, and I would recommend to anybody else visiting that they not bother with a car; you can get anywhere if you're willing to walk a little. And ask directions when there aren't signs. And not balk at ferry boats the size of a VW offering to take a dozen tourists across the water, sans lifejackets. The two most useful sites so far have been Historic Scotland and Undiscovered Scotland. The Historic Scotland pass paid for itself by the second castle, and I highly recommend it. Anyway, many thanks again to the great fellow homeschoolers who convinced me I could see Scotland with three children, an umbrella stroller, and a train pass. I don't ever want to go home. :D (Oh, and besides the history actually sticking in little minds--my 7yo dd goes around telling me details of the lives of Robert the Bruce and William Wallace--the elections provided the greatest lesson in the difference between our political systems. I haven't seen an election that exciting since the Florida chad-count.:lol:)