I think it sounds like you all have a great relationship! This will pass .. I didn't know what I wanted to do at 20, let alone 14/15 years old. You have an 'idea' but you have no idea of what it takes to get there. Trying to figure the future out from that vantage point has got to be a little like looking over a knitting pattern, or starting new on a 20 page composition. It ALL seems overwhelming when you actually stop to LOOK at what it is going to take. What you don't realize is that all it really takes is just the determination to start. Then a bit more determination to keep going each semester or whatever through every class. You don't get handed everything all at once, and it's a lesson that I need to talk about more often. Perhaps that will help with the questioning of the future. More often than not it's a 'stick-to-it-ness' that creates the life and the career that you want more than anything. Good luck! I am soooooo not there yet, but it's around the corner! This is all hypothetical in my world right now. ;-)

I have heard a lot of people say even in public school that 9th grade is a hard year. ;-) I ran across this on FB .. SWB always has words of wisdom! http://www.welltrainedmind.com/store/homeschooling-the-real-child.html

No advice, just wanted you to know that I HEAR you! ;-) This well may be a year of transition for her, and I suspect that she got a bit scared off by the idea of a vet. I guess what I would do is take her to a McDonald's and show her how long people stand on their feet, and how fast they have to rush around .. only there they make minimum wage and a vet makes $. I don't always think that taking the 'easy' way is the best, especially when it comes to high achieving students who just aren't giving their all. So IMO I would concentrate on showing her all the things she doesn't want to do. With my dc we look at things two ways ~ either you can use your body to physically work every day OR you can use your mind. Which do you want to do? I can't say if it will serve us in the future as they are only 9 & 11 right now, but we have continual conversations. To the extent that if I see they aren't giving me their best work, or trying very hard with their school work (which I consider their job right now), then I have them stop and go clean a portion of the house or scrub a toilet. Thus reiterating the idea that you can either use the time to make yourself smarter & more educated, or you can learn how to really WORK for a living. Both are equally important in my book at teaching how to move forward with a career for the future. I remember a discussion once with our family dentist. My son was asking him what it took to become a dentist and all that you got to do in the job. He mentioned that he didn't start out wanting to be a dentist, but as a kid out of high school he worked during the summers in a wood mill. Extremely difficult work. He and a fellow employee ended up going to dental school later on. The wood mill foreman joked that he had created more ACADEMICALLY GOOD college students than anywhere else because they learned fairly quickly what they DIDN'T want to do as a job. ;-) I guess I did have 'some' advice after all. lol I know I may not be sounding very sweet about this, and I can promise you that my kids have it pretty easy for the most part. However I know what they are capable of, and I know what it takes to get there. We live on a working ranch/farm so they have plenty of exposure for creating a good work ethic. Still they are kids, and they don't always wanna' a lot of the time!~

I would second Lewelma's thoughts. This has been our favorite WWS by far. It's like SWB picked right up where she let off from WWS1, but at the same time she provides PLENTY of review from the previous work in WWS1. WWS is well worth the time & energy, and you are going to love it. ;-)

Well for example dd11 finished her Wright Brothers compare/contrast last week. I have the resources ordered for the subjects we plan to write about in the upcoming weeks, so while we are waiting I intend to have her go back over the Wright Brothers and expand the sentences and inject more of the 'voice' we have been discussing. Mostly to show her that revision needs to take place. She isn't the kind of kid that will revise, revise, revise and have it all come out well in the same week, but she may recognize now that she has had some time away from it that it needs to have a bit more personality. I will typically make them try their best to have it sound good by the last revision. Sometimes that comes in the same week they are doing the composition, but if it really isn't coming together then we set it aside and try again in a week.

Even though we haven't had an issue with too many mean kids in general, dd has spoken about the fact that the 8th grade girls definitely act way older than they should. She's seen people coupling up in the hallways & recess area. We have a strict policy of no dating, and ironically some of dd's best friends since the toddler years are two boys in her class that also have that no dating policy enforced by their parents. I think if you can find a core group of essential people then you can honestly enjoy yourself.

I love those two examples Kendall .. it does show that the topoi is being 'learned' and while sounding stilted in the first one, I am with you .. it's too hard to come up with topics while also teaching the topoi. So I will stick with what is given and be glad for it! But at the same time, my main goal is always to teach the topoi, get them well and good in their minds, and then worry about the voice next. I loved your second example and how much personality came through. If I let my dd11 choose her own topic all she would ever write about would be horses!

kandbp, I am not sure if you saw my dd's composition on the gold rush above, and my thoughts on it. She also has a hard time getting into the topic. We stopped and I had her watch history channel excerpts as well as PBS stuff we could find online. It's a matter of getting them to care enough to put those creative energies into the paper. When we initially started WWS last year with volume 1 that was my biggest complaint the first 12 weeks or so. We had come from mostly writing creatively and retelling fables, etc. Her more academic writing sounded dry, boring and stilted. It just takes a lot of time to write academically with a voice and I think that largely has to do with age, with experience with this style of writing, and with acceptance that ultimately THIS will largely be the style of writing that they are asked to do in schools & universities. Every single week with WWS2 I am blown away by the topics we are covering, what we are learning, and WHY IN THE WORLD I NEVER GOT TAUGHT HOW TO WRITE LIKE THIS!! Does dd11 appreciate all that she is learning .. hahaha .. maybe one day. ;-) For now we are putting 'tools' in our tool belt and learning how to pull them out and write a paper that isn't so broad as to say nothing, but zooms in to a specific subject that is definable. We are learning that we have choices of topoi from last years volume & this one, and choosing one largely depends on your resources and what you want to say. It really is very interesting, just probably not to a pre-teen/teenager. ;-)

This past summer my dd11, a horse lover, attended a Rodeo Queen University locally. It was a 4 day event and sponsored by a Christian organization. For a horse lover and someone who is interested in rodeoing and maybe being a local rodeo queen this was a great opportunity to learn. Over the course of 5 days 4 nights she was surrounded by current rodeo queens from counties to the state one. She learned about poise, how to speak clearly from an audience, how to fix her hair, how to apply 'very little' makeup, etc. She also learned about the events of the rodeo, rode horses, etc. Initially I was skeptical about letting my 11 year old go, and for sure about letting her do her makeup. Well .. let me tell you .. she learned more about how to conduct herself properly over the course of that week than at any other time in her life. She learned the PROPER way to do things that looked appropriate for her age. It was like the modern day Ms. Manners Camp! lol .. So now when she sees these girls wearing 4 inch heals & bright red lipstick she just shakes her head.

I also would have to say that we have found the opposite. My dd11 went back into school as a 6th grade middle schooler, and she hasn't honestly had too much bad to say about it. lol. Sure there is drama, but she has learned enough about herself from being home schooled that I can tell she is handling all of it better than she would have otherwise. It helps that the principal is a stickler about bullying and bad attitudes so ANYTHING that happens she immediately goes and tells and it is dealt with. Other than that she has found a core group of girls & boys that she has known, along with a few new ones, and it is working well for her. No .. it's not a huge academic challenge, but we still afterschool & before school her in math & writing along with piano. What she IS learning is how to juggle a lot of different teachers and requirements, how to follow through and turn things in on time, how to be accountable to someone other than me. She also has more competition than she had here at home, so that has been nice. ;-)

I thought I would thank everyone for your responses. I didn't want anyone worried that my children would wake up this morning and I would have left on my run saying, "See yah later .. have a nice day!" ;-) I guess I just wanted to have some reasurrance that in a world where everyone wants you to be independent and think for yourself, that there is still room for doing some things and it won't cause permanent damage. lol So .. they get themselves dressed, make their beds, pack their lunches. I make breakfast and do her hair. ;-) I know she will hit a point in her life where she won't WANT me to do her hair, and I am fine with that. For now it's a bit unruly without my assistance. My other goal is to help them learn to cook a few more things besides toast and eggs in the future, so that they CAN when they need to. Thanks!

Interesting! My ds had a lot of the same upbringing. Pancakes every morning made my his mom. ;-) I never had that, so I don't know on my end how much personal responsibility for the little things equates to success later on. I think I am more than fine with keeping at some of it .. like the wake up call, etc. Lunch has to be packed (but kept in the fridge) for the next day. I am trying to teach my older dc about nutrition and what entails good choices for lunch. So we will keep at it. We all eat breakfast together, I just wondered how much of it was made my the parent and how much by the child. I think I definitely had the more 'lonely' type mornings, but I don't remember it bothering me. Perhaps it was calmer for me to do things on my own, not sure about that one. lol. It's nice to hear what others are doing and what their expectations are. Thanks!

Thanks everyone! Thanks T-smom. I think you might be on to something there. I will start with the lunches and go from there, adding one thing each week. Yes, her hair is a bit unruly & curly and she wants to look nice. I see this being a winter project or perhaps summer project of ours to get her to a place of doing it the way she likes me to. I don't mean to keep going back to how things were in 'my' day .. and I very well may be romanticizing it. But it just seems like the morning routine sets the stage for what level of responsibility she has for the rest of the day. At school they are now starting to mandate a planner for elem & middle school kids. They write on the board at the end of the day what ALL of the assignments or topics were and then have each kid highlight what their homework is. The teacher also signs it. As parents we are expected to look it over, make sure our kid does it, then sign this and that at the end of each week saying we see THIS and THAT going on. All this is supposed to lead to a student that should be able to walk into high school and keep up with their OWN planners without prompting. But guess what .. it's not really working out that way. It seems like the more they are coddled (for lack of a better term, I apologize) the less they seem to be able to do it on their own. I feel a bit like I am micromanaging from the moment they get up until they go to bed. We fit afterschooling in the mix for writing, grammar & math .. plus homeschool half days during the summer. I do keep them relatively busy during the weekdays. I just don't remember my parents EVER checking with me about my homework, helping me get ready, helping me with almost anything really. They both worked full time and I just figured it out. I often wonder is that why I could go out in the world, find a job and show up on time, be accountable for myself, my bills, etc. I should think so .. but everyone, myself included, seems to be feeling like it is necessary to prompt them to wash their face, brush their teeth, do their homework, pack their lunch, etc. etc. I need .. I really really NEED to get dd at the very least to a place where she is more responsible. We can get there, I believe it .. I just need baby steps as T'smom suggested. Now for that PS dilemma .. aye.

Yes, I definitely did my own hair, cooked my own breakfast, woke myself up and somehow got myself to school on time without any prompting at all .. so I am just wondering what I am missing? It's like I am trying to get from where we are to where I want her to be this year and I just need to know that I am being fairly reasonable about the expectations.

Thanks for your input .. I think I was curling, foofing, spraying, etc. by 6th grade .. those good ole BIG HAIR DAYS and all that. Yes, 6AM is early .. but the bus is here by 7 so we don't have much choice. Certain days of the week I school in the AM from 6:45-7:45 and then take her to meet ANOTHER bus 10 min. away with a shorter ride to school. But my pre-ker is even up at 6AM and on the bus to his school 3 days a week by 7AM. I would agree it's very early, but not my choice on that one.

My dd11 is back in PS this year as a 6th grade middle schooler. I would love to hear what your morning routine is and what you expect from your middle school daughter. Do they wake themselves up in the AM on their own? (Mine has to wake up at 6am ... that's US waking her up and making sure she gets out of bed. I would love to see her wake up a few minutes earlier, get herself out of bed, face washed, dressed and down for breakfast in a reasonable amount of time) Do they do their own hair? (My dd has unruly hair and since the beginning of the school year I have been styling it for her before breakfast, but would love to get her to a place of doing it herself without burning her head or fingers.) Do they make their own breakfast? (Because we have a specific diet (paleo/gluten free) I have to have things on hand they can eat. There has to be protein with the carbs in the am .. not just a bowl of cereal). I have been making it for them all to move things along, but again .. just wondering what the expectations are for a middle schooler.) Do they pack their own lunches the night before if needed? At this age I seem to remember doing all of this myself, so it's a bit aggravating to be hand holding the oldest right now through the process. This week I plan to start with Rule #1 .. wake yourself up with your alarm clock .. when it goes off .. get up. With dd11 it will end up being a situation where she sleeps in if I don't force the issue and ends up missing the bus entirely. I AM willing to let this happen to make my point, but 'aye' I don't like it. So when do the expectations step up?

Brett my dd11 completed 5th grade last year and the entire year of WWS. I will say that the beginning of the program is difficult to sink your teeth into. The first 14 weeks or so are good, but can also be confusing to really grasp what you are trying to accomplish. You can't really SEE the big picture with it, but I have found so much value in it that now I wouldn't use anything else with my dc at this age. By the end of the year you are writing full compositions in Science and History as well as literature & poetry analysis. I definitely walked dd through all of the assignments. We learned more about the topics before she wrote about them. My son, eight at the time, also came along for the ride and worked through the assignments. I would say that if she is struggling with how to summarize or what to say then by all means use some of the assignments in WWE4 to get her in the swing of things. Summarizing is a harder concept than it appears. So is outlining. It took some time to grasp. Then you add in your own compositions taken from reference notes and you are in a whole new ball game. My dc also did WT1 and the difference that I noticed between something like WT or CC Fable (Classical Composition that we used also), is that it felt like creative writing to them. Retelling the story was fun. This was a great place for me to start at the time because I had brought them home from public school and they had never been required to write much at all. So this helped them just write A LOT more .. physically write a lot more. The writing was fun for them for sure. WWS is way more academic in it's approach. The subject material is not easy for them to get a handle on initially. I could get beautiful sentence structure out of a piece that she wrote from CC Fable, but when it came time to complete a composition on history it just felt dry and boring. It's like her brain couldn't do BEAUTIFUL writing and get all the facts in there at the same time. I almost gave up WWS because of it, but I am so glad that I didn't. Helping her care about the topic a bit more through history channel dvds or whatever should help. I know for me talking about the subject and having her ask herself what she wants to impart to the reader is still an important part of the equation for us now that we are beta testing WWS2.

Brett my dd11 completed 5th grade last year and the entire year of WWS. I will say that the beginning of the program is difficult to sink your teeth into. The first 14 weeks or so are good, but can also be confusing to really grasp what you are trying to accomplish. You can't really SEE the big picture with it, but I have found so much value in it that now I wouldn't use anything else with my dc at this age. By the end of the year you are writing full compositions in Science and History as well as literature & poetry analysis. I definitely walked dd through all of the assignments. We learned more about the topics before she wrote about them. My son, eight at the time, also came along for the ride and worked through the assignments. I would say that if she is struggling with how to summarize or what to say then by all means use some of the assignments in WWE4 to get her in the swing of things. Summarizing is a harder concept than it appears. So is outlining. It took some time to grasp. Then you add in your own compositions taken from reference notes and you are in a whole new ball game. My dc also did WT1 and the difference that I noticed between something like WT or CC Fable (Classical Composition that we used also), is that it felt like creative writing to them. Retelling the story was fun. This was a great place for me to start at the time because I had brought them home from public school and they had never been required to write much at all. So this helped them just write A LOT more .. physically write a lot more. The writing was fun for them for sure. WWS is way more academic in it's approach. I could get beautiful sentence structure out of a piece that she wrote from CC Fable, but when it came time to complete a composition on history it just felt dry and boring. It's like her brain couldn't do BEAUTIFUL writing and get all the facts in there at the same time. I almost gave up WWS because of it, but I am so glad that I didn't. Helping her care about the topic a bit more through history channel dvds or whatever should help. I know for me talking about the subject and having her ask herself what she wants to impart to the reader is still an important part of the equation for us now that we are beta testing WWS2.

(So .. this was taxing on us. lol. Mostly because we have such a busy schedule and it doesn't allow us to give it our full attention. We are a bit behind schedule because we put it aside for a bit. I think that I am realizing is that once my dd gets 'into' the project then it flows more naturally. So we took time to read more information about the gold rush online, as well as capture some of the essence of that time. If I can get her to care about the paper (like she does when she writes so descriptively about horses) then she generally can come up with something to say. That will be our biggest struggle this year. Taking each and ever composition and truly soaking it up and recounting it in her own way without just stringing note cards together. Actually having something to say .. or saying it in a way that makes it her own. I think that can only come with time. She just isn't 'there' quite yet. I do have a question about footnotes. If she reads through the material and then recounts it on her own from note phrases, not really using any specific choice of wording directly from the material, does she still need to have a footnote to cite that she read the material FROM a specific source? For example, she took notes on the gold panning, but wrote it her own way. Does that then become common knowledge, because gold panning in itself has been written about countless times, and the process is fairly similar in each recounting? Or does she still need to cite that she read it from THAT book specifically?) ** oh .. and it's clear to me that dd is NOT in to pulling out every single detail that she reads and taking a note on it to include in the composition. I wish she was a bit more thorough in her note taking, but for now we are just going with having something to say and making sure that she has points in there that are chronological and take you to where you intended to go by the end of the paper. ** Week 4 Day 3 The Gold Rush dd11 Nowadays when you think about gold you think about a necklace or ring, but during the gold rush all people thought about was a nugget or dust. James Wilson Marshall was not a man that woke up one morning deciding to be famous. He was building a mill for a man named John Sutter. He discovered a “gold speck”, that turned out to be ½ oz. of gold dust.1 The next day he came back and the stream running through the mill was laden with gold dust. He gathered 3 oz. and took it to John Sutter. Up until this point, gold had only been found in very small quantities. The people of California were restless and in need of money and adventure. “The American War was just over and the adventurous spirits, unwilling to settle down, were looking for real excitement”2 Sam Brannan, a man greedy for money, figured that he could get rich by selling pans and shovels to miners because they were in demand. He was a store owner, and in order to get lots of business, he tried to create a gold frenzy. He walked down the street waving a bottle of gold dust in the air, yelling “Gold, Gold from the American River!”3 As a result of gold being found, people thought it was everywhere. Every strong man left their job and rushed to California, sailors left their ships and soldiers left their ranks4. Gold could be found at the roots of bushes, veins of rocks, and could simply be dug out with a pocket knife. “Every man with a drop of red blood in his veins wanted to go to California.”5 Panning for gold was hard work, but many people thought gold was worth it. Gold was easiest found with basic equipment. But to get to this heavy and beautiful metal all you needed was a pan. The pan was just a simple iron or tin pan no larger than a dinner plate. Because pans were so plentiful, many people thought that all they had to do was run to California with a pocketknife and a pan. Gold rolls down streams and since it is heavy it will naturally stay at the bottom of the stream, catch on a big rock, or wash up on a sand bar. A 14 inch square block of it would weigh a ton. Water is needed to find gold to separate it from sand. Since the gold is heavy, it will sink to the bottom of the pan. To pan for gold, simply put some sand into the pan, take out all big rocks and fill it up about halfway with water. Move the pan in a small circular motion, and all the rocks will fall out. If you are lucky you might be left with some gold flakes or nuggets at the base of the pan. Unfortunately for James Marshall the sawmill that he was working on the day of the discovery was never finished because all of his workers were instead searching the hills for gold. Neither James Marshall nor John Sutter ever benefited from the discovery. James Wilson Marshall ended up dying penniless and alone in a shack not far from the mill where he worked.6

Yes, it's been one of our favorite things here. My dd had a hard time moving into it when I brought her home, as she had been using Saxon and the MM word problems were not her thing. But she did well after the first few months of getting adjusted. ds started in MM1 and is currently half way through MM4 and doing really well. I love the mental math aspect and how it teaches so many different ways to do something.

I know Ruth! I am in total agreement with you on that. I am going to make certain with next assignment that she takes more time and adds more details to it. Time was a factor on this one, and it shows. ;-P She is pretty good at following the directions, but will do the bare minimum if under a time constraint. Of course .. there was no love for the blender AT ALL. haha .. we need to find subjects that she enjoys I think. Perhaps I will have her do it again with an ipod!! ;-)

Lewelma, I never really know WHAT to say about his excerpts. He uses a completely different thought process than I do, and so I never seem to be able to comment intelligently on it. I am in the mode of following the WWS 'patterns' so to speak because they make logical sense to me to lay out a sequence in history by giving an introduction, description of the object, how the object works, and then ending with a result or consequence of it being used in history. I will say that dd11 also balked at why she had to write a description, and why she couldn't just say both things in one paragraph. I told her it would become more obvious when the pieces she was working on were longer and there was more descriptive writing to be had. This was a quick exercise to see that she understood the assignment. So my thought is that you have two options .. hold him to the assignment so that you know he is fully understanding the material (which obviously he is ..lol), or you let him create within the confines of the assignment, as he seems to get personally invested in HOW he wants it to sound and WHAT he has to say about it. I can't imagine that ever being a bad thing! My educated guess would be that he did very well. I also loved the humorous description on the history of the lightbulb from Kendall. Although I do think in both cases to address the specifics of the assignment, things would have to be moved around or added. I for one don't know how to teach writing, so I am staying in the parameters. ;-) Others might have better luck outside of them. ** As I write the fact that we are trying to follow her guidelines, I am quite certain that I didn't focus on the word count on this one, and my guess is that we are short. ** Also Ruth, I was going to say that most of your ds's essays read like something out of an encyclopedia or national geographic. I truly think he is a good writer. I have no clear idea of what you are supposed to tell him. lol. I just think he is going to take from it what he needs and run with it!

Week 2, Day 3 dd11 wrote this in about 15 min early this morning. Not edited. The blender is a tool that people use frequently in their homes. It is about one foot high and four inches wide at the top. They can come in all different colors, and can be used from making soups to smoothies. It holds a small engine with a glass pitcher that sits atop it. You flick a switch and it powers the small engine. That small engine then turns a sharp gear that rotates a blade which blends ice or other edible things. As a result of having blenders, today we can blend things more efficiently. We no longer have to toil over bowls of unmixed food by hand, because now we can just throw it in the blender.

I've been running a group on FB full of women trying to lose weight .. we've found that you can actually up the carbs & proteins to higher grams (as long as the carbs come from whole grains, veggies, etc) and if you keep the fat down .. say a 40/40/20 ratio of carbs/proteins/fats .. they seem to lose a significant amount of weight. When some of us backed off that ratio and lowered the carbs & proteins a bit to up the fat ratios .. we found that we 'maintained' weight. It's just a theory really .. as everyone is different, but it what has worked for me. If I want to lose weight, tone, and uncover my abs then I lower the fat grams to about 30 and up the carbs/proteins.. if I want to maintain .. (not really have the ab definition) then I lower the carbs and proteins a bit and up the fat.

Have you tried logging what you eat at myfitnesspal.com (MFP) anyway it might be useful to see what is going on each day. You can customize the settings to whatever you like. You are welcome to view mine and friend me at sadonnah over there if you set up a free acct. It sounds like you may not be eating enough. You need a minimum of 1200 calories and that is a bare minimum .. typical for those who are wanting to lose weight. I eat more like 1500-1600 per day but am at my goal weight .. I could go much higher if I wanted to integrate more lean proteins into my day, but after a while egg whites and chicken breasts can only go so far. ;-P You could consider supplementing in the AM with a protein shake of some kind though.