thank you, Danielle! :-)

Danielle, congrats to your dd on her success! Would you care to share which US Gov textbook your dd used? I might try the hippocampus route with my ds next year -- it looks pretty good!

Our local school district is undergoing severe budget cuts, laying off teachers, etc. In this morning's paper was this quote: To avoid forcing three popular magnet schools into later hours, the board instead decided to save $1.3 million by making students pay fees for Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exams Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/05/12/1429672/three-cms-magnets-get-break-on.html#ixzz0nirLalBv They were paying 1.3 *million* each year to cover the costs of these exams???!!!

Here's something I made up, and my family really likes it. Mexican Lasagne 4 frozen boneless/skinless chicken breasts 1/2 jar salsa 1 can black beans 1 can corn 1 block cream cheese, cut in chunks 1 pkg. flour tortillas (you'll need 6 large ones) Mexican cheese (shredded) Place 1st 5 ingredients in a crockpot and cook on low all day. When chicken is very tender, shred with a fork. Preheat oven to 350. Spray a 9x13 pan and place 2 flour tortillas in the pan. Spoon 1/2 of the chicken mixture over the tortillas (drain liquid if it is soupy. You want *some* liquid, but not too much.) Place 2 more tortillas over this, and top with the remaining chicken mixture. Top with the last 2 tortillas, and top this with shredded cheese. Bake for approx. 30 minutes.

I'm pretty sure the lists at Bookshelf Central are just recommended books, and not alternates. But to be sure, you can also pull up a booklist at the TOG website. (this is the method I prefer, because it's more easily printable) Go to www.tapestryofgrace.com, and click on "Store". Create a (free) account, and then you can click on "Resource List" where you can create booklists for each year plan, tailoring it to levels, subjects, and units.

I didn't know either -- but a friend of mine, whom I introduced to PW by cooking spicy macaroni & cheese a couple of years ago, saw that she was coming to town. Her sweet hubby drove to Charlotte (we're up near Lake Norman) and got her a ticket, and surprised me with one, too!

Tonight I got the real pleasure of meeting Ree Drummond (the Pioneer Woman)! She was in Charlotte, and I went to the bookstore to get my cookbook signed. When I told her that I 'knew' her from long ago on these boards, she got excited and asked me to be sure to tell everyone here hello -- so there you go! Hello from Pioneer Woman! btw, she's as beautiful and fun as you would think from her blog!

Tina, your experience sounds just like mine! We did WTM (back in the pre-SOTW) days and we floundered so much because I had no idea whether I'd covered all I was supposed to before moving on. TOG keeps me on schedule, and I love that. I love having it to hold my hand and say, "Ok, let's move along, there's more fun stuff to learn about over here..."

Ah! thanks!

Sorry -- what is TMM?:confused:

On the Loom, you'll see a document called "Workbook Pages." This is a pdf file, unprotected, of all the Student Activity Pages. I copy/paste the questions to a Word document and reformat it all, then print it out.

This made me smile because it sounds just like the old days with TOG Classic :001_smile: I make workbook pages for each of my kids, adding in blank spaces for them to write their answers. This comes to about 90 pages per unit (printed front/back on 45 sheets of paper) for my R level student. Then I print all the maps for the unit (approx. 20 pages -- student & teacher), and timeline figures (approx. 10 pages). So that's a total of about 120 pages per R level student (I did much less than this when my kids were younger.) I also print out Writing Aids talking points sheets when we need those. I don't print any of my Teacher notes -- I just use my laptop when we have discussion. (ETA -- deciding on DE last year forced me to make the leap to a laptop, and i've not regretted that one bit. ) This was my 6th year with TOG, my first with DE. I'd still probably prefer to have TOG in print, but I love the lower cost, the immediate updates & corrections, and having my supplements integrated. I'm planning to continue with DE next year (trading in my old Classic for Redesigned DE).

Logic. ugh.

I guess I qualify :) We're finishing our 6th year, looking forward to year #7. One of the things I try to encourage folks in our co-op to do, is to not move up to a new level too soon. The material is so rich at all levels, that I don't think it's necessary to rush a 5th grader into Dialectic, or an 8th grader into Rhetoric. Even though a 13 year old might be able to read the rhetoric books, the discussion and reading topics might be more than you want to cover with them. And there is plenty to discuss with them at the level where they are. One thing I wish I had done differently, is I wish I had spent more time and effort on the writing assignments. I feel the writing assignments are so strong, but I was just too... lazy??... to really implement that part of the program. the strength of TOG, I believe is in the rhetoric section. I also encourage new TOG users to not burn themselves out on TOG by jumping in during the LG years and trying to cover every single thing. There is plenty of time to get to things, and you really want to still be using it when the important high school years roll around. sorry this rambles!

The only way you can list a class as AP on your transcript is if you are using a curriculum that has been specifically approved by the College Board. However, your student can certainly take the AP test, and you can report the scores on the transcript. You just can't say they took "AP Biology".

Thank you, Jacqueline, I'm going to give you a call later today! I should have mentioned in my pp that I'm already in NC (near Charlotte) so yes, I'm all set for the NCHE conference -- can't miss that! I did find the Piedmont Homeschoolers loop -- that has been a good source so far. Thanks for the ideas -- any more????

We just found out we'll be relocating to Greensboro, NC this summer. We're looking forward to the move, but I don't have much time to get ready! We're hoping to rent a home there, and I'd love to get my 2 high schoolers plugged in to some co-op opportunities or classes. Anyone know of any of the following nearby? -- home rentals (3-4 bedrooms) -- homeschool groups -- science labs (high school) -- NCFCA speech & debate club -- enrichment co-ops for high schoolers -- anything else I've not thought of yet??? thanks for any help you can offer!

Thanks, Jann, I was hoping you'd see this and chime in :-) I have sent them an email so hopefully I'll hear something back soon.

it says "Error 50: an unknown error occured (launch 01_256k_S.mov)" It does this on both my older desktop (running Windows XP) and on my laptop (running Windows Vista)

I'm having trouble loading the video content on my Lial's Intermediate Algebra DVT's. I have them for Introductory, and those work fine. I just got the Intermediate ones, and they were still sealed in the package. When I load them, the main screen/table of contents comes up fine but when I click on a lesson to watch I get an error message. Any ideas?

Another thing to consider, IMHO, is that the rhetoric students read many adult-level books, which means not only adult level reading but also some adult topics. They don't go into detail, and the TOG "Glance into Next Week" usually points out and warns about them, but there have been a few references to extramarital s*x, homos*xuality, or other topics I wouldn't want to have to discuss or explain to my 13yo. This is especially true in the literature selections (ancient egyptian poetry comes to mind...)

:iagree: those are my 2 favorite online yarn sources too! Knitting is my favorite hobby, but I don't do as much as I'd like because it's soooo pricey to make things with decent yarn.

My 13yo dd and 15yods are independent for the most part, but it does require some time from me, too. At the beginning of each unit, I make a workbook of all the questions, charts, maps & timelines for the upcoming 9 weeks. On each Monday they just grab it and go, with very little input from me. Where I really need to spend time with them is in discussion (which a pp pointed out is scripted, but it still takes time). We actually have a co-op where the discussion takes place, but if we didn't have that I'd have to handle it myself.

I used all 4 years of the Classic version, and I've used 2 years of Redesigned. For me, the biggest improvement for Redesigned was in the Dialectic & Rhetoric sections. In Classic, the only discussion script provided was the Rhetoric. So your kids would answer the Dialectic Accountability questions but the answers were not provided in a straightforward way. Most of the answers were in the teachers notes somewhere, but they were in the background info rather than "spelled out" for the teacher in the form of a script. I didn't do Rhetoric with Classic, but I've heard that it was improved in the discussions as well. A couple of things I actually liked better about Classic: for the UG and D literature, there were short discussion style questions about the books so I could talk to my kids about the lit books they read. Also, there were more book choices under History Core and In-Depth. Some of the titles were written in boldface print -- that meant they were important. If we were having a busy week and couldn't get around to all the reading, we knew which books we shouldn't miss based on whether they were bold or not. We did great with Classic, especially since my kids were pre-Dialectic (like yours). If you can find a copy in the year plan you need, that might be a good way to go.

Woolybear, I didn't create workbooks for my kids until they were in Dialectic (6th grade for my dc). That's where the Accountability Questions begin. Before that stage, we did notebooking, using an artist's sketchbook from Miller Pad & Paper. We sort of made it up as we went along, and put the maps in too. My kids loved doing that, and often go back and look at them. They wish they had the time to still be doing them, in fact. So I wouldn't worry about those SAP's for another couple of years. Like another poster said, TOG really begins to shine in Dialectic. If you can't afford it now, I'd go with either WTM or even Ambleside. Those book selections will get your kids ready for reading good books.