If they are eating it, or you are just concerned they are eating it, make sure it is flouride free. My dentist friend would tell you a tube of flouride toothpaste could make a child really, really sick. It is NOT for eating. If I was concerned someone was secretly 'tasting' it I would let it be known that flouride toothpaste can be dangerous if ingested in large amounts. And isn't it often sweetened with xylitol? Eat just a tad too much of that and you get terrible gas and the runs. Maybe just see if anyone has been running to the bathroom more often?

I have a teapot. I believe it is Fiestaware. I put fresh water on to boil and lose tea in my teapot. I use a mix of Irish breakfast tea (Bewley's) and green tea. I acknowledge the green tea is unorthodox but, there it is. I let it steep and then pour it through a small sieve into my cup. I add a dash of milk and sugar. I have a cute teacozy that I knit that looks like hell from years of tea dripping.

I feel like mine does. He is a partner in chosing materials etc so he totally gets the curriculum frenzy. He always defers to my choice because I am the one who has to use it day in and day out. He steps up and takes over for teaching if I have a dentist appt or go out of town or need a sick day. That has given him a pretty good idea of the amount of planning and work it takes. He also participates in prepping on the weekends. He has listened to all SWB audio downloads with me after the kids have gone to bed. We have no expectation that housework etc is my job. I have a full time job: child care and teaching. Housework, cooking, shopping don't come into that equation. If something needs to get cleaned he is just as likely to do it. He does all the laundry because I am just incapable of dealing with laundry. He says all the time that his job is easier than mine. Considering he is a university librarian, he is right.

My husband liked something called.. The Silmarilion or something like that. I think it is the history of middle earth? I am not sure. I am not a Tolkien fan myself so I haven't really engaged. There are a bunch of books attributed to JRR tolkien and his son. I think those are books that his son made by compiling unfinished or unedited writings. There is also a Gowan and the Green Knight retelling by Tolkien.

SWB discusses this on the audio downloads. I am not sure if it is "focus on the elementary years' or 'focus on the middle years.' She says something along the lines of 'let's have a synonym lesson" and walk the child through their sentence finding ways to change what they wrote. I am also sure that the difference between paraphrasing and direct quotations is covered many times in FLL year 3 or 4, if you happen to have one of those about.

Lol, both of those! I think my son also liked one by the woman who wrote the Magic Tree House books. It wasn't a book for little ones though. It was a retelling of norse myths. But D'aulaire is our fave.

You can get those books used..those Van Cleave books are a dime a dozen. You might also be able to take them out of the library and keep them for a couple weeks and then renew. I did that one year. I would borrow and renew so I could keep it 6 weeks. THen I would return it and borrow it again a couple days later. I did that until I got the book I wanted second hand. It didn't take as long as I feared.

My guess, and it is only that, is that it wouldn't be WTM approved because of the lack of diagramming. I have been listening intently to SWB's writing lectures, esp 'focus on the grammar stage' and 'focus on the middle years' and she is firm in her conviction that diagramming is a necessary skill.

I mostly keep my own schedule. My younger son, 5 years old, gets special ed services via the public school as a homeschooler. Because of that, I have to keep an eye on the public school calandar. On days there is no school he doesn't get speech therapy etc. If I didn't have that connection I would have no idea what they do over there. I am still sort of stunned by how many 'conference days' and 'superintendent days' and random three day weekends there are. I should mention that we do school all 5 weekdays. I do not make them do school on the weekends or in the evenings. When we finish for the day, we are done. I will give the boys thursday and friday off this week. It is their first weekedays off since we started in september. We will go until just before christmas. I start again after the new year. We don't take any holidays or weeks off until summer vacation. Well... I might go visit my mom for a week in the spring but that is random. Schools here finish at the end of June and I continue untill around then. We will start to finish books starting around May and I just let things fall off and get lighter until we are done. I take all of July and August off mostly because there are too many other things to do. I live in the NE and summers are brief. We simply must do as much as we can outside before the dark days are here again. It isn't hard to spend all winter and spring working because it is grey and dull. What else would we do? I do have my older son do some school during the summer but nothing big. We do stuff like work through a kumon workbook to keep math skills sharp. I generally pick one that covers skills from the previous year. For example, my son finished 4th grade last June. I had him work though the 4th grade Kumon math books during the summer. I didn't expect him to learn new skills but I did want him to keep his old ones fresh. I expect I will continue doing reading instruction and math with my younger son this summer. He is just too young to take a 2 month break from new skills.

I have to admit that I don't always read deeply. Just enough to get characters and plot down. I have learned to read the wikki and Amazon reviews first. Once I know the plot and characters I know when to pay attention and when to skim. That makes things go much more quickly.

See, now I would really want to know where this self-labeling is coming from. Is she comparing herself to someone? Does she have an idea of how math 'should' be? Has it always been easy and this is the first time she has had to work? Is she trying, using the words she has, to let you know that she is having a real problem with mathmatical thinking? What do you think? Is she comfortable with math or is it a struggle? I would consider using material from say... a kumon book? or an online worksheet sort of thing to see if she has any big gaps in her skills. Can she multiply easily, fluently? Is she truly grasping the concepts or just going through the steps? If she doesn't deeply understand the concepts then she really might be feeling like her head is barely above water. My son had a problem with multiplication. We had to slooow doooown and spend a lot of time getting him up to speed and feeling truly comfortable. It was time well spent. Is she very clever? My son is a smartie pants and he hasn't ever really had to work hard at school. When he did run into a speed bump with math he just fell apart. I realized he had no coping skills for when something is difficult to learn. I spent time, not just teaching him the skill, but also study stragegies. Maybe she isn't used to having something be hard. That can be a rude awakening.

I read 'em. But I only have two kids so it isn't difficult to keep up. I do a lot of the reading in the summer and on vacations. I am usually a couple books ahead of him. By the spring I will be moving on to books for next year. I am also a very fast reader and can read a juvenile novel in a couple evenings. I also read his 'fun' reading before he does. Mostly that is for fun so we can talk about it.

I have a 5th grader in the logic stage so we are just begining this part of the journey. Our schedule for this year: Math: Singapore year 5 every day LOF Singapore challegning word problems year 3 (for confidence) Helping little brother with his Miquon Various pattern block workbooks, geoboards etc etc. Language arts: Spelling workout: chapter a week Growing with Grammar 3X week WWE year 4 (hoping SO MUCH year 5 is ready next year) 4X week Latin 3X week: Big Book of Lively Latin. We are 3/4 of the way through the book Logic 3X week: Logic liftoff Orbiting with Logic Ancient History 3X week: Kingfisher book of the Ancient World Usborne internet linked Human Odyssey and Story of Science: Aristotle at the Center, where it fits. Other assigned readings Mythology 3X week: My son is a mythology NUT. He was so looking forward to returning to this year because he adores all the mythologies of the ancient world. So, I created a sort of reading list of and about mythology, along with discussion, that parallels our history cycle. It allows him to 'wallow' in mythology but we get our history done. So it is 8 weeks each: Egyptian mythology/religion Christian mythology/religion Greek mythology/religion Roman mythology/religion Life Science 3X week: Science Daybook Darwin for Kids DK book of evolution Blood and Guts The body book Ouch! Lyrical Life science TOPS unit on radish growing Butterfly kit, ladybug kit various disections, videos and readings Reading 5X a week: various historical fictions, biographies, etc. Music 6X week: Piano Flute Other activities: Ballet 3X week Tae Kwon Do 2X week Drama, various

Yes, but this seems to involve having mealworms in my house on a voluntary basis :lol:

I love the look of GEMS. I was panting over the one that deals with evolution. But, it was intimidating as well. Every time I look at them it just seems like so. muc. work. to put the thing together. It is really more geared for the classroom right? I am worried I will do all this work,collecting stuff, and then won't really be able to do half of it because it is used by many kids together. It is just my son and I doing science while little brother looks on. Am I totally off base? I would so much love to be wrong about this. Please point out the error of my ways!

well, I did not. We are doing biology this year and we are not using the kits she mentioned. I did not get the creepy crawly book either. I just couldn't afford that many kits. I also don't have room for a bunch of critters in tanks. I did ask my mom to get the boys a butterfly kit and a ladybug kit for christmas. THat will have to wait for the very end of the school year around here. I ended up adapting the biology curriculum at Guest Hollow but adding in a month of teaching the theory of evolution. We will be doing some dissections as mentioned in the book 'Blood and Guts'. Does that count as a kit? I also bought the TOPS radish kit. That was pretty cheap. The thing with the kits being expensive is that I knew that once I got the creepy crawlie book I would have to order stuff like bugs and buy tanks for them and things like that. I live in the Northeast and have already had snow. I can't just walk outside my door in november and find a bug. I was going to have to order or buy the creepy crawlies that I didn't want to begin with. I guess I did buy the blood typing kit. All in all it was less than 50$. That said, if I had really, really wanted to spend my time feeding bugs etc then I would have come up with the money, right? ;)

yes! The thing about how the Little Mozart books make a big leap..that was why we decided against it. I couldn't remember. Both my boys are petite. That is one reason why an experienced teacher does make a difference. They know ways to keep the lessons going while waiting for things like growing (physical and mental) to happen. Hand strength as well. Both my boys had 'terrible' hand positioning eg: "stick fingers" when they were young. My6 year old still does. While my suzuki teacher friend was horrified to see those fingers, their regular teacher (non-suzuki certified) just said they had to get older/stronger. That has been the case with my older boy and I am not worried about my younger.

There is also some interesting discussions to be had about werewolfism (?..lycanthropy?) as an allegory for HIV. Good way to talk about prejudice and illness, ethics and responsibility. Actually, good intro for discussing allegory, if it a new concept.

I am a timeline failure. A scofflaw! See, I really meant to start one and I had all these grand plans but what with getting all our stuff to start 5th grade and gearing up for a second run at first grade..well.. it got lost in the shuffle. So, if you had plans for a binder style time line and an empty binder but the first 10 weeks of school had gone by, what would you do? Should I just ease off on history writing and have the next couple weeks be a "Get to Know Your Timeline" interlude? Just scribble in the past 10 weeks myself and then hand it off? The timeline is just for my 5th grader. I don't do one in elementary. Heck, at this point I am not doing one in the logic stage either. Does anyone else do a very simple timeline? I have seen some that are just so complex. I am NOT a scrapbook/lapbook type girl. I am a more of a let's just hope I can pull this off type of girl.

I cannot thank you all enough. I am actually feeling a bit teary eyed from all this helpful support. Thank you. What you have told me is exactly what I needed to know. I now feel like I have a glimmer of a thought. Right now, I choose the path and they follow. I can't wait until we get to a place where we can walk side by side That is something I will really enjoy. I have so much less anxiety. We can do this! Thank you so much. off to read old threads. I really must learn about tags

I've never heard of her. Why should I care what she says about math?

my son came to a total standstill with multiplication. He is very good with math and it was the first time he had to 'work'. Don't panic. We used the program 'multiply with me' which was a lot of skip counting. We used a lot of manipulatives in an egg carton. We just did a bit every day. We marched around reciting the tables. In the end, it was Timez attack that made him fluent but that was after a long time of just learning the subject. I say again: Do Not Panic! If my son can master multiplication, any kid typical kid can! Really. If you don't know and math games then spend some time with google. There are tons of sites online to help and things from teachers and other homeschoolers. If she cries, stop for the day or for the hour.

You can set your watch by the NYT on this subject. I say this as a dedicated NYT reader. Let me guess, they ran some article about super-humans applying to college. You are now convinced your child is not 'above average'. This is their autumn panic inducing story. Every. Year. Soon, after acceptances go out, they will run a very different story. They will then run a story on how the colleges are now courting the students they accepted. THey will tell you the schools are desperate for students etc, etc. This happens every year. Don't let it throw you! And yes, there are lots of really great colleges around.

I am a little early, lol. My eldest is a 5th grader. We are just entering the logic stage and I am getting glimmers of where we are headed. I just finished listening to SWB's MP3 "The Joys of Classical Education" and I realize I know the least about the rhetoric stage..about teaching kids at that level. I have been very comfortable teaching the grammar stage. I'm pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. I am feeling like I have a grasp of what is needed from my for the logic stage. I am getting there and I am not anxious. But I don't have a handle on the rhetoric stage. I am not just talking about teaching "rhetoric" as a subject (but that also). I mean the person my kid will be, his needs. I am not sure what is needed from me as his teacher. I knew when I was starting the grammar stage where we were headed. I had a long term picture in my head of what I needed him to be doing in second and third grade so he would be ready for 5th and 6th. I am not feeling the same certainty now. Part of it is that SO MANY homeschoolers send their kids off to public high school. I have few role models. My boys have really thrived under the whole ages and stages WTM method. It works for them and I want to continue. What should I be doing in these middle years to best prepare for high school? Wow, I have a question about what I don't know and I don't even know what to ask! :lol:

Not much to add but wanted to say that your experience isn't unique. I have a good friend who has allowed her kids to go in and out of public school. She has one rule: they must stay home for middle school. Everything else was negotiable. I second the whole 'pick up where you left off' I am sorry he had a difficult time and I am glad your older son is getting what he needs. What are "preppy" sports?