All, Thank you so much. Mom was my business partner, but most importantly my best friend. She's lived with us for four year. Her mother, my grandmother Majorie also lived with us and passed away January 30th, so it's been a tough few months. Mom battled cancer for seven years, but for most of that time did fairly well. We even wrote Beyond the Book Report and Eternal Argument during that time! Her legacy is her work as a teacher; she would be so honored by the lovely comments from former students here and on our FB pages. My daily life is going to be quite different, but I'm doing okay. Thank you so much for your love and prayers. Erin

Just stopped back by. In either case, to me, NO and LONGER still modify SERVING. They tell is "how" or "when" (depending on how you look at it) he's serving. Verbals are funny things. A gerund can be modified by both adjectives (modifying it's noun function) or adverbs (modifying it's verb function). Cool discussion! (Oh, and thanks for the love, Cherry Kissies!)

Well, I'm Air Force, so I can speak to that. Go to your local recruiter and ask for a copy of "The Book" put out yearly (I think in January) by Airman Magazine. It's like an encyclopedia of Air Force ... rank, planes, pay, locations, missions, etc. The other services may have something similar. Also go to the Web sites. NOT the recruiting ones (like http://www.airforce.com), but the real ones. The Air Force is http://www.af.mil. Look for the .mil ending. There's a TON of info on there. The DoD has http://www.defense.gov, too.

I'm VERY impressed with Word Build from Dynamic Literacy. I've used the Critical Thinking text as well as English from the Classical Roots. WB is MUCH more thorough and smart. It starts around 2nd grade.

You're welcome to order them and return the if you don't like what you see. You're only out the shipping if you do that. We're happy to refund the purchase of anything not used/written in. Blessings, Erin from AG

The states I listed in my previous post, CA, WA, ID, and AK especially, have a host of programs like this.

I can give you the vendor perspective. We receive purchase orders from school districts in California, Alaska, Washington, Idaho, and Minnesota. (There may be more, but those are what I can remember off the top of my head). Most are from homeschool charter schools (described by a PP above). Our material is secular; that's why public charters can use it. If you know of a secular curriculum you want, it's really not that hard to get it on the approved list. As long as you don't mind a little gov't oversight (the amount varies), the homeschool charter is win-win-win. -The district gets the federal, state, and county impact funds (education money) for your kid. They're pleased with that. -You get SOME of that money toward your curriculum purchases of secular material. It's nice to get at least some of your property taxes back! -Vendors (me) like it since it results in more sales. Some districts also allow homeschool kids to participate in extra-curricular activities like sports and music at their local public school.

Diagraming is a teaching tool. If you want to be able to understand the phrases and clauses (gerunds, participles, infinitives, noun clauses, etc) you're going to have to use diagraming. There are too many "moving parts" to complex sentences to keep track of what's doing what to what without a diagram. It's a means to an end.

Appositives can have their own modifiers. You just diagram them beneath the appositive to show that it modifies that word. That being said, I would also analyze that structure as an adjective with a prepositional phrase modifying the adjective. In the grand scheme it doesn't really matter a whole lot, but I wouldn't use that as an example of an appositive.

My little toot did her first day of homeschool today. She's doing McRuffy Phonics and RightStart Level B. We had a great time and she loved it, yay! It just tickles me that I've been so active in homeschooling (I'm a vendor) for a decade, but this is my first day doing it for my kids. LOL I LOVED IT!

I really like The Homeschool Handbook. It comes out 6 times a year and the mail subscription is $19.95 a year. You can read it for free online, too. http://www.thehomeschoolhandbook.com/

I'm sorry I wasn't clear. I was suggesting that she could watch the DVD lessons with her student so she would feel more confident and have her hand held a little. Two bird with one stone and all that! LOL

If I may, you don't need to buy yourself your own book. As much as I like to sell books ... :tongue_smilie: If you feel you need some support, you might want to order our new companion DVD to help you teach the information. That's cheaper than another book. The DVD is optional, though; you can teach AG without knowing any grammar. Just learn it along with the student. If you have questions you can always call us, we're happy to help!

If there were a way to really master punctuation and usage without learning all the grammar (unless you want to learn a foreign language, then grammar is a must), I would bother studying it. But it's not. There are comma rules and usage issues that simply can't be taught unless the grammar is learned already. For instance. You have to put a comma after an introductory adverb clause. That's the rule. If you don't know what one is, you're faking it. Faking it will get you by about 80% of the time. (I pause, therefore I comma.) The other 20% is when people like me read what you've written and say to themselves, "They don't know their punctuation rules ..." It's not fair, but that's the way it is. That being said, I think it's silly to spend so much time on it. It doesn't take that long to learn grammar; it's a relatively small body of knowledge. Wait until they're ready to really learn all of it and get it over with. Also, constantly repeating the definitions of the parts of speech is really not useful. I could poll 100 3rd graders. They'd all (probably) be able to tell me what a noun is, but only 15 of them would be able to identify all the nouns in a sentence. It's all about function and logical thinking. That's why it's best to wait.

Well, there are many (and I'm one of 'em!) who would say the only one of those listed who even needs grammar instruction at this point is the 10 year old. It's an important body of knowledge, but not a big one. It's all around easier and more effective if you wait until their logical, multi-step, analytical thinking "brain" appears and teach it then.

Johnny Tremain is a GREAT book for studying this period.

We have four generations in my house. My mom and grandmother live in our (very nice) basement. That's also where the company operates from. It's AWESOME. Our running joke is that we're like the Walton's. My grandmother is hard of hearing, though, so it sounds like this: Me: Good night, mom. Mom: Good night, Erin. Good night, Toot and Tank! Toot and Tank: Good night, Nanny. Good night, Granny! Mom: Mom, the kids said good night. Mom? Me: GOOD NIGHT, NANNY! (sigh ...)

If you go back and look at all the other prepositional phrases you think it missed, do they all have compound objects like the one you pointed out? Has it covered conjunctions and compounds yet? If not, that may be the reason it's not marked. It seems weird and out-of-order IMHO, but that might explain it.

I had a feeling (after I hit "post") that my comments would be taken this way. It IS nice for them to ask. As I said, I would never be so rude as to make someone feel bad for not knowing. Having someone who worked for the airline think I'm a pilot, though, was a little funny, don't you think? My comments are not for me, they're for the thousands of us who serve in some capacity. Next time you're at the airport, look at the young members of the military walking around. ESPECIALLY if they're in ABUs (camo). They're on deployment, my friends. They're going to scary places and will probably do scary things. They will probably never admit it, but a little thanks, even just a silent flicker of recognition in your eyes for what they're doing, goes a LONG way. Ask those who served in Vietnam and came back to derision and hate. Regardless of the politicians and the mission, they're doing something for YOU. FOR YOU. Appreciation of what they're doing or what they've done means more than you know.

That's a great idea, but since I've got three winter's of curriculum in the pipeline, you're on your own! Thankfully, business is great. That means I'm SWAMPED! Great idea, though. When I taught school (7th grade public here in Wake County) I did a day where I wore my uniforms and brought in a class set of Airman Magazine's THE BOOK. It's a yearly publication that covers everything about the Air Force: Mission, AFSCs (jobs), rank, ordinance, planes, rockets, etc. I went over the whole thing with my kids. They loved it! Oh, and to be technical ... there are SEVEN branches of "uniformed service" in the US: Air Force - Dept of Defense Army - Dept of Defense Navy - Dept of Defense Marines - Dept of the Navy (sub set) Coast Guard - used to be under Dept of Transportation in peacetime, DoD during War. That changed to Dept of Homeland Security in peacetime, DoD in wartime under direction of the President U.S. Public Health Service National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Corps

Less than 1% of the population now serves in the US military. "It ain't like it used to be" when everyone either serves, was married to someone who served, or was good friends or a family member of someone who served. Please consider teaching your children the bare bones basics of military information. Such as: - the different services - our general term of reference (the difference between the terms soldier, airman, sailor, Marine, etc.) - enlisted v officer (what's the difference) - the different ranks (in general ... I'll never even get the Navy's enlisted ranks right!) - the BASIC mission - what a military uniform looks like so you can tell what service someone is in I'm a major in the Air Force reserve - a public affairs officer. I just flew back in from a day and a half in the DC area on a quick reserve trip. JUST TODAY at BWI airport I had the following interactions: - Two different people asked if I was a pilot. One was a ticket agent for the airline! SHE doesn't know what the uniform looks like?:confused: - There was a navy guy sitting near me in an airport restaurant. He was just coming home from nuke school (submarines). The bartender asked if I was a submariner, too. My uniform (I was in blues) was completely different than his (he was in khakis). I joked that my ordinance goes in the air, not in the water. - "Hey, a soldier ..." Uh, nope. NOT a soldier, a Marine, or a sailor. I'm an airman. I've had TONS of other experiences like this. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean this in a snotty way at all. I don't blame people for not knowing. I always take it as a good-hearted opportunity to educate people on the US military. That being said, as a member of the armed forces, it really means the world to us when you can show you know at least a little bit about what we do. We serve and protect you ... proudly, honorably, and with a full heart. We don't need accolades and tons of attention, but when a stranger comes up and says, "Thanks for serving, major," (knowing my rank, etc) that's really neat and it means a lot. I always respond with, "It's my honor," because it really is. Just wanted to throw that out there in the ether. Thanks for letting me get that off my slightly decorated chest! LOL

It's my pleasure! The last thing I want is frustration on your or his part! Feel free to call or e-mail if you have further questions. Blessings,

There is a page at the front of the teacher book called suggestions for short cuts. Try using those techniques so that he's only doing the amount of work necessary to learn what he needs to learn. It may be that he "gets" the concept by only doing every other sentence and skipping the skills support. That's FINE. You need to be interested in mastery, not completion for the sake of it. I'd be happy to talk with you and discuss some other ways of opening up some time for you. As Sue said, my phone number is on the back of your book! Blessings, Erin from AG

My daughter is 5.5. She'll start K this year and I'm super excited about it! Two days a week will be spent at a homeschool enrichment program in our area. There she'll do science, humanities, Spanish, and art. At home we'll be doing Right Start B and McRuffy Phonics.

I just thought you'd like to know that next year these will be the GHC locations and dates. March 22 – 24 SouthEast Carolina First Center (Greenville, SC) April 12 – 14 MidSouth Memphis Cook Convention Center (Memphis, TN) April 19 – 21 MidWest Duke Energy Convention Center (Cincinnati, OH) May 24 – 26 California Long Beach Convention Center (Long Beach, CA) June 14 – 16 NorthEast Hartford Convention Center (Hartford, CT) I'm a vendor and just got my application this morning. I don't know why they're not re-doing Philly.