Yes, in the book it appears: Y ------ = 3 Y-1

I just came across this math teacher's blog. She uses interactive student notebooks in her class and has some great looking foldables and math helps. Not sure if this is what your are looking for, but it is certainly interesting reading and offers inspiration for making algebra hands-on. http://everybodyisageniusblog.blogspot.com/p/interactive-notebooks.html

Ok, that is why I was confused. The problem does not have parentheses. So I solved it as 3/2/3/2-1=3. I wrote the reciprocal, so I had 3/2*2/3-1=3. The 3/2*2/3 reduced to 1, so I was left with 1-1=3 or 0=3. I see how to solve it by subtracting 3/2-1 and then dividing, but did not do that because in Lial's last year they taught to rewrite the problem without the fraction bar and solve. That yielded the first answer, which was not equal to 3. I see someone even solved on the board for me, so I am going to examine that one over my lunch. I am somewhat math phobic, so I feel incredibly unintelligent when I can't figure out pre algebra. I really appreciate people's feedback and help!

Thank you, thank you! I realized what I was doing wrong and so appreciate the help.

I haven't posted in forever, but I still read regularly. We decided to give a new charter school a go for my oldest (in 8th grade), but brought him home after 3 weeks. I will probably post a "what was I thinking! freak out and How am I ever going to do this?" when the dust settles, but in the meantime I need help solving a math problem. We are using MM7A to shore up some skills. I am stumped on the following problem: Which of the numbers 0,1,3/2,2 or 5/2 make the equation y/y-1=3 true? I cannot get the answer in the answer key. Can someone explain the solution and why to me? I'll go drink more coffee to see if that wakes my brain up a bit more and try not to freak out that I can't solve this simple problem and should indeed be homeschooling my child. Thank you in advance! Apple :)

I told my oldest I would read it to him when he was 9. We started it two months after his birthday. I read every one of the books aloud over the next year and a half. He never read ahead or started reading any of the other books before we'd read it aloud. It was the perfect way for him to process them. I would have liked to wait another year or even two, but I had given him that 9 year old marker a few years earlier when everyonewas reading it. He has probably read them over 4 or 5 times. It was so fun to see those 10/11 year old boys being so into HP. It really was a magical time for he and his buddies as they were all 'into' it at the same time. Most of his friends have moved on, but my boy is rereading them right now.

I had one in my front yard 20 years ago for the team sports I participated in. I grew up in central Ohio. Even people who were in the choir or musical groups in our school had a music note in their front yard. Some people even had multiple signs at any given time. The prank at the time was collecting a bunch of signs and putting them in one person's yard.

My son started using it at the beginning of the 2010 school year. I did start him half a year "behind" because I wanted to make sure some skills were firmed up and I don't see a reason to rush math. He is pretty math intuitive and I think MM has been a great fit for him. My daughter has used it since grade 1. My children are given the Woodcock-Johnson for their end of year assessment and both have done quite well with the math portion. My daughter's first grade scores were very average, but she made a big leap at the end of last year and I was pleasantly surprised with her math score. I also find MM very easy to teach because it is written directly to the student. It has been great for my math phobia self and I have a stronger understanding of math and teaching the why of math from our use of MM.

The Seven Wonders of Sassafrass Springs was wonderful! Frindle Tumtum and Nutmeg is very cute. The elder boy and I just started Swallows and Amazons and it shows great promise. Dealing With Dragons Gone Away Lake was fun. The Trolly Car Children was cute. The Moffets series I just picked up the series The Saturdays Clearly we enjoy old stories! Happy reading. :)

I have had a Bosch washer and dryer for 5, maybe 6 years. I think it is the Nexxt series. I did a lot of research (check out gardenweb's laundry forum, that's where I did a ton of reading). Anyway, it is supposed to be a very good machine, even the repair man who tried to fix it told me! I very randomly get their E04 code, which is sort of the catch-all code, making it difficult to pinpoint what the problem actually is-it can be anything from too much detergent (I put in a very small amount, but this machine seems particularly sensitive) to something being caught in the drain area (no small Legos of socks, ask me how I know!). I was actually planning to go back to a top loader, but I am holding off. The dryer has been great. I am just not sold on the front loading machines, but other than that wonky code (which I was getting on a weekly basis for a while, t is less frequent now) the washer has been fine. All that said, when I was researching this machine, the Miele was definitely the favorite on Gardenweb and if I could justify it, that woud be sitting in my laundry room. :) HTH! Happy shopping.

I was *just* poking around the MMM site. Their books are for sale, but it was definitely a challenge to find the price list! Look under the purchasing books section (if the link directs you to Spirit Press, follow their link that says MMM is now being sold directly by the author). In the purchasing books section there is a link to a PDF of the 2012 price list. It was really buried! I think the grades 1-5 are about $25 each, can't remember the teacher's manual. Thanks OP. I am seriously considering this for my rising first grader in combo with MEP. HTH!

I was one of those Special Ed majors with a very average ACT score. I really struggled in high school, not because I am unintelligent, but I think I was a kid who fell through the cracks. I graduated from a public high school that was/is considered one of the best in the state, but my 6th grade math classes were abysmal. I missed a lot of basic skills and because I did not intuitively "get it", it made a big difference down the road. It wasn't just math skills, but other areas that I completely missed or struggled with and no one caught on. I am glad that my high school performance on one standarized test didn't completely alter or determine my future choices. I did very well in college. My education classes were no easier or harder than my other classes and I did well across the board. I think much of my college success was because I had really learned how to study and was used to working hard. It came together well for me as I aged and matured. I am still working to fill in the gaps of the basic skills I missed and had I stayed in the classroom, I would have continued to do so. Success is in part a willingness to work for it. I know I was a good classroom teacher and would have refined my craft had I stayed in the classroom. I was/am willing to continue learning and working on areas of struggle, something I think every professional must do. As far as classes, I had a number of Special Ed theory classes, Modifications and Adaptations, Applied Behavior Analysis, a class where we learned phonics and teaching phonics through direct instruction (we used a program by the authors of Teaching Reading in 100 EZ Lessons, funny how it comes back around), as well as a couple of general Ed classes. We did not have a class where we made bulletin boards or filled in copy books for handwriting, but maybe the general Ed majors did. We did have to make up several math games for a math class, we wrote and taught a number of lesson plans for various subject areas and we wrote a number of papers. I think the most important skills taught in an Education degree are learned by actually being in the classroom and I hope colleges are moving toward getting students in an actual classroom learning to teach for much longer than the typical student teaching semester. Unfortunately, I also think we have a broken system and the next generation of teachers are not always learning from the best and brightest, so we are sort of in this dysfunctional cycle.

Not a gaming person at all, but my husband is knowledgable about such things and I am certain he would say there is enough on this topic to write a paper that fits the criteria. I agree you would need someone who is knowledgeable about the topic to give you feedback on the content, but it sounds like the student is interested in this topic and given the other difficulties mentioned, I'd be inclined to set the up for success and let them do the paper.

I think more than anything it is a personality thing. My son cannot stand to have his Legos organized. He tells me it totally ruins it for him. He says half of the fun is digging through the Legos. We have a lot of Legos, yes probably his weight in Legos, and he is very into building, but to organize them really ruins it for him. Our solution was to make his closet a Lego closet. When we finished off the room a couple of years ago I told him he could keep his Legos however he wanted, as long as they stayed in that space. I have from time to time tried to clean them up or otherwise organize them, but he's held me to what I told him. His closet is basically a long, narrow space probably 10 feet long and 3 feet wide. I know not a practical solution for most, but it has completely eliminated the Lego stress fro me! I have no idea how he finds or does anything in that crazy space, but he manages some pretty amazing things. I always think this a very interesting discussion because it really is such a personality thing. Some people say it would really frustrate their kid to not be able to find a certain piece. The way my child plays is very improv, if he can't find the matching piece, he makes do with something else or builds a mirror piece. He is often telling me about creations and how he planned to do this, but then changed it to this because he couldn't find that one piece. No way is right or wrong, but it is such a fascinating little peak into one's personality. I'd love to organize all those little bricks, so I will live vicariously through those of you who have managed it because it isn't happening around here! :)

We did that time period in history last year (last half of the year) and we studied or listened to the following genres/composers in our studies: Ella Fitzgerald, Scott Joplin and ragtime music, Duke Ellington, John Philip Sousa, Elvis, Someone like Debbie Reynolds (I am completely blanking! We did it as a comparison to Elvis) and then we sort of petered out. We used the Classics for Kids website and library books, but mostly listened, talked about what we heard and my kids really liked to dance. :). Have fun!

Fun thread! In 20 years the drama club will be cool, you love it and are pretty good at the whole stage thing...so just do it! Mom is actually not a great fountain of wisdom, she's got some issues and they needn't be your burden. You are smarter, prettier and stronger than you give yourself credit for. In 20 years when you realize it, you'll wonder why you wasted any time believing otherwise.

and loving it! Seriously, when the whole FB bubble hit a couple of years ago and I would tell people I wasn't on it, the response I consistently heard was, "It's such a time suck, be glad you aren't doing it.". That's pretty telling to me. My dh does have anaccount for his business, but only uses it for promoting his business and declares that he wouldn't be on otherwise. He uses quite infrequently. He is quite a tech savvy guy, but says he finds the privacy policy intentionally confusing. I find the whole FB thing quite interesting. Willing volunteering your personal info and in effect giving a company the rights to any content you post is an interesting precedent. I think the road we are headed down WRT technology is probably inevitable, but I think there will always be a group of people who opt out.

I'm no help either! Santa is usually really simple stuff around here and we really try to keep our holidays simple, but my older dd decided to write Santa a letter last week. Her requests: slippers, socks and a surprise. Yes, I made all of those requests happen though I had not planned on them and yes I got a couple of other (practical!) things for the other littles. It was a joy to do it! I love makIng reasonable requests from my kids happen. Would it bring you joy or be an added burden to fulfill the request?

Dh and I just watched it over the weekend! Loved the book and thought the movie fantastic. Emma Stone (that's her name, right) can really play a range of characters. Minnie and Abilene (sp?) had great chemistry. We found the movie really funny and hopeful.

Because of my Hive reading I was clued in to Powell's and managed to snag the OUP Ancuent a world set following the whole amazon debacle. I paid $10 more than the Amazon mistake price and had to wait a couple of weeks, but it did indeed arrive. I actually bought it after Amazon canceled my order, for whatever reason they kept the price of $40 up for a number of days, so thank you Hive!

Each of the 4 processes has its own section. I think it starts with addition. There are several pages going through 1facts, 2s facts, 3s facts etc., then there is a mixed review of those, then it continues with facts up to 9, I believe. At the end of the section there are a couple of mixed review pages combining all the addition facts. Then it moves on to subtraction and follows the same set-up. The book is actually downstairs, so I am going off my memory here, but I think that is the gist. Hope that makes sense! It is not broken up by grade level.

This is what we use. Great for us because my 2nd grader is using it for addition/subtraction practice and my 5th grader is using it for multiplication/division.

We've used both. RSO felt very disjointed to me. It was hard for us to get it done because every day was an activity and required we do or make something. It just became too much to make it happen and I began to dread it. It also seemed like me doing a lot of the making of the various projects. Consequently, science fell to the wayside. I had not planned on using NL this year(it is expensive), but was looking at the CK sequence. Then reality hit and I just knew I wasn't going to get it laid out and planned the way I needed it to be, so I went ahead and got NL3. We used NL Science 2 for the last half of last year. I did not start with 1 because I was combining a 4th and 1st/2nd grader. Science got done, it was easy for me to do and my kids were retaining information. I really like the incidental skills NL covers, things like highlighting key information, finding the topic sentence. Last year it was definitely science lite for my older child, BUT we were working on good habits and applying other skills through less challenging material. We have been using Science 3 this year and I can really appreciate how the program builds after seeing these two years. We have just gotten through the first Chemistry portion and I continue to be impressed. There has been a solar system report and a couple of computer activities that are new in this level. It really walks the child through it. Many people probably already do some of this, but my life is busy and it works so much better to have somebody just lay it all out for me. I can understand that this may not be enough science for some people or that the material isn't super challenging, for us it has been a great opportunity to practice skills in a content area. It provides enough of a framework for me to be sure science gets done and because I have that framework I can add additional reading etc. for my older child a la WTM. For my reality, NL is the structure I need. I can totally appreciate that many (most?) people don't need that. I am a former Special Ed teacher, so I really like Direct Instruction materials., but they are not for everyone and I can certainly appreciate that. They provide a nice frame for me, but also allow me tailor for our particular needs. Have fun choosing!

I call it my laundered money and have a jar I put it in in my laundry room cupboard. :)

We have been in this situation. My dh has spoken with his mother on several occasions over crossing religious boundaries. We have always asked that if they (but really my MIL) feel the need to share beliefs that it be preface with, "this is what I believe, but there are many different beliefs.". She is not able to do that, so we felt it best not to discuss. There was a confrontation, but it wasn't this ugly thing, more a statement if our boundaries. It can be uncomfortable, but if you feel like it is important it is so worth it. We focused on how we knew how much they loved our children, but we firmly and lovingly told them we were not raising our children that way. It is important for our children to have a relationship with their grandparents and that us exactly why we said something. In contrast, dh's older brother never said anything and a lot of resentment, hurt feelings and very little relationship with the grandparents occurred and nobody wanted that. I think a lot of it depends on your family. Dh has had to say something every couple of years to reestablish the boundary. He finally said something to his father about it last year, as in you need to say something to mom, she's not hearing me and this is important. Dh is the kind of guy who doesn't like having the same conversation, he was getting tired of it. LOL I am replying on the iPhone, so I have no idea what autocorrect has done with my words and it is difficult to read in its entirety, so I hope it makes sense! We are headed to the happiest place on earth for some vacation time with said grandparents, so it is possible to have the uncomfortable conversation (several times!) and still have loving relationship! They want to be in our children's lives and we want them to be, so we kept working at it until it worked. :) I was a lot my profound when I was thinking about my reply, then I was in the actual reply, clearly this mode doesn't wok for me! I hope this isn't a complete blathering mess!