Haha, I don't think I've ever been called an "expert" in anything before! Yippee :D And really I'm not an expert - I'm more of an "experienced user", but I also think that people use Anki in many different ways, and there isn't just one way to do it. I've found a good way that works well for us, so I try to share that when people are looking for help... But my way isn't the only way. Also, don't forget that Anki has well-monitored help forums where questions get quick and helpful answers! Surprisingly fabulous support considering it is a free product!

I keep all of our decks separated by subject and even curriculum, and I have never had any trouble with speed or anything else. I always get that little "You have a lot of decks..." message at the bottom of my collection, but I have been using Anki for years and have thousands of cards entered and review several times a week and we have never had a single problem. So I think the "too many decks" issue is hooey :D I think having lots of decks makes it easier to manage adding new cards, as well as managing how and when to add new cards into our review schedule. Each deck has its own set of options, so I can control this really easily. I create all cards under my DS's profile, since he is my oldest and the first to have to learn the material. Then I export the deck to my younger DD as she encounters that material/curriculum. Because of doing it this way, my DS probably has about 40 decks. The parent decks are for the subject, and then each parent deck has a bunch of subdecks for different curricula or different topics within that subject. So, my DS's collection tree looks kind of like this: Art - Appreciation - History Bible - Facts - Verses - Catechism Chinese - Grammar - Integrated Chinese 1 - NPCR 1 - Phrases History - Tapestry Year 1 - Veritas OTAE Language Arts - Grammar - Poetics - Poetry - Spelling Latin - Expressions - GSWL - Grammar - Lingua Latina - Mythology Math Music - Appreciation - Classical Music Themes - Theory Science - Apologia Botany - Apology Chemisty and Physics - BJU2 Spanish - DuoLingo - GSWS

So I just bought new jeans. The highest rise ones I could find at Target (which is where I've bought jeans f or the last ten years) were midrise, and they are lower than my previous jeans. They slid down my hips ALL.THE.TIME. How could they not? The way they are shaped, there is no hope that they will do anything but fall down! If I put a belt on, they will just make a muffin top on me if I actually tighten the belt enough to keep the pants from falling down. So unflattering. :blink: I am definitely not small, but neither am I huge. The jeans are "tighter" than I want already, so I can't get a smaller size. But these drive me NUTS. I wish pants *at the waist* would simply come back in style. They just make more sense!!! Am I the only one who is so tired of the low-rise, mid-rise trend??

Have you looked at MCT? Read Grammar Island together over the course of a couple of weeks. Then read Sentence Island together. Then work through Practice Island doing the 4-level sentence analysis (there are 100 sentences, so you could do one a day). Then later move on to Grammar Town, Paragraph Town, and Practice Town, doing the same thing. The sentence analysis approach is fabulous because it reviews everything - parts of speech, parts of the sentence, phrases, clauses, types of sentences, etc. within one little exercise. I do them with my kids periodically and it is SUCH a great tool for reinforcing grammar concepts. And if you want to add to it, after doing the 4-level analysis of the sentence, you could diagram it (MCT doesn't show you how but there are oodles of books that do - I like Rex Barks, but it is kind of pricey). And THEN you could even write an imitation of it, in the spirit of Killgallon! I have often done the MCT 4-level analysis plus these two extra steps with my kiddos and really find it to be quite an efficient, effective, and fun review of grammar concepts. Now that we are getting really good at it, I usually just pick a well-written sentence out of one of our read alouds.

ChessKid is great, esp with the gold membership that lets you watch tons of wonderful instructional videos and access to loads of puzzles and such. And gold membership is half off if you buy through Homeschool Buyers Co-op! Plus you can play real games with real people (either strangers or only those whom you know irl, up to you), either in real time (fast chess) or the regular way, where you make a move and then wait for the other person to login and make a move. DS loves ChessKid and learned a ton from it!

Yep, this is how we do it usually, too. I adore Whisper-sync, especially for new readers!!! However, if you want to find Whisper-sync audiobooks for Kindle books you already own, go to this page, and click on the link on the right that says "Add Narration to Books You Own". Et voila, it will give you a list of audiobooks. And if you are like me you will immediately buy about eleven of them. :blush: But I only spent $25 for those eleven, which I think is pretty fabulous! ;-) Another way to do it, if you are on your Kindle and want to know if a particular book has a Whisper-sync audio companion, is to open up the book on your Kindle. Then click on the book's menu on the upper left corner. If there is an audio companion for that book, you will see "Add Professional narration" in the menu.

ITA with PP's suggestion of looking for a Chinese class locally. BUT - if you can't find one... I can highly recommend our Chinese tutor on iTalki - she is a professional Chinese teacher, native Chinese, lives in China, tutors over Skype, teaches young children as well as adults, AND she is only $13/hr!

Oh my goodness, I totally know what you mean. My 23 month old drives me absolutely batty during school. She is a sweetie and often is not doing anything wrong, per se, but she is just SO ACTIVE and my big kids are SO UNBELIEVABLY DISTRACTED by her! :willy_nilly: :willy_nilly: :willy_nilly: She is constantly getting into things, making noise, interrupting them, etc., etc., etc. A student's attention is the most basic requirement when trying to teach something, but my kids are constantly distracted and so I am constantly telling them, "Look!" :willy_nilly: "Focus!" :willy_nilly: "Pay attention!" :willy_nilly: "Ignore her!" :willy_nilly: I have learned over the years that I am NOT the multitasker I used to think I was... but with a toddler I have *no choice* - absolutely everything is an exercise in multitasking for me as well as for my big kids. I find it incredibly exhausting (and sometimes, like this week, SUPER discouraging). My one consolation is that "this too shall pass". She is a darling, and she won't be a toddler forever. There will come a time when she will be old enough to play independently in another room... sometimes - like today - I live for that day!!!

No, it definitely isn't colorful. It is an adult text. She does use a children's text, which I think is probably colorful, but I think it might be too childish for a 7th grader.

Sorry, I meant to include a link to our tutor! Her name is Ally and her teacher page is here.

I agree with the recommendations for a native speaking tutor or conversation partner, and I heartily recommend iTalki as a great online resource for this! DS9 and I study Chinese together and we make periodic use of a tutor on iTalki. She is **wonderful** - an experienced native speaker, lives in China, has a Master's degree in teaching Chinese.... AND she is only about $12/hr!!! She does have certain texts she uses, though. She has a children's text but it might be too young for your DD. DS and I use her recommended adult text, New Practical Chinese Reader. I also recommend Skritter for helping to learn characters. It is fabulous :-)

Great question!! I use the Anki Windows version for creating cards, and those screenshots were from that version; however, I also have a bunch of awesome add-ons installed. Add-ons are super easy to install, and some are incredibly helpful. You might notice that I have a lot of buttons on my Anki interface that you may not have. I have the Colorful Toolbars add-on installed, which I highly recommend. "Colorful toolbars" is a misnomer because being colorful is irrelevant. They are USEFUL! The BEST button it adds is one for “Hide this note for today†– which means if you get to a lonnnng card that will bring your review process to a screeching halt, you can instead skip it for today and put it off until tomorrow. And continue on your merry way zipping through your review deck for today. Yeehah! It also has a button for replaying audio on a card, which will be handy if you end up implementing the spelling cards I suggested above. To install the Colorful Buttons add-on: Open Anki (Windows version on your desktop) Go to Tools --> Add-ons --> Browse & Install Paste this number into the Code field: 388296573 Click Ok. It will install the add-on and prompt you to restart Anki. If you decide you want to check out other Add-ons, you can get to them by going to Tools --> Add-ons --> Browse & Install and click Browse. In additional to Colorful Toolbars, my favorites are: Deck name in Title (displays profile and deck name in title bar of window) - 3895972296 Advanced Browser (adds some helpful functionality to the card browser window) - 874215009 Unseen and Buried Counts (shows you how many unseen and buried cards on your decks page) - 161964983 Ignore Accents in Browser Search (ignores accents in foreign languages when sorting cards in the browser) - 1924690148 More Overview Stats 2 (gives more stats about the deck on the deck overview page) - 531984586 Power format pack (allows you to add fancier formatting to your cards) - 162313389 Zoom (helpful to make display larger when images are too small) - 1956318463 Chinese Support (absolutely invaluable if you are entering Chinese vocabulary) - 3448800906

Anki is a powerful tool and so it might seem complicated to use, but that is just because it has a lot more features than you likely need to use to start out. Keep it simple to start, and you will find that adding cards is really not hard or time consuming. Just use Basic or Cloze types at first and see how it works for a while. As you get comfortable you can learn more about modifying your review options, or creating your own card templates and such, if you want to. Also, as a PP said, time spent making cards is not wasted. It is also valid study time. I used to make all of our cards myself, but as DS has gotten older (he is now 9), I have started including him in that task. We use it as a time to review and discuss what we have learned and how we can organize that info to put into Anki for effective review. This skill of culling facts, ideas, patterns, etc. out of what we have learned or read, and then organizing that information, is actually a tremendous study skill that will help DS throughout his life. I am one of those people you talk about who use Anki for everything from Science to Foreign Languages. We have well over 4500 cards we have created ourselves so far, and creating Anki cards has become part of my/our homeschool routine. Reviewing them is sometimes time consuming, especially if I let us get behind! But it is time that is so well spent, because everything new we learn can be easily connected to everything else we already know. If our load of cards gets too heavy, I stop adding new ones for a little while so the load can get spaced out again. Right now we are heavy into adding new cards, so our load can get heavy pretty fast. We just took about a week off from Anki and so yesterday DS and I did 3 hours of Anki - but you can't think of it as 3 hours of "Anki" - what it really was was 3 hours of "*targeted* review, discussion, and connection of Art Appreciation, Artists, Bible Facts, Bible Verses, Catechism, Chinese Grammar, Chinese Vocab, Geography Locations, Geography Vocab, History, LA Grammar, LA Poetry, LA Spelling, Latin Grammar, Latin Vocab, Math, Music Appreciation, Music Theory, Science, Spanish Grammar, and Spanish Vocab". It was by far the most productive part of our day!

I'm not wendyroo, but I input AAS rules into Anki, mainly using cloze cards, but also some Basic cards. For example: (Cloze type) {{c1::F, L, and S}} are often {{c2::doubled after a single vowel at the end of a one-syllable word}}. (Cloze type) English words don't end in {{c1::i, j, u, or v}}. (Basic type) What is a vowel team syllable? A syllable where two or more vowels are working together to make one sound. I wrote an extensive post (#11) in this thread about a couple of different ways to enter actual spelling words a couple of different ways (you would need to download my shared deck (linked in the post) so you have the card type to begin with). Here is my post quoted:

AFAIK, Quizlet does not used spaced repetition. This is a *huge* advantage Anki has over Quizlet.

Hmmm, I have no idea if there is a way to filter a deck and then export it. Are the cards you want to export currently all in one deck? If they are, the way I would do it is I would go into the Card Browser, filter all your cards for your tag (using tag:yourtag), then select all of those cards (using ctrl-shift) and click Change Deck. Put them all in a new deck, then export that new deck. Then reselect them all in your Card Browser and move them back into their original deck. It is a little trickier if they are coming from different decks to begin with, since you would need a way to figure out how to get them back into their original decks.

Yay! Glad you are enjoying Visual Latin. Remember to take a look at Visual Latin's reading schedule for Lingua Latina, because once you have gotten far enough in Visual Latin, you and your DD will enjoy reading the first few chapters of it. It is super fun and very rewarding (and you will be amazed how quickly easily you and your DD can learn a bunch of vocab that way)!

Yes, it is expensive. Homeschool Buyers Coop does have a coupon though. I think it is 20% off.

Oooh, check this out - https://ditchingsuburbia.com/resources/fulltime-rving-families

I really do think the problem is just my lack of discipline and focus. But tell me more about the hormones....?? What would they be checked for that is related to all the stuff I'm talking about?

Ellen, I love the idea of quiet time, but the problem is, once the 1 yr old goes down for nap, that is when I need to really do school with DS9. I have a list of things we can do with the noise and chaos of DD1 and DD6, and a list of things that we have to focus on more, and I can't figure out when to do them other than during DD1's nap. How do you manage that with your 1 yr old?

Thanks so much for all of the replies. I think my issues are manifold, and your posts have all encouraged me with helpful thoughts and ideas! I'm going to read back through them a couple of times and figure out a couple of changes I can implement (or even re-implement!) easily. I love homeschooling and learning with my kids, and I think my current personal lack of focus and discipline is zapping some of that joy. Thanks for the pep talk and ideas!!

Why do I get distracted by EVERYTHING ELSE when I need to just focus on school? I procrastinate like CRAZY. And the ironic thing is, my kids are generally eager students and quick learners, so it's not as though school is miserable or anything. I just can't get myself to focus. I have three kids (9, 6, and 1) and I feel like I'm constantly juggling their needs and it gets overwhelming and I just retreat. I am a total introvert, so I know that is part of my problem, but I need to figure out how to get over it and focus on what needs to be done, kwim?! FWIW, we are getting "plenty" done, as far as their actual achievement goes, but I know we could be doing SO much more. *sigh* Please. Psychoanalyze me. Tell me what is up with myself, and how to get over it!!

We do not give grades. However, if we did, they would **simultaneously** be straight As, and not inflated! LOL How? Because we work at things until we produce excellent work, regardless of how long it takes. In school, time is held constant (the quarter ends whenever the quarter ends), so the grade reflects what is achieved in the time allotted. In our homeschool, the grade is held constant (we work until we produce excellent work), so the time it takes reflects how long it takes to produce excellent work. If I had kids with issues that made learning hard and we wanted to stop a particular subject before we achieved what I consider "excellence", then I would consider it less than an A. But oldest is only in 4th grade, and so far we have always succeeded as long as we kept plugging along. If my DC really *did* want grades, I would explain to them what that actually meant in a school setting, and how that is different than what we consider grades. I would tell them it would mean I would mark down their "grade" every time I corrected their math page, for instance, and that they would still have to correct their errors. Over time we would average it (or whatever) and I'd be happy to tell them what their "grade" is whenever they want me to (such as in June when everyone else is getting a report card), but that they shouldn't view those grades as the end of the learning in that area. Even though I'd give them grades at their request, we would still continue working until it would actually be an A, whether or not that was on their "report card schedule". Does that make sense?

I wholeheartedly agree with the spaced repetition comments. Also, keep in mind that doesn't just mean rote memory. We do a ton of spaced repetition for every subject using Anki - which I cannot recommend highly enough!!!! - but sometimes our Anki includes a mnemonic. For instance, for the classification structure, my card just asks "What is the biological classification structure?" but then when that card comes up, I add, "Tell me the mnemonic first." My kids will say, "King Philip Cried Out For Good Soup: Kingdom Phyla Class Order Family Genus Species." That way they get practice with their mnemonic and the info it helps them remember. As far as books go, I highly recommend Make It Stick (Brown, Roediger, McDaniel), which is an **excellent** book about learning. On memory in particular, I can also recommend Your Memory by Higbee, and Memorize the Faith by Vost. The latter is specific to memorizing Christian (and Catholic) content, but it is a good practical example of how to actually use the method of loci, if you decide you are interested in that. I also sort of recommend Moonwalking With Einstein by Foer; I say "sort of" only because I have only barely started it, but so far I do enjoy it (especially the fact that he is a real guy trying to learn these techniques and he walks you through them as he tells his own experiences). My highest recommendations, though, are 1) Read Make It Stick, and 2) Use Anki faithfully and *outloud* with your kids (so you are ALL memorizing the material, including you). As you learn them better, let the cards spark discussion as they come up. You will be amazed at how much you all will learn. Incorporate mnemonics into Anki when you need to, but if you simply learn the material and **connect** it to what you have already learned, that is truly the best mnemonic of all!