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Melmc

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  1. This is our first year with 4-H. My 12 yo daughter is in a dog club doing obedience, showmanship and rally. She really enjoys it, and is looking forward to fair in August.
  2. I have the Jr. High syllabus from Hewitt. They schedule approx. 45 pages of reading a week to get through the entire series in one school year (four nine week quarters.) Not sure how this relates to number of chapters a week since I haven't compared it to the books yet.
  3. As someone posted above, don't force him to sit all the time. I have two girls and one boy. The girls can sit forever. Not my son. Before we homeschooled, he attended a private Catholic school. He was in second grade. The teacher was having trouble getting him to settle at his desk and work. I asked if she would allow him to stand to do some of his work because that worked well when he was doing his Saxon math homework with me. (If I made him sit to do the timed math facts, he didn't do well. If he stood, he'd get them all done with time to spare!) She did, and it solved all the issues she had with him. She even started letting the other boys stand. They all became more productive. There are times when he does need to sit and he does with no problem. But he does better with certain things standing and with other subjects, like memory work, walking around.
  4. My son is a total history buff. I just ordered this for his 10th b-day in April. I think he's going to love it. Thanks so much for the link!
  5. We have a Jenn-Aire French door one. I love it. I have had a few ice cubes pop out of the top drawer, but that's it. We have the water dispenser on the inside of the fridge because I wanted smooth front. If we need ice, we just go into the freezer to get it. I do lots of freezer meals using the book Fix Freeze Feast, and I've had no problem with size issue or losing things. I would never go back to another type. I also have my side-by-side in the garage which we brought with us from our other house and I hate that one. I have since the day we brought it home and I loaded it up.
  6. I don't use a Lit program, but I came up with my own year long KidLit Book Club curriculum that I teach 3 Fridays each month at our co-op for an hour September through May. The nine kids range in age from 5 - 8. I ask the parents to read aloud with the kids so they can focus on the story, not reading the words. Each week I give the parents a vocab list to review with the children so they understand what I'll be reading to them. My goal of the class isn't to create readers, but booklovers! I'll be honest. It's something I toss together each week though I do have a list of books for the entire year. I figured the parents would want to see that before signing up their kids. The kids really seem to be enjoying it. They like talking about each of the elements of fiction and we have great discussions. I used the Teaching the Classics DVD and syllabus sitting untouched on my shelf to figure out what I should try to teach. I write romances for a living so have my own ideas about story, too. I went into the class just wanting to introduce the elements of fiction and not expecting a lot back, but even my youngest students want to get their input in there. It's exciting and very cool! The format of each class is pretty similar: • Introduce/review element(s) of fiction. They are given sheets with the definitions to review at home like memory work. • If there was a story assigned to be read as homework, we talk about that and may graph it on a roller coaster plot diagram (from NaNoWriMo's Young Writers Program elementary workbook) or narrate the story. • Introduce author (if new) or add new info/review to what we know • Examine and discuss what we can learn from the book cover (if new story) • Read story • Discuss what we've read. Review plot (group narration of sorts. To teach them how to do this I made sequence cards with pictures from our first story Tale of Peter Rabbit.) Talk about individual elements of fiction we've covered so far. We may do a roller coaster plot. I'll bring back an early story to talk about it and the new element. I have a big white board at the space where the class is held so I use both words and pictures due to some kids reading and other's not. • Activity. This can be anything from a pie chart with pictures of the plot, to a roller coaster plot, to a character worksheet I made where they draw who they think is the main character, the minor characters and their fave character to an art project. Pretty much the activity is whatever I can think of as I'm putting things together for the class. It can also just be something fun. An example from our last class was a celebration for finishing Winnie the Pooh. We made party hats (simplified craft from Martha Stewart's website) and illustrated it with our favorite character for the book. Once we all had our hats on, we sampled biscuits with honey and marmalade, Pooh's fave foods, that we'd read about and talked about what we'd drawn on our hats and the food. • Coloring page (to do if time or take home). This is just taken from the Internet. • Copy work page (to do if time or take home). I use a sentence from the story and make a sheet using Write Start. Sorry for such a long post! I guess what I'm trying to say is a lit guide could be handy if you wanted something open and go, but I'm just using books I had in the house and that's working just fine and saving me money, too!
  7. Count me in! It must be in the air because I started decluttering downstairs on Friday. I have two bags to donate already and one bag of garbage just from the study, hall closet and dining room!
  8. Laura, Cool on the similarities. Your journey to homeschool does sounds familiar! Glad to hear I'm not the only disorganized writer out there too! I write fiction. Romance novels. Melissa
  9. I'm an alumni interviewer for my alma mater. Giving a gift for doing an interview seems inappropriate. I would not be comfortable with if an applicant did that. A simple thank you note/email would be fine.
  10. Wow! I'm feeling like a total slackard here because I'm the poster child for the unorganized writer. I'm sure not all published authors are like me, but this is how I keep track (loosely using that term!) of stuff for projects: With deadlines, revisions, proofs from to be published books, I just don't have time to be all that fancy. I just keep all the random notes and pieces of papers (including emails from editors) I need together. I can't have things on my computer and some in hand. I need to keep it all together. Sometimes I stick them in a manila folder. Most times I just pile them on my nightstand so they are handy when I need them. There is always some moment of panic when the one I need was knocked over by one of the cats or a kid decided to use the back of it to draw a picture for me. I'm starting to use colored paper for my handwritten story notes so I'd know they are important. And the kids will realize they are important and not to be used, too. Right now my notes for my revisions that are due are inside the cover of a 6x8 spiral notebook that fits nicely in my purse so I can jot notes down if I'm out and about. I use the same spiral for all projects. I wouldn't be able to keep track of more than one notebook at a time! I know there are writers who have binders for each project with labeled dividers, maps, scene maps, conflict grids, characters, collages, etc. They are so impressive and neat and pretty and I'm green with envy, but I'll be honest... I'm so annal I could have a book completely written before I was satisfied with everything I needed to get together in my story binder so I just don't do it.
  11. If you belong to any professional writer groups/associations such as RWA or MWA or whatever else is out there. If you have entered any writing contests and placed. If you don't have any of those things, then just thank them for their time and consideration. Seriously, if the idea sparks their interest, they aren't going to care about any of those other things. Forgot! If the manuscript is already completed, make sure you mention that. That's huge especially if you're unpubbed!
  12. Elegantlion has already set up two social groups that will work great to carry on this thread with specific topics. (Thank you, EL!) One is for NaNoWriMo participants and another is a writer support group. I'm not in NaNo this year, so I'll leave that one to all you 50kers and wish you well with your endeavor, but be sure to peek into the other group outside of November! In the other group, there are already several topics, and I'm sure we can add more as needed. So if you're interested, please consider joining. I'm off to do it now and looking forward to getting to know more of you!
  13. There are some great writing places on the web, but not any for only homeschooling writers. I belong to enough writers group, the homeschooler aspect as Violet posted is the icing on the cake for me. We should be able to do something here on the forum now that I've seen, thanks to AuntieM, what's available with social groups. I sent a pm to the person who started up the writing social groups. I'm just waiting to hear back from her.
  14. AuntieM - I have know idea what a social group is. Never mind I found them. Off to check them out.
  15. I agree with Carol. Skip the beginning of the next one, not the end of the last one. We're still finishing up on the final lessons of 54 and Saxon 1, then I'll let them test out of the next ones. Last year they started around lesson 35 or 40 with 76 and 54. Good luck.
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