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Rhondabee

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Everything posted by Rhondabee

  1. Wow! It's been 7 years since a family emergency stopped our homeschooling adventure mid-school year. Now I teach general music in a K-5th elementary school - using Kodaly methods which are very classical in nature. Still haven't tossed any of my WTM/WEM purchases, and just wondering if there are any online options for WEM-centric book clubs. From what I remember, and what I see scrolling, this forum isn't really a place where people all decide to read a book together and come here to discuss. But a lot has changed here!! Have looked for a "real live" WEM book club in Atlanta, but no luck there. If you know of one, please pass on the info. Thanks!
  2. Can't remember who sung that song.....and probably anyone reading this is too young to know! Also can't believe my log-in still works - thanks SWB'
  3. That must be it - I figured it was either HWOT or one I had gotten but can't remember the name of! Thanks!
  4. I know there *is* a handwriting curriculum that starts with "c" and then builds other letters from "c" - but I can't remember which one it is. Does that sound familiar to anyone? (Asking for a friend whose son is struggling in public school....) Thanks! Rhonda
  5. :iagree: Thankfully, I signed my DS up for a Lost Tools of Writing class with Memoria Press. It's supposed to be a credit by itself, but I will probably end up pairing it with the English scheduled in MFW. I just don't have the time or the expertise to choose books to supplement MFW's literature. (We are using MFW's World History, if "using" is the right word - LOL! I don't even use their history anymore. It's a shame because the Bible and Church History portion is so well done.)
  6. I know this isn't what you were asking ... but my DS's favorite class this year by far is Memoria Press's LTOW Class. I'm very impressed with everything he's learning, but mostly that he is applying it across the board to all his writing assignments. Best of luck!
  7. Thanks! I kept thinking "Junior" (as in Junior College) and couldn't figure out what in the world the E would stand for... I am grateful for this thread, especially since we don't seem to have the same type of Community Colleges as other states. It has motivated me to call the very-close what-used-to-be-called "Junior College" next week. Their website was very homeschool-friendly, so I'm feeling much less anxious about the whole thing.
  8. I always wonder that myself. I really don't know if I am "evangelical" or not. Everyone seems to have their own usage for the word and I sometimes wonder if anyone really knows exactly what it means - LOL! But, I would really like to nail it down as my 13 and 15yo boys are starting to ask if we are, or if we should be, or if we shouldn't be "evangelical" - and I don't know what to say. (ETA: I went to Wikipedia and tried to figure out if it would apply to us or not. I think I/we are somewhat "evangelical" and somewhat not - LOL! But, I have several beliefs that I hold quietly because I know they wouldn't be accepted by 99% of the members of our non-denominational church.)
  9. Hunter, Sorry to detour from the original intent of the thread, but I'm so glad you posted this. I think you nailed my DS's experiences perfectly. Thank you for giving me a glimpse into their world. You've given me much food for thought this morning.
  10. I had forgotten about video. (I knew something would come up from the board!) I looked for the TC at our library. It's not there - but there are *tons* of others that look really interesting. Thanks~
  11. (This is somewhat related to my other question, but a different angle.) If I knew for certain that I didn't *have* to cover 1965-present this year in World History (because maybe it will be covered in American History?), then I would have time to continue reading our narrative history, read from Spielvogel's Human Odyssey and answer the Section Review questions, *and* assign the "once-a-week paper" that SWB talks about in WTM and the high school writing download. I would *love* that! (And I keep thinking of SWB saying everyone has gaps.) BUT...if you tell me that I *have* to do 1965-present because that's just too important to "gap" intentionally, well... then we'll muddle though. LOL! But, please tell me what you might use in place of the Spielvogel. I am not looking forward to using it exclusively for that time period. Thanks!
  12. I have about 6 weeks to cover 1965-present (at the end of the year), and I'd really like to find something narrative that covers the whole world. Something along the lines of a little-more-grown-up version of SOTW-4. Anybody know of one? I have also thought about using the DK History of the World and let DS choose biographies from the library - kind of like WTM Logic Stage history. But, I know he won't finish a 300-page biography in a week - and the only other choices are the 60-80 pages books from the Juvenile section. (I don't know if that would be "enough" to satisfy high school.) Of course, we could just do Spielvogel's Human Odyssey - I am using it coupled with a more narrative history from now to the end of the year. But even though I suppose HO is a "good textbook," it still doesn't give the same vibrancy to the story of history that a good narrative does. I would really rather find a good narrative and drop the HO if I had to. Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks! Rhonda
  13. Harry Potter is a Messiah-figure who defeats his enemy through love - even sacrificing his own life in the last book. (yes, he is resurrected) Not that you need to go into all the literary aspects or compare it to the story of Christ with your child. But, Narnia and the story of Aslan is very much the same. (The "gateway" to Narnia from our world is created by magic.) Yet Christians embrace the Narnia tales, I suppose, because they're more openly didactic. I avoided the books for a long time because someone told me "they teach kids to do actual magic spells." This is poppycock. Harry Potter is a beautiful love story, (not romantic, but *true* love) - a story where good defeats evil. And if you treat it as such, I bet your kids will, too.
  14. Oh, you are a member of the Draconian Homeschoolers after all! :lol: On a side-note, I let me DS read the responses and he said (during out literature discussion later) that if Sir Gawain got "partial credit" from the Green Knight, then surely he should get partial credit in math! LOL Your method does sound better than my old rule, which was that for each problem that requires a formula, he had to show me the formula. (Saxon always has the monster-fractions-with-scientific-notations and a dozen variables that need to be reduced. I always cross-out things as I cancel them, but he doesn't. Your method would solve that! Thanks, Lori!
  15. I have wondered about partial credit (because he does write down his work for about 1/2 of the problems). Art Reed says not to, and it has frankly just been too many years since I took a math class. I *thought* we received partial credit, but honestly don't remember. That would definitely raise his grades a long way. ;) Thanks!
  16. My 10th grade ds is using Saxon Algebra II this year, and he *gets* it. At least, when he does his homework. He gets the right answers when I show him just the test and say, "Look at this problem fresh." But invariably he is getting C's on his tests. (sometimes A's, sometimes D's - oh, yeah, guess which one it was today - LOL - :glare:) And most of the errors are negative signs, addition errors - stupid things, kwim? The problem is I *know* he could do better, and he feels rotten about himself because he knows that he knows the material (but he doesn't know why he makes these "dumb" mistakes). I have begged him (for years) to show his work. But, frankly, he doesn't *think* like I think. He can really do all the work in his head. And when I finally do get him to explain to me how he's thinking about math - it's like a foreign language to me! I don't know how to even begin explaining how differently we approach the same problem. I asked my brother about it (he has a degree in Elec Engineering from Ga Tech), and he said it sounded to him that my ds thinks "like a guy" - and that he often made the same kind of errors in college. Not helpful, really. I don't know what to *do* about this - or if I should do anything. DS has the Art Reed videos, and has been doing his work pretty independently. I don't know why, but it seems whenever I try "independent" with my boys, it is a recipe for disaster. At any rate, I am open to suggestions. I have even considered putting my DD (5yo) into public school so I can maybe squeeze in an extra hour or two to work with him one-on-one. (Not that I will be much help!) Thanks!
  17. OK - when he said kids here "wouldn't be in school" if they were in China, he meant they would go on to trade school? I was wondering what they did. I thought at first that maybe they just wandered the streets uneducated. I know when I was teaching, there were lots of students I *wished* I could kick out of school entirely - LOL! But maybe if kids weren't forced to go to school (here in the US), then it wouldn't be taken for granted. Interesting...
  18. I just always assumed for plays that any video stayed true to the original. Otherwise, it would have a different name. For example, if you get a DVD labeled "Pygmalion" that will be true to the original play. But, the musical "My Fair Lady" is an adaptation of the play. (We watched My Fair Lady after reading Pygmalion. And my then-5th grader actually read an adaptation while my 8th-grader and I read the play now that I think about it.) Anyway, all the plays we got from the library were always true to the original...can't say they were the "best" versions out there, just what was free!
  19. Not sure if you're "I'm sorry" is directed at me...but it feels like an insult. I would agree that reading a play by oneself when you've never read one before and the verbage is a little out-of-date and you're a pre-teen is a rather tedious experience. But, when you read a play *out loud* with a group, even just a small group of 3 people, that's a bit different. They even do this for fun on StarTrek - LOL! (I think LoriD calls it "popcorn reading" - we divvied up the parts. It wasn't just *me* reading out loud.) I don't really know what I will do when my now-7th grader (who was then in 5th grade) re-reads that list. (He will read it next year.) It won't be the same having only one student, and I will have to do it differently than I did before - but I don't think I could do it any better. Se la vie~
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