I agree. It's just that immersion is a pipe-dream around here - as it is for probably most Americans. And, it's just another case of "use it or lose it". Funny that I somehow exempted Calculus in college, and now I can't remember for the life of me what a differential is. Yet, no one would ever lament the fact that (s)he is no longer "fluent" in Calculus.

Thanks, Jean & Michelle! This was very helpful!

Oh, this is encouraging! I really don't care if he complains ~ but I am tired of *always* being the one he complains about - LOL! Did you by any chance use the essays from SMARR, and have Cindy grade those individually? Thanks!

Colleen, Obviously, I'm not truly "in the know" - LOL! But, if you'll look at the Rhetoric section (the actual class "Rhetoric") in WTM, you'll see the first year is "Rulebook for Arguments" and "Oxford" Guide to Writing. These would be modern forms of "essay" writing. Then, there's a Rhetoric book, and *part* of the Rhetoric book has "progymnasmata" exercises. The progymnasmata were writing exercises designed in Ancient times to teach various methods of written communication. You can read more about them at Cindy Marsch's site (or Classical Writing): http://writingassessment.com/index.php?pr=Progymnasmata It's my understanding that the "modern" writing (descriptive essay, persuasive essay, narrative, etc. - basically what you learn in R&S) are all derived from these progym exercises (but I could be wrong). One reason why I have never been able to keep going with CW or Classical Composition is because I knew in the back of my mind that SWB had it planned out for high school - when grammar and handwriting wouldn't be hindrances to expression, and after most of the modern writing had been covered. But, on her blog, she has a plan starting the progym in 9th grade: http://www.susanwisebauer.com/blog/?p=187 I guess what is confusing me is that she is calling this a "writing" plan, whereas in WTM the progym is in the "rhetoric" section. (I'm sure if she's reading this, she's rolling her eyes at my dense-ness - LOL!) I would be really excited to learn that I could do, say, just the grammar out of Abeka (or the reinforcement books of Analytical Grammar) combined with the first three progym for 9th grade and basically be getting "writing" and "rhetoric" done with one stone, so to speak. Of course, my whole high school plan seems out-of-whack because ds was not retaining Introductory Logic, so after my surgury, I dropped it. I plan to do Traditional Logic next year (9th grade - which is the way the current edition suggests doing it), and so I'm not sure what that's going to mean for "rhetoric" for us, anyway. I'll be so glad when the new edition is out!

So, if the progym classes are 6-weeks, then maybe we should start with one a year? I'm thinking that would give us some "progym" writing and some "modern" writing each year. Or, would it be more advantageous to do *all* the progym back-to-back? If so, do you think we should do the modern or the progym first? Thanks for all your help! This is so hard to wrap my brain around...

Well, goodness, Sue, I think your opinion is as good as anyone else's! :D So, what do *you* think of AoA? BTW, we are using and liking FD. Yes, we are Christian. And, amazingly, some of the fallacies presented in the exercises are taken from Christian pamphlets, etc., which shows (IMO) that the Bluedorns are very aware that *everyone* is subject to fallacious thinking. At any rate, my ds is learning how to be more discerning - something I definitely would have benefitted from at his age.

particularly, the progym classes? Since SWB blogged about starting the progym in 9th grade, I've been wondering if these classes would cover that for me. And, if you've read this far, do you think doing the progym would cover *both* writing *and* rhetoric? SWB's blog calls it a writing program, but WTM has students doing the progym in "Rhetoric", with a separate writing program. :confused:

My 5th grader is doing Modern history & lit this year. So, he is kind of stuck with quite a few books that are a real stretch for him. (We are basically doing the 8th grade WTM Lit list, tho' there have been a couple I've let him skip completely.) But, I let him read along to a recording, or I read with him. Usually I end up doing most of the reading out loud. But, he is expected to read along silently with me, and to be able to pick up at any time. I'm not worried about this making things "too easy" for him, because these books are really stretching him, and reading them together allows us to cover vocabulary and complicated syntax, and just to check that he is understanding. This time varies anywhere from 30 min to an hour daily. It just really depends on the book and our schedule, and the interruptions we've had that day. But, I do have him read a "free choice" book for an hour each day. (Sometimes these end up being picked by me because he still doesn't like choosing his own books.) This reading is *usually* at night before bed, or at least it was. More and more it is happening "sometime" during the day - whenever dd needs some attention, and my older ds is doing his work. If so, then I will usually read with him at night (or after dinner, or during dd's nap). Can you tell that I really do *try* to have a schedule, and find it an effort in futility?!?!?!?!? Also, we (all) read historical fiction together. I gather these titles from WTM Supplemental Lit lists & Sonlight mostly. We usually read these first thing in the morning while we sip coffee and wake up. Maybe 30-45 minutes a day. (Though we have been known to cancel some of classes in order to keep reading - LOL!) Best of luck!

:iagree: I think just narrating back what he/she thought was the "most important" or the "most exciting" is enough for 8yo. (But, I have average kids. YMMV) Oh, and I wrote out almost all my 8yo's narrations - of course, for us that was 2nd grade. He has a September birthday.

My 5th grader completed R&S-3 and 4 spelling. It is very thorough, and it helped reinforce phonics for him (which was really good because he didn't really have much phonics in ps K-1). The exercises helped him see how to build words which weren't on the list by using the patterns in the list words, which was great. And, the dictionary exercises were much better than SWO. But, this year we are using SWO because spelling was simply taking so much time. And, the "rules" in R&S are just "more official sounding" suggestions. There really *aren't* consistent rules. "Deer" and "dear" sound the same, and at some point, you just have to memorize which is which - and that it isn't spelled like "mere". If you read into the nitty-gritty of the R&S boxes at the bottom of the first page of each lesson, you will see things like "the (whatever) sound is usually spelled..." with a whole list of ways it can be spelled. Occasionally, you will see, "at the end of a word or syllable, the (whatever) sound is normally spelled...." But all in all, it still boiled down to memorizing the words on the list. I really like them both. *I* probably prefer R&S because it does help you teach how to build similar words using spelling patterns. But my ds struggles with handwriting, and often couldn't understand what R&S was wanting, and he has really enjoyed the straight-forwardness of SWO. I'm sure he isn't using the dictionary nearly as much in "spelling time", but I have him look up words we encounter in reading together, so he is still getting practice each week. hth a bit!

I still think "hole" is an appositive, but whether that's true or not, the "with nothing" is modifying "hole". That makes "nothing" a substantive (modified by "in it" underneath). The verbals "To sit down on" (an infinitive phrase) and "to eat" (an infinitive) are then compound object complements and are diagrammed after a slanted line after "nothing" (like a predicate nom or adj's line). They should each be on one of those "Men-at-work" looking signs. (yes, whenever these come up I *have* to sing "We come from the land down under" for the rest of the day.) They would further be on a fork, with the conjunction "or" between them on the dotted line. What'cha think?

Ah, thank you so much! I *knew* it was too much like SOTW not to be in there. You have saved my sanity (for today, at least - LOL)!

Cool. You will find a dis-proportionate number of INFJ's on the board. Welcome!

I'm trying to plan the rest of our history for the year, and I read (or dreamed?) a "story" about pretending you were a child in London in WWII, and how things were being rationed (food, clothes, shoes, soap), and so your birthday cake was make without milk or eggs. (OK, this is the part where I admit, maybe I dreamed it???) Then, you are sent to live with your Aunt in the country and there you learn to work on a farm. Eventually, you are put back on a train and reunited with your parents. Oh, and before you were sent to the country, you would walk to school and see the homes and buildings that had been destroyed the night before. So....do you remember this from SOTW-4? I've scanned it 5 times and can't find it, but I can't imagine where else I would have read it. Any help is *greatly* appreciated!!!!

Could it be that the independent phrase begins with "it was a hobbit-hole", and the first part of the sentence, "Not a nasty..." is an inverted appositive? And, then you would actually have two appositives. One "hole" modified by "not a nasty, dirty, wet hole....smell" - joined by the conjunction "yet" (modified by "nor") to the second appositive "hole" modified by "a dry, bare, sandy...eat" IRDK. Just a thought~ ETA: Sorry. Now I see you were just concerned about that one wierd phrase that starts like a prepositional phrase and ends with infinitives. Hmmm......

Actually, Trisms came to mine last night as I was getting ready for bed - too funny! I will get on the yahoo group and look around there later today. Thanks for posting!

I think it would be helpful if SWB (or the collective hive-mind) could come up with "history questions" much like the generic literature questions that are in the logic stage lit section of WTM. General questions. Or, maybe what we need are "history" questions that apply to different "genres" of history. For example, questions about wars - wouldn't those be different than questions about art? Or science? Or religion/worldview? But, surely there are general questions that could be explored no matter what text or topic or culture you are studying. (And, just like *all* the questions in WEM don't apply to every single work - the same here. But you can at least read the question and say, "Well, in this case, I don't think that applies.") It would certainly go a long way toward easing my own "9th-grade jitters"! =) I've gotten used to not knowing the answers, but it would be nice if I at least knew the questions - LOL!

Mine spends way too much time playing games at NickJr.com! But, sometimes that is the only way I can get a full hour to go over Algebra and Latin with my 8th grader. She also plays with her "babies" quite a bit. I set up her table and chair beside wherever I'm doing school and have tea parties while I'm teaching. She loves science, and will sit in my 5th grader's lap while we do that (and, sometimes she answers the questions *before* her brother - oh, my....). She writes on the extra white board while we do math or diagram sentences on the other. (We sit on the floor and lean the white boards up against a dresser which serves as our "buffet table"/place-we-stash-our-school-odds-and-ends - LOL!) She loves to sit at the dining room table with a fresh piece of paper and scribble all over it. This amazes my boys, since she always holds her pencil correctly without me having to tell her even once how to do it. She *LOVES* washing dishes. And, I have a sand-box (a sweater box with an inch of sand) for her to play with. Whenever I need a sure-fire way to get her out of the picture, I ask her if she wants to take a bath! She takes about a 30-minutes bath every day (sometimes two baths...once even three!). I try to have "letter time", "number time", "reading time" and a special activity (Play-doh, painting, or something from Slow and Steady. And, I try to rotate these in throughout the day the same way I do for the boys, so it's not one big chunk of time, but lots of little "come play with mommy" times throughout the day. These times help her feel like she's "one of us", and she knows the boys have to go "do their work" by themselves, and so I guess then she feels she is going to do *her* work while I continue working with one of the boys. I also have resorted to having one son watch her for an hour while I work with the other one, then we switch. This is especially helpful if I get him to clean up the house while he's watching her!!! (This doesn't happen quite so often this year. Last year when she was two was much worse than now.) One "good" idea I had this year was to put all her toys (such as the sand-box, lace-up toys, blocks, scizzors, etc.) on the high shelf of her closet so that she only has one at a time, and they are "new". I have a box full of "McDonald's Toys" I pull out during Read-Alouds and that has been very successful at keeping her quiet while she stays in the room with us. Best wishes!

You can pre-order at Amazon. I couldn't find it just by search there, but there is a link buried in this thread: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=79944 Last I checked, the shipping date was sometime in early May. hth, Rhonda

We were Seventh-Day Adventists when my boys were little, and I followed The Moore Foundation's advice for my oldest's Kindergarten and the little bit of 1st grade that I tried. (I even had Ruth Beechik as my "telephone advisor".) (big sigh!) If I could have one moment in time to have a re-do, it would *so* be the moment when my oldest was 4yo, and I was standing in the middle of a very small, very crowded homeschool store completely overwhelmed at all the possibilities. My df (actually, an unschooler) had told me to ask about "Classical education", and the store owner showed me a huge carousel of 20+ books - one of which was the Well-Trained Mind. I'm pretty sure he pointed it out, because I *almost* got it. But, I was too ignorant to know how such a tome could help me teach *Kindergarten*. (And, my 2yo was beginning to chew the books - LOL!) Fast forward in time... I pulled my ds out of public school 1/2 way through his 5th grade year, and he had so many gaps. Gaps that started because I was told not to do phonics or handwriting or math with him or I would "ruin" my child. Gaps that grew deeper and wider year after year. I cannot tell you (OP) how much more difficult the past 3 years of homeschooling have been because my ds did not have a strong academic foundation. (further compounded by the fact that as 7th-Day Adventists, the Moore's did not approve of "fiction"). To each his own, but I will always regret the pain I have caused my child because I did not lead him gradually and slowly. Knowing what I know now, I would have rather done straight ABeka than to have followed the Moore Foundation plan, though I admit we had a lot of fun doing it!

I was going to suggest the same thing! ;) We read it out loud (5th and 8th). We would stop to read excerpts about the mentioned battles in the book Fields of Fury, which is an award-winning non-fiction book for middle schoolers (it is listed in the Logic Stage Supplementary History resources). fyi: My 8th grader could have Across Five Aprils by himself, but not my 5th grader. It is a *beautiful* story, and I'm so glad we read it!

There is a link in this thread: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=79944 hth!

Thanks, all!~ I'm really enjoying Fagle's Iliad. So, I think I'll try that. The 50-cent copy I picked up at the used book store didn't make any of your lists! (It is very small type, and still so very long...) :001_smile:

Thanks! nft

We added in lots of American history related read-alouds - from SL (Core 4?) and WTM historical fiction (7th grade). Most of the ones I chose would be way beyond a 6yo, but surely there are others? And, I read fairy tales (from Grimms, Perault and East of the Sun) for 15 minutes a day. (I would add in Hans Christian Andersen if I could re-do it.) These were some of our best memories from last year.