Does she have any exposure to Latin because Italian is a cinch after Latin! It's like simplified Latin, basically. I would suggest just going to the library and getting out those Berlitz audios for travelers. Just listen to a lot of Italian, learn some simple phrases. If you want to invest money in it, you could try Rosetta Stone (hey maybe your library has this?) Also operas are fun. Get a Pavarotti cd singing his favorite arias and read the translations. Going to an opera where they have the subtitles is fun too. (Course make sure the opera is in Italian, not German or French!). How old is your dd? You could also netflix some Italian movies. Life is Beautiful is a great movie but very, very sad and deals with the Holocaust. I studied Italian for a year on my own at the local continuing ed programs in my county and I've been to Italy twice. (Maybe you could get an exchange student too!) The cont'g ed programs were great because they were a bunch of people who loved Italy for different reasons: travel, opera, art history, rediscovering their family heritage, food! They were such a fun bunch of people. The teacher was great too and would provide us with espresso and dolci during the class!

I have never used it before but I just purchased the second grade level for next year. It looks wonderful! I'm excited!

Hi Christine, I worked it all out last night. It fits very tidily into 32 weeks doing R&S 4x a week! Thanks again!

Well, my sister was a 2nd grade teacher for 10 years and she said there were many children who began second grade not really reading but by the end of second most of them had caught up. So I don't know if your friends should be all that worried. I would advise them to just consistently but gently reinforce phonics and reading. the Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading is very good. So is Phonics Pathways or Teach Your child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. My favorite is Phonic Pathways. Now I have children who have LDs in reading due to visual problems; tracking, focusing, eye fatigue. Do your friends think there might be something amiss there (does the child confuse letters still, skip words and lines frequently, rub their eyes a lot when reading, etc They can google for symptoms.). What does the teacher advise? If they think there is something amiss, they could try for a diagnosis. Though my sister, the teacher, truly believed from her experience that for some kids it just doesn't click until a little later.

Thank you Christine! Your site is magnificent! I printed out your blank schedule and am hard at work now! I so appreciate your generosity in sharing your organizational skills. I am abyssmal at such things.

I just started Latin for Children with my 3rd grader. I'm also using it as a review for my 7th grader who's been taking a break from Latin for a while. However, my 6 yo is really enjoying herself listening in and has picked up a lot. I'm afraid that at some point she won't be able to keep up with the others, so I was contemplating getting Song School Latin just for her. I don't really care if she learns all that much Latin at the ripe old age of 6, she's really just getting rolling with reading right now, but I don't want her to get frustrated. And she always wants to be included with the 'big kids.' Right now, the novelty of it makes it really fun, but I'm thinking later on it would be better to have something her own speed. What do you think?

Wonderful! Both you and he should be proud!

Does anyone have a syllabus for how they worked through this book in a year? I figure 114 lessons plus a 14 chapter tests would average about 4 lessons a week. However, some of the lessons involve writing essays and that seems like it would take longer, so how do you factor that in? I am thinking in terms of a 32 week year to allow 4 weeks for Christmas, Easter breaks and other interruptions. Thanks for any input.

I would do the Lightning Lit British Lit course. I am using the guides this year with a group of teens. I think they are excellent. I've never used the correspondence course though so I can't vouch for that but I am very impressed with Lightning Lit. I'm using the American guides next year. I would do Trad. Logic I and II (and then Material Logic the next year). I tried to space Trad. Logic I over a year with my 9th and 7th graders a couple years back and I came to the conclusion that it is actually better to do Logic more intensely than that. You have to get in the groove of thinking in a certain way and stretching it out seemed to detract from that. With an 11th grader, he should be able to handle Trad Logic I (originally intended for 7th grade) and II (originally intended for 8th) in one year. My humble two cents!

Melissa, My older kids sound like yours. They didn't like the hands on stuff. We started with MCP and then I switched to MUS because of the rave reviews too. My kids cheered when I announced I was selling MUS. We had gone from efficient little lessons in math that got the trick done to long drawn out unneccesary explanations and maniuplatives. I was insecure because everyone else seemed to be really intense about math and it seemed relatively easy to us. What was I doing wrong. Nothing, I realized! It was so weird to me because I struggled mightily with math in school and just assumed my kids would too. But they took after their father and just are 'mathy' kids. Anyway, we went back to MCP. NIce, simple, gets the job done. But my younger three are more hands on. I think what happened to me is that I realized how little you really need to know in the early years of math. Also, I got so used to MCP that it takes very little to no planning on my part. I've just been down the road so much that it doesn't take much for me to just add in some visuals or manipulatives when the kids need it.

I am currently teaching two, a 1st grader and a 3rd grader, using MCP. I only use the workbook as a supplement because sometimes my kids go through phases where they enjoy doing workbooks. And I do like to get them some practice with test-taking. The TM is great. My kids beg to do the mental math which we always start off with. I teach them together. I start off with the 1st grader doing mental math and then the 3rd grader. Then I alternate teaching a lesson from either grade and the other listens in and then the other reviews whatever they learned last time. (the review is right in the TM). We write our problems up on the whiteboard. I have popsicle sticks and a jar of pebbles (from a gardening store) that I use for manipulatives if the child needs to do something hands on. These two particular children are very hands on. We were doing drill by tossing a bean bag around and chanting skip counting and times tables but this got old after awhile. We go for a 2 or 3 months doing math like this and then we'll take a break and do something else. Math puzzles, read alouds, games, etc. Right now I just downloaded Cap Jax Math Fax and they've been racing themselves on their math facts. I'm kind of relaxed about math until jr high so I don't get worried about doing every page, etc at all. I figure if they get the concepts, they have a lot of time to work on the drill stuff. So far it's worked!

I have used MCP from K to 6th and I find it prepared my kids very well. We are fairly relaxed with it though. I tend not to rely so much on the workbook but teach lessons from the TM using our big whiteboard. We would do this for awhile and then do other stuff, like math read alouds or puzzles and games. I tend to be very loose until 7th grade. But in 7th grade my kids easily tested into Saxon 8/7 and then did Algebra in 8th, no problem. For some reason with my kids so far (3 out of 5 so far) they just needed a light touch with math. Which is good because when it comes to reading and spelling and such they have LDs. Anyway, I really like MCP. It is the a mainstay in our homeschool.

This reminds of that old joke, where there's a flood and a guy is sitting up on his roof praying to be saved. So another guy comes by in a rowboat and says get in! And the guy says, no I'm waiting for the Lord. Then another rescue team comes by, but the guy refuses to leave his roof. Finally a helicopter hovers over him but he refuses and keeps on praying! Well, he finally drowns and goes to heaven. He says to the Lord, Lord, why didn't you save me? I put my trust in you. And the Lord replies, What do you mean? I sent two boats and a helicopter! Truly, I know responsible unschoolers and they don't teach their kids in a conventional way but they do teach their kids. They play math games and do math projects to teach math. They read aloud a lot, participate in all kinds activities and learning experiences. They are proactive in surrounding their kids with education. To borrow that phrase from Thomas Jefferson Ed.: They inspire but don't require. And the kids soak it up like a sponge. So if a 13 year old is still struggling with 2x tables, I think either they've been kept in a closet and never even learned the old 2,4,6, 8 chant or there's some kind of learning disability. I would just pray for them (and maybe lend them a skip counting tape).

Happy birthday to him! My dh is 2.5 years younger than me. I was relieved when he turned 40. I don't like being older than him and me being in my 40's and he still in his 30's really bothered me. When I met him I thought he was older than me (he's definitely more mature!) and I didn't find out until a year later that he was actually younger. It freaked me out. After 19 years of marriage, I'm still not completely reconciled to it. Sounds you like handle it with better grace than I do! Anyway, many happy returns of the day to your younger man!

I'm sorry I wasn't clear. The whole post is rather stream of consciousness, isn't it? The class is one that we are planning to give to not just our own teens but others. We are doing the same thing this year and it's been great. We watch dvds together and read books and discuss them. It's socializing at the same time and it keeps us on track. I actually like teaching at the high school level. My teens are very independent otherwise. But we are by nature debaters and discussers. We don't seem to learn subjects well just by going off in semi-isolation and doing assignments. Learning is no fun that way, at least for us. So we are pretty actively engaged in our learning, especially things like religion, philosophy, history, literature. The teens take a science class together and are very independent about that. My dd takes Spanish at a community class and is completely independent about that. It just depends on the subject. It's really my 8th grader I most worry about. But I'm thinking of doing things in blocks for him. Not sure how. Anyway, I think I've just sort of painted myself into a corner and can't figure out how to get out! But I'm working on it! Just wondering if anyone else out there is as crazy as I am . . . . .

At least it feels like a suduko! I can't seem to fit everything in for next year. Whenever I think I have it right, I realize that I left out a bit and need to redo the whole thing! I have 5 kids. For the two teens the only certain thing I know is that on Wednesday mornings (has to be morning cuz my dh is teaching before he goes to work) we are having a little class for teens on Economics, American history and Lit. Dh is doing Econ, I'm teaching the rest. But also needing to be fitted in somewhere for my teens is 1x weekly scripture study as well as 1x weekly Teach Co lectures on Natural Law. Also my 11th grader will probably be taking a Latin class on Tuesday mornings along with the 8th grader. My 12 grader may very well be taking classes at the community college but I have no idea when or exactly what she wants to do. My 8th grader will be doing Algebra and some fairly heavy duty science as well as Classical Writing, a lit program and history (as well as the aforementioned Latin). All this will be time consuming. Then on Friday a.m. we are in our ASL and Nature study co-op. On Friday afternoons in the fall and spring we take homeschool tennis lessons together. Two Thursday mid-afternoons a month we are involved in some Catholic kids' clubs (Little Flowers and Blue Knights). So I'll only have two uninterrupted mornings a week! Of course on the other mornings, lovely learning will be going on, but not for every child. So how do I work this? I feel like I'm going to have to really load up a couple of days a week and then fit the other stuff in between the cracks in the other days. And I haven't really talked about my 4th and 2nd graders! Does anyone else have a system where every day has a different agenda, pretty much? :willy_nilly: This is what I feel like!

Requiescat in Pace!

I'm a Catholic homeschooler. This coming year I'm using CHC for 2nd grade and Kolbe for 8th and doing my own thing for my 4th grader. I don't really plan my two teens curriculum so much as cobble it together from outside classes and then whatever is leftover I select something. There are so many fine classical curricula out there for Catholics: Kolbe, St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum, MODG and then Seton. Really Catholics have been doing the classical thing for a long time now. Do you know the love2learn.net site? And RCHistory? And Unity of Truth is another blog that is great. There is a Catholic Classical yahoolist that I'm on. You might get some support from that. Also there is a wonderful Catholic Charlotte Mason curriculum online called Materamabilis.org (I think it's org; ;maybe com) Anyway that has really wonderful selections to choose from. Another good place for Catholic support is the 4reallearning forum.

A really pleasant intro to analyzing lit is Teaching the Classics, sold by the same folks that sell IEW. We just sat and watched the different lectures. I'm planning on doing this with my almost 13 year old. The teacher (can't remember his name; gotta find the dvd) is great and makes the whole subject very enjoyable. I highly recommend. I don't think you need to do analyzing lit until later grades. I did a couple of books with my older ones in jr high (Witches of Blackbird Pond and Farenheit 451) and then in high school we got really into it with classic stuff and Lightning Lit. It does increase comprehension and really fleshes out the work read so that you learn the cultural and historical setting. It introduces them to philosophy and critical thinking, it expands vocabulary, etc. So it is a useful thing to know. But you definitely don't have to do it every grade my opinion.

Classical Writing is written to fit with other grammar programs but the program the authors use is Harvey's. Harvey's is wonderful in my book and quite enough to learn all the grammar you need.

I think my problem is that I am used to grazing all day long and overeating and so to suddenly stop grazing (even though foods are all around me because I'm at home with the kids) and the fact that I just reduced the amount of food I usually eat, made me really, really hungry! I think it will take me a while to adjust. I did borrow a couple of points from the 35 weekly points. I just have to be patient and figure this out. But I got on the scale and I'm already down 5.5 lbs! I know I don't want to lose so fast but wow that was quick!

I went to a meeting and joined yesterday morning and I've been hungry ever since! :tongue_smilie: I am now munching on baby carrots. 10 are zero points! The hardest part though is cooking for the family while trying to limit my own portions/foods. I am such a wuss about eating. I get all shakey and headachey when I'm hungry and today was so hard trying to school, keep my patience and not eat. I realize I eat to relieve stress. I remember my sister once joking that she could be a fat, patient mom or a skinny b*tchy one. You could tell she was dieting at the time cuz she hardly ever uses colorful language! Any tips on keeping those points down and not getting too cranky at the same time?

I don't know about the apple cider vinegar. I thought that was kind of wive's tale. I don't think it's been accepted by the regular medical profession (and I can understand some cynicism, I am too.) But I really can't eat acidic food. I react to citric acid not only with acid reflux but my tongue breaks out in sores and if I keep eating it my face will start to break out. I go very easy on tomato sauce and I don't drink any oj. I have a prescription for aciphex and it is wonderful. I just take 200 mg sometime before bed. I sleep with 3 pillows too and I try very hard not to eat anything a couple of hours before bed. But sometimes something will trigger it and it takes a few days to quiet down. I also can't eat anything spicy. I hope, Shell in SC, you feel better soon!

I'm glad you found your trigger. Mine turned out to be chocolate and msg. Chocolate and msg are everywhere! It's like walking through a minefield every day! But it is definitely worth being pain free!

I miss my spouse because he's been away on business all week and won't be home til Saturday evening. I love him because yesterday he called me from the Santa Barbara Mission on his cell phone where he and some company vice presidents were touring (he's schmoozing with clients) and he walked around describing everything to me because he knew I would love it. I miss him terrible!