My son just used scratch paper for the most part when he was at the computer. I think there were two lessons where I found writing in the book, so, if I was doing it again, I would just use scratch paper. Of course, then you sometimes have the errors in copying the problem that cause problems also . . . it probably depends on your dc.

We're using Trisms this year, Discovering the Ancient World, with my 9th grade dd, and 10th grade ds. I just asked them last week whether they were enjoying it and they both really like it. The curriculum is completely researched based. The research sheets are divided into art, music, architecture and civlization. There are literature assignments for each unit based on literature that is included in the curr. and in addition to that there are additional reading assignments for each unit which are included as book lists and you pick one for each two units. There are also science history assignments for each unit. The authors recommend IEW for the writing portion of the program and the literature assignments are pretty specific to that method of writing, though it would be possible to complete the assignments without using IEW. HTH

From what I understand, there are many different ways to do the loop scheduling. We have some subjects are are considered daily subjects and are outside of the loop: For example, my sixth grader does a page of MUS Epsilon, a page of Singapore 4A or Challenging Word Problems, and a Bible reading every day so those items are outside of our loop. Then he has loop subjects: Grammar, Latin, Greek, History, Science, Writing, Art/Music. For the loop subjects, he is to spend at least 1/2 hour on the subject unless there's some reason (like a test) where the time would be less). He is supposed to work from about 9 a.m. to noon and then 1 to 2. I know a lot of people stop their loops at noon but I had to modify a bit because I have a lot of younger children and there are times where I'm not instantly available to him for questions, despite my best intentions. Wherever he is at at 2 is the last loop of the day and after his daily subjects the next day, he picks up the loop where he left off.

I revamped our schedules this week and put everyone on a loop and I love it. It has really been a lifesaverfor all of us, but especially my sixth grade son. He has always fought me on school work but this week has been a breeze. No stinky attides, enthusiam for projects, time to pursue his own interests in the afternoon. . . I could go on and on. In fact, I had to laugh because several days he made it all the way around the loop, hitting every subject, in a much shorter time span then it used to take when I was making a detailed too do list for him every day. My highschoolers are enjoying it also - they are turning in more quality work because they are free to work more deeply on a subject rather than just working to get items checked off. A big thank-you to all of you who have presented this idea!

I've always just used the answer key only (the one in the short set) as opposed to the "big" answer key with all the worksheets shown. It's been working just fine - the only time it gets a little strange is when there is a page with an activity like matching or some other activity that involves drawing circles or lines to connect things but I've never had trouble with the description and answers given in the little answer book. HTH

When my now 11 year old son was about 3 or 4 we watched "Singing in the Rain" for the first time. He loved it -he would sing and dance and knew most of the songs by heart. Now he doesn't like it though - he says it too mushy! Enjoy it while you can!

My teenagers are pacing the house, waiting for Amazon to ship this book. Both have reread "Eragon" and the "Eldest" in the past few weeks in order to prepare for the newest release. Unfortunately, I'm third in line to read it. . . . :glare:

My son's taking the Basic Computer Programming course and seems to be enjoying it. No homework or assignments yet though so we'll see how it goes when it gets a bit tougher. Have you had any technical problems? The first class seemed to be a bit chaotic because there were some kids having trouble getting on so the teacher spent lots of time with them trying to get connected and then there were some crashes where everything quit that day. The second class was going well but then my son quit getting the sound through his headphones for some reason (it looked like his "teacher" switched to another student in the class rather than the actual teacher - at least that's the way he described it). Anyway, he needs to go back and listen to the tape but he doesn't think he missed very much. I'm really sold on this and am planning to require my high school students to always have at least one class this way, mainly just so they have someone else to be accountable to for at least one subject.

I don't consider the Ohio laws to be too burdensome but then, this is the only place I've homeschooled. I've never had any trouble with the local school district. I file our notification sometime in July and usually promptly receive my letter two weeks later. I've used several different evaluation methods over the years. I've had a couple of teachers from my church do an evaluation, and I've used both the tests from Seton and the Iowa Basics and just turned in my composite scores in different years. I'm trying to be more consistent on it now and have for several years just ordered my IB tests from Bob Jones. I don't even send the official test results in, just fill out a paper that has my handwriting showing what each child scored as a composite. ( I use the forms from HSLDA). I'm not sure what area you are moving to, but I'm in the Springfield area and there are many homeschoolers around here though I think there are more activities in the Columbus and Cleveland areas but that may just be my perception. Feel free to PM me with any specific questions you have.

I know several have been wondering about them. Just thought I'd let you know that if you ordered from PHP they are on the way. Of course, now that I have it, I'm pretty sure my ds needs to do some work from the first year first, but at least it's here when he's ready.

In our experience, it would probably work well to jump into Book 3. We've done the same thing only we did Hey Andrew, Books 1 and 2, then 3/4 of EG, and my ds jumped back into Book 3 and it's been a good review. If they really have their declinations down, you would probably be fine at Book 4, but we're enjoying the easy-going routine of Book 3. HTH

I've used it quite a bit in the past. I usually use it with my kidlets when they are at that point in reading where they know all the sounds but are still thinking about the sounds individually as they sound out words rather than being able to look at the word and smooth all the sounds together into one word easily. I really think it helped several of my kids. As I'm typing this, I just realized that my current young reader (second grade) won't need it because he has just naturally been able to develop that skill. It can be a deadly dull exercise though. To liven things up, I would let them time me trying to read the pages a couple of times a week and we always kept a chart so they could see their progress. Sometimes we would read with funny voices to try to make it more interesting. HTH

Math U See's scope and sequence is definitely different than most programs. I've never seen much problem with my kidlet's test scores though I'm know that there are always some areas that they haven't covered yet with MUS that they would have covered in a different program or in public school. It seems that with my kids, because they understand math so well with MUS that it makes up for some of the things that they haven't specifully covered. I do think, though, that if I were going to only homeschool first grade, I would probably choose a different program than MUS just because the transition to school may be easier.. . . though, for first grade it's probably not as much of an issue as it would be in third grade and up. HTH

I'm doing the same thing and am trying to keep everyone in the same historical period but I can already see that it may not work. My oldest are doing DAW this year as a freshman and sophmore, my middle is doing HM over two years (sixth and seventh) and my youngest (second grade) is doing STOW I. My basic plan is to keep using STOW but over five years rather than four to make it match the older group (not perfectly but close) - History Makers in the middle school years will always be messing with my schedule because it goes so much faster than the other volumes, but I think it's valuable for the training in the method of research. So, my plan (as it is right now) is to use STOW until sixth grade, HM in sixth and seventh, than the other Trisms volumes for eighth grade and up and just keep folding my kids into that cycle and hopefully the only kid that will ever not be in the same exact history cycle will be the sixth and seventh grade.

Not official - but I called the office this week and they said that the Workbook #2 was expected to ship the first week of September

The first eggs are so exciting. I still remember that four years ago on during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics I found our first egg. My husband was out fishing that night until 2 a.m. and I waited up for him because I was so excited to show him the first egg! I don't wash our eggs before refridgerating unless they are really nasty. Sometimes I do take a damp paper towel if there are some "cling-ons" (sorry to be gross) but the only reason I do that is that we sometimes give our eggs away and I don't want anyone to be surprised when they open the container. I do store mine in the fridge but I can't really help you as to how long they last - I've never had a bad one in four years of eggs. I do know that I've kept them for probably at least a month if not longer. I never worry about it too much because I know that the ones you buy in the store are older than that by the time you get them. I probably wouldn't toss the eggs that were in the pen - you really technically don't have to store the eggs in the fridge but I don't have a rooster either so I know that no babies are growing in my eggs. It might make a difference if you have a rooster. Our chickens have always made use of our nesting boxes except for odd situations where once in a while an egg will end up somewhere else. One time we found a groups of eggs in an old rabbit pen in our barn after the chickens had been loose during the day. Once in a while one will end up outside but rarely - I think I have heard that sometimes with new chickens this can be a problem - we usually keep ours penned up for a few days after they start laying just so they get the idea of putting the eggs in the nesting boxes rather than in the run. HTH and enjoy the eggs

I'm doing DAW this year with a ninth and tenth grader. Instead of setting up daily assignments as I have done for everything in the past, with the DAW assignments I'm giving them all the assignments for two weeks listed out (I use Home School Tracker Plus). I've decided this year it will be their responsiblity to make sure it's done by the end of the two week assignment window. When the assignments are done they write the date beside their list and then they are turning in assignments as they work on them so I can grade/give feedback for improvement and I'm able to keep track of their progress this way and give reminders of how much work remains and how many days are left. It seems to be working well so far and it giving them a little bit of freedom as so how to approach the many writing and history assignments. HTH Janet

with you. It doesn't hurt to cover up and I can understand someone (especially if it was the Dad and teeen son who complained) being uncomfortable. What's the harm in throwing a blanket over the baby? I've been made uncomfortable in a church nursery with a Mom who didn't use a blanket and I'm a nursing Mom. Also, I've found that my babies tend to nurse better in public under a blanket because they are not being distracted by the sights and sounds going on around them.

I just did this for grade 6 science. Do you have the activity book along with the textbook? I almost ordered the teacher's book to have the lessons broken out for me and then I began looking at the activity book and noticed that the pages have corresponding lesson numbers on them and from that information I was able to break it up in per day lessons based on those numbers - I think it ends up averaging about two week or three weeks per chapter but there is some variety in the lengths of the chapters. HTH Janet

Just dealing with that issue here as well, though our favorite name of the week is "stupid". I haven't had an incidence in two days because the past two times it has happened (same kidlets) I brought them into the living room, had them sit on the courch and took my roll of masking tape and very lightly put an "X" over their mouths with the tape (it wasn't tight enough to even hold if they opened their mouths - you know how effective masking tape is on moist skin - LOL). Anyway, I told them that since they were having trouble controlling their mouths they would have to sit together with the tape over their lips to remind them to always keep their mouths speaking pleasant things. I set the timer for 10 minutes then they asked for forgiveness and hugged each other and it hasn't happened since. (I'm not saying the problem is cured by any means but I think I'll try this solution everytime it happens since it seemed effective). HTH

No diagramming in Easy Grammar Plus unless they've changed it in the past two years.

I have this and have used it over the years with various kids. It's not right in front of me, but I think there is a table in there somewhere that shows you how many words per minute by age a child should be reading. We just started at page 1 and like you said, repeat until they can do it at the level then move on. I usually make a chart for stickers so they can see their progress. Sometimes at the higher levels they have fun if I try to do it one day, especially if it's a level they are stuck on. I do appreciate it because I think it does give them confidence. I usually use it after they are through with most phonics but still not a confident reader. We usually do it for a few months before tedium sets in and then we take a few weeks off and pick it up again. HTH

Could it possibly be History Makers from Trisms? http://www.trisms.com

We've used TOG in the past for several years. I finally, reluctantly gave it up and have been much happier without it. Mainly it was just too much . . . too many choices (this was the old TOG, not Redesign). I realized after we quit using it that I had always felt rushed and behind with TOG trying to cover the material at the pace set. Another problem we had with the old TOG was that if you didn't read all the suggested books than the worksheets/discussion questions became a problem because you just hadn't been exposed to the information. I think that the redesign addressed those issues but it was too late for us. HTH

Another possibility is Lamp and Quill International. http://www.lampquill.com They have materials for all ages but you are all studying the same passage at the same time. I just placed an order so I can't speak from experience but the samples look good. For better samples look at their "weekly lesson" section as it shows each age groups work clearly. By the way, if you decide to order, you may want to call them with your order because they told me that their shipping charges on the website are in a state of confusion. (My order generated $34 shipping charge when the real charge was only $14). HTH