This looks very cute - thanks for sharing the link!

:iagree:Remember that Charlotte Mason was applying her strategies in the classroom... that means many children, so for narrations, it usually rotated, not every child every time. And never written down. It's nice and cute to record the narration - plus, I think it helps children get a sense of how easy it is to write their ideas. But for every single time, not necessary at all.

As a Jew and someone studying Hebrew with her kids (we're moving to Israel next year!), I would recommend NOT taking Hebrew lessons with someone at church or learning any pronunciations from "messianic" websites, youtube, etc. From what I can tell, the pronunciations are universally terrible; I mean, laughably so. The Hebrew you learn that way may be understandable to other English-speaking Christians, but it is nothing like either the ancient or modern language as it's spoken and read by Jews and Israelis worldwide. Here are two books that look decent for introducing kids to Hebrew reading: http://behrman.powerwebbook.com/productdetails.cfm?PC=6231 (bought this one for my son, but haven't started it yet) And this one, Journeys Through the Alef-Bet, another pre-primer, has a free printable "sample" that seems well-suited to English-speaking/reading kids: http://www.torahaura.com/samples/34550.pdf (if you like it, presumably, you could buy the book to get the rest of the lessons). Both assume some Hebrew reading on the part of the adult. If you have none, just stay a few lessons ahead with a website like this one: http://hebrew4christians.com/ (they also have some worksheets you can share with your kids) If your goal is fluency, we also use Rosetta Stone Hebrew, which is actually very good (my full review). When you're ready for copywork, or other Jewish printables, I also have a ton of resources at my own blog: http://ronypony.blogspot.ca/2010/10/miscellaneous-hebrewenglish-copywork.html as well as a few resources (including a Hebrew alphabet lapbook) for sale on CurrClick. Good luck!

My son's (Jewish) school is using this book, but I can't really vouch for it as I haven't read it myself: One Land: Two Peoples - A Concise History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict They are also using this one, but I think it's more of an Israel advocacy book than you may be looking for: The Case for Israel He's in Grade 12, so I think these are both mostly adult level. I did see this one recommended on another forum: Light Behind the Darkness: Stories of Compassion from the Holy Land (co-written by a Palestinian - they don't say if he's Muslim - and a Jewish Israeli) To be honest, I am really hoping that a good solid grounding in world history will provide my kids with the best possible background to the contemporary conflict. Too many adults have too shallow an understanding, based on news reports that act like the whole thing started two weeks ago (or two months, or two years, but certainly not over two millennia!), because good background takes too much precious airtime.

OMG, just wanted to update that it's working and I'm currently backing up whatever I can. There is always the chance of a shoddy cable connection; one of them does seem a little wiggly. :-( (in which case, we could have skipped the expense of a new hdd, but the new one was cheap, and much bigger...)

@bill/SpyCar - Thanks for the support about the holidays! It's not the current OS drive, thank goodness. It's actually the hdd from our LAST computer, xplanted into this computer, so it's kinda vintage. The good news to come out of all of this is that there were some other flakiness issues that had me almost convinced that the motherboard was dying. But the system is running lightning-fast and flaky-free with the sick hdd gone. Just want all my movies, music, etc back. (All "school"-related music was backed up on Dropbox, which btw, I highly recommend - you get a lot of space free, plus space bonuses when your friends click your links (like mine, above) and sign up! There's a web interface, but the PC and Ubuntu interfaces are utterly seamless, and glitch-free over the 2 years we've been using them. It's a tremendous way to share the same files on multiple computers.) My ds17 has a hdd carrier / converter usb thingy downstairs somewhere... just have to convince him to find it, perhaps by withholding the WiFi password. ;-) If he can dig it up, we may be able to try it with the laptop, which is running ubuntu, and may have more powerful disk tools. I'll also try switching the cables around, but probably not 'till the holiday is over, on Wednesday or Thursday. :-((( Keep the suggestions and encouragement coming...!

Our second internal hard drive (the one where we keep all our data! :-o) has been flaky for a while. It started disappearing from the drives list in My Computer, but usually a restart, with a token checking/tightening of the cables, would put it back in place. I doubt the cable thing actually did anything, because sometimes just a complete shutdown / poweroff would do the trick. Anyway, I ordered a new drive and it arrived last week and we have been SO busy with nonstop Jewish holidays so it's still sitting in the box. You can see where this is going, right...? :lol: (I am posting here rather than on a tech forum because they'll just hit me over the head for putting off switching, but hopefully other busy parents can relate a BIT...) So last night, Windows popped up a "The file or directory F:\$Secure is corrupt and unreadable. Please run chkdsk utility" and the same message for G:\, the virtual hdd on the same drive. And I resolved to change the drive the minute the holiday was over. The drive was still visible at that point and I was able to read/write files, albeit with performance issues. And then this morning, the drive is gone. Reboot, cable check, everything... and nothing. C:\ drive is fine, everything else is normal. F:\ and G:\ are simply vanished into the ether. Please don't hate me. When I say "busy with Jewish holidays," I don't mean one family meal here and there - I mean stretches of days at a time when the computer, lights, phone etc are off-limits, to the extent that we can't touch them. And before that, days of preparation, ie cooking and cleaning. It's barely possible to sit down and breathe at this time of year. Is there anything I can try besides paying exorbitant data-recovery type fees to get back some of the data on this drive???? The really critical stuff (family photos, school ebooks, printables etc) is backed up to Dropbox, but there is other stuff we could really, REALLY use, including some very old applications I can't get copies of anymore. (like my default image editor, a free beta version of a mainstream program) Help? :-((((((

Okay, nobody in these posts has actually asked where you live, which strikes me as strange. If you're in a dry part of the southwest, snails might be VERY hard to find indeed. What state are we talking about here? Here in Toronto, we have a ton of snails - two varieties - in our garden, but I take it as a compliment, because it was a very dry, infertile sandy patch when we moved in. Not a snail in sight - they moved in as the garden grew more fertile. :-))) They DO adore the beer/sugar-yeast-water (cuz why waste good beer when all they want is yeast???), though I've only ever used that to catch slugs. One trick beyond shallow pans is to actually dig a hole in the ground, preferably near a shady, leafy, moist plant, then sink a (plastic) cup right to ground level. If they're around, they should come overnight... ETA - by the way, I had never ever EVER (literally EVER) seen snails in our yard or neighbourhood until I had kids who were interested in snails. Gradually, I have overcome my nature-blindness and can now spot them everywhere. But years ago, I would have sworn there were no snails here either.

My K'er is young (just turned 5 - Junior Kindergarten here in Ontario), but honestly... I'm overwhelmed reading these lists. These are all great activities, but I don't quite understand why you need so much stuff BEFORE you start school. School for my ds5 is just some simple writing, reading, math, logic type activities. Other than that, at this age, they need to be outside, to be doing physical stuff as much as possible, running around if they can or entertaining themselves with books or toys. Plus, it is very likely that your 5-yo's tolerance for boredom is waaaaay higher than your own. He may not mind at all doing the same activities in a rotation, perhaps knowing that on Monday he does ___, Tuesday he does ___ etc. Esp with an oldest child (here's the advice from an older mama!), I would do whatever I could up-front to minimize his impression that it was my job to keep him entertained. When he's finished school, he can be excused to do his own thing. My 5-yo regularly comes running up asking for tape or scissors or paper or string or whatever (if I was more Montessori or our house were tidier, I'd have these arrayed attractively where he could get at them himself). If the request is reasonable, I give him what he's asking for, and he runs off back to whatever he's working on. Bonus: they LOVE surprising me with their independent projects!

What an awesome free curriculum! I'd love to find a way to squeeeeeeze this in for my K & 2nd to share together... (she likes babyish stuff sometimes, and misses a lot of the picture books of our early hs years)

We have a cheap but sturdy bucket balance from Rainbow Resources, but I see they don't have the same one. Still - you could call them to ask for one that's inexpensive but sturdy, or just visit an educational supply place. Ours was under $15. Also, a digital kitchen scale is awesome for precise measurements in grams and ounces. Get one that switches fairly easily and measures to 1 decimal place; they can usually be bought here for $12 now, so probably $10 in the US. It'll wear out eventually, but in the meantime, they'll feel like real scientists. Not sure what you mean by unit conversion charts? Metric to imperial? Or just ounces to gallons or whatever? In any event, you can probably find what you need inexpensively at Rainbow or another educational site / store.

Nah, it's every kid to some extent, I think. Smart kids jump ahead with the answers as soon as they think they know the question. I have told my oldest ds (turning 18) more than once that the HS math courses he takes may be easier for him than for the other kids, but for THEM it's a math course; for HIM it's a listening-and-following-instructions course. He'll do everything brilliantly and then not write the answer in the form the question requests it... he'll just write in whatever he thinks should go there. Argh. :-) Kind of makes me want to give them this joke test... ;-) ETA, but seriously, I enjoy JUMP Math, our math program, for this specific reason. All steps are broken down verrrrry carefully. It also minimizes its use of English for numerous reasons, including accessibility to kids who either aren't reading well yet (very possible in the Grades 1-3 books) or are from families where English isn't the first language. You can see sample worksheets here if you scroll down.

If you want to see the profile of a family that shouldn't be homeschooling, there's one in particular featured in Robert Kunzman's Write These Laws on Your Children that I found particularly annoying, and a couple who probably aren't really "qualified" to homeschool. As a traditional educator, he goes into the book with the idea that homeschoolers should be required to meet some type of minimal standards for literacy and numeracy, is stonewalled by every single homeschooler he talks to, and concludes that testing is probably necessary anyway. Sheesh. I was expecting far less bias and far more insight into actual families' lives, but it might be interesting for you as background because of the family profiles...

Just curious... how is her reading different? We adore Jim Weiss and he has become a fixture around here, so I'd imagine we'd go with "his" edition for SOTW2, but I'm wondering why some people prefer the original. Thanks!

We have been using HWOT for a few years. I don't love the cursive style, but I plan to move into it when we finish the current book. The order of letter presentation is very rational and the letters build on each other as the student progresses. Plus, the materials will be familiar and are beloved around here by both my kids. I do believe that once people have been writing in script for a few years, their handwriting "settles" into a nicer, more adult-looking script that is not always the same as what they "officially" learned. This is all theoretical, because although I sorta-kinda learned script long ago, I print in block letters at all times (comes in handy when filling in forms!). HWOT actually has helped me make my block printing more legible, and I'm hoping it will help me use script when necessary, too.

I love this motto! For what it's worth, I have rather obnoxiously taken to calling our work time "schoolie." The term annoys even me, but the kids seem to like it as a way to differentiate between bricks-and-mortar school and what we do at home.

I agree about Big Woods and Farmer Boy, but beyond that I'll be the voice of dissent here and say my son barely tolerates reading these. While dd hangs on every word, ds sits there groaning (silently, so as not to interrupt). We are taking a break now after Little Town on the Prairie. Not sure if we'll finish the series. On the other hand, he ADORES Anne of Green Gables, so I don't think it's a gender thing, I just think he feels the book is wasting his time as Laura gets older and her adventures are less and less lively (while dd just adores every single description of a dress, or corset, or pie!).

Yay! Isn't it interesting how things catch their interest? And how they're all different...? :-)

I'm afraid I don't understand. You say he prefers FLL3 to CGE... does that mean you have both? If you have a choice, scrap that one that's making him cry, for sure. If you're concerned that it doesn't go past 3 (as mentioned in your previous post), cross that bridge when you come to it, after you've given him a happy foundation. The source of the problem isn't clear from your post - do you have a strong English/grammar background? Is this a subject you are comfortable teaching? Are you sure he has a strong grasp of the basics, like parts of speech? Practically speaking, as you say, he is working at a very high level, but the foundational stuff is important, too. Anyway, these are NOT the only 2 grammar programs for mid-elementary kids. When you get to the crying / screaming vicious cycle, it is time to cut the lesson short, for sure; just pull back and re-evaluate (as you're doing!).

A bit limited, but there's one for Apologia Zoology 1 (Flying Creatures) that might be helpful. 3blessings4me shared it in this thread: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/showthread.php?t=299584 (scroll down, it's not right at the top) Also, it's a whole curriculum, but I really enjoyed Living Learning Books Science (Life Science), which has detailed book recommendations for each topic. I've ordered it for Earth Science this year even though it's not going to be our main curriculum mainly because the book recs were so helpful.

We used HWOT and I enjoyed its practical approach to letter formation very much, esp given that my own handwriting is lousy. We still did plenty of copywork, in two languages, so we move through the HWOT books very slowly. I do like having the "how-to" as well as basic copywork. I wanted to add to Shannon's observation that before I look at my dd's copywork or HWOT work, I ask her to find one word that she could write better and erase any letters she needs to to fix it. Just one. I think this gives her a sense of pride, and saves me some needless criticism when she usually knows perfectly well what needs to improve.

Has anybody else here read this book??? I know it's been out for a while, but I just read it last weekend and was somewhat annoyed... The subtitle is "Inside the World of Conservative Christian Homeschooling," and I was hoping for more about the religious aspects of homeschooling and for insight into how various families educate their kids. I found that while the book's insights are helpful sometimes, a) there weren't enough family profiles, b) most of the family profiles were unflattering indeed, and c) after spending the book asking homeschoolers what type of evaluation would be fair (most were resoundingly negative about the idea of even a very basic skills test for their kids), reached what sounded like a foregone conclusion anyway. I know the author is a mainstream educator, but was this book a huge disappointment to anyone else on here... or do you feel it reflects accurately the picture of the "average" Christian homeschooler? From what you've seen in your communities, does this book really reflect the quality of parent educating taking place out there? For instance, none of the parents interviewed seemed to believe in Teacher's/Parent's Guides (true, they're expensive, but can be useful, esp. in older grades). And then, in a truly agenda-driven way, I believe he interpreted the looseness of scheduling (and sleeping-in of parents) as laissez-faire teaching/parenting. (I took that personally because I am a night owl and we do generally start late... but get TONS done during our school time.) Any other reactions to this book?

Ditto - since switching to Word 2007, I just do File, Save As... and PDF is an option. However, my favourite printer is actually a SUITE of very useful PDF tools: PDFill. I have tested PrimoPDF, DoPDF, CutePDF etc., and find that PDFill does a better job... plus, the other tools include helpful PDF-to-image converters, utilitites that let you strip out only certain pages from a PDF, combine PDFs, and more. But if you all you want to do is print to PDF, then it does install a print driver just like the others. This package (free!) was invaluable when I bought Mr. Q Science because there was no way I was printing the whole Student book. PDFill let me strip it into 2 parts - the workbooky stuff that needed printing and the read-aloud stuff I could just stash on my Kobo. I have been printing to PDF for almost a decade but honestly, I was never happy with any solution until PDFill. Boy, I sound positively evangelical about this thing. I promise, I don't get a commission... I just love it.

This is a thank you to members for our patience while he was moving, getting Internet access set up, etc. It's only for current or past subscribers, but should still work if your subscription has expired. Instructions: Go to http://thehappyscientist.com/two-month-extension Then log in to your account. Do this, even if your subscription has expired, because the code won’t work if you are not logged in. If you have forgotten your username and/or password, email me at: membersupport@krampf.com Once you are logged in, copy the coupon code: HAPPYSBACK 
and click the Add to Cart button. On the next page, click Checkout. Fill in your information, and paste the coupon code in the box labeled “Coupon code:†Click the Apply to Order button. That should give you a $0 balance. Click the Review Order button, and Submit. If you are still a subscriber, that will add two months to your subscription. If your subscription has expired, it will give you two months of access, to see the new videos, new experiments, and other changes. Enjoy!

I haven't bought any of the the TG's and we've been okay so far. I know there's a bit more theory with the cursive, but really, just following the workbook in order - they're taught that way for a reason - is half the key to this program.