Most things can be written out in a notebook or on notepaper, even if there was space for it in the workbook; the dd I did it with has dyslexic tendencies, so a lot of times I would help her format the page (if it was potentially tricksy) instead of leaving her to figure it out by herself. There's some places where you are supposed to underline and double-underline things (subjects and predicates iirc), and box and circle things. I wasn't able to come up with a great way to modify this; I ended up letting her write in the workbook, under the theory I'd be able to erase it for the next ones. You could probably do it orally, instead (but my dd was fairly resistant to that).

Sort of. I flipped through it this weekend, and it has a little bit of everything. It has straight thematic vocabulary lessons, it has special spelling lessons, it has special word-building lessons (which are more implicit than explicit morphics), plus a few more odds and ends. It's meant for middle grades, and I think it will be a nice follow-up to Spelling through Morphographs for my middle girl. Word Wealth, for high school, does thematic vocab for the first half of the book and word roots for the second half (again, more implicit than explicit morphics, but more systematic than WWJ), and will be a good follow-up to StM for my oldest (who is beyond WWJ). Both WWJ and WW are very much focused on *vocabulary* in general, as opposed to any specific approach to vocabulary. Another program that combines spelling and morphic-centric vocab is Megawords (gr 4-12).

Oh, also, I got Kwame Alexander's Crossover from the library - got the rec from the thread Lori linked on narrative poetry. I'm 30 or so pages in. I really like the ones that are giving a visceral sense of the basketball experience - lots of good language (reminds me of hip-hop a bit) and they are really effective at getting you to feel it. And I like the little thematic poems that spin off from the main narrative, both the poems themselves and how they spin off from the narrative. But the poems that are carrying the narrative - they are nice enough, but I don't really understand what makes them poems as such, other than having stanzas #poetryphilistine.

Thanks so much for all your responses :). I have the Koch and MCT books, and started reading the Koch one today. The Runyan one looks interesting - I remember looking it up when you'd rec'd it on another thread, Lori; I re-read the Billy Collins poem - I do like that one, the image of torturing a poem to get at its meaning rings all too true. I'm not a huge podcast/audiobook person - I like to see things in print - but I can see the advantage to hearing poems read well. We listen to audiobooks of familiar books, and a good reader's worth their weight in gold. Might look up poems before listening, so I can follow along. Interestingly, 8, I saw another reference to the poetry reading in Anne Gables today :); it's a neat idea, looking up all the poems. Thanks for all the poetry recs - I'm looking forward to looking them all up. I read the bio of Tennyson at the Poetry Foundation today and they talked about his focus on sounds - sounds ;) right up my alley. Re-read Charge of the Light Brigade - don't think I'd noticed before that he's actually positive about the charge being worth something despite it all. Wrt hymns and psalms (and metrical psalms), I think I ought to prioritize them more. I do love hymns, but somehow when I'm singing them I treat them entirely differently than I do poetry; somehow I can't sing something and think about it at the same time - it's like mutually exclusive brain pathways or something. (And usually singing a hymn is more pleasant than thinking through a poem.) But I've got several memorized, and could write them out and then take a bit to think about them. And it nice to take the time to think about them, because it makes singing them a richer experience, in a way that wouldn't happen if I only sung them. Actually, I think I'd be well-served to make a habit of memorizing some poems. Something about having all the words already in my head gives me a head start in thinking about it, plus you can think about a poem whenever you have a bit of spare time, without needing to have the text with you. Plus all the repetition involved in memorizing is helpful - gives a lot of opportunity to have thoughts and for things to click. Also, sheer familiarity tends to promote liking for me - I have happy thoughts when I meet a poem I've met before, just because it's familiar. Likewise, a poem-a-day habit would be a good one, too - just making a habit of seeing a bit of poetry a day - it adds up. Quarter Note, thanks for all your enthusiasm and recs and analysis - I particularly enjoyed your post :).

I've gone from no appreciation whatsoever to a kind of fledgling, neophyte, still-mostly-aspirational-but-occasionally-concrete starter-level appreciation. But I feel like I've stalled out in my progress and I'm not sure how or where to get going. My one real achievement is learning to hear and genuinely enjoy the sound elements of poetry - the rhythm and rhymes and word play and such. I started out firmly in the camp of "why bother putting things into poetry when prose is so much better anyway", but now I can at least appreciate how good sound is worth aiming for. (I still appreciate the stronger and more obvious sounds, though - not sure I'm up for catching the more subtle rhythms.) But I'm still pretty much at square one when it comes to appreciating the visual images; it's still way too much like deciphering the images instead of *feeling* the images; it still feels like the images are getting in the way of the meaning instead of being the substance of the meaning. Actually, I'm not sure I actually grasp all that much about how the rhythms and rhymes and such embody meaning, either, but I enjoy them for their own sake; and for my own sanity, I'm subscribing to the “appreciating poetry for being lovely is at least half of the point of poetry appreciation” school of thought. (I also subscribe to the “the sound of poetry is at least half the point” and “only analyze poems you already love” schools, too.) But I'd like to learn to appreciate the imagery side of poetry, too: to appreciate the lovely images of a poem as much as the lovely sound of it. And to generally increase my poetry reading ability and stamina. As far as it goes, I genuinely *like* nursery rhymes and humorous children's poetry (Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, Shel Silverstein, Jack Prelutsky, T.S. Eliot's “Book of Practical Cats”, A.A. Milne in Winnie-the-Pooh). And I intellectually appreciate and mildly like non-humorous children's poetry (Robert Lewis Stevenson and the ones in children's anthologies). AKA I enjoy poems with lots of fun rhythms and sounds and wordplay, coupled with straightforward images; plus humor provides excellent motivation. But I haven't really progressed beyond that. There's been the occasional poems I've struggled with on and off because I was motivated to understand them (Tolkien's “Mythopoeia”, Kipling's “The Gods of the Copybook Headings”, some of Dante's “Inferno”), plus I try hard not to just skip poetry excerpts when they are quoted in prose stuff I'm reading (although sometimes I fail when the excerpts are on the longer side). (Interestingly, I just realized that on the “harder” poems I was motivated to understand despite the inherent detriment of their being poetry – I almost entirely ignored the sound. Whereas on the poems I'm reading *because* they are poetry, I pay far more attention to the sound than the images.) Anyway, I've thought about trying narrative poetry, because I like stories (and things with a point), and it might help improve my poetry stamina. But unless the language is really good (while the images are not-too-hard to comprehend), it's going to suffer from “this story would be so much better in prose” syndrome. Any recs for good narrative poems, especially those with a great sound to them? I've also thought about trying short poems of increasing difficulty, hopefully some that have a great sound and are in areas of interest. Any recs for good humorous or religious poems (esp sacramental Christianity; hymn recs welcome)? Or, really, any poems you absolutely love and want to sell me on? Other people's enthusiasm carries me pretty far (esp if the poem is short <shifty>). ~*~ Also, any thoughts or links or recs wrt “why poetry” are welcome. I have only the most fledgling intuitive sense of “why poetry.” It's enough to inspire me to press on, to take it on faith that poetry can convey things that are impossible to convey in prose, and that those things are worth the trouble of conveying - but I still have no idea what those things actually are. I've read a lot of “why poetry” stuff, and while I'm inspired by their writers' obvious passion for poetry, their reasons never resonate. It's like they have the worldview of a poetry-lover and I don't, and until I can somehow manage the paradigm shift, I'll never be able to understand their reasons. Especially since half the time they resort to poetry to try to explain their love of poetry ;). Understandable, given that poetry is apparently the best way to try to say the unsayable, but not as helpful as it could be to the aspires-to-understand-poetry set, lol. (It has occurred to me that my attempts to try to understand poetry apart from actually, you know, actually reading poetry, might amount to me seeking a royal road to poetry <shifty>.) I know I suffer from needing to know *why* I'm doing something, and my reasons for "why tackle poetry" are still a little too "because it's good for you (somehow, in general)". About all I have for intuitive, felt reasons is the inherent pleasure of strong, singsongy rhythms; this one, brief shining moment of poetry appreciation in high school where I had to answer a multiple choice question about the meaning of a line and it just struck me so hard how the line itself was so much fuller and more beautiful and made the test answer seem so ugly in comparison; and when I was filling out a response form for a religious retreat I was on and I didn't have the words to describe what the services were like - I had to resort to "It was really great", and that was just so *inadequate* that it made me wish I'd memorized poetry, so I'd have had the words to do justice to the experience. Those are enough to keep me plugging in an on-and-off sort of way, but not enough to persist in a disciplined sort of way.

Go to where your username is displayed in the upper right corner of the screen, next to the notifications and messages icons. Click on the down arrow to the right of your username, and it should show a menu. Toward the bottom of the menu, under settings, is "Account Settings" - click on it. That takes you to the settings page, and there's a list of options on the left - one of them is Signature (sixth down, I think). Click on Signature and it takes you to the signature editing page. HTH

This is what I use - right now I'm taking my second child through it. I bought it used on Amazon: teacher presentation book 1, teacher presentation book 2, and the student workbook. At the time I bought it (6-7 years ago), I paid ~$30 for the first presentation book, ~$55 for the second presentation book, and ~$5 for the student workbook. Since I've seen prices both lower and way higher for the presentation books - it fluctuates a lot, so it helps to start looking early - but right now it looks pretty good, around $30ish for the first presentation book and around $45-50ish for the second presentation book. I've also seen a steady creep upward in the student workbook prices; I think I paid nearly $10 for the last ones I bought, which looks to be in line with the current prices. I really love it. It's been wonderful for my struggling spellers. I'd say it is heavier on spelling than it is on vocabulary; I'm thinking of following it up with something more purely vocab-focused (I have Word Wealth and Word Wealth Jr on my shelf, from a rec on a thread here, but haven't done anything with them yet). It's a year-long program, teacher-centric, but completely open-and-go. (My oldest and I did the lackadaisical 2.5yr approach, which nevertheless had very good results; my middle and I are doing it at the suggested 1yr rate.) I feel like going through it has helped me learn how to teach spelling. ~*~ Also, Words, by Marcia Henry, has a lot of good info and an interesting approach (albeit not open and go, which is why it is languishing on my shelf).

https://www.soundfoundations.co.uk/en_US/product-category/apples-pears-en_us/ I believe that you can view full previews of the books by clicking on the individual books and then clicking the "look inside" link.

Yep, scam.

That, and also dd13 not caring about what AoPS cared about (and thus having zero motivation to work past the issues making it (extra) hard). I picked AoPS because dd13 has good math intuition and has always cared so very very much about understanding *why* something is the way it is in math (and in general). However, turns out all she cares about is *intuitively* understanding what's going on, not formally understanding what's going on. And she hates having to explicitly *explain* why things are the way they are in general, and super hated having to do it formally. In addition to those "philosophical differences", AoPS expected students to already know or to automatically pick up a lot of "variable manipulation skills" (for lack of a better term), and to be able to follow the steps of a proof as it was worked out. While dd understood the idea of a variable standing in for an unknown number and could solve standard arithmetic equations with variables with ease (all the pre-test asked for), what she did *not* get was the idea of a variable standing in for *any* number. (She's still shaky on that - every time we do functions, she has to be reminded/retaught about how f(n) relates to f(1), etc.) And so while she could follow any individual step in a proof, she had no idea how anything about the proof related to any part of her intuitive understanding of math. Also, while I could coach her through understanding the steps of the proof as I worked it out, she froze at the whole idea of doing math on variables that didn't have to do with finding a specific value for the variable; she also had a hard time seeing how the "doing things to both sides of the equation" way of solving connected to the "write and solve the equation, use what you found to write and solve the next equation" method she used in arithmetic. I think all of that was solvable (I had similar issues connecting her intuitive understanding of math to writing out equations to show her work in word problems, and we managed that) - and working through her problems as they came up was the most informative diagnostic on her underlying conceptual weaknesses I've ever done - but it was a ridiculous amount of work having to stop all the time and explicitly teach her things AoPS assumed she'd naturally intuit, especially since it turned out she actively disliked the whole idea of proofs in the first place.

FWIW, I did a trial of AoPS Pre-A with my oldest (after finishing SM), which conclusively showed that AoPS wasn't a good fit for her. I had Dolciani as a back-up. When I'd flipped through Dolciani prior to trialling AoPS Pre-A, it had seemed dry and kinda uninspiring. But after the trial, when I opened it and started teaching from it, the straightforward logic of it all was a sight for sore eyes, lol. We're 2/3 of the way through it now, and I just keep liking it more and more, to the point making Dolciani my top Alg choice.

Agree it varies by denomination. For ours (Lutheran - LCMS), seminary is a 4yr Masters of Divinity degree. You have to have a bachelor's degree, but it can be in anything - dh's is in biomedical science. Our seminaries also have been working hard to subsidize tuition as much as possible. When dh attended, tuition was 100% subsidized; now it's a significant percentage but not 100%. Even so, he still took out the max federal student loans each year to cover room&board (on top of working part time). There are a *lot* of "second career" guys at the sem, too - over half the students - so they could have built up savings from years of full-time work.

My thought is to do just that. Figure out what publisher/author/series you want to use, get their Alg 2 book, and have him go through the chapter reviews. If he indeed aces the review, then he's "tested out" of that chapter. If he only misses a few topics and aces the rest, have him just do those sections. If he's not solid on several topics, have him do the whole chapter. That way he can get what he needs without a ton of review, and be ready for the next math book in the series. It doesn't surprise me at all that a kid who's done all the AOPS Alg book has mostly mastered the "usual" Alg 2 content. (IIRC doing chs 1-7 of AOPS Introductory Alg covers all the "usual" Alg 1 topics, and the rest of the book moves into typical "Alg 2" topics.)

I vote for starting with book 2A. It sounds like it's an enjoyable confidence builder for her, and that she could use such a thing.

The quote from Corraleno was from the "What makes the classical approach to LA rigorous?" thread.

In the interests of full disclosure, no one would judge my homeschool rigorous (in any sense). I still have the same ideals of academic rigor (in the depth sense) as I used to have, and every year we are closer to them than before (both in depth and, especially, consistency). I'm really quite proud of the progress we all have made, and quite happy with the current state of our homeschool. But compared to your average depth-and-consistency rigorously-minded educator, we started way behind the 8-ball. I was only semi-functional when I started K with my oldest, and it's taken years and years of baby-stepping consistent work to get to this point - a point that is still below what your average well-functioning rigorously-minded educator has been doing all this time. I think we've achieved a multum non multa sort of semi-rigorous hs - one that I'm proud of, but not one that is objectively rigorous in the usual sense (or in the sense I'd imagined back in the day). ETA: And, also, though I wish I'd been at my current level wrt capable and functional when I'd started hs'ing, I don't know that I even wish to be objectively rigorous in the usual senses (including my pie-in-the-sky imaginings). I *like* what we are doing, and I am pretty much academically content with where we are. But it's not at all what I thought I meant to accomplish a decade ago, kwim? But in many ways, that's actually a *good* thing.

Ha! As I recall, back in those halcyon days of planning how to educate an ideal child (when I could blithely ignore the nuts & bolts of actually teaching the actual child in front of me), I wanted to combine the great depth of a traditional classical education with a libertarian kind of child-led unschooling (based more on "treating my children as I, the parent, want to be treated" fairness than in a "children flower best when left to choose their own path" romantic view of nature), plus a dash of CM (the lit focus and the general sense of treating children as real persons). I was a very philosophically-minded hs'er (still am), and the above were the philosophies that most resonated with me and reflected the beliefs I already held (and, yes, in many ways they *were* rather contradictory beliefs, and that *did* reflect an underlying core conflict). But there was also a strong "have your cake and eat it too" element - we were going to have all the rigor and depth and also all the effortless child-led joy; all the in-depth math and languages and music and literature and history and science, plus all the time to explore interests and rabbit trails and play outside. I was in the middle of a years-long depression then, and the gulf between my goals and what I was capable of doing was so vast, and the magic fairy dust of unschooling was going to magically bridge the gap. Anyway, so three major things happened between then and now: *the ongoing effort of hs'ing my actual (not ideal) children, using my actual (not ideal) capabilities *the ongoing effort of building up my actual capabilities through step-by-step consistency (not magic fairy dust) *a major crisis in belief - I lost confidence in everything I'd believed except faith and family (so both wide-ranging, yet not affecting the *most* core things) - and the ongoing effort of figuring out how *should* one live life (and, therefore, how one should be educated). I'm not 100% sure how I defined rigor then - probably something like delving as deeply as possibly into the foundational whys (combined with an unstated assumption that such delving would also somehow magically end up achieving all the more "conventional" forms of excellence). Based on my own experiences as a gifted student, I thought hitting the "usual" things would be trivial, or nearly so, leaving plenty of time for both delving deeper and for individual interests. And then I ended up with 2E kids, and all the usual things weren't so trivial after all; "doing it all" wasn't going to happen. And then I lost faith that "conventional excellences" were even worth having at all. But I also lost faith in my previous reasons for seeking an ever-more-pure traditional classical path. I'd previously assumed that academic rigor (both in the delving ever-deeper into foundational whys sense and in the achieving academic prowess sense) was a self-evident good, but now nothing to do with living life or educating was self-evident to me anymore. Anyway, I still very much value delving deeply into foundational whys - everything we do, we do with as much deep understanding as we can manage - but at the same time I'm more modest in how far I think we can realistically get. (And I'm not as gung-ho on academics as *the* focus of educating for deep understanding of reality.) I have a *much* greater respect for the importance of consistency now, and have put in a *lot* of effort at building up our consistency. I really like square25's "depth and consistency"; I always appreciated the depth side, but now I equally value the consistency side. I now have a greater respect for the practical utility of academic prowess (before I both denigrated it while also assuming it would of course always be there), while still deliberately choosing to not let it drive us - just with a more clear-eyed view of the potential consequences. I've pretty much rejected unschooling entirely; it's still important to me to treat kids as genuine persons and for adults to not be hypocritical in how they treat kids (and for education to have a whole-life focus), but I don't see the removal of restrictions as the path to human flourishing anymore. I'm still inspired by traditional classical education, but I've lost that fervent drive for finding The One True Best Classical Approach. I have a much better sense now how there isn't any "one true classical education"; in the entire history of Christian classical education, at least, people were constantly adapting classical education to fit their view of reality and human life and human nature. I used to seek out an ever-more-pure classical approach in an effort to *learn* the "one true view of reality and human life and human nature", but I agree with David Hicks - you can't really classically educate without *already* knowing all that. And *not* knowing all that - and having contradictory notions in what bits I did have - was a factor in my crisis of belief. Also, I'm more of a religious homeschooler now than I used to be. I was always religious, but I didn't homeschool for religious reasons; now, after a few years of trying to rebuild from scratch on the foundation of my Christian faith, I do. IDK, this is getting long and possibly off track. I've both changed a lot and yet not changed that much on rigor, lol. Most of the things that were important to me then are still important to me now (with the exception of the libertarian notion of removing restrictions as a path to human flourishing), but many of them are *differently* important. Education used to take on an almost religious cast for me - it was *the* path to human flourishing - and so my notions of rigor were caught up in that. Education meant learning to live well, and rigor meant doing the best one could do to learn to live well. Considering the thread topic, I think my notion of a "rigorous education" was in fact *synonymous* with a "deep, meaningful education", even as I also equated "rigorous education" with "academic education". That's where I think the biggest change is. I used to consider "learn to live well" in predominately academic terms; not necessarily in a conventional sense, but in a "explicitly philosophical" sense. Now I consider "learn to live well" in predominately *religious* terms, with the academic/philosophical aspect as one of several aspects, not *the* aspect. I still see rigor/rigorous as striving to do one's best (which is why I've tended to see rigor as a positive term), but I do tend to restrict it as applying to academic/philosophical goals (IDK whether that's the best use of the term or not, but it's the assumption I've tended to make thus far). So rigor (in the depth sense) used to be a top-level goal of mine, because learning to live well via an academic/philosophical path was a top-level goal of mine. But now, while learning to live well is still a top-level goal of mine, and seeking a deep understanding of reality is still a top-level goal of mine, the academic/philosophical path is now one of several second-tier goals supporting the top-tier, instead of being the top-tier. And so seeking rigor - seeking excellence, seeking depth - in academic study is likewise been somewhat downgraded. It's still important, but it's no longer top-tier important.

I've seen the distinction made before (by someone connected with AOPS iirc). This article says that it's a common distinction among mathematicians:

My non-reader was able to do snap circuits on his own from the pictures at age 7 (after having watched his older sisters do it).

Per the author's HSP self-test, answering yes to more than half of the items (more than 14 out of 28) means you are likely HSP. AKA, you don't need to have all the attributes to be HSP. (And she also says that people who answer yes to less than half, but those yeses are very strong yeses, might well be HSP as well.) I read the book a few years after it came out, and one thing the author talked about was how she had observed two different "levels", so to speak, of HSPs. Based on her research, she said that not only was there was a clear line between HSP and not HSP (where 40% are HSP and 60% aren't), but there was also a distinction between those who were more strongly HSP (meaning, iirc, something like over 20-22 on her HSP questionnaire) and those who were clearly HSP but partially or less strongly so (clustering around the "just over half mark" on her questionnaire). Strongly HSP is about 15% of the total population, with another 25% of the total population being partially or less strongly HSP. If you just look at HSPs, a little over a third are strongly HSP. Meaning that it's definitely possible to be HSP without having all the HSP traits. Just anecdotally, in my family, my dh and dsis are HSP, while I'm strongly HSP. And one thing I noticed is that they are highly sensitive in their areas of strength but not in their areas of weakness. Whereas I am highly sensitive in my areas of weakness as well as my areas of strength. (And let me tell you, it is weird and kind of difficult to notice things when you otherwise have no context for understanding or dealing with them.) ~*~ Quick thoughts: *If you are regularly feeling completely overwhelmed, it's likely you might have a lot of stored stress; at the very least, if you aren't thoroughly de-stressing in the afternoon/evening, you are likely adding to your stored stress every day. (Am using "stored stress" as a metaphor for all the cumulative effects of chronic stress.) So it's not just the stress of the day that is overwhelming you, but the stress of the day on top of stored stress; if you begin the day with your stress cup half-full, then you can only take half the amount of stress you can handle before your stress cup overflows. (And being HSP means that a) you might have a smaller stress cup than some and/or that b) you experience more stress than non-HSPs to common events. In any case, HSPs on average need less stress to thrive than non-HSPs, and hit "too much" stress earlier than non-HSPs.) In my case, I reached the point where my default "resting" state was at red-alert stress levels - my stress cup was full, and it took very, very little to send me over. It had confused me, how quick I was to lose it when nothing terribly stressful was happening - but it was because of years of stored stress from stressful times, plus little bits added on each day. De-stressing is now a big concern of mine. *It also helps me to keep one area of the house as a retreat of sorts - tidy, quiet, restful - and retreat there *before* I get to the exploding stage. Also, to have a regular rest-and-retreat time. When the kids were littler, I had mandatory "mommy alone time" in my bedroom once dh came home, which he enforced. I locked the door and stretched and did devotions and read, and he didn't let the kids bother me. Now that they are older, I have a better shot of getting alone time just by telling the kids.

We're all strong-willed in this family. The first things that come to mind are: follow your own rules, and both know *why* each rule you make exists and be able to *explain* that why to your kids (avoid stand-alone "because I said so"). (Eta: I'm using rule really generically here, to include expectations, etc., any sort of guide-to-life.) "Follow your own rules" means that the vast majority of rules should apply to kids and adults equally, and should be followed by kids and adults equally. If limits on screen time are good for kids, they're good for adults, too - and the adults setting the limits should follow them, too. If limits on treats are good for kids, they're good for adults, too - and the adults setting the limits should follow them, too. What's good for the goose is good for the gander - and what's good for the goslings is good for the goose and gander, too. Aka no hypocrisy. No "rules for thee, not for me". Not that there's no differences between adults and kids, but that the point of the rules should be to help guide and teach your kids how to live as an adult - and if you aren't doing your best to live as you want your dc to live, it's rather hypocritical, and undermines your teaching. "Do as I say, not as I do" rarely works out in the long run, and tends to fail in the short term with strong-willed kids. If it's not worth doing yourself, it's probably not worth requiring of your kids; if it's worth requiring of your kids, it's probably worth doing yourself. Which leads into knowing and explaining the why of your rules. The "why" is rooted in "what it means to live a good life" - which is equally applicable to both kids and adults. Often the specifics play out differently for those in different life circumstances - but all should be rooted in clear, applicable-to-all reasons. And I try to allow discussions and questions as much as possible, and reserve "Just do it now, I'll explain later" for when it's needed. ~*~ Also that you can (and should) apologize for accidents. Too many people think apologies are just for intentional wrongdoing/harms, not unintentional ones, and strong-willed people will often refuse to say things they don't mean just to make people happy (not necessarily a bad trait, if channelled toward valuing and upholding truth and honor and away from valuing self over others). I've seen plenty of marriage and family complaints centered around people who refuse to admit that unintentional wrongdoing/harm-causing is in fact wrong/caused-harm. (I used to be one of them.) I tell my kids all the time, when they protest, "But it was an accident!" that *you can apologize for accidents*. Why? Well, if you didn't *intend* to do wrong, then of course you regret it, right? Well, then an apology is sincere and appropriate and called-for. And parents should super lead by example when it comes to apologising, especially including to their kids. No hypocrisy. We all screw up, which means we should all apologize when we do.

Mine really is an "everything" journal, in that I have my book notes and writing and personal journaling cheek-by-jowl with my reminders and piano lesson notes and random jottings. A lot of my book notes and writings span multiple pages, and I title them "<subject/title>, part <#>". My book notes have the book name as the title, and I usually abbreviate it, so only the first page has the full title (and the abbr. in parentheses), and all the rest have just the abbreviation and part <whatever>. Eta: oh, and I write the starting and ending dates for the journal on the cover. They don't correspond to anything except the date I ran out of space in one and so started another.

I have one everything journal, and that's what I do. I don't necessarily even start a new page, if there's room on the current page - just draw a line across the page under the existing text. I write the date in the left margin on the line I start the text, and write a title/subject on the top line. If I have multiple entries on a page, I have multiple titles, separated by semi-colons. In my current journal, I'm experimenting with a running index at the back of the journal. I started at the very back page (and spill over into the next-to-last page, etc); I write the subject/title and whatever page numbers that subject is on, updating as I go (or whenever I feel like dealing with the backlog). (So the subject/titles are in chronological order of first mention, not alphabetical or anything.) For me, the amount of time I spend organizing or planning my journal arrangement is inversely proportional to the time I actually spend *writing* in it. So a blank composition book where I write as I go has been great. I've been doing it that way since college, taking notes in one everything notebook, always just writing on the next page or next available space. Generally the date and a title/subject has been sufficient documentation for future reference (unwieldy documentation breeds avoidance with me).

I really like "that's unfortunate" as a response, too. Currently I say, "I'm sorry to hear that", but I've been looking for a replacement for sorry-as-an-expression-of-sympathy-not-fault. (But I can't help but hear it as the tagline to Dude Perfect's Wheel Unfortunate: "That's UN-fortunate!" It doesn't work so well as low-key, non-committal sympathy that way :lol:.)

There is actually an option for reading about it instead of watching, but it's somewhat less user-friendly. "Blended Structure and Style in Composition" is, as I understand it, the original inspiration for the IEW program. And what IEW did was take it, digest it, teach it, and then used their experience to make TWSS, et. al., to teach their version of that approach to others and provide supports for using it. I have the book, it's really quite awesome - lots of good info, presented well - but it's also *a lot of info*. (Full disclosure, I only made it somewhere to Unit 2; it was definitely my fault, not the book's.) This is against all IEW advice, but I did in fact use SWI-B without having done TWSS (or finishing BSSC). I watched the videos with the kids, paused repeatedly to answer questions and offer my two cents and have the kids answer Pudewa's questions, and learned on the fly with the kids. I had read several overviews of the approach (including the one in BSSC) and, idk, it seemed to work out well enough.