As far as I can tell, the Dolciani book uses the standard flowchart symbols, and looking online, there are lots of guides on how to make flowcharts (I googled "how to flowchart" and "learn to program through flowcharts"). I found this link: Introduction to Programming through Flowcharts, which might be helpful. People use flowcharts for far more than just programming, too - it might help if you looked at how to make flowcharts in an area that's familiar to you. (A lot of the "how to flowchart" links seem to assume you understand the basic thinking involved in your field and just need to learn how to express that thinking in flowchart form.)

WRT "what has everyone moved on to", I'm guessing that a lot of the people interested in old Dolciani books moved on to the Art of Problem Solving (AoPS) books. Those books are trying to do the same thing - "proofy math" - but are easier to find, with a lot more supports. WRT the flow charts, it's programming, basically. We did similar things in my honors math class - telling a computer how to solve a math problem requires you to make *all* the steps explicit and in the right order. It's one of the hard things about learning to program - to find all the hidden assumptions you are making, and make them explicit, because the computer will only do what you *tell* it to do, even when that's not what you *want* it to do ;). And when you tell a computer how to do math, it makes you think through *all* the steps and how they fit together - no assumptions allowed. They are kind of pre-proofs, in the sense that it's practice getting from point A to point B without leaving any holes in the steps. Programming is *very* logical. I like them, and I'd do them, but they make sense to me (I was a computer engineering major back in the day). I'm not sure how to learn them other than to just read the instructions and *do* them, comparing your answers to the answers in the back. Or snag a programmer to walk you through a few, either in person or here - I've got the book and others here probably do, too. Or mess around with some of the learn-to-program apps out there to learn the basic approach to that sort of thinking. Or if your dd is good with logic, she might be able to figure them out on her own. It's good to have someone to check over it, though, because people tend to miss steps at first without realizing it. It's the math/logic equivalent of those "how-to" paragraphs my elementary school had us write: tell how to tie your shoe, for example, and the teacher would show hidden assumptions by following the directions as written *exactly* ;), so that she'd hit snags whenever the directions were wrong or incomplete, making it clear to people what they'd left out or described wrong. The first few practice ones have you following their flow chart before making your own - the basic idea is that you do *exactly* what it says. No assumptions, no hopping ahead, just *exactly* as written. (Like following the IRS instructions to do your taxes, but mercifully more comprehensible ;).) And at least in my copy, the first one refers back to a problem given a little more traditionally, so if you understand the problem first, then you can focus on just figuring out how to understand the flow chart from. Any of that help?

I've seen an author or editor respond to what they perceived as an inaccurate review, and as a one-off it doesn't bother me, especially if they are calmly providing useful facts or insight. But there's an author whose work I've appreciated who has responded very abrasively to several of the negative reviews of his books on amazon - he seems to take positive reviews as his due and blames negative reviews on the reviewer's clear defects in understanding or honesty. I still appreciate his work, but I admit, the arrogance he's revealed has colored my opinion of him.

I have really enjoyed Koine - they have contemporary arrangements of traditional hymns that are very well done. We have all their CDs, listen to them daily, and the kids and I have learned a lot of hymns that way :). (They have kept most of the melodies the same, so that we have no trouble singing hymns we learned through Koine out of the hymnal at church.)

Learning to regroup after a bad morning (or a bad day) and get *something* done, instead of just writing the whole day off at 10am because I started badly, or the whole week off because of a bad Monday and Tuesday - that has been a huge step for me. And making school a priority - putting it up there with getting kids fed every day - has been important - so that I'm not waiting till I "feel up to doing school", but instead am committed to trying my darnedest to do *something* every day. The whole "nibbled to death by ducks" approach - it doesn't always feel like much, but it adds up over time.

I have a history of depression and I get hit by seasonal depression each winter (I also have anxiety problems, but they mostly don't affect homeschooling). Probably the biggest thing that has helped is having a set routine, one that becomes habitual, so that on bad days once I stumble out of bed I kind of fall into my morning routine out of habit. When I'm depressed, I have no energy for making decisions or figuring things out, and left to my own devices I will lose myself in a book or the web for hours. But with a habitual routine, it doesn't take any thought - I just go through the motions and it keeps life going. Other helpful things are creating healthy habits when I'm feeling good, so that I've got stuff that helps boost my mental health in my routine. For me that's the usual exercise and sleep and personal care stuff, healthy, easy food to eat, some stress relief stuff, and positive things to fill my day with (to help keep effortless distracting time wasters from taking over). I also prioritize practicing my faith (Lutheran Christian, so my priorities are to hear God's Word and receive His Sacraments (to strengthen my faith) as well as make sure my routine is centered around living out my faith). Other practicalities that help is to really streamline my hs'ing, so that everything is open and go, and that everything that can be prepped ahead of time (while I'm feeling good) is done and available for use. I also prioritize my day, so the important things are done first (I tend to be at my best first thing and fall off from there). Basically (when I'm feeling good), I look at what falls apart on bad days and what manages to get done, analyze why, and figure out how to make all the important things doable with the few resources I have on bad days. Mostly everything falls under two headings: things I do to increase my functioning on bad days (routines, that include the things that give me the biggest bang for my buck, mental health wise), and things I do to decrease the amount of effort it takes to do things (routines fit here, too, plus planning ahead, streamlining, making things simple and open and go). There's a decent bit of trial and error involved, in analyzing what good habits help most in increasing my ability to function, and what sorts of things tend to trip me up. It's been a process, and I'm still working at it, but I get more done every year :). :grouphug:

My dd6.5 is gf, and our usual, everyday snacks are nuts and dried fruit, or fresh fruits and veggies. I keep some gf junk food (Glutino pretzels (which are really good, not just good-for-gf ;)), Enjoy Life soft-baked cookies, and Annie's bunnies) around for when we go to parties or otherwise bring junk into the house, plus I keep Rice Chex, gf crackers (Rice Thins), and Chex granola around for occasional "special" snacks.

This. I generally assume that people who act in a friendly manner toward me have friendly feelings toward me. As Jean said, that doesn't mean undying friendship, just that I generally assume they aren't gritting their teeth on the inside or something - that their outward actions toward me (of enjoying some friendly chit-chat) accurately reflect their inner feelings toward me.

Cup sizes vary based on the size of the band - a 36B is a bigger cup, in terms of the volume it holds, than a 34B. In fact, a 34B is the same size cup volume as a 36A, which is the same as a 32C and a 30D. (Sizes that have the same actual physical cup size, but different band sizes, are called sister sizes.) So going down in the band size and up in the cup size isn't as much as a true change in the actual size of the cup as you might think, and in fact could be no change at all.

There are different ways of sizing. Some brands have the band size as your actual measurement in inches - you are 30" around just underneath your booKs, therefore your band size is 30. But others (like Victoria's Secret) take that measurement and add 5 to get the band size - you are 30" around just underneath your booKs, so add 5 and your band size would be 35 (or 36, since you round up). And since the cup size is determined by how much bigger your around-the-booKs measurement is than your under-the-booKs measurement, the cup size will be much larger with the first way of measuring than the second way. For example, my under-the-booKs measurement is 29", and my around-the-booKs measurement is 33". By the first method, that means my band size is 30 and my cup size is C or D (one cup size for every 1" difference between the two measurements). But with the second method, my band size is 34 and my cup size is AA (actually, this method makes it look like my booKs are *smaller* than my chest). And I used to wear a 34A in VS bras for a long time, but after getting properly measured elsewhere I learned just how badly that fit compared to a 30D. That said, my experience is that push-up bras *totally* vanity size. In push-up bras, I wear a 32DD. All I can think of is that 32DD is the size it makes me *look* ;).

The workbook is bound like the regular book and is about the same size, but the pages are three-hole-punched and perforated, so that you could easily tear them out to work on and store in a binder.

WRT wanting to be home b/c of introversion and wanting to be home because of depression: So I'm both an introvert *and* have problems with depression. And *because* of the introvert thing, I can miss the depression sliding up on me because I'm *used* to not wanting to go places. I go from preferring home to crying at the prospect of having to go somewhere without really noticing all the intermediate steps that got me there. The fact that depression sucks all the emotion out of life delays my realization that my "calm", "reasoned" "I just don't feel like going" response to the prospect of going *anywhere* is maybe not so calm and reasoned as it consciously feels. Depression gives a reflex "flight" response to the difficulties of life, and when going places has always taken a bit more effort than not going places, it can be hard to tell when there's more going on until it's well on its way to swallowing your life. At least for me, when depression starts coming into play my anxiety starts acting up more (it provides a nice bit of panic to enliven the otherwise colorless world of depression ;)). It's less "I'd just as soon not go through the hassle" and more "I can't *handle* the hassle, why do people keep making me go through this!?!" But the slide from one to the other is subtle enough that wrt my annual battle with winter depression, I tend to wake up mid-February and realize I'm hanging on by my fingertips as I collapse in a crying fit about evening Lenten services starting, and realize I've forgotten what it's like to *want* to go *anywhere*. (Depression and anxiety go hand-in-hand in that their default response is to *avoid* whatever's causing problems; but every time you give in and avoid, the harder it is to *stop* avoiding.)

"The" does sound out, though - a voiced /th/ and a long /ee/. After they get some experience reading, they pick up that many times the 'e' gets schwa'd and "the" gets pronounced as a voiced /th/ and an /uh/. It's extremely phonetic.

I was the only girl not invited to a party once. It sucked, I cried, but I got over it. But *three* years after it had happened, the girl's mom apologized to my mom about it. I hadn't even remembered it anymore, but it had stuck in her head all that time.

I suspect dd9 is dyslexic and we are doing WWE 2. Sometimes I do copywork instead, and sometimes I do studied dictation using the markings in Spelling You See (which we are doing). So before we do dictation, she studies it and colors all the multi-letter phonograms (yellow for vowels and blue for consonants) and silent letters (green) and R-controlled vowels (violet) and suffixes (orange), and I've added in blends (brown), because she can't hear blends well and pretty much always misspells words with them. DD9 has a really good visual memory, so once the markings have "forced" her to see all the little bits that make up the word, she usually can spell the words she's marked. ETA: Forgot, we also mark y-as-a-vowel (red, I guess? or pink? IDK, think I mixed up the colors somewhere, but it doesn't really matter anyway, so long as you are consistent.)

I wasn't hs'ed - ps all the way through - but this was my experience in church youth groups, too. Unintentionally ignored most of the time by the other kids, always the outsider looking in. (Even though I knew most of the kids because I'd grown up in the church and my parents were super-active - everyone knew who they were - and I did get on much better with adults or younger kids.). I was too shy and generally socially awkward to do anything but sit on the sidelines wishing someone would magically realize I wanted company and come talk to me (but doing my best to look like I was just where I wanted to be, so as not to look like the loser I felt like). At the time I thought everyone else had it all together (versus me, the wallflower loser), but now I realize that all the other kids were probably just as worried about fitting in and being rejected as I was. (And I learned that I come off as aloof and unapproachable on my best days; as an awkward lonely teen desperately trying to look as if I *liked* being alone...I bet I looked like a full-on ice queen who was ready to jump on anyone who disturbed me.) Anyway, I guess this is just to say your dds aren't alone, and that it gets better :grouphug:. I volunteered as a Sunday school helper my senior year, and that was *loads* better than sitting lonely through yet another high school class. Also, I got to know some of the other "social rejects" and was friendly with them - we kept each other company at events. She's a bright spot in my teen memories, and I'd never have gotten to know her if I hadn't been an outsider, too. Eta: as far as I knew, my youth pastor didn't notice. I was actually part of the youth leadership for 18 months, if you can believe it. The other leaders and I got on great at leader stuff, but that never carried over into regular events - then it was back to the sidelines. They never thought to include me and I was too shy and scared of rejection to "push" my way in. In retrospect, I think there were far more kids feeling left out than I realized at the time. But most of them could make friends in general (unlike me), so they still seemed way more confident than I was. The girl I made friends with was like me, different and awkward in every setting she was in.

I use the textbook, workbook, IP, and CWP (no teacher's guides - I get math, and the sm methods make sense to me, and so far I haven't had a problem coming up with my own ideas for additional ways to present something). The textbooks are easy to find used - I pieced together a complete set, 1a-6b, for about $50-$60. I do cringe at spending $50/kid/year on consumable workbooks :svengo:, but I tried using just the text and IP, coming up with my own practice problems in place of using the workbook, and it sucked - lots of work and it wasn't going well to boot. I teach out of the txtbk, working through all the examples and practice problems, and then they do the Wkbk exercises independently. I do the IP and CWP a semester behind, working through a few pages of IP and 1 page of CWP a day, mostly independently (so, for example, we do IP 3a and start at the beginning of CWP 3 when we start tb/wb 3b).

I believe similarly to her, and for us, at least, we believe that the pre-trib rapture *interpretation* of Revelation did not exist until the 19th century. The book of Revelation itself, however, has been around since St. John wrote it between 70-100 A.D. :).

Lutheran (LCMS) here, and we are amillenialists. We believe that both the end times (the tribulation) and Christ's millennial reign began when He ascended into heaven. Revelation is a symbolic retelling of the entire salvation story, not a blow-by-blow account of a literal seven year tribulation. And wrt the rapture, we do not believe in a secret rapture of believers prior to the with-trumpets-Second-Coming, but instead see the rapture as happening at the same time as Jesus' extremely-visible-to-all Second Coming. ETA: Like the next poster, we don't really use the word "rapture" at all. (Those old bumper stickers "In case of rapture, this car will be unmanned" *really* confused me as a teen - all I could think of was teA-related rapture ;) and I couldn't make heads nor tails of what "unmanned" would mean in such a context :lol:.)

In case it might be helpful, here's a big picture summary I wrote up from my notes on LiPS. It was very helpful for *me* in terms of organizing my knowledge, so I'm throwing it out there. Also, I'm including a list of all the manipulatives I needed to make. ~*~ Part 1: Setting the Climate for Learning: This is a short step, but important - is basically explaining the point of the program to the student. Focus is on teaching the students to be able to distinguish sounds for themselves, instead of having to rely on the teacher to tell them if they are right or wrong. Part 2: Identifying and Classifying Speech Sounds: This is one of the unique foundations for LiPS. Instead of sounds being taught as a series of unrelated units, the LiPS program makes the underlying structure of the English sound system apparent as the students categorize the sounds on the basis of similarities and differences in the place and manner in which they are produced. This provides a tool students can use later in identifying and tracking speech sounds in syllables. Each sound has distinct characteristics that differentiate it from other speech sounds, and these characteristics can be heard, seen, and felt as the sound is produced, for a multi sensory experience with the sounds. In this level of the program, students learn to use information from the eye, ear, and mouth to identify, classify, and label individual consonant vowel sounds, and to associate the sound they hear themselves say, the appearance of the mouth action when the sound is made, and the physical sensation of making the sound. There's a big emphasis on distinguishing via comparison - first you start with the sounds that are the most different from each other, and learn to feel the differences, and then you learn to make smaller and smaller distinctions. The mouth pictures are used extensively here. Part 3: Tracking Speech Sounds: The ability to track sounds in sequences and conceptualize them visually is a critical factor in reading and spelling. In spelling (encoding), sequences of sounds are translated into sequences of letters; in reading (decoding), sequences of letters are translated into sequences of sounds. Either task involves two important skills: tracking sounds in sequences, and associating sounds and symbols with those sequences. The LiPS program develops these two skills separately before asking the student to combine them in spelling and reading tasks. The LiPS program offers two unique and important features here: 1) A progression of smaller steps than is ordinarily given in beginning reading programs, and 2) experiences with tracking and representing sequences of sounds with *concrete objects* (mouth pictures and colored tiles) *before* the student is asked to associate and represent with sequences of letters symbols in spelling and reading. The tracking sequences starts with tracking sounds in single, simple syllables (VC, CV, CVC) and then moves to tracking sounds in single complex syllables (CCV, VCC, CCVC, CVCC, CCVCC) and simple multisyllables. From there it moves to tracking sounds in complex multisyllables. Here's how it works: You start by saying a syllable - /at/, for example - and the student models it with mouth pictures or colored tiles (same color for same sounds, different colors for different sounds). Then you change just *one* sound and the student changes the tiles to match what they heard. There are five types of changes: *adding a sound *omitting a sound *substituting one sound for a new one *shifting a sound to a new place *repeating a sound And with each change, the student shows the change they heard with the tiles. The manual has lots of these sequences already done - you just move through them one by one - and it has lots of teaching suggestions and sample scripts. Part 4: Associating Sounds and Symbols: the other half of the reading/spelling task. You can teach them in part 2 or wait and teach them here, just before moving to spelling activities. Spelling and reading overlap with tracking - as soon as you've mastered tracking single simple syllables, you add in spelling single simple syllables as you also move on to tracking simple multisyllables and complex single syllables. Part 5: Spelling (encoding) and Reading (decoding): Spelling and Reading follow the same progression as Tracking: start with simple one syllable words (pseudo and real) and then move to complex one syllable words and simple multisyllable words, and then move to complex multisyllable words. Spelling starts with using letter tiles to build words, and later moves to writing the words; Reading likewise starts with the teacher building words (real and pseudo) from letter tiles before moving to reading print. Both use the same sort of "change one sound" sequences as tracking does. And you overlap spelling and reading in the same way you overlap tracking and spelling - as you master spelling simple one syllable words, you move to reading simple one syllable words as you also move on to spelling complex one syllable words and simple multisyllable words. Spelling emphasizes consciously integrating the sound-symbol cues previously established. For example, consciously considering whether you can spell the Lip Popper /p/ using 't' - does that match? The focus is on consciously using sensory feedback to check whether what they *see* matches what they *hear* and *feel*. When reading for meaning, if a word doesn't make sense in context, it's a sign to go back and check your decoding. Error handling focuses on asking questions that help the student *discover* their error, instead of the teacher just telling the student the right answer. ~*~ Here's my list of things to be copied and laminated and have magnets added to: Things to copy out of the LiPS manual (I actually scanned them and cropped the edges and then printed all of them on white cardstock and then laminated them): *Mouth pictures (1 page) (I never could get my scans/copies to come out right, so I ended up buying a set of those from the publisher.) *consonant symbols and vowel symbols (1 page each) *bingo cards (optional-ish, 3 pages) *vowel mat (1 page) *tracking mat (1 page) *sets of simple syllables and words for reading (6 pages) *sets of complex syllables and words for reading (3 pages) *syllable cards (3 pages, and it's possible/probable that making more cards with other syllables you come up with would be good/necessary - I haven't read that chapter closely yet) *grid endings (2 pages) Additional things to make: *colored tiles: 24, in four groups of six colors, and an additional nine more, each in a different color (and different from the six colors in the first set). I made squares and colored them in with sharpies on the edges of the other pages (the ones where stuff was getting cut out) *little line drawings of an ear and a nose (or pictures), on small squares (maybe 2 or 3 each?) Things to be cut out: Basically everything *but* the vowel mat and the tracking mat Things to have magnets added: *consonant and vowel symbols *colored tiles *ear/nose pictures Other thing to have - magnetic whiteboard. It actually calls for a custom magnetic trifold whiteboard (which can only be bought from them, as far as I can tell), but I'm making a go with 15"x15" square boards (with a 2'x3' board in reserve). ETA: In practice, those boards worked fine, plus using a cookie sheet also worked well.

I have the 3rd edition (published in the 1998), and it actually has fairly extensive scripting. It's just that the person teaching it needs to know the material themselves before trying to teach it - it's scripted in the sense of "how to present the material to the student" but you can't learn the material alongside your student - the teacher needs to have learned it themselves beforehand. It was *very* fascinating - so many lightbulbs (I have the same problem distinguishing sounds and manipulating phonemes and syllables that my kids do - if I hadn't had several years of learning to teach phonics under my belt, *I'd* have failed the Barton screening) - but it was all so *new* to me - I didn't have any background info to give me pegs to hand this new info on - that it took serious, like-I'm-taking-a-college-class study to learn it. (And in terms of initial prep, it took me two skim-throughs of the whole manual before I wrapped my brain around the big picture enough to know where the whole thing was going. It's really elegant in its simiplicity, but it took a decent bit of study before I *grasped* the core ideas.) At least for me, even with the scripting, I still had to be conversant enough in the material and the lesson to be able to go off-book to have the necessary facility to teach it properly. And I just didn't have the will or wherewithal or whatever to keep up with that sort of prep. Really, what I should have done was to use my dh as my guinea pig and taught it all to him first (I taught the kids separately, and the second go-through always went smoother). But, again, not enough of *something* to make the necessary commitment. I still hold out hope that I'll get there someday, though.

Looking at the Barton screening test, there are three parts to the part C: A) repeat the sounds, B) pull down the correct tiles, and C) correctly touch the tiles and say the correct sounds. From what you said, he could mostly do A) and could not do B) - could he do C) correctly, in that he correctly repeated back the sounds again in the right order? Also, looking at the scoring, even if his problems with the tiles were due to not understanding what he was supposed to do and not because he couldn't do it, you can only miss two to pass. You said he was unable to repeat back 2-3 - he may have failed it regardless :grouphug:. I'm no expert, not at all, so take my experience with a big grain of salt ;), but my oldest two both failed Part C of the Barton screening (oldest was already reading well, but her spelling was atrocious). I got LiPS used and made my own manipulatives from the blackline masters in the manual. It's pretty straightforward, but isn't open-and-go - you have to study the lessons fairly well before doing them. This proved to be my downfall when I did it last year, and we only got through learning the consonant sounds (it wasn't LiPS' fault - the manual is *very* clear and straightforward - it was me and my inability to block out time outside of the school day to learn the material before teaching it). But just learning the consonants was extremely helpful, there were several consonant sounds my girls couldn't distinguish between, and a few that they were unable to even say (heck, there were a couple sounds that *I* couldn't say before doing LiPS) - I'm glad we did what we did (wish I could figure out how to do more) and I still use what we learned to help them distinguish sounds in words. Ever since then I've been using the Dekodiphukan sound pictures (giving them a visual representation of all the different sounds, since they can't reliably hear them all) to try to work around their deficits, along with doing REWARDS Reading with dd9 to help her learn to break down words (which she can't do, not auditorially or visually - it's what makes her spelling and pronunciation of unknown words so very horrible). It's been a mixed bag, because at least with dd9, pretty much all her spelling problems stem from being unable break a word into syllables or phonemes unless she's worked through that particular word before - which skill is exactly what LiPS builds. But her memory is good enough (she only has to work through a word once or twice to have it down, plus, at least with reading, once she worked through a large enough selection of words, something clicked and she could generalize her phonics knowledge despite her deficits), and REWARDS is going well enough, that I think (hope) that working through a good selection of one-syllable words and word parts with the sound pictures (I'm working on whittling down a giant mostly-complete list of 15,000+ English syllables, cutting out all the syllables that include a prefix/suffix), along with a morphemic approach to breaking down and building multi-syllable words (Spelling Through Morphographs is up after we are done with REWARDS) will do the trick. But all that is just trying to work around the problem instead of fix it, and honestly I still want to do LiPS, because otherwise foreign languages will be a trick and a half - we'd have to break down and build each and every vocab word just like we're doing in English. For us, LiPS is the clear right answer - I'm going to a lot more work to try to avoid doing LiPS - but it's work that is easier for me to do than to do LiPS, so idk (it's mostly a lot of tedious working through word lists and collating phonic info and coding the words in the sound pictures - stuff that I can do while being periodically interrupted by the kids - at the table while supervising the girls' independent work, or in the evening while they play). It's not the best answer, but I'm hoping it's good enough, kwim? The girls *are* making steady progress, so as long as that continues....crossing fingers, I guess.

My high school required regular or honors bio, chem, and physics to be taken before *any* AP science, although it wasn't hard to get an exemption from the physics requirement to take AP Bio. A friend of mine was allowed to take AP Chem without taking physics, but that was unusual. My schedule was honors Bio in 9th, honors Chem in 10th, honors physics in 11th, and then both AP Chem and AP physics in 12th.

It depends on the family. My parents always pay, but with dh's family we usually split the bill, unless one of us is specifically treating the other (usually his parents treat us once a visit, and we treat them on special occasions, as a gift). This isn't so much family culture but family finances - my parents are very comfortable, and they pay because they can and because it helps us. Dh's family, otoh, is financially in a similar place to us, plus dh's sister and her kids live with them, and neither of us is in a position to be regularly treating the other. (Although otoh again ;), my single, professional sister is financially better off than we are and there it tends to be whoever invites pays. But us paying for one extra person is quite a bit different than either us or dh's parents paying for 5-6 extra people.)

I have the same one - it was pricey but it is *awesome*. I hated the adrenaline rush from a traditional alarm clock (and I got into the habit of hitting snooze over and over). I can sleep through just the light when I'm really tired, though - I have to set the nature sounds to a moderate volume to ensure I wake up when the nature-sounds-alarm actually goes off, not 15-20 min later. (I do have mine at the foot of the bed, not right by my head, so I'm not getting the full force of the light - which is quite bright fully lit in a darkish room, esp when you are right next to it - which probably affects how it wakes me.) It's still a relaxing, calm waking up even when I sleep till the alarm, but usually I start waking up during the half-hour it's slowing lighting up, and am fairly awake by the time the nature sounds start.