:lol: They'd give DH a mental health day for that.

:iagree: Teens chat. Sometimes I walk by dd on the computer and she's got 5 facebook chat windows available. If there is anything incriminating, it's automatically deleted as soon as she closes the chat window. While I'm pretty lenient with facebook (we don't have any attitude issues here), I would never had let her have one, without having one myself, and being her friend.

I'm not brave enough to defriend my MIL. It would cause so much drama. I could say it's an accident, I guess. :tongue_smilie: She's friends with DH and DD, but DH has his set to where she can't see his wall and DD's posts are so bizarre and usually only relevant to her circle of friends that MIL has given up on asking what the heck she's talking about. One thing she did, though, that was completely bizarre, inappropriate, but harmless, was friend some of dd's friends that dd had been speaking to the most. Then she would send them private messages saying that she was dd's grandma and to say 'hi'. In her defence, though, I'm not sure what she thinks is public or not. Luckily, I'm friends with the parents, so it was all fine. Weird, but fine. She will post on her husband's wall wishing someone else Happy Birthday, but wanted them to know it came from the both of them. She mostly only comments on pictures now, so it's better.

Dictations were always a pain around here around 4th or 5th grade. I think we were doing CW at the time. I decided not to focus on them for a while (eh...give up) and concentrate on other things. As a part of the grammar in CW, I would give her sentences to analyze and I would read them and she'd copy them down. After a while, I realized that I was dictating things and she was doing fine. I just had to not call it Dictation and to do something useful with the sentence.

Once and Future King is one of DD's favorite books. We still talk about it several times a week, particularly about the last chapter. I'm not sure how I want to cover it with my youngest (still very far off) because I agree with both Lisa and Abbey. DD was familiar enough with the 20th century to get the references, but I wonder how when we do Modern for 8th, will OaFK still be in our heads to discuss. In our case, because neither of us remember covering Arthur the first time (I think we were moving to Houston that year because I don't remember much of any history that year, although she knows a lot about the Tudors, so it wasn't all lost), OaFK was her intro to him and of course since it's her favorite book, I'm afraid she's holding other Arthur books that we read to that standard. She's fiercely loyal to it, so I'm hoping to reiterate next year the importance of it. She may want to reread it. Another interesting point: We bought the Deathly Hallows DVD last week. She's only read the first 3 books and plans on reading the rest this summer before the last movie, so she's not familiar with the rest of the story. DH and I were watching it and she came in at the part where the trio are polyjuiced at the MOM. She saw the statue/plaque that said "Magic is Might." She started rereading SS right after that. We also did some Inferno briefly while reading OaFK, so she was able to pick up those references, and since she loves the song 'Hallelujah', she was able to pick up the David/Bathsheba references. We've not done Hamlet or Macbeth, yet (we're covering Shakespeare in May), so I'm interested to see how that goes.

I would talk with a midwife. You don't have to give birth at home or a birthing center if you're not comfortable, but they can provide you with inexpensive pre-natal care.

There should be a default music/media player. I'm not fond of it, though. I've got an Amazon MP3 player hooked up to the Cloud, which I'm still playing around with. I have a good amount of music in the cloud, so I use it the most. There's a widget. I really like Instinctiv, too. It's pretty and simple.

I don't think Snape ever felt redeemed, although he absolutely was. Certainly Lily would have thought so, and that's what mattered to him. He had to do really horrible things to play his part. You would have to be a certain kind of person to kill a mentor and I'm sure that just added to whatever he was feeling. I was always wondered if Lily chose James initially to show Snape that she was making a choice for the side of Light. James represented the Light. Severus Snape is probably my favorite character I've ever read.

I certainly can't expect my kids to wear clothes if I can't even find my pants half the time.

The newer IE's might be faster. As for apps, here's a website. I have an Amazon wishlist extension, Chrome to phone (send links to my phone), Springpad (synced with my phone to keep track of everything), screen capture, bit.ly, and Shareaholic. When you download an app or extension, it adds a little icon to your url bar. They have endless apps. Here are some Chrome themes to make Chrome pretty. :001_smile:

I haven't used IE for years. I think since about version 6. I was a Firefox user until I discovered Opera and played around with it for a bit. After playing with different browsers and finding what I like and customizing for years, Chrome is what I ultimately love. It's faster than the others for me because I have the urge to always over customize Firefix, adding scripts, and different things. I can customize Firefox to look like Chrome, but I don't love Firefox enough to do that. Chrome is organized the way that I think. I like how the bookmarks are set up, new tab pages, small interface, which is no new thing for browsers, but it was set up that way on installation. I don't have to fiddle with Chrome. It's what I wanted out of the box. Sometimes when Opera updates, I play around with it for a week or two, but I ultimately go back to Chrome. I really like Opera, but I seem less organized with it because of what it offers. I go in thinking it will keep me organized, but that's not the reality. My dh doesn't really care about different browsers, he used IE until 7, until I installed Safari on his Windows computer. He loves Safari. He's been playing on my linux for many months now though and he enjoys Chrome now. Not as much as Safari, but he likes it well enough. Gosh, I didn't mean to sound so promiscuous. I think to really understand, take a few weeks and try out a new browser to see what if offers. There are a good handful to keep you busy for a few months. You can google "(whatever browser) screenshots" on images and see what other people have done to customize.

Oh, how I love this. :iagree: Pablo Honey was my first, but The Bends is great. My 3yo could watch Lotus Flower all day long if I'd let her.

DH could eat Chipotle every day. He gets a chicken burrito every time. I don't like their chicken (I don't like the seasoning), but I love the pork and if we go and they've just put out new steak, I get that. I love the chips as well.

My dh found a very furry kitty nearly 5 years ago in a guest laundry room when we were at an extended stay hotel while waiting for our new place. He was stuck behind the dryer. He doesn't have blue eyes, but he's nearly killed me many times by flopping at my feet, after winding through them. He's the floppiest kitty I know. He also loves to be carried around like a baby.

I have 854 books on 23 lists. 58 items in my "saved for later" cart, and 34 on my shopping list. My process is that I move things from (currently 7th grade) my wish list, where I already have things prioritized by month :tongue_smilie: to my shopping list. I move to my cart when I'm ready to purchase. The reason I have so many in my "saved for later" cart is because if I needed to order something right quick and I had moved things to my cart rather than shopping list, I have to move them out. Sometimes, I put several copies of the same used book in my cart to place the order when I'm fully awake, and I save the ones I don't buy for some reason. I have pre-k-12th grade lists. A couple required reading lists for each stage of the trivium, and a couple lists to research, school and non-fiction. I have several gift lists and a list for myself. When your lists are fairly organized, it's easy to figure out where things are. There is overlap sometimes, but not as much as I anticipated. In fact, I sigh in relief when I add a new book and it knocks it to the front telling me I already added it. When your lists are broken up by grade it's easy to add history and science. For math, I add to the grade below from when I'll need it. I like the idea about the difficult to find ones, though. I'm stealing it. I've actually got a few added to my shopping list to check whenever I remember, but I like this idea better..

Yes!:D

I need to know where this plateau is. I have to avoid it.

I agree with Moira 100% And I really hope it wasn't me that got the last thread deleted. I really am sorry if I did.

We have the Duke thing, but I really can't say that we used it very much. We got into really good discussions at certain points and the added questions seemed to suck the life out of it. I did use the Spark Notes online to make sure I was catching important things, but generally we just had really good discussions. Might and Right and more modern political things that White would mention passingly, it would seem. As for the women, we found it odd that Guenever was portrayed more harshly than Morgause. How Lancelot, who was just as guilty, was seen as more noble and much more likable. We discussed how after The Ill-Made Night, that Guenever was no longer a likable character and was that really fair. Morgause, on the other hand, White seemed almost enamored of her. He spoke of her evilness as more matter of fact and her arrogance the same. It was known that she "wore the trousers". The witchcraft thing wasn't really dwelled on either. Except for the bizarre lardness of The Sword in the Stone. So, while I'm sure there could be a "feminist" discussion, especially in regards to Guenever and maybe the lack of writing about the three sisters, I take more that the author had more interest in the stuff he did include. He could have torn Elaine apart (and DD wants to know how Lancelot was tricked a second time! She sees him as kind of simple now.), but seemed to zero in on Guenever. This book pretty much took up our whole world for about a month and a half, so we talked so much and hashed out theories quite a bit. DD is finishing up another Arthur trilogy (This is like fan fiction, Mom!) So, we might have missed the point entirely or dismissed it because something else sounded better at the time. Sorry if there's any incomprehensibles. I don't haz a tired, but I do haz a dental appt. tomorrow. I'm one of those who is terrified of dentists and I have a toothache so bad that I'm forced to go. :glare:

This is something I've thought about a lot this year. Lately, dd has been reading more than I can keep up with. I generally like to pre-read (or stay a couple chapters ahead) assigned things to keep up. Not for content, but because I like to discuss things. So, we have a pile that I've not gotten to. She asked if she can read Gaiman's Stardust in the meantime. When I didn't answer right away (she knows I had reservations about her reading the book because a mild sex scene.) Well, she giggled at my silence. We read Once and Future King this year. She said, "We just read a book with a unicorn being slaughtered quite brutally and a crazy woman who boiled a cat for bones, certainly a little snoo snoo (Futurama reference) isn't going to traumatize me." Girl had a point.

Is he going to be taking Latin in school? If he just wants to learn, you might want to look into Lingua Latina. The first chapter would be instant gratification for him. Here's the websitefor the online ancillaries. We're enjoying it this year.

Oh how I lust after this book. I just don't know if we'll do Latin in high school (besides reading it). DD will finish SYR Latin 3 in 8th and I pretty much figure that will be the end of real instruction. That book is so pretty, though.

If you're using it to tutor, I would get the same text he is using. Wheelocks should be fine for reference. Also, Galore Park has revision guides that I find fairly helpful. I use them when I blank out on the rules and they have them all charted and easy to get to.

Here are the practice books. If you are wanting to do MCT, though, at the very least, get the writing books. An argument could be made to get the vocab, but the writing is my favorite. DD loves it. Just getting the practice books would be a waste because you could analyze any sentence using the 4-level method for any program.

I was going to tackle this last night, but I'm less succinct, and incomprehensible :001_smile: My nine year old (she'll be ten in a week or so) is in fourth grade. She's doing WWE 4 and getting through it fairly easily. She does narration most days. She's doing abeka grammar for fourth grade and not having any problems with it. I feel like MCT Island is a too easy for her. But I like the poetry component, and she's gotten very little poetry this year, beyond us simply memorizing a few poems and the poem section in WWE4. I've not used the Island level, but there is quite a leap (not so much the grammar, but the writing), from what I understand, to Town, so with my youngest, my plans are to make sure she has narrations, dictations, etc. down before we start Town. Should I use MCT with her now and just go quickly through it? Sure, go as quickly as she needs. Also, what writing program should I use in fifth grade? We did Town in 6th, but if she's writing well, start Town and take it slow. Do some of the exercises twice. And should I combine it with the next level of MCT? Since I use only MCT, I don't know how helpful this will be. This is where you come down to need and preference. I didn't feel a need to supplement and I still don't at this point. I plan to supplement in high school with a rhetorics course, but that's a little ways off. For now MCT is providing enough instruction, and grammar practice. It's quite easy to practice paragraphs across curriculum at that level and there's the grammar practice book along with grammar instruction in the writing. But, we're homeschoolers, and we like to try different things. There are quite a few long threads about writing on the logic stage board and many of those women use and try a number of things to supplement. And should I use a grammar program in addition to it? Only if you need it. I find enough, but many here are using the Killgallon series in addition. I'm tempted to get it, and I may, but we don't need it. That excuse really hasn't stopped me before, though. :tongue_smilie: Is it overkill to do MCT, a writing curriculum and a grammar curriculum? It could be. It would all depend on your children and the other program. Paragraph Town is fairly time consuming, so you would have to be careful how to add to this. Plus, PT covers grammar as well, if not better than Grammar Town. It's one of those things you are going to have to put into action to see if it's lacking anything that your children need. If you are able to squeeze every last drop from the MCT books, then I think you'll not want to supplement too much. Maybe a little. Only because we are homeschoolers and we can't seem to help ourselves. :D My 8 year old is in second grade. She's doing third grade grammar from Abeka and finding it very easy. She's doing WWE2 and she struggles with narration a little bit. She doesn't like thinking up sentences to write. I think using MCT Island would be good for her but I'm thinking of using it next year for third grade? I plan on using it for 3rd grade for my youngest, but I've never seen it, so I may change my mind once I buy it and sit and read it. I would still practice narrations, She might find the exercises for MCT to be a good change in routine, though I don't know which components to use in what order, but I'm sure that information in found in some other thread (though if someone wants to summarize it for me real quick, I appreciate it so much). :) You read through the grammar book first, however long you need to. I can't remember if you start the others all at the same time, but we began the vocab and writing after the grammar book, then we start the poetry after vocab. Saving the poetry for last isn't what's recommended, but we get more out of it when I can concentrate on it more. I plan to do WWE3 with her next year as well as some other, more challenging grammar program. Something with sentence diagramming. If this is the case, I would do Island now and read over Paragraph Town to see what your youngest needs to accomplish before you begin this. For my youngest, I don't know what I'm going to do yet between Island and Town, Maybe WWE and Killgallon.