We used Hands of a Child for our election unit study. They have a library of history (and other) unit studies available. You could easily do a series of HoAC unit studies, library books, brainPOP videos ($7/month as an iPod/iPad sub) plus the Usborne encyclopedia and have a decent program going.

My kids were always tapered. SBG, I am glad you are taking him in; if he is not responding to the steroid therapy, something is not right, and I am surprised pulmonology would put him off like that. Trust your "mommy gut" and stay on it!

So glad she will be out of your hair, and glad the other woman came forward and validated you! (and sorry for her that she had to go through that, too-- some accusations, not matter how insane, have a way of sticking around).

We are about to start reading TKaM with DS9 and 11, then watch the movie with Gregory Peck. I think for my kids it will be fine; we have no difficulty discussing those issues. We have already read "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" and "The Well," so we have some history of discussing tough subjects.

The timeline itself has nothing pre-filled in, so in that sense yes, it is secular. I was disappointed when the remade it to start in 6000 BCE instead of earlier, because that, of course, skips over a lot of history, but we added on our own information for the earlier times to make it more accurate. The categories that it has for filling in, in stripes horizontally are things like "Men and Women" "wars" "Religion" "arts" "science and technology" and you can use those divisions if you wish. You could just as easily relabel them by continent if you prefer to divide up your timeline that way. I did not purchase the sticker pack, so I can't answer that question, but the timeline, in and of itself, has nothing but the dates (by century) drawn in for you, so it is a great timeline for folding into a notebook and is, other than being inaccurate by starting at 6000BCE, perfectly secular and is very nice. I added reinforcement circles to the holes punched and have had no problems with it at all, and have used two years worth of the timelines so far, with a boy who is a basic disaster with 3-ring binders :D. Yes, you can use this timeline with SOTW, or any other history program very easily. The History Odyssey program is probably more secular than even SOTW; the level 1 program uses SOTW as just one resource among many, so it treats each religion as it encounters it in the civilization that uses it. In the level 2 materials, I have added the K12 Human Odyssey books to read in addition (plus additional literature). I don't have a "reading schedule" for that; I just look in the table of contents and skim over the material each week and write it down in his planner. I find it a pretty straightforward thing to match up that way-- takes only seconds really. Good luck!

My son loved the Little Tykes easel for years. I loved that there were multiple places to clip artwork (so you could allow a piece to dry while another was being painted) and it had surfaces for dry erase and chalkboards, and the storage bins were generous. It was very stable and sturdy, and despite the large, tricycle design (which contributed to its sturdiness) it was lightweight and easy to move around.

. . . well . . . they do have pretty big grins . . .

If my memory is correct, there is no difference in models other than which lenses and eyepieces come with it. You want at least 400X magnification. In the above photo you are looking at a prepared slide of paramecium from Home Science Tools, through a 10X eyepiece and 10X objective, for 100X total magnification. The guy who builds these microscopes is very responsive and will answer questions if you send him email; his address is on the website.

I used to do microscopy for a living, and I am delighted with the Brock Magiscope for grades through at least 8. The optics are first rate, and it is so easy to handle that what you are viewing s the star of the show rather than the instrument. It is very sturdy, and because it does not require batteries or electricity, you can bring it with you easily on trips and hikes. It can be used for transparent slides or as a dissecting scope (opaque objects) without modification. Here is a picture I took this morning by just pointing my (hand-held) iPad camera lens right through the eyepiece -- no special equipment required for basic photography (a point and shoot digital camera works as well or better). There is ample time in high school to learn the relatively simple task of using a basic laboratory scope. Once in a while I have missed having a mechanical stage and par focal lenses, but not often enough to make giving up this kid-friendly, high quality, sturdy and portable instrument worthwhile!

So now that the election is over, whose kids have gotten interested in potentially watching the US add its 51st state? DS11 is now reading the history of Puerto Rico and its standing with the US, and trying to work out why they voted to move forward with voting on statehood vs standing pat so overwhelmingly over independence, and on how a territory can become a state.

:iagree: Also, too many people think they can wrap their heads around another person's thoughts on a complex matter based on one paragraph on a message board, when truly understanding one another would likely require more of a sit down over dinner or tea over several days.

Try Life of Fred. The mathematics is strong and challenging and very complete. It is written directly to the student and intended to be self-taught, and complete solutions are provided to the exercises (indeed, teaching also happens in the solutions). The author is available to the student by email or phone for questions. My math professor husband and former tutor self are delighted with the quality of the content, and our sons love math using Fred. Older son uses it as his standalone (Fractions through Algebra now); younger is using elementary as a supplement to Singapore Primary Math.

:lol:

I think the theory is a good idea for public schools-- kids move around more often than they stay put (a kid who never moves in 12 years of education these days is a relative novelty) so having some common ground on what is taught in each grade and in what order would be vastly helpful in that sense. I believe the common core has no relevance to my particular brand of homeschooling, as we far outstrip what the schools are doing in any given year, and a) we are not planning to return to public schools and b) the common core plan as it stands is extremely disorganized and still lacks the rigor of a solid classical curriculum. Although a repeating set of 3 cycles of a 4 sets of history does not define "classical" it is a nice model, and makes more sense than teaching unrelated bits from across all geography and all time periods every year so that students have no mental organization of how anything relates to past or contemporaneous events, and the sciences are neither taught in-depth nor in a logically integrated fashion, but simply scattershot. We'll keep our schedule, which not only seems to make sense, but hopefully builds a scaffold that helps our kids make connections to the things that they learn, both within and across disciplines, from year to year, quite naturally. I just don't see those connections in the common core. I wish the theory behind the common core was more well considered-- perhaps they should read TWTM???

Have you done Penrose the Mathematical Cat, by Theoni Pappas?

I can always go back and find grammar errors I could have cleaned up, but one that really, really irks me when I catch myself at it is my " . . . also . . . as well" construct. I have no idea when I started to write and speak that way. I was raised better than that, and I was certainly taught better than that. I practiced better than that. It annoys me to no end to spot that construct in my writing repeatedly. That is all.

I would either use or supplement with Life of Fred: Decimals and Percents (the LoF: Fractions book comes first, but you said she was solid in fractions). After that you can continue in the LoF series or try AoPS pre-algebra, or give one of the standard algebra or pre-algebra programs a shot (pre-algebra is generally not strictly necessary; it is a review of early arithmetic and a preview of early algebra concepts, but if you are not sure whether there could be gaps to fill, it is not a terrible idea). But since you mentioned percentages and ratios as an area to fill in, LoF D&P would be a great book that will review past concepts well and fill that gap nicely, without taking too much time, and it will set up future concepts as well.

Very fun after-election map to look over (I apologize if I've already posted this-- it's been a really long day. A really, really, really, really long day. The kind of day that starts to make boarding school look temporarily attractive. The kind of day that makes you sympathize with Lois in "Malcolm in the Middle" even though you have kids who everyone normally tells you are angels. It has been a please pass another bottle of wine day). Anyway, this guy redrew the US map . . . first to stretch the states to reflect the size of each state's population, then he made another map to stretch the states to reflect the size of each state's electoral college votes. It's a little strange to see Delaware the same size as Wyoming! But seeing it this way, colored in according to how the states were called, makes the balance between red and blue states and how the election went, much more visually understandable. Apparently this guy, a physicist, is working on a county by county map (something I showed my DS11 today to let him know that the southern and midwestern worlds were more diverse than a simple state map would imply) as well. We love the county maps we have googled-- it was interesting to see some states that seemed to glow "bright red" where votes were actually in the close to 50/50 split range, and discuss a few counties that were amazingly homogeneous-- one candidate getting as little as 8% of the votes in a very few. So here are the stretchy maps: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2012/

I would get professional testing done. It is expensive, but it will allow you to find out what is really at issue here, so that you can address it while your DC is still elastic enough to benefit from intervention.

Just for Bill: Give a man a pituitary tumor, and he will lactate. As for the mammal thingie: It's a taxonomic chart of all living organisms. I consider myself to be a living organism, or at least I appear to be alive most days. Are we multicellular? Yes. Are our cells nucleated? Yes. Do we exhibit bilateral symmetry and differentiated tissues? Yes. Do we have a backbone? Yes. Therefore we are vertebrates. Do we give birth to live young? Do we produce milk? Do we have fur or hair? yes yes yes. Therefore, on the chart, we fall in line as mammals. QED. If you want to extend the taxonomic chart further, bully for you. Keep in mind that the definition of science is that it is testable. I am a Christian, but I consider that to be a matter of faith, not of science; my faith is not "testable" by the scientific method and therefore issues such as whether or not any given organism has a soul do not belong, for me, in matters of scientific taxonomy, as they are not testable scientifically, and confounding the two is like asking whether the wind is happy.

Yes, the electors are real people. In a real sense, you are actually voting for the electors, not the president directly. In some states, the names f the electors are present on the ballot as well. The rules for electors vary by state. Not all states bind their electors to vote for the popular vote, though most will. Two states, I believe Maine and Nebraska, can actually split the electoral votes between candidates (in 2008, according to the CNN map, NE had 4 votes go Republican and 1 go Democratic). The electors did not vote yet tonight; that will take place on a different date, and nothing is truly official until that vote takes place, though the outcome can generally be predicted.

On a Mac, look under Edit> Start Dictation

We are coloring them as the states are being projected. I watched how Delaware shaped up, and despite calling it very early, they were accurate. NBC was quite cautious about FL and OH. I thought they have done a nice job. If anything changes overnight, that will be a lesson in how individual votes count.

If you have an iPod or iPad, you can access it via the app for just $7/month. It gives you immediate access to all of the videos and quizzes; you just don't get the printable worksheets and teacher materials.

No wait at all. I went at about 10am this morning while most people were at work. Our polling place was pretty streamlined-- no "I Voted!" stickers, no cookies or juice, nothing. They did ask for ID, but were ready with alternate plans if you didn't have an ID or polling card with you; they were highly organized. DS11 is waiting up with the electoral college map, tracking election results (not to mention reviewing his geography :D ).