I do mine together but I have a friend whose daughters are two years apart, and because the older has some learning challenges and the younger is a bright spark, she keeps them separate- so that the older isn't humiliated by the younger's blooming abilities. I think it works for them because the mother has trained both girls to work very independently. Wheras I actually like to sit on the couch to read with my kids and discuss history together, and my kids are close enough in age that we can do that at a similar level. It would be a lot of extra work for me to do 2 separate levels- but for my friend, it works better to have her daughters doing completely different work so there is no comparing.

This reminds me of my mother, who has always been a large woman as much as I remember. She is tall and big. (I am not, but I took after dad's side of the family). She has a good dress sense and as a child I always thought she was beautiful, even though I was aware she was technically overweight. She doesnt overeat, and she doesnt eat sweets, so i dont know why she is big other than it is just the way she is and she has chronic fatigue and glandular issues after an early hysterectomy and long term hormonal replacement. She confided in me once though that the time in her life when she was slim- I think her early twenties when I was a baby- she was terribly unhappy. She feels better in her body when she carries some weight. She also stresses about her weight because it is just do hard to exercise when she has chronic fatigue and fibro. So no, I dont think you are alone in being fat and happy- happy being when you are just getting on with your life in a good way. And I think that things like heart attacks are acutlaly related a lot more to emotional states than doctors give credit for.

Ive never been good at using willpower to stop doing anything- because if I deprive myself, I will flip to the other extreme at some stage. I think thats just the way the mind works. But if something deep in me changes, and all the stars aline with that change :), what was difficult suddenly becomes easy. I haven't eaten cane sugar or honey since September but it hasn't been hard because it was just time. I find that things like going on diets, cleanses, or anything that involves restrictions, always happens in its own time and if I try and do it with willpower, I just hurt myself. It doesn't take willpower for me not to eat sugar, I just dont want to more than I want to. Taking the "shoulds" out of it all helps me too. If I think I "should", another part of me goes "I dont care" or "make me"- you know, the inner brat. But if I just want to, in my own way, in my own time- my inner brat doesn't sabotage me anywhere near as much. I dont think guilt is a good motivator.

Oh wow. This is why i love these boards. Didnt know about ravelry. My poor family though. Lucky its summe holidays here and I am free to spend lots of time on the computer!

I think pretty much anything. But it doesnt have to be a big amount of info she outlines. I started with short chapters- about a page of medium sized print- in an Australian history book I have. Even my reluctant writer didn't get upset by it. But IEW teaches a form of outlining anyway...so you could use their way and just pick a short page of history or science and use that. On the WTM website, they now recommend a new outlining book for those struggling to teach/learn outlining. It is outlining lessons based on history, and it is downloadable and I think it is good- I bought it- but I havent started using it yet. http://www.welltrainedmind.com/J00outlining.html

Not done, but dh is done- very clear about that, so done. Has to be that way. So no, I dont have a clear physical feeling I am done- but my intelligence knows that its not oging to happen bar a miracle. I focus on what I have rather than what I dont have.

Just another comment- although SWB strongly prefers a strictly chronological approach to history, its not going to make or break a child if they do it differently. After jumping around so much with 4 years of SOTW, I wanted to stay a little longer in each place in the next round through, so we do it a bit differently and not strictly chronologically. We spent 10 weeks each on Greek and Roman history last year, with Story of the Greeks/Romans. The connections still come this way, I find, and I prefer it, but I feel they come because of all the other reading they do. And I didnt realise your son was only 10. It takes time and I didnt feel my bright, older child was really in the logic stage, thinking like "logic stage" kids are supposed to, till she was 13. My younger child was a bit earlier because he is more of a thinker. Its certainly not something you can force.

We just go for walks and naturally notice things. I have tried to do formal nature walks and it doesn't really click for us- but just going for a walk, the kids will see all sorts of things, so we take time to stop and look. Regular walking out in nature is just wonderful- you notice the subtle changes- yes, even in the desert. The desert is full of wildlife. I live in Australia- lots of desert, but it's so alive. Sometimes the kids and I take some pencils and paper into the bush and just sit and draw whatever we choose. Sometimes dd14 brings a camera and takes dozens of photos of wildflowers and puts the best ones on her MySpace page. Sometimes we notice a bird we dont know the name of, and we look it up when we get home. Sometimes, we just walk.

You're using KHE for your history spine and wondering why he is not enthralled? My kids do not enjoy that book either. What brings history alive for us are historical fiction, and books like The Story of Rome, Story of Greece, and other books related to the topic we are studying. Books that are more like SOTW, but at a higher level, or more in depth. You don't even need just one spine- its hard to find a decent one for the whole year at the Logic stage level. I used several for last year's ancients. I think its time not to worry so much about doing it the TWM way too much,and its flexible anyway, and look for what will bring it alive. We just did a term of an Island Story (British history) as well as reading Robin Hood and King Arthur. How could a kid not be happy with that :) When a kid is engaged and interested, he will make connections. My kids both read different King Arthur books independently, and we read Robin Hood together, and Island Story together. Plenty of fuel for discussions and making connections. And we will go on to more in depth medieval this coming year using Ambleside year 7- this was just the taster. Even if part of history is boring- outlining KHE if necessary, although its a terrible obok to outline- adding in lots of extra books brings it alive. We still read aloud in Logic Stage- not everything, but some things- because it naturally makes discussions happen, and it gives us comon ground for discussion- and movies, unrelated books etc. Its amazing how often things we are reading in history will turn up somewhere else in our lives. I would keep the writing issues separate. Plenty of kids can't keep up with WTM standards. My 13yo son will be doing IEW Medieval Writing lessons this coming year and I am not sure he will manage much else. But he will read a LOT of books,which is his strength, and he will tell me about what he reads- not all of it, but we will touch base regularly. My reluctant writer would be so far behind in school if I kept his work back to the level at which he can write. Instead, he is very advanced in some areas because we always separated writing from eveything else- grammar, spelling, history- we would do a lot orally. And he likes everything we do that doesn't involve writing :) He still writes of course. Timelines are absolutely deathly boring to my kids. I make it as easy as possible for them- hand them the figures, tell them what to put on the timeline- whatever, to make it go as quickly as possible. I also have a great world timeline, premade, on our toilet wall. So, I capitalise on my kids' strengths and the parts they enjoy- like reading great books, reading together, having discussions-and try and minimise the painful parts (timelines, too many outlines, too much writing for ds). That way history stays alive for us- and it is my favourite subject, so I guess thats why I do it. If I didnt like it, I might buy them a textbook and just get them to do it.

Wow. I really dont care. I use either and both. Is it something I am supposed to have a strong opinon about ? :)

Does this happen a lot in much of the U.S.? It doesnt happen much here, although there are parts of the city where there are homeless on the streets. Last night in fact dh, ds and I went for a summer evening drive and went into the city to a cafe and a man asked for money. Usually, we do give, but in the moment, we just spontaneously walked on this time. The man didnt feel good. I have given people the money for a bus fare, even if they stink of alcohol. If people need to "deserve" our kindness, therewould be no need for kindness. I have spent a lot of time in India and there begging is a career for many people- they have their little corner, their stair, their patch of dirt. When you walk past the same people day after day, you get a feeling for them and you get drawn to give to this one and not that- you simply cant take care of them all. Sometimes on the last day in India its lovely to just give your last rupees to them all. I think it's for everyone to decide and feel fro themselves where to put their money, but I try to remember "there but for the grace of God go I".

:iagree: with Jennifer. I was a difficult teen and went and lived with an older man when I was 16. I think the worst thing my mother did was give me an ultimatum- I took her bluff and left. It took years for our relationship to recover- from my side, because I felt so betrayed by her rejection of me and her siding with her new alcoholic husband. From her side, because she blamed me and wouldn't look at herself. Keep your heart open. keep the communication open. One thing I try and remember is if I am angry, upset, loaded, at all- that is something I can change, in myself - but I cannot change another person. In the end- I was ok, and so will your daughter be.

My ds13 is dyslexic and it hasnt really ocurred to me to have him memorise things by writing them- for him, writing takes so much concentration just to form the letters, it would be fairly pointless as a medium for memorisation. However, he has great memorisation and learning ability when we do things orally/aurally. In order to have him move forward in most areas, we have done a lot orally, while working on writing skills at whatever level he could manage. Btw, he was only diagnosed dyslexic a year ago when he was 12- it could have saved both of us a fair amount of stress to have the dx before then.

I think you need to phone them/contact them, and they wil sell it to you separately. I ended up buying the Teacher's Guide and Student pages that go with it...I honestly dont reommend them though- a lot of busywork, unless you really want lots of inane worksheets. I would suggest outlining, written narrations, and further research on chosen topics.

This is somewhat flexible although there is strong encouragement to send in work in plenty of time to get feedback. The online meetings- well, we didnt do that part (which is once a week at a particular time), so if you had to miss one for skiiing, well, I am sure it would be ok! The rest is just sending in assignments. What I did some days was just have my daughter do her writing class work and nothing else, if we were busy with other things.

Borrow the 2nd one from the library or a friend. Wait for the 3rd. Even I , who only loosely adhere to WTM recommendations, am very curious as to the changes.

The books themselves say ages 13 and above. I think there is a tendency for people to try and do things- particularly "logic stage" things- too early. That being said, we did them when my kids were about 11 and 12. In retrospect....if people want to do them before a more formal or in depth logic program- such as Art of Argument or Traditional Logic- it would probably be practical to do them around age 11 or 12. However, if these are all the logic the kids are going to get- waiting till a bit later may mean they get more out of them. Some of the topics aredefinitely for more mature minds. Depends on the kids. But I know my kids would have got more out of them if I had waited- even though they could technically do them, understand them etc, earlier.

We had done a fair bit of Latin before Latin Prep- but it was Cambridge, which has less explicit grammar instruction- and we tend to move really slowly through Latin Prep. I dont really have an end goal for Latin though so its ok. We just keep on going. Slowly. I recommend the workbooks because they reinforce what you learn. You can do without them, but make sure you dont skim. Just take however long it takes.

I find a lot less than half the posts are of any relevence or interest to me nowadays- in fact I am more likely to offer advice than receive it on the K-8 board. But I am free to skim and I sure spend a lot less time here than I used to, which is a good thing :)

My grandfather is 95 and still going, living at home, checking his email daily, going to garage sales regularly. Amazing dude. He has always had a "Shed" in the back yard filled with "blokey stuff", down to different sized screws in different jars, various old sewing machines etc. Just the other day he was using his circular saw though, and he cut himself badly- he reckons its the first time in his whole life he has cut himself after using the saw hundreds of times. He has also always been a player on the stockmarket, so he looks up his share prices every day. When younger he was a school teacher, a pilot in WW2, a gliding instructor, a womaniser, a buyer and seller of 2nd hand things. He sold dh and I our first tv for $10! It blew up the day before we were moving across the country, but it was great for the few months we had it. I am sure his secret is that he just keeps using his brain, has interests...and he has a great wife 15 years younger than him who feeds him well. He only recently learned to use the oven, and the microwave, because she was in hospital! I read an article in the paper here a few months back about blokes and sheds. They did a study and they found that men who have a shed where they can go potter and "do stuff" are much happier than men who dont! In fact, they are running courses where men can go and potter and do stuff in sheds together!

Although it appears on the skin, it is not actually caused by anything external...it is an internal condition that expresses through the skin. It is a tendency some constitutions have. Fish oils, a healthy diet, keep away from junk foods and artificial stuff and too much sugar. My daughter only gets eczema when she eats sugar or oranges. It is very diet related. For some kids, its dairy, others-wheat, others- dyes and preservatives. You need to find out the triggers, and support the liver. Drink lots of water rather than juice or too much milk.

My dd14 has done Paragraph 1 and Paragraph 2. Eileen insisted they were the classes she needed to start with, and dd got a lot out of them. As Sopia said, Eileen will often send an assignment back 2-3 times in a day for revising. There was a lot of feedback, my dd felt the feedback was good, and I as a parent was asked not to help, which I didnt and was glad to have a class where I wasnt expected to help. we have had difficulties with online classes before, but home2teach was probably our best online class experience so far. I intend to have dd do more when they align with our school terms again in the 2nd half of next year. By the way, i am in Australia and the online class time was something like 11pm here, so not practical- Eileen made sure dd got the transcript and helped her with any questions, and had no problem with accomodating her without having to do the online class section.

I saved a pule of stuff onto CDroms a couple of months ago. A week ago, my computer died. It was the hard drive. The computer guy however managed to transfer most of my documents to the new hard drive..that was a relief. All my next years' planning. Many ebooks. However, I have lost all of my emails, my email addresses, and my bookmarks. Hundreds of them. On the good side, On New Year's Day I had a shiny, clean new almost empty computer- I never was good at culling my bookmarks and emails and I had kept way too many. I wonder if I will miss them at all.

Walking away from a source of abuse can be, and I would say usually IS, the best way to honour and love YOURSELF! And YOU are the only person you can actually change and only YOU can take the best care of yourself. Its not selfish- its the most loving thing you can do. My experience with abuse, and I have quite a bit of experience with it, is the other person is rarely in the right space at the time to hear you or receive your love, anyway. Perhaps later, when they are calmed down and not in the middle of their rage, you can express love- but most of us cant hear or receive love when we are emotionally triggered. The best thing is to take space and regroup, and then, if they feel remorse and truly want to communicate and make ammends, you may be able to reach them. But until they are truly willing to help themselves, there's nothing you can do. No point hurting yourself over the past. Send the person your love and prayers now. You dont have to talk to them. Just know a part of them hears you.

I do an ongoing parallel stream of Australian History. Each term, I pick a book for them to read- sometimes fiction, sometimes non fiction. SOmetimes, they have done a course, workbook type thing, or outlining from a "living book" on Australian history. I pick Australian movies and telly series at times. I really like the 4 year history cycle and I didnt want to disturb it with much time taken out for Australian history. Another possibility I have considered is to take the last few weks of each year for Australian history, but I havent felt the need.