Aww.. Hopefully they'll cut you some slack. Sympathy for missing days from work and getting a short check this week.

It only goes to third grade. And oops, the contest ends in July, but it's too late to enter my kid locally or independantly. Anyway, I second the NaNoWriMo. It has a nice printable junior writers workbook.

http://pbskids.org/writerscontest/contest-hub#enter-contest There's a contest on PBS kids. Com that ends around July 1st. My kid saw it and asked me about it. He's written a very funny story and half way illustrated it. We'll see if he gets it finished in time. Maybe other kids who write are interested.

I sent my kid to school for one year and then I decided to homeschool. I can give you the same advice the principal gave me. Summer's coming up. Try homeschooling over the summer to see how you like it. It's a lot of work, and a lot of trial and error to find your groove. They posted you a good flowsheet to get started earlier in this thread showing the many ways you can structure your homeschool. Some people do "school at home" and schedule their childs work so they know what pages to do each day from 8-3. Some people do an hour plus ten minutes per grade level every day. The important part is to find a schedule where the kids are learning and you still have harmony in your house. Food still has to be cooked, the laundry still has to be done, my husband needs my kids to stay with a regular bedtime schedule so he can get sleep to go to work. The kids have to do their daily schoolwork on top of all this. I know one lady who homeschooled for a year and sent her child back to school because the child refused to do his work at home. You can try ovver the summer with "no harm, no foul" to see what your homelife would be like if you chose to continue homeschooling. I don't think my kids are weird. Whenever we go to the playground or a party with children I see my kids out there running around with all the other kids. One thing that might bother you, and this is in the upbringing, my kids don't listen the first time I say something. I have "little lawyers" that want to stand there and debate rather than doing what they're told right away. If my husband was the one home raising them instead of me they wouldn't be like that. I don't know if sending them to school would change that. That definately depends on the parent that's raising them and spends all day with them. Something to consider since your wife will be with them all day and you won't, how does your idea of parenting contrast with hers? If you choose to homeschool, keep this communication open with your wife. Make sure your needs and parenting beliefs are being considered too. Everyone in your family has to be important. The mother can't be overwhelmed, the kids have to be flourishing, and the father has to feel like he is a parent with some influence on how his children are being raised too. In other words maintain a healthy family and prioritize education and your homeschool will work.

I like what I've been reading about Killagon, that it seems to expand on WWE by teaching composition by studying well written sentences. I'm taking Crimson Wife's advice that my child should have more than Island level grammer before I buy the Killagon, so I bought the Shurley textbook used because it was only one book (so, cheaper). That should get us through the summer since we school year round, one week on, one week off. There's no way the Island level books I have would last us that long. Shurley should last us to the middle of next year. I guess I'll revisit this thread then to decide between AG, Hake, and Killagon. Actually I guess owning Shurely rules out the need for AG. What are the excercises in Hake like? As far as I can gather, Killagon asks you to compose sentences with a similar structure to the sentences you're studying. Is that correct?

I liked "phonics4babies" with Mallory Lewis. She's Sherri (and Lambchop's)daughter and she's a ventriloquist too. Yes, we sang the a-a-apple song from that movie on so many car trips when my baby was a baby. 😊Good times.

Voted. You can tell he's very well educated and knows what he's talking about. 😊

Well, if it's in Texas science and history are not required. The requirement is to to teach grammar, spelling, reading, math, and citizenship "in a bona-fide manner" ( I.e, not a sham). If they're reading, writing, and doing math poorly at that age I believe it meets this very low bar. When I first heard this my reaction was also, "what about history and science?!" I think part of the educational apathy in my neighborhood is because starting wages without education are around $15/hr. and the cost of living is very cheap. Lack of education is not devastating here. You can work and have a normal life without it. I think education enriches your life, but this might help explain the apathy, low educational standards, and aspirations I see around me.

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/324968-thoughts-on-shurley-english/ I liked the way the school version looked much better than the homeschool version. According to this review, in this case, you can judge a book by its cover. :) Yes, I like brief and to the point. I didn't know about Shurley Grammar. Cool.

Can I get some opinions on these? Is there any other grammar book you want to tell me about? eta. Oops, I meant to post in the curriculums forum. ðŸ˜

Thanks LaughingCat. :)

Plum Crazy, I only read the free sample from the Blackwell's philosophy. Neat. Neat part about what Enders Game reflects about educational philosophies. I don't know mine yet, so I read this board a lot trying to figure it out. It said how The Giants Drink demonstrated the Socratic method reintroduced by Paulo Frier. It said Ender was fine with this method while it was clear that there was goals, but got lost by this method when everything became peaceful. Before this I thought he was done with the game because he wouldn't let himself rest. Was this because he had a vocational education rather than liberal? Was it because his type of soul was attracted only to games where there were goals and objectives? He hated games where "the rules and objectives are known only to (the teachers)," but he would angrily play those, but not the peaceful mind game once all objectives seemed to be gone. (I remember he went back to it later, but when it served another objective related to the queen and the baby). The excerpt brings up the ol' educational nature vs. nurtue (vs. device to advance the plot).

Ha, I guess my 3 yr. old has the perfectionist tendencies. Both kids have great motor skills, could write letters early and such. She just learned how to hold onto the monkey bars and drop to the ground safely the other day. She likes to do pages and pages of workbooks in one sitting, until she gets one thing wrong, then it's over as far as she's concerned. (I think it was the letter R lately, she made a B or something). My husband said, "of all the stuff she could have got from you, why did it have to be this one?!". Since I read Carol Dweck's articles online I want to tell my kids, "of course it's hard. Smart people do hard work." and, "learning means learning how to do something you don't know how to do.". Well, she's copying what I say. She says stuff like, "My work was hard and I did it. I did hard work." Both kids regularly try hard stuff on their own, there's just a tendency I've read about for smart kids to try hard things, and usually succeed right away, so they think if they don't get it right away, they can't do it. That's when I use these phrases. I say my daughter has an artistic/poets soul, an emo kid without all the black clothes. (She loves purple.). When she "messes up" it seems to embarrass her deeply. She turns her back, walks away a little bit, she hides her face, her shoulders sag. It happened the other day during a t-ball game. She missed the ball a few times and I could hardly get her to go back and try. Luckily an experienced bystander told my three year old, "go hit the ball. I want to take a picture of you hitting the ball." And it worked. It definitely wasn't working for me to say, "it's okay, baby, it happens to everybody sometimes. You can do it if you keep trying." This is a unique problem. I've read tons of stories online that show it is an issue. When kids regularly achieve above their age level almost anytime they try to do stuff they don't get a certain trait, that apparently most people struggle a little more anytime they try to do stuff. Advanced kids do work more, that's why they're advanced. But they don't naturally struggle. That's the way I've read it described. So somehow we should take the times when they have a struggle and celebrate it and teach them that it is normal, maybe not to them, but it is normal, and good, and worth celebrating. How do we turn that reaction from embarrassment to "living in the moment" and embracing the struggle when it happens? Hopefully by teaching about this. (?)

ETA. He also has nonfiction kids Nat Geo field guides he reads at bedtime sometimes. He's got about a full row of kids books on the shelf, not counting picture books.

We should get our library back soon. Our small town has an annex that borrows books from the county, but it's been under reconstruction for about a year now. I've been buying the best used books from the library in the nearest big town. That's why he's got stuff like Wishbone and Bobby vs. The Girls, and I have the old sci-fi/fantasy that I remembered liking once upon a time.. He still has some kids books left on shelf before we run out, stuff like Esperanza Rising, and something called Poppy, which has a picture of a mouse on the cover dressed up like a little warrior. I've bought a few books online, like Peter Pan and A Little Princess. I can't wait to get our library back so I can ask for Greek, Egyptian, and Roman myths. LoL, before we lost the library he read "Icarus", he was younger, and he kept calling them Icarlos and Dickerous instead of Icarus and Daedulus. I corrected him, but I was cracking up over it. He reads fiction for an hour at bedtime, and I bought the colored fairy set, that I read while they color on the floor.

You remember the series better than I do. My kid read Enders game because he picked up Shadow of the Hegemon from my shelf, which only has Terry Brooks, The Wheel of Time, and some Ender books. I vaguely remembered Shadow of the Hegemon being more mologue and told him, "it's a series, Enders Game is the first book." The only other two I have are Enders Shadow and Shadow of the Hegemon. I remember Enders Shadow explains that Bean has a disease that makes him keep growing, and that it will make him die young. Do you remember if Bean died in that book or not? I don't think my kid will pick from my shelf again soon, because it took him a few weeks, but it would be good to know, just in case.

Remind me not to get in a heated debate with you. LoL

He missed the killings of the kids. I said, "I thought Ender killed Bonzo." He said, "He broke his bone and made him rise" (off the floor). He said that after reading the book. In the movie they showed Bonzo's glazed eyes in the shower, but then it looked like he was laid out in what could be mistaken by a 6 yr. old as a hospital bed when Ender and Petra looked at (his body) through a window. I'm not sure how my son missed Ender telling Valentine "I'm a murderer" at the lake. Like I said, I miss stuff when I read too. I have a lot more years practice, so I wouldn't have missed the large plots. He is doing WWE 2 so he's decent at picking out story lines, but this is a bigger story with a lot more happening. I know "five in a row" is its own thing, but I was thinking about using it for books like this, and Peter Pan, and the Hobbit, and I think I have Treasure Island, and The Little Princess. That's what I have around the house, I think. I don't have library access right now. I asked a few questions during the story, and he told me few parts. I know he got some and missed some from the story. I think that's the point of the "five in a row" thing, right? I'm about to read aloud. I'm trying to think like Plum Crazy and Laughing Cat and hold his hand a little bit while letting him get his own thing out of the book. At one point my son said Ender lied about hurting a boy, but I think he must have misunderstood the scene where Ender was lied to about the damage. My son thought the teachers didn't say much or do much. Most of the scenes did take place between the children, but you and I know the adults were very involved. My son didn't think the teachers had a big role in the story. He noticed things like Ender asking, "Why wasn't I trained for Dr. Device."

Ender didn't realize it wasn't another test at the end, that's why he was angry. He needed to win the games, but he had already talked to Valentine about trying to communicate with the buggers. I think he thought he had time to work it out. I think he got confused that he was dreaming about the buggers and the buggers showing up in his video game, he thought he was thinking about them to "know his enemy", when it turns out later that those instances was the bugger Queen communicating with him. My son did mention that it would be different if Ender had "a communication thing" to talk to the buggers. He was more upset about the human soldiers that died than the buggers (so was I when I read it.) So far the main difference between my kid and me was that he thought Enders response was dependant on how the buggers saw humanity (as described above) and I thought it was less personal, Enders race saw the buggers as a threat. My son wouldn't know about a psychopath. The skinned squirrels would have gone over his head. He's seen skinned deers hanging around peoples porches every hunting season. He would have only noticed the bullying at the beginning.

I keep mine on a shelf and my kid can only play with it at the table with permission and put every piece back when he's done. You can't mess it up by snapping them togeather wrong. It's fine to let them play with it. It's sturdy to play with at the table. One time, my kid grabbed it off the shelf instead of waiting for me to get it down. He dropped the box from that high and shattered the battery pack and speaker. It was easy and cheap to replace the broken pieces from Elenco, which I learned about from this forum.

My kid finished reading "Enders Game", about a chapter a night, then watched the movie yesterday. During the book I googled questions to check for comprehension. But if I understand what he's reading aloud, why would I think he doesn't? When I asked a few questions it seemed like he understood the little scenes that make up the book, giving me some little details. Finally, I asked "why did Ender have to destroy the aliens first and then why did he turn around and save the alien baby?" He answered, " Ender had to destroy the aliens because they needed to fight the human race because they saw old movies and thought humans were violent. After he destroyed their planet and killed them all he found an egg. He saved the egg. Maybe it's a mother in the egg and she'll have more babies. Ender didn't have to kill the baby because it had never seen the movies and didn't think the humans were bad." This is defensible from the book as it was one of the theories of why the aliens attacked us the first time, and reasonable answer why the egg could live. But I thought Ender saved the baby because he learned that the aliens were trying to communicate with him before he destroyed them, he just didn't realize it in time. Another thing: my son said that Peter changed in the book. My son wouldn't let me call Peter a "bad guy" in the beginning, saying "he's not a bad guy, he's a mean kid". Which, since my son loves. both superhereo movies and stories about children, I have to agree with what he's saying, the charachter of a story villian and the charachter of a mean kid are quite different. Peter was bad, but not a villian. And when I read the story, I thought, well,.., I thought of Peter as a villian, and thought Valentine decided to support him because "only a certain type of people fight for the power to rule earth, and as power hungry people go, Peter's far from the worse." My son only saw Peter as a mean kid, and says that Peter changed during the story. I thought I'd throw this out there because classical education is all literature based, and I keep hearing about all these discussions. I'm just throwing this out there to see if there's anything I should know about discussing books. But since what my son said was defensable from the book too, do I just call it comprehended? He read it his way. I read it mine. Or is there some kind of discussion you can teach me to do? Is there some kind of right or wrong way to read or discuss stories? We talked about a few other things too. I asked a few questions I found online. He was surprised Mazer Rackham had tatoos on his face in the movie, so that got by him. But when I read I don't always get every little thing either. Is that a problem? Is there something we're supposed to do now?

Re: the Wicked Witch: Wreck it Ralph had a moral of being good at what you do and every character doing their part for the story. "The name of the game is Fix it Felix. I'm the bad guy in the game who wrecks the building. Felix is the hero of the game. When he fixes my damage he gets a metal. But are there medals for wrecking stuff very good? To that I say "ha", and, no.☹". So she might be commenting on story elements. She wouldn't be the first to consider "a good character" meaning good at being who they are supposed to be in the story, instead of only calling the virtuous people good people. The first conversation I had with my son about this was over the story Shrek. The movie version and the book are quite different. The book version of Shrek paints him as vile, putrid, wretched, and his princess the same as well. My son said he didn't like the Shrek book, even though he asked to hear it again. I explained, son, you like the story, you don't like that character. Good stories have bad characters too. He was younger than your daughter so this was a lesson from pre-story telling 101. Your DD might be quoting a lesson from intermediate story telling: all characters must have something to like about them to not be flat, and sometimes the bad guys are quite good at being interesting people.

Is Hake secular?

Thank you!! So cool, so glad you shared.

I sit in the yard all day and tell my kids, "that's not pixie dust, it's regular dirty dust. Quit throwing it at each other and trying to say it's pixie dust."