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thegirlwhopaintedtrees

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Everything posted by thegirlwhopaintedtrees

  1. We are in the middle of Writing and Rhetoric Narrative 1, but I feel like DD needs a bit more hand holding, or perhaps I need more hand holding, or maybe I just have a case of the "grass is greener on the other side", but let's say we did want to jump ship on WR and go to CW, would I start her in Fable again, or go to Homer? Or should I just hang in there and stay the course with WR?
  2. I went to your blog and read everything you wrote about NL. We've tried Elemental and Apologia too and while I love Apologia books and how thorough they are, there is not much retention. I am going to take the plunge and get N in January to finish out the year. Thanks, Lexi.
  3. Here is my review of it for TOS: http://www.nurturinglearning.com/lightning_literature_grade_1/. I love the very detailed literature component and storyline notes for the teacher to lead a discussion. I am still using this part of it. I like the grammar activities. It's just enough not to be busy work, but because there is a lot of writing, we often do the exercises orally. It would be an expensive way to do literature study if you weren't going to use the workbook (unless you can buy the teacher's manual alone). My review has lots of photos and then there is a link to other reviews of it so you could get a much better feel for it and if it is what you need.
  4. We have used Botany and Swimming Creatures. Nothing struck me as scientifically unsound (except the "creation confirmation" sections being as Susan said, extremely Evangelical). Are you thinking of a specific book? I'd love to know exactly what you think is unsound, so I can make a better judgment for myself about these textbooks. PachiSusan - While I have the Astronomy book (it was given to me), we have yet to use it. Perhaps now I won't. What exactly did it say about the sun that was incorrect?
  5. I haven't read all the responses but I am really bothered by people saying Catholics can not believe in a Young Earth. I was under the impression that there was no dogma on this. Here is an article (and I found many more) explaining basically that "Catholics are free to believe in Creationism, they are also free to believe in an old earth. Some faithful Catholics believe that God created the universe and all that is in it exactly word for word as it is laid out in Genesis 1 - a young earth. Other good Catholics believe in an old earth. The Church has no defined Dogma regarding the specifics of how the earth and the human body were created. Nor does it think that we have to nail that down to be saved." This is quoted from this article: http://catholicbridge.com/catholic/catholic_creationism.php It also states, "It is highly unlikely that the Vatican will ever make a dogmatic pronouncement on this issue, just as it has never made a pronouncement on the shape of the earth." We use Apologia because my daughter is 7 and we like how deep it gets into the information about each subject. It doesn't dumb things down and keep information to a minimum. For example, in botany, it explains everything about stamens and pistils and gets to the nitty gritty details, the sort of details some children crave and need. When we read the Young Earth stuff in there, I explain that it is one way of thinking about creation and I also tell her about the Old Earth theory. I don't usually get into debates like this. I keep my opinions to myself because I don't like to stir things up. Please be kind in your responses. But I have looked into whether Catholics should believe in young earth or old earth many times because 1. we have lots of young earth Protestant friends, 2. I didn't want to use a textbook that was against our faith. 3. I didn't want to start believing something that was against our faith. But my understanding of it is that it isn't against our faith at all. We are free to believe either young or old earth. And I think this is why Catholic companies feel okay using Apologia. Young earth or old earth, in the end, it is still God who created it all. Isn't that the most important thing?
  6. We are alternating days with Song School Latin 2 and Prima Latina this year and I plan on doing LFC and LC together next year. I see them as complementary (one a bit dry and the other more fun) and DD likes both programs. We love the prayers to memorize in Memoria Press' latin and liked the set-up, but Classical Academic Press Latin is just a bit more fun.
  7. The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew just reviewed these recently. Here is the link to my review of the Middle Ages Self-paced history and from there, at the bottom of the post, is the link to the rest of the reviews of the other Self-paced histories and also of Omnibus.
  8. If you don't mind audio and like Jim Weiss, he has a recording of Celtic tales. It was sold out at convention yesterday. I didn't realize Celtic tales were so popular. his website is greathall.com, but Rainbow Resource has the CDs cheaper if you already have a $50 order.
  9. This is what I am doing as well. I found L'imagerie de L'histoire fit our needs. (that's an affiliate link). I am also doing the same with Elemental Science and using other L'imagerie de... titles for the French version. It is not too detailed, but my students are French second language learners and while they understand French, it is limited mostly to directives and very simple conversation about their day, so for us, L'imagerie was just right.
  10. I lost twins last year at 23 weeks. I had a total previa and was on complete bed rest. So because of the way my pregnancy turned out, I highly recommend just putting all your energy into doing your bed rest completely and not worrying about school. You say they are up to date with math and language arts. If it were me and I was up to date with those subjects, i wouldn't stress about the other subjects. This is a season. If they are just in first and second grade, they will have time to revisit science and history plenty. Read aloud to them from SOTW but don't stress about activities. Same for science - read the text, don't worry about experiments. Read aloud to them from good literature or listen to lots of audio books. I got terrible headaches from bed rest so ended up not being able to read aloud. Listen to them read to you. Will you be getting help? I had people picking up my kids every day in the summer and even helping me homeschool them because it was so hard to be on complete bed rest with them around. My kids were only 3 and 5 at the time. Bed rest was very hard. It went against my nature. I had this idea that I could keep schooling while I was on it, but really, I couldn't. That is not to mean that you won't be able to, but I went into it with highly unrealistic expectations. Laying down nearly all the time for 12 weeks gave me unbearable headaches and back pain and it was all I could do to get through the day with all that pain. I don't want to scare you, but only to reassure you that you can give yourself permission to slack for a time and play catch up later. You can school through next summer for example while you rest this one.
  11. Here's my review of the first level. My daughter was a too young for it at the time. I don't know how the older levels would compare.
  12. We tried doing both WWE (to finish 2) and CAP Fable, but it was too redundant and too much, so we dropped WWE. If your child is already good at narrating and summarizing, doing both is overkill. If DC still needs more narrating and summarizing practice, then maybe I would recommend one day a week of WWE (in which I would only dot the narrating/summarizing portions). My daughter didn't need the extra practice, though she was sad to let WWE go because she liked hearing the story segments. We use AAS and FLL/MCT for grammar.
  13. They had a discount at the convention. Maybe 10%? I don't remember.
  14. The Old School House Reviewed it. You can find everyone's reviews about it here: http://www.linkytools.com/wordpress_list.aspx?id=224964&type=thumbnail My review is this one http://www.nurturinglearning.com/spelling-you-see/. I used the second level with my 4.5 year old son. I liked it for him for where he is at right now.
  15. Saxon becomes very independent at level 5/4. I don't know what to recommend for the younger grades though, that is like Saxon for repetition, but independent.
  16. The CC memory work is rather secular - math , most Latin, history etc. Just leave out the Scripture memory portion.
  17. I looked at LFC at convention and I will be going with that when we are done with SSL2. My DD was there looking at it with me and said she would much prefer that over the MP Latin (we had been looking at it seconds before). The workbook continues to be "fun" with puzzles and more game like activities than just writing and more writing. I don't know what other Latin you were considering, but I really liked LFC. My decision is whether to buy it now even though we aren't ready for it, just to use the 20 percent code while I have it!
  18. JAG has a sample online in which thye share a really easy way to identify a preposition. We stopped singing and memorizing the CC preposition song after I found the JAG sample. Much simpler. The Mouse goes ____ the box. Then the exceptions are But Al Does (But, Until, Then, As, Like, During, Of, Except, Since) Link to sample of JAG: http://66.129.109.103/media/upload/image/Jr%20AG%20sample%20unit.pdf
  19. There are a bunch of us reviewing it for TOS Review Crew. The reviews will start going up next Friday the 28th. So far we are enjoying the B level. It's not your typical spelling program. No lists of words. That's all I have time to say right now, but look for the reviews at the end of next week.
  20. I don't even recall FIAR having crafts. I remember art lessons, but no crafts. The crafts you see on Pinterest are not from the books. They are parent created. There are no crafts in MP K enrichment, although the first week with A Tree is Nice had us use watercolors to paint a tree and had us go outside on a neighborhood walk to identify trees. It's a lot of reading comprehension and discussion questions. MP K is more literary "analysis," (grade-level appropriate), art appreciation, music appreciation, with science and history/culture enrichment ideas.
  21. They are very similar. I used BFIAR and FIAR 1 and 2, 3 or 4 years ago with my DD and got MP K Enrichment for my K son just last week. I had sold my FIAR and didn't feel like purchasing it again for my son because I hadn't liked the layout when I went through it with my DD. It (FIAR) didn't really work for me. We have done one week of MP K Enrichment and I love the layout of the teacher's manual. I love how the art and music appreciation is included in the MP and I could just look up the art print via a Google search and the music on Youtube. I'll be getting the first grade enrichment at convention.
  22. I use both, but only because DD doesn't mind writing a lot. I do talk to her about the kind of sentences, clauses, etc, as they mention in the teacher's manual. I'm going to follow to see what others do, as we are only on the third unit/lesson.
  23. So if we are reading Story of the World and my child remembers only strange or quirky things (like something about Marie Antoinette spending lots of money on parties) but doesn't remember all the different things SWB wanted in the summary, then a la CM that's fine ? (She's 6, if that matters). I'm finding the same thing for Apologia. She remembers obscure details that fascinate her but can't answer the narration prompts in the book (mostly to define terms).
  24. I found Saxon K too simple for my 4 year old when he was 4. You might actually want to use Saxon 1 for your Ker and Saxon 2 for your 1st grader.
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