I think a 6th grader should learn how to construct a good paragraph, and know how to write a topic sentence. He should master end punctuation, most comma usage, dashes, semi-colons, colons, and quotation marks for dialogue. He should learn to plan and write a narrative essay, a descriptive essay, a process essay, an informative essay, and a compare and contrast essay, working up to the 5-paragraph model during the first semester. He should learn to write good introductory and concluding paragraphs, and to organize his thoughts. He should incorporate vivid word usage as he goes, becoming familiar with a thesaurus, and learn to write without passive verbs. He should learn to write a variety of sentence structures, and to vary his sentence openers. He should write several types of poetry. He should learn the writing process of planning, writing, revising, proofing, and editing. A finished essay every 3-4 weeks should be expected, and every 2-3 weeks in the second semester. Students should learn to review their peers' work in a supervised way, making 1-2 praises and 1-2 suggestions for improvement. They should become familiar with standard formatting for academic papers: font style and size, spacing, headings, margins, etc. An 8th grader should also learn all this, and should add in some literary analysis essays and author biographies. He could be expected to write with more mature subject matter, vocabulary, and syntax than a 6th grader. A more thorough exposure to MLA formatting would be appropriate, with an introduction to a short research paper and source citations. I think if you teach your 6th-8th graders all this, you should not need IEW.

Thanks for the great site, that told me everything I needed to know. I can live with the $10 1st ed for myself. I was concerned the content might be different, or the order of the modules.

Thanks, guys. I already have the 2nd edition; I just wanted to get a second copy of the text for me. I found one for $10. Hard to lose money on that!

Can someone tell me the difference in the first and second edition of Apologia'a General Science? I have the 2nd ed, but wanted to get a second copy of the text for myself, since two ds will be sharing the one other textbook. I can find a 1st edition much cheaper than a 2nd. Will they be compatible?

I've made sure to give them plenty of space as newlyweds but think I need to love on my daughter-in-law a lot more and initiate spending time with her so I'll be more likely to know what's going on in her life. She seems pretty open with me. Anyway, anyone have any advice or insight? Sonshine, I am so sorry the miscarriage. I have a fairly new dil, too, and am imagining myself in your place. I, too, would comfort them and love on them, and continue from there to build a close relationship. I have been surprised how distant my dil is from her own mother, not by choice but because her mother will not give her the closeness she craves. Since I live 3000 miles from my son and dil, all our communication has to be by phone or internet. When I call them, I make my call to her cell phone, not my son's. I have always done this, on my sister's advice, who is a very successful mil. She started warming up to me the first time I did this. Every call since then has been even warmer and closer. She has begun to confide things to me I could NEVER have asked her about. I have an opening to speak on almost any topic with her now, not because I am a bossy busy-body and have been worming my way into her life so I can control it (that won't work for anyone), but because I truly adore her now and she knows it. Btw, I don't think I have yet offered her any advice on anything of consequence. Best wishes on overcoming the grief together, and growing closer to each other.

Sorry, duplicated.

I noticed the same thing - all the coupon codes I got had already been used and were rejected as invalid. I may take your suggestion and contact them to ask for a break of some kind. Fwiw, today at Kohl's, I was given the Senior Citizen Discount out of sympathy from the cashier when I bought three pairs of boys' shoes, none of which were at a sale price. :001_smile:

Ann-Marie, I have stuff sitting in my cart, too, waiting for a coupon. :toetap05: Best of luck to you!

Yes, they seem to really dried up. Just another manifestation of the economic times, maybe? Well, still hoping someone has one somewhere they will not be using . . . :crying:

I vote no to the family of 11 living on $2500 a month. You could easily buy groceries for that, but housing and insurance, too? Fuel for cars? Clothing for 11? Educational expenses? And then you must either have savings included in that figure, or have some other arrangement for replacing dead cars/trucks. Apparently college is not in his plans for his grandchildren. That said, you COULD live an austere life on that. I know a couple (no children) who lived in a tent for two years while they got out of debt. Is your fil crazy? I like the plan for moving in with him. :lol:

Still looking . . . :sad:

I am looking for a coupon code for CBD. Does anyone have anything you would be willing to let me use. I could not find anything online. Oh, and is this the right board to ask this? I am pretty wet behind the ears on here. :001_huh: Thank you!

Quote from susie in tx : I have The Violin Book. I played violin for 6 years It couldn't hurt to get the book and try it out. If he is very determined and willing to try, then he might pick it up quickly. Once your son gains some proficiency, you will want to get him some private lessons, but starting out with The Violin Book isn't a bad idea, IMHO. Thanks so much for your view, Susie. Lots of good links, advice, and cautions. Everyone seems agreed self-teaching is not ideal, not even recommended by most of you. I suppose my question now has become this: If lessons are simply not possible, is it better to try the self-teaching for a bit? Or should I toss out the violin idea altogether? The latter seems wrong to me. After all, I am not dreaming of a virtuoso future, not even an orchestral future, for him. He just wants to learn to play the violin. If he learns things incorrectly but has a good time and learns to make music with it - is this a bad thing? If he persists with it, takes good care of his violin for a bit, and other things fall into place so that he can get lessons later, is it better for him that he has had the previous dabbling with it? Or better to start possibly years later with a clean slate, when perhaps the thrill has gone away for him? I appreciate that all of you are taking my little dilemma seriously, because it is serious for us.

Wow. Thank you , everyone. Now I see why there is no discussion here about using these books! I appreciate your sharing your experiences and insights with me; it probably saved us a lot of wasted time, money, and effort, not to mention frustration and long-term angst of developing bad violin habits. Yes, we will have to work out something. It isn't just a matter of paying for the lessons themselves; it is the associated travel time, and cost of travel to and fro!!! Ack!!! Plus the additional day we all have to pack up and leave home. We are already gone almost a full day for piano lessons for three ds (with one pre-schooler in tow.) We live 25 miles form the nearest anything, so once I leave the house, it seems I cannot get anything else done on schoolwork for that day. I don't see how I could do this twice a week. I know some of you are in the same situation, so - give me your ideas on how to get schoolwork done while sitting at piano lessons, or violin lessons, please! And thank you again for the helpful opinions about ways to make lessons work, and violin books! ~ Diane

Hi, everyone! I am new to this forum and have lots to learn. I am looking for a way for my ds (10yo) to start violin. I read SWB's recommendation in WTM for The Violin Book series, but I can't find any discussion of that on this forum. Anyone know anything about it? I looked at the website for it, but since I know nothing about violins, I couldn't really tell much. My son is already proficient on the piano, and I didn't know if this series would be a little too juvenile for him. I just cannot entertain the thought of private lessons for him right now, but he has been begging for violin instruction for close to a year now. :bigear: