I was just finishing my trial and I've been really liking it so I went ahead and bought it. I think it's really promising! I know they are continually working to upgrade it, and that's really exciting to me, but even as it stands it's going to be awesome for me. The price is right, especially when I consider the subscription services (ouch!) and it's not hard to use at all. I watched maybe 2 of the tutorial videos to get the feel of it, then figured out a bunch just by trying stuff and seeing if it works. For me, it's really intuitive. Things that seem like they should work just do. It took me way less time than I expected to auto-assign all the work in all subjects for 4 kids, and it's laid out so prettily now. I get such a great feeling watching the assignments just lay out automatically on the calendar. Actually, I really wish I had something else to plan; it was quite fun.

I tried the Science Jim/Bite-Size physics for a while. I think it's good for an interested 7 yo, and adaptable up to about 11 yo. There is some math. I thought it was well done, but my non-sciency daughter lost interest. You can buy a paperback of Bite Size Physics on Amazon, or, I think, on Lulu. Also there are a bunch of free physics lessons for all elementary grades on msnucleus.org. I really like that site.

:iagree: That was our experience. It definitely got worse before it got better. Also, she needs to be kept very quiet because there's a chance of dislodging the fragile scar tissue. My daughter had to wait quite a while after she felt good before she could rejoin her normal activities.

:iagree: Especially because the problematic question was in the homework book and not the test book. The MPH sequence starts in 3rd grade, which I think is a perfectly good time to teach outside research. We use Britannica Kids online all the time, and the pace of MPH allows for outside reading, etc. I don't spend time lecturing on the MPH topics, but if a question like this comes up, she just looks it up, sometimes in the text first but she often likes just looking it up online since she thinks it's faster that way.

I think the Chicago trip might be more exciting and different for your family. There's lots to do in Chicago for all ages!

I once had a California earth science text and there were special sections inserted into it that were titled things like "California content standards review," and extra quizzes, etc, for California students. My understanding is that the powerhouse states (California, Texas, and, um, Florida?) get to dictate what goes in the textbooks and the textbooks are written to comply with those standards. The other states and hs'ers just pick one.

I don't know what you should do but I will say that I think Drama of American History might possibly be a little hard for the ages of your kids. My advanced 13 year old read through a dozen or so of them this year and he really enjoyed them, but I know they were out of reach for my 10 year old.

The problem with all the methods that involve smothering the tick or using a match or whatever is that they may make the tick more likely to regurgitate their pathogens into you before you get them out. The tick really needs to just be pulled straight out with no funny business for the safest removal.

When I was doing OM I skipped it. It looked totally stupid to me, and the kind of stuff we cover just by living together every day.

Oh oh oh! I need to plug this new product which totally changed our relationship with ticks--it is uh-maze-ing. Seriously, I tell everyone about this. Actually, I guess we still hate ticks but we live in a tick-infested area so we get them all the time, but now at least I can get them out alive every single time and without pain, even, say, from my preschooler's scalp! If they come out alive that is obviously best because it means you got it all, including the head. I was actually upset when I found out about this, because it's like $5 and someone on some website said if you live in tick-infested area you might want one...um, ya think? I wish I hadn't had to live in NH for 10 years without one! I felt like someone should have clued me in earlier. Maybe the doctor? Anyway. I now keep one on my keychain, bought one for my mom for when she babysits, and have another at home in case someone gets a tick when I'm gone. I got this one from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Ticked-Off-Pets-Remover-White/dp/B00008434T/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1339244313&sr=8-3 But if you look there are a bunch of competing brands and they probably all work as well as this one. I'm not a company rep! lol It is NOT just for pets. So far we've used it 11 times and it's worked flawlessly, almost instantly, and totally painlessly every time. I wouldn't hesitate to use this on privates. Seriously...ER/sedation/whatever? I realize it's probably too late in your case, but for next time? Stock up! They probably even carry them at local stores; I just always shop at Amazon. Also, not to freak you out, but newer research is saying that the larger dog ticks can also carry lyme. :glare:

I've been mixing and matching levels for a few years now and it's worked really well. I don't think it's necessary at all to keep them at the same level across the curriculum. Really, it's kind of ridiculous to think of parallel levels of poetry reading, writing, vocabulary, and grammar. There is definite fluidity up and down a level with these books, and although a book will occasionally reference one of the other books (i.e. "for more information about 4-level analysis, see Grammar Town"). So I would say there's no need to jump to CE 2 if you want to do 2. I do have the new CE 1 and it looks great. To me, it looks as though there are more opportunities to use the vocabulary, and I'm hopeful it will help it stick. I did not buy the "Implementation Guide" but looking at the student text it looks very straightforward to implement. The only thing I'm going to have to improvise are chapter tests, which I assume must be in the Implementation Guide. I plan to just discuss with her what the words mean and count that as an assessment, but if you need something more formal, you would want to find out if that is in the Implementation Guide.

I tried some blocks in my Great Waldorf Experiment, and I noticed that 3-4 weeks was about right for us. I did one 5 week block and it felt like an eternity. 3 weeks was good; at 4 I felt like it was dragging and I got antsy to move on to another subject. In the end I ditched blocks because although I did enjoy the block I was working with, the subjects that I was leaving by the wayside kept haunting me when it wasn't their turn. I probably wouldn't have felt that way if I'd just tried rotating two subjects like you are, though.

But it does cost some bucks when you're doing thousands of photos. Send them or the negatives to http://www.scancafe.com. They scan every one of them. You get to look over the scans online; if there are some that are not good or worth saving you get to mark them for the "trash." The good ones they put on a CD for you. They also send you back your pictures. Be careful not to reopen the box or you might not be brave enough to toss your originals. :D But if you are strong enough, just dump the originals and keep your scans. This has actually worked really well for us, and we have better access to our photos and probably see them more now than we did when we had them in paper. We have scanned pretty much all of them---thousands of pictures. We did them for my MIL, too.

13 yo boys. Taller than me....

It's definitely got a different feel from the earlier books. Grammar-wise, it's definitely more challenging. One of my boys had no trouble at all with GV, but ML1 almost broke him. It was all the phrases that he found difficult. I don't remember GV covering participials, infinitive phrases, gerunds, objects of this kind of phrase, etc. I actually prefer ML1 to GV. I'm now feeling the same misgivings that you are about ML2, which doesn't look recently revised. But ML1 was a hit for me.

You can see the workbook and cahier de lecture on Amazon.com. I found a sample of the textbook on Amazon.fr: http://www.amazon.fr/Alex-Zo%C3%A9-compagnie-M%C3%A9thode-fran%C3%A7ais/dp/2090338164/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338649033&sr=1-1 Here's a sample of one of the Guide pedagogiques (it's for level 3, but the gist is the same as level 1): http://www.amazon.fr/Alex-Zo%C3%A9-compagnie-Guide-p%C3%A9dagogique/dp/2090339349/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338649115&sr=1-4 (click "zoomer" to zoom in) So that gives you samples of all the main components, except the audio portion. Yes, the parent needs to know French to teach this course.

Another plug for Alex et Zoe at that age. I love this one; we're on the second year of it. I don't know what you mean by "audio cps" of the program, but there is a significant audio component of A+Z. It includes many native speakers, both cartoon and real, and they purposely put background noises in some of the tracks for more realistic circumstances. There are raps/poems and songs, dialogues, and exercises. Great audio. I don't know about spacial learning at all, although the "Guide Pedagogique" (GP) (essential to the program) has lots of learning suggestions for a classroom, many of which involve getting up and moving around. Open and go? Well, that's mostly how I used it, but it would definitely have been better if I'd had a chance to prepare my lessons. It took me about 5 minutes to read through the GP and note what I wanted to do other than the obvious working through of the text and workbook. Of course, if you struggle with French it might take you more than 5 minutes to read it!:001_smile: This is absolutely a great program for your younger daughter to follow along with. Especially when we were memorizing songs/raps, my 3 year old was right there enjoying the whole experience. It's really vital that you know French to teach this one, though. I don't think anyone not comfortable with French could teach it. But with 5 yrs French, if you still remember it, you could probably be happy with it. Some of the GP might be a little challenging for you, but I imagine you'd understand enough.

I also have a ton of Live Ed and Christopherus for sale on these boards. If you search for my names or even Live Education or Christopherus you'll find it. I didn't really find it "light"--actually I thought it was pretty challenging--but it took a LOT of time, at least for me. Implementing all that form drawing and nature/community walk time and painting, etc, just took a lot of time. I guess it would have been find but I personally can't feel comfortable with a block schedule, especially for math. I always loved the block we were in but then I would start getting this nagging feeling about all the other stuff we were neglecting. I just couldn't relax about it.

I just stumbled on this old post of yours and saw that you never got an answer. I know! Calvert uses their own unique handwriting program they call "Calvert Script." You will not find it anywhere else. If you really want them to continue with that handwriting, I would suggest you ask to see some of their old manuals where it was taught so that you can know what it looks like. Then you will have to make up your own practice sheets, or simply correct them when they do it differently. Might be easier to switch to another program, though.

Tapestry of Grace 1 was a bomb here a few years ago. I gave Tapestry another shot again this year (different year plan) and this time I love it. I tweaked how I approach it and also I think I just don't like Year 1, but basically I'm so glad I gave the program another shot. I think in my case it was how I approached the curriculum, not really anything to do with the kids.

Yes, that's it, I think. If you sell a lot of books and get envelopes really cheaply, you might net a profit of 25 cents to a dollar for a sale, depending on how heavy the book is. Also sometimes I've noticed sellers putting advertising in cheap books, so maybe they hope that the cheap sale will lead to another sale. More than once I've gotten a Bible/Christian tract in with a cheap book, so I suspect that the book sale may be doubling as a ministry.

That's a good idea! I probably would have done better if I had done something like that. That's pretty much what I do now to make TOG usable for me...I have to type up a weekly assignment from the so-called "buffet." Otherwise I just get overwhelmed feeling like I should be doing everything. Of course, a big part of the appeal of WP is how it is considered to be "open and go." So doing that sort of defeats that. Even if you had to do that extra work, WP still breaks down the assignments, assigns craft and movie and web pages projects, and has a lot going for it.

Yeah, but I have to admit it drove me nuts that the parent schedule did not also show me the independent work, and that I had to flip back and forth between two schedules to see all the work assigned in a week. I prefer to have all the week's work on a single page.

I'm gonna defend WP here, even though their products don't work for my family. First off, I totally agree that they are a kind company. I emailed them a few years ago with some kind of suggestion/complaint and I remember I got an incredibly long, personal email back from Karyn. Their customer service helped resolve my immediate concern and Karyn answered my more general gripe. Oh—I remember—it was about one of their resources being labeled consumable when it was clearly not consumable as there was essentially nothing to write in it about. I was very annoyed that I had bought multiple copies based on their recommendation. I didn't in the end agree with what Karyn was saying, but I did feel heard and important, if that makes sense. Regarding prices, when I bought the package for QMA I spent a long time comparing Amazon and WP, and in the end WP was either cheaper or almost the same price as Az. I went ahead and bought from WP, and although some of my products came in multiple shipments, I was ordering at least 6 weeks before the start of my program so it was fine. That said, one item that I guess was from the craft supply kit came a laughably long time after I ordered---like, at least a year and maybe 18 months. I was mystified one day to get an odd package from WP, and this was well after we were finished with the program. It turned out to be about 10 foam boards, which I guess I was entitled to but had never received. As I said, I have vowed I won't use their products again, but really this is only because they didn't work for my family. I love the catalog and the website and the idea, so I have gotten seduced a few times, and I almost need to be firm with myself about this. But AW and QMA were both not great for us, so I don't want to try a third time. I guess if I had to put my finger on our main complaint it was that it was too much and too Christian. Too much about animals (AW) and too long on the time period (QMA). And I found both of those programs very difficult to secularize. I'm Christian so I don't mind a little Christian flavor to my homeschool but this was too much for us. In AW it was pretty easy to just leave out the Christian books but in QMA the whole flow of the course was influenced by its focus on Christian history.

My kids largely enjoy SL books (except for my dd, for whom the majority are too emotionally hard-hitting), but they don't seem to make the history connections that they're supposed to make. They retained very little from the 7 SL cores we did. Great books, but not great history learning for our family.