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smillard00

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  • Location
    Louisiana
  • Interests
    sewing, smocking,being with my family
  • Occupation
    clergy wife & homeschool mom
  1. Hi all! I need some book recommendations, please. My son is asking for some reading material for history covering the time period from about 1812 - 1914 but not solely focusing on US History. We have plenty of US resources, but he wants to know more about what was going on in Europe and the rest of the world. In my perfect world, SWB would have her books out through that time period because he LOVED the Ancient and Medieval volumes. But absent that, what else do you recommend? He is a sophomore with a great appetite for history books and a preference for non-fiction. Thanks for your help! Samantha
  2. I've been looking at samples of Excellence in Literature today too. I didn't think it looked like too much research required. Yes, there was background reading to go along with the novel being studied and essays to write, but you have four weeks to read each novel and do the research and write the essay. It looked very reasonable to me. Before beginning, I was planning to cover The Elegant Essay to learn essay writing and all or part of Windows to the World to learn more about how to write a literary essay. So when we begin, he should be ready to write this sort of essay. It looks like great prep for college coursework and supposedly helps prepare them for the AP/CLEP exams. I think we're going to give it a try. We got into this about a year later than I would prefer, so he'll be doing EE and WTW for 10th and then begin EiL as soon as he's done with those. I'm probably going to get the big binder that has all of the units in it because there may be a few books in Amer. Lit. and Brit. Lit. that we will skip in favor of getting to a few of the books in Euro. Lit.
  3. Does anyone do Classical Conversations at home? I love the idea of doing it in a community, but there does not seem to be enough interest here to form a group. So I was thinking about getting the materials and just using it at home. If you do this, I'd love to hear about how/what it looks like in your home.
  4. We used graph paper to solve the problem of not aligning the numbers and getting wrong answers. But this didn't bring the neatness that I thought was needed for our future in Algebra. I came to the conclusion that they needed to see what I was talking about. So, once or twice a year, I will work a page of problems so they can see what I mean about making it neat and easy to read/grade. I think if they can see what it should look like, then they have something to work toward. I will also count something wrong if I can't read it without guessing. So if their 4 looks like a 9, then I will mark it. They can always come back to me and make the case that it is really a 4, but I make them work for it. And if their numbers/work get really sloppy, then we will have a little math "handwriting" practice. When they are 12 years old, they really hate this! :D But it gets my point across. I remind them that they need to write clearly so I can read it, but also so they can read it themselves. Sometimes they make an error because they can't read their numbers either. And I remind them that I won't always be the one grading their papers and a college grader will not have any patience for sloppy work. You want the person grading your paper to be calm and in a good mood--more partial credit! And a neat and tidy paper brings on the calm/good mood. Extreme? Maybe, but their papers are looking better and they are making fewer mistakes.
  5. It isn't a compound sentence. A compound sentence would have two independent clauses in it with a conjunction. This sentence has a dependent clause and an independent clause. I would agree with the OP's assessment. The subject and verb in an adverbial clause aren't the subject and verb of the sentence. They're just the subject and verb of that dependent clause. If you were to diagram this sentence, all would be made clear. :D
  6. I'm doing it with my 6th grader. I'm waiting to do the upper level guide with my 10th grader next year. I would say it is definitely meaty enough for your 8th grader. For your 9th grader--maybe--I don't know what your expectations are for 9th grade. I think it would be easy to beef it up a bit if you wanted. When you do the Beowulf book they recommend, also pull out Beowulf in the original language and try to work through that some. When they give writing assignments, you can up the complexity or expectation there. You could throw in some additional research, if you like. Actually, if I were going to add my 9th grader into our study this year, I would probably just assign him SWB's upper level Medieval book on the side and then have him enjoy the Medieval intermediate with his sister.
  7. We did Ancients last year too. This new format is a lot different. The old format had "lessons" which were a bundle of reading assignments, vocab, questions, etc. Sometimes one of those lessons would take an hour and sometimes it seemed like it would take a week. It was hard to plan ahead, so I decided to just go with the flow and work through it giving it what time we could. Since it was counting for literature and history for us, we did it every day and spent about an hour. Sometimes they would work a little longer on it--usually if they had a writing assignment. The new format of the Medieval Intermediate guide is different. It is set up by the week. She gives a reading assignment for the week and then a list of things to do. There is usually vocabulary to look up in preparation for the reading. When appropriate, there is mapwork. Sometimes there will be an assignment like research Charlemagne and write a short bio. There may be some background information given or websites to visit. There may be optional books or videos to further enhance the topic. The big thing is that you are strongly encouraged to pick and choose among the assignments to do what fits your student and the time you have and your goals for the study. So it is extremely flexible. You would also have the option to just skip a book if it gets to be too much reading. I felt like the Ancients study was a LOT of reading. I have strong, fast readers, so it wasn't too bad. But this new format feels like a lot less (can't say for certain until we actually do it all) and I really appreciate having it broken down by the week. Would I combine it with LOTR? I don't know. I will definitely go look at that study, though, because it sounds like something my oldest might enjoy.
  8. I like buying books too, but can't afford to buy all of the ones we want any more and to buy the new shelves to hold them. Our house is full of bookshelves! :001_smile: But really, the most difficult thing is that there are a lot of books we would like to use that are not easy to find to buy, but are supposedly sitting on library shelves, according to the writers of the curricula. Just not the shelves where I live... I love holding real books in my hand, but all of this headache really makes me long for a day when the library books are all electronic and I can just access them with my computer. Think we could get the Library of Congress to do that for us??? We could call it a book preservation project to make a record of all of the old books before they disappear.
  9. Depending on what you did the previous year or have planned for the following year, it is possible to leave off something. For example, I am doing Medieval with my 6th grader this year. I noticed that the Columbus book overlaps with Early US and World Intermediate. So we have the option of doing Columbus in either year. Also, if you look at the high school level Modern US and World courses, they overlap some with the Abraham Lincoln book. So you could omit from that end. Or if you are planning to do Westward Expansion next, that is only a semester course, so you could just work as far as you can this year and then pick up the next year and then move on with Westward expansion. There are lots of options. When my ds did this study, he did all of the guide questions and writing assignments and we even added in the book on William Penn that was new at the time and wasn't included in the study and he finished in plenty of time, but he is one who loves to read.
  10. There might be something here: http://www.bfbooks.com/Info-FAQ/FAQ What about Ruth Beechick's books? Charlotte Mason or the people who write about CM methods?
  11. I don't have experience with LLFLOTR, but FYI: BF is in the process of revising Medieval History high school level. Middle school level is already revised and we're using it. I really like the changes they made. My high schooler will be doing Medieval next year and we will probably be using the new one.
  12. I think by "drop-in" you are striving for flexibility, right? I think that is a great idea. I have had times when I really wished for someplace I could take my kids for the morning so I could go to an appointment without them. I wouldn't do it often, but it would be nice to have. I'm also thinking of times when I might need to do a field trip with my older one and need a place for the youngers or something like that. What if you figured out how many kids you could handle (legally and logistically) at a time and set up a reservations book. When you advertise, you can say that there are a limited number of slots available and they should call in advance for a reservation. Then you could take last minute reservations if you have space available. That implies that there is a demand for time slots and that they should plan ahead if possible. That would prevent someone from depending on your services only to arrive and find out that you are already full. The state will have some sort of limit for your capacity. There used to be a little place where we lived before that was sort of like this, only not designed with homeschoolers in mind. They were a duel-purpose place. They had certain hours that they were open for drop-in childcare. Then they had designated days/slots where they would do birthday parties. They had a lot of dress up clothes and activities for the kids. One of the birthday parties they offered was a dress-up tea party, so picture lots of dresses, hats, etc. Fun! They were in a store-front rather than a home, but it was a similar idea. It was nice to have because I was pregnant and needed a place for my ds to go when I had pre-natal appointments. Good luck with developing your business! I think it's a good idea.
  13. I would think that someone with asthma would be a poor candidate to do physical labor in a hot, dusty warehouse. And I think the point they were trying to make about Amazon using a point system to rate productivity and using that information to decide on whether someone is hired to be a permanent employee is a good system. There is a difference between having the mindset of "I deserve these points and they are being taken away from me" vs. "I earned this many points for the amount of work I completed." Amazon does a high volume business and they need to keep employees who can accomplish a high volume of work. If you can't do things that quickly or consistently, then you aren't the right candidate for this job. As for the heat, maybe it is a different perspective because I live in the south where triple digit temperatures and high heat indices are a fact of life, especially this year, but if I applied for a job in a warehouse, I would fully expect to be working in high heat conditions during the summer. They have cooling bandanas and vests, fans, ventilation, water, snacks, medical assistance, temperature gauges. That's more than I can say for the un-air-conditioned schools I attended as a kid. Some jobs are hot and physically demanding and require workers who can handle that. If we did away with every job that fit this criteria, we wouldn't have food on our tables or gas for our cars or cotton for our clothing or a lot of things we rely on.
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