I am mostly replying to bump up the thread, since we began math with RS B, not A. I just wanted to mention, though, that when you begin "B" you will race through the first 20 or so lessons (maybe more) because it covers all of "A" at an accellerated pace. So, can someone else answer her question? Julie

Bumping this to page one in case some didn't see it yesterday...

Too cool! :lol::lol::lol::D

We go to San Diego frequently and are members of the San Diego Museum of Natural History, the San Diego Zoo (and Wild Animal Park -- one membership gets you into both), and Legoland. The Museum of Natural History is in Balboa Park and has excellent exhibits: will the Darwin exhibit still be there? It has a lot of the real specimens that he collected, his personal possessions, and is very understandable as well as just breathtaking. San Diego was the only west cost venue of the exhibition. The museum usually has one or two fascinating films showing, too. But if it's a sunny day, don't spend all day indoors! There is a big fountain in the plaza just outdoors (or in the other direction from the museum, a huge shade tree that we used to be able to climb but now it is fenced off.) On the other side of the fountain is the Reuben H. Fleet Space Center, which IMHO is one of the inferior museums. But perhaps I've been spoiled by the Exploratorium in San Francisco and OMSI in Portland, Oregon. In any event, I still go to Fleet for the incredible IMAX movies they show. I recently saw one about the Amazon River (and its peoples) that was stunning. If money is not an object, or if you can get a good rate at their website online, it would be very fun to stay at the Sheraton Carlsbad. This is one of the nicest hotels I've ever stayed at, and there is a nice pool and other games. Your children will meet other kids who are (1) waiting for Legoland to open or (2) have just come back from Legoland. Much, much nicer than the Grand Palisades or whatever it's called, and you have your own back entrance to Legoland! That means you can walk to the back of the park from your hotel room (in just a few minutes -- but ask someone, it is not obvious where it is) and get on the Dragon Coaster or Technic Coaster all by yourselves because the people are just coming in the front entrance. Even if you are the only person on the ride, they will start it right at opening time. If you happen to be there on the first Saturday of the month, there is a Lego contest your kids can enter. My son won one of these monthly contests and earned the right to enter the Master Build-off competition in January. Way cool. Anyway, Legoland is fun for all ages, except maybe your 15yo dd. There will be a water park opening this summer, but it won't be open yet when you visit. That reminds me, if it is a warm day, wear bathing suits and bring towels --- there are lots of very wet things to do in the Pirate section of the park, including a water playground. There is a nice walk from Children's Cove in La Jolla (where the seals are -- it might be marked as Seal Cove on some maps) to La Jolla Cove. Of course, you can walk from La Jolla Cove to Seal Cove, but there is more likely to be a parking spot at Children's/Seal Cove. Go fairly early on a weekday -- if it is Saturday, the whole town will be picnicking and playing there. La Jolla Shores is a mile or so further up the coast -- not within walking distance, so don't plan a walk from LJ Cove to LJ Shores. If money is not an object, you could stay at La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club. You could open your door right onto one of the most beautiful private beaches in California! There is also a pretty well-regarded hotel right next door to it (also beachfront, but the beach is public). Check Trip Advisor website. I love Cabrillo National Monument, but I realize it is not convenient to get to. Be aware that the trails close at about 4:30 out there. I love the native California vegetation. I love Torrey Pines State Park for the same reason (north of La Jolla), and it should be lovely since they've had so much rain. Lots of easy walks and gorgeous views at Torrey Pines. Lastly, I do like Birch Aquarium (what you called Scripps). It is small but very fun and the exhibits are very well-planned and educational. If other posters have not been there recently, give it another try! There is more, but my forearms are all worn out from typing, LOL. Oh, one more thing. Another place to think about staying, especially if you will have a car, is Shelter Island. Annoyingly, Trip Advisor and the other hotel websites do not indicate whether a hotel is on Shelter Island or not, but it is a really peaceful place to stay -- a small peninsula (not an island actually) with walking paths, a playground, and needless to say, beautiful views. I believe you can see Cabrillo National Monument from there. Hotels there include the Kona Kai Club (which was private when I was a child but you can rent rooms and have full use of all the club facilities), Humphreys, the Bay Club, and one other. Oh, looky here, they finally decided to market themselves: http://www.shelterislandsandiego.com/ Look up the individual hotels on Trip Advisor, and also check the outdoor concert schedule at Humphreys if you want to get any sleep there! We used to paddle surfboards over there and listen from the water..... My favorite restaurant in Point Loma (the area of SD that Shelter Island is in) is called Tender Greens. It is hard to find, but near Trader Joe's in a new shopping area (former naval station) called Liberty Station. Very yummy. There are lots of other good restaurants in Liberty Station, too. And also there is that roller coaster over in Mission Bay, and a little retro amusement park right there, as another poster mentioned. When I was young, that same roller coaster was rickety and dangerous, but oh so exciting! There is a nice breakfast place right on the beach near the coaster, but I can't remember its name. And that isn't very helpful because there are about 100 breakfast places along the beach! But I know you'll find a good one. I should clarify that it the roller coaster is considered to be in Mission Bay and Mission Beach. So if you look one direction you will see the bay, and the ocean will be behind you. You'll figure it out! Julie

Hmm. Well it's not about me, but the only thing I can think of is that my dad won a gold medal in the 1968 Olympics. One more thing, just to include something that is actually about me. I was the youngest child, and often went to Grandma's rather than on family trips. My parents were also pretty awful about actually telling us that stuff was going to happen. I think they assumed that the info would trickle down to me, but it didn't. Anyway, I noticed everyone packing and heard "Australia" and assumed that they would all leave me behind again. So I got all dressed including my warmest coat (since I did know about Austria from "Heidi" but had never heard about Australia) and my snoopy doll that was the same size as me, and sat right in front of the door all night. I figured that way they could not forget me! It turns out they were planning on bringing me all along, but how cute must I have looked sleeping there at the threshold? Julie

"Sum" by Eagleman. Subtitle is something like "40 Tales of Afterlives." It is forty different scenarios of what happens in the afterlife. In some scenarios there is a god (God), in others there is not (or God simply doesn't give a hooey). Quite amusing. It is an adult book, but my 11-year-old liked it too. Julie

Yes, because my very wise and realized Buddhist teacher speaks about it so matter of factly and because many young children do remember their past lives (which, when researched in public documents, turn out to be factual). When my son was very young (he spoke long before he could crawl or walk), he turned to me and said, "A long time ago, I used to be your sister." Clear as day. I just said, "Oh, cool." He doesn't remember it now, so you have to listen to them when they are very young. Or very old. It is the same bardo -- between death and life. And you know those dreams when you tell your friend or husband, "I had a dream about you.....but you were old, and you weren't a man, you were a woman, and you were very tall and thin....." That is a dream about their essence, the part of the soul that does carry over until the next life. Gender is not part of your essence, so that confuses some people. Also, your thoughts and feelings are not a part of your soul (in Buddhism), so it does take a lot of study and practice to determine what part of "you" does carry on. They have a word for it, but it is escaping me now. When you are fully enlightened (realize your true nature), you do not HAVE to be reborn again but all the buddhas do because they want to return and help others. If they didn't want to help others, they would not be enlightened beings. I highly recommend a film called "Unmistaken Child." You can "watch it now" on netflix and it will not count toward your monthly film quota. Blessings, Julie

I just want to clarify that the "writing" book is called Sentence Island. I haven't done the Island level, but I really think you need both the TM and the student book in Paragraph Town, because if you only have the TM, the student can see the answers to many of the exercises in the latter half of the book. Just to give you a heads up. Another reason to order both the TM and the student book is that I enjoy being able to see the book without having to crane my neck around and look over my son's shoulder, too. We have a round table, though, so that might affect my experience! Julie

To answer your question, my son is going to school in the fall. :crying: If he weren't we would definitely look at Video Text. I've seen it at conventions and my son was mesmerized by it. Oh, and to answer your other questions, I was EXTREMELY happy with both Singapore and LOF. It was a seamless, beautiful transition from RS E to Singapore 5A. LOF was mostly doled out like candy. "You can read some LOF after you finish the next unit of Singapore." As far as future plans, if he weren't going to school in the fall I would probably just ask Laura Corin what she did with her boys. :D Julie

Thanks, that's very helpful. Does anyone have Singapore 6A and 6B to sell me? Yes, my child is going to school in the fall but I'm still addicted to homeschooling materials. Must. Have. More. Michael Clay Thompson. Julie

Please look into Right Start Math. And even if you don't do Right Start "A" this year, remember it for next year. You can go straight into "B" for first grade, even if you haven't done "A." But be gentle with yourselves...."B" takes most folks about 12 months to complete if you really do it well, with all the games. Just love him, show him stuff. Play some fun Brazilian or African music (or Buddy Holly) and dance all over the house. That's all he needs. Oh, I am so happy for you. Julie

We were exactly in your position. We went into Singapore 5A and 5B, with LOF Fractions after 5A and LOF Decimals/Percents after 5B. Well, actually, we didn't do it exactly this way but that is what I would recommend. LOF is challenging, so I would recommend doing the Singapore BEFORE each LOF. LOF will stretch the child further (way further) than Singapore, so should be done after. My son still remembers all the set theory taught in LOF. He was impatiently teaching it to me today. "Mom? You really don't know what subsets are??" No. Really, honestly, didn't remember whether an empty set is a subset, or whether the whole set is a subset. (Yes on both counts.) Love it. I also have Right Start Geometry, but it doesn't look like we'll get to it. We might do it as a fun break during the summer, but I'm pretty sure we won't finish it! By the way, LOF Decimals/Percents teaches a TON of geometry. Who knew? Julie

I am too tired to understand the responses, but I just wanted to thank you. Very busy right now moonlighting as president of a nonprofit and homeschooling by day. The highest level Singapore we have is 5, and they only do the simplest of the calculations: what is 5% of 500? So just the multiplication. We would have to look in higher Singapore books. I suspect they do it somewhat like Zaccaro, if I had to guess. I hope to look at nmoira's answer a bit more when I have some clarity. THANK YOU! Julie

EDITED TO ADD: A few chapters later he uses my words when he reminds the students of the rule! Yay, me. Is there anyone who is nearing the end of LOF Decimals/Percents, or who recently finished it? I wonder what your opinion is about the way something is presented. (I will check to see how Singapore teaches it, too.) It is about finding percents and what number is ______ percent of a number and that kind of thing. First, he teaches that if you know both sides of the "of," you multiply. We're good with that, because we know that "of" means multiply from our work with fractions. (1/4 of 9 means the same as 1/4 x 9). But then he said that if you don't know both sides of the "of", you divide the number closest to the "of" into the other number. Example: 7 is what percent of 48? You would divide 48 "into" 7. This is correct, but see below. I just don't like that rule. Two reasons: One, it is easy to get it backwards by remembering "divide the number closest to the "of" by the other number." Secondly, I just don't like the wording -- is that really something a mathematician would ever say? So I proposed to my son that we change the rule to "the number closest to the word 'of' is your divisor." Then we reminded each other of the words divisor (it cuts, like an incisor) and dividend. There is no way to get my rule backwards (because it doesn't include the word "dividend", and it seems more, I dunno, professional. Anybody else encounter this in LOF? Or if not, what do you think? Julie

After barely surviving a year at PS kindergarten, my son asked to homeschool. Kindergarten was pretty darn close to his idea of hell. He was very sensitive to touch, and those 5yos can be in each other's space a lot whether it be affectionately, playfully or violently. To this day, when someone gives him a strong bear hug he says, "Ow, ow, ow." Lunchtime in K was the WHOLE SCHOOL in a very noisy cafeteria. Oh, my. Since we live across the street from the PS, I would often let him eat lunch at home. The school eventually found out about that and put a stop to it. We have had five years of fun. So much fun. Hugs, kisses, "I love you so much" right in the middle of science or math, so much music, "I gotta write down this song I just thought of right now," skiing on weekdays, test tubes checked every day for change, tadpoles grown into frogs (still alive and kicking five years later!), Latin translations, adventures to Italy and Mexico (I think he tried to use the same words both places!). Now he wants to go to school again, and so he will go to school in the fall for sixth grade. Wah. He will go to a private school in Southern California and we will live there too, just for the school year. It's not even a boarding school anymore. There aren't any schools for him here. I wish there was a school someplace nicer, like Montana or Idaho. (No offense to you So Cal peeps; I grew up there and actually went to the school in question.) Because of privacy issues, let's just PM if you want to know more about my specific situation. My heart is grieving, and I've been reduced to tears many times during the past few months. Laura Corin, if you're reading this, feel free to commiserate any time. We are so blessed, so it feels wrong to be sad. But the grief is real. Julie

See, I don't see how "mine" could ever be anything but a (pro)noun. If I give it the adjective test -- "Have you seen mine book recently?" --- it fails miserably. Whereas this sentence -- "The book is mine" is clearly in the form of subject, linking verb, predicate nominative. But perhaps there are weightier subjects we might be discussing, such as whether we have asbestos in our attic (vermiculite) and whether this will cause our house sale to fail. Off-topic! Cheers, Julie

I seem to recall a discussion recently on this board about this grammar topic, and particularly what MCT teaches. Forgive me if I am wrong, since I read the thread very late at night before a long trip. But just in case you were discussing it, and just in case it was not resolved, I ran into this exact thing on p. 197 of the Paragraph Town TM. It is not in the student book. The sentence in question is: Oh, Fishmeal eventually gave flapping his wings a try. Discussion (in part): In this sentence flapping is a gerund, a noun. Why can it not be a verb? It is not in a tense. The real verb is gave, which is in past tense. Why is his an adjective and not a pronoun? The possessive adjectives are a different list than the possessive pronouns, even though they look like pronouns. Think about the difference between my wing is gray and mine is gray. Again, forgive me if this was not the actual topic under discussion and just let this drop into the murky depths to which threads of no interest descend. Julie

Jumping in late, but Aubrey asked us why she should use MCT. So. I have not seen the Island level books, so am not at all attached to her using them. But when your oldest is ready for the Town level (5th grade was perfect for us), you must buy it. Heck, buy it now. All of it. Read "Paragraph Town" and notice how the writing is, most subtly, modeling whatever he his teaching. I won't try to pick out examples, but it is beautiful and by the end of the book, my son was pointing out that (for example) if he was encouraging you to use a lot of crackly consonants, he would do exactly that in his own sentence. And the first sentence of the book, which has allusions to Moby Dick sprinkled all the way through, is "Call Me Fishmeal." It is brilliant, and you will love it. Caesar's English is good too, but my son doesn't like it as much as I do. Julie

I just wanted to add that if you do accept a friend on FB whom you have not seen since, oh, fourth grade, they might end up being on the opposite end of the political spectrum. Oh. My. Word. See, when we're in fourth grade we're really not liberal, or conservative, or even devoutly Christian really.....our parents are. Who knows what people go through at 18, 19, 20, much less their 30's, right? I have a FB friend who gets all her "news" from right-wing sources (I really don't even want to know exactly where) and posts the most erroneous things on FB. After I systematically, logically, picked apart her argument, she never posted anything that controversial again. She said, "I'm sorry I offended you." Me: "Not offended. Really. I'm just pointing out that if you link to a document on FB, you might want to read it first and verify that it is true." Julie

Congratulations on the job! Very cool. Um, I am PC all the way, but my son just got a MacBook Pro (long story) and it is to die for. So nice. It's not so good for us touch typists because the keys are large and far apart from each other, but everything else is just WOW. Julie

I'll simplify this a bit for you. Without knowing your third grader, let me just say that it would be a rare third grader that would not completely zone out during Caesars English I. So perhaps you should let the 3rd grader just do the "Island" level or whatever it's called that includes Sentence Island? I don't think it includes a vocabulary component at all, does it? So if the 3rd grader doesn't "get" CE, I would allow him/her to do it some other time in the future. And regarding your 5th grader moving quickly through Paragraph Town, you can spend as long on it as you like. If you look at the TM, there is a huge amount of suggested writing and exercises at the very end. And then there are some more! Perhaps you could go on to the poetry book or some other kind of writing rather than go into the next level? Whatever you decide, have a great time! I miss Queequack. Julie

I learned Latin alongside my son using LFC A, B and C (and now Latin Prep). It doesn't assume any grammar knowledge at all, but rather teaches grammar as it goes. You mentioned that you "have it on the shelf," so I would just add that they revised the DVD for Primer A a few years ago, and added more explicit instruction by the teacher. It is Dr. Perrin by himself at a whiteboard. They still have the fun stuff with the girls, but they found that people wanted more explanations earlier in the program. So you might want to see how new your DVD is. Have a great time! Julie

This thread has taken an *interesting* turn, but I just wanted to say that Paragraph Town is most likely the most surprising of the books in the Town series. There are pages and pages of LESSONS at the end of the book (which we are working through now), and then..... more lessons after that if you need them! Quite meaty, really. Some are a little too advanced for us, but most of them are just the right amount of "reach." I was labeled *gifted* in elementary school and was given a lot of academic freedom. It was completely wasted on me, since I didn't have a single bit of initiative. Nor did I have a creative bone in my body (hours and hours of watching TV took care of that). It appears that MCT does continue that myth (?? debatable) that gifted kids need more leeway, less direction. But I just tailor some of the more nebulous assignments to my child ("but mom, what exactly do I do here?") A startling transition, to be sure, from Homer (Classical Writing) to this curriculum. Homer is VERY directed, perhaps to a fault. And the OP: if you look at the ages of your children and the suggested grade level of the materials you are using, perhaps this might answer your question. I believe the recommended grade for Town level is 4th grade and up. My advanced 5th grader doesn't find these materials too easy at all. He loves them! Can't wait to finish Caesar's English (and the lessons in Paragraph Town TM) so that we can do "Building Poems." Julie

To Oak Knoll Mom: I'm glad you're here! Let me see if I can remember our difficulty. But if it's okay, I'm going to use a different problem: 100,000 minus 58. So we underline the zero in the tens place (because we can't subtract eight from zero in the ones), but then what? There is no reason to underline the zero in the hundreds place, because there is nothing to subtract from it. And so there is no way to continue the underlining process all the way over to the "1" in "100,000." There was probably a RS lesson about this, but I couldn't find it. Let me know if you need me to clarify my question. Julie

Well, my son is going to "school" next year. I am grieving about it, but I'm not going to make a very social child (who has no siblings) study at home if he doesn't want to. I think he will be busier than he realizes next year! The whole idea of "homework" and fitting activities into that narrow "after school" time will be a challenge. I am still pretty fragile about it; that's why I haven't announced it here. I will miss the Greek and Latin so much. Yes, I can continue them myself and with him to a certain extent, but he will be busy with school activities. Wah. Julie