buddhabelly
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Posts posted by buddhabelly
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Oh wow, that is wierd. I read your signature a bunch of times, and always read it as 16- and 17-yo. We read what we expect to see, and I expected to see the younger age first. Thanks for pointing that out, because I couldn't imagine why you left out your 7-year-old!
Julie
No 17 year old, just 16, 14, & 7. This is for the 7 yo. We have the Mysterious Benedict Society, ds 14 read the first two a couple of years ago and I was going to wait a couple of years till ds7 read them. -
It is fun to see all these good books in one thread. How old is your youngest? Just want to clarify that this is for a teenager that reads at a fifth plus grade level, not a young person. That makes a difference.
If this is for a teenager, I would enthusiastically second the Percy Jackson series (my son just read the newest one and LOVED it). Also the Artemis Fowl books. They are a bit rough in terms of moral issues. In the first book, he is a "criminal genius" (according to my son). By the last book, he sides with the good guys, but it seems that he chooses this course of action because of practical reasons rather than conscience. The last book has to do with different dimensions of the universe and how they interact, so for example Artemis Fowl encounters himself in the book because of time travel. This is all gleaned from my son, so take it with a grain of salt.
ETA: I see in another thread that you have a 7-year-old? Your "signature" just talks about 14, 16, and 17-year-olds. Percy Jackson series does have some romance in it, but not too gooshy until the end of the last book. Artemis Fowl would NOT be suitable for a 7-year-old. Sorry for the misunderstanding. He would like Mysterious Benedict Society, but it is difficult to comprehend so you might want to wait a few years. In other words, even if he is an outstanding reader, he might have trouble with The Mysterious Benedict Society. My son's exact words, "It would be difficult for even a prodigious seven-year-old." Hee.
Julie
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Wonderful! And the price has gone way done for the newest version ($250 and international downloading!). But you can't read it in the bathtub. Well maybe you can, but I'm chicken. I never knew that I do most of my reading there until I realized how infrequently I read these days!
I love the Kindle. It makes your bag much lighter.....
Julie
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You also asked about Latin curriculum. I notice that you are inquiring for a 10-year-old, and my son is 10. So all of that is to tell you why I am answering your post! Feel free to ignore it, of course.
So. After Latin for Children Primers A, B and C, my son began Latin Prep Book One this year. He is a little more than halfway through it. Although it does "start from the beginning," since it is a middle school text (and advances ever so quickly from its "amo, amas, amat" beginnings) it is just right. At first I didn't really like the workbook, but I have warmed up to it because of the extensive translation practice (Latin-English as well as English-Latin) and I do assign ALL of both the textbook and workbook. I'm not sure what order you learned the declensions in LC, but Latin Prep has them in a different order. So what we do is continue to decline nouns in the Latin for Children way, but we have to add the vocative at the end. So we just pretend we are calling someone and say the word in the vocative. (Ex: "Oh, domineeeeee!!!)
So it's not an online curriculum, but your student might be able to do it independently. It is amusing, and written directly to the student. I love how chapter one begins something like, "You skipped the introduction, didn't you? Go back and read it now, because there's a lot of important stuff there."
There is an audio component that I discovered by reading this message board. Someone with excellent Latin pronunciation reads the Latin passages that are in the textbook.
Hope that helps a little. If not, at least I feel better. :tongue_smilie:
Julie
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No, but I will be interested in hearing about yours! I find that meditation and yoga help my bladder problems more than anything else. If I don't practice, I have severe (we're talking major embarrassment) problems. I recently got back from a meditation retreat and I didn't wet myself once. Go figure.
My thoughts and prayers (more like aspirations) are with you at this time. I understand it is pretty major surgery because they do attach it your abdominal wall and that takes a while to heal.
Best wishes,
Julie
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Yes, Caesar's English is challenging for my advanced fifth grader (I would call him a sixth grader in Language Arts), not because of the words themselves that are introduced, but because of the excerpts that the author includes.
For example, today we read a quote by the Roman emperor Trajan. "It is better that the guilty should remain unpunished than that the innocent should be condemned." This led to a rather LONG rabbit trail about the American justice system (and the girl who was just convicted in Italy -- who knows whether she did it or not, but there was no DNA evidence connecting her to the crime). My son claims that he read it wrong. He said that he missed the word "than." He says he read it as "and." If that is true, then perhaps it was not over his head logic-wise. But if he was just embarrassed at not understanding it at first, it might have been a bit abstract for a 10-year-old fifth grader. Why would we want the guilty to not be punished, after all? It is a rather advanced concept for a 10-year-old. I believe he is on the older side of the suggested audience for this book.
Hope that helps a little.
Julie
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Hello,
I've been busy lately (but compared to someone like Aubrey, I feel that I can't even SAY that), so I'm sorry to be so late in replying.
To answer your last question first, Homer is just....ugggh. And then, just when I've given myself permission to ditch it, I saw the recent thread saying that if you can just get through Homer, the rest of the program is so effective and yadda yadda. Well, can I just narrow that statement down to "if you can get through the first writing sample by Xenophon...." The child has no idea who the main characters of the writing sample are, when in history this happened, and the sentences are a mile long! So. Ahem. Not worried about integrating it with Homer at this point.
I know you are supposed to start with Grammar Town, but I thought my son would get a kick out of Caesar's English (plus we were still finishing up GWG 5 not too long ago) so we started there. Turns out he was annoyed that the Latin was "incorrect." He knows a lot of Latin. But it was just Latin translated into more fluid English (so the verb might be a noun, as in the quote "multa dubito", which he can translate himself, but CE translated as "I have many doubts.") When I pointed out that "I doubt much" wouldn't be very good English, would it, he was kinder to CE.
Did you say that your daughter didn't like Life of Fred? I agree with the other posters on this board who state that if you like MCT, you will like LOF and vice versa. And that will help you understand why I can't really summarize Paragraph Town. Just know that it is a LOT like Life of Fred -- the main points are presented in a clear and engaging manner, and then practice comes immediately thereafter. Chapter 3 is called "Clear Paragraphs" and here is an excerpt:
"Did you make each topic sentence connect back to the previous paragraph so that there would be a smooth flow from each paragraph to the next?"
"Yes," he said. "Take a look. The connector does not have to have lots of words; in fact, it can even be one little word, like the word also in the the fourth paragraph. It can be light and graceful, like that. As soon as the reader sees also, he or she knows that this paragraph is about another topic in the series of topics, that this is another thing that is also important. In the fifth paragraph, I began with the words All of these things, which points back to the interesting things in paragraph four."
The next page is the piece of writing with all of those things circled. (By the way, the connector in the second paragraph is even more brilliant: it is "such a big space," referring to the big pond that the ducks live in, which was described in the previous paragraph.) I think that such flowing connections between paragraphs is one of the most important components of really fine writing -- the difference between good writing and WOW. Here's another excerpt later on:
"If you were writing about good weather, but now you are going to write about good food, you might write a topic sentence that begins with a specific reference to weather: Such serene weather and warm temperatures are not the only benefits of life in Thorough Pond; the pond also has an abundance of tasty food for hungry ducks to eat."
"That is a great connection!" I said. "Don't some ducks just put first, second, third at the beginning of the paragraphs? Is that an easy way to connect the paragraphs?"
"Those words connect," he said, "but they are boring."
Heeeee. Heh.
Good luck in your choices!
Julie
Hey Buddhabelly, I think you're right on track! I've been looking at it some more, and IF I buy something, that's probably where I'd buy. I do like the look of CE quite a bit. Haven't convinced myself of the grammar, but that's because I like our Shurley so much. Actually, I like the idea of the practice sentences. Just out of utter curiousity, have you ever compared them to KISS? That would get you to about the same place. I really like the way Shurley analyzes and thinks about grammar, so I don't see a need to screw around with that. But I'm open to more interesting application.Now on the writing, can you tell me more about Paragraph Town? I don't even know what I'm wanting to know, so just tell me something. Also, I notice you're using it alongside Homer. How is that going? That's something I had toyed with, but I had no clue if it would work or be overmuch. We sort of have our own stride with CW, implementing it the way we did WT, and I think it's reasonable to do modern paragraph writing alongside it. I just don't have a grasp of what Paragraph Town assigns, how much, in what manner, etc. in order to know how complementary they would be.
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Aubrey,
I don't know anything about resumes and such, but I do have something to whisper in your ear. (Whispering because I believe that the owner of this business might also be a member of our hive community...) I have a friend who is a homeschooling mom and is also a writer. As you know, sweet Aubrey, writing books does not always pay the bills. She is also a songwriter, but you know, that doesn't necessarily bring in the big bucks either. Recently she told me that she works for [deleted because I am embarrased, but it is a VERY popular online writing homeschool business] I don't know how much it pays, but you wouldn't have to leave the house!
Just another idea to add to the mix.....
Julie
P.S. The initials of the business are: WAH. Heh, probably a sound that many of us make after a long day of homeschooling!
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My son seems to be about the same level as your daughter, and we love the "Town" homeschool package. Caesar's English I is part of that program, and is a FANTASTIC vocabulary program. Even though my son is in his fourth year of Latin and third year of Greek, it is a good program for him. The actual vocabulary words are not particularly difficult, but the reading passages (that contain the vocabulary words) are very high level. MCT finds passages that really make you think about all the different ways you can use a word. The only books that my son had read were "The Wind in the Willows" and "The Red Badge of Courage." He certainly hasn't read "Pride and Prejudice" or "The War of the Worlds" (H.G. Wells) yet. But now he wants to...... :D
Let me know if you have any more questions. I am still blissed out from our work in Ceasar's English today. The origin of the word "grotesque" is really quite interesting. But you'll just have to buy the book to find out! Hee.
Julie
Well cool. I just keep thinking. Right now I'm enjoying the blinking lights around my computer so much and the soft Christmas music, I don't know if we'll ever get back to school work, hehe... We've been decorating and making ornaments and junk all day, just lovely. :)Ok, tell me straight, what might I be looking for IF I wanted to consider some MCT stuff? Y'all know me, so just pick some levels or recs. We're finishing Shurley 6 and one of these days we'll finish PWME. Actually, it's gotten complicated enough that I think we'd like to take a break and just practice the skills we've covered so far before moving on. My options for January are Shurley 7 (own this, like it, but don't HAVE to do it now, mercy), CW Homer A (started this a while back, got 1/3 of the way, so could finish that), and/or Literary Lessons from Lord of the Rings. I have no clue if that's even realistic. I wasn't very interested in LL7, which apparently is more age-appropriate. We've been reading the Hobbit, so continuing into LoTR makes sense. Of course that's not grammar or anything else. I'm actively looking for a vocabulary option, since I don't like what we're doing right now. I'm open to a lit option, especially if someone says LLLotR is overkill. And of course I'm open to grammar and writing.
I'm always open to anything that floats her boat or makes her zing for school. She's very creative, so she likes it best when we talk a bit and then leave her to do something creative.
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It seems to be about right. It has the Caesar book as well.
Julie
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Christine, I'm so sorry about your mom. It must be heartbreaking, no matter what the cause. My mother-in-law is vicious to my sister-in-law (her other daughter-in-law) at holiday events. She would sit right in her DIL's house and say things like, "We always managed to keep our windows nice and clean." Perhaps no coincidence, but that DIL is now divorced from her son!
And Twinsmom, just WOW about the turkey.
My 75-year-old mother still insists on hosting Thanksgiving, but I bought the two turkeys (organic, free-range), cooked them, made the gravy, she provided the potatoes (two small containers from Costco that she promptly put in the freezer??) and other family members brought the rest of the meal. My mom never washes one single dish because she "is the hostess and must have done so much work" --- so why have it at her house at all? I live in Alaska, so cooking turkeys in California is not terribly convenient. She doesn't even own a carving knife, so we had to go out and borrow one on Thanksgiving.
On a lighter note, my 80-year-old dad (her ex) did well all evening, and the kids are all old enough that they behaved well.
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You know, the "Uncle Ralph drank too much again and Nancy criticized my gravy and the children forgot to say please and thank you and everyone chocked it up to their being 'unsocialized."
Don't misunderstand me, I sincerely WISH each and every one of you a very happy holiday. But since things don't always turn out that way, please share here if they turn out wrong! We will laugh WITH you, not at you, and perhaps it will make things a lot better.
I'm on the west coast so I don't have any stories yet, but stay tuned......
ETA: And if there's already a thread going, just direct me on over to it. I didn't see anything on the first few pages.
Julie
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I was listening to UB40 ("Red, Red Wine"), Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark (OMD), and the New Romantics. I also agree with the poster who mentioned that David Bowie had some extremely successful albums that came out in the 1980's. He filled Dodger stadium. (Ask me how I know.)
ETA: Oh! And we listened to Soft Cell. I think I'm having flashbacks now. I wore men's white dinner jackets with....(shudder)....just can't admit what else. I guess "Tainted Love" was early 1980's, but it was so very popular that I couldn't resist reminding y'all of it. Now you can't get it out of your head, can you? It was played numerous times at every dance. Ad nauseum.
Oh, and regarding OMD, we thought we were so cool. So very cool. It pains me to think of it.
Julie
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I really like that book too, but it was out of print when I first read it. I'll have to look again at Rainbow Resource.
Thanks for the tip!
Julie
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:grouphug:
Oh, my. My heart is with you at this time. Let me just say, as a former teenager who struggled with depression, that we humans often blame our sadness on circumstances. For example: I am sad, so I must be married to the wrong person. I am sad, but if I had a boyfriend/husband, I wouldn't be. I am sad because I am overweight. If I lose weight, I won't be sad. Sometimes, you are sad because you are sad. I often say that unsatisfied/sad/depressed/angry single people, when married, then become unsatisfied/sad/depressed/angry married people. And vice versa.
And for all of you folks coming out of bad marriages, I know that you experienced real relief and the opportunity to have much better relationships. So please don't misunderstand me.
I am just trying to say that there is a really valid reason for the child to be saying this, but it might not fix things for him. As the mom, you can't really say it because he has to find out for himself. So, I wish you all the best in your efforts to be a really BIG person right now.
Julie
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someone would provide my answer, and phrase it better than I could. So, thanks, Erin! I like diagramming because it eliminates the "sort of" answers from your children. An adjective is sort of, um...... No. This is the adjective, because it modifies the noun. This phrase is an adverbial phrase because it modifies "went" which is a verb. The diagram clearly shows this. Parsing is fine for simple sentences -- really, it is. But how the heck are you going to parse a compound sentence that opens with a prepositional phrase and then has two subjects but one predicate? Yes, you will be able to label the nouns and perhaps the DO's, but not whether the DO is part of an adverbial phrase, an adjectival phrase, or perhaps just a regular ol' DO.
I didn't learn diagramming in school. I was raised in the 1960's, so I learned whatever I wanted to. :glare: Which, unfortunately, was not a whole lot.
Julie
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I'm not familiar with First Form Latin, but is it fun at all? Latin for Children, Minimus, and Latin Prep Book One (which moves quite fast for a 10yo so it would be better for your older one) are all quite fun in their own quirky ways. Do you get to have any light moments with First Form Latin?
And I really don't know the answer to your question. My son says (most days) that he wants to go to school. He didn't say that today when we were snuggling between each lesson, though.
Julie
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Well, as long as you're asking because you're generally curious and not because you want to beat yourself up about what you are doing. I think there is a fine line between "rigor" and "what the child will do without storming out in a huff." :001_smile:
Our stuff is in my signature line. We don't do the programs all at once. For example, we are either doing Life of Fred or Singapore at any one time, and are either doing Homer A or the Michael Clay Thompson stuff at any one time. The thing that isn't on there, I think, is that I threw together a literature and geography thing based on native American studies. I can give you our reading list if anyone would like it. My son just read "Birchbark House" by Louise Erdrich.
ETA: We started Latin Prep Book One only after completing the Latin for Children series (A, B, C). I recommend starting Latin in approximately third grade, depending on the program (you could do Minimus in second grade, for example) and the child.
Julie
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We'll see, I guess. I am just a homeschooling mom giving details about a curriculum I have used. The other thread was closed for a very different reason. And the Intelligent Design views of the author, by the way, were very well-known to all on this board back when I first bought the curriculum in (counting quickly in my head) 2005.
Julie
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Well since the thread-that-cannot-be-mentioned was closed right before I posted on it (which is better than what usually happens -- usually it is closed or deleted right AFTER I post, which makes me really paranoid)......
I used Pre-Level I Chemistry as well as Chem 1, Physics 1, and Biology 1. I found no bias, and did not find it odd that evolution was not addressed in Bio 1 because, IMO, it is a pretty sophisticated concept and easily misunderstood in the younger grades. After all, if it took all those scientists who were way smarter than me all those centuries to put it together.....
We are the most secular of secular homeschoolers, and did not find any "bad science" in it. I did take college level chemistry and biology, but do not have any advanced degrees. I think I might buy Chem 2 because there are some confusing bits in McHenry's "Elements" that I want to clear up. (Not really confusing bits, just the orbital stuff that I don't think can be taught well at the logic stage. Was surprised that McHenry chose to include it.)
Just wanted to reassure folks that there is no Intelligent Design stuff "hidden" in the curriculum, and it is a really good one. I think the important thing about Dr. Keller's beliefs is that she believes that children can do science. Real science. And that's why she chose that name for her curriculum series.
Julie
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but just want to remind you that it is called TRICK or treating. So you might want to look like you're not home. You know, to avoid the tricks.
Julie (who may or may not have toilet papered homes as a child)
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Well, I have a Dell (like the OP) and not a MAC, but we had the two internal drives in a RAID array and had to change it. Perhaps this is what your husband did as well? Because in a RAID configuration, I believe BOTH hard drives are used simultaneously, which makes the computer extra fast for gaming and the like. But ours kept crashing, so we reconfigured it so that one hard drive is just backup, and we only use one hard drive for actual work/play. The computer is no longer "awesome" (as the computer geeks kept telling us -- I would reply "It's not awesome, dude, if it crashes every other week"), but it is safe.
Julie
We have had bad luck with our external hard drives, we had 3 different brands crash on us and we lost a lot of movies and a bit of data (we had most of the data backed up elsewhere, but the movies were too large to back up elsewhere. In retrospect, we should have backed them up back onto tape.) With one crash, software was able to get the data back, but the other 2 crashes we lost a lot of movies.We now have 2 internal drives mirrored in a RAID array on our Mac.
We've only had 1 internal drive crash, with the RAID array, if one crashes, the machine tells you and the data is still on the other drive, you buy another drive and it copies all the info onto the new second drive.
My husband is in charge of all this.
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We're doing Latin Prep - Book One (published by Galore Park) this year in fifth grade. The only thing is that the declensions are in a different order. We still do them the LFC way, since we have them memorized. But LFC didn't teach the vocative. Our solution to that is (for example) we chant "dominus, domini, o, um, o, i, orum, is, os, is," and then we yell (as if calling to somebody): "Oh, dooooomine" "Oh, doooooomini" because you use the vocative case for speaking directly to someone. So, for example, if you were addressing your master, you would say, "Domine, ____________."
I scheduled Book One in little bits, along with the workbook. It goes really fast, but if you only do a half page (or three pages in the workbook) per day, it is not too much for a fifth grader. You can purchase some audio files to go along with it, too. Only the Latin passages are included in the audio, not the declensions themselves.
Good luck deciding!
Julie
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For my son, he just "sees" the Right Start abacus. So for that one, he would see eight and two "filling up" the ten, and then three sticking out leftover. You can see it because each five are a different color.
He never did memorize his facts. He just does stuff like that really fast.
Julie
Which chemistry should I use?
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted · Edited by buddhabelly
We just finished Elements by McHenry. It is really excellent, especially if you play the games frequently (not just once). In my mind, high school chemistry goes much more smoothly if the child already knows the atomic numbers and symbols of the first, say, 21 elements. That helps you predict what will bond with what and what kind of bond will form. The Elements can help with this via the games. We did RS4K level two years ago, but I haven't seen Level 2. I'm sure it's great... Love the way RS4K explains things.
Oh, and be sure to get the very latest version of the Elements because she is revising it all the time, partly because of some questions we had! Makes us feel important and useful.
Julie