We're driving 10 hours tomorrow, and I can't wait! I am not even really looking forward to the destination, but I love long drives. Hours with my loved ones listening to tunes and audiobooks and podcasts I don't usually get to hear, interesting scenery different from the norm, stopping at new roadside parks and gas stations and local spots and whatnot to throw a frisbee. And road snacks! We might be used to long drives and more suited to it than many I suppose, but tweak the mindset a bit to make it an adventure, and if stuff does go wrong, oh well. Stories for the grandkids. :D

You can do it either way. For some of the 7-9 units, my two kids were combined. I had the older one read them independently while the younger and I took turns reading aloud.

Ditto. Add me to the short big bust short torso crew. I like to wear simple tops that somehow emphasize the smallest part of me, right under the bust, usually by gathering or tailoring tricks or color shading. In the wrong shirt, I totally look like a potato. Not to mention the importance of a well fitted bra...

I really like it, but other than the "Junior Skeptic" section, it holds no interest for my kids and is something I really get for myself. My kids are younger than yours though. The magazine pulls no punches toward a lot of things that are very popular now. Some probably won't like the tone. You'll want to read those sample articles.

I don't know about the Island level poetry book because I haven't used it, but yes, Building Poems could be used independently of the rest of the MCT program, no problem.

Re: MCT Poetry DS went through MCT Building Poems (and the rest of the Town level) this year. DS is generally a good fit for MCT in general, but I did go all Bravewriter with it and modified the writing assignments, and I didn't have him do the poetry writing assignments at all unless he wanted to. I do not care to make poetry a chore and if he's going to become a poet someday, I think it'll come about more organically through appreciation of poetry and skill with the written word in general. So with that said, similar to Farrar, DS really enjoyed the way different poetry terminology is explained and the examples scattered throughout the Building Poems book. It's not a heavy read, either, so I wouldn't be surprised if he picks it up again to refresh his knowledge in the future, as his interest in poetry continues to be sparked through the poetry teatimes.

We make a dedicated poetry time happen maybe once or twice a month, we'd like to do it more often, but you know...life. But we did it today! For us, it's not actually tea, my kids find that too prissy. We call it "poetry and ice cream" and have ice cream or popsicles or some other rare treat--I almost never bake it, I will admit the treat almost always something storebought. :o We don't do anything special to the table, but if the weather is nice we like to take a blanket out and have our poetry time on the lawn. Everyone picks a poetry book off our poetry shelf and we all take turns selecting poems to read aloud. Sometimes we have a general theme, sometimes it's a free-for-all, but either way as we go I might gently point out rhyme or alliteration or how a certain line makes me feel, etc. It's been good for us. Since we've been Bravewriter-y for a couple years now it has been so fun to watch my younger child go from a non-reader that would pick her poems (for me to read aloud) based on the illustrations on a page, to a reader that is starting to enjoy playing with language and selecting poems based on how fun they are to read aloud. My older also did MCT poetry this year, and he enjoys spotting poetry principles he learned from that book "in the wild".

We are doing this, and it is working well. I bought our whole family Getty Dubay books, everyone has their own level, but they also have a teacher guide that you could use to work with the whole family.

We used Seton.

*jealous* I'm on the wrong coast. Please give a full report.

I do let my 9yo DS have some say in what he uses. It isn't like he's doing all the curriculum research or anything, but I like to form a "short list" of two or three acceptable options, and then ask him for his feedback. He knows I have veto power, but he is very independent, precocious, and likes to see what the plan is ahead of time, so our life goes more smoothly if he feels like he's been heard and that his opinion is valued. I plan on letting him have more and more say as he ages.

Back in February I couldn't think about it, but I'm getting closer now. I'd better be, because even though we are year-round, I think we're going to call the next year as starting in July. Which is two weeks away. Haha! So it is good for me to type it out. My kids are not as far ahead as some I read about here, but in the spirit of playing along, I will share. :) DS9 (language/science/ideas kid): Math- Almost done MM4b now, finish and go right into MM5. LA- Back in February I was right about MCT Town, he zoomed right through it this spring. Will start Excavating English soon and do that over the summer, NaNoWriMo in fall at his request. Continue with Moutaux Drawing Sentences, Bravewriter, interest-led, mom-led literature, and Getty-Dubay penmanship. Maybe will be ready to start MCT Voyage level in spring. History- Continue with Hakim History of Us, homemade geography, and lots of interest-led learning. German- DuoLingo, Deutsch Aktuell, conversation with DH DD7 (math/science/project kid): Math- Almost done BA 3a, finish and continue through BA sequence LA- She needs something for spelling, thinking Apples and Pears. Continue our mix of Bravewriter, MBtP and Mom-made units. Getty-Dubay penmanship. May do a refresher of MCT Island level later in the fall. History- American Girl book units. Projects and supplemental readers that go along with DS's History of US. Interest-led geography. German- Osmosis conversation with DH For both: Arts- Interest-led, doodle art, Mark Kistler Science- Interest-led and family learning. Continue BFSU2, Private Eye. I need to find some more awesome units for add-ins, because every time I find something, we do it, and then I need to find more again! It never ends.... I'll be interesting to see how much I'm forgetting and how much this will change.

I find it really important, but also one of the topics that is frequently overlooked in a "standard" education. I recommend Teaching Geography as a good resource for "why" and for explaining our preferred approach-- and it also has a whole bunch of sample activities and materials that help see what he's explaining and that are easy to tweak for homeschool use. My kids are a little younger than yours, but this book is one of those that teaches the teacher, and as such can be applicable to many ages. So far I haven't needed a separate program, we've been doing well with reading a lot of good books and wrapping in geography topics with our other studies.

Right, maize, I see that trend too...DD is that "one girl" in that dance class. ;) But since I have two kids that somewhat buck the trends, and I think a lot of damage has been done by stereotypes that have resulted from the trends, I like to see discussions that stay away from "girls are like this" and "boys are like that", because it is indeed more complicated than that. So far so good in this one. :)

I agree with PP that it's more personality and the child's individual and obvious strengths than gender. I think my DS is more easily spotted as "gifted" to the casual observer because of his giant vocabulary and high verbal skills, while my DD (the more "mathy" of the two) often flies under the radar. They both fidget and climb all over everything, so at least here that's a variable taken out of the equation.

I don't have time to rebut this website point for point, and frankly that feels like an exercise in futility in this venue, but that website is full of misreadings and misunderstandings. Here is just one of many bible-sympathetic and well-written rebuttals to a specific point mentioned on that article: http://www.oldearth.org/rebuttal/icr/drjohn/drjohn_81.htm

I have weird Hobbit feet...short and wide with a really high instep, so I need shoes that come in wide, often European sizing, leather so they can be stretched, and last a long time/repairable. A heel or platform is nice so that I might break the 5' mark. :D So I'm willing to spend more, my max was probably around $300 for some Dansko boots, still my favorite pair of shoes. Luckily I don't really have the shoe-collecting bug so I don't buy very often.

No. There are no sedimentary layers or worldwide sedimentary sequences that support a worldwide flood, though many people spent many years trying to connect the dots to find one. There *are* many, many locations that exhibit evidence of sea level rise and fall (slow), localized flooding (fast), and/or various evidence of fluvial processes in widespread locales, but they are not puzzle pieces that add up to a global flood. The book I recommended goes into this in some depth. I suspect if you're strongly YE there's nothing I can say to convince you otherwise, but terms you could use to google more information on these topics could include "seashells on mountaintops", "Nicolaus Steno", "sediment lamination", "depositional environments" and "quantitative stratigraphy".

As long as we're adding things to the discussion, I wish more people studied how modern geology came to be. It did not form out of a vaccuum, or a cabal of athiests getting together to disprove the bible. In contrast, it started by careful observations by many, many scientists and naturalists, many, many of which were Christian and were hoping to find evidence for the Noachian flood. Evidence became overwhelming though that it just couldn't be, that the only way to explain all the observations and evidence is using an old earth model, and those theories often did not go down easily among the establishment. So regardless of whether god made the earth recently to look old, the only thing human scientists and modern geologic science can reasonably do is to move forward and act upon the best evidence available. For anyone interested in more, I heartily recommend The Rocks Don't Lie, a wonderful, religion-respecting and recent book that goes stepwise through the changes in geologic science.

I am feeling a little out of the ordinary! It's mostly my paycheck that pays for homeschooling, DH's keeps a roof over our heads and food on the table. We have a pretty egalitarian marriage style....I am the primary day-to-day homeschool teacher, administrator, planner, yes, but DH will substitute teach when I ask, participates in the "be a good example" portion of our homeschool with things like penmanship practice and self-education, is our foriegn language instructor, enjoys a good educational philosophy and/or troubleshooting discussion, and is always up for a field trip. He also does the animal husbandry and the dishes! :001_wub:

I lurked in the original thread but did not join in-- that thread and stumbling on some other bullet journal resources convinced me to add a few elements to what I've already been doing for a few years. The additions have been great, giving me some direction, intention, and tracking bits I was missing before. I use a couple nice pens, a blank moleskine in a lovely Oberon tooled leather cover that just begs to be touched...the tactile pleasures really help me keep up with it. Considering adding some monthly printable calendar pages so that I can also see more distant future events more easily.

I really benefited by double entry journaling when I learned and used it in high school, I wish I had learned it earlier. So my kids are sooo lucky, huh? ;) I am starting to introduce similar activity through discussion with my highly verbal rising 4th grader. He's not developmentally ready for that quantity of writing, though, and asking him to write it himself would result in counterproductive battles. We're working toward it though and I expect to be asking him for some level of written double entry journalling in the middle school years.

I saw this question when first posted but didn't know how to answer it from that angle. My kids used to use the whole MBtP program, combined and modified for their own needs. We've moved away from that as the kids' needs evolved and their interests and abilities became more ill-suited to the the MBtP package. So, just answering for why we stopped using it-- if your kids are reluctant to do the projects as-written, are reading at a higher level than the MBtP books but are reluctant writers so that it is hard to identify approproate MBtP age levels, or are very science-y and are bored by the more basic MBtP science content in those early levels, it might not be a great fit. We still use some of the lit units, highly modified for our use and supplemented by lots of other stuff.

My DS has always been fascinated by words and their origins, but he's been on the workbook-phobic side until this year, so I don't know if these things are what you are looking for, but a few informal books on words and language that have been big hits with him: Cryptomania! Teleporting into Greek and Roman with the Cryptokids Horrible Histories "Wicked Words" Brown Paper School "Word Works" He ate up Ceasar's English 1 like candy this year, and I have Excavating English to try over the summer before moving on to CE 2. And that's all I got, I will be watching this thread with interest! :bigear:

There were three in my graduating class in the '90s, they were the three students who had perfect 4.0s (unweighted). If we had a weighted system, we would have likely had fewer or different valedictorians, because those three chose to take some easier class options in order to preserve their GPAs. (I'm not still bitter, really.)