Your dh is funny! :lol: Your son might enjoy her Math Doodles.

Join the Tau day movement! Watch here and stop making excuses for pi :lol: Happy Half Tau Day! .

Well, it seems my dd6 is unusual in homeschool circles since she knows who Justin Bieber is and she loves him and his music. She does not know who Hannah Montana or Brittany Spears is though, phew! My son (8) loves to knit, and he has NO IDEA that boys might think that's uncool. :cool:

I don't think they are necessary at all but they can actually be fun for kids. My kids will sometimes do a workbook, but I don't consider it part of homeschool, just something they like after school or while waiting for their turn. If your kids don't like workbooks then they would be a total waste of time, IMO. One benefit I see to using a logic type workbook with my 2nd grader is that it seems to sharpen his sense of following directions... because you know, he "knows" what to do with his schoolwork, so why read the directions? LOL But with the logic books, the directions are the puzzle in a lot of circumstances.

Thank you all for your thoughts. I'm convinced I need to expose my kids to a modern foreign language and I would like to find a language where my children can converse with a native speaker. It won't be easy but someone mentioned skype in another thread and I may have to go that route.

I use to put bread pudding on the menu all the time and it always sold well! Gosh, I've made so many versions... dried cherry and vanilla, warm chocolate bp with mint tuille cookie and c.a., Grand Marnier bp with whipped cream and candied almonds etc. I ♥ bread pudding! Oooh, I just remembered one of my favorites! Gianduja Chocolate which is an Italian hazelnut chocolate (think Nutella!) and it makes an awesome bread pudding!

to teach to dc when you don't speak a foreign language yourself. So please, inspire me with your stories about how you overcame this hurdle and what you did to insure that your dc learned to speak at least one MFL.:D :bigear:

Nerf guns, axes, crossbows etc. The preteen boys that I know (and strangely enough, I know a lot of them! :lol:) live for nerf. :)

RightStart C has too much repetition from RightStart B. :D I actually have come to really like RS C after being so frustrated with it! I complained that RSC was too easy and too slow paced. RSB was so challenging that I found C to be a bit of a let down. I was disappointed to not jump into subtraction right away and to finish up telling time but now that we've gone through the book, I feel like my ds7 has a solid second grade curriculum under his belt and a thorough understanding of mathematics. When I look at MM 2nd grade workbooks, it seems to cover the same topics as RSC so I don't really see much advantage in switching.

We should set up a WTM forum facebook page. Not a WTM fan page, but one where we could all access if the WTM is down for awhile.

:lol: :lol: :iagree: Adam, if you wanted to be blunt and ask a sincere question, your OP could have simply stated that you think there is a socialization problem and how those on this board have or have not overcome that. Even if you won't homeschool, I hope you found some things from TWTM helpful in educating your children. If you think your sons won't be able to function outside of your home because you decide to homeschool them, then you are truly missing the point. Imagine your wife tells you she wants to homeschool your children and you decide to start right away. When your ds is done with his kindergarten material (reading, writing, math, read alouds etc) will you keep him in the house, never to interact with others again? :001_huh: More likely, he would join scouts, a soccer team or take karate. If he is a typical homeschooler, he will also join a homeschool group or co-op. Science museums, nature centers and historical sites often offer classes for homeschoolers. Today and tomorrow from 10-2, my kids are at a chemistry class where they will interact with other kids and function in a classroom setting. There are many more opportunities like this and my kids are already able to function outside the home. If you decide to homeschool him but don't give him any opportunities outside of your home, then you will NOT be a typical homeschooler and will, IMO, do a disservice to your son.

If I'm going to be posting in a thread, I may as well enjoy the scenery! :lol:

Latin Other Foreign Language Drama Band/Orchestra Chorus Science with Lab Art (skills based, not arts and crafts but oil painting, water color etc.) I think the above classes are actually better in a group (or better outsourced like a native speaker for foreign language) I'm not sure I love the idea of a co-op that is too academic because I don't really think most academic subjects (like math, or history) are really better in a group unless the teacher is incredibly dynamic and has very high standards. It would need to be very inexpensive too.

:iagree:Trumpet of the Swan is a wonderful book! It's also memorable for me because it is the only book that made my ds7 cry for a moment when he thought Louis' father died and he never cries! Not at Old Yeller (which bugged me, I thought everyone cried! :lol:), not at any other book. And, I don't often say something like this, but Stuart Little is better as a movie. ;)

I love Crime & Punishment but I read it in my Russian literature class and the prof. led such an amazing discussion of the book in context of Russian language and literature and ideology that it has really stuck with me as a wonderful classic. I remember reading the assigned pages then going back to the dorm after reading it in class and having a whole new appreciation for it. No other book discussions, outside of that class, ever opened my eyes in such a meaningful way to connect with a book.

I'd like to add Ivanhoe to the list. :blink: <==me trying to stay awake after the 1st chapter! :lol:

Thanks :)

Thanks :) The audio was the hardest thing because the quality was not great because it was recorded on my iphone and the boys were soooo quiet I had to try to boost the audio.

did anyone watch it? I'm hoping someone likes it since I stayed up half the night trying to edit the dang thing together. I'm feeling insecure, lol :lol:

thanks everyone, the boys liked it :)

Turns out, a lot of Waiting for Superman was staged. The kids said they were misrepresented and sometimes given lines to say. The movie was knocked out of the running for Best Documentary because of it. :DNot to say that the US Educational system doesn't have problems... :p

RS C takes more diligence on the parents part, while it's much too easy on the student's part. I would look at a RSC lesson and the warm-up would be too easy (count to 100 by multiples of 10.... etc.) So I would pick something to warm up that I know he knows, but could use a little repeating. I never had to do that with B. So, right from the warm-up, I had to think of something. OFTEN, at the beginning of RS C, that would be getting the clock out for ds because, he covered it in B but I wanted more practice.... sooooo, when we got to all the lessons on time, my ds could already tell time and was checking the time each day on his own because he has a watch. So that was a bunch of lessons skipped. IF that had been the only thing, it would have been fine, but it seems like it did that too often. I eventually skipped to subtraction, which IMO, should have been the first chapters in the book. Subtraction flows so well with the way addition is taught that it would have started the year off well. I love the addition practice sheets and the card games, so I would have loved these to be the warm-ups instead of doing 3 months of addition as actual lessons. RS C starts off interestingly with Roman Numerals, then hits addition, then introduces multiplication, then moves way to quickly from that to subtraction, then time, then back to multiplication, then the drawing lessons (Which ds LOVED, so I will definitely get geometry). This is a little disjointed to me and I'm disappointed because it has the potential to be amazing! Now if Dr. Cotter would hire me as a consultant, I could re-work C into something great. :tongue_smilie::tongue_smilie:;):D

I love representing 1000's, hundreds, tens, ones with cubes to teach the children the concept but not for SOLVING equations. The cubes did remind me of RS but the children don't have to draw the cubes they just put the cards or the manipulatives in the right column. There is more room for error with drawing, plus it's more tedious (took the girl 8 minutes!)... in RS, it would have been done quickly and what RS is looking for is the process, not the answer. If Investigations math taught the kids the concept this way, made sure they understood, then moved to stacking, I would be impressed!

Thanks, yes my dd is use to that dear brother :sneaky2: LOL! The uke has been tons of fun here!

That little boy is so adorable, we've watched all his videos here and man, that kid has so much talent! My dd got a Uke for her 6th birthday and she makes up songs and strums it all the time (no lessons yet!)... it was a great gift for her! my dd made up the morning we made the discovery that a raccoon had gotten into our chicken coop :crying: and so we missed T-ball to clean the coop and tend to the survivors. (oh, and order baby chicks! Lol) I think it's cute but it is NOTHING like the talent that little Japanese boy has... he is incredible and so fun to watch.