4wildberrys
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Posts posted by 4wildberrys
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Well, my ds gets that way when he gets gluten! Seriously---the pencil thing resonates as he is that way now..:glare: WWS looked great to me, and I thought it would be a good mix with IEW. But honestly, IEW just makes more sense, especially the theme based books. They are very systematic and predictable, which is what seems to work best with ds. He is pretty 'normal' unless he gets gluten, at which time he becomes very OCD and irritable. He likes routine and IEW fits the bill. I have used theme based quite successfully and only bought the Tips and Tricks DVD to get a base understanding of the program. WWS is a great program but if you need predictable structure and continuity until graduation, I highly recommend IEW. ;)
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bumping...hoping for input! :)
If your DS is a visual learner, Abeka is great! DD DETESTED Apologia! :glare: When I switched her to Abeka for Physical Science---she truly loved it. My ds is just fine with Apologia----dd had started the Biology and we had to quit 1/3 through because she was pulling her hair out not understanding the concepts. DS used it last year no problem and is doing and loving Phys Sci and soon Chemistry. Apologia is NOT for every learning style---not even Dive or Bio 101 (which we used) will fix that. Your best bet is to sell your Apologia Bio book and purchase a more visual program---Abeka is good as well as Ace School of Tomorrow---and even adding in Bio 101. But Bio 101 is NOT a full Biology program no matter what their website says!!!
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My recommendations are Elegant Essay by IEW followed up by IEW Advanced Communication Series. Both will prepare for college writing and are what I am going to use with my ds to get I'm ready ;)
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But if you aren't worried about getting accepted, but definitely want merit aid, don't you really need AP classes? We will get very little, if any, need-based aid. Yet we don't have a college fund, and we aren't willing to dip into our retirement fund, so we really don't know how we will pay for college without some merit aid. Can you get merit-based aid without AP classes, if you don't have super high SAT or ACT scores?
Yes, it is possible. DD will get some grants and is eligible for Stafford Loans, which are OK for bad credit/no credit students and families. DD was NOT capable of doing full AP and is a horrible test taker, so CLEP was out of the question. Aid is based on family income and finances. Her ACT scores were on the very low end---again, she is HORRIBLE at test taking. It hasn't been a problem so far and talking to the 2 schools she was looking at, they were very calm and no nonsense about all of my nervous questions. :tongue_smilie:
Besides, we figure it is up to our kids to pay for their own college! DS is better at test taking, so he will be doing CLEP but no AP. We are also counting on him scoring higher on ACT or SAT in order to perhaps get some more aid. We have simply warned them that a modest amount of college debt is fine, but keep in mind what you major in as far as employability after graduation (as if it's even guaranteed anymore!).
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I've always thought , "Let high school be high school and let college be college."
One of my daughter's did not take any dual enrollment, CLEP, honors, or AP. She did a year at CC after high school and was then accepted into a private, prestigious college (with grants and scholarships from the school) without a problem.
A member of our extended family began her college days at the same CC and went on to eventually get her PhD from Vanderbilt. I don't think that she had any "advanced" courses, tests, or dual enrollement while she was in high school.
:iagree: DD did no AP, CLEP etc. and is attending a state University in a few weeks. No big deal. Ds will be doing CLEP because he is more 'capable', no AP. We just want to help him save money. You DON"T NEED to do college in high school to get into college!!!! I guess it looks good on a transcript, or is good for more advanced, motivated students. But I know it's NOT necessary. Relax. Don't worry. It'll be OK ;)
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I don't use public school history texts for a reason! It is a MAJOR reason that we homeschool!!! But, at least they don't pretend it is out of piety. As a Christian, I find that abhorrent.
Exactly ;). I guess I'm such a history purist, I find altering, omitting or misstating historical facts to effect a certain view on history just generally abhorrent, whether Christian or secular :glare: I continually shake my head in amazement at how much quicker the Christian texts get called on the carpet though.
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Yes. It bothers me immensely! In fact so much so, that I have deleted the repeat offensive offenders and o longer have to deal with the irritation :tongue_smilie:
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The younger grades have similar issues, imo. But, if the bias is in your favor, then you are less likely to see it. If you were never taught the truth, then you are less likely to see it. The last convention that my dh attended with me (which, was a couple of years ago) found us at the A Beka table, dealing with issues like this. Not trusting my memory to explain these to you, I went to A Beka's website and used their "look inside" feature.
http://www.abeka.com/AbekaOnline/BookDescriptionPreview.aspx?sbn=108626
One of the pages available to view is page 47. They describe Jamestown, VA (founded in 1620) as the first lasting colony in Virginia. They also mention Plymouth, Massachusetts (1607). But, there is no mention that St. Augustine, Florida was the first lasting colony, settled in 1565. Why? Because it doesn't fit their "creation myth" of how the US came to be.
The next page describes how the King of England threw people in jail who did not believe as he did. There is no mention of the *fact* that by 1666 Puritans required membership in their church in order to vote (among other issues).
That sort of thing is *constant* in A Beka's history books. These aren't "religious beliefs," they are a deliberate omission of *facts* in order to support a narrative based on lies and deception.
How would you have felt about that, if you had been Jewish? How would you feel, if you lived in a predominantly Islamic area and the Koran was read to your children each day? The separation of church and state is there to protect *everybody*. Nobody is being "censored" because people can read whatever they wish, on their own time.
So, there is a prominent homeschool author whom I have heard speak on several occasions (and is not SWB). That person *repeatedly* affirms that Christians should not read the works of non-Christians, because you don't want those people informing your worldview. You can't learn anything from sinners. Christians should not read purely secular works of literature. So, it may not imply that they are "hacks," but there is *absolutely* an underlying current of, "they are too worldly, you should not read such works."
I'm anti-EM. I think its adherents are wacky. I would advocate for the removal of the program.
The one I discussed up top is a current version. This stuff is throughout their history books, in particular.
Every single history textbook does this!!! They all come from their belief system that shows up in the information they choose to include or omit! Go ahead and read many public school textbooks, and you will find massive amounts of information omitted because it's either offensive or doesn't fit with the viewpoint the kids are supposed to have after reading the book. This is EXACTLY why we use literature based history coupled with at least 2-3 factual sources.
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Ok, I am not defending A Beka or BJU, (and I did just skim this thread) but these arguments against these so-called wacky facts don't hold water. Just for example, the paragraph cited did not in any way say the KKK was A-ok. And even the fact that the paragraph said they "gained respectability" didn't even show approval. Shoot, I'm sure in some communities Mob bosses and other criminals have "gained respectability". Look at some congressmen. And maybe God did bring some Native Americans to Christ in the Trail of Tears. Doesn't mean they approve. In "The Hiding Place" many people turned to Christ in the concentration camps because of Corrie ten Boom, but my saying that doesn't mean that I think the concentration camps were anything but deplorable. It just states a fact. Like I said, I'm not defending the publishers. I do use some of their stuff, but I agree with most of the common sentiment regarding bias. I just think the article that is being discussed doesn't prove a whole lot.
I guess I will be the lone person to agree with you! I thought the arguments against these books were weak myself. There WERE kind slave masters---even though today anything to do with slavery is abhorrent to any of us. But it was the norm back then. Did the KKK have a different focus beyond racism when it first was established? Honestly, I don't know but reading that article made me want to find out. The biggest thing that made me laugh about the outrage of the author is that EVERY SINGLE textbook has bias!!! Every. single. one! The challenge is to find their viewpoint, and then read all the historical documents available to find the truth! Big job. But it's silly to just single out Christian publishers, as is SO popular today, because so many textbooks out there contain questionable if not completely inaccurate 'facts'. She did take a bit of liberty in selecting her quotes from these books without giving any background information at how they had gotten to the topic to begin with. :glare:
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ACE School of Tomorrow Geography!! Using a 2nd time with ds, after dd did it, and LOVE it! Very thorough and covers each country/region/continent in quite a bit of depth compared to any other curriculum I looked at.
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My son is a rising 8th grader. I'd really like to use *both* Writing with Skill (for remediation/review from another P.O.V other than just having used IEW) and IEW's Medieval Theme book. It would be great just because we are covering Medieval time period this year and I'd love to not have to think/plan for right now.
However, I noticed it is for 4th-8th grade.
I'm concerned it is going to be far too easy for him. Am I correct? I've not taught IEW using the theme based books, just dabbled in the Bible based one which I can't find at my house at the present moment... Though I don't know if it would help because that is supposed to be for grades up to 12th.
Thoughts?
We will be doing writing in addition to WWS as we are currently doing Elegant Essay. However, I'd like to have him do some additional work relevant to the time period *without* having to think out assignments and come up with my criteria for grading, etc. I can. I just truly don't want to right now.
I would do one or the other----we have both! WWS is truly a FULL program! I would even suggest WWS before IEW Medieval simply because WWS teaches skills that will come in handy with IEW and make it easier for you to implement and your student to do. I was trying to do both this year, and it was just TOO much! I decided to start with WWS and then we will do the Medieval, even though he will be long done with studying this time period. And NO----if your student needs remediation/help with writing, WWS and/or IEW Medieval and just fine. We will be using the Elegant Essay and IEW Advanced Communiation Series for ds's Senior year---so I'm not worried AT ALL about using WWS or IEW Level B to get us there---even in 10th/11th grade ;)
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Ahhh, Sonlight. I'm a very, very longtime user. I had to separate the program from the company -- from thinking about Sarita or the new catalogs or teasers or the "customer champion" or the forums -- I could go on and on about any of those and how the whole thing "ain't yo' mama's Sonlight!" In other words, so much NOT what it used to be with John running the show.
I have lost respect for them as a company in so many ways -- especially the fact that yes, they never homeschooled a highschooler, and yes, I was the one who pointed that out how Sarita said she had 4 "graduates" on the website. My dislike became so much stronger when Amy whined on the forum that we were all out to get the company and it was so unfair that Sonlight was the first company to promote a literature-based curriculum and the rest were all just copycats of what they created. (Oh, boohoo -- like homeschoolers do not just read and that the "idea" of having a bunch of books all scheduled out is something they should have copyrighted?!!! Oh, that was a good post -- which was deleted the next day by our friendly customer champion.
I am bugged by the fact that when Sonlight's tail feathers get ruffled, they just delete posts and lock threads and boot people off their forum or just do a forum-wide POOF of EVERYTHING -- How many times has that happened? I can remember 3, I think. Loss of years worth of forum posts. So now they try to protect their egos -- most of the forum threads are not available to the public. So, instead there's nothing there except 4 or 5 people who reply to everyone and pretty much tell the rest of the people to shut up already.
But yeah, I'm still a closet user. Those new IG's though? Never. Gosh, they are so gaggy compared to the old John-stuff. Twice as many pages with a bunch of stress-inducing stuff you don't want to do. So many pages of Say this: . . . . (Your child answers this: . . . ) Gack. It was never that way long ago. My first core 3 from 1996 was just -- get this -- a scheduled book list -- no vocab, no questions, just a few John's notes on his reasons for NOT using the Light and the Glory series that Sarita has chosen to add back in this year. As I said, "it ain't yo' mama's Sonlight!"
BUT! If you're going to do anything high school, you've got to use the new IG. The old high school IG's were a logistal nightmare.
I am amused to see that so many Sonlight posts are here these days. And as someone said, it's not even March. . . .
Thank you for letting me rant. :tongue_smilie: I think I feel better now.
Hi Joane! :001_smile: I know how you feel and we keep using SL too!, I NEVER go to the forums anymore but we still love the books we have ;)
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I just wish they could make up their minds about who they want to be and how they want to accomplish that. My head had barely stopped spinning from the Great "Poof" of 2006 when they started in with more changes (like the books they stopped using, with copious explanations, and then started using again, with more copious explanations.)
And this is trivial, I suppose, but it always irked me that SL insisted it was a good thing to buy all the books in a Core, even if you owned a lot of them already, because ... you could give them away for birthday or Christmas presents! Oh, yeah -- give your precious little niece or nephew that brand-new copy of Stone Fox, and prepare for an irate phone call a few weeks later from his mom because the book upset him so much he hasn't stopped crying. :rolleyes:
Lol! My son cried after reading This book too----but he is 17 now and shows no signs of permanent damage ;).
We have used SL since 2001 and quite frankly it was the nasty women on the forums that almost made me dump SL!! :glare: We just simply LOVE the lit approach to history, so that is why I still use it to this day. I'm sorry that the OP is having problems like that, and the burden should most definitely be on SL to remedy it. To the poster made nervous by this thread, sL is wonderful curriculum! And the new IG for the younger grades are better than ever!! No company is perfect, so just use the curriculum that works for your family. Life is too short to boycott good curriculum over CS problems of other people. We have used quite a few WP programs over the years---and they were awesome! Even though lots of other people had nightmares getting a complete order....
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I actually liked this one http://www.dennyburk.com/two-lies-about-chick-fil-a-perpetuated-in-the-media/
and this one http://www.getreligion.org/2012/07/wheres-the-beef-what-the-chick-fil-a-boss-really-said/
This whole thing is surreal, and I am very disappointed in many of the National news agency's. :glare:
Exactly! The media is fueling a Hate Fire that is unnecessary! It's so sad to see especially young people who have been trained to believe in 'tolerance' for all totally in favor of banning Chick Fil A. They don't get it! Tyranny is a gradual process, but the end result is VERY ugly :glare:
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I'll just continue the conversation here and say 'No'---it's not necessary for every single high school student! Perhaps Algebra 1---and that's it. But MANY students would fare so much better in life studying more practical math subjects in high school. I studied all the way through Precalc/Trig---but I STILL have trouble balancing a checkbook. I think that is pathetic because my college prep high school was so concerned with getting into college, that practical subjects were considered banal and unnecessary. :glare:
Additionally, my dd is VERY intelligent, but she is HORRIBLE with a capital 'H' in math!!!! Not a single curriculum---and we tried them all----every resonated with her beyond Algebra 1. And now her chances of getting into the college she has decided she wants to go to is in jeopardy because of simply math. Math. The major she wants to study requires ZERO math. But she has to get a certain score on the COMPASS tomorrow to even get admitted as a homeschooler to this college. Math---specifically algebra +----could prevent her from getting admitted. Silly and ridiculous in my opinion.
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My dd is the same age as yours, Nightelf, and she will be taking the COMPASS next Thurs so timely you ask this question! ;) She has not studied Algebra in 2 years so I am giving her our Standard Deviants Algebra DVDs, Understanding Mathematics + workbook to work on and lots of prayers!!! She has finally decided that working and trying to do online school is just too much, so she is finishing her application to her college of choice she started last year finally!! I am SOOO happy and excited for her. The one year of rest has given her the fire under her seat she needed to decide what she wants to study and why! Good luck to your DD ;)
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This is great, thanks! And I already ordered my MFW Chem + plans----so really excited to get it next week :D
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I like Gwartney and Stroup's series as seen here:
You should be able to buy a used copy and study guides for a very reasonable price. Make sure the edition you get has both micro/macro or be aware that some of the books in the series with the same title are only micro or macro.
What's the viewpoint of the text? I did notice that Greenspan and Bernanke are considered 'Outstanding Economists' while perusing the table of contents at Amazon. :glare:
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you mean I have to get up off my rear end and walk back to my dd's room again for you? :lol::lol:
hold on.... (so glad you don't take me too seriously at times, Katie)
ok... general physical bio chem and physics all run about like this...
for most modules, it is done as 4 days a week. 2 weeks for module. Every 4th module is when a quarterly test is scheduled. so that means those 2 weeks will be 5 day a week in the schedule. An alternative idea is given as do 2 quarterly test together a semester final and schedule that on own.
lists are given for supplies for labs. places to record lab grades and test grades are given. extra notes are in physics one about remember the author's note on this and that... (my dh and dd did chemistry together so I stayed out of chemistry and couldn't find her plans in there... not going back in that room.. shudder..she's out of the house.) but I thought that was neat in physics with some extra reminders.
at one point someone in their office told me there were going to get samples on those up sometime. hmm.. maybe I should nag them again on that. ;)
-crystal
Wow---thanks so much Crystal! ;)
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nah... we just don't like you. :lol:
or were not on the computer last night. :lol:
take your pick on it. giggle giggle...
ahem....
physics - no summaries. appendix B is "more practice problems"
hope that helps you a bit (I don't have marine book...)
-crystal
:001_tt2:...lol...thanks Crystal!
And thank you for the info on the Physics. And since I have you---are the MFW lesson plans 4 days throughout the year? AND---is it true that the MFW lesson plans also schedule the quarterly tests? Still trying to decide if I want to stick with Apologia and use the MFW lesson plans next year. ;)
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Thank you! That answers my main question about the Chemistry. And if you don't mind taking a look at your Physics book to see about the summaries--- I would appreciate that ;)
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Really?! Nobody here is using Apologia right now? :001_huh:
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Does this book have the Summary pages in the back like the Gen, Phys and Biology do? For that matter, do the Physics and Marine Bio texts contain the summaries also?
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I have no idea. I was just pointing out that if the linked page is a diploma mill, then CollegePlus would be, too. And if CollegePlus isn't, then neither is the other link. The big difference I see is in the time period, but I think the link is aimed at adults and CollegePlus at teens.
NEITHER Thomas Edison State College NOR College Plus are diploma mills!! :glare:
Is it unfair to my current children to have more children?
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
You do what's right for YOU and your DH! It sounds like you guys are set financially to have more. Cars? Paid for college? Since when are those things parents are supposed to foot the bill for?? It would be nice for ANY of us parents to be able to provide all the unlimited perks for each of our kids that our imaginations can provide----but then reality kicks in! Love, nutrition, a roof over their heads, emotional support etc---those are the necessities. College, cars, braces etc---those are PERkS....I.e. NOT necessities ;). Follow your heart about the number of children you and your dh want---because it sounds like it's in the right place :001_smile: