Thankyou, I appreciate the help. Those are some great points for her to consider. Unfortunately, she has moved on in her writing assignments in order to finish up the school year so she doesn't have much time to rework the paper. However, she may revise it a little if she gets time. Thanks again!

This is my 16 year old daughter's Tapestry of Grace literary analysis assignment from Year 2. I am having a hard time grading this, and I could use some feedback. She would really like a specific grade on this and I'm really lost on how to give grades on these literary analysis papers. Thankyou Love’s Invitation “Love†by George Herbert describes a Christian’s spiritual journey in a way that the common man is able to identify with. Using a combination of dialogue, symbolic characters, and first- person narrative, Herbert achieves a poem that describes a pilgrim Christian’s journey very effectively and in a way that almost anyone can understand. Throughout the course of this poem, the character Love symbolizes Jesus. The character Love, in the poem, portrays Jesus’ forgiving and caring heart as well as His want for sinners to come to Him in repentance. This symbolization correlates perfectly to the Bible. 1 John 4:8b says “God is love†(Zondervan NIV Study Bible- Page 1949) Therefore, since Jesus is God, He is truly love. Additionally, this symbolization helps the reader relate to Jesus in a more personal way and gain insight to His character. In the Bible, God outlines each milestone throughout a Christian’s journey. To start with, God wants us to know that we are all sinners. We find this truth in Romans 3:23 and Isaiah 59:2. The Isaiah verse says our sin separates us from God. In the poem, the main character, who is also the narrator, is “Guilty of [his] dust and sin†(Norton Anthology of English Literature-Page 1624; Line 2 of “Loveâ€). He experiences the feeling of separation from Love, but Love wants to have a relationship with him. Jesus also wants to have a relationship with us and anyone who is willing to admit to their sin because He loves us. (Psalm 72:14) So much so that He died for sinners everywhere. The pilgrim in the poem doesn’t believe he could ever be in communion with Love. “I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,†(Norton Anthology of English Literature-Page 1624; Line 9 of “Loveâ€) However, Love reveals His forgiving heart to His shame-filled child. When told by the pilgrim that He was too worthy to even look at, Love responds in a loving and caring way. “Who made the eyes but I?†(Norton Anthology of English Literature-page 1625; Line 12 of “Loveâ€) To help the reader relate to and understand this invitation from Love, Herbert uses the literary technique dialogue. Throughout the second and third stanzas, Love and the sinner carry out a dialogue in which the sinner tells Love of his unworthiness and Love tells the sinner of his forgiveness. By the end of the dialogue, the sinner’s eyes are opened and he is freed from his unworthiness. This use of dialogue is very effective in helping the reader understand Love’s forgiveness and character and then applying it to their relationship with Jesus. This dialogue implies that Jesus is a personal savior. When he realizes that, in Love’s eyes, he is clean and free; the pilgrim accepts Love’s care and vows to serve Him. The new Christian than eats a meal with Love and enjoys fellowship with Him. This parallels with our relationship with Jesus after we accept Him into our hearts. We are able to serve Him and fellowship with Him, and someday we also will enjoy eternal communion with Him. One last key literary technique Herbert uses to make his poem identifiable to the reader is first person narration. The poem is told from the view- point of the sinner. This helps the reader relate because that is something everyone is. In the end, Herbert, using symbolization, dialogue, and first-person narrative as tools, is successful in communicating the importance of the Christian’s journey and a personal relationship with Jesus.

We started with IEW this year and my 10th grade DD HATES it. We started with the SWI-B(I thought it would be good for everybody to do at once) but then discovered it was to easy for her. So I ordered SWI-C. She still complains that it is to easy, she hates Mr. Pudewa, the key-word outlines are pointless, and she just wants to get on with the writing. DD is a natural writer. In 8th grade, an outside tutor she had told her she was writing at a college level. Is IEW something you would use for a natural writer? Should I make her do it despite of her bad attitude? Is IEW considered advanced or average? DD pulled out my old college writing handbook and started doing that on top of IEW. She told me that IEW was simply busy work and she didn't feel it was worthy of even putting on her transcript, so the only reason she is doing IEW is to respect me and the reason she was doing the college handbook was to earn a credit. :confused: What would you do? Thanks for any advice!:bigear:

What is best to use for Calculus and Stats? I've looked into Chalkdust, but they are to expensive. I've also looked into LOF, but I don't know if I would want it as a spine text... maybe a supplement. I've also looked at Saxon. I'll probably have her finish the year with Apologia Chem since I already bought it and money is tight. I did look into getting CAmpbell's Bio or Scanlon's A&P from half.com and they were pretty affordable. Would these work as electives on the side of Apologia Chem? Thanks for all the suggestions!

Thanks! We did think about doing Campbell's Biology. Would it work as an elective since she already did Apologia Biology? Does Campbell's cover phisiology? She did Latin in 6th and 7th grade and HATED it so I let her off the hook but that probably would help her in the science area... She just started Spanish so she is not fluent, we've done very little foriegn language so she's a little behind in that area. We haven't researched schools yet, she just came up with this idea a few months ago so it's not set in stone. What's recommended for Calculus and Statistics? I thought about Saxon. Thanks for your ideas!

This is dd's highschool plan for the next 3 years. She thinks she wants to be a neonatel nurse. How does it look? 10th Grade TOG Y2 -Theological Studies (1/2 credit) -World History II (1 credit) -Honors Classic Literature(1 credit) -Composition II (1/2 credit) -Government/Philosophy (1/2 credit) TT Pre-Calculus (1 credit) Apologia Chemistry (1 credit) Spanish (1/2 credit) Easy Grammar, Classical Roots Vocabulary 11th grade TOG Y3(includes History, Literature, Government, Church History, and Philosophy) Don't know what to do for math :confused: Apologia Human Body Critical Thinking Easy Grammar, Classical Roots Vocab 12th grade TOG Y4 Again don't know about math? Apologia Physics Elective TBD Plus, she already has 9 credits from previous years... :bigear:

This is my plan for my dd in 10th Grade this coming schoolyear. How does it look? Bible, History, Literature, Geography, Writing and Philosophy: TOG Year 2 Math: TT Pre-Calculus English: Rod and Staff 10 Government: Teenpact and TOG Logic: Critical Thinking Book 1 Science: Apologia Chemistry She also wants to do One Year Adventure Novel, but I haven't decided about that yet I am also thinking about doing Institute for Excellence in Writing instead of TOG writing. Any thoughts??

I have a 3rd grader, 7th grader, and 9th grader along with two little ones. It seems like we are running around in chaos and can't get everything done in the day. 3rd Grade DS TOG Bible,History, Art and Literature(Upper Grammar) Teaching Textbooks Math4 Well Trained Mind First Language lessons and Writing w/Ease Apologia Science(Botany) A Reason for Handwriting Spelling Workout 7th grade DD TOG Bible, History, Art,Literature,and Writing(Dialectic) Rod and Staff English 7 Teaching Textbooks Math 7 Spelling Workout Apologia General Science 9th grade DD TOG History,Literature,Fine Arts, Philosophy,Government,Writing, and Bible(Rhetoric) Teaching Textbooks Algebra 2 Apologia Biology Rod and Staff English 9/10 (book 1) Is this to much. My kids think its a lot. :confused: I don't know what to pare down.

I am using GLA this year with my older girls in 8th and 6th grade. They have had some latin from Latin for children book A. My younger dd really needs to just go over it all again. It just didn't stick for her all the declensions and conjugating. All she did was memorize the vocab. My older dd got more out of it and remembers the vocab but she can't translate anything so I am really excited to see how GLA works for them. I think my oldest dd is going to run through it fast since she is starting to get a grasp on it and hopefully it will finally be the thing my younger dd says OH I get it now. What I am wondering about, is once my older dd gets through this where do we go from here? Anyone go on from GLA? What would you put her in?

This is a great idea. Thanks for mentioning this. I didn't realize they had a website. I suppose most things do, I'm a little slow to process things this time of year. LOL! Trying to make make a tight budget stretch enough to get a full year of curriculum and then make a workable schedule out of it stresses me out. :eek: Ha ha! Thanks Kristin

I wanted to thank everyone for sharing their experience with QMM. I greatly appreciate it since this is a very expensive program and I would have been very sad to think I spent that much money on something so simple. UGH! I think spending the money on singsong latin for ds is a better trade. Wow. I can't believe no one has had a good experience with this after buying it. The folks at Timberdoodle think it's wonderful. Sheesh. Talk about missing the mark. Thanks again Everyone!! You all have saved me lots of money. I am so thankful I came to these boards and asked for input before putting this in my cart. wow.

Thank you for the tip on this program. After reading all the bad reviews on this program, I am really glad I came here first before spending 90 dollars! Phew. I will go check this program out. Thanks again. Julie

I do have the first two calculadder books but my kids balk at more timed drills on paper since saxon has them do a sheet per lesson so I got alot of complaining about more "seatwork" I guess you could call it. This is sort of why I thought QMM would be a good fit for my dc since it does cover all the levels I need and it isn't like another timed worksheet drill.

Oh my goodness isn't that always the case. LOL! Ha Ha! It is definately frustrating to think we have finally found something that is going to help with our school issues and it is a flop after putting money in it. UGH! I have heard so many rave reviews in various catalogs, including timberdoodle, that I figured I would bite the bullet and buy it. With a 2 yr old and a new baby, I just don't have time to sit with my older dc and go over math fact flash cards so I figured this would be a good independent method for them to review on their own. Hmmmmm. I wonder if there is an alternative option or if anyone else has had a possitive experience.

Hi, I need some advice on choosing which quarter mile math program to buy. My intention in buying this program is to help cement math facts in my 12 yr old dd's brain. We can drill and drill with her and if she takes any time off practicing, she forgets. Especially multiplication. She will be in 6th grade this year and I just can't imagine her going much farther in math without having her facts comitted to memory. She was using tally marks last year in her math homework for her problems that involved multiplication. UGH! I will also be using this for my 7 yr old ds who can review his addition, subtraction and skip counting and my 14 yr old dd who wants to review algebra 1 equations while doing a year of geometry. Given the wide age range I need this for, I decided I need the K-9 program but I noticed there is the full K-9 bundle for 89.99 and then CBD had what they called a hybrid, cross-section version of the K-9 bundle for 39.99. They didn't give a whole lot of explanation of the two programs but I imagine the cheaper version covers most of what the more expensive version covers but with fewer problems. I'm not sure about that. I was wondering if anyone here has experience with this program and which version would you recommend. Is it worth the extra 50 dollars to just buy the full version? With my age ranges, I would definately need all levels at once so I initially thought it would be worth the money to just spend the 89 dollars but if I could save 50 dollars on the cheaper version, I can justify buying my 7r old ds the songschool latin. LOL!! Ha Ha! OH the joys of buying curriculum and trying to make that budget stretch!! Thanks for the help Julie

This is good to know. Some of the books they have them reading are wonderful and I would love to have a lit program offer a good meat and potatoes type of study using novels like the ones Lightning Lit covers. Most of the time however, it is just like you said busy work or tons of vocab and comprehension questions. I feel like we do enough of that with oral narration so I don't want any more comprehension or vocab stuff we have a seperate vocab to cover that too. This is where I do like CLE. They really do a good job of covering the fundamentals. I just wish we could find something that teaches what CLE does with real books. We really missed reading lots of good books this year. There wasn't as much time to add those in after we did our CLE work.

I was wondering if I could get some input about Lightning Literature. We used CLE lit for 7th and 5th grades this year and liked it. In fact, I was just planning on using it again because I like the thoroughness of what it covers. Then, of course, I got a catalog in the mail for the company that makes Lightning Lit and as I was reading about it I became intrigued. I really, really like that it uses actual books as opposed to short stories used for CLE. The stories are great for CLE but I also want the DC to read good books too so I am having to come up with books and study guides to go over in addition to the CLE Lit. Anyone ever use the Lightning Lit? I like CLE because it covers more than just vocab and comprehension for Lit. My dd's learned alot this year using this program. I just wish we could also fit in some good novels with our literature study. We did miss that this year. It's hard to find that happy medium.

Thanks for all the great info!! As I was reading about the writing curriculum, I noticed writing strands wasn't part of the list. I am wondering where that would fit in with the comparison. Also, has it been taken out of the WTM recommendation? I was just wondering because after trying WS in 2nd and 3rd grades, then switching to K12, on to writers apprentice and wordsmith and now finally BACK to WS, my dd actually is clicking with this program and loves it alot. I too am finally figuring out the method used after seeing how other programs are set up and like it better. My older dd's 7th and 5th grades are using this with no tears this year so I am really thinking we found a program that clicks with them throughout 12 grade hopefully unless my older dd goes through the books faster and then we will need to find something for her 11th and 12th grade years. My ds 1st grade is doing well working through WWE level 1 and as soon as he is through all those levels I am thinking we will just put him right into WS too. How would this method compare to the other writing curriculums you mentioned? Will this prepare them well enough or should I be looking into some of those others? Just wondering. Thanks!!

Oh wow, I glad you brought this up. I really need alot of good explanation or at least my dd's do since they are pretty independent with their work at this point. If they get stuck, I need to be able to find out the problem in a TM somewhere so I can explain it to them. I love how Teaching Textbooks helps me this way with my oldest dd's algebra. Otherwise I would be all day relearning algebra trying to explain to her the problems she got wrong. Now, if she gets one wrong, we put in the cd and the teacher goes through them with her. What a lifesaver. I need something like that for Latin. LOL! Thanks for the link.

AH yes the declension tables are really tripping them up. I hate the way LFC is laid out. I really have a hard time understanding how to apply those endings to the vocab. It's just way too much material at a time. They memorize it great but that's as far as it goes. Actually, the whole house has those endings memorized. We go around saying the little chants in our heads. O, S, T, Mus, tis unt. LOL! Don't know what it means but we sure can say it. LOL!

Peela, I like the sound of this program as far as making Latin relevant. I read somewhere on these boards that LC and LFC were equally weak on grammar instruction. This was good for me to read because it would explain why we are having a tough time with everything but vocab memorization. I went from a weak grammar explanation program to another weak grammar program which was heavy on memorization. No wonder they can't pull it all together or see how it is relevant. Right now they mostly just memorize vocab and endings and don't understand the grammar explanations so they do enough to fill in the blanks and move on to the next lesson without retaining ANY of it. My oldest dd gets really frustrated when she puts alot of work into something and gets nothing out of it like we have done with Latin so I believe that is part of her hatred toward having to study it. Maybe Latin prep will help her with this. I will google this one too. Do you get it through Galore Park? Thanks!!

Yes grammar seems to be a stumbling block for them. That and a lack of really believing Latin is necessary to add to their work load. :) I have heard about Lively Latin. Prima Latina is what we started out in about 3 years ago when my younger dd was in 2nd grade and my oldest dd was in 3rd. They were and still are completely lost in a fog and just can't seem to pull it all together. Thanks for the suggestion.

I am so frustrated with our Latin experience. My dd's now 13 and 11 started out with Prima Latina with the dvd's and hated it because it was so dry and boring. Also, they couldn't understand the grammar or conjugating and declining part. So, I switched to Latin for Children thinking this is going to make it a little more lively and interesting. It did help a little but they are still struggling through the grammar, endings ect.... basically the whole structure of the language. They both seem so overwhelmed with it. They have both gotten through LFC book A and know the vocab words really well but nothing else if I ask them what the endings mean. They can recite the endings like the video has them do along with the vocab but they have no idea what they mean or how to use them properly. My 13 yr old can sort of explain what you do with mus, tis, unt but my 11 yr old is so lost I want to scream. I have thought many times that we just need to give up after trying to study latin off and on for 3 years and not getting anywhere, I feel frustrated. The girls hate it and don't understand why they have to learn it which makes for a poor attitude. Also, I have had 2 babies in two years and not been able to learn along with them like I should. I know a big part of their problem has been the fact that I have been relying on the dvd's and workbooks to teach them. Now, I am trying to help them out and for me to understand it, we have to back up and review because I have no idea where to start with them. LFC doesn't have enough explanation in the grammar part for me to explain it well enough to my 11 yr old and my 13 yr old just memorizes the vocab and doesn't retain any grammar. UGH! Is there a very teacher friendly program out there for dc who have developed bad attitudes toward latin? LOL! I don't know if I should try to stick with LFC and have them do books B and C or switch to something else. I really don't have alot of time to sit down and learn this myself at this point with a new baby, a 2yr old and a very hands on 6 yr old. He is at that stage in school where I have to sit with him during all his work which means my older dd's need to have work they can do independently so I can just check it real quick in the afternoon. My mornings are really full with 1st grade work, keeping the 2 yr old busy so he stays out of trouble and nursing a new baby every two hours. The thought of one more new subject I have to sit down and figure out is overwhelming to me. I think latin is very important and I really don't want to give up trying to make it click for them but at this point I am grasping at straws. Any suggestions to help make this work for us without making me any crazier than I already am? LOL! Thanks! Julie

Yes my oldest will be doing dialectic. Thanks for the replies!!

I have been looking at TOG for several years and now that my oldest will be 14 next year and we have added another baby to our already hectic school day, I am thinking this is a great time to start. My two oldest dd's with be 14 and 12 next school year in 8th and 6th grades and my ds will be 7 doing 2nd grade work and a preschooler added in for fun.:tongue_smilie: My oldest two have already been planning out their week of school independently using a school planner I found in the CLE catalog. They are doing great with that so I was thinking the weekly plans in TOG would work well for them. I am in sort of a delimma with where to start out though. It makes most sense to just get year 3 and start there but chronologically we will be wrapping up MOH 3 this year which stops at the early 1700's which actually matches up with TOG yr 2 unit 3 or 4 I believe. We would miss out on a whole half year of TOG which doesn't bother me much since when we rotate back through we could pick it up again but those are the time periods my dd has been wanting to study. Plus, since we haven't had much american history I would like to start them from the beginning. Starting with colonist settlements, writing the constitution ect... before we jumped into year 3 subjects. Would it be difficult for a new TOG user who has never used or seen this curriculum to start out teaching 3 dc with year 2 unit 3? Is that going to really mess us up since we take summer breaks to start in the middle like that schedule wise? I was going to try the american history program sold through bright ideas press and timberdoodle that is supposed to be similar in format to MOH. (sorry, I forget the name of it and don't have a catalog handy to look at) Then I was going to start TOG year 3 but I am liking the scheduling, organizing and handholding it appears TOG has to offer instead of the ecclectic approach I am using at the moment. Anyone have advice as to which approach to take here. I was getting anxious to get started with TOG but maybe waiting one more year after after the American History would be best. Not sure what to do.