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Liza Q

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Everything posted by Liza Q

  1. I've used several things. Last year my son used The American Pageant and I got the Guidebooks that went with it. I used the reviews as quizzes and assigned some of the essay topics. He did not work towards the AP exam but if he had there is a lot of online help for this text for APUSH. I added the Opposing Viewpoints books and a book of documents - Keys to American History. I made up my own Lit and the year went very well. He specifically requested no videos and no online class. With my oldest 2 I used The History of the American People (Johnson) and Notgrass plus The Great Courses History of the US dvd lectures. And I used a combination of Lightning Lit and my own ideas for books LL didn't cover. My 3rd daughter used the American School that year, which used an Amsco book. It was actually quite good! All four approaches worked well! I think US History is hard to screw up, so long as you use materials that are challenging and interesting.
  2. My daughter's doctors were very clear on this. Her symptoms were behavioral and a big weight loss. They were sure she was anorexic and was in treatment for that for a few months...sigh. I'm so thankful they were thorough enough to do bloodwork and then an endoscopy/biopsy.
  3. All of my pregnancies were all nausea all the time from the first month through the delivery. Frequent but not constant vomiting. Vomiting during deliveries. But never bad enough for IV, thank God. Really, it was just a lot of complaining to my husband, family, and friends till they were sick of me lol. That was just me letting of steam and they were nice about it. It was dreadful...but I really wanted each baby and the nausea was the price I had to pay!! Five times. Totally worth it. But when I remember that feeling I just shudder...I feel for you.
  4. My son has scoliosis. We can answer your questions anonymously and you can contact me via pm. Would you ask your Mom to pm me? Thanks.
  5. I feel the same way but I let it go. He played way too much over the holiday and then he went back to normal. But. Our gaming system is in the living room so he can't play (his game is Destiny) without our knowing it. When he's hanging in his room in the evening I know that he's wasting time online but the only game he might be playing is Minecraft, which I kind of like. If he's viewing something unsavory...well, my husband is in charge of that and I just don't worry about it lol. Iow, I know exactly when he's on and for how long AND he has to ask permission because he can't just take over the living room without running it past me or Dad first. So we do have a lot of control. We *could* say no and he knows it - we just rarely do.
  6. We don't limit the gaming as much as I'd like to as it is his way of spending time with his friends that he only sees 1-2x per month. But he does have youth group, bass guitar lessons (this is what he really enjoys and he practices at least an hour a day), and yoga regularly and soccer seasonally. Schoolwork - his grades are good to excellent, chores - he has some regular work and is quite helpful when I need him to be "tall" or "strong" when his Dad's not home...I don't feel right about loading him up with more just to be sure he's being as productive as possible. He should easily get into the college he wants so I can't pressure him in that way. If he wants to watch Youtube videos about his game and play a few times a week, I think it's ok.
  7. In the original TWTM SWB recommended A Short History of Western Civilization (Harrison/Sullivan/Sherman) 8th ed, The Timetables of History and the DK History of the World. IMO, find something engaging that your daughter will enjoy reading and don't worry too much about finding the perfect text. The goal of homeschooling this way is "engaging with the ideas of the past and the present". She'll be learning to make connections. Any solid, well-written text should work well.
  8. A few thoughts I treated Government and Economics as electives and stuck them in when it seemed like a good time for them. When I started High School with my oldest HAW hadn't been published yet. She used Spielvogel's Western Civ and the Great Courses Foundations of Western Civ videos. For years 3 and 4 she also read Paul Johnson's History of the American People - SWB recommended it at the time...I think at a convention? Mt 2nd daughter used HAW in 9th grade along with the videos and it was a great year! Year 2 was more challenging - Spielvogel was heavy going for her and Susan's next book wasn't yet out but she managed and also used 2 other books that SWB recommended - probably at the same convention! Life in Medieval Times by Rowling and The Renaissance by Paul Johnson. .Year 3 we changed around a bit - we did all US History using Notgrass and the Great Courses US History. Year 4 we went back and did the rest of World History with a different textbook - she really disliked Spielvogel so we switched to an easier World History text (World History by Hanes). I have the original TWTM so I'm going to look and see what she recommended before she wrote her own books. Be back later!
  9. I posted it with 2 small additions in that thread - thanks for telling me about it! Here are the additions: Also from the website: Students should expect to spend 3-6 hours a week on this class. This seems about right, though I think my son spent more like 10 hours during the week before the rough draft was due and maybe 8 hours before the final draft. But - he is a slow writer. I do have one sort-of negative comment. From the website: This class is worth 1/2 a high school credit in Language Arts, Composition, or Writing. Imo, this is not enough for a semester credit, especially for the upper grades (11th/12th). I paired it with a homegrown Lit program that included a lot of reading and discussion.
  10. Here's a review for the Senior Thesis class - 1 semester - at Memoria Press. https://www.memoriap...pagename=thesis This class is for student who can already write - this quote is from the website: The course is a capstone class and assumes that the student can write grammatically correct and complete sentences. It also assumes a student has written essays and papers before (not necessarily a research paper), but does not assume completion of our Classical Composition program. Also from the website: Students should expect to spend 3-6 hours a week on this class. This seems about right, though I think my son spent more like 10 hours during the week before the rough draft was due and maybe 8 hours before the final draft. But - he is a slow writer. You should know that my son - 17yo, 12th grade - doesn't like writing. He can turn out a decent, if plain and boring, essay if he needs to, but he'll moan and whine quite a bit. He hated studying grammar, complained all the time, but is actually very careful with his writing. Too careful - he was a perfectionist and driving me crazy. Because it was really affecting our relationship, I had him take a few Bravewriter classes and was extremely pleased with the results. I made him take this class because I didn't feel like working with him and teaching him to write a research paper, MLA citation, etc. I did this with my daughters before they went to college without any fuss but he is way more of a drama queen than they are lol and I didn't want the struggle. Also. Bravewriter has a class like this but it is shorter and more expensive...and I thought it would be good for my son to try a different approach. He told me this about the class (I'm paraphrasing this as he wouldn't actually write something for me about the class!): Because I don't like writing I didn't enjoy the writing. But the class was good and I really enjoyed it. I learned stuff. It was not that focused on grammar and editing and it could have been. It was more about the process. They met once a week for 90 minutes and the class ran from September through January. Excluding holidays, it met for 17 weeks. I am not very techy but I will do my best to explain the set-up - there was a camera so you could see as well as hear the teacher and he used slides during the class. The students communicated through a chat box but could use the mic for a complicated question. The assignments were done in Word and were uploaded to Memoria's site - simple. There is an online Forum where they can ask the teacher a question and all of the assignments/grades/etc are online and easy to access. The 17 weeks were set up this way - 3 weeks on initial research and choosing a topic, 4 weeks on choosing sources, drafting a thesis statement, and writing an outline, 2 weeks for the rough draft and final draft (but this included Thanksgiving week so they really had 3 weeks), and 6 weeks for Student Presentations and short analyses of each paper. Each student read their paper out loud and then the following week they each wrote about each paper. There were 2 texts used - Research Papers for Dummies and an MLA Handbook. Since I got them used from Amazon, they were very inexpensive. There were weekly reading assignments and my son said they were helpful. The paper itself had to be about 15 pages, double-spaced, and the student had to use a minimum of 8 sources. My son wrote on the colonization of Mars but he could have chosen any topic. Some of the other students wrote on topics like why fathers are necessary to families, genetic engineering, even the history of gingerbread! It was a small class of 8 students and I think my son received plenty of personal attention. Here are a few examples of the comments my son received on his work: On his adjusted Thesis Statement: This should work. You've dialed it back a bit, but you are still clearly intending to argue for a definite position. Good work! Later, in his rough draft, my son wanted to change the wording of his thesis and wrote this: For this section, I'm finding that the thesis statement feels pretty clunky. Would you be okay with me changing this section to "...or some combination of the two. The best way to do it is to combine the resources of both public programs and private industries." or at least something along those lines. It doesn't really change the meaning, but really helps the paragraph flow. And this was the teacher's response: I agree with the need to rephrase it. I think what you’ve proposed, or something like it, should work just fine. On this sentence (George H. W. Bush tried and failed to bring greater life back to NASA.) from his rough draft : Maybe elaborate on this sentence and the following ones. How did these presidents seek to enhance NASA, and why didn’t they have more support? On his final draft: Mechanics-19/20pts Content-70/70pts Presentation-10/10pts 99/100 This is a well-sourced and thoughtfully planned paper. You deal with the necessary issues and argue appropriately and consistently for your thesis throughout the paper. The few errors that cropped up dealt more with citation placement (inside the period on short quotes, outside on block), and really do not seriously detract from the overall effectiveness of the paper. Considering this topic’s rather offhand or seemingly random beginnings, I think the project turned out very well. Great work! I put his entire grade on that last one so you can see how the paper was graded. The teacher was Dr. Kevin Dray. My son thinks he was marvelous. Like, even slightly better than "Mrs. Jetta" of Clover Creek Physics (sorry Jetta/morningglory lol!! He did say that he loved you!) Personally, I disagree - my son learned to love Physics and did not learn to love writing, kwim? But my son said that Dr. Dray was hilarious in both his personality and his comments, he taught well, was likable and fun, had a dry sense of humor. I do have one sort-of negative comment. From the website: This class is worth 1/2 a high school credit in Language Arts, Composition, or Writing. Imo, this is not enough for a semester credit, especially for the upper grades (11th/12th). I paired it with a homegrown Lit program that included a lot of reading and discussion. I would definitely recommend this class if you want your child to learn to write a research paper with MLA citation and don't want to teach it yourself.
  11. I posted the Thesis Class review. The Lit class runs late February through mid-April. So, if you send me a PM in late April, I'll tell you what I think!
  12. This got pretty long - I hope anyone interested in this class will find it helpful! This class is for student who can already write - this quote is from the website: The course is a capstone class and assumes that the student can write grammatically correct and complete sentences. It also assumes a student has written essays and papers before (not necessarily a research paper), but does not assume completion of our Classical Composition program. https://www.memoriapressacademy.com/catalog?pagename=thesis You should know that my son doesn't like writing. He can turn out a decent, if plain and boring, essay if he needs to, but he'll moan and whine quite a bit. He hated studying grammar, complained all the time, but is actually very careful with his writing. Too careful - he was a perfectionist and driving me crazy. Because it was really affecting our relationship, I had him take a few Bravewriter classes and was extremely pleased with the results. I made him take this class because I didn't feel like working with him and teaching him to write a research paper, MLA citation, etc. I did this with my daughters before they went to college without any fuss but he is way more of a drama queen than they are lol and I didn't want the struggle. Also. Bravewriter has a class like this but it is shorter and more expensive...and I thought it would be good for my son to try a different approach. He told me this about the class (I'm paraphrasing this as he wouldn't actually write something for me about the class!): Because I don't like writing I didn't enjoy the writing. But the class was good and I really enjoyed it. I learned stuff. It was not that focused on grammar and editing and it could have been. It was more about the process. They met once a week for 90 minutes and the class ran from September through January. Excluding holidays, it met for 17 weeks. I am not very techy but I will do my best to explain the set-up - there was a camera so you could see as well as hear the teacher and he used slides during the class. The students communicated through a chat box but could use the mic for a complicated question. The assignments were done in Word and were uploaded to Memoria's site - simple. There is an online Forum where they can ask the teacher a question and all of the assignments/grades/etc are online and easy to access. The 17 weeks were set up this way - 3 weeks on initial research and choosing a topic, 4 weeks on choosing sources, drafting a thesis statement, and writing an outline, 2 weeks for the rough draft and final draft (but this included Thanksgiving week so they really had 3 weeks), and 6 weeks for Student Presentations and short analyses of each paper. Each student read their paper out loud and then the following week they each wrote about each paper. There were 2 texts used - Research Papers for Dummies and an MLA Handbook. Since I got them used from Amazon, they were very inexpensive. There were weekly reading assignments and my son said they were helpful. The paper itself had to be about 15 pages, double-spaced, and the student had to use a minimum of 8 sources. My son wrote on the colonization of Mars but he could have chosen any topic. Some of the other students wrote on topics like why fathers are necessary to families, genetic engineering, even the history of gingerbread! It was a small class of 8 students and I think my son received plenty of personal attention. Here are a few examples of the comments my son received on his work: On his adjusted Thesis Statement: This should work. You've dialed it back a bit, but you are still clearly intending to argue for a definite position. Good work! Later, in his rough draft, my son wanted to change the wording of his thesis and wrote this: For this section, I'm finding that the thesis statement feels pretty clunky. Would you be okay with me changing this section to "...or some combination of the two. The best way to do it is to combine the resources of both public programs and private industries." or at least something along those lines. It doesn't really change the meaning, but really helps the paragraph flow. And this was the teacher's response: I agree with the need to rephrase it. I think what you’ve proposed, or something like it, should work just fine. On this sentence (George H. W. Bush tried and failed to bring greater life back to NASA.) from his rough draft : Maybe elaborate on this sentence and the following ones. How did these presidents seek to enhance NASA, and why didn’t they have more support? On his final draft: Mechanics-19/20pts Content-70/70pts Presentation-10/10pts 99/100 This is a well-sourced and thoughtfully planned paper. You deal with the necessary issues and argue appropriately and consistently for your thesis throughout the paper. The few errors that cropped up dealt more with citation placement (inside the period on short quotes, outside on block), and really do not seriously detract from the overall effectiveness of the paper. Considering this topic’s rather offhand or seemingly random beginnings, I think the project turned out very well. Great work! I put his entire grade on that last one so you can see how the paper was graded. The teacher was Dr. Kevin Dray. My son thinks he was marvelous. Like, even slightly better than "Mrs. Jetta" of Clover Creek Physics (sorry Jetta/morningglory lol!! He did say that he loved you!) Personally, I disagree - my son learned to love Physics and did not learn to love writing, kwim? But my son said that Dr. Dray was hilarious in both his personality and his comments, he taught well, was likable and fun, had a dry sense of humor. That's all I can think of. Let me know if you have any questions! Oh. Obviously - yes, I would definitely recommend this class if you want your child to learn to write a research paper with MLA citation and don't want to teach it yourself.
  13. He hasn't taken the Lit class yet - it starts in a few weeks. I will do a real review of the Thesis class in another post so it will be easier to find for anyone interested in it. I think I can do it in the morning. But quickly - it is not a class that teaches the students to write. It focuses on choosing a topic, planning, research, organizing, MLA citation, etc.
  14. After 2 dreadful years trying to write with my son - I had no trouble with my older children!! - I started using Brave Writer in the summer after 10th grade. So expensive I choked...but he can write decently and I was spared much drama. The teachers were great and I really like everything about the instruction and feedback. This past semester I had him do the Senior Thesis class at Memoria Press. Very reasonable price for a great class. This spring he will be doing a class at Write at Home on Literary Analysis. And he's gotten to the point where he can knock off a short (2-3) paragraph response paper for Government/Economics without too much of a fuss. Winning!! We have a great time doing Lit together. Well, I have a great time and he doesn't mind it lol. Last semester we did The Odyssey, Macbeth, and Moby Dick. This semester we're doing The Brothers Karamazov and poetry.
  15. Now I'm down 11 pounds in just over 5 weeks. Yay me!
  16. The Potters School is using Chemistry for the Accelerated Student for the Pre-AP Honors Chemistry. My son is taking it this year. They don't currently use the regular Chem book, though.
  17. My daughter has celiac disease, EE, and other food allergies. This cookbook was super helpful - Allergy-Free and Easy Cooking by Cybele Pascal https://www.amazon.com/Allergy-Free-Easy-Cooking-30-Minute-Shellfish/dp/1607742918/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1517923976&sr=8-1&keywords=allergy+friendly+cybele&dpID=61YOc0CCnQL&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch The author also has a baking book. My daughter likes to bake so she will make herself treats and my son likes them well enough. I have learned to modify a lot of my meals. Mexican, Puerto Rican (I'm Puerto Rican), and Asian recipes are not difficult. Italian food is harder because, well, cheese. I use a lot of different marinades and serve poultry with potatoes and veg. Sometimes, when my daughter won't be home for dinner, I still make real mashed potatoes or baked ziti and my son/husband thank me, but they are used to eating "her" food now as it's been 5 years since she was diagnosed. It's second nature now. I use rice or oat milk and Earth's Best Soy-Free Spread to replace dairy. I haven't found a good substitute for sour cream though. Daiya cheese isn't fabulous but does work in some recipes. Enjoy Life chocolate and desserts are great. Look for Udi's and Ian's products - not all are soy and dairy free but some are.
  18. You did not fail her. I know I am right about this. We lost our son to cancer 17 years ago and we also thought we had failed him. If we had just done this/tried that/etc etc. We still feel this way sometimes but it is simply Not True. I lean on Lamentations 3:22-23. Maybe it will encourage you when you have the space in your heart and mind - The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
  19. My oldest did Early Modern in the 9th grade and used both of those LL guides you mentioned. It was a really good year! Some of the books were more challenging than others and The Scarlet Letter was NOT a hit, but she had no trouble with the work. We added several more books just to read and discuss a bit - a few more by Jane Austen, Silas Marner, a Shakespeare or 2. And iirc both guides have some poetry analysis included.
  20. I'm down 10 pounds now in 3 weeks. But I have a lot to lose so I have 29 points per day. I read a lot on Connect and based on some of that advice I am making sure that I drink plenty of water, don't overdo the 0 point foods, don't eat exactly the same every day - some days I am under, some a little over, and I'm not afraid to use some of my weekly points. So far so good. But. The approach may just not be for you! If I didn't lose any weight in a month, I would take a look at my food record and calculate the calories of a few random days. If I wasn't eating too much or too little, I think I would just move on and find another approach. A month seems like plenty of time for a trial. Good luck!
  21. After thinking through the Blue Dots, I decided that I would aim for 4-5 Blue Dots per week. If I got one every day it would preclude saving up points for a special meal/day. But if I rarely got one it would show that I was over/under-eating most days. Looking for balance as I lose! BTW - you can find the Blue dots on the Journey section of the app. It's under the Weight Progress chart. Click on it and it will show you a calendar - right now it is January - with your days in what they call the Healthy Eating Zone (5 points above to 10 points under your Daily Points). It's "your daily Points target plus some wiggle room". Any day on which your points fell in that range is marked with a blue dot on the date. Lady Florida - I am liquid1270 on WW Connect. I posted a screenshot of my Blue Dots if you want to take a look.
  22. Specifically, we really struggled with finding the right fit. I realize that there are those who feel that church is church but I believed that the wrong place could make things even worse. Eventually we found that a church we had liked but was too far away was opening a daughter church close to us. I saw this on Facebook when I was no longer looking actively and was pretty lethargic about the whole thing. We've been attending for over two years now and it has been a solid, not perfect, place for us. I've found that I need the weekly reminder that God loves me and that I am not alone in this life and that is not all about me lol! When I skip a week I miss it! My husband won't join but we are involved a bit - he willingly and cheerfully does some stuff, no pressure from me - and our youngest really likes it and comes with us willingly.
  23. I just joined on the 3rd and I am down 8 pounds...it's not an ideal but it's working right now and I really needed something to make me pay attention to portion size and junk food vs real food. My sugar and empty carb intake is way down, I'm not hungry, I like Connect for encouragement and to help me focus. I post once a day which I find motivating! I have higher point fats like butter, olive oil, and/or avocado every day and it isn't derailing me! I just count the points. So far I am generally in blue dot zone lol...but I ate my weeklies last week and intend to keep doing so. I like the Freestyle plan better than the old Points plus or Smart points - I can't remember but I've been on 2x WW before and I just like it way better this time!! Then again, it more than the food lists...I never cared for the meetings and last time I didn't have a smart phone so I didn't use the app.
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