Thank you Heather. So you are saying that we need to dress up if we want to go to Brown's Hotel? I will check the websites you linked. Thank you.

We will be in London for 2 days in July. While we have very limited time, we'd like to experience English afternoon tea. We are staying near Park Plaza Victoria Station and will be relying on our feet and public transportation. Any recommendations on a good place to go? TIA.

My sister introduced me to this tea recently. She's had longstanding sleeping problems and she said it helps to calm her and have a better night sleep. You can read about Holy Basil here, and here. The one my sister uses is this. But they have different blend using Holy Basil as main ingredient.

Seeing your ds's age, it's going to be hard to find a class for him unless that school has a beginner class for teens. Even if they do, you want to find out if the majority of the classmates are Chinese Americans. Because like Laura pointed out, those classes are there to teach students to read and write Chinese, not to teach them how to speak.

I haven't used this myself, but saw this recommended on high school board and plan to use it next summer. It covers effective study habits, active reading, class notes and exam, and more.

Live Oak Academy is a Christian Classical Education co-op in San Jose.

How far ahead are you thinking of making it? A traditional tiramisu will need at least 24 hrs to sit in the refrigerator anyway, so unless you want to more than 3 days in advance you really don't need to freeze it. Here is Pioneer Woman's recipe.

I'd also like to mention that while AoPS is a very rigorous program, it's not necessary the best for every child. There are people on high school board who thought it will fit their children well ended up switching to another math program after a few chapters. I think maturity, learning style, and the ability to deal with frustration (there are going to be some problems that they can't solve no matter how hard they try) play a huge role in the success of using this program.

Yes, I did mean Carmel Valley. Thank you, I will let her know.

My sister who lives in San Diego is looking for a Christian homeschool support group to join. She lives in Carmel Village area. Any suggestions?

Ds11 is an only. I never regret having just one. Dh would like to have a daughter, but he is fine with our current family size. Ds didn't want a sibling for the first 9 years of his life, but now he thinks it would be great if he had a 10 yo brother. Although I don't regret having an only, I do worry that he is going to be all alone when dh and I are gone.....

If you want to do both programs, one way of doing it is to do DM first followed by Intro to Algebra. I say this because it's very hard to match up any two algebra programs. Each author has his own preferred sequence of introducing topics, plus, AoPS has a few topics that are not seen in traditional algebra textbooks. Another reason is that I find (at least in ds's case) AoPS easier to digest if done after a traditional program. It's kind of like when kids are first introduced to LEGO. Most of them would follow the instructions to build what they want at least a few times and then they feel comfortable to build their own creations. Just a suggestion for you to think about.:001_smile:

At our local Soup Plantation, not only do little kids or teenagers eat in line, adults do that too and nobody cares. It's funny one time when ds noticed that the "not" word on the sign was blocked by something so it read, "Please do eat in line." What bugs me the most at Soup Plantation is little kids getting food for themselves and making a big mess while their parents are nowhere in sight.

We've successfully used CE 1&2 in the past two years. We are going to use WWW1 for 7th grade next year. I searched and searched, trying to find a way to implement this scary-looking program;) Here is what I found, suggestion from MCT himself (in response to a hs mom's question on how to use it at home): The core of the program is the list, the Notes pages, and the quizzes. The rest is a buffet of activities that you can do at your discretion. There is so much content available that you could do nothing else in life if you were not careful. The key is to have the child study each list and learn the definitions of the stems. Do not focus on the words so much, just let the stem magic accumulate. The student should read the Notes page in each lesson, seeing the background information that is there. In my Northwester classes I have the student take the weekly quiz and make three comments about the notes on the Notes page: What note is most surprising, what note is most interesting, and what note is most important. Why in each case. In the homeschool setting, I would ask the child to choose several of the other activities or questions from each chapter and do them. The child might choose different activities each time. This has given me a great starting point. At least I don't feel as overwhelmed when I look at it now. Hope this is helpful to those who want to use this program but feel it too big to tackle.

We will continue to use MCT grammar and vocab. Programs that we used for more than 3 years in the past: Singapore Primary Math MCT IEW Story of the World Now if only I could find a science program to stick to!

Sorry! It's fixed now.

I am not familiar with the test you mentioned, but have used this to help me determine whether ds was ready a year ago. Towards the end of the article, there is a link that takes you to the actual exam.

Tracphone. My husband got one from Walmart 2 years ago and he is happy with it.

I survived without an SM. If you are comfortable with algebra I, you probably don't absolutely need one. However, the book I have does not have answers to chapter tests (I have an older version) so I did have to work out every problem in every chapter test.

From my understanding, Nook Color uses EPUB format which can't read Amazon's ebooks (which are written in another format) unless you convert Amazon's ebooks into EPUB. I haven't done it myself, but you can google it to find out how. How about getting your ebooks from Barnes and Noble? It's so easy to download from them.

Both DH and I grew up in Asia (although in different countries). We both had something like Singapore NEM type of math starting from 7th grade for everyone. If you wanted to go on to study science or engineering in college, you would have to complete calculus in high school.

I was just going to suggest this. We started attending BSF this year, ds and I both enjoy it. Another good thing is that the whole family studies the same passage, you can even compare notes with your child.

My son has done a Nook Color review on his blog here or the blog entry dated May 5. Hope it is helpful to those who are having difficulty deciding among Nook, Kindle, and iPad.

I am not WishboneDawn, but I can tell you that DM definitely follows the pattern of Primary series in explaining concepts. Like I said before, if DM is written in US's math sequence, I'd use it in a heart beat. If you don't care about following US's math sequence, then why not continue with what works well?

I think all 3 options are good, what you choose really depend on your style and the student you have. We've done Singapore PM all the way through, then Chalkdust pre-algebra, Foerster algebra with Singapore DM2, and now using AoPS Intro to algebra to run through algebra a second time (ds is young), then we'll move on to Jacobs Geo next year. I think Foerster is a solid program with real life word problems. But if I have to compare the challenge level, Singapore DM is more challenging. I did use Foerster as my main algebra text and only pick and choose from DM2 to supplement because I wanted to follow the US math sequence. I am going to use DM2 next year to supplement Jacobs geo text as well. As I type, I just thought of an option for you. Why not use Foerster as your main text (it only costs me $5 plus shipping) and use DM2 workbook ($14) to supplement? That way, you teach from Foerster which has clear, step-by-step instructions, and then choose whatever is appropriate from Foerster section exercises or DM2 workbook for your student to work on. I can't comment on Dolciani because I don't have experience with it.