I lump grammar and writing. I don't teach sentence mapping or nouns/verbs until later, but I absolutely will be teaching correct writing, correct punctuation, correct sentence structure and capitalization. My oldes came home from ps and had terrible writing skills. They dont' teach it until 5th grade, and personally, being a writer and all, that is just unacceptable to me.

I can't speak for a 12 year old boy...but my 9 year old, about a year ago took a shower and just out of the blue I said, "did you wash with soap?" He looked at me like I was crazy. "I don't need to use soap mom!" "Ummmmm yes you do, son. You have to wash your hair, armpits, and butt at least!" Then he gets this sulky look and says, "I dont' have to wash my butt." OMG OMG OMG! "Son...tell me you are joking. You do wash your bottom, right?" "Umm...I need to go take another shower." Come to find out, not only was he not washing his bottom, he was not necessarily wiping when he went #2 either. I was SHOCKED. Things I thought you really didn't have to tell a 9 year old boy! We had a nice health lesson, and I PRAY he is now washing all parts as required. He refuses to let me anywhere near the bathroom when he showers. He likes his privacy and I respect that...as long as he WASHES his body! Introduce your 12 year old to GIRLS. That tends to clean 'em up really quickly. :)

The CD is totally self explanatory. The book, you would just decide what to have him/her do on what day. Calvert lays it out so it takes a week with a pretest on Monday and a post test on Friday. The CD does the same thing - test before any review (just auditory testing) and then a post test once they have done all the activities. The difference is that the CD allows them to go at their pace with the activities and tests when all the activities are finished (be that Tuesday, Friday, or a month after they started). The book/Calvert has it take 4 days for activities and then a test no matter what. Rather than saying they work well together, let me just say they overlap...but in two different mediums. :)

This is just a random post as I do not use BJU. But I do use Calvert and they have a similar policy on their manuals. As for moral conscience, here is where I land...I won't resell their manuals, I get that. I mean, they work hard to make them and they sell them and I really shouldn't. But they also tell me to destroy them...don't use them with consecutive children. WHAT? I have no issue what.so.ever. using something I have paid for until I can't use it any longer. That is like telling me to watch my TV for one year and then destroy it. If my kids want to watch TV, we will need to buy them each one because they can't share. I am sorry, but I draw the line at companies obviously trying to control and profit. I understand not selling their manuals to others. I don't understand not using them with my own kids...or *gasp* as some kind of reference or thing to look back on in the future. Whatever! At this point, I think they are maybe the ones lacking in a bit of morality. Just my kind of unrelated 2 cents worth.

That is correct. But it is a Scott Foresman text (in 4th grade it is called "Everyday Spelling")and I am sure your could probably purchase it separately. I can give you some of the words on the 4th grade spelling CD. Otherwise, you will probably want to call an education counselor at Calvert and they can do that for you, I am sure. The spelling book words are the same as the ones on the CDs. They are very helpful and sent me tons of math pages when I was trying to make my math curriculum decision. :) Words on the 4th grade CD (just a small sample) throat through screen skyscraper squirm design writing wreath wrench laughed Kansas dolphin alphabet somewhere chocolate whatever trouble cousin composition believe heart weird machine common Valentine's Day

After the op's story about her dad killing her dog with her in the car on her wedding day, I am just not sure I can compete! My goodness. My first marriage, we were married in the mall. At the license plate renewal thing. We had a hard time saying our vows because we were about to laugh and when it was over, some very large woman with her brand new license plate in her hand hugged us both (think bear hug...both of us at the same time...big woman) and CRYING told us "this is the best thing you will ever do." Well, I was pregnant and we didn't really even like each other that much, so no, it wasn't the best thing I would ever do! Second wedding (my current dh), I was crying as we said our vows and the minister handed me a tissue. I wiped my eyes and my nose as we were going to light the unity candle. As soon as we turned, I have no idea how it happened and it is all on video, but my snot tissue flew out of my hand and landed on the minister's arm. EEEEWWWW!

I am a good mother who loves her kids with all her heart. I am a good writer who looks forward to teaching my kids to be good writers.

I bottlefed both of mine and we never had problems. Sounds like maybe this is more your desire to nurse her and, in that case, I would do whatever you feel is best for HER. I know that sounds harsh, I don't mean it to be...but if she is doing better on formula, then I would put her on formula. You can still bond with your baby girl! Some of my most fond memories was holding my boys as they ate (from a bottle) and loving on them as they slept when they finished. Best of luck to you!

Well, I can't really say which is the best. We are using Calvert and I like it, but I am a grammar/writing/English nut and there is nothing in there that I don't fun and exciting to teach (my son rolls his eyes at me, constantly, when I bring out the English work). I can tell you one that did NOT work for us - and that was Winston Grammar. It was fine for ME, but my son was like "huh?" It moves way fast and doesn't much explain things, IMO. I enjoyed going through the book myself and making sure I remembered all my technicalities, but it did not work for my almost 9 y/o. I would definitely recommend it for someone who has learned grammar and needs review or who is good in Grammar and wants extra practice.

I have been a SAHM for the last, almost 5 years now. Before I had my second son, I was a technical writer for a big water heater manufacturer, then moved and did technical writing for a metallurgical lab. Once I quit to be a SAHM, I did some freelance writing, but now, even that was years ago. I sometimes miss my career - in the sense that I loved what I was doing...and getting paid to do it was just a bonus!

I would say to definitely have him evaluated. No matter how academically intelligent he is, there is something going on there, somewhere. The red flag for me was "can't stay dry during the day." My son with ADHD couldn't stay dry at night, but never had trouble during the day. I think that is pretty rare. My ADHD son actually did do the odd repetition at the end of his words for a while though. The phase passed when he was about 4, but he did it until then. It was like whole word stuttering...it was very odd. I would have to agree with the others...go with your gut. What you are describing is not the norm and I think you are right to at least want to have him evaluated to see if something is amiss. Best of luck to you.

I am NE of Knoxville now, but my mom is in Knoxville and I grew up there and went to college there. Fortunately, we did not know anyone involved in the shooting, but it sure is a tragedy any way you look at it. :(

All I really know is that I am letting my kids take off on their birthdays (just the one who is having the birthday though!) and we are taking off from just before Thanksgiving until just after New Year's so we can enjoy the holidays and all that goes into planning and preparing and so forth. I use Calvert, so it is scripted for me...lesson 1 - do X, lesson 2 - do x, and so on. I am not worried about WHEN those lessons get done, just that I do all that I deem necessary per lesson. If we miss a day, we just pick up with the next upcoming lesson and call it good. :)

We use the Calvert spelling CDs here too. For a poor speller, such as my son, grade level words were difficult (Calvert CD), but a pp said her child found it easy. I would definitely take into consideration the level of your child's spelling before you buy the CDs - I kept my poor speller on grade level (and supplement with Spelling Power) but I would definitely not say it is "easy" for him.

My almost 9 year old did Writing Strands 3. Sounds like your son could at least start on Writing Strands 2. Go to www.Christianbook.com and view a sample of the text there. If 1 is too basic, 2 is probably where you should start. Book 3 starts with expanding a sentence (i.e. The kite. The kite is yellow. We flew the yellow kite. We flew the yellow kite on Sunday. On Sunday, we flew the yellow kite while Dad watched.) and goes really quickly into writing sentences to form paragraphs.

We blog! But I don't really give out the address to people, other than close friends and family who may be interested in something we are doing. I am a writer - have a BA in English and all thay jazz - but really, just deep down in my soul I have always been a writer. This journey, for us, has been tumultuous and amazing all at the same time and I want to always remember our early days...and days to come. So for me, it is definitely a theraputic, cathartic kind of gig. :) First, find the blogging site you like best. We use homeschooljournal.net, but there are plenty of others. Check out your friend's blogs and see which one you like best in terms of style, layout, and so on. There are ones I like better than the one I have, but no way i want to start all over. Anyway, just sign up and get your site and start blogging away!

I read aloud to my little one at least an hour a day between his Calvert curriculum work and just our fun reading. My oldest reads to himself and we do some reading aloud at night right now. It is getting ready to be much more often, though, as we are going to read History and Science together each week once he starts his curriculum.

I will come to your party, but better make that party of 2. I am having some health issues and no matter what my doctor says, i seem to think it is the worst case scenario (gotta love OCD and hyphochondria, huh>?) So yeah, I am there!

Until this year, I homeschooled my little one while my older one went to ps. Oldest ds went to ps grades K-3 and now he is homeschooling for grade 4. Little one has been homeschooled since birth, IMO (if you count teaching him to walk, teaching colors, numbers, letters, etc...which I DO!). He went to a two day a week Christian preschool last year and hated it and begged me to keep him home and homeschool only. Who can refuse that?

That is a very interesting observation - about your dd not being able to use the math she had learned. It sounds like what I went through in school. I did well in math, but I never LEARNED math. I definitely don't want that to happen to my kids! It is such a struggle not knowing math well.

If it didn't work for you, was it because it just wasn't a good fit for your dc? Or something more?

~Waves~ Hi Gwendolyn! (Rebecca here) :) I am right there with Gwendolyn...I am nestled in the mountains of E. Tn as far as you can go without hopping over the border into NC. :)

This is meant to be light and humorous (because I have no idea how to operate a microscope either), but my suggestion is to wait until you son comes home. If he is anything like my son, he will have it working in no time! LOL It is amazing the things my son can seem to make work when I have tried all day and failed.

My son just finished Horizons 3A and was able to EASILY move (as far as the placement test was concerned) to Saxon 65. My son was overwhelmed by the number of problems and the "busy" pages with Horizons. I was overwhelmed by not having a guide to teach by.

I think you may get as many answers here as there are math curriculums. I am personally struggling with finding one for my older ds right now. I will have tried a total of 4 of them when all is said and done. My youngest son is 4 3/4 and doing K this year. He started strong in Horizons K but started losing steam as he started having to write his higher numbers. I won't say he hasn't learned anything in Horizons - he has learned a TON...just not in any kind of complete way. He knows parts of this and parts of that and skims over the top of some other things, while mastering the early basics like numbers 1-10 (knowing them 100% of the time. He is on lesson 50 and they are teaching the ones place and the tens place. He occasionally looks at me like i have two heads when I give him his Horizons to do. However, we are also using Calvert K math with him. It is at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. But it is helping. Calvert comes back and slowly concretes things that were abstract to him with the use of Horizons. Is this a pair I would recommend to anyone? NO! LOL There are much better math programs out there. I would never recommend Horizons to anyone whose child struggles with math. If I did, I would say to go back a grade or two!