I used to have the same problem with a chocolate chip cookie recipe that calls for real butter (no margarine, no shortening). I finally figured out that refrigerating the cookie dough right after mixing it helped some. What works best is to stick the entire bowl of cookie dough in the fridge for a few hours, covered w/plastic wrap. Then I remove the bowl from the fridge to form the cookie dough balls, placing them on plates or trays; these are put into the freezer for a few hours, covered w/plastic wrap. When the dough balls are frozen solid, I dump them into a freezer ziploc bag. This way, I only bake what we're about to eat. I bake them straight from the freezer by placing the frozen dough balls on a cookie sheet (chilled or at room temp.) just before putting them in the preheated oven; I don't let them thaw at all. This works with a toaster oven, too. HTH!

Dd8 had finished FLL1, took a break from grammar for about 6 months, maybe more, and then jumped right into FLL3 around January without any problems. She's more than halfway through FLL3. We did need to "pause" and hang out on a couple of grammar concepts that were new to her, like adjectives. We spent extra time memorizing the definitions of the things we'd missed (due to our skipping FLL2), but it wasn't difficult. So, there were a few lessons that got stretched out over 3 or more days, some lessons we split and did over two days; but we were able to do most lessons exactly as designed in FLL3. If you notice that your son is getting stuck on a new concept, like adverbs, then you might try either (1) taking a break and then trying it again after a couple of weeks or (2) discussing the concept in little bits (paused at that lesson #) and pointing out examples of adverbs in his reading and other places. Just the other day, dd8 and I were doing a lesson which happened to have no diagramming. She expressed her disappointment in having no sentences to diagram. And when it came to dictation time, since she had five handwriting lines on her worksheet for only two dictation sentences, she insisted I make up 3 more sentences for her. All this to say, I really like FLL-3 and so does dd8! She seems to like it more than FLL1, too. I guess she likes having the worksheets. HTH!

Rainbow Resource, christianbook.com, Amazon. When ordering from Rainbow Resource, I now always pay the $10 expedite fee so that my order isn't held up by one or two items on backorder; one time it took nearly 2 months to receive my shipment due to backordered items. Now it usually takes a week.

Tres leches (which means "three milks")...a hearty-textured vanilla cake drenched in 3 milks/creams, including evaporated and condensed milk (& a bit of rum), topped with a light meringue. My absolute favorite is the one at Churrasco's, but even the one from Fiesta grocery store is yummy!

Yes, the Textbook contains the lessons written to the student plus additional exercises, as mentioned here. The HIG contains schedules (that show which Textbook lessons, Workbook exercises and Textbook exercises to do and when) and activities that reinforce the math concepts.

I was just looking at CW-Aesop today (I have the whole set w/teacher's & student books). And I just finished reading WWE the other day (the core book; I don't have the Workbook). Since you want to work on narrations, I think WWE would be more suitable. It gives very detailed instructions on how to teach your student to do narrations by succinctly stating the essence of the passage. This is a thinking skill and an important component of later writing skills. (BTW, my dd8 also likes to retell every detail rather than summarize the passage in one or two sentences, but she's slowly learning to summarize via SOTW & AG.) You could either... (1) get WWE and select your own narration passages (if you have SOTW & the AG already, these would work great!), or (2) get WWE plus the Workbook, using the narration passages provided in the Workbook but perhaps moving on to the Level 2-type of tasks more quickly, as your daughter progresses. HTH!

The second edition of SOTW has: - better-looking font - improved maps & illustrations The text didn't change between the two editions; either edition will coordinate with the SOTW Activity Guide. HTH!

I found one from what I'm guessing might be a "primary source" by Bede here in Chapter XXV, but I don't know how appropriate it is for elementary-level copywork. Here's a short quote from the passage below: "In this island landed the servant of our Lord, Augustine, and his companions, being, as is reported, nearly forty men." And here's the entire chapter (to make your own copywork selection): CHAPTER XXV AUGUSTINE, COMING INTO BRITAIN, FIRST PREACHED IN THE ISLE OF THANET TO KING ETHELBERT, AND HAVING OBTAINED LICENCE, ENTERED THE KINGDOM OF KENT, IN ORDER TO PREACH THEREIN. [A.D. 597.] AUGUSTINE, thus strengthened by the confirmation of the blessed Father Gregory, returned to the work of the word of God, with the servants of Christ, and arrived in Britain. The powerful Ethelbert was at that time king of Kent; he had extended his dominions as far as the great river Humber, by which the Southern Saxons are divided from the Northern. On the east of Kent is the large Isle of Thanet containing according to the English way of reckoning, 600 families, divided from the other land by the river Wantsum, which is about three furlongs over, and fordable only in two places, for both ends of it run into the sea. In this island landed the servant of our Lord, Augustine, and his companions, being, as is reported, nearly forty men. They had, by order of the blessed Pope Gregory, taken interpreters of the nation of the Franks, and sending to Ethelbert, signified that they were come from Rome, and brought a joyful message, which most undoubtedly assured to all that took advantage of it everlasting joys in heaven and a kingdom that would never end with the living and true God. The king having heard this, ordered them to stay in that island where they had landed, and that they should be furnished with all necessaries, till he should consider what to do with them. For he had before heard of the Christian religion, having a Christian wife of the royal family of the Franks, called Bertha; whom he had received from her parents, upon condition that she should be permitted to practice her religion with the Bishop Luidhard, who was sent with her to preserve her faith. Some days after, the king came into the island, and sitting in the open air, ordered Augustine and his companions to be brought into his presence. For he had taken precaution that they should not come to him in any house, lest, according to an ancient superstition, if they practiced any magical arts, they might impose upon him, and so get the better of him. But they came furnished with Divine, not with magic virtue, bearing a silver cross for their banner, and the image of our Lord and Saviour painted on a board; and singing the litany, they offered up their prayers to the Lord for the eternal salvation both of themselves and of those to whom they were come. When he had sat down, pursuant to the king's commands, and preached to him and his attendants there present, the word of life, the king answered thus: * "Your words and promises are very fair, but as they are new to us, and of uncertain import, I cannot approve of them so far as to forsake that which I have so long followed with the whole English nation. But because you are come from far into my kingdom, and, as I conceive, are desirous to impart to us those things which you believe to be true, and most beneficial, we will not molest you, but give you favourable entertainment, and take care to supply you with your necessary sustenance; nor do we forbid you to preach and gain as many as you can to your religion." Accordingly he permitted them to reside in the city of Canterbury, which was the metropolis of all his dominions, and, pursuant to his promise, besides allowing them sustenance, did not refuse them liberty to preach. It is reported that, as they drew near to the city, after their manner, with the holy cross, and the image of our sovereign Lord and King, Jesus Christ, they, in concert, sung this litany: "We beseech Thee, O Lord, in all Thy mercy, that thy anger and wrath be turned away from this city, and from the holy house, because we have sinned. Hallelujah." Were you wanting quotes from primary sources only? I have a lot of secondary sources on hand, but for the middle ages I don't really know where to look for primary sources. Actually, I'm not even sure what's considered primary v. secondary. E.g., within the linked Bede document, there are quotes from letters by the Pope....Would those be "primary" and the rest of Bede's narrative "secondary"?

Some of the books that I thought looked a little plain/boring on TOG's website turned out to be full of color illustrations and interesting content. I loved picking out my package of books!

On Saturday, I received my TOG shipment of 20 books I ordered for Y2 (units 1 & 2 only) and they're great! I got a lot of picture books for grammar level, plus books for dialectic. What levels will y'all be doing?

The Coach bags used to be nice quality leather (no canvas at all) and made in the U.S.A. (maybe this was in the 80's & early 90's?). Now, most of them are canvas with leather trim, made in China and more expensive.

A lot of times I don't carry either a purse or a wallet. I stick my driver's license, bankcard and maybe a little cash in my back pocket, and then carry my keys & phone (or when I carried it, put them in the diaper bag).

Here's one that's online for free...KISS Grammar. I have only looked at it and not actually used it. Winston Grammar has a minimal amount of writing, but it quickly covers concepts that might be difficult for many 3rd graders to grasp (ds11 used it at the end of 4th gr.). If you're looking for something quick & easy, that requires little writing, and that requires no previous background in grammar, you may want to reconsider FLL (1+2). The lessons are scripted and designed to keep the writing to a bare minimum; most of the lesson time is oral and most lessons take 5-15 minutes. Both of my kids used FLL1+2, and dd8 is in the middle of FLL3 -- we usually skip over the poetry, since we already use something else for that. It'd be easy to skip the narrations, too. One thing I really like about the FLL series is that since the lessons are set up for one-on-one time with the student, I don't have to check/grade any papers or worksheets later. I think a student could start with FLL3 with no prior grammar background, too; you'd just have to be prepared to slow down the pace and memorize some of the grammar definitions and lists (the be verbs, etc.). HTH!

I originally made the weekly checklist in MS Word, but made another one recently in Excel. If you're interested, I can email them to you. You could then put in your kids' workbook names, etc. When I'm organized (which is not as often as I'd like), I fill in each child's chart on Sun. night or sometime over the weekend. This mostly involves dropping in the pages numbers, as the text names are along the left side already. Each child gets his own chart on Monday morning. It's a grid showing the subjects & names of the workbooks/texts going down the left side of the page and the days (Mon.-Sat.) at the top as column headings at the top (we usually do a small amount of schoolwork on Sat. in order to have Sundays off). I like having the workbook & textbook names printed on the charts; that way, I don't have to write them over & over again...just fill in the page numbers or lesson number. Some of the assignments can be done without me, and some are to be done with a one-on-one lesson with me first (like R&S grammar). So, when I'm doing a lesson with one child, the other one can work on something else independently without having to ask me what to do. Each assigned task has a small box next to it that the student checks off after the task is completed and turned in for me to check. HTH!

Never mind...I can see it now! Thanks for sharing this!

...For some reason, I can't access the link. Thanks!

...workbooks, nonconsumable texts, etc. Each child has a box that holds his/her workbooks and folders upright. It's easy with most of the workbooks (handwriting, spelling, et al)...they just work on one lesson per day or one page per day. Each workbook has a post-it used as a bookmark, so they pull out their workbook, find their place, do the lesson or page, then turn it in to the turn-in-your-work area. With some subjects, I'll do the lesson one-on-one first, and then give the assignment. I now try to use weekly schoolwork charts for ds11 & dd8, but when my dc were in 4th & 2nd, we didn't use the charts consistently. The charts really have helped them work more independently, as they don't have to wait on me to find out what the assignment is (for things other than do-the-next-page). The other thing is that they each have a "current" folder. This contains only pages and worksheets that have not been started yet (for the current week) or have not been completed (like a worksheet/map that will be worked on for 2 days). All finished work is filed or put in a notebook that goes on a shelf (a few subjects have a bradded folder that sits in the box described above). So, when I'm organized, I'll put all the worksheets, activity pages, etc. for all subjects needed for the coming week in these folders on Sun. night; for us, this is usually not very much. What kind of materials will you be using? Workbooks, worksheets, things that need to be filed or go in a notebook? If the subject results in a sizable quantity of sheets that we won't need to go back and look at (for us, this is FLL-3 and most of the R&S grammar lessons), then I put the sheets in an expanding file pocket after I've checked/graded their work. Everything is filed by subject. And some subjects are put in notebooks with dividers...e.g., completed math work is put into notebook binders with dividers for worksheets, tests, and exams. These hold a year's worth of work. Two things have helped my kids become more independent in recent years: 1) preparing a weekly schoolwork/assignment chart for each child, and 2) setting up their books & materials so that they can easily find their work. HTH!

Aluminum pans only. (Never: aluminized steel or pans with non-stick coating)

The numbers roughly correspond to grades, but I believe the Workbooks were meant to be used according to the student's skill level (not so much his grade level). The main text, WWE, contains evaluations at four different skill levels to determine where to place your student. HTH!

...for ds11 who will be in 6th grade this fall and is an average writer. I'll have him do the Level 4 Evaluation to see if he's mastered the Level 4 skills or not (there's an Evaluation at the end of each of the 4 levels to determine where to place your student). If he can skip Level 4, I'll just do the same activities as described in Level 4 but make the everything longer and slightly more complex...longer copywork & dictation selections, selections with more difficult words & sentence structure, longer narration selections. We'll do the copywork/dictation/narration as described for Level 4 until the next book is out for Levels 5-8 in late 2009, hopefully. If there are some skills he still needs to work on at Level 4 (or below), then we'll do that. The Evaluations make it easy to figure out what the student needs to spend more time with and what he's already mastered. So, if ds is doing great with everything but narrations, we'll do the narration lessons from a lower level and continue with copywork/dictation at a higher level. In addition, we might do the narrations more frequently (maybe 3x/wk instead of 1 or 2x) and copywork/dictation less frequently. Note: I only have the WWE text and not the Workbook, as I'm planning to customize our writing lessons. HTH!

I have a hard time waiting, too, so I always order at least $150 to qualify for free shipping and then pay the $10 expedite fee. It's usually here within a week, even in busy season and with backordered items.

WTM, Singapore Math (and following closely behind: FLL, SWO, HWT)

:blush: ...thanks, Sandra! :001_smile:

Just wanted to add that the bright yellow towels I mentioned have been in a household with kids (who don't always rinse off all the soap), contact lens users, and hair product users (gels, mousse, etc., from the pump-up-the-volume days). So I don't think the color has to be affected by these things.

I talked to someone who's worked for years in the linens department of a department store about this. She told me that there is a range of quality for the dyes used in towels (and sheets and clothes). The cheaper dyes start coming out after several washings and make your colored towels look splotchy. The more expensive dyes don't lose their intensity/vividness and don't turn splotchy from uneven fading, even after years of washing. This isn't an issue for white towels, of course. I asked her what brands use the more expensive dyes, and she said Polo Ralph Lauren and Hotel brand at Macy's. I've never tried Hotel brand, but I have a set of deep sunny yellow R. Lauren towels from 1985 that still look as vivid as when I got them, no splotchiness and no warped edges (poorly made towels get warped and crooked on the ends where the hem is), and its been through hundreds of washings. I've now started noticing that some clothing fabrics fade more quickly than others, making the clothing look old & worn out (and not in a good way) after just a few washings. HTH!