:iagree: My son is in the 5th grade. We are using Rod & Staff grammar plus writing for history a la The Well-Trained Mind method.

What about Amazon.com acting as a server? http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/11/29/wikileaks-using-amazon-servers-after-attack/

Wow. I'm sitting here with tears in my eyes! I have a six month old. I can't even imagine this happening. I'm so happy for those parents!!!

I think it depends on the book, but I would certainly work toward having a 13 year old read unabridged versions. (Of course, even I can't get through the unabridged Don Quixote! BLECH!!!! LOL!) We "allow" (LOL!) abridged works ... my boys devour them in grades 1-3! But, we've also encouraged them to read the "real" versions. Our oldest two have independently read more than a handful of unabridged classics already. I hope that doesn't come across badly. I say that to encourage you! Sometimes I would think my oldest might not be able to take on a work ... a few pages in and he's flying!

Click on the tags at the bottom of this thread. They will take you to other threads about TOG. HTH! :)

We don't even let our 5th grader play those games! Eeek! I wouldn't consider us particularly squeamish about playing with guns ... heck, we even let our 5 year old shoot the bb gun (with adult supervision, of course). But, these games are rated Mature for a reason. We checked out Call of Duty (it was $4.99 at Goodwill) with the idea of letting our oldest possibly play it and decided within 5 minutes that he would have to wait a few years. I'm :blink: that someone would think these games are appropriate for a second grader!

This is a great post, Red Squirrel! Also, OP, your post made me think of Po Bronson's How Not to Talk to Your Kids: The inverse power of praise. “Some things came very quickly to him, but when they didn’t, he gave up almost immediately, concluding, ‘I’m not good at this.’ †With no more than a glance, Thomas was dividing the world into two—things he was naturally good at and things he wasn’t.

I really like the Rod and Staff cursive. It's the most similar to what we learned in our school growing up. http://www.rodandstaff.info/samples/3/penmanship/

Our 5th grader: Morning: History - 5 days Science - 5 days Spelling - 4 days Math - 5 days Logic/Typing - 3 days logic, 2 days typing French - 5 days 1-2 hour lunch break (or longer ... he often wakes up around 6 am and completes all the school work he can do alone early) Afternoon: Grammar - 5 days Latin - 5 days Fun reading - 5 days

I have a six month old. He currently nurses about every 3 hours (sometimes 2 1/2, sometimes 4 hours) and sleeps a good 10-12 hours at night. He nurses 5-10 minutes on each side each feeding. He's my fourth and the others followed a similar pattern.

:crying: I can't imagine. That poor, poor family.

I'm curious. You're no longer homeschooling (according to your siggy), yet you resurrected a highly controversial thread that you started a long time ago. Why?

We did it last year, with a 9 (4th) and 7 year old (2nd). Surprisingly, it was our favorite year of history! I really wasn't expecting that. We had amazing discussions and read some of our favorite childhood books so far as part of it.

Eek! Good to know. Ds really wants one of their physics sets for Christmas.

Thanks for this!

Thank you, thank you, thank you! :)

:iagree::lol: Every year about this time I re-orient myself to TWTM!

We lost a little boy at 22 weeks in 2003 due to hydrops fetalis. :(:grouphug: I'm so sorry for your daughter's loss. It was so devastating for us, and my heart aches for her. I'm a little surprised about the D& C. Like PP, I also had an induced vaginal delivery. The baby is pretty developed at that stage. Benjamin, our son, was 11 inches long and 2.4 pounds. A book that really helped me deal with his death was Safe in the Arms of God: Truth from Heaven About the Death of a Child by John MacArthur. I don't know your daughter's beliefs, but I recommend it if she is a Christian.

The wisdom of homeschooling moms who have traveled this road ahead of us.

Macbeth or Henry V graphic novels by John McDonald Dante's Divine Comedy graphic novel by Seymour Chwast

http://www.furniture4schools.com/product_info.php?products_id=544

I'm not a fan of slant desks, either, for similar reason to OD Heather. Here are the ones we went with. I like that they adjust down to our kindergartner and still have room to adjust up from our 10 year old.

Uno and Blokus are favorites here. :-)

I've been having a bad day today. Thanks for posting this.

Not sure if this helps, but this is an article I bookmarked a couple of years ago: What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?