I agree with the above poster. Also, for me, classical education means teaching through the stages AND subjects of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. It is language based -- printed words and spoken words -- as opposed to image based -- computer screens, television, videos, etc. It requires a teacher/mentor as opposed to sticking your child in front of a computer screen and walking away. It finds and makes connections between subjects -- art/literature/history/religion/science as opposed to studying each of these subjects independently. Latin is required. I am a Christian, but I don't see this as necessary to being a classical educator. In fact, when I was a fundamentalist (many, many moons ago), we were looked down upon for studying "those pagans"! :lol: I do think familiarity with the Bible would be necessary, just as familiarity with Greek/Roman myths, Shakespeare, etc. are necessary because they have so much influence on what came later. FYI, here is SWB on What is Classical Education?

Please, please, please write a logic stage writing course. Please. :)

I am so sorry for your loss Amber. :sad:

God's eternality? Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. Psalm 90:2 For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite. Isaiah 57:15 To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen 1 Timothy 1:17

This is similar to what we have with our neighbors, too. Fences are EXPENSIVE! I'm glad that we didn't have to pay for our entire yard and the previous owners paid for the tie-in. I would grant your neighbors the benefit of the doubt -- you already stated that they have social issues and maybe it did come from the contractor. If you weren't going to put up a fence, it is a moot point.

From Rod and Staff itself, shipping would be $3.95. You could always call and ask if they could ship it media mail. I've found them to be overly charitable in the past.

:iagree::iagree::iagree: My sons have LOVED these!

:iagree: I love the stories from other countries, too!

I take my post back after hearing the backstory. Yikes! What a great young man you are raising.

So sad! After seeing Food, Inc., we decided we could never again buy grain fed, CAFO beef. We have been waiting for 6 weeks, but on Friday, we finally picked up our half of half of a pasture fed cow that we nicknamed Mrs. McCheeseburger. We found the farm on http://www.eatwild.com/

Oh no, you didn't offend me! I'm sorry to have given you that impression.

:iagree: I thought it was a tad bit much, but not so much that I'd attack the sender for it. If this was my child, I'd try to help her evaluate her own behavior in light of this e-mail and encourage her to graciously apologize if in fact her behavior was inappropriate. I'd brainstorm & role-play how she could have handled it differently and how to respond to this woman. I would not get involved in the middle between my daughter and this women. If my daughter had taken on this role of leadership, these are exactly the type of lessons & situations that leaders need to learn to deal with!

I thought the whole point of this thread was: Not to be defensive and attack the person criticizing, right? I think the OP was asking for examples of valid criticism that were helpful to us personally... I think it's good to pay attention to criticism and to evaluate whether it applies to my family. If the shoe fits, I see how I can change things; if it doesn't, I shrug my shoulders and move on. In the case of the criticisms I posted above, all of them were from homeschooling parents, some of whom are also college professors, some of whom have graduated homeschooled students, all of whom I respect highly. They all love homeschooling and have no axe to grind with it. I definitely do not want my children to fall into one of the categories of homeschooled students listed! I don't look at this as something to get all nervous and depressed or defensive about .... I am taking note of their experience and plan on making sure that our math, science, and writing are at appropriate levels! :-) FWIW, if you are interested, I hunted it down and here is the original thread from the old board: http://www.wtmboards.com/K8genSep252006/messages/16.html Gosh, I miss the old boards. Now we have threads with 25+ pages of nonsense while the actual homeschooling threads are buried within minutes. ~Heather

Yes. These were criticisms from the old board that highly affected the way I homeschool: "I know too many homeschooled high school kids whose parents don't make them write, or do Algebra 1 and 2 over four years and count it as four years of math. They have no clue how to take notes or how to take tests. Honestly, I know one family who never gave their kids tests (because it would stress their children)." ~Ria "My dd is taking an IEW American history writing class at the local cc, geared for grades 6-8. She told me that seems to be the only student in the class with any grammar or formal writing background." ~Pam "I see both ends, teaching local homeschool grade school classes and also being a college professor, and frankly I don't see a lot of difference between the public school and homeschool students in most cases...There are three good private schools in the area (two elite and one a decent Christian school), and frankly their students are better prepared overall for my college classes than the average public school or homeschooled student." ~GVA "I teach science two days a week (two separate programs) to grades 2-8 and I have 127 students overall. This is an enrichment class, but there is follow up work. I am amazed at the number of middle school kids who do not know basic (and I mean basic) science fundamentals like properties of sound and light, animal classification, simple chemistry, etc. Like Ria said, they cannot take notes, nor do they have any desire to." ~Laura "I teach an online 8th grade math class, and the homeschoolers that I have taking it are *not* prepared for it at all. Many of them have to drop it out of frustration. Many of them can not write an essay." ~WTMindy

:iagree:

It does annoy me a little, however, when this happens. I wish they'd start their own thread instead of hijacking mine (or the one I was interested in!). I'm not sure why the threads so often go off kilter lately. I do remember this happening on the old boards, but maybe not as often as they do now. Some posters do seem to thrive on the controversial threads and inserting controversy into threads. And, then beating the controversy they inserted to DEATH. I think they must have boring lives. :lol:

{snort} :lol: Now you're going to get us all in trouble!!!

Wow, so exciting!!! I can't even imagine doing something like that! Good luck!!! :-)

We add to it in a very simple way. We do our chapter a week & activities just as written in SOTW IV. But, for our history reading (which is separate from history class and is silent reading by themselves), I have the boys read American History books. We've really enjoyed many of the Landmark History books. This year we're reading through the ones that are Civil War-present. :iagree:

Correcting papers!!!!

I mostly use The Well-Trained Mind as my guide for what work is appropriate for what grade level, however, I also compare what we're doing with a few private schools' curricula. (I have the Dalton First Program Curriculum guide, the Hillsdale Academy Reference Guide, etc.) The ability to do the work = being at grade level in our house. We switched language arts programs this year from Rod and Staff to First Language Lessons and Writing with Ease. I first attempted to use Writing with Ease Level 4 because my son is in fourth grade. This ended up being epic fail; he was unable to do the work without utter frustration. We went down to Writing with Ease 3. I consider him working below grade level in writing and he is currently completing two lessons a day in order to get him back on grade level.

:iagree: I had to force myself not to quote the entire post, but I thought it was excellent. My husband and I agreed that if it ever got to the point where I felt so overwhelmed by life and homeschooling that I was unable to teach the children consistently, we would put them into school. Barring learning disabilities or an extreme situation with the child, I think they should be at least at grade level.

The Witchcraft of Salem Village by Shirley Jackson.

I think they'll be fine with R&S 3. My oldest did LfC A with R&S 3. If anything, we found the concurrent study of Latin helped our understanding of English grammar.

I read that last year. I thought it was an amazing book.