But aren't nouns capitalized in German (but pronouns aren't)? So, "math" is "Mathe." If he wants to be consistent, math, baseball, and calculus would be capitalized. :biggrinjester:

While I can understand curiosity, isn't it a part of being a grown adult that you are able to keep your hands to yourself and not invade someone's personal space? How does wearing a costume (and it's not a costume for this person, but her normal way of dressing) equal an invitation to "touch me?" I also don't see why it matters what part of her they wanted to touch. It's ok to touch her waist but not her butt? You can bet if a stranger touched my waist, I'd be startled and would react, regardless of how I was dressed. The finger wagging might be a bit extreme, but I'm not at all sure that B.W. didn't deserve it. Of course, this was TV---how much of it was real and how much of it was for shock value? ;)

I am using Getting Started with Latin with one of my dc. We do it orally + on a whiteboard. It would not have occurred to me to make worksheets, but maybe I'm lazy? ;) The author states in his intro that it is meant to include everything a homeschool mom needs with just the book and the mp3s on the website (no need to add anything), but I think he does recommend having them make their own flashcards (my dc is making these as needed and practices them every day).

I am mostly interested in legible, fluent writing. The point of cursive, for instance, is to be able to write quickly and so it can be read. Beautiful handwriting can be saved for calligraphy with fits under art. :D A little aside: my 11-year-old dd does have beautiful handwriting when she meticulously does her copywork in her handwriting book. She only does the handwriting because she wants to and has been doing it regularly for a few years. I do not require perfection or beauty and if she ever said that she didn't want to do handwriting anymore, I'd be cool with that. But here's the thing---her "everyday" handwriting is hard to distinguish from her older 15-year-old brother's hurried chicken scratch. Both are just legible. Handwriting practice was torture for him ;), so while I did teach him proper formation and such, he doesn't have years of beautiful handwriting books the way she does. So, how can a girl have years of concentrated handwriting practice and still have her handwriting look like her brother's barely legible scribbles? Clearly the handwriting practice doesn't translate to beautiful everyday handwriting.

Speaking as the shy introvert who frequently doesn't recognize people in various situations...this is why it can be soooo exhausting to be around other women---because anything and everything you do might be stuck under a microscope and analyzed behind your back. You open your mouth and say something incredibly stupid (gulp) or you say nothing and then you're a horrible, heartless slob. :crying: I tend to avoid small talk because I stink at it, but I really love people in general. It is hard to really get to know me, but those who give me a chance know my heart is in the right place. You might consider giving her the benefit of the doubt---human beings are notoriously bad at "reading" other people. We just don't read minds at all well, even the minds of our nearest and dearest, let alone those we've only exchanged a few words with. ;)

But by naming themselves Homeschool Legal Defense Assoc, having the words "advocates for homeschooling since 1983" under their logo, and stating on their about page... all make it clear that HSLDA is selling themselves foremost as homeschool legal advocates. If that is only incidental to their true cause...well, let's just say that they are clearly misrepresenting themselves. I'm not disagreeing with you, btw, I'm just pointing out that that is not how they present themselves. I think we can forgive newer homeschoolers if they don't realize HSLDA's agenda. ETA: To fix grammar.

I voted 6th---my 6th grader could understand it fine (although she admitted she doesn't know much about collection agencies ;) ); my 4th grader could read the words and get the gist of it, but he was scratching his head a bit. A funny aside: he said the last sentence in the 1st paragraph made him envision someone throwing a book at a computer. :lol:

You might be able to get beeswax from a local beekeeper or at a farmer's market if there's a beekeeper who attends.

Wow. That's not even logical---surely if I can fail to be "amiable," others can fail to be loving towards me. It happens in abusive relationships all the time.

8 or 9 would be my guess.

Beyond about 2nd grade, rarely. Why? Because they read aloud to each other all the time. And if they don't read it "properly," they get chided by one of the children they are reading to. I just listen and note where I see issues, but all 3 of the oldest read beautifully and I really think it's because they've had plenty of practice reading to their siblings. They also get practice explaining things, because the listeners will all ask if they don't understand what something means---then they ask me when they don't know how to explain. It's pretty organic, really.

Shiny, I just wanted to say---I could've written something very close to your op and I have also come to this conclusion (over and over and over again). I've been homeschooling for 8 years and I feel trapped. I didn't want to do it in the first place, but over and over again it is something I must do. And I do it and will continue to do it, but at the same time---my purpose in life =/= educating my kids. There is more to me than that. And giving everything I have for their future is not respectful of me or my husband or our family. It also perpetuates a cycle---I live for them, they live for their kids...and on it goes, what is the point? We are all climbing towards this undefined point somewhere in the future. A future that...let's be honest...may not exist. Because life is uncertain. I owe it to the people I love to make the most of what I have and to do well by them, but there has to be balance. We can't just suck it up 24/7 now for a "better future" that may never come. That leads to despair. At the same time---I haven't successfully broken this cycle. I keep trying. But then I think about things like high school credits (my oldest is entering 10th) and I freak out. Maybe we can break this cycle together. :grouphug:

OMG, yes! My husband is also a professor. Same deal, except it's not just family, but everybody who knows us (except his colleagues, of course). They also have this crazy idea that he makes a lot more money than he ever has, because he's a professor, right? The locals think that the university professors are rolling in money and have all kinds of privileges they don't have, plus summers and winters off. :lol:

Whistling in the dark? :coolgleamA:

I happened to look through my printed catalog from Behold Publications today and saw a very brief write up of this course. After hunting around on their website and on the web, I can find precious little information about it. It seems to be a literature-based unit study format for ages 7-12. I found a few pages of the books used on Amazon, but there don't seem to be any samples of the plans or activities anywhere. Has anyone used this or at least had it in hand? What can you tell me about it? Like I need to be looking at something different. :laugh:

Is he fairly active? I used to have a lot of trouble with this sort of thing, but I also used to sit most of the day while teaching my children. Or while toodling around on the computer. :tongue_smilie: In the past couple years, I've been shunning sitting for standing. I'm standing right now while typing this. It puts less stress on my rear and my system is generally running more smoothly. I haven't really changed anything else, but no more inflamed roids and it's pretty rare that I get backed up (it was an endless cycle of constipation and then diarrhea before).

No, that has not been our experience at all.

I agree, but if you check out a weekly update from the same blogger 2 months later and she is still using the same spelling product (even if she only mentions it in passing), chances are the spelling is sticking, right? Or if she puts the next level in her curriculum list for the next year, it's working for her. You might ask. I've had people comment or email to ask me questions about stuff all the time.

I'm glad to see you plan to do the VCF again, Chelli! I hope I can say this here---this is why I started the Virtual Curriculum Fair years ago---it was partly a reaction to the whole blog review environment. It was meant as an opportunity for bloggers to share with homeschoolers an in-depth look at how they really do things without any vendor obligations. For that reason, it is unsponsored. We usually get at least 20 bloggers participating each year. The format is very open and it lasts the month of January. In the past we've done a different area of learning each week, but it was left up to the participants exactly what they posted about---so some will do how-to's; some will do a day in the life of; some will just do a rundown of what they use and why; and then some will do a in-depth review of the product they love using, including how they've tweaked it to fit their needs. After running it for 4 years, I've passed the reins to a group of homeschool bloggers who want to continue it, so it will happen again in January. For those who might be interested in participating, pm me and I can hook you up with the FB group for participants. You can find links to previous VCFs here on this page (scroll down a little): http://www.homeschoolingheartsandminds.com/p/learn.html

Another former reviewer here (among other things, I reviewed for TOS for a few years, lol)---there's almost always a deadline and often the time you have with the product does not give you enough time to find all the warts. TOS carefully screens who they give a particular review to. They try to match up products so that they will be a good fit for the reviewer, so unless the product has real flaws, the reviews for the most part are unlikely to be negative. It is expected that you will give a "balanced" review. I have written negative reviews and I've pointed out issues with products and ways they could be improved. I think I've only ever written one 100% positive review ever and I've written more than 100 reviews. But I don't talk dirty on my blog. I list pros and cons. I list why something did or did not work for us. If I think something is flawed, I will talk about that also. I write full, detailed reviews and they are most often more than 1000 words (my longest topped out at 2100 words). They are work and take hours to put together (and this is part of the reason I don't generally review things I just bought on my own). My goal is not to convince anyone or sell them on it by telling them how much I like it---it is to give them as much information as I can (including photos, descriptions of activities etc.) so they can make an informed decision. I realize that not every blog reviewer takes this view and I've read many rah rah reviews under 500 words that weren't at all helpful to me. I've only once had a publisher complain about something they felt was "unfair" in a review I wrote. Most publishers appreciate honest feedback and I've had publishers use my feedback to improve their product. So, a lot also depends upon the blogger's relationship with the publisher. I'm upfront and state that I will give honest (but polite) feedback. I do not consider myself to be in the publisher's employ, however---keep in mind that many of the blog reviews you see these days are compensated beyond just free product (I don't agree with this practice btw). TOS doesn't do that, but TOS IS being paid by the publisher to organize their review blitz, so it is in TOS's best interest for the reviews to be positive. I will add---I don't often do follow-up reviews months later. Why? Too much work. The amount of time it takes me to photograph, edit the photos, compose the post, make pinnable images (cause no one will see my review otherwise, oi!), etc---hours invested. I have other things to post and I just don't have the time to devote that many hours to one product. I stopped reviewing because even getting the free products was not enough compensation for the time I invested in reviewing them---my kids HATED it. Now, I have done brief updates, but they are generally in the "what we're doing in our homeschool these days" vein rather than full reviews.

:iagree: Yes, I think the list of links and stuff just looked overwhelming. After going reading through the beginning weeks closely, it seems pretty do-able. I'm consulting with my son. We will do some of the Q & Q activities, sub out some others, and leave room for him to develop his own projects. It's not that he's against "doing science," far from it. It's that the labs he has done in the past have not been effective for nurturing his scientific curiosity.

NM

:lurk5:

I do have Digital Frog (got it off ebay)---so we will do that. Maybe some kind of ecology or biome project? Just thinking---this child need to get some love for learning back. The transition to high school work was super rough for both of us.

HeeHee---my son who is a very hands on kind of person just despises labs. He will do the bare minimum for them. It does not inspire me to spend the money. I do have a good microscope (it was my Dad's, who was a science geek), but it needs a new light and the modern commercial replacement lights are probably not compatible. So, will have to rig something (actually ds is looking forward to inventing a steam punk replacement). I was geeking a bit about doing bio with him, but now I've lost my zest for it. His lack of enthusiasm has rubbed off. Rather than no or skimpy labs...I'm kind of wondering, pondering over the possibility of more of a project based approach to the microscope work. Something that is not a demonstration or doesn't have predictable results. Something he invents. Hmmm....just thinking aloud. He is a problem-solver, so that sort of thing would be right up his alley.