We watch the dvd on day 1 and do the worksheet 1. The dvd lesson is approx. 15-20 min. I don't think it replaces the teacher's manual if you want daily drill and repetition. He is a director and cheerleader as well as a teacher. He gives the big picture of how far they come, what is coming next. I really like the dvds. There are usually 4-5 worksheets per week and a quiz or test on Fridays. So, we do oral drills and other chalktalks with recitations Tues-Thurs with a worksheet each day. I also add in the pronounciation cd and vocab flashcards regularly. It really comes together easily. I love this Latin series...

1. Daddy Longlegs, Jean Webster - Kindle 2. Dear Enemy, Jean Webster - Kindle 3. Bookends of the Christian Life, Jerry Bridges -A Secret Kept, Tatiana de Rosnay (didn't like, quit) 4. Gospel Wakefulness, Jared Wilson 5. A Praying Life, Paul Miller - Kindle -Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen - library on Kindle (didn't like, quit - not doing well with fiction picks this year!) 6. The Book of the Ancient World 7. The Book of the Greeks, both by Dorothy Mills 8. The Greek Way, Edith Hamilton 9. Organized Simplicity - Kindle 10. In the Garden of Beasts, Erik Larson - library on Kindle 11. Think, John Piper 12. Lit, Tony Reinke -Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Foe - quit! 13.That Crumpled Paper Was Due Last Week, Ana Homayoun 14. Homeschooling Gifted and Advanced Learners, Cindy West 15. I'm an English Major Now What, Tim Lemire 16. Suprised by Oxford, Carolyn Weber (love!!) 17. Discovery of Witches - library kindle on kindle 18. Left Neglected, Lisa Genova 19. I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith 20. Whistlin' Dixie in a Nor'easter, Lisa Patton 21. Yankee Doodle Dixie, Lisa Patton 22. American Heiress, Daisy Goodwin 23. Before I go to Sleep, S.J. Watson 24. Still Alice, Lisa Genova 25-28. Secret Society Girls #1-4 series Diana Peterfreund 29-31. Hunger Games series 32. Bunheads, Sophie Flack 33. The Sugarless Plum, Zippora Karz 34. A Voice in the Wind, Francine Rivers 35. Church History, Eusebius 36. The Book of the Ancient Romans, Dorothy Mills 37. The Roman Way, Edith Hamilton 38. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, E. Lockhart 39. The Marriage Plot, Eugenides 40. Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Marisha Pessl 41. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone 42. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Reading Harry Potter for the first time. Liked the first one "okay". The end of book 2 convinced me she is a master plotter and this is really going somewhere. I know everyone says the later books are amazing and they kind of "grow up" as the fans aged... So, I'm looking forward to all that Rowling has up her sleeves. :)

We did it for homeschool week at Williamsburg - it was very inexpensive. We stayed at the Woodlands and walked over to CW every morning. Great trip. We didn't pay extra for anything while we were there, including tours of Governor's Mansion, and there were many extra events for homeschoolers. We stayed for 3 days, but could have done it in 2 to save more time for D.C. but there was a snowstorm. We went to D.C. for 4 days. We stayed at the Courtyard Marriot near Chinatown. Our Senator's office arranged tours of the White House, Capitol and Library of Congress. We toured Congress with just our family and a congressional aide. We walked down many corridors the public tour didn't have access to. It was so great. We also did a Old Town Trolley tour to hop on/hop off at many sites I didn't want to walk to. We did walk to most things downtown and around the mall. We had so much fun. We never used the metro... We went to Mount Vernon our last morning and drove home from there after lunch. It really wasn't an expensive trip. The Woodlands was inexpensive during that week, homeschool week in March. About $69a night - including breakfast. We used Marriot rewards for the Courtyard in D.C. which also had a free breakfast. We carried protein bars and fruit/water in my backpack for lunches - which I was allowed to take into everywhere bc my son's type 1 diabetes. We ate out once per/day in late afternoon... Our hotel in D.C. had an indoor pool - the children swam every night before bed. It really was an ideal educational trip. I'll look around for our itinerary to cut and paste. HTH!

About Breaking Pointe - I'm not sure it is completely representative of the company. They are only spotlighting the few dancers willing to be exposed in reality tv... We are really enjoying it though...

I need a flatbed copier/printer. Preferably inexepensive and as small as possible to fit in my desk printer caddy. I had this Canon Pixma MP160. Lasted about 4 years? paper feeder broke today... I am looking at this - great price. Unless someone has a sturdy and cheap rec... http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/627628/Epson-WorkForce-435-Wireless-Inkjet-All/?Channel=Google&mr:trackingCode=A28BBD01-B280-E111-8E89-0019B9C043EB&mr:referralID=NA&cm_mmc=Mercent-_-Googlepla-_-Technology+Printers_Scanners_Copiers_Faxes-_-627628&mr:adType=pla&mr:ad=19996812956&mr:keyword={keyword}

Science - Magic School Bus Stanley - from Playhouse Disney

So 7X8 is 14, 28, and the answer is 56. If my kids get the meaning of what they are doing when they multiply, what is the difference to just memorize 56 for speed's sake. I guess I don't get the superiority of these mental math tricks. :confused:

We're going from CLE 7 to Chalkdust Algebra. I have the Chalkdust and it looks like it will be fine. I can let you know in a year how it went!

We are doing Life of Fred in the summer for review. It is a BLAST! I vote for saving LOF for summers.

Can someone show me mental math with multiplication that isn't x9? I know 7x8 is 7 groups of 8 or vice-versa. They still have to memorize the answer right?

Many of these are wonderful choices but my very favorite is: Emily, from Emily of Deep Valley by Maud Hart Lovelace (author of Betsy-Tacy)

Actuary - actuarial science... Lots of job possibilities...

Stop action animation! With Legos or any theme he likes...

I am having trouble letting go of our schedule for the summer. They do the things I require - Life of Fred, cursive, piano, Latin memory work - but there are HOURS left to fill that they keep grabbing their stupid gadgets they received for their bday! 13yo Kindle Fire and 11yo Ipod Touch. They really like Doodle Jump and Temple Run. They text eachother. I so regret getting them these. They have NEVER asked to play a video game in their life, I never thought it would be a temptation. They say it is just because they just got them a few weeks ago and summer just started. They say they will make better choices. They say Doodlejump does require "some" logic. I think this is the beginning of terrible habits...

I remember almost all of this, I've been reading several years longer than I thought. I didn't post often on the other board though. There was another troll outing from Ga. Maybe on this board though?

http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Anne+Green+Gables+series+feature+imagined+Anne+Shirley/6764955/story.html Quote from the article: "But Lambur said she doesn’t picture the new Anne of Green Gables to follow in the mode of the original or other popular period series such as “Road to Avonlea.†Think more along the lines of “Little House on the Prairie†meets “Downton Abbey.â€" I love the first two Anne movies. Adore Megan Follows, the actor of Gil, Colleen Dewhurst as Marilla & Richard Farnsworth as Matthew. BUT, I'm still very excited about this!

Are you referring to bank runs in Europe or US?

We went in March - definately not crowded bc it was SNOWING! We had a blast though. We also went to Jamestown and Yorktown with homeschool discounts. We stayed at the Woodlands and walked over to Colonial Williamsburg every day. We spent 4 days in DC after and walked all over with the huge snowdrifts everywhere. It was the best trip. I would probably go in September next time to see the gardens. It didn't work out that year due to activities.

We had fun with a nature guide written for the coastal region we went to. We found many unusual shells and used the book to identify each. We always find a few sea creatures and lots of birds to identify. If you are going to the Southeastern coast, the Suzanne Tate series of books are great also. For physical activity, boogie boards are a blast at that age. Every beach shop nearby will sell a variety of sizes for your various ages. And bring swim shoes for the ocean so they don't step on anything while boogie boarding. HTH!

I don't think the Wisc is the best choice to accurately measure iq for someone who is speech delayed, impaired or esl. It would score low, I would think, bc it is an involved speech response test. Jmo as a mom of special needs children. We used DAS for those reasons to get a more accurate label... If your child is performing dramatically higher than her iq, you should feel complemented in your homeschooling- but also consider the IQ is probably not accurate. :001_smile:

Do you know why? My daughter wants to take it 2013/2014.

I typed out some notes last night for the book club and emailed them. Kind of vague but I think they will get the gist! The formatting is off: _________________________________________________________________ The Reader’s Journal – “A Commonplace Book†“Once a day…call yourselves to an account what new ideas, what new proposition or truth you have gained, what further confirmation of known truths, and what advances you have made in any part of knowledge.†Isaac Watts, Improvement of the Mind 1. Invest in a journal: blank book with or without lines (if you like to draw in your reading journal). 2. Write the title and author of the book. 3. Keep a list of characters on the first page of your journal under title info. 4. Title each chapter in your journal. Read through the entire chapter once without stopping. If any particular ideas, phrases or sentences strike you, go ahead and jot them down in your journal. Briefly summarize the main event of each chapter. 5. Keep a list of vocabulary words you do not know in each chapter. Write definitions, part of speech and copy the sentence from the book where the word is used. 6. In your initial reading don’t take the time to write down long reflections on a book’s content. Write in your books (bracket in pencil or highlight, and write a note to yourself in your journal. i.e. p.31 “Is it important that books drove Don Quixote out of his wits?â€) Distinguish these notes in some way from your content summaries – jot them down in your journal margins or in a different colored ink. 7. When you are done with the entire book answer most basic questions– Who was the central character in the book? What is the book’s most important event? 8. Answer more advanced questions: Plot -Structure of events -Every story has a flow of development. In the early stages, characters are introduced., the action begun, the setting unfolded; usually some conflict or problem is introduced early on, and this is developed to some complexity. Finally a peak or turning point is reached, the action falls away, and the story comes rapidly to an end. Discovering the conflict, the characters and ideas involved, seeing its complications, detecting the turning point are all aspects of observing plot. -What happens in the story? Character - Protagonist? describe -Antagonist? Describe -supporting characters? -point of view? Theme -ideas “the insight of cluster of related insights the work expresses†concerning some aspect of the human experience. -What ideas are introduced, alluded to, discussed? -Which of these ideas is most central to the action? How does it (they) relate to the plot? If you have analyzed the plot, you will usually grasp the theme without too much difficulty. Plot and theme are almost the same thing. Ie. The plot of Pilgrim’s Progess is closely related to its theme- an extended statement about the course of a Christian’s life from conversion to glorification. -What part do characters play in relation to the theme? -What vision of life does the story convey? Tone - the attitude an author takes towards his subject -witty, reflective, light-hearted gloomy etc? -can vary from character to character or reflect and entire work Symbolism - A symbol is a person, place or thing which stands for something else unnamed. Allusions - story tellers frequently refer to familiar events and places, to persons in other fictional works or ideas or phrases from classic texts such as Shakespeare, Greek Mythology or the Bible. Write these down! -if you know Greek and Roman Mythology and the Bible, you will be in great shape to recognize allusion in most classic fiction. Style - Notoriously difficult to define. A peculiar characteristic of sentence structure or diction in a story or novel. My notes were taken from: The Well Educated Mind, Susan Wise Bauer How to Read Slowly, James Sire

Not pc, but have you seen Grammar Songs? http://www.audiomemory.com/grammar.php

A Mile in His Shoes, on Netflix instant. We watched it as a family this weekend and we all loved it!