Here is a thread with a pretty exhaustive list of just about every book you could ever want or need :D http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=153829&highlight=book+list

Not a book, but my kids loved their interactive globes. The one we have right now is an Oregon Scientific Smart Globe.

Could just be something going around. I have a friend who described the last month of life as feeling like she was in a coma. She had laryngitis and bronchitis and has been on several different medications/antibiotics/steroids etc. It completely wiped her out. She is just starting to feel better but she still sounds terrible. Did they completely rule out any hint of pneumonia? Hope it just turns out to be a nasty bug and nothing more serious.

Why Don't Students Like School by Daniel Willingham

We like Progeny Press and have quite a few of them. I like the instant gratification of the emailed versions. My favorite Company is Blackbird and Company. We tried DITHOR and didn't really care for it. Just didn't work well for us but I do like their list of books by genre. If I remember correctly it didn't really cover the literary aspects of the books enough for us.

It isn't so much a reading book as an encyclopedia of rhetorical devices with dozens of example from all different time periods.

Very nice. Thank you for sharing and for your added insights.

I always just say the initials.

:iagree: I have always said that good writing style does not a good book make.

I love San Diego and so do my kids. It is pretty spread out though so you might consider renting a car. There is a trolley that runs around San Diego proper, but beyond that I can't tell you about public transportation - we have friends that live there and they drive us when we visit. This is a really good guide: http://sdcvb.imirus.com/Mpowered/book/vcvb11/i2/p1

I heard this on the news today and thought the same thing. My 2nd thought was, I am the mom and I get to decide what my child eats. I would be furious.

Very nice! Thank you :)

Thank you both, very much. Exactly what I was looking for but didn't even know where to start looking. :)

I am looking for a book or a website or just someone here to explain all of the holidays and history surrounding Christmas and Easter. I am, obviously, not Catholic but I am looking for Catholic and or Orthodox history surrounding these days. From any perspective is totally fine. We are so uninformed that I really don't even know how to ask the question intelligently :lol: I know mardi gras is coming up and I think I know it started as part of the church celebration of Easter but what are all the days now? How many of them, like Fat Tuesday and such are part of church stuff, how many are just worldly celebrations, and where did it all come from? We are studying the early middle ages and I just thought the timing was perfect to put in a unit on Easter. What actually prompted it is a book we just started called The Year 1000: What Life was Like at the Turn of the First Millenium by Robert Lacey. We were reading about how to get the timing of Easter right on the calendar. Thanks for looking past my ignorance and trying to point me in the right direction. :001_smile: *Probably not a huge tome, but something with pictures geared to middle school or younger if you have book recommendations.

Don't know about the line but if you are 43 it wouldn't be unusual for you to be going into menopause and beginning to skip periods. Hope it works out the way you want.

Did you enter your other email address anywhere when you were signing up. Gmail does email collecting. All of my email gets collected by my gmail account. But I want it that way. Maybe they are still sending them to your old account and gmail is just collecting mail for you?

I do think kids need to understand context, but I don't think that is the same as practical application and I don't think only learning practical application is the right way to approach an education. I will never "use" much of what I learned in school, except that it all adds up to an educated, well rounded, thoughtful person who understands the bigger picture and how the world works. I like the analogy about the blocks, except at some point you do have to learn the other information if you are ever going to build anything of lasting value. Just noodling around on the piano is never going to make you a great pianist either. I think the pendulum swung too far toward practicality in her article, but maybe she was just trying to make the point that we need more context and went over board a bit.

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

HOAW - History of the Ancient World HOMW - History of the Medieval World both by SWB

For the most part Singapore and MEP but I have also used, depending on the kid, CLE and TT with some success. My big kids all used Saxon.

Thanks for that. I had NO idea and just read it to my son so he will know.

Definitely science. There really isn't any peripheral history in it but is almost exclusively about the science and scientists. We do use it in line with the time period we are studying in history though, so many of the names come up in our history books.

My Pals Are Here 3/4

My daughter is on a mission right now and told us a story in her letter last week. They were going door to door, which they only really do when they don't have anything else to do, no appointments and such, and came across this guy who said, the second he opened the door, that he didn't have time to talk to them. He then proceeded to talk to them for 1/2 an hour about how their church was not right and they were going to h&!!, interspersed, about every 2 minutes with "I don't have time to talk to you right now". They kept TRYING to leave and he wouldn't let them :001_huh::lol:. It really was a waste of their time (and his). The week before they had a man order a Book of Mormon online. The missionaries deliver it. If you just want to read, fine, they do not need to stay and chat. If you want to talk fine, but otherwise they are happy to just drop it off and leave. Well, apparently he only ordered it so he could argue with them. They stood in his drive-way, trying to leave without being rude, while he lectured them. My daughter is soooooooo non-confrontational that she and her companion couldn't even find a good way to get away. So, long story to say, if you are not interested, really, just say so. It is toootally fine. Not offended AT ALL. As far as the specifics of their life - the president of the mission and his office staff find the living quarters. Usually it is an apartment with hand me down furniture from the local members. Our missionaries, here in town, live in the mother-in-law house in the back of someone's property. They can live with members but my son (who just returned in August) said they have to have their own private entrance and bathroom. We pay $400 into the Church funds each month and that money is used to pay her rent and utilities and provided food. Many missionaries drive a car owned by the church and have a gas card and strict rules about mileage and amount of gas they can use. They bring their own clothes and pack them around in a suitcase for two years. I have mailed things to her, like a raincoat that she didn't think she would need when she left. There is a hierarchy of stewardship with district leaders, zone leaders, mission president etc so they are never on their own. All of them are missionaries, serving as volunteers, even the adult mission presidency.

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