I'm cradle Catholic and attended Catholic school but my family left the Church when I was around 12-13. I heard of the Church's stance as a teenager but only as heresay and I didn't hear the why. I came back to the Church as an adult, which is the first I heard the full story on the Church's stance on ABC. We follow it and I'm totally on board now that I understand the reasons.

The theme-based lessons from IEW might also be a good fit for the writing portion.

If you piece together your own LA curriculum from separate writing, grammar, spelling, handwriting, etc how do you add in the "extras" that are found in the boxed sets or PS curricula? I'm talking about phone etiquette, using the card catalog, and other such small things. How do you make sure you get them all? Do you figure that those are just life skills that any child will pick up in the course of daily life as long as you don't lock them in a closet? I might be worrying too much, but indulge me please.

We are not to this point yet but I have considered how to handle it after much reflection on my own education. I think that we will gloss over it in the earlier years and then study those sections in greater detail in the older years. PBS has a series on it that could possibly be spread out over a junior or senior year to make up for all the glossing over in younger grades.

University of Wisconsin schools (and the 2yr extensions) offer dual enrollment for high school students. In many districts, the public school district also pays the tuition. Students pay for books. They don't have an age limit. It's just based on grade level.

Not to confuse you more but have you looked at Mr. Q's lab too? I haven't used it but it seems that its layout is very similar to RSO but IMO the labs have more of a real science feel, meaning that they are actually experiments, not demonstrations.

:lurk5:

Bummer-thanks for saving me the money though.

I was looking at the chc spellers this morning. I like that it's phonics based and offers a jr apologetics course. I dislike worksheets but I think their worksheets could be fairly easy to convert into activities ie. using letter tiles, writing outside with chalk, doing it verbally, etc. Anyone tried these?

I'm a bio/chem major that worked as R&D polymer chemist in my life before becoming a sahm. DH is R&D chemist and there's also MD and DV in the family as well. The dv by far has the most balanced life. A good solid math and science background will allow her to go whichever direction she chooses later on. Even in undergrad, the courses are nearly identical for pre med, pre vet, and phd-bound students. A volunteer gig at a wildlife rehab may satisfy her interests for now. There are a number of jobs that work with science and animals as pp's have pointed out. As she gets older and considers how much travelling she'd like to do, how much job security she needs, and what kind of hours she wants, she can pinpoint which route to take. I would definitely try to steer my own children away from the MD route toward something like veterinary med, opthamology, dentistry, or some other field that doesn't involve so much government intervention in your benefits, salary, hours, and work conditions. In my state, vet school is getting pretty competitive and the job market is fierce. Breaking into the field in large animals (dairy cows, horses, etc) makes a HUGE difference in whether or not recent grads get job offers. Developing interests in that area (4H is an obvious route) would make her an excellent candidate.

Nm

The beautiful thing about KISS is that it's in MS word instead of a PDF. You can easily select all and get rid of that horrible embossing and change to a more reasonable font. Then delete the superfluous pics and upload to office max to print. Don't forget to change the table of contents to black too-that is ridiculous to look at even on a computer.

It's currently available from Idea Paint which is kind of expensive. DH is in the industry and is working to improve it and beat them on price. For now, you can only purchase the idea paint brand but I'll tell dh he should hurry up.

I have a number of small things painted with dry erase paint. DH will be painting over a section of wall in our kitchen with clear dry erase paint so I can write directly on the wall but when it's wiped down it looks just like the rest.

I'm going to use RC History for this precise reason. It was recommended to me by someone on another forum. You may not like the way a non denom Christian lays out the history in the reformation period or treats early Church history. There is also history links to consider which is more of a unit study approach. Both these are specifically Catholic. History and science are my primary area of concern when sorting through Catholic vs. Christian since most of the Christian labelled resources are actually Protestant and/or fundamentalist wordlviews. For science, I'm just going to go with secular because, like many Catholics, we are not YEC people and the secular science doesn't conflict with Catholic doctrine.

Thank you so much for your videos. My son will be starting K this fall and I've decided to use MEP in conjunction with Miquon after someone posted your video link in my thread. Totally sealed the deal for me-I didn't really get how they could be combined with another program prior to that.

Thank you so much for all the input. I don't think something slow-moving would be a good fit for him. We'll give the mep a try with the homemade manipulatives. The miquon videos are great. I'll probably buy that and let him try it as well. I don't mind shelving it for awhile if I need to. It sounds like we will most likely use it eventually and perhaps the rods can serve as manipulatives for the mep in some places.

Thank you, that certainly gives me a lot to chew on. I had briefly looked at miquon for the manipulatives but the non-traditional scope/sequence scared me off. Using them together would solve that problem and give me plenty of lesson options.

Thanks so much, I think we'll try it. It just dawned on me that I can pull lessons from mep in a pick/choose fashion if we need it to change programs later.

That looks very appealing, especially with the manipulatives. Would you expect saxon k to easily transition to mep or singapore 1?

I've looked at the mep. I was thinking it would be great for gr 1 and 2 if ds continues down this mathy road so if the reception would work for this coming yr that would be ideal. For the folks that use it, do you use a manipulative kit from a different program or just piece together your own as you go?

I'd like to start a 4K curric with ds this fall. At that point he'll be a few months shy of 4. He currently counts to 15 and understands the concept of add/subtract but has to count it out. He's been asking me to teach him to tell time and he is interested in playing store and counting out money. On the reading side of things, he knows all letters and sounds and is just starting to put 2-3 sounds together. We are doing reading eggs. I bought a prek-k math workbook for him but he doesn't sit still long enough to get very far on it and his fine motor skills are typical for his age. Is there a curric that is primarily verbal/manipulative based? I was kind of looking at moving with math. Is that something that would be appropriate? Also, should I be looking for a prek or K curric? TIA eta: he has all the directional things down already; left/right, over/under, etc.

New here and I can see that I belong after reading these. My 3yo was standing in the sun and I told him to put on a hat or go in the shade so he wouldn't get burned. He said, "ugh, mom, I'm being a photoautotroph." This week grandma told him, "stop picking your nose" and he replied, "no actually I was scratching my nasal septum."