[Need a replacement text for Their Eyes Were Watching God]

Have you considered I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou?

[Has anyone done Space Camp?]

I knew a kid who did space camp, and he would claim that it was awesome experience, but his mother must have been terrified. He was a bit young for the camp, but some kind of genius so they let him in. First he made friends with a robot, which is weird but not out-of-bounds. Then  when he was in a shuttle, simulating a launch, the robot hacked into the computer and actually set the launch sequence going, and flight control couldn't override. They ended up blasting off into space. Fortunately, they had an actual astronaut with them, but it turned out that the shuttle, since it wasn't supposed to launch, didn't have enough oxygen. The actual astronaut had to do a spacewalk to get some oxygen off a satellite or space station or something, but she had a jetpack malfunction and bumped her head hard enough to put her out of commission. One of the kids had to actually land the shuttle. I mean, the experience must have been amazing, but wow. 

 

I would still send my kids though. 

 

["My French teacher was actually named Mrs. French," and other people we knew with names like that.]

I went to school with a Walter Mellon.  Poor kid.

 

 

I don't get this one either. Yes, I am always the last one to get a joke.  :coolgleamA:

[Did you notice benefits to more vegetarian meals?]

My digestion is much better when eating a whole foods plant based diet. 

 

Have you read anything by or watched any videos of Doug Lisle? I have been trying to follow his guidelines for food, and I find that when I avoid "pleasure trap" foods I am much better able to regulate intake. I eat, I am satisfied, I stop. I was shocked yesterday at lunch when I went on autopilot to get seconds and realized that I didn't want any more. 

[Is it possible to *teach* number sense?]

We like the Ronit Bird materials. We have used some of the ebooks, which use games to teach number sense.

 

Also, I haven't actually used it yet, but Prime Climb seems like it would be a useful number sense building game. I'm waiting for cyber Monday sales to pick it up. :)

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["My French teacher was actually named Mrs. French," and other people we knew with names like that.]

It's a palindrome :)

 

:lol:  I was trying every way I could to pronounce it, and couldn't find a single way that made it funny. I thought maybe it was a Gene Masseth type of joke. 

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[Vent...public high school]

History, no.  A specific state history that can be distilled into a 20-30 hour packet in order to check a box, yes. If a kid is in school most anywhere in the U.S. they are going to study history in some form or fashion at least a couple of years in high school.  If they are short history credits I fully support the idea of making them take all required credits for graduation.  History is not irrelevant, I agree, although I would say it is more relevant than P.E.  :)  Sorry, I tried to convey that in my post -- it is not the study of history, or even WA history, or graduation credit requirements that I think is ridiculous.

 

To use your example of P.E. it would be like saying a kid had to take a course in badminton to graduate because it's the state sport, even if he'd been doing cross-country, track, or soccer.  Learning badminton is not without its merits, but requiring badminton specifically and preventing a child from graduating because they did soccer in middle school instead of learning the fundamentals of badminton is silly.

 

My school district used the cram a few facts in method--Washington State History was officially a one-semester course, taken second semester  freshman year, but most of the class was spent finishing the geography, government, and current events topics begun in the first semester. 

I think we spent a few weeks actually studying WA State History.

 

Knowing about where we are is valuable to me. If for no other reason than I can impress my kids on road trips with my kickass knowledge of WA state's geological history.

 

 

Do your kids sigh and say, "I know, I know, Mom.....more basalt?"  :lol:  We haven't driven through the channelled scablands yet--I'm looking forward to that. 

 

Edited because reading comprehension is important. :)

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["My French teacher was actually named Mrs. French," and other people we knew with names like that.]

Our dentist is named Dr. Hurt. 

 

My Dad went to school with a guy named Rellim Miller. Seriously. 

 

I don't get it.  :leaving:

["My French teacher was actually named Mrs. French," and other people we knew with names like that.]

Huh...I pronounce Stich and Stitch exactly the same.

 

I wonder if I'm odd.

 

Maybe it's pronounced steech with a guttural ch like in loch?

 

My grandma insisted that she went to school with a sister and brother named Rosie and Harry Butts, but I could never tell if she was serious of not. 

["My French teacher was actually named Mrs. French," and other people we knew with names like that.]

My mom's obstetrician was Dr. Gore. 

[Yarn Bowls]

It depends. If your mom winds all of her yarn into standard-sized cakes on a winder, it would be just right. If she buys big skeins of yarn in a putup that can be knit from directly, it might be too small. Does your mom tend to use more expensive yarns or big-box yarns? The more expensive yarns tend to come in a hank that needs to be wound. Big-box store yarns tend to range from small to jumbo skeins that can be knit from directly and may fit, or may be too big. Clear as mud?  :lol:

[Use the curriculum that gets done, not the one you want.]

 

 

 

Maybe some of the needed wisdom lies in choosing materials that work, and some of it is in how we configure the day, and some of it is in being disciplined and diligent over a long haul? If we can get all of that perfectly balanced, then perhaps it is doable (but hard work). If not....

 

 

 

Sigh. Configuring the day and being disciplined and diligent are issues for me. This year we are roughly following the recommendations from The Latin Centered Curriculum and finding it much more doable than trying to cram in everything every day. 

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[Who has turned their heat on?]

My dh and I have a heating war going on. He likes it 68 or above, I like it 64 or below. We compromise by setting the thermostat for 66-68 when he is at home and awake, 62 when he's gone (the kids don't seem to notice--they're still running around the house in tshirts and shorts!) and 62 at night. I prefer it colder at night, but fortunately for me the heating register in our bedroom doesn't seem to provide much heat, so it's actually cooler in there. I end up throwing off the comforter and then he gets a double layer. :)

[Vent...public high school]

To be fair, I don't think they had a lot of time to do field trips. Mom and dad were both working, in order to cover the family's medical insurance, making their schedules such that the kids were not left alone for very long in between.

 

But she homeschooled two kids all the way through and one from 4th grade on, making use of Running Start at the end since she was never very successful at the higher level math piece.  Her daughter was a successful chef for a while and is now teaching Culinary Arts in a high school. The other two are working though not in career paths yet.

 

:thumbup1:  It sounds like they did great. I hope that I didn't come across as knocking other people's way of schooling. My kids are too young and I am way too inexperienced and fallible to do that. And that will probably never change. Well, I guess my children will age whether I gain experience and wisdom or not. :tongue_smilie: I just wanted to counter the idea that children haven't learned "Washington State History" if they haven't taken a class or followed a syllabus labeled as such. 

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[Vent...public high school]

If you are not in a co-op and are using a curriculum that is nation-wide, I can easily see it being missed. I'd have to ask my friend in WA if they covered WA State history at all or not. I suspect No though just on what I do know of their homeschooling.

 

Huh. I wonder if this comes down to a homeschool philosophy thing. The reason we started homeschooling was because we wanted learning to be experiential. Instead of reading a book about (a local fort, now a living history museum) and answering some questions, we joined the historical society, attend summer camp at the fort, attend the reenactments and take part in demonstrations, and...okay, we read some books too.  :lol:  My 9 y/o can't wait to be able to take the docent/reenactor training and be able to teach others about our special piece of local history. 

 

Logging has historically been an important industry in our state. Instead of reading a book, we have visited some forests, observed successive plantings, gone to Mt. St. Helens and learned about how the eruption impacted Weyerhauser, and...well, we read some books too.  :lol:

 

Ditto aviation. We have a membership to the flight museum so we go periodically to see the current exhibits. Yes, I have a special insert in my wallet for membership cards.  :laugh:

 

During the summer we hit all of the pioneer/founder/whatever weekends of the local small towns. 

 

Local history seems like a natural subject for homeschoolers to cover, either explicitly or just as part of the homeschooling lifestyle. We can't afford to take all the trips we would like to Washington DC, Philadelphia, Boston, etc., but we can sure hit all of the local historic sites and museums. The other homeschool families I know do the same kinds of things. Maybe it's regional? Or maybe I just know a self-selected group of homeschoolers with similar philosophies? Maybe it's that we mostly hang with either unschoolers who do everything experientially or rigorous types who are involved with everything. (We are neither. Unschoolers find us horribly conventional and rigorous types find us...relaxed.  :leaving: )

[Vent...public high school]

There is no homeschool transcript that can even be changed.  OP's daughter went to PRIVATE middle schools. Really the second middle school should have sent her to class with the 7th graders.

 

Oops, I missed this. Consider my statements hypothetical. :)

[Vent...public high school]

If the material is actually covered, that's not lying.

 

Right, but I wouldn't assume that the average homeschool family hasn't covered local history. Like I said, the homeschoolers I know are homeschooling *because* they can do these kinds of activities. If they didn't know that the high school requires a middle school credit, they may not have included it as a specific class on the syllabus, even though their kids have spent years actively learning what the course covers. We are NOT homeschool overachievers, but we like experiential learning, and all of the local homeschool groups to which we belong coordinate state/local history/government activities on a regular basis. Maybe our area is just full of history geeks.  :lol:

[Do you know of anyone who is very secretive about who they vote for? Edited in first post...]

I have also met people whose religious beliefs required that they didn't get involved in partisan politics. Voting was not forbidden, but they were encouraged to keep their voting choices to themselves. 

[Use the curriculum that gets done, not the one you want.]

"Only" 5 kids?  :lol:

 

I have three and I use what gets done. We don't hate anything that we do, but my homeschool fantasies and reality tend to collide when it comes to content areas.  :laugh:

 

For example: I love the idea of BFSU, but I need something that is more scripted. We're using Ellen McHenry units atm. 

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[Vent...public high school]

Seriously. There is important information about the native tribes, history and government of WA state. It is quite distinct and separate from other states and national history and beyond a cursory view of local monuments. I'm kind of astounded at the advice to simply ignore or lie about meeting a well-known requirement. It hit me 20+ years ago. The WA state graduation requirements for a public school diploma are clear and the class is offered FOR FREE.

 

Eh, I would add it to the middle school syllabus. My kids are still elementary age, but we are members of the local historical society, the kids go to history day camp at a local historical site, we often visit local history museums and historical sites, we learn about the local tribes, etc. It's a homeschooler "thing" around here--every time we go to a reenactment or museum we see other homeschoolers we know. If we weren't active in the local history scene, I wouldn't lie about it, but we do local history for fun. 

[Do you know of anyone who is very secretive about who they vote for? Edited in first post...]

When I was a kid my grandpa was secretive about his voting choices. Probably because he was a democrat in an almost all-republican family. I remember some family members teasing him about voting for Mondale. 

[Latin Progression...Again]

I'm using Lingua Latina myself, and while the text is written so that the student picks up the grammar implicitly, there is a college companion that explains the grammar for each chapter. There is also a grammar workbook that aligns with the text, but I don't have it, so I can't comment. 

[Where to find this bedding/Quilt?]

What I want:

 

(actually I want one of my Grandmother's old, soft, heavy quilts, but I don't know what happened to them)

 

A heavy warm quilt. I want it to be soft and drapey. Most Comforters don't feel heavy or warm to me. They tend to tent up and let cool air blow down my neck. I guess because they're puffy?

 

I don't want puffy.

 

My bed covers are getting worn. I could make my own quilt, in fact what's on there now is one of my quilts that I made, but it's getting worn,

 

I even have a quilted top that needs to be finished, but I don't know when I'll ever have time to complete it.

 

Where can I buy this kind of a cover for my bed?

 

ETA: Cotton or similar. Microfiber and polyester make my skin crawl.

 

ETA2: Pretty would be a bonus.

 

Have you considered taking the quilt top you have to a shop that has a long-arm quilting machine? They can quilt and bind it for you. 

[Motivation to lose weight]

I don't know. I suck at losing weight. I am not motivated by anything. I know that being fat will kill me, but that doesn't really help. I'll be looking for more tips. 

[tomorrow is one of my big dental appointments]

Good luck.  :grouphug: