When someone I love did this to herself, I found it hard to communicate my love to her. She was trying to express her emotion and get release from her pain in a way that was so painful to me because it seemed so self destructive. I would notice the cuts and try to give her more but I tried not to see that I noticed as that made her withdraw again. She was actually able to accept help from a lesser friend as it was easier for her to talk in a less emotional relationship. I just want to say it might not be because you weren't available but because acknowledging it to you would hurt too much. She is much better and I know it was my love that was always there that helped her when she needed it even if it had to be through others. I will pray for you both.

I am going to preface this with the information that after I had two girls I preceded to have three boys finishing with two girls. I have to say I agree with Kathy's premise that boys especially seem to respond favorably to more excercise. I would add that they seem to visibly grow when they are given male gendered responsibility. IOW, don't expect them to babysit and expect them to serve meals and clean up. I remember being horrified at boys behavior compared to my sweet little girl but my second little girl was just as capable of causing havoc. So, although I agree that girls require a lot and can be just as energy overcharged, boys are a different creature in my mind anyway. I say that because I want to be able to be flexible and not expect small motor behaviour in large motor skill aficianados. I remember telling someone who insisted that boys can't behave, that I would just keep them home then until they could. I did too. I meant what I said as I was pretty sure that was all they would listen to, they knew if I was only half serious . Some one else said that after raising boys there home was in shambles. I thought that they had missed a great opportunity to have their home in perfect condition by training the boys in carpentry, plastering and other home repairs. I love my boys! I love my girls! I know it is easy to treat them unequally and I think it is unequal not to treat EACH CHILD indivigually. If you just go with that you will come out okay.

Great thread! I love the stories about how kids felt when Mom and Dad tried to raise rabbit meat for the home table! We are thinking of doing this in the spring. We don't get freezing weather just a few nights every once in a while that frosts. Wondering about killing lagamorphs ( maybe a little scientific term will help) with something other than an axe. I am fairly good at breaking the neck of a chicken but I can't imagine doing that with .... one of those. ICAOII I pick up the lucky chicken and tuck it under one arm and let it settle in tight to calm down. I slowly tip it forward with my hand around it's neck. I slowly pull down more aggressively on the neck with my fingers now near the head. I continue to pull until I hear the snap. I sit down in a nice spot and start plucking! We haven't raised chickens for meat for about eight years but we are building sheds again and we will do that as well as the ....lagamorphs:D

"If they have really bombed it (say 75% or less) I will let them correct the test and earn back "half" the points. So 75% on the Test and 90% on the retake adds only 7.5 points to their final grade (75+7.5 = 83%). I consider that "grace" and incentive to bring up their grade and restudy the material." I do this to encourage rewrites and extra studying of the material. I also figure if they can't get eighty percent of something right on a test given immediately after studying a subject they won't have the mastery to retain it or use it in the future. I assign grades so that the highschoolers know that even though they are home schooled they are still part of the real world and the real world uses grades. If I made the grades too easy it would defeat the purpose. I try to not imitate the mistakes of public school with giving out too many A grades but a few sprinkled around really get them smiling and feeling good about their work. If it encourages more effort that is great but if I feel that a good grade made ds lay back and relax, I give him a wake up call with a low grade. Totally subjective but then again so it real life! I know plenty of teachers that just give the A students A's and the C students C's. honest if not truthful.

The solution manual offers a static snapshot of the worked out problem I don't see how that can be equated with the hours and hours of step-by-step with voiceover instruction, hints, reminders, explanations on the SaxonTeacher product. Great! I was wondering if it featured in depth explanations. I had heard it was just the same as the solution manual but with voice as well as text. I didn't need anyone to just "read" the manual. Thanks for posting. I didn't find the answer on search.

After rereading your post, I thought that perhaps you and your dd are having a problem with enjoying reading. I think we all experience this with ourselves as welll as our dc. I know how I feel after a spree of reading with one author or one series finding out that there are no more. I panic, and can't find anything that I enjoy reading as I just want to go back to the last great session. You say she likes reading baby books which means she likes non fiction! Thats terrific and if she likes how to books , double terrific! Go there for a bit with a choice from all those great book links. I think that as soon as she finds the next favorite you will start finding those literature curriuculums easier. Every time I (sort of an adult) go through a dry reading stretch I muse that this too will end as soon as I find my way. I admit to using audiobooks for the dry periods in my kids curriuculum. We doodle and draw while listening to a great narrator bring the book to life. good luck

He does seem to be pouring over the solution manual trying to figure out why they work the problems so maybe it is worth the seventy dollars. Thank you, for all your responses. I hadn't even heard of the teaching tapes!

Ds is struggling with Saxon Adv Math with D>I>V>E> cd and solution manual. I know the teacher DVD is out now but I heard it wasn't much of an addition to the solution manual. Anybody using it ? Starting to look at something easier. :confused:

Ds is struggling with Saxon Adv Math with D>I>V>E> cd and solution manual. I know the teacher DVD is out now but I heard it wasn't much of an addition to the solution manual. Anybody using it ? Starting to look at something easier. :confused:

I use Timesattack, and Quarter Mile Math for speed but we do a lot of these for drill. http://3d2f.com/tags/math/facts/worksheet/generator/ I use old Saxon worksheets too. I agree, if you take too long in math it means you need to drill more.

I have had good and bad experiences with other homeschoolers. I love it when I meet families with greater educational fervor than we manage. I get discouraged by others negative approach to history and science.:confused: I guess it is natural to expect that you will have more in common with homeschoolers than public schoolers but I agree that it doesn't seem to work out that way. I am wary of making commitments with other homeschoolers as I just don't want to put the fam through anything we could do without. They seem to be surviving in a world of limited contact. I am not sure I would have survived continued contact on a limited level with some families. So, I hear you. I am not sure if we would even have much time for the great families we do know . :grouphug:

They had one student who always dressed in Elvish dress and was able to speak Elvish to the other afficianados who knew the language. Not kidding.

Not only does it get great reviews from Princeton reviews for great value, low class sizes but the students are happy. It is a Catholic College but there are plenty of non-Catholics enjoying great discussions and Classical studies. I have a son there now and my daughter graduated from there a few years ago. Their graduates do often go on to law school verys succesfully. My son is interested in Architecture and isn't worried about getting into graduate school. http://www.thomasaquinas.edu/curriculum/index.htm

Can I state that I am a Trollope, Austen, Thirkell, Pym , Goudge, Dickens fan here? Just in case some one confuses me with someone from the real world. I just dipped into the required reading list for the highschool leaving cert exam here and it is depressing. I think that my teens have loved heros and heroines and needed courage and idealism. I guess the idea is they need to identifiy wilth some of the darker moods they are also coping with but what if they get stuck in gothic black and body piercing? I love the lists so far. I really love Cold Comfort Farm and it does deal with promiscuity and b*rth c*tr*l. It is so hilarious though! I think that Charles Williams, another of the Inklings group that included Tollkien and Lewis really deserves recognition. His books such as "Descent into Hell" and "Place of the Lion", " Matter of Substance", and "All Hallows' Eve", are incredibly well written, have strong Christian themes and are just supernatural enough to be captivating. Really can't recommend highly enough .

I guess I assumed that DK were just another form of Usborne books. What makes you such a fan? Really interested! I am in a practiacally no library area unless you think of RL Stine as a reference and I hated when I didn't have any in the house. The web is a lifesaver but the kids do better with hard copy.

Did you use the textbook that the national school uses to teach/study from or did you use it just to prepare for the exam? I have heard that we can apply as foreign student and use the SAT for admission but I am not sure where. I am trying to reach some of the home educators in Ireland that I haven't had much time for. My experience before was that the majority were unschooling through primary school and then placing them in schools. We didn't fit.

My dylexic 18 son who loves animation and film studies, but is the quiet computer type has to go on to the next level. He has been insisting that technical raining as a cameraman will work for him since it bypasses all the leaving cert exam thing. I was so sure we could do this by just solidly following a good academic program that I messed up royally. Finally got a look at some old copies of the english exam and we havent read half of this modern stuff. The science stuff seems very serious too and I was assured that Ireland was wayyy behind in science. Well, now it is enroll him in a year of study for the test, skip the test and go to the training seminars for the unemployable, take the SAT and have him emigrate like siblings ( you see this one was going to stay in the same country ) I am starting to work on his portfolio. He is working on the Connecting the Thoughts unit study on animation which should make his work more integrated. :confused: I don't know what I am asking. I just thought there might be someone else out there . :confused:

I second the Usborne. We have World Book, Encyclopedia Britianica, Encyclopedia Americana, Annals of American History, Britianica Great Book Series, Harvard Classics , Kingfisher and mucho. I think the Teaching Company DVD's on art and music history combine all the resources ,ie pictures, music, that is hard to compile otherwise. We like Art in Focus and Enjoyment of Music though as they are chronologically oriented.

:iagree: Especially prepositions as they are hard to define otherwise. My kids kept trying to call them adverbs which messed up their diagrams. We don't like the Shurley grammar tunes but we say the drill.

I was struggling with the spanish until I found a translation of it , same publisher, when I suddenly understood it much better! The Great Books course we are enrolled with give it four weeks with study. It begins after Christmas and I am looking forward to listening to it. My ds is dyslexic which gives me the justification for downloading the audio version. :lol:

terrific post! Love my boys. Okay substitute premenstrual hormones and it fits me to a T! My behavior is a great reminder of how it is sooo much better never to begin!

I have older boys who might love a paper army printed out for them to set up and renact. They weren't too interested in modern soldiers and the ancient ones were always so much more expensive. The eldest is in college but he still loves battles. I had started a paper doll theme for the younger girls. thanks for sending me here1:001_smile:

One manic morning, I backed up my tracker with a blank tracker database and then overwrote my backup file with the blank database. Hard to explain why except it was all done logcally and without any thought that I would now have to rewrite years of work. The support team at HST didn't get my appeal for help for 18 hours, my fault again, and by the time I got her advice my only hope was one of those recover you files programs. Quick to the end; I found a copy that would work and only had to write a couple of weeks. hope you fare better.:grouphug:

Ooooh. looks good. http://www.juniorgeneral.org/

I can move from year to year but the new year's information is seperate. What kind of information would that be? When I first started , I started with putting in the childrens names and one of their courses. I found it easier to begin with one before heading into everybody. I made weekly assignments as that worked most of the subjects, for example, page 123, or Lesson 32. I could use the copy function and have it increase by one or two daily and place them on the days I wanted. I opened a Lesson plan for history as there were so many resources and instructions. I planned a month at a time and just applied the days as we went along. I think my month turned into two! A lot of the ease of making plans was neccesary for me as I was home educating five with two in high school. I get free lesson plans from the yahoo groups for lots of what I use and it makes it easier. Whatever works but the work you put into hst plus saves time later. I would have quit as there was too much paperwork without it.:auto: