I've been teaching the dd of a friend for 2 years now, grades 6 & 7. She has a reading disability, and on achievement tests, she scores about 2 grade levels behind in reading. Before she came to me, she attended a private school that used ABeka for everything, so she had successfully completed ABeka Language B (5th grade). I was actually a bit surprised at how much grammar she had retained--and that she was pretty good at diagramming. In 6th grade with me, she used R&S English 5, and she HATED it. It was extremely time-consuming (usually an hour a day), I had to sit with her to teach the lesson (very tedious for both of us), and she retained almost nothing. Half the time, she couldn't even pick out the nouns in a sentence. :( This year (7th), I decided to go another route, so I shelved the R&S English 6 that I had bought, and she used Easy Grammar 5/6 daily instead, plus Daily Grams 6 for homework. She did it independently. I didn't have to sit with her. She liked that and I liked that. However, just as with R&S the year before, there is little retention. She makes the same mistakes over and over. So... now it's the end of the school year, and I have to decide what to use for grammar next year (8th grade). I do not want to go back to R&S because it's just too time-consuming. I do want a workbook format because I want something open & go. I will be teaching 3 teenage girls next year (grades 8, 10, & 12) and I won't have an hour or more to spend on grammar for one child every day. But I don't want to go back to Easy Grammar because although it is easy, as the name says, it's simply been ineffective. I think she has actually gone backward in grammar skills this year. :confused: I've been considering ABeka or CLE. ABeka apparently worked pretty well for her before, and I've read a lot of positive things about CLE Language Arts here on the boards. Then I heard about Hake Grammar & Writing, so I looked at it as well, and I posted questions on the boards asking how it compares to CLE. It looks good, but I decided CLE or ABeka still looks like a better fit for her. I had her take the CLE Placement Tests for levels 500 & 600. On the level 500 placement test, the student needs 63 correct answers to pass to level 600. She got 61. Now, the booklet says that if it's close, to check to see if the errors are mainly in a couple of areas. They were. She has completely forgotten how to diagram. :glare: Yes, she missed ALL of them. (The Easy Grammar she used this year has no diagramming.) So I had her go ahead and complete the level 600 placement test. Guess what? She scored about the same: 66 correct out of the 70 needed to pass to level 700, and--you guessed it--she missed every one of the diagramming exercises on the test! What to do, what to do? CLE LA 600? CLE LA 700? Or just get ABeka--which she used and did well with before--and be done with it? Arrrrgggghhhh!!!! :confused: WWYD????

We usually do something fun as a family--a movie or a special dinner out. This year, I've been sick all week, and although today is our last day of school, we're not doing anything special. :( Maybe in a few days when I feel better, we'll celebrate.

Thanks for posting these links. I appreciate your sharing your hard work!

I'm in GA, and the law here says, "The school year must include the equivalent of 180 days of at least 4-1/2 hours of instruction per day unless the child is physically unable to comply with this requirement." 180 days x 4.5 hours = 810 hours No one has ever officially defined "the equivalent of", and I, personally, know of no one ever having been called into question on this. The local official whose job includes the prosecution of truancy cases recently told me that no homeschooler in our jurisdiction has been taken to court for non-compliance in the last 20 years; the only truancy cases locally have involved parents of children enrolled in the public school system.

Same here. Just inside our front door is a cabinet with a large aquarium on top of it. When I'm home, my purse is right there next to the aquarium. My keys are usually next to it. I pick up my purse & keys on my way out the door & drop them there when I get back home. The kids & dh know that if they use my keys, they are to leave them next to my purse. (No, they don't actually put them in my purse because messing with my purse is not allowed.) This arrangement has worked for us for the 20 years that we have lived here.

I'm the same way. Like you, I will usually let it go, but reluctantly. :grouphug:

Praying for Molly and her family. :grouphug:

http://www.freemosquitoringtones.org/ My dc & I visited this website some time back (couple of years) and I couldn't hear the ringtones but the dc could. They're marketed as something kids can use in class so their teachers won't catch them. FWIW, I couldn't hear the tone on the site the OP linked. I'm 51, and I've had hearing loss in both ears since I was a child, so I didn't expect to be able to hear it.

This is exacty what I was thinking. :iagree:

I recently finished the CIRCLE trilogy by Ted Dekker: Black, Red, White. It was really good. I haven't read Green yet, but I hear it's not as good as the others, so I'm in no hurry.

:iagree:

I'm clicking my like button! :D

:iagree: with both of the above posters. And I would advise taking the phone away for quite some time. I would only let him have the phone when he was going to be away from home without a parent for ball practice or a church event, etc. IMO, a 13yo doesn't need a phone anyway except for the occasions I specified above.

The gentlest, sweetest dog we ever had was a golden retriever. They're my favorite dog breed. Labs tend to have a similar temperament, but not as gentle, IME.

We have just the games that came with our Wii and a High School Musical game that EK enjoys, and that's plenty for us so far, so I can't really recommend any games. But I did want to comment about the charger. We bought chargers and wound up taking them back for a refund. We have the flexible rubber/silicone covers for our controllers, and we would have to remove the cover every time we needed to set a controller in the charging stand. It was way too inconvenient, so we returned the stands and just bought a package of rechargeable batteries with a charger, and that works great for us. We try to keep several batteries charged up ahead of time so that when one of the controllers stops working, we can replace the batteries and keep playing without having to wait for the batteries to charge.

Thanks! I'll check these out!

I'm looking for a complete, open & go, high interest, classic short story lit program for my rising 8th grader who reads on a late 6th to beginning 7th grade level. By complete, I mean, it comes with lesson plans for the teacher, including discussion questions, and all materials for the student: textbook with short story selections, workbook or notebook with written vocabulary, comprehension, critical thinking, and writing assignments. What have you got for me? ;) ETA: I also plan to incorporate 2 or 3 novel studies into her course of study, so it would definitely be a bonus if there was a literature program that met the above criteria and incorporated a couple of novel studies.

I would go empty-handed per their request. We often go to birthday parties without taking a gift. People often come to ours without gifts too. In our circle, gifts are not expected. I like it that way.

Why didn't you go too? Did SIL & MIL not invite you? You ladies should've left the kids with the men so you could go for manicures & pedicures.

EK is 17, but she would not be interested in a class like that. Now, if you were to offer a class like that here in our town, so she could participate in a group, then yes, she would.

It came through our town in 1996, but we didn't go. I don't remember why.

We generally only do cards and phone calls, and each of us contacts our own mom.

:iagree: And putting the chlld in a tepid bath as well.

Certainly. The OP didn't mention her child's age, though. If by "baby", she means "infant", then I would probably call the doctor for a fever over 103.

Next Thursday, May 17 is our last day with the books. EK will be completely finished for this school year, but HV will have the ITBS the next week, May 21-24. Then we'll be finished until August. :hurray: