While I love ALL, I agree we want/need WWS more!!!!! It's a easy choice for me. I can do grammar (you just made it easier)....I want your help w/ the writing! :001_smile: Thank you! Capt Uhura

Ok, this may be a stupid question but which fall??? Fall 2012?

Can you please post when the next book title is announced? Thanks!

In the Art of Argument (AB) book, it says "While the AB specializes in building good arguments, it's companion text, The Art of Argument (AA), specializes in detecting what is wrong in bad arguments. The AB will review some of the fallacies studied in the AA, but you may want to work through AA to round out your study of arguments." So while I think it's likely you would do AA first then AB, it sounds like they could be done concurrently????? I'm reading AB for my knowledge. We are dabbling in LToW which uses the common topics and I wanted more information on those.

What I did with WWE was to read DS the suggestion narrations. Then I ask him which one was his narration similar to or which one he liked the best and why. For that particular passage, SWB gives three sample products. She also gives a grading rubric. I would have your son compare his to those that SWB gives. Sometimes it's just a matter of them seeing what is expected. Here's what my DS11 did for comparison. Sylvia felt uncomfortable with her car mate so when he offered cake, she refused. The train stopped because of wolves on the track. The wolves smashed a window. One got into the car but was killed by the stranger.

THere's a big jump from Town to Voyage. We are having a gap year between the two using WWS. We're doing all of the voyage components and will read through Voyage writing book but we won't do the assignments until next year in 7th grade.

You can try Map Trek. I think they even have documents now that lines up their maps w/ SOTW etc.

My main reason for putting DS8 into FLL4 was his perfectionism. Towards the end of Practice Town, he was getting frustrated when he'd call a gerund a participle etc or if he got something wrong on a diagram. It was at that point, I decided to split him up from his big brother. NOw that I look at it though, I'll be switching him to ALL today. It'll only take about a week or so to catch him up to DS11. It will free up time since I won't be teaching two grammar programs. DS11 will do Practice Voyage but I've written sentences out of Grammar Voyage for DS8 to analyze and diagram. DS8 gets upset when he doesn't know what a words means and the vocabulary takes a small jump in Practice Voyage. ALthough, if I look at PV again, I might change my mind and put him in that one. :lol: These kids take such huge development leaps at times, what seemed like a good decision 6 months ago, is no longer a good decision. :glare:

I'm now heavily leaning towards putting DS8 into ALL. I will discuss it w/ him later tonight and show him equivalent topics in each one and get his input.

Thanks Yvonne!

Wasn't there a pre-order discount w/ free-shipping? Does anyone remember what the price was?

Thanks everyone. I'm doing pretty much doing the same. I like for him to explain to me how he got his answer. He's getting much better writing out the steps like the book does as opposed to just doing the answer in his head. He really enjoyed the class last week and is looking forward to next Tuesday. He also likes doing Alcumus. He has hated math so I'm happy w/ these turn of events. For the last few sections, he has done the section problems on his own, calls me if he gets stuck, I remind him to look at any previous rules or re-read, he usually gets it. Then we read through the explanations again, making note of the proper terminology etc. He will be on his own for the Review questions at the end. I'll check the answers and give him a 2nd shot at any wrong ones before handing over the solutions manual for him then to explain to me why he got it wrong.

Ok I'm reading through ALL and will compare to FLL4. I know FLL3 would not have worked for DS8 but I'm still thinking that FLL4 is OK but may revise this tomorrow. :D

OH I will definitely share this with my boys!!!! Thank you!

I have a similar DS8. He has completed Grammar Voyage easily, can diagram etc. I chose to put him in FLL4. He is finishing up WWE3 in a couple of weeks and move right into WWE4. DS11 is in ALL. I really couldn't decide. I think he would have been OK in ALL. However, he is a bit of a perfectionist and I wanted time to focus on writing and spelling and latin so it's nice to have grammar be "easy." It's not "you're killing me w/ this easy stuff" easy. And I didn't want to run out of grammar. I figure this way, ALL will be out each year, 1year ahead of DS8. Sigh....although now that I look at it, I should probably put DS8 in ALL. Today, I received the next installment of ALL so I will read through it this weekend and decide. :lol: sorry I'm no help. YOu don't want him to be bored out of his skull and hate doing it. If ALL is at the right level for him, go for it.

I like Daily Paragraph Editing. I think you can look inside at Amazon. For sentences, I'd do a search here for Killgallon. THe title is Sentence Composing for ELementary Grades.

:party::hurray:

Where are you in the series? Ancients? Middle Ages? Early Modern?

Hello Hive, I am giving Scholaric a test drive. I have not looked at or considered online planners previously. I would like to see what else is out there. What other online planners are there that HSers would use? Thanks, Capt Uhura

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/science/space/11spacelab.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y "Make a two-minute video. Get an experiment flown to the International Space Station. YouTube and Lenovo, the computer manufacturer, announced on Monday a science contest called SpaceLab for students around the world ages 14 to 18, and it is not quite like any other science contest. For one, the students, who can enter individually or in teams of up to three, do not actually have to perform any experiments. Instead, they will make videos to pitch ideas for experiments that could be conducted in the zero-gravity environs of the space station." My DH used to do experiments in space (well send them up, not do them himself) so if you need some guidance, I'm sure he'd like to help. Capt Uhura

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/science/space/11spacelab.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y "Make a two-minute video. Get an experiment flown to the International Space Station. YouTube and Lenovo, the computer manufacturer, announced on Monday a science contest called SpaceLab for students around the world ages 14 to 18, and it is not quite like any other science contest. For one, the students, who can enter individually or in teams of up to three, do not actually have to perform any experiments. Instead, they will make videos to pitch ideas for experiments that could be conducted in the zero-gravity environs of the space station." My DH used to do experiments in space (well send them up, not do them himself) so if you need some guidance, I'm sure he'd like to help. Capt Uhura

Jennifer, There is a discussion at the BFSUII yahoogroup on triple beam balance vs digital. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/BFSU2/messages

Yes that's true. I was only editing for composition.

Ok, here is my learning as I go w/ my 6th grader opinion. There are two ways to present this info. You can present each elephant in it's own separate paragraph as your DD as done or you can compare/contrast each element. African elephants, of which there are bush and forests elephants, are bigger, fiercer, and live in the Sahara desert (bigger and fiercer than what?) . Its shoulder and the rump are equal. They are dark gray and they have a smooth curve on their back. The bull is 11 feet and the female is 9 feet. Mostly all of their ears go to the size (grow?) of 4 feet. Both female and male have tusks and weigh about 50 tons. They have knobs of flesh at the tip of their trunks and have wrinkles because of all the skin. Each have 5 toes on the forefoot, which can be utterly strong, and 3 toes behind. Asiatic Elephants are different from their counterparts in a couple ways. (if you say "in a couple of ways" I expect an enumerative paragraph...First, second, etc) While African Elephants are enjoying the blazing desert, Asiatic Elephants live in South East Asia where its moist and humid (I LOVED this sentence!) (is this the first difference?). There are over 36,000 of them and they live in the lonely forests and jungles (choppy....how about There are over 36,000 of them LIVING in lonely forests and jungles). All of the elephants shoulder height is equal to the rump. The bull is 9 feet and weighs 4 small tons but the cow is 8 feet and weighs 3.3 tons. Almost all of them have light gray skin and sometimes light pink spots. Asiatic elephants have smaller ears. Their trunks are smaller and they have only one knob of flesh. (where is the 2nd difference?) Although they are the same species they are different in many ways. She needs a topic sentence in the first paragraph that makes it clear that she will be writing a compare/contrast piece on Asian and African elephants. Her closer would work well. "Although African and Asian elephants are the same species, they are different in many ways." then discuss African elephants. When you discuss Asian elephants in the 2nd paragraph, I would keep it parallel ie keep the comparisons in the same order. THen she can summarize..... There are several similarities between Asian and African elephants Blah Blah Blah are similar between the two elephants. However there are stark differences. They differ in A,B,C. Even with these differences, African and Asian elephants are the same species. I don't know...I'm exhausted....maybe that doesn't even make sense. I'll reread in the Am and likely change everything. :001_smile:

I would say that many of the shifts in paradigms are done by graduate students and postdocs. They have access to resources, can write grants for funding and ride on the shirt tails of their mentors.....and are still new enough to question current paradigms. It's a double edged sword. It is often to get research funded that is too outside of the main stream. that means writing a grant for some middle of the road stuff, and using that to fund your more "creative" research.