What she said!!! :001_smile: I have a best bud who lives 20min away. I have a best bud whose on the other side of the country who is a mirror for my deepest thoughts. We met online when we were both on bedrest w/out oldest, over 11yrs ago. And I have one a few states away. She is my talk through the mundane parts of the day via Yahoo Chat which is always open. I've had this conversation several times over the past few months about husbands being best friends. Actually, one of the DH's brought it up...that he wanted to fill that role. But I think the roles are different. Also, where I struggle is this image that I think DH has of me - always together, taking care of everything - that I don't want to shatter that image by sharing the day to day struggles. My DH is not a big talker...actually that's an understatement. So I wouldn't get my talking out needs met. That's where my girlfriend's come in. Then I just fill DH in on the result. :001_smile:

Dorm and meal plan. No kids for 3 days and I don't want to miss any fun. :D

I was going to say something lol and then realized I probably shouldn't. But, suffice it to say, look at the beginning parts of WWS again, the narration part. If you don't get it, PM me. :001_smile:

:grouphug:

Ah I see, you did that normally but this time he did it all on his own. It sounds like you're doing all the right things and it will just take slow and steady progress. This year we used How To Teach spelling. It's less time consuming that SWR and reinforces one rule at a time. It was very good for my boys and it was pick up and go. And it's easy to skip around in to do problem spelling rules. I'm counting down to when WWS will be ready. I didn't realize you were in the test group as well. My last two purchases (I hope) for the year will be WWS and AoPS's new pre-alg program.

I would probably post this at the high school board. However, and I could very well be wrong, I think the answers to all the quizzes are right there so you'd have to retype them for your student. If that is true, it would be worth $25 to buy the student book. Did you look at the sample pages at http://www.rfwp.com?

Are you aware that AoPS will be publishing a pre-algebra book at the end of the summer? :001_smile: I'm betting that will be a great transition to AoPS and I'm not a betting person. I can't wait to get my grubby hands on it.

I had another thought. Do you have him tell you his narration first? You could try doing that and writing down his narration. Then work on his sentence structure and make sure he's getting the gist of the passage. Then have him read through his edits, then have him write it down w/out looking at what you've written down/edited. Then have him read his corrected version he has written to see how much nicer it sounds/flows compared to his original. I think this is easier for them w/ narrations rather than writing they've done from the heart. Also, as far as spelling. how is he w/ spelling rules? Did that not work for him? We did SWR and and will be returning to it. But we know the rules so that when they misspell a rule, I can remind them of the rule. I don't do this for proper nouns or for large words but for words I feel are on grade level, we do this. So if he's spelling "baking" and spells it "bakeing" you can say, "when we had an ending starting w/ a vowel, what do we do w/ e?" I find this continual, continual, continual reinforcement works and I see my boys going through this self-dialogue now on their own (is that redundant to say self-dialogue? :lol:)

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug: My almost DS11 is also in WWE4. We are only on week 16. From my untrained eye, it seems he's putting in too much detail. He needs some work on sentence structure. For example, in his sentence "Next sadly King Edward died" there are two separate ideas, that he died and the fighting over the throne. (I think SWB addresses this in WWS). Did you go over the samples in WWE and ask him to compare his narration to those samples? I think for me, I wouldn't let spelling stop you from moving into WWS. I think the beginning of WWS might help him to tighten up his narration. Who is this passage about? It's about King Alfred. Why was he important? "He worked hard to improve his country. He translated latin books in Saxon for his people. He passed just laws and enforced them. He also invented the first lantern to keep track of time." Who else is the passage about? "King Edward." Why was he important? "He succeeded King Alfred, who died of an unknown disease, to the throne. King Alfred united the seven kingdoms into one English kingdom." That covered the gist of the passage in 6 sentences as dictated by SWB's instructions. You could work on sentence structure by combining what King Alfred did into one sentence in the above narration I wrote. Then you'd have an extra sentence to include something about King Alfred's nephew. I do think WWS 5 will help him in this area. I would move forward with it when it comes out. Work on spelling and sentence structure in some other fashion...perhaps Killgallon or just edit his narration passages to work on sentence structure if you're comfortable with that. Those are my 2cents....not an English prof...learning as I go. Don't dispair, it's not that bad. Capt Uhura

OH forgot to add that...we're finishing up Killgallon Sentence Composing for Elementary School and I've really seen an improvement in DS's writing. We'll do Story Grammar for Elementary School next. I'm also incorporating some Image Grammar as well.

:iagree: I think maybe I just need to hold it in my hand. I'm hoping someone will bring it to the RFWP Valley Forge convention. I'm going through LToW 4th edition and I'm getting that. I'm also reading Corbett's and D'Angelo. I'm going to read D'Angelo first b/c I think that will help me w/ Corbett's book. After all the CW talk, I may take a look at it. But maybe I should stick w/ my current plan. Finish WWE4, do WWS in the Fall (we were in the test group and it worked well). Finish up MCT PT now that I've learned more about paragraphs and can guide DS better. Then do LToW along w/ SWB writing across the curriculum. I may do some WT1/2 (I have the teacher's guides but not student books) w/ my rising 3rd and 6th graders this summer. It's hard to see how WT, CC, CW, LToW all compare/overlap or not.

Can someone summarize for me what is covered in Homer? I'm trying to understand what you all are talking about. Not that I will let you seduce me down a different path...;)

LOL yes many of us use it. The book gives you all you need for 4years of copywork, narration, and dictation. It gives you a week or two of material as a guide, and then you find your own passages for the next 10 week block. Then you get more material for a guide, and then you find your own for the 2nd 10week block. ....or something close to that. Others buy the Writing With Ease workbooks which is also at that link I gave you. IT has all the material needed for a full year of copywork, narration, and dictation. It gives you the passages, questions for passages, and sample narrations to guide you. From what I've gathered, and you should post on the K-8 forum for clarification as well as do a search, CM narrations focuses on retelling the details of a story. WWE narration focuses on given the ESSENTIAL details, distilling it down to main character, plot, resolution for lit passages and for non-fiction passages, giving the main idea and supporting details. This leads into outlining in Logic stage and rewriting from an outline.

Aunt Pol you crack me up!

CM narration and SWB narration are quite different. Do you know of anyone using SWB's Complete Writer? It would give you a good idea of the differences.

I'm not sure of the exact difference. THe team kit comes w/ the rechargeable battery which costs nearly $100 I believe. It also says it comes w/ a storage box and two sorting trays. With the retail NXT you'll have to design a storage system. I use a large fishing tackle box. It holds 4 of the trays which I use to sort pieces and the top holds everything else - brick, cables, motors, balls, etc. It's easy to transport as well. that's the only difference I see. I'm not certain about the team license. It might allow each member to put the software on their computer so they can work on the programs at home but you should ask to be certain. Hmm I think you might get more cables and you also get the little lamps which I don't think come in the homeschool or retail package.

Yes sounds like a perfect day!!! My oldest is the same way. He'll look at a sunset and say, "Look how beautiful that is!"

My understanding of Logic Stage history was that you'd use USB or KF for getting your facts, write a list, put them on a timeline, note any famous battles or people. Then DC would pick something of interest from USB or KF to further research. You would then outline the chosen book and write a summary. So you could choose one of the Ancient World volumes, say textiles in Ancient CHina, and DC would outline a few pages of interest and write a summary from the outline. WHile I love K12's Human Odyssey, SWB would never recommend it, I think, b/c it's not readily available on the retail market. But it's good for outlining as is the World in Ancient Times series. I want to try outlining the Suzanne Strauss Art book as well. My goal is to have some of these on hand for further research so we don't have to run to the library every week.

here is starch powder. http://www.hometrainingtools.com/starch-water-soluble-30-g/p/CH-STARCH/

THe book is "Why Pi?" by Johnny Ball. Turns out I have his first book.

You can get Bromothymol blue from Homesciencetools. I would go w/ plastic petri dishes. There is no need to use glass for those. You can buy the agar already made up and sterile and you just put it in the microwave and pour. I like that kind. :001_smile: Planarians can usually be caught w/ liver tied to a string and placed in a pond. I don't know if the aquatic planarians live in New Zealand. New Zealand does have a land planarian.

I was grilling a retired teacher today. He had a child later in life and is now HSing after 30yrs in the classroom (high school language arts). He was just saying that teachers today are not trained in grammar, writing, etc. It's like the blind leading the blind. My Aunt just told me that her 6th grader was just marked down by the science teacher for a subject-verb agreement error on a science paper. Her DD has no idea what a subject-verb agreement is. I gave her some resources to teach grammar this summer. My Aunt is finally seeing that she really needs to be more cognizant about what her kids are learning. She's teaching remedial math at the CC and is seeing everything you've mentioned only in math.

I miss KarenAnne! And Correllano. I love different perspectives. It makes you think, and sometimes you stay where you are and other times you move in a new direction but pondering is usually a good thing.

:iagree::iagree::iagree: