WOW Congrats on finishing Insanity! I read that Asylum isn't necessarily more difficult than Insanity, just different.

My Dear, just wait until you hit 44. Yes, 44. I just don't know if I can handle Shaun T precisely for the reasons you mention. I tried his 45min workout in 20min and the transitions were just too quick for me w/out any recovery time. I think it would have been a great workout in 40min lol. So I'm borrowing his regular Insanity. But for many women my age, they said they couldn't lose the post-kid gut by doing P90X alone. Once you hit the mid-40s like me, it's just so difficult. I have no fat on my arms, have lost most of my boobs, no fat on my back, have a curve again at the waist....but the pooch still pursuits even doing doubles and watching my calories. If I were in my 30s, I'd have dropped the pooch. I was considering his Hummingbird yoga video. I have Medicine Ball Core Cardio which I enjoy and another Core Cardio which I didn't realize was a bit similar to Medicine Ball but it's good for those days where I've worked arms heavily and can't spend 35min holding a 6lb medicine ball in my hands. Yep, counting the days until MC2!!!!!!

Good luck w/ the 1/2 marathon! WOW!!! Let us know how it goes!

Kimberly - WOW! CONGRATS! you must feel terrific! That is quite an accomplishment. Not many people have it in them to accomplish what you did. Be proud!!! You go girl!

SaDonna - Congrats on being a P90X grad!! YEs, I missed one week of Yoga and by the next week, I had horrible pain in my left shoulder. It is always the one that bothers me if I don't stretch it religiously. PlyoX is my FAVORITE!!! WOW my thighs burn during that one!

OHElizabeth....it's quite different from email. THings get lost in email and then you have to delete it. AuntPol and I always have our Yahoo IM windows open. I come down in the AM and send her a Good Morning lol. Then I start exercising. Some time later she wakes up and gets her coffee and sends me a Good morning. Then we chat for a bit before I hit the shower. If she's having a freakout, she can type it out and I can dash off a quick reply. Seriously, we've had an ongoing conversation for about 7years. She can send me something and I might not get it for 4hrs, but then I respond, and she'll get it and then she'll respond. IT's easy to scroll up and see what conversation we have going...often multiple conversations. You can send links as well. But if you close the window, you lose everything. That's good for when we're complaining about our DH's lol....no email trail. :lol: And the phone is too disruptive. IM chat is quick, efficient.

Same here! :001_smile:

Ok, I guess I knew that but hadn't fully processed it.

:iagree: And KarenAnne, and Stacy in NJ

I've got your hand!

What is this Hoagland's college level text to which you are referring? Is it the Exploring the Way Life Works?

Yes, I do and I'm in my finishing up my 3rd year. :001_smile:

I have borrowed it from a friend to look over this week. I will more than likely be using it this fall w/ a 6th grader....especially after Ester Maria gave it a thumbs up.

GREAT! I forgot all about it!

You could download the WWE4 assessment from peacehillpress.com and give them the end of year assessment. I think if they can write narrations from history or science they'd be fine w/ WWS.

Yes, I have Exploring the Way Life Works by Hoagland and The Way We Work by Macaulay. I also have another book by him titled "Intimate Strangers Unseen Life on Earth" which covers microbes and their relationship w/ us. I also have Essential Biology by Campbell, Reece and Simon. Kalmia and I call it the Embryonic Campbell...not to be confused with Baby Campbell and Daddy Campbell. I think Essential Biology was meant to be a high school text unlike the other Campbells which are college texts, if I remember correctly. So I was thinking to just do CPO Life as written for some things (Biomes, habitats, etc) and then do Exploring the Way Life Works and The Way We Work for cellular chemistry and human physiology. Hence I was saying I would either do CPO Life as written and get it done, then spend next year going through Exploring The Way life Works and The Way We Work or if I coordinate them now, accept that it will take us two years to do CPO life. I have to get outside of my box of completing curricula in one year. For some things, I'm absolutely fine with that but for other things I seem to be more anxious about getting it done as written. ANyhow, back to Hoagland and The Way We WOrk. Those books are deceiving. The graphics are wonderful. It's deep though. There are topics in there I didn't learn until college and a few I didn't learn until graduate school. Granted, that was in the south and 20yrs ago BUT I've seen high school texts and they don't have quite the depth of the Hoagland book. And the Hogland book is more living bookish....it's like having a conversation with the author. Same for The Way We Work. I don't know, after trying to get through CPO Life this year and failing miserably...not knowing if it's the curriculum, the teacher or the student..... I might follow 8FilltheHeart's lead and just have it be interest driven until high school and ditch the textbooks. Maybe pick 4 areas to focus on, collect resources and go from there. As it is, our experiment in CPO Life science led to a chemistry diversion for 5 weeks and that worked well for us and really cemented what they were learning in CPO Life Science. I also just pulled Prentice Hall Exploring Life Science off the shelf. Good grief, I need an intervention......:001_huh: Well, to be fair to myself, I picked that one up at a book sale for 50cents. I might have the Miller and Levine book. If I do, I'll read through it and report back.

WEll, as far as inquiry based.....DC often does the experiment before reading the text. So he is able to draw conclusions. I like that aspect of it. Then it's all spelled out. I know my post was vague. Let me see if I can find an example....I'm in between soccer games so if I leave abruptly, I'll be back later. :lol: Well, I should preface this all with I'm a scientist. We've done quite a bit of scientist so as I said, it could just be my boat. ANd I should also add that we're only on chapter 6. I know folks hate when posters review a curriculum they haven't used long term so take what I say in that light. After considering that, perhaps I shouldn't post. OH well, I'll leave it anyway. Physical Science connections....which to be fair, it's making a connection w/ physical science so I guess they are assuming prior exposure. In two pages elements, atoms, compounds, molecules are covered. Two pages on the importance of water. Two pages to cover carbs, lipids, enzymes, proteins and another page for nucleic acids. The book is written landscape w/ a large font w/ a fourth of each page being side bars. Ok, fair enough, it's a physical science connections. Then there are 5 pages to cover ecosystems and habitats: land habitats (temp, precip, sunlight, soil, oxygen, air), freshwater habitats (distribution, pH, oxygen, nitrates and phosphates), and the oceans. Again large font, not full use of the page to cover all of that. Let's move on to cells since a lot of biology these days appears to be heavily cellular biology. What are cells, discovering cells, cell theory, similarities among cells, classifying cells....all covered in 5 pages!!!! Diagram of an animal cell, cell membrane and nucleus, cell organelles, plant cells in another 7 pages w/ 2 of the pages being a diagram of the animal or plant cell. I don't know....it seems like moving on so quickly, the kids wouldn't have time to assimilate/integrate what they are learning. It seems to me, that you take fewer topics, go deeper, to really get them to see science, to enjoy it. So focus on the process rather than covering all the content. But while I'm a scientist, I've never taught science (well, I have at the graduate level but quite different from middle school) so I could be totally off base in my expectations. It just seems that for ME and my kids, the books are either too shallow and two many topics, are too detailed w/ tiny fonts (the Campbell texts for example). There doesn't seem to be a good middle ground. :lol: Ok, I found that funny. the best analogy I have is that CPO is to science what Kingfisher is to history. It's the bare bones. ok soccer time....

Swimmermom - Can you talk more about what you wish you had done differently for this particular child? Was it mostly a lack of organizing skills? And what exactly do you mean by that? Capt Uhura

Swimmermom - I think I may have a supplies list for CPO Life Science along w/ where to buy needed items from. I'll take a look and see if I can find it. I'm pretty sure I made one. I have mixed reviews for CPO Life Science.....can't exactly put my finger on it. It's not floating my boat, so to speak. It's probably just my boat b/c I really like CPO Physical Science from reading it, we'll be doing it next year in conjunction w/ Exploration Education kit. CPO life seems too broad and shallow...not enough depth. I've oscillated between doing CPO Life as written and them coming back to go deeper or going deeper now and being OK w/ taking more than a year to finish it.

Sounds great Swimmermom thanks! I'm following your plan! I think it will work out wonderfully.

Everyone has had some great ideas. I have nothing new to add really except to say that I do try to have the house all picked up by the time Dh gets home. He always calls to tell me he's on his way home which gives me 35min-40min of pick of time. I only have to do the family room and the kitchen. If those two areas are fine, he's fine. By the time Friday rolls around, I'm usually done so Saturday mornings when he's out of the house at 8:45am for soccer practice, I spend that 1.5hrs cleaning the house so that when he returns from soccer, it's cleaned and straightened. I would discuss w/ your DH your plans for keeping it all together and emphasize to him that YOU are not overwhelmed but perhaps he is. ANd then figure out what you can do to help him feel less overwhelmed.

My DH leaves about 7:30am. He returns home about 8:30-9:30pm M-F. I have a 5th grader, 2nd grader, and DD4. I do everything around the house. I handle all the bills, all the cooking, all the grocery shopping, all HSing, all cleaning, and I do a great deal of the yard work. Both boys are are on travel soccer and DH is DS10s travel soccer coach. Weekends are filled w/ practices and games. Some away games take 4hrs. No, I rarely get free time. The kids and I eat together as a family every day. Dh eats with us on Saturdays and Sundays. yes, my kids stay up until 10pm to spend time w/ DH when he gets home. When my DS7 went to kindergarten, he was so tired from the day, he would be asleep by 7pm. I'd have to drag him out of bed at 7am to get ready for school and be on the bus by 8am. For the entire year, he only saw his dad on the weekends which as I mentioned above, is filled with soccer. That was my first year HSing my then 3rd grader and DS7 wanted to go to school. By February, he was ready to come home but I had him finish out the year and he started HSing as a 1st grader.

Swimmermom - Have you posted somewhere the two different ways you've used LLfLOTR?

:lol:

:iagree: