Poor sweetie. She may have a ruptured ovarian cyst. I always had horrific cramps when I was younger (actually until I had my first baby—and only successful pregnancy—when I was 32), so I greatly sympathize with her. I've also had a lot of ovarian cysts (I have had fever with cysts). I'm glad you're taking her to the hospital. I hope everything turns out okay.

Most fairy tales are written in past tense.

I live in NW GA (sort of between Rome and Cartersville), and we have them here. I grew up in S. Central GA (between Dublin and Eastman), and we had tons back then. Someone posted on the other thread that there aren't any where she lives in Middle GA now; people are so free with pesticides there that it wouldn't surprise me if there are none there now. It makes me angry and sad.

Wow. Things have changed. I grew up in S. Central GA (the "heart of GA"), and we had tons of them. We called them lightning bugs. I now live in NW GA, and we have them here, though not in the huge quantities that we had growing up. I wonder if the decrease has something to do with pesticides. :(

Thanks so much for your replies. They are very helpful. (Suzanne, I went to the other board and read your reply there as well.) I am a little familiar with MCT's grammar (I've seen the samples), but I chose not to go that route. However, do you think not being more familiar with that part of the program would take away from the other useful aspects of the books in this series? I love the idea of the literary analysis for the speeches.

I don't use R&S (though I've been tempted) because I don't want a religious program. However, it sounds like a strong program. If I were in your shoes, I'd go with R&S 6 next year.

I posted this on the regular K-8 curriculum board and got no responses, so I decided to try posting here: Have you used this? Were you pleased? Is this useful even if you don't use any of MCT's other books? Does the order in which you do the books in the series matter? Thanks!

For now I plan to use Dolciani Modern School Mathematics Pre-algebra (1973) with my rising seventh grader. I think this is the same pre-algebra book I used in school (the math books I used in school were excellent). I ordered it yesterday. When I get it, I'll be able to nail down my exact plans for the year.

Thanks, Anne. :)

Have you used this? Were you pleased? Is this useful even if you don't use any of MCT's other books? Does the order in which you do the books in the series matter?

I love it! I'd go with it. :D

When I was teaching public school, I noticed that a lot of kids, even those who are really good in math, don't retain fractions and decimals until 6th or 7th grade (or even 8th). Often the "mathy" kids can figure out how to do the problems they're given without knowing the algorithms (thus, you don't realize that they don't know the methods of performing the operations); but then if they get problems that are a little more difficult, they get confused. If I were in your shoes, I would do a very thorough review of these concepts even if he balks and says that he already knows how to do them (you don't necessarily have to do it this summer, though).

My son is well above average in math. We plan to do prealgebra in 7th grade (next year) and algebra in 8th grade. In my experience as a math teacher (in both middle school and high school), most students really aren't ready for algebra in 8th grade, but I think he'll be okay. If he were just average in math, I wouldn't even consider doing algebra before 9th grade.

You're welcome! I find things like that interesting as well. :)

Textbook, workbook, CWP, US Edition.

In those examples, "inside" and "outside" are adverbs. However, "out" and "outside" can indeed be prepositions. Some examples are as follows: She looked out the window. The child colored outside the lines.

You can see pages from the book at this site. Just click next at the top to see more pages.

Would you people quit making me do this? ;) I already had this book on my wish list, but now I've moved it to my cart.

I don't have an answer to your question because I've never even seen the books. However, I did a little research after seeing your post, and now I'm curious about this curriculum. (For my purposes, I would start with book 1 since my son is right at the grade level for which it is recommended.) Do you know of anywhere that I can see samples online?

Yay for both of you! It's funny that my 12-year-old son and I were talking about this topic just this morning. He asked me how he had learned to read. He learned when he was so young that he doesn't remember not knowing how to read.

Thanks so much for posting this! It looks very helpful.

I was just about to recommend this one!

Lisa, thanks so much for responding. That helps a lot. :)

Training5 and LisaTheresa, I started a thread about this before, but I got no responses, so I hope you can help me. This is what I posted before: Thanks so much!

I'm leaning toward using Hake for 7th grade grammar for my son. The reviews I've read on the content are very good. However, the reviews on the construction of the books are not so good. I've read many reviews referring to the books as having phone book or newspaper–like paper. Cheap paper, in and of itself, won't prevent me from buying the books; however, my question is this: Do these books smell like newspapers or phone books? I ask because I have extreme chemical sensitivities and am unable to use certain books. Most paperback books have been a problem for me (I literally had to use a shirt over my face when using FLL4), but I definitely can't tolerate newspaper or phone book print. To give an example of something I absolutely can't tolerate, I had to quickly toss my last Rainbow Resource catalog into the recycle bin. Thanks in advance!