:iagree:

I tried Prima Latina with my 2nd and 3rd grader last school year. The 3rd grader loved it, but the 2nd grader hated it. The younger one was fine for the first 5 or 6 lessons and then it became a battle. Mid-year I switched her to Song School Latin and the older daughter continued with Prima Latina. They are now teaching each other their Latin programs, so they are sort of doing both. It's a little bit harder on me, but they are happy. I really don't think a 2nd grader's grammar, unless they are very advanced, will be strong enough for LCI. IMHO.

I'm looking at the meeting book now. I bought the entire set and it was included. IMHO you could definitely skip it. Contents: Blank calendar pages to number for the date and temp. each day, rhyme about how many days in each month and picture using hands to determine, birthday graph pages, number words chart(blank), measurement abbreviations chart(blank) and blank counting strips.

I have the perspective of treaching both Saxon 1 and 2 concurrently. This has made me bold enough to tweak the program. I know where I am going with the 1st grader and can therefore decide when to speed up and when to slow down. My advice, don't be bogged down by the lesson structure and script. I was so weary of reading the scripted lessons to my child. I read them and picked the important points. If they understood something on the first example, I would give them the next one to complete on their own. If they got it, then we moved on. The repetition of a spiral approach reinforces the concepts so I know whether or not they are really getting it. We also practice the couting and such for one week a month. If there is a new skip counting pattern, we practice daily until they are proficient and then drop back to once or twice a week, then only the one week a month. The same with patterning and the coin cup. We also skipped the lessons about drawing trees for the different seasons. That said, I did not start formal lessons at lesson 1. They took tests until there was material they did not know. We have only had to backtrack once with each child to reinforce a concept (it only took a day). We began our school year in July and I will be moving them into the next level of Saxon in January. We have less than 10 lessons left for each child. We will finish out December with math drills and math games. I hope this helps.

We are at week 15 and I have changed spelling programs for both kids. The only drop occured recently. We finally dropped handwriting as its own subject. Both are doing very well with their handwriting so I just make sure what they write is nice and I don't make them practice its own specific subject. I am really surprised by this:001_huh:. Maybe I should fill up this unexpected time slot?????

We use the Prismacolor Art Stix. The are like a colored pencil without the wood. They are long and square and have held up well to a 6 and 7 year old. They were recommended on an elementary art blog and I can't say enough good things about them. They are a little pricey IMHO, but we are really putting them through a workout and they haven't failed yet. I really love the fact that they don't need to be sharpened. When my girls were using the regular colored pencils I was contemplating an electric pencil sharpener homicide.:001_smile:

I remember reading in the introduction that the focus should be on getting the word family part of the word correct, not the entire word. If he's applying the word families to other words, then he is getting it. If he's not retaining the word families then I would slow down and perhaps even cut the lessons in half. The jump to 20 words was a little sudden for my daughter. If she doesn't seem to be getting a word family, I have repeated the lesson with her (usually later that same day). It helps her build confidence and strengthen a shaky understanding. I usually have her write the words on our white board with the two colors of markers after she has written out her answer. It's a sneaky way to get her write the word twice. She also happens to think writing on the white board is fun. I hope this helps. I just switched to Building Spelling Skills for my younger child since Sequential Spelling 1 is a bit too advanced for a first grader. Spelling Workout just reduced her to tears or was too easy. I definitely feel your spelling frustration.

I try to take photos of just my daughters throughout the year. I then find the best 12 and upload them to a calendar service. It works out to about $30/family with shipping. I've tried buying the kits and printing them at home, but it was even more expensive with all the ink I had to buy(oops!). I have done them for 4 years now and don't see an end in sight. I've also decided to frame (inexpensively) some of the artwork from the kids for some friends and family here in town. Anything made by the grandkids is always a big hit with the grandparents.

We've added to our collection over time, so its hard to remeber what we have paid. We orginally bought the game console plus additional wii remote and nunchuk. It was really nice to have two controllers so the kids could virtually box each other. Wii Sports comes with the console and is enough with the additional remote to get you through a month or so before you start looking for something different. We added the rechargeable battery stand for the two remotes and found that it was a very wise investment. The wii remotes eat through AA batteries if you are using them frequently. We also added another 2 wii remotes with nunchuks (figured out later that the additional nunchuks were a bit of a waste). We love to play a game called Mario Party which all 4 of us can play together. Another favorite game is Big Brain Academy. Our two daughters are young, but can play both of these fine. For my birthday we have recently added Wii Fit. This is a balance board (think game controller that you stand on). These are very fun, but a little harder to find. We do have Dance Dance Revolution which is a mat controller that you dance on. It is a little different from the verison in the video arcade as you hold the wii remote with the nunchuk in your hands and add hand movements to the feet movements. The girls were too young for this one, and mom and dad just don't move like that. Good for a few laughs, but I think this is more for the tween/teen set. Hope that helps....BTW you can order some of the old nintendo games off the internet with your wii. We have Super Mairo Brothers and other classics that my husband and I enjoy. No physical activity involved in those :)

If you are dreading the spelling part of your day, then I would say that is not the program for you. No matter how "beneficial" it might be. If you aren't enjoying it that will come across. Sell it and move on. We changed programs after a few weeks of school and I do not regret allowing myself the freedom to change what wasn't working. We purchased a sequential spelling workbook and notebook for less then $20 and have not looked back. I wanted a curriculum, since I am new at this. If you feel comfortable creating your own program, I would give it a try. A month or so should be enough to know whether or not you need to spend the money. There are lots of online resources for age appropriate spelling lists.

I am currently using this with a 1st and 2nd grader, but I think it wouldn't be too hard to make it more appropriate for 5th. Although, you would definitely need to supplement with outside materials. The focus of this book seems to be on learning the characteristics of each group of animals. I would simply assign additional reasearch topics to the older child, either relating to the characteristics or selecting an animal. Discussing why these chracteristics are helpful to that animal and how it is suited to its environment, etc. For example, while studying birds, your older child could get far more detailed information about the birds body structures (diagrams, models, etc.). I would also add a report on a specific animal, characteristic, habitat, etc. for the older child. This would help build writing and research skills while upping the degree of difficulty. In preparing the material for my younger children I usually find material that offers far more information than they are ready for at this time. It shouldn't be too hard to pull some extra books in from the library without having to buy a new curriculum, but it will be more work for you. I hope this helps.

I is not our decision that the paternal granparents are not involved. We have merely decided to respect their choice not to be involved. My husbands father and stepmother have tons of grandchildren and even great grandchildren that live withing 5 miles of their house. They really have no desire to come visit us and when we are down there (approximately once a year) our kids are just lost in the shuffle. No quality interaction there. They do have a good time, but mostly because they get to see their cousins. My husbands mother and stepfather are a different story. They do not really like children and have stated this very specifically. My husband was not raised by his mother and really has no bond with her (lots of issues there). We encourage realtionships as much as we can, but ultimately it is up to the grandparent, in our opinion, how much of a realtionship they have. The flip side is that my parents are going to be moving up from FL to SC to be closer to their grandchildren in retirement. I see myself being this type of grandparent much more than the other.

So far we are liking most of our curriculum. The only big change was dropping Spelling Workout B for Sequential Spelling. Scheduling is still a work in progress. We are pretty flexible right now, but I need to start tightening it up a bit.

Soduim carbonate

We have struggled with this question ourselves. My husband is not very close to his family and therefore, my children are not very close to his parents. It is sad to me that his parents do not show an interest in the children, but I don't believe that it is my children that lose out. I believe my job is to make sure there is nothing hindering the possibility of a realtionship between my daughters and their paternal grandparents. My children do have a wonderful relationship with my parents. What I observe about the uniqueness of this realtionship is that there is a different quality to their interaction. My parents just purely enjoy my children. As parents we always have to consider the resposibilities of raising the children and preparing them for life so we are always "on duty". I believe grandparents come in with the goal of merely wanting to be in the moment with the child. They are not worried or stressed or watching for teaching moments. There is no burden of responsibility. We bought my father a shirt once that says "Grandpas are dads without rules". It is such a wonderful thing for my children to have someone they can turn to who only sees them with love, joy and wonder. We are blessed that their are other adults in their lives who have a similar love for my children. Maybe I'm a bit biased, but their light seems to shine a little brighter for their grandparents. So I guess, nurture the grandparent realtionship if it is there. Nurture the other adult relationships if those are available. I believe as long as they have adults in addition to their parents nurturing them and cheering them on they will not be missing out.

White Chip Pumpkin Spice Cake Ingredients: 1 (18.25 ounce) package spice cake mix 3 large eggs 1 cup canned pumpkin 2/3 cup evaporated milk 1/3 cup vegetable oil 1 cup white chocolate chips White Chip Cinnamon Glaze, recipe follows Directions: 1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour 12 cup bundt pan. 2. Combine cake mix, eggs, pumpkin, evaporated milk and vegetable oil in large mixer bowl. Beat at low speed until moistened. Beat at medium speed for 2 minutes; stir in morsels. Pour into prepared bundt pan. 3. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in cake comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack for 25 minutes; invert onto wire rack to cool completely. Drizzle half of Glaze over cake; serve with remaining glaze. 4. For White Chip Cinnamon Glaze: Heat 3 tablespoons evaporated milk in small, heavy-duty saucepan over medium heat just to a boil; remove from heat. Add 1 cup (6 ounces) white chocolate chips; stir until smooth. Stir in ½ teaspoon cinnamon.

This is a very deeply disturbing article. One of the continuing discussions I've been having with other parents is why we as a society have decided that our children should not learn how to deal with disappointment or consequences. It seems more important that a child feel "happy". I still say that without the struggle, they will never feel any true sense of accomplishment. Just think of the look on your childs face when they finally "get" something that they were really struggling to understand. I would no sooner deprive them of this feeling success and accomplishemnt than I would food. It's just so very sad that this is being proposed.

I taught this song to my kids in preschool. It is still fun to hear them stumble over some of the words. They Might Be Giants had a nice cover of this song when I was in high school. It is now on my girls ipods as "science".:thumbup:

Do they still have the choose your own adventure books? I remember them from elementary school and I think most were boy friendly subjects like space, robots, etc.. He might be so interested that he would read each book more than once!!!!:001_smile: Now I'll need to see if I can find some at our local library.

I found that if I write the problem with a darker marker (sharpie) on the front and lightly pencil the anwer on the back, my dd cannot sneak a peak at the anwers. Also, darker colored cardstock is more difficult to see through.:) Saxon had me make horizontal flash cards and provided the vertical flash cards. Is this why you need the horizontal?

We recently switched from Spelling Workout to Sequential Spelling. My daughter is really enjoying it! The only problem is purely mine. I have a hard time coming up with sentences for some of the more erudite or obscure words. I must say, that while I am aware of the word "clouted" I find it is not a frequently used word in my vocabulary (and not an easy sentence to compose off the top of my head):glare:. So my question is.....Did you purchase The Patterns of English Spelling? and if so, do you replace the odd words on the spelling lists with those you find less "odd"?

:iagree: The only thing that I would add is an idea I use which came from ADDitude Magazine (a great subscription for those who have children with ADD). I let my daughter have a stress ball to fidget with while she is working. It is far less disruptive than any of her normal fidgets and it helps keep her focused. I have also found that when I need her to listen carefully, sometimes it helps her if she can do this standing up instead of sitting down. Changes in position or environment help her to refocus her "Turbo Brain". Be patient and don't lose hope. You are not alone. :001_smile:

I'm jealous. I've been trying to go from naturally medium blond to red for years. My hair just won't seem to hold the color for more than a week. Even when I get it done at the salon. It always goes back to its natural color except for a slight orange hue in certain light. Oh well, enjoy the fun of a new hair color. It's always fun to have a change from the ordinary. I usually use it as an excuse to pick up a new outfit :)

This may sound like a simplistic answer, but I think they just title the maps based on what the title of the chapter is. This way you know in which chapter the map was used. I find that the activity guide instructions regarding mapwaork usually make it easy to understand the purpose of the map. The ancient china map would have been spread out so much to show why it was considered the "Far East". That's just my take on this, but I hope it helps.