Ouch, the price tag. But Hakim's 11-volume set was clearly the right choice for us, so I bought it. Thank you!!!

Hello folks! My 4th graders are off to a good start this year. We're classical/LCC homeschoolers, but I've noticed that they are missing a lot of references in books, popular media, adult conversation etc. because they never have had a decent American History survey (one was public-schooled for the past two years, and one has never been homeschooled). Can anybody recommend a good textbook with a strong overarching narrative for me to assign? These boys find SOTW quite easy and K12 Human Odyssey rather challenging (though we successfully use both). We're liberal/secular in our teachings on social issues, as well as actively egalitarian and anti-racist, so most of the popular 19th and early 20th century resources that have such lovely narrative structure aren't compatible with our family values. Any ideas?

OK, I took another look at the first lesson, and maybe I'm wrong. I'm going to introduce it to my 4th graders and see how they do...

Michele, I think for a 7th grader it would be OK. But for 4th grade, it just seems too dry. Ditto for the videos - they are highly competent, but not very engaging for the younger set IMO. I think we're going to work through Minimus, which is not going to take them long, and come back to the issue in November or so. I may decide to suck it up and use Latina Christiana. We use lots of Christian-influenced curriculum, but those Memoria Press folks are pretty gung-ho.

I wanted to love the Big Book of Lively Latin. I really did. But I finally purchased, and I just don't like how it looks. I don't think my kids (4th and 2nd grades) will enjoy it either. I want to get something else. My eldest did Song School Latin in kindy and Minimus in 1st grade, before spending two year in public school. The second grader has never done Latin. We'd strongly prefer a secular program, or I'd get Latina Christiana. What do you think? Revisit Mimumus with the older kid and then have them move on to Mimimus Secundus? Ecce Romani? Just drop it for a year or so until more secondary level grammar-translation curricula open up to us? BTW, if you think I'm dead wrong about the Big Book and a kid who loved Minimus in 1st grade will dive right in and be thrilled with BBLL1 in 4th grade, speak up!

Awesome suggestions, thank you all! I think I'm going to risk the $17 and buy the Elemental Science ebook for Chemistry. I think that might be the right fit for us.

I am actually planning to combine my 7-and-9 year-olds in First Language Level Four next year. None of them have used the program before, the younger one is a girl, and our family seems to run along gender-stereotype lines in terms of language development. So assuming that works out, my kids won't be divided in ANY subject but math - there will just be different expectations for their written assignments. I am really, really hoping that this works out. If it does, I think it will be a huge blessing to me AND to the youngest.

We are going back to homeschooling next year! :hurray: I will have two fourth-graders and a second-grader, all bright and reasonably compliant. Science is not one of my particular interests, so I feel the need for more structure in that subject and in particular a forcing function that will ensure that we have regular "hands-on" lessons. (Left to myself, I am likely to just let them watch a Brainpop video after they've completed a written lesson, rather than making a mess in the kitchen.) The second-grader can handle fourth-grade curriculum, so I'm looking for one program to serve all three kids. Any thought?

This thread persuaded me to try Aldi's again. (I went there once, two years ago, bought and ate their store brand hot dogs, and got a raging migraine. It was my fault, not Aldis, for not remembering my nitrate issue, but somehow I never got around to going back.) Anyhow, I just cracked open their $3 "Winking Owl" merlot and Oh. My. Gosh. I have paid so much more for less tasty wine. The produce was not impressive (except apples, they seemed identical to our region's conventional apples from a regular store), but I was mostly there for ingredients and convenience foods anyhow. Great price on cheeses. Great price on turkey ham for school lunches. I went shopping hungry and wound up buying a bag on BBQ chips, and they were tasty as well. Next time I'll definitely try the chocolate!

I have three co-op students who will be able to graduate late in their 16th or early in their 17th year. All of them are going the CC route for a year I think, and I see how that will be a great experience for them, but I'd be nervous if any of them were going to a regular 4-year residential college and living in the dorms. The discipline to get their studies done without parental guidance is just not there yet.

"... the sleepover thing is an issue for us, too!" Is it a lack of bedrooms issue? This where I'm coming from: I had friends with close-in-age brothers, they would have sleepovers, brothers would be in the house during the sleepover. AT NO POINT EVER did they try to come into the bedroom full of sleeping bags to romantically pursue the sleepover girls. Their parents were in the house, for pete's sake! There were half a dozen girls in a cluster, not one lone girl giving come-hither eyes! I would not say that I grew up in a conservative social milieu, so it really shocks me that this would be a problem with kids who had been raised to think of sexual behavior as something that you save for marriage.

We did one night Athens, three nights on the island of Sifnos (for a wedding), then back in Athens several days with a field trip up to Mycenae and Epidarus. Without that whole wedding thing to consider, I would probably have done 5 days on an island cruise and 5 days based in Athens taking day trips. The islands are simply unmissable. If seasickness is a huge issue, then maybe three nights on Santorini or Crete? Food for a 12-year-old shouldn't be an issue. All the food we were offered everywhere was good, and there was always a bread component. Plenty of pizza and fries around in the touristy areas of Athens. We stayed at one of those tourist hotels that had four twin beds to a room and served breakfast. They had adjoining rooms if you needed more privacy. Really, the rooftop bar with the view of the Acropolis was an unexpected highlight of the trip. They didn't care if you were drinking or not - it was a lounge area, not an American-style bar. I gather many tourist hotels have this setup. It was great to have a familiar place to sit (and then to sleep) at the end of long days of tramping around. The advice about doggie bags for toilet paper is excellent! That's the one thing I would have really preferred to know that nobody thought to tell me before I went.

I will also be in Greenville, and would be happy to use my Montessori Assistant Teacher shoulder-tappin' skills to help quell the room. ;) PM me with a specific talk that you'd like me to attend. Really, it's nuts for the convention organizer not to have a room hostess. Unpleasantness with babies or coughing or crosstalk sharply decreases the quality of the experience for everybody else involved.

9 for the school we're zoned for, 10 for the "choice school" I hope to use next year. We're very lucky - a pocket of yuppiedom in a howling wilderness of poverty and institutional racism. But honestly, using the term "lucky" to describe "access to good schools" is pretty darn sad.

Anybody who wants food that I dropped on the floor of a Wal-Mart is absolutely welcome to it. But where the heck was his mom/dad in all this? And why the heck didn't they pull more employees up front to work the lines! 20 minutes in a Wal-Mart line with my kids would turn me into a rampaging psycho.

My stance is, MORE pieces of the KJV need to be culturally known! It causes me actual physical pain, like an ache in my chest, to quote the KJV to my (Christian) students and have them stare blankly back at me. It's happened quite a lot over the years... so my own kids do KJV memory work from both the OT and the NT. And the Talmud. And the Greeks. And everything else I enjoy :tongue_smilie: Seriously, though, I think that familiarity with the KJV is a necessary component of college-level literacy.

I think different times for different plans makes sense. For one thing, it gets the boys to TELL YOU THE DETAILS OF THEIR PLANS, and gives you the option of doing a trust-but-verify on said plans if something pings your radar. I think it's very important to cure your nephew of lying about his whereabouts, not because it is a heinous sin at this age, but because it's the beginning of what can be a lifelong bad habit that persists with bosses, wives, etc. If he lies, it is to his extreme benefit to be caught and punished.

I talked with dh and this is the LAW of the land as concerns 501c's. He's gone to legal seminars on this stuff. IF THE IRS FINDS WRONG DOING, THE CHURCH TREASURER GOES TO JAIL!!!!! If the treasurer of this church does not call for an audit through a tax attorney and report this man, he or she can go to jail for this. The IRS can also seek prosecution against the head deacon or elder and the chairman of the church board too. Seriously, there is a church in Orlando that ended up with eight people in jail for more than 72 hours while discrepancies in the books and "whose to blame" was sorted out! This is not about who is ripping apart whose life and who is being vindictive and blah, blah, blah. THIS IS ABOUT PROTECTING THE INNOCENT! Seriously, people. I am very concerned about all of the individuals on this board that are actually advising a member of this church to AID AND ABET a felon! This is a crime. Not reporting a crime, is a crime in this country. Maybe other countries have a more permissive view of the church's role in reporting crime. America takes a dim view and a hard stance on this and the IRS is the least forgiving of all. This is not a crime between two people in which the victim chooses not to prosecute. That is acceptable in our legal code. This is a crime against a large group of people, it is a financial crime that violates IRS standing, it is a crime against a community, and if left unreported, it's a crime against any future individuals and groups he would seek to defraud because he did not suffer the legal consequences of his actions. It is a felony to not report and to fail to cooperate with the investigation. This was the conclusion that my congregation reached.

I love these books. Love them. That said, some of the disciplinary practices are pretty dated, and you need to make sure your daughter understands that her father wil NOT apprehend her in the dark and try to backhand her if she sneaks in after curfew. That bit really disturbed me when I read the books as a child.

My parents are not God people, but sent me to church (a Baptist church, of all places!!!) with another family. They wanted me to be familiar with Bible stories and to understand what makes religious people tick. I'm grateful for the experience, but the older I get the more appalled I am that my mother didn't think it was worth the drive to bring me to a Jewish house of worship. She may not be a God person, but she's definitely very Jewish in her values and worldview, and the cognitive dissonance was pretty huge between church-morality and home-morality. So, based on that I say: if there is a religious experience that resonates with you emotionally (leaving aside "belief" for the moment), then find a way to participate in that experience with your children. It sounds like for you, that might be Mass?

:iagree: My congregation recently went through something like this (less serious, but a similar nature), and when we reflected upon it and sought legal counsel, it was very clear that while we were unwilling to pursue a civil action against a member of the community, safeguarding the community as a whole required that the criminal aspects of the situation be reported. It will probably never be prosecuted, but when we took that government tax break we committed to following the government's laws, and by covering up a crime we would lend credence to any future accusations that create an environment that fosters crime. OP, you may find if you purse it that this matter HAS been reported by your denomination, and that they are only "sweeping it under the rug" in terms of trying to avoid the story hitting the press. Their lawyer has no doubt advised them to do 1) report and 2) minimize chit-chat, with both measures intended to reduce their risk of liability stemming from this incident. If they haven't reported the crime - honestly, I'd separate myself from that body.

http://www.carolhurst.com/titles/castleintheattic.html

I'd love to see something on "how to avoid the trap of thinking that just because your child is as well-educated as the average public schooler in your area, you are doing a good job and do not need to ramp it up with your littles in order to avoid winding up with quasiliterate high schoolers who are unable to read the New York Times or score well on the SAT because they are endowed with less cultural capital than most of their 8th-grade-educated, dirt-farmer great-grandparents." Um. You might want to rework the title a bit. :D But it's something that concerns me HUGELY in my local homeschool community (Upstate South Carolina). Our public schools are awful. That lowered intellectual standard spills over into the homeschooling community in lots of ways.

"Heavily moderated message boards...when I left, you couldn't say "boo" without getting a talking to by a moderator and locking down the thread." LOL. I've had two "infractions issued" in the past three months, and that's with me TRYING to be nice. I let me husband use my account to talk about car seats once and was temporarily banned for his behavior :D I am really sad about the magazine, though. Like PPs, I really looked forward to getting it when I had little baby and felt isolated IRL.

:bigear: I'm going too, and have no idea how to use my time efficiently.