ValueTale series The Value of Believing in Yourself: The Story of Louis Pasteur by Spencer Johnson, M.D.

Hi Amy, We're going to start the astronomy section (units 10-12) of REAL E & S in Dec., out of order. I planned it this way so we could make good use of the dark season when we can best see stars, etc. You can do the Units out of order, esp. if you are going to add info. from other resources. The info. introduced to the students in REAL E & S builds upon itself somewhat. What I mean by that is... well let me just give an example. In unit 2 the term 'water vapor' is used. That was introduced as a new term in Unit 1. So pulling things out of order wouldn't be detrimental as long as you use a science dictionary/encycolpedia to explain these things as you go along. Regarding the Planet lessons: "Mercury: Too Close for Comfort" is a lab activity (experiment w/ lab response sheet to fill out). It involves hypothesizing how hot a thermometer will get at 5 cm intervals from a light bulb, recording data, noting how temp. changes as you get further from heat source, how this affects the temp. from the planet closest to the sun to the planet furthest from the sun, and why we could not live on Mercury w/ its high temp. After doing the lab for ea. planet, not just Mercury, you will see a map of the solar system & a student sheet with Q & A (the one for Mercury has 6 questions) for student to fill out. On the map locate the topic planet, color it in & label it. To complete the summary Q & A page look up the info in books, on the internet, or in the given "Solar System book - Fact Sheet". You use all these finished pages in a Solar System Book that is pieced together as you do all of the astronomy units. You could do both the planet lab and the planet summary in 1 day, or extend the study using the recommended books from the list in the front of the curriculum. HTH!

So... does MCT include spelling (and phonics-based spelling rule review)? TIA

You could do MadLibs, some of DK's _____ Made Easy CD-ROMs - titles include Grammar, Punctuaion, etc., play Parts Of Speech Bingo, watch Schoolhouse Rock grammar videos, etc. The games I mentioned are sold at amazon and RR. I do agree you shouldn't toss it altogether; that may compound the problem. Best wishes!

I don't think that's unfair; the child was misbehaving and would have a (natural) consequence. If there's another adult or an older child, once they're done eating they could take the child to the car to wait for everyone else. The rule in my house is if you start begging for something (after already receiving an answer) you get the OPPOSITE of what you're asking for. Beg me for a TV show I already said no to? Then lose TV privilidge for (x) amount of time. That doesn't address the whining in the 1st place though. I used to give my kids a "briefing" before going into stores - "Here's the list. We're here only to get things that are on the list. I'm telling you NOW, do not ask me for anything else." It worked well for a long while. To help get to the root of the greed and ingratitude, I've been thinking I should take my kids to the Food Bank or local soup kitchen and help serve meals. There are other volunteer opportunities we could take part in where the kids would see how little others have in contrast to themselves and grow in compassion & desire to help (hopefully this would morph into an unselfish heart of giving over time).

Depending on what you're doing for music, you can get music history/appreciation done during a meal or in the car if you have it on CD. I read from Themes to Remember and/or Bach, Beethoven & The Boys then let the kids listen to the related Themes to Remember or Vox CD. If we don't have time, then the CD gets listened to in the car. I can't help you with the rest as I'm in the same boat with you. Combining stuff would seem like the most logical (and the only realisitic) way to accomplish those things. Type up something that would normally be written - make the kid keep his hands on the "home keys" and practice not looking at fingers. Art - illustrate narration pages for content subjects. Home-Ec. - do history projects that use home ec. skills, or bake and use that for math too, or do kitchen chemistry, etc. Health & human anatomy/biology tie together nicely. As for phys. ed., isn't that when I boot them outside? :D

I prefer to do history M, Tu, W and science Th & F. This year we chose to use WP for history and it's hard to get their very crammed schedule done in the 4 days they have it scheduled for (M-Th). So, Th is our "overlap" day; we do both history and science on Th and school can take a really long time to get done. Sometimes science is saved for F - Sat. Like others have said, we've always got both science and history books going, questions being asked, researched & answered, videos, games, experiments/projects that are just for fun, or other sci/hist.-related stuff going on in our "free time".

My son's Abeka Arithmetic 3 student workbook is missing lesson 5. Can anyone share w/ me what's on it, particularly the new concept stuff at the top of the page, and the types of problems on the page too? Or if you really want to be a dear, you could scan & email it to me! :D TIA

:iagree:, and I've only seen the 3-week sample! This is not merely a schedule of when to read other books. I have a friend who was disappointed to realize that's what her history curriculum was, since she is excellent at and loves to schedule school lessons.

Me too - arcticmom over on PBS as well.

I just want to share my experience w/ choosing grade levels w/ Saxon. My older son was in 1st, and his scores on the placement test showed that he should go into Saxon 2. He missed level 3 only by 1 1/2 more questions than he should have. If your dc is very close to a level like this in Saxon, go ahead with the higher one. It really is very repetitive and every level is written assuming the child has not previously done Saxon math. Most of what he did in Saxon 2 was far too easy for him. I really should have put him in the next level up. HTH!

Sarah, it's good to hear that ACE can work successfully given the right approach. I, however, was for 3 yrs. another student lined up facing the wall w/ dividers at either side, left alone to memorize & regurgitate facts. Our material wasn't taught, we just read it. It was easy for me to know which key phrases in reading passages would be in questions, and then on tests. There was a 'grading station' set up w/ all the answer keys, and students graded their own work, went back to their seats & corrected it, then back to the grading station... We didn't have art paces or any other electives, aside from memorizing chapters of the Bible. Any curriculum, even the very best, can fall short. Good teachers are key.

What grade level does MCT start at? What ability level do dc need to be at to enter the program? I don't know the difference between classical, ecclesiastic, etc. forms of Latin. What's the difference? What are reasons people choose each? Thanks!

Thank you all for your loving responses and advice. I was over at P.'s house today and took a whole milk-crate full of curricula & catalogs of mine to go over w/ her. I thought she was thinking of pulling her dc out of ps soon to hs, but she is contemplating hs for next school year. She still wants to get familiar w/ things just in case; and also for possibly a little afterschooling this year. She was suprised to see how SL works - she thought the subjects were all much more integrated, and likes the idea of CLE. Thanks for the suggestions!

Highlights publishes a Which Way USA series on the 50 states - one workbook per state. Those are independent work for my boys if my older reads some of the harder words to my younger.

I called before ordering from them the first time and Mark couldn't have been more helpful. I'm sure he could point you in the right direction for finding samples and explaining their return policy. HTH!

Isn't there a Grandma's Attic Series, and another with something about Owls in title? I think I saw them on VP's site.

No, the list of suggestions in my OP were only ones I could think of that are ALL subjects in one, or ones that I thought might be. Christian or secular is fine w/ her, although she is a Christian. Thanks for the info on K12. I'll pass that info. about it along to her. Direct instruction isn't so much what she wants to avoid, after all, she likes the looks of SL. I had totally forgotten about CLE and ACE though. I'll add those to the list.

Can WP include all subjects like SL? I know they have LA, but do they have math, etc.? I can't imagine trying to to both history and science from WP at the same time. Maybe that's just me. I'll take a look around their site - I'm just using WP for history only so I don't know off the top of my head.

I want to send that 2nd one to my local school disctrict! The last one makes me really interested in MCT for future grades... is it a complete LA program? What about things like spelling, dividing words into syllables, phonics, antonyms, synonyms, homonyms, etc.; does it include these?

:iagree:I like those suggestions better than what I thought of - but just to throw it out there, did you know there's something like 13 or 14 Oz books by L. Frank Baum (Wizard of Oz)?

I've got a friend who homeschooled her kids for 1 yr, when they were K and 1st. This year she has a new baby and for her own other reasons, put them in ps. She talked to me today about how it's NOT going well at all. Her dd is now in 2nd grade. The teacher went through EveryDay Math with her, asking "Didn't your dd learn how to do this and this last year at home?". Most of what my friend described to me was her dd not being familiar w/ quirks unique to that curric., not a lack of basic math skill. The teacher gave this little girl a reading test from a list of 50 words (would that be the Dolce list?) and she scored 32. My friend gave me more examples of this, and also said to me "Did you know that some homeschool curriculum doesn't meet state standards!?". This teacher "informed" her of that. My friend has been warned that her dd will be held back a grade if she can't fit the mold (my paraphrase). "P", my friend, was using Horizons Math, Abeka LA, SOTW, and I'm not sure what for the rest. But Abeka and Horizons are solid and certainly not beneath state standards. I told P. that the standards are listed online and that they do not state that a child has to be able to think of 6 ways to "get to" a number, as in EDM. In the Horizons math she was using, you just learn your addition/sub. tables and then you know all the "ways to get to" a given number. Argh. I am frustrated w/ her dd's teacher and I've never even met her. ANYHOW... She is seriously considering bringing her kids back home for school. She has a baby and a toddler as well, so 4 total. Last year she expressed that her dd just seemed to be lost amidst all the phonics rules in Abeka, and that her dd was having trouble. She is considering Sonlight, the full sha-bang w/ SL LA, Science, Math, etc. so it's all on one schedule. The schedule seems to be what attracts her. She wants as near to zero prep & no making up your own schedule as possible. She wants to really keep it simple. I warned her that some ppl don't end up liking how heavy the reading schedule is w/ SL, but she said that doesn't bother her. She wants to know if there's anything else out there fitting those criteria (underlined above) to compare SL to before making a decision. I'm concerned about her dd's reading - if she's having trouble, would SL be a good choice? I have their catalog but not exp. using SL. Does SL LA schedule in ETC? If so that would be just what they probably need. I think a math program like Saxon that holds her hand in teaching it would benefit them. So... things I thought of and suggested to look at in addition to SL were: MFW (I was considering this so I know a little about it) Calvert (I used this, but only for a little bit of K one year - I don't know what older grades look like) K12, Laurel Springs, Oak Meadow (none of which I'm familiar w/ at all - overview, anyone?) I described TOG to her but since you have to add subjects to it, she said she wasn't interested. Will you please help me help her? I'll point her to this forum too when I see her tomorrow. She's not set on any particular sort of educational approach (classical, CM, Montessori, or otherwise); just something easy to implement, easy to use, and easy for her kids to grasp. BTW this is for a 1st and 2nd grader now. Thanks! :)

I would just be upfront with all security if questioned. I don't think your concern over dangerous germs should sound alarming to anyone. Just fyi, the weirdest things can trigger a search. Recently an overabundance of Hot Wheels metal cars in my son's carry-on got us thoroughly searched. If you can get the rapid-melt tablets or chewables for any of that usually liquid OTC med, that would help. If not, I'd leave it sealed to show it's new and untampered w/. Best wishes!

How do you handle the transfer to title/deed and mortgages in a trade? The mortgages would have to be put in the new owner's names, right?

What a great discussion! This prompted me to have a (very informal) talk w/ my boys about what goals are, what education is, what educational goals are, etc. My 3rd grader kept naming things that are ways to reach a goal ("do 100 math problems a day!"), not actual goals, so I pointed that out to him. The goal he came up with was "finish all of 3rd grade math books before 4th grade" (we start the next grade in Sept.), which we're doing anyhow, but I praised him for his good example of a goal. Then I explained near-term goals vs. long-term goals. My 1st grader is currently dead-set on being an NFL football player (thanks, DH :glare:), but he says they pick players out of college football teams. We talked about what he could study in college. Sports team business management and sports physical therapist were 2 of his ideas; at least now we have some ideas to work. My 3rd grader still wants to study wars and germs, and work with germs as an adult. He's also mentioned wanting to be an "animal rescue officer", so we discussed things he'd need to study for either of those interests. I'm making a goal to expose my kids in some way to art galleries, museums, symphonies, plays, historical sites, etc. twice a month. Even once a month would be better than nothing, and given where we live we may quickly run out of options. Or, we may discover small little art shops we didn't know were around. Dh isn't terribly psyched about us choosing a TV-free day of the week, but it's a minimal effort and needs to be done. Thanks for the inspiration & ideas.] Topics in this thread reminded me of how my dd's Montessori school works. There are educational goals set for 3-wk. time periods; how the kids go about meeting them is up to them, but they must be met (or face the natural consequence of poor grades). Within that 3-wk. timeframe there is a certain focus for history, science, art, etc. Materials with instructions for smaller assignments are set out in the classroom for use in meeting the goals (ex. a huge model of a plant cell, music by and books on Bach, etc.). The kids choose what order they complete the goals in and to some extent which materials they'll use in the process. I think what a previous poster said about creating a learning-rich environment, brimming with learning and enrichment opportunities (even down to the art hanging on the walls) is a very important point. Just my rambling $.02.