I think that is the main academic goal (any spiritual goals aside) of most homeschooling parents - to instill a life-long love of learning, of delving deeper into areas of interest, for the child to become a self-educator by adulthood. There is no one mould perfect for everyone - but I do believe that this basic principle is most valuable for all, even if there isn't an expensive piece of paper to prove one's knowledge.

Well that makes sense to me. So much so, that I've been tempted to just toss the idea of using a WWE workbook for level 3 when we get there, and just use passages from our content subjects. It's the WWE workbook that throws me into this confusion. It's convenient and all done for me, which I love, love, love. But, it does add an extra subject to our schoolday by having a separate subject for writing. I'm working with grammar stage kiddos, so there's not any outlining being done yet. WWE (the workbook) covers the copywork, narration, narration/dictation, and dictation in that order over 4 days - but on literature passages that we aren't using anywhere else in our studies. I just realized that I should restate my question: If one is using the WWE *workbooks*, then are they supposed to practice all those skills again in content subjects as well? That would double the amount of work required of the child. Or is the child supposed to be first doing those within a separate writing program and then also using them on content subjects? If I were just using the WWE textbook, it wouldn't be an issue for me. I would just use passages from the kids' sci., hist., and lit. It just looks like a ton of work trying to find specific literary and grammatical elements as WWE suggests, esp. when I limit the text options to the kids' content subjects.

You guys are making me wonder about RS now - stop it! lol Bill, I have an idea for manipulatives to represent a thousands cube - it would have to represent 10 of the hundreds flats stacked up (to make sense to the child who's been using these). I've been thinking I'd just cut some blocks of wood the exact size that 10 stacked flats would be, and either draw the centimeter grid on every side with a fine-tipped Sharpie & a ruler, or paint dots for each cm. I saw this at my dd's Montessori school. I have a question about these RS math games now: I don't use RS & don't own any component of it. If I order the RS math games, will I find that I need to get extra stuff to do it? I'll have a 1st and 3rd grader next year, if that matters for this question.

Rebecca, your link is not working - at least not for me anyhow. Marsha said it didn't work for her either... I wonder what happened?

I still wonder about this same question (Q2 above), and I've been doing this all year. I've asked before, and I know I've gotten an answer somewhere on these boards... but for the life of me I can't keep it straight. After listening to Susan's Writing w/o Fear CD, I think the writing program is just that: focused on the mechanics of writing. Writing for History, Science, Lit., etc. is separate, but should include concepts learned in the grammar and writing programs. Oh Susan, if you have a moment, could you clarify this for us? :D Thanks a million! P.S. Update from my last post in this thread: Ds 8 dug back into WWE 2 today and it went suprisingly well! He was able to pick out the main idea - albeit in one long run-on sentence (which we corrected together). I'm seeing him stretch and grow in his abilities with WWE. Thank you for this program, Susan!

I just picked this up at a used curriculum fair - second edition. Then I saw the 3rd ed. for sale at another lady's table and she said even that was old. This 2nd ed. is still OK to use, right? My 13 yo dd wants to try out hsing over the summer with this.

:iagree:I agree with this - if you strictly follow only the TM, Horizons will seem very workbooky. I just add hands-on activities, games, skip counting, etc. on my own to Horizons using homemade games/activities, purchased ones, and bits of other curricula. If you need open-and-go math, or if using a math program as a 'spine' and 'fleshing it out' with whatever you determine your child needs sounds like too much, Abeka would be better and equally as thorough.

This is not the time period we are on - we are on Ancients this year. He has asked to study the wars that his great grandpa and papa were in. I don't want him exposed to the gory photographic history of wars of the 20th century. There are more than enough great suggestions here for me to get from the library and preview for appropriateness for him. I don't want to squash his interests - esp. this, when it is intertwined w/ world and family history. My dad has set aside some time to answer questions and talk with him about these things. My grandfather (dad's dad) flew airplanes back & forth from AK to Russia in one of the World Wars. My dad has old photos of his dad by his plane, etc., that ds would like to know the stories behind. I don't think what I've got in mind here is questionable for an 8 yr old.

Yes, those look great! Ds came over to the computer and likes the looks of the one on the wiki page. I would like to get that list from you, if you don't mind. I really like that they're not terribly expensive. :D I think I'll get some of the Rand McNally & DK books on topic from the library. If he grows an ongoing insatiable interest then I'll put down the $$ to purchase some.

We'll be sending out our next big batch pretty soon. My sons haven't been too keen on writing any themselves, so I've done them myself or scribed for them thus far. I may make it part of school (sub. penmanship) - thanks for the idea! PS - Alicia, your dd has absolutely beautiful penmanship!!

Rookie-Read-About books - they have them for science, history, geography, botany, health, etc. They're short little books with nice, colorful photography. The Welcome Books series by Edana Eckart would be good too - big bold words for easy reading. Both are at Barnes & Noble and amazon to gather titles for checking out from the library.

Does anyone have any recommendations for non-fiction books on 20th century wars (WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam in particular) appropriate for an 8yo boy? I'd prefer to leave some of the atrocious details out at this age, or leave them a little vague anyhow. Cartoony-type books like Liberty's Kids are OK, or books focusing on different makes of planes/tanks/etc. :patriot:

hehehe, nevermind. I figured it out about 10 min. after that post. doh.

I use it for my K'er and 2nd grader and we will still be using it for part of my older ds' 3rd grade year. If you use the AG with it, it is plenty. If you want more resources to beef it up, you could assign independent reading from some of the additional books the AG suggests, order the tests, do the free online tests (those only go through Ch. 34 I think), have him give written responses to some questions, do copywork from it, etc. I'd get the KF and the Usborne and use both w/ it, and maybe an atlas of the ancient world if you want it to be a little more hefty for him. These are just some of the things I do, but I don't require them all from my son at once. HTH!

Heather, I just sat here w/ a pencil and notepad doing this - I get the base 10 concept (well, pretty well IMO for someone who's never used SM or another base-10 program). Now I need to know what happened to the 1 that was in the ten's place in that problem - it was part of the number 18 in 53-18. 35 is the answer for 43-8, and also for 53-18, but now that it's all swirling around in my head, I have to know: in the base-10 approach to the problem, where did the 1 go? :confused::tongue_smilie: I'm taking the plunge and getting some SM math books used here, so we'll be supplementing Horizons with at least some of it soon - yay! I got textbook 2A free on Paperbackswap.com. Both I and my boys love the look of it and I was able to introduce the concept of division (just for the hey of it) to both of them in one quick little conversation (showing them the book while I was talking), and they got it! Of course, I haven't shown them how to do division problems (like long division but shorter), but they now understand that it's just "taking the groups back apart". For the OP, on the SM site or on their forums, they do mention that in Singapore classrooms they do fact drills in addition to these materials. These are just the books they use - but not the entirety of everything they do. If you feel there's a gap, follow your gut and fill it (that's my opinion anyhow). I believe in having the best of both worlds - conceptual base-10 and other mental math skills *and* quick recall of memorized math facts, but YMMV. :001_smile:

:iagree:This is what came to my mind immediately when I saw this thread. I never did this when I was waitressing in HS or even after. I think they get so used to this syruppy talk that they usually use on guys to get extra tip $$ that they just start doing it w/ everyone. Well, from the few coffee shacks I frequent anyhow - and not all the girls of course, but there are a few that are just special that way. ;)

one I Michelle, I'm using Horizons too but I use it as a spine with many other things. I'm ordering Learning Wrap-ups to use as an alternate for flashcards sometimes, and there's free worksheets you can make (just set the parameters/number families) at www.worksheetworks.com. MUS has a free math drill worksheet site too. We use MUS' skip-counting drill song CD, a Melissa & Doug set of play money (this is a BIG set to satisfy their desire for BIG numbers), Mighty Mind & Super Mind, Monkey Math (game), some Abeka flashcards for Roman numerals and measures, hands-on activities for measurements of all types, I make up patterns (numbers, rythms, colors, shapes, directional, etc.) for the kids to figure out and finish, we use Abeka's felt fraction set but I've been thinking of looking at MUS' hands-on stuff for fractions, decimals, & percents... I've also got TM's from other curriculms on the shelf to help explain things from another angle, to add in things that maybe Horizons doesn't cover yet, or just to mix things up a bit. We do our math "lesson" (the time w/ me teaching) from the Horizons TM but with my own substitutions and hands-on activities to demonstrate concepts. For the "math paper" time, I cross out problems if there are too many of the same kind. SWB recommends doing this w/ some other programs that don't even have as many of the same type per page as Horizons, so it is OK to do if you dc has the concept down pat. I end up crossing out alot - they think that's great. I don't cross out things they need to practice though, plead as they may. I think there comes a point in math where all kids just have to do it b/c it has to be done, esp. fact family memorization. This week my oldest son (doing Horizons 2) was complaining about flash card drills. I gave him some options on other ways to learn his fact families: copy them (from something I write/type up), fill out blank multiplication grids, read them out loud, or just use plain 'ol flashcards. If you don't want to have to change curriculum entirely, you could explore using Horizons as a spine too. I plan to add in some Singapore math as supplement next year. Best wishes in finding what works best for your dc!

Horizons K & 2. Calvert K5. Abeka K4 & 3rd. Univ. of Chicago Everyday Math 1st grade (from when ds8 was in ps) Saxon 2 & 3. Someone help! Convince me that I only need to keep what I'm using! I keep trying to convince myself to sell the others, but a nagging 'what if I need this for supplement, or to see how this program teaches ___ differently, etc.' feeling keeps me from getting rid of them! :D

:lurk5:

So I finally did a little research, looked at some online samples and tables of contents from different curricula. If I am going to use a purchased science program next year, I've narrowed it down to the God's Design for Heaven & Earth series, Apologia Astronomy w/ God's Design for the earth science part, or Elemental Science. I've emailed Pata with some of my questions about Elemental, but I thought some of you might have used the other 2. How do God's Design & Apologia compare for astronomy? I noticed historical figures like Copernicus, Galileo, & Newton in God's Design table of contents, but the Apologia table of contents *seems* to go deeper with each planet. It could just be that they have more sub-headings than GD listed in their Table. I plan to use a classical approach in my expectations for my kids no matter what curricula I purchase (or not) - I can tweak something for that. I would like to be able to get extra books from the library for supplementary reading - but not b/c a curriculum isn't meaty enough. I'd really like it to incl. mentions (at least ) of scientists throughout historyto tip me off that it's time to check out a book on that person for further reading. I like experiments alot, but plan to teach first and use the experiment as a way to cement the lesson for grammar stage, not the other way around (i.e., I don't want a text that asks "what do you think will happen" to my 1st grader when he truly doesn't know what will happen and therefore cannot form a good hypothesis). I do want something that includes as much as possible, that goes as indepth as possible. I will probably tweak and pick and choose what topics we cover if there's too much for our time frame. On that note, do you think doing the entire God's Design Heaven & Earth series in 1 year is too much? Was it meant to be that way? What about doing the 2 GD earth sci. books and the Apologia book for astronomy? Too much? The apologia site says to take a whole year on it, but that would screw up my nice neat 4-year cycle plan. :tongue_smilie: Thoughts, suggestions, experiences? Any are more than welcome!

Labor began with my dd when my water broke on a Friday evening at 6:30 PM. Labor was slow, and stalled for 4 hours during the day on Saturday. They put in a pitocin line, and she was born Sunday night at 11:42 PM. This was w/o any type of painkillers. Yikes. She was a preemie and I had eclampsya (toxemia) - complications. My next 2 (boys) were 9 lbs, and 9 lbs 3 oz. Somehow I was able to get those watermelons out in an hour. :001_huh:

Not to freak you out or anything, but there are some really huge moths in some parts. I don't think vampire bats live in the US, do they? (anyone have a definite answer?) The rest are harmless.

I went to my state's education testing website, where they have all their GLE's (grade level expectations). Get this - they want 3rd graders to respond to a reading passage by giving their opinion! :lol: I can just hear it now, "My 3rd grade position on the book, The Wizard of Oz, is that Dorothy should have just stayed home.", or "Why did I have to read this whole thing?". :D After just listening to some of SWB's CD's recently and clarifying my overall hs'ing direction, those GLE's were good for a little comic relief. They really are throwing advanced assignments at very young kids w/o having enough time yet to instill good skills to accomplish them. Anyhow... back to the update, my state doesn't test for history in elementary grades. :tongue_smilie: There is a section in the GLE's for AK state history, but it's not divided up by grade level like the other skill subjects and science are, it just has 'depth of knowledge' levels 1-4, 4 being 12th grade. History, however, is not on the state standards test. YAAAAY!!!! Now I can proceed as I wish. Ds is happy with a Magic Tree House book on the Revolutionary War for now, is excited to read the MTH Civil War book we also have, and looks forward to our library visit this weekend along w/ a long phonecall to papa for answers to his war questions. He's particularly interested in the Vietnam war - of all things - simply b/c people he knows were there. I wonder how to key it down for such an innocent, yound mind? I'll leave that to papa. ;)

TN mama, I'm in the same boat as you for science next year (grades of kiddos and all). I haven't even had time to look at samples of curricula online, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I'll tweak any program to death. I HIGHLY recommend, if you haven't already, listening to SWB's CD "Science in the Classical Curriculum". I apologize if I've got the title partially wrong - I didn't look at the CD really; just popped it into the CD player in the van. Can you tell by my posts that I spend alot of time in that darn van? lol Anyhow, sitting down w/ this CD and taking notes would really give clarity to: 1) your overall goal in sci. for your dc's grade/age level, 2) help you define your direction, and 3) a detailed description of how to implement them. It's around 5 bucks at PHP and worth more than that (for me anyhow), for bringing all the detailed instructions in TWTM in under one cohesive 'perspective umbrella'. It helped me get the big picture. HTH!