Annabel Lee
-
Posts
2,468 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Blogs
Classifieds
Store
Posts posted by Annabel Lee
-
-
I've got some appliances that are about to kick the bucket but before I shop, I'd like to get your recommendations for a good dishwasher, washer & dryer, and shelves.
My current dishwasher takes almost 4 hours to run one cycle, and it doesn't clean anything off the dishes - I have to scrub them first and then the dishwasher is basically just a sanitizer. I don't want those problems in a new one; I want it to be fast, even on the "pots & pans/heavy" setting. Quietness & energy efficiency are important, but they are a close second to cycle time.
I'd also like a large capacity washing machine that doesn't take forever and handles everything from hand wash to heavily soiled. The dryer needs to dry the clothes in a timely manner with the usual options of air, low, or high temp drying. Really, time efficiency is the biggie for me.
I have had the hardest time finding decent bookshelves (for the paper kind of books that you read - I find it funny to have to clarify that). I need solid, heavy-duty wood bookcases that will hold a lot of weight on each shelf (as in shelves full of encyclopedias and then some). My current bookcases are made of press-board (or particle board, or Sauder) and are bowing badly, and I worry that they'll break and hurt someone. Where do people buy good bookshelves?
TIA!
-
:crying: Oh no! Your family is in my prayers. :grouphug:
-
Bad. Horrible. SO SO SO far behind. As in the kind of behind in the thread titled "How far behind is really 'behind?'" Is the light at the end of the tunnel maybe just a train coming at me? I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I have dealt with serious health issues over the years, and on top of that, we've been sick with what the Dr. says is a milder form of pertussis since mid-September despite being vac'd for that. The major health issues were not flaring up as much by September, but then we got sick. There are many subjects for which we haven't even touched our main curriculum yet this year.
Sorry to be such a downer. Hopefully after a month or so I can give better news that we've made good, solid progress.
-
Get the Eclectic Readers republished by John Wiley & Sons. Those are what SWB recommends in TWTM, and I haven't been disappointed. Rainbow Resource sells them. These are the orange/blue ones that Hunter described above (unless there are other orange/blue ones).
-
-
I'm giving Star Wars themed science kits (biology & physics topics), and a Star Wars Origami book. My kids really enjoyed Darth Paper & Origami Yoda, so this is right up their alley. I'm secretly hoping it will pave the way for Patty Paper Geometry.
Other school-ish gifts include a puzzle (maybe Geopuzzles?), books, a drawing instruction book(s) for one that is interested, and Axis & Allies.
-
-
Oh HAAAAAAILLLLLLLLL NO!
Don't do it! Please, don't do it!
-
In the end, I think he'll find he likes your enthusiastic kisses more than his beard.
I don't advocate anything like retaliation, but 2 can play at "no shaving". ;)
-
I think I'm ditching some of the historical fiction listed in BP and Illuminations guides for the imaginative literature listed in TWTM Reading sections. We have plenty of history reading in our history lessons. I'll keep some historical fiction on the list, but I don't like it being the bulk of our lit. studies. I'm leaning more towards CHOLL & WTM-recommended titles.
What are your top 10 not-to-be-missed Imaginitive Literature titles for ancient times for grade 4 and for grade 6? By "imaginative lit." I mean myths, legends & fables such as (just for example) Gilgamesh, Iliad, Odyssey, Aesop - the literature of the time. What are your absolute favorite titles/authors/retellings/versions for 4th & 6th?
Thanks!:bigear:
-
If a parent subscribes to "better late than early" I think a child can make up K-5 pretty quickly. After that, it become increasingly harder.
I need clarification - do you mean a child can make up Kindergarten through 5th grade pretty quickly during 5th grade & beyond or do you mean something else?
-
I only saw Boo-Bah the first time it aired on my PBS. It was like one of those things that is so horrible you just can't look away. I kept waiting for them to talk. Why don't they talk? How do they propel themselves in the air like that? Are they passing gas? Do they live in outer space? Are they aliens? WHAT were the creators of this show on? Why does BBC always have the weirdest children's shows?
-
bacabunch, yes! I just came across instructions in dh's vintage Webelo's handbook.
-
What a nuisance! Those kids are old enough to know better! :angry:
If I were you, I think I'd make an effort to meet whichever parent lives in your neighborhood to see what he or she is like. It may well be that the parent is even more rude and annoying than the kids, in which case you may have a long road ahead of you with this family. OTOH, the parent may not realize that the kids are such a pain, and might be helpful to you in dealing with them. You won't know until you try.
But after the Rude Fudge Incident, I'm not holding out too much hope for a lovely and well-mannered parent. For crying out loud, who wouldn't thank a new neighbor for bringing fudge??? :glare:
I'm sorry you have to deal with this. :grouphug:
:iagree: OP, if you make homemade fudge for me, I will mow & weed your lawn and clean all chalk messes for you and even wash your car. :D
Seriously though, I think my old neighbors moved into your neighborhood. It turned out the parents were even ruder & more clueless about common decency than their kids. I had to give the kids (who were between 7 & 12, btw) specific boundaries such as "No, they cannot play with you until Tuesday. You may come to our house on Tuesday after 3pm, but not until then." Nothing else was working, but that finally worked. They were over here ALL. THE. TIME. It's another story... but in short, I feel your frustration.
-
Yes. MIL just doesn't get it, and actually had the nerve to argue with me about why we should be able to go here, eat out there, and get this or that. It got to the point that I was about to start sharing budget numbers - housing cost, etc., when I realized that was just too far. I decided I do not have to justify anything to her so I just left it at, "well, we just don't have the money for that", though that was uncomfortable to say. We just don't choose debt for optional purchases. If ever something hugely catastrophic happened, it might be forced on us, but we just don't do debt.
FIL's wife asks for a list of specific items (not just general interests) each of us wants for Christmas each year. She won't take no for an answer, and shopping & specialty gift wrapping are her hobby. It's a bit uncomfortable, but we live very far apart so she sends the presents by mail. This year they'll be visiting here, and I can't help but cringe about the fact that we just can't reciprocate that kind of gift-giving. Normally we just send a card & portraits of the kids. They're from an area where most home-made things just wouldn't be appreciated or even used. I can't afford to purchase things related to their interests without cutting into the small amount I was going to use to get something each for the kids this year. Yep, it's uncomfortable.
-
It's not bound, it's loose-leaf 3-hole punched, for the buyer to put in a binder. I have Yr. 1, the 2011 ed. (post-revision) and though I'm using it, some of it does seem like it was printed off someone's home inkjet printer. There aren't any literature assignments or questions that are tied to the book titles, which is what I think the OP meant by "not book specific". The only questions are in the Cool History, and they are based on the Companion which is a conglomeration of main points from the core source books (SOTW, encyclopedias...) and Biblical/Christian texts/history. It's not the most overtly Christian program available, and I do think it could be used secularly, but if I were looking for a secular program I wouldn't buy it. I actually bought it because it integrates the Bible (in Yr. 1) into history.
The samples show you a whole 3 weeks of 2 different years. Imagine it on computer paper, 3-hole punched. :)
-
Crickets. We "babysat" frogs over the summer for a classroom about 4 yrs. ago.
-
I think this is normal in the beginning (meaning the first few years of homeschooling). I was like this for the first five years or so. This is our 7th year of homeschooling. Once I FINALLY truly figured out our long term plan (like a PreK-6 detailed plan and a rough plan for 7-12) and what method and companies worked best for us I finally started just tweaking here and there instead of doing major overhauls and buying a gazillion supplements and possible supplements, etc. I think it took me homeschooling long enough to realize that I truly can't use everything and I need to spend more time teaching and less time planning if I ever want them to graduate!
I have a one curriculum per subject policy now but I can use more than one in a year if I finish the first one (like one for the main school year and one for summer). Actually, I'm a little more flexible with summer and can use more than one in some subjects, but during the school year I am strict about it because there is only so much time. Now, for me, language arts is really 5 subjects (English which includes phonics/spelling and grammar, handwriting/copywork, composition in grades 2 and up, literature, and oral reading), but everything else is more obviously limited.
I basically realized one year that CC fits so many of our needs and goals and so I've built most of what we do from their suggestions and resources or variations of it (like using Logic of English instead of The Writing Road to Reading and adding in Greek from the same company they recommend for Latin, etc.). Then I add in living books from Veritas and anything that Veritas produces, but not their recommendations (there are just too many). We use Saxon for Math and this year decided to try their phonics. I realized that the same philosophy that made their math great for us also would work in that area. But that was a minor tweak, not a major overhaul. I dropped all of Memoria Press's products even though I still drool over some of them because I can't do all of VP and MP so I made myself pick one and I felt VP fit better with CC and with my long term goals.
My point is that I had to make rules for myself for curriculum. I had to limit the companies I would follow and use. I had to limit the number of curricula per subject. I had to make a long term plan that I was committed to sticking to and not messing with that much, and part of how I came to that was I saw what I wanted them to be doing in 7th-12th and I focused on how to get them to that point. But the rules are working nicely for me. Now, I still have kept a lot of things I liked before and they still influence my teaching some, etc. but I have been able to let go of other things and I hope to be able to let go of even more in time.
Now, what I have not limited myself to is the buying of living books. I have no rules about that except that I have preferred book lists (for me Veritas and CC's list) that I want to spend my money on first and after that it is only limited by how much money I can afford to spend, which right now isn't much. But I LOVE having a fabulous home library and I don't see that changing anytime soon!
:iagree::iagree::iagree: Couldn't agree more. I had to set rules for myself as well. We had so much breadth from all the various curricula that it was hard to take time for much depth, let alone moving forward.
Parts of the problem linger with me, though. For instance, I chose to use Elemental Science Biology for the Logic Stage with the assignments done exactly per TWTM. I will get all the listed supplies in the ES book, BUT, I also want to get all the listed things for logic-stage biology in TWTM. There's a LOT there to choose from, and sometimes I have a hard time identifying which things are meant to be a choice vs. a comprehensive supply list. I had my kids look at the list of science kits but there are only a handful they nixed. I think I need to learn to envision exactly how & when we will use a resource before comitting to it with money. The main resource books are harder to choose from, especially when each is recommended for a specific purpose (but we NEED Creepy Crawlies to learn the Scientific Method properly! And we NEED that encyclopedia because TWTM says it is an excellent resource for reports! And... on and on.)
While I've had to limit myself as well, I still have a hard time within those limits. Maybe I need to create some kind of rough schedule that would let me see how long a book/kit/etc. would take & where I have time to plug it in (or not). That would help me be more realistic instead of collecting & dusting great ideas.
I've also learned the hard way not to order all the books ahead of time for heavily literature-based programs right off the bat. I will from now on get the list and research each book carefully, either online or even getting them on loan from the library if need be, to identify which ones I think we'll actually read.
-
Indoor pop-up tent? They could use it for all sorts of imaginative play and living room camp-outs, and it would fold small and flat for easy clean-up.
I was thinking pop-up tents too, but like this: http://www.playhut.com/
They're also sold at amazon, Target, etc. I almost got rid of our set thinking my two youngest kids are too old for it, but during a rainy spell this summer they set it up in the dining room and had a blast with their cousin. I recommend getting a set with connecting tunnels if you can.
-
Whether one uses MUS Algebra as a Pre-A is another thing really. And that could be done with any easier Algebra program such as Jacobs, TT, etc... I think spending more time on Algebra itself is a great idea and plan to do the same thing. But I'd rather use other progams for it such as TabletClass, Foerster and Zaccaro's Real World Algebra.
I'm following with interest here as I use Horizons elementary grade math as well. I remember those old threads and took notes outlining my post-6th grade math options. Can you please expand on what you mean by Jacobs being an easier Algebra program? I'm not challenging the notion, I'm just wondering what about it is different from Foerster's?
-
Oh my gosh! Star Wars & science kits together! My boys will just:svengo:. :party:
Look at this one, too: http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Science-Dagobah-Habitat/dp/B001UZRPJI/ref=pd_bxgy_t_text_y, the frog can consult Yoda when it comes out of the cave, lol.
They also have Star Wars Death Star Planetarium and a holographic animation kit.
Thank you so much!
-
I'll dig up the policy and read it as suggested just to be thorough, but it sounds like it's not something that's normally or easily done. We don't have any family in OH and she's never even stepped foot in that state. *sigh* We could swing the in-state tuition, but not the out-of-state. Hopefully that will be all the more incentive for girly to raise her GPA every little point she can for scholarships. She's focused only on OH State right now for their psych program but I'm going to suggest she pick out a number of other schools as well.
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.
-
WTM 3rd ed. recommends the Smithsonian Bio Dome Habitat, now called the Eco Dome Habitat. Everywhere I look to purchase, the reviews are horrible - cracking plastic pieces, instructions that say to use scotch tape to hold things together, can't withstand any pressure or it falls apart. I will not have those critters loose in my home so I won't buy it. Is there another "biodome" that has multiple interlocking habitats to observe interaction between various habitat dwellers?
-
That's what I was wondering - if my dd moved there and worked for a year, if she could establish residency. I'm referring to trying to establish residency in Ohio in case that helps.
Do most people use the TMs for Building Thinking Skills?
in Logic Stage & Middle Grade Challenges
Posted
I recently saw both the BTS 2 student workbook & TM on a friend's shelf. I didn't even know CTC sold TMs for BTS. How many of you use(d) the TMs with it? If you've seen or used it, what does it add to the program? Am I missing something by not having the TMs?