My kids are still very young so I haven't even considered grading. I think one of the best things my Dad ever did for me was to have really high expectations for writing even at a young age. I would give him papers to read and he always sent them back covered with suggestions/corrections. (He wouldn't correct my mistakes but would circle problems and make me fix them.) At the time I would argue that he was too picky and that the teachers didn't care as much (which was true) but when I got to college I always got very good grades on my papers in English classes (and I was a chemistry/biology major). I would think the most useful thing for Calvin would be to show him what could be done better and then give him the opportunity to re-write it. Then if he's focused on grades you could show him the difference between the "grades" on the two papers and award him the grade on the re-worked paper. Also, I have to say that my son really is named Calvin so I always smile when I see your posts and especially your avatar. I do have another son, but his name isn't Hobbes. :)

Does anyone use just ETC for teaching reading/phonics? I have a 4 yr old. Back in the fall right before he turned 4 I started doing some OPGTR with him which he HATED. But it certainly could have been that he was too young (1st child, overexcited mother syndrome). I backed off the reading with him and we continued doing lots of reading aloud and a loose letter of the week thing. Then recently he started to "sound out" words. I think mostly they were words he knew what they were going to say...we were reading Go Dog Go and he did Big Dog. But still, it seemed that he was reading to do more with reading. So we got out some ETC books I had bought awhile ago and he seems to be liking it and is doing pretty well. We're going super slowly...we're on week 2 of Lesson 1 in Book 1...but that's fine with me. Anyway, I have the teacher's book for ETC and have been doing extra things and not just the workbooks. My question is do I need to add in something else at some point...what would OPGTR or another source add to the picture? If we did OPGTR I would probably just write the words on a whiteboard or something as I think it was mostly too much writing on the page for him to handle. Sorry that got long. If you read it all the way through, thanks! If you have advice, thanks even more. :)

My church has a 3 yr rotation for Sunday School. I teach the 2-4 yr old class and have a 4 yr old class and think it has been really good for all the kids. We use Great Commission Publications material which uses Bible stories along with the catechism. The 4 yr olds get really into it and can totally do all the questions. The 2 yr olds know "Who made you?" "God" and "Where is God?" "Everywhere". I have the book "Big Truths for Little Kids" by Susan Hunt but it was a little too wordy for my guy. I do know a lot of the parents of older kids have used it and really like it.

I loved both of these and they have definitely made a change in how we eat... Michael Pollan has a new book out called "In Defense of Food". I have it on reserve at the library but haven't read it yet. I also just got out a book called " Plenty" by Alisa Smith and J. B. MacKinnon that sounds very similar to Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

Thanks for the info, especially the link to the previous conversation. The local group here is having an information meeting and open house next week. I think I'll go and check it out but I think I may be leaning more toward a co-op or homeschool group. Kathie in VA...I think I saw that you are a Classical Conversations tutor in Va...where are you?..I'm in Falls Church, VA.

Does anyone here participate in a Classical Conversations group? I am looking into it for next year. My son is 4 (will be 5 in 11/08) and I think he would enjoy a little more social time...I'm not really worried about "socialization" but I think he would like a little more time with other kids. I've been thinking about joining a homeschool co-op and had heard of this and thought I'd check it out. On the website they seemed almost too focused on memorization. Also, I wasn't sure how the subject matter would fit into whatever else we're doing. Mostly I'm just looking for something where we (as a family) can meet other homeschoolers in our area and have some fun doing it. I'm not sure if this group would be too formal/academic for those purposes. Any experience?

He died of lung cancer and hospice was wonderful. Like others have said it enabled him to stay at home until the end (he died at home quietly in his sleep with my Mom and Dad there with him). He was able to get all the pain medications he needed as he had a lot of bone pain from the cancer. They also helped with getting him things like a hospital bed. I think it was also very helpful for my Mom (perhaps even more so than for my grandfather). My Mom is very emotional and finds it difficult to make decisions and deal with sickness but was determined to be there until the end. Hospice really gave her the support she needed to be able to do that.

the warm drinks is interesting. My father-in-law only drinks warm water. When we go out to eat it's always a major issue with waiters trying to explain what he wants.

My husband is Chinese-American (ethnically Chinese but born and raised in Indiana). The breakfast food that he grew up with is called "congee" or "jook". It's a rice porridge usually made with already cooked leftover rice. What you put in it depends on what part of China you are from and what you have...according to my husband usually it's leftover meat or veggies from dinner the night before. Personally I find it really bland and not very tasty. I usually joke that it would be better with cheese/salt/pepper (like grits) or honey/raisins/cinnamon (like oatmeal). Both ideas make my husband shudder at the horror or what I would do to the jook. I think Chinese food is very regional so I'm not sure if this is really the most common breakfast across China...my husband's family is Cantonese (southern China). Here is one link I found with a recipe (although I think it's pretty much just rice, add extra water and cook until the consistency of a porridge). http://chinesefood.about.com/library/weekly/aa100499.htm

We did a Letter of the Week study (we're just finishing, on XYX week now). There is the website http://www.letteroftheweek.com which has lots of ideas. I didn't use it that much. What I did was just use my library each week to search for books that would focus on that letter (this week we have a lot of zoo books, zebra books, boX books, foX books, etc). Then we would just spend most of our time reading those books and I kept a list on the wall of words as we came on them. Some weeks when I was more motivated we did "activities" about that letter. And during that week I would always try to point out things we were doing or things that started with the letter. (Last week for W week we talked about Walking and Weather just on our normal walk around the neighborhood.) This is also a cheap way to do it....I don't think I spent anything and it really only took about 20 minutes each week to look up the books online before our library visit. Anyway, it was a pretty laid back way to do things. But it helped me structure things a bit and might also satisfy the "curriculum" need. I'm getting ready to start doing FIAR which I like for this age for the same reason...it's mostly about reading and I think I'll be able to use it how I want. Also, if your daughter likes workbooks you could try the Singapore EarlyBird series. We just started doing those and my son loves them but he has always loved workbook kind of things.

we're in NoVA- suburbs of Washington DC.

I don't know the exact answer but I think it may be that when she wrote the books she took some liberties...they aren't an exact account of her life. When I was researching some things for a potential visit to some of the Laura Ingalls Wilder sites in Minnesota and Wisconsin, I realized that not all the details add up exactly to the books.

Thanks, I think the times I'd seen it referred to the posters were referring to the book. I was just curious.

I keep seeing it referred to but I'm clueless.

Thanks for all the advice! I'll probably let him keep doing his own thing and maybe get the HWOT book for him to start working in sometime soon.

Any advice on handwriting programs for a 4 yr old? I'm not necessarily looking to do anything super structured but he is starting to write on his own without having been taught. I'm wondering if I should teach him or just let him do his thing and worry about it later. It seems a lot of people use HWOT...do you have to use the teacher's manual? And for a child who is already doing letters what level would you start at? Are all the manipulatives necessary? It seems like it can get kind of pricey. Thanks!

I'm Alice, living in Northern Virginia (suburbs of Washington DC). I work part-time as a pediatrician. I have two boys, age 4 and 15 months. We have many friends who home-school and started thinking about it seriously about a year ago. I read WTM at that time and loved it...I think mostly because it's the education I wished I had had. We're obviously very much in the early stages. I'm trying to take the advice of wise Moms who have told me to take it easy now and just let my boys be little. We mostly do a lot of reading, which has been somewhat structured around a Letter of the Week kind of thing. We're about to start doing some FIAR just to help me as I'm a structure/planning kind of girl. I just added in Singapore Earlybird 1A and ETC 1 (just this week) as my son has always seemed to like workbooks and something a little more structured. So far, it's been good and only about 15 minutes a day. I've learned a lot from being a lurker for the past year....thanks to all of the great women here!

I'm working my way through the fiction section of the WEM. I'm reading Clarissa right now. It's excellent. SWB doesn't actually include it in the WEM but it's one of those books I've always meant to read. I'm also reading very very very slowly through A History of Calvinism. Admittedly, I typically fall asleep as it's usually bedtime when I'm reading this one. And I picked up an interesting book at the library called Proust and the Squid about the neuroscience of reading...but it's a little hard to get into so far.

I posted a handful of times on the old boards but read them most every day. I have two kids but they are young...4 and 15 months...so I sort of feel like a homeschooling-wanna-be-mom. We plan on homeschooling and I love coming here and looking at people's blogs to get ideas and be inspired. But I haven't felt like I have much to add to the conversation....yet. :)