spelling at all. His older brothers used SWO and did just fine with it. He needed more explicit teaching\awareness of phonograms and rules. I would not bother at all with any step that your child just "gets". There's no need. For my ds, somehow the phonics he already knew from reading (he easily learned to read more than a year before we started spelling) did not translate to spelling. These skills use different parts of the brain, I'm told. Some kids will move the knowledge around, some won't. So, to answer your question, don't spend any time on stuff your child doesn't need.

And his retention of the material is no better with video than with reading. I am teaching him how to outline as he listens and this is going well. Thanks for the thoughts though!

I agree absolutely that outlining of some kind is needed. I also agree that I need to teach and review everything we do. He is capable of outlining, and does do it. It's more that it doesn't seem to be very effective in helping him to retain the material. What I'm hoping for is to find a way to help him to retain, and resources to improve his critical reading skills. Any other methods that are out there, besides what we are already doing? I do read what he reads, and we discuss, but maybe not enough for him to really retain well. Thanks all!

employee, so we get half off. Otherwise, we would never consider it. Very expensive!

He is 15, a tenth grader, and has never struggled to read. However, as I came to TWTM late, his childhood was saturated with too much twaddle. As a result, he has not learned, and I've not known how to teach him, how to read more difficult works. For example, I am teaching him US history this year (his choice). He's not particularly engaged in this material, but when I assign him a chapter to read, he retains very little. When we try to read something challenging, like The Federalist, he just doesn't seem to have the stamina to struggle with the material enough to get something out of it. I've tried getting him to outline, and the result is he HATES outlining, and still doesn't retain much. I've also thought about assigning him one essay from The Federalist per week, to read daily for five days, and then explain\teach it to me. Tried reading How to Read a Book with him, got through a lot of it, but he's just not implementing the methods it recommends. Help!!

nt

But police states don't just happen overnight. The fact is, as Jenny shows in the article she linked, President Bush has moved the USA closer to this status. Does anyone seriously doubt that this is true? The idea that an innocent person can be refused entry into their own land for 11 months, without any explanation, is a sign that for some small parts of our population are already experiencing the USA as less than democratic.

Your post does make me wonder what happens if you were to have a sudden family illness (in your ILs I mean). Would you simply be barred while the Department of Homeland Security "investigates"? I really hope this does not happen to you. I can't imagine how difficult that would be. In the months after 9\11, my friend's Canadian DIL (she had been Canadian until she married an American citizen) and her American son and grandson visited DIL's family in Canada. DIL was detained at the border returning home and was unable to return to her home in the US for 11 months. Her 3 yo ds suffered during this time-he was simply too little to comprehend why his mommy was suddenly gone. She was never able to learn why she was refused entry to the US, and why the decision was ultimately changed. They truly feared she'd never be granted permission to return, and had begun plans to move the family to Canada. The little boy was taken home by his Dad because they all feared he'd not be recognized as an American citizen if he stayed with his mom, despite being born here to American parents. Police state indeed. It's scary.

Plenty of people work *very* hard and are not rich, or even close to it. There is not a clear-cut relationship between industriousness and wealth. Yes, often working hard and making sacrifices pays off, but sometimes, often, it doesn't. Some factors are beyond individuals' control.

go back to level one long enough to learn the rules. The rules, and the phonograms, are the essence of the program and IMO without them, you'll miss 90% of the benefits of it. The rules are on the "Key Cards".

Tiger and Fluffy. Can you guess what they look like? Actually, the other two of the litter had slightly more creative names-one was Garfield, the other Hermes. They are now in the homes of friends who renamed them Anakin Skywalker and Loki. So there you have it.

Yes, it depends on who you are compared with but I'd venture that even someone who is upper middle class, here in the richest nation in the world (I'm guessing), would consider $250,000 wealthy. I have family members (entire families) who live on a tiny fraction of that. Very tiny.

nt

a clear reflection of what a given child has learned. My ds was in school for all of elementary school, sixth grade and ninth grade. He would look as if he was doing all kinds of amazing stuff, but in reality his mastery of many subjects was incomplete. He finds the wasy we do math better-we move on only when he has mastered a topic. Also, character. It is better shaped at home by parents IMO.

grammar\copywork\occasional narration book. It wouldn't have enough copywork for your son, IMO. I think just start with him at the beginning. Find a manuscript workbook and insist he do a page daily. Practice will make it much easier and he'll take less and less time. FLL is a good place to begin to learn grammar, and it also teaches some narration and copywork. For my child, we do much more narration, using our history and science. So to sum up I think start with a straightforward handwriting workbook like Zaner-Bloser and start with oral narrations. When the physical act of writing is easier for him you can begin to narrow the gap between those two.

I know we don't do nearly as much. And it STILL feels like a lot to me. I do FLL, daily copywork, AAS, math (some RS and some Singapore), reading (books to go with SOTW 2) SOTW 2 with AG, and science here at home-astronomy. I agree with others that a part of what you need to do (assuming you haven't already done it) is decide what co-op is for. Then fill in the blanks at home. Treasure your time while she is small.

And train garden! We go to two of them every year.

And It's a Wonderful Life-can't forget that. And Elf!

We read the same stories almost every year: Gift of the Magi (I cry) A Christmas Carol The Night Before Christmas Father Christmas Letters (a new fave) Child's Christmas in Wales Listen to the same music: Messiah Elvis Blue Christmas Album Silly kid's Christmas album Bake the same things; bunches of kinds of cookies same Christmas eve dinner-oyster stew then go to UU church evening service Same breakfast-bagels and lox Santa still leaves boot tracks in the fireplace ashes Enough?

recommended and will look at more in the coming days. It all looks very helpful.

only one of my three hasn't been in school at all, and he's only a second grader. My oldest chose to return to school last year, for ninth grade. He was very happy, did well, made friends, good kids, but guess what? He's home again now, by choice. He realized that he really valued the freedom, he wanted to work (!) and believed that he was not taken seriously in school, and that many of his peers didn't take it seriously. School is not all bad. Especially if your children have been at home all of these years, they very likely will make nicer friends, work harder, and learn more than if they had always been there. You might even find you are energized enough to tackle it again after a break.

I would hear nothing but grief and complaints if *I* assigned such a long book. It was recommended to him by a pretty girl from summer camp. I am reading The Federalist Papers, some Anti-Federalist, and various US history books.

One has done camp and a distance course, one has done camp. Honestly after this year, I think I will not encourage them to go to the day camp. It is expensive and they have had OK, but not really thrilling, experiences there. What I probably will take advantage of again is the sleepover camp, held at a college campus, for kids ages 13-16. My 15 yo did it this summer and it changed his life. He returned feeling that he had spent three weeks with kindred spirits, and has been in regular touch with many of these kids, exchanging books, talking. I talked to another boy I met recently who had been at the camp, and he said the very same thing.

He is in tenth grade and ultimately wants to "speed through" calculus so that he can do more "proofy" math. It's my impression that he can do more proofy math starting with algebra, but I need some resources for this. I already have Gelfand's algebra, and we've worked through about 2\3 of the book. Are there any other recommendations for theoretical math? He's finishing up algebra 2, we are starting trigonometry soon. He's done geometry already. Thanks in advance.

It is only one of my kids and it was chronic, lifelong in a way. Things are actually much much better now, but in our case it was really a combination of this child being a "high need" kid, and our not recognizing this sufficiently, and our lack of vigilance allowing the situation to get out of hand. I agree with others who've said there is a deeper problem. Peek-a-boo pointed out that addressing this, then gradually reintroducing the tempting object\activity works and I totally agree with this. Basically don't ask them questions that present an opportunity to lie. Play the omnisicient parent. If you are truly wrong about something, you can tell from their response that they really are innocent. At least, I am lucky that my kid is not a good liar. Also, don't play a cat and mouse game of limits on the computer. My kid defeated every attempt we made to limit his computer use handily. It is unlikely you will be technologically smarter than your teen-or at least that is the case here. We password the internet or take the cord when we want it off. I also strongly recommend you read the book "Hold onto You Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers" by Neufeld and Mate. It addresses the relationship between parent and child in a novel way that intuitively made sense to me. I found that paying closer attention to my child's relationship with me was critical to strenghthening our bond, and ultimately this ended the lying and sneaking. As homeschoolers the issue may not be peer attachments so much as it is lack of strong attachments to parents, but the end result is the same.