We are done. My plans are on my blog. Curriculum Plans Jennie

I own a Whipser Mill. The biggest issue I have had with mine is it clogging up. My dh has taken it apart on more than one occasion to free up the grinding mechanism. I have to be very careful how much I mill at one time especially with the soft pastry wheat berries. They clog mine more than anything else. Also, the mechanism on mine that allows me to determine the coarseness of the flour no longer works. I have had my Whisper Mill for about 8 years now. If it bit the dust, I would get a Nutrimill. As for kneading, it makes no difference. I have done it by hand, in a food processor and in a Bosch mixer. If you knead by hand, you really do have to knead it for 10-15 minutes though to get the right texture. Jennie

That's right. CLE language arts finishes in 8th grade and then becomes English I and English II. They are all Sunrise Editions though. The high school English drops spelling and penmanship. It is grammar in LU 1-3 and then a LU on an essay and one on giving a speech. The Literature 1 is also Sunrise Lightunits set up in the same fashion as the CLE reading in the lower grades. Does that help? Let me know if you need further clarification. Jennie

April, I am going to do the English and Literature 1 next year along with Writer's Jungle for my son. That should do it for his English credit. I also want him to have some full length literature, but I will incorporate them with history. I am not sure how to break that down credit wise. Jennie

April, He is currently doing the 800 level of language arts because it took him 2 years to do the 700 level. Next year, as a 10th grader, he will do CLE English 1 plus I have a writing program that I am doing, and our history is lit. based. So, yes, he will also do English II as an 11th grader. I don't see this as being a problem for him. He is not doing English 1 currently, but I did purchase it already. Let me know if you want me to look something up. Jennie

I just want to follow up on the diagnostic test for 500-800 math. I just learned from the CLE rep that it is being worked on, but is not available as a pdf file yet. He did not have a date, but said it should be soon. Sorry about that. Jennie

My 7th grade daughter does both CLE 7 and Lightning Lit 7. I do not do the short stories and poems from LL7 as she gets that in CLE. As Michelle pointed out, the CLE reading is plenty challenging. I actually feel that the Lightning Lit is not particularly thought provoking, and my dd doesn't really think so either. Jennie

Since the diagnostic tests are readily available, I would just give the test and see where they place. The high school grammar portion is much more abbreviated than the language arts program that goes through 8th grade as it is only 5 light units of grammar. I think that is appropriate for high school. I took a look at a lot of public and private high school English sylllabi and found that many, if not most, drop all grammar in high school in favor of literature and writing. Like you, I feel that my son still needs a little grammar still, so we have decided to continue with CLE. Jennie

With math and language arts, I recommend having the students take the diagnostic test. It is now on line in a pdf file, so you do not need to buy it. All you have to do it print it along with the teacher's guide, so you know that you are administering it and scoring it correctly. You can also look through the scope and sequence to compare. However, since the diagnostic test is so readily available, and you do not have to wait for it to be shipped, I would print it and have him take the 500-800 test. The test would have him start at level 500. If he passes it then he takes the 600 level. If he passes that then he would be ready to go right into the 700 level math. Hmmm, I have to apologize. I was ready to link you to the 500-800 level math diagnostic test, but there is no pdf file for it. I will have to check that out and get back to you on that one. Jennie

I posted some pictures on my blog of Natalie's lesson yesterday, and some one month pictures of the foal. I hope you can stop by and take a look. Jennie

Connie, On the Yahoo group there are several schedules listed for the various books. Some are 12 week, 15 week or 36 week. I just pick from one of those. I don't like reinventing the wheel. :) Jennie

When all my children were pre-high school I spend around $500 per year on curriculum. This year I have spent about $975, and I still don't have my son's math curriculum yet. I also haven't paid for his biology class. That will be another $400. In addition we go to a gym and swim program that is about $400 for the year. I will be up to about $1,800 when all is said and done this year. Actually it isn't that bad for educating 4 children. It comes out to be about $450 per child which is actually a very inexpensive tuition. Of course, I do not count horseback riding lessons, 4-H activities, or hockey. Jennie

It would have been nice if I could have actually used it for 30 or 60 days and then gotten a refund. Sometimes you just can't tell how something will work by previewing it. You have to actually use it. I noticed that Sonlight does have a return policy like that. It is the first one I have seen in all my years of homeschooling. Jennie

I confess that as hard as I try, I can't figure out the accented and unaccented syllables in a poem, and neither can my children. We just skip those questions. I can tell you that the 309 language arts light unit does teach a lot about poetry, but alas it does not teach about the accented and unaccented syllables. It just teaches about rhyming and counting syllables in a poem. Jennie

D- We had the same results as you when we treid to use Expansion of Civilization this year. It was a disjoined fact finding mission with no real depth. I know others do well with this. I really had hoped it would have worked for us. It was rather disappointing. Plus it really threw my history program into a tailspin for the first 20 weeks of the school year. This was not something I wanted to go through in the first year of high school. Jennie

Pam, It happened for me when I told Jesus that I needed Him. I knew that I could not get along apart from Him. I can't really explain how it all happened, but I knew that He was what I needed to heal me from the sin in my life. Jennie

One of my twins did CLE 400 reading this year. It is set up so that the child does some vocabulary, reads the story, and answers the questions on one day, and the next day the have "oral reading" and then answer more questions. Even though my dd is a good reader we did the oral reading of the story. She enjoyed snuggling on the couch, and sometimes we even drew a crowd. The other girls liked to listen in on the stories as well. As for the LigthUnits, my dd could complete them independently for the most part. All year long she struggled to understand what a "figure of speech" was. So, those questions gave her some fits. Also, there are some inferential type questions that the student might need help completing. Jennie

Similar to the other ladies who have posted, I had a personal experience with Jesus Christ which gave me the power to discern the truths of Scripture. I grew up with a church going father, and he took us to church and Sunday school from the time we were little girls. However, I never saw Jesus for who He really is until I was 29 years old and in my kitchen on one rainy November afternoon. After that I started to read the Bible, and it was as if I had never seen any of it before. My eyes were totally opened to what I was reading. It was a work of His Holy Spirit. Jennie

Wordless Wednesday Jennie

I just want to piggy back off of what Cynthia wrote. In our case, we do not use every aspect of the language arts program just because it is all in one. The spelling just does not work for me or a couple of my children. So, I just wanted to mention that even though it is AIO, you don't have to use it that way. Jennie

Well, if you look at the idea behind the 4 year history cycle, the first time through it merely exposure. The second time through in the logic stage you get into the "Whys?" more because the children are more cognatively ready for it. Finally, by the time they are in high school and in the rhetoric stage they are in deep, reading primary text, evaluating history, and expressing their thoughts and observations about it. You are doing just fine with the ages you are teaching. If you keep on this path, you will see a depth to their learning. The only thing that I would add is that if you are still in your first round of history when your 8 yo hits the logic stage that you ramp things up more then. Keep up the good work. We used SOTW, and it was just fine for the first time through. Jennie

One summer I worked with a 12 yo boy specifically on handwriting. There was improvement. We use Handwriting Without Tears here, and it has been very successful for my children. I didn't have the older ones write consistently in cursive once they learned it, and now they opt for printing. My twins however write in cursive more than their older siblings. Jennie

My curriculum is purchased with my tax return money, so I do not have a "budget" per se. Jennie

No, my oldest dd has not received it, and my younger girls will not get it unless they chose to as adults. Jennie

From time to time my children get bogged down in the written instruction. Sometimes just reading the instructions aloud helps them understand the instruction. Have you looked at the samples of the language arts program at the CLE website? Langauge Arts Click on "view details" for any grade you are interested in viewing. Then click on any lightunit number, and you will see a new page with a link to samples. If you look at the samples you will see the explanations that are given at the beginning of each lesson. I could not find any samples of self-checks. The LA lightunits have 15 lessons. Two of those lesson days are quizzes, one is a self check and one is the lightunit test. On the quiz days there is a review check list that the student reads through to be sure they know what will be on the test. Theoretically, if the student sees an area that they have a problem they can ask for more help or clarification. Then they take the quiz. In lesson 14, they student does the self-check which is a complete review of the concepts taught in the lightunit. This is a written exercise, and I always check them before the student can take the test. If there is an area of difficulty we can address it again before they take the test. Lesson 15 is the light unit test. I hope that was helpful. Feel free to send me a PM if you need more clarification. Jennie