You can do this (browse documentaries) on a web browser on a computer too. But still no advanced search. It's annoying! There is this site -- http://www.instantwatchdb.com/ -- that allows you to do an advanced search on netflix instant play options. Unfortunately, when I searched for chemistry documentaries, none were listed. I'm sure they would have something in the discs, though, if only you can find it. Do you know about this site? http://www.neok12.com/ They have tons of educational videos for students. Here's a whole set on chemical reactions: http://www.neok12.com/Chemical-Reactions.htm

Thank you! Bumping for the morning crowd.

I forgot to mention the Uncle Eric books by Richard Maybury, covering several civics topics, such as: All the Uncle Eric books can be found here at Bluestocking Press.

Do you teach it? What do you cover and when? Any resources to recommend? I'm from the U.S., so my contributions will be U.S.-centric but folks from any country are welcome to join in. So, it's pretty clear to me that the traditional semester of government in high school is not sufficient for preparing students to be good citizens. I think we need to be talking about these topics every year in increasing depth, just like health and nutrition and other life skills. I'm not even sure what topics "civics" generally encompasses. Maybe: rights and responsibilities of citizenship structure of government (federal, state, local) elections and political parties current events (local, national, and global) different forms of government economics media and bias fundamental documents (Declaration of Independence, Constitution) law What am I missing? The following resources are ones I've found through searches. I haven't used any of them yet -- icivics.org -- free online lesson plans and games Prentice Hall Civics text Civics in America Teaching America: The Case for Civic Education

The bolded is something we did too. When my ds finished a spelling level, we took him to the bookstore to pick out a new book to read. It's something we would do once in awhile anyway, but tying to to an accomplishment seemed to make it fun without any harm. We haven't done a lot of rewards, but we did do that.

The bolded made me laugh. :lol:

First of all, did she follow the instructions on selecting a topic? If she follows the directions and includes the right number of main events, in my experience the word counts come out right on target. I don't let my ds start writing until I have approved his planning of the paper. It would be so demoralizing to him to have to do it over or to add more when he thought he was done. Secondly, I find my slow writing son needs to break those assignments into two days at least. For the Alexander assignment, he spent one day just planning his paper (selecting main events and details). Then he probably spent two days writing the paper. If it's a four-paragraph paper, I'd ask him to write two paragraphs each day, for example. (He got faster as the year went on.) I would NOT address her use of time words right now. The rubric says to use time words, and she did. That's all you need to worry about for now. It does get easier. My ds struggled a lot at the beginning, but it got SO much easier. By the end of the year he was writing 400 word papers fairly easily. He can do 200 words in a session fairly easily now. In fact, he started writing a novel this summer, completely of his own accord! I suggest taking your time with the program. If you need to stretch out assignments over a few days, do it. We didn't get through the whole program last year, and we'll be picking it up again right where we left off.

I'm planning to use it with my son this fall. I ordered my books last week! I was attracted by three things: the dual instruction method that GGardner explained, the inclusion of significant cultural material, and the sheer beauty of the text. There is so much high-quality art in these books. I can't wait to see them in print. It is expensive. We shopped around for used texts but ended up purchasing new from the bolchazy site. It was cheapest overall. If you look around the site you can find a LOT of samples provided, including the full text of the first three or so chapters. I'm really looking forward to this program. My ds has done LFC Level A and (most of) B, but we'll start with LNM Level 1 at the beginning. My tentative plan is to do Levels 1 and 2 over the next three years. We'll see how it goes.

I didn't see the thread that inspired this one, but I appreciated your post. Thank you for your kind words, and I'm sorry you got flack for them. As a mother of an only child, I have been on the receiving side of hurtful comments and attitudes. Happy, healthy families come in all sizes, as do unhappy ones. I try never to comment on family size.

This does look useful. Thanks for the link!

Thanks. That makes sense. Me too!

Can you explain this, redsquirrel? Do you mean the beta-test is not the full WWS2 program or that WWS2 itself is not a full program? We (luckily, I guess) didn't finish WWS Level 1 last year, so we'll keep plugging away at that. I expect to finish around January. Not sure what we'll do after that. ETA: Anyone know what the expected publication date of WWS2 is? (The final product, not the beta test.)

:iagree: With some folks, skip the subtlety and just be direct. Direct doesn't mean impolite.

Oh, that is good news, indeed. That gives us some more breathing room.

Yup, that's why I do it too. Or sometimes they'll say, "You should read so-and-so's thread about dictation", so it's off to the profile I go. I wish people would link to old threads instead. It would save me the work! I do hit them accidentally sometimes too.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't know this. What does socially conservative mean?

:iagree:They may well want to add a notation, but they'll have special materials for doing so, not your normal post-its from home.

I really like what I see in the sample pages. Thanks for the link! What ages would you say this book is best for?

Me too! Does that make me hip too?

Yes. And not the bride!

I don't know what this is in reference to. Are you doing a party or something? Anyway, bangers and mash is sausage and mashed potatoes. We've made butter beer a couple of times. It has rootbeer and butter -- you can find recipes online. Sounds fun!

Don't homeschooled students have to spend time doing those things too? Probably they wouldn't have the other problem you mentioned (waiting all of the class to get help from the teacher), but one would hope that ps students would use that time wisely by pulling out their Spanish homework or something. I don't know. We seem to spend an awful lot of time on some of the things people mention in this thread as time wasters in public school -- dealing with papers, going over old assignments, discussing new assignments. We aren't "efficient" homeschoolers, I guess. I joke that a 15 minute lesson takes us 40 minutes. I do think everything would take my ds much longer in ps, because he has great difficulty concentrating in a group setting. But we have never been done in 2 hours past kindergarten and maybe first grade.

So do you not do any retellings at all? No fairy tales, Greek myths, King Arthur, etc.? What is "the real thing" for Robin Hood, for example? Personally, I am very comfortable using retellings for stories that are based primarily on oral tradiion and also ones that are the MOST foundational to western tradition. So Greek myths, Homer, Bible, and myths and legends from around the world. I also use Shakespeare retellings to introduce a work before we see a production. Where I depart from WTM philosophy is in retellings of novels. We don't do adaptations of Mark Twain or H.G. Wells or Hemingway.

Children's Homer is a retelling, as is the Sutcliff book the OP is planning to read. Both are substantially abridged and written in language children can understand. Fagles is a translation, which is a whole different kettle of fish. To read a full translation of the Odyssey would be a serious undertaking for most 6th graders. OP, I like your idea of adding some translation excerpts to your retellings. I wish I had thought of that! The only bit I did was to pull out my Fitzgerald translation and read the first couple of pages aloud to my ds. Maybe you could pick a story your dd liked the most and read that?

Are you looking at a different sample than I am? All I see is a chapter about two kids going off to camp. Nothing about grade levels or additional reading. :confused: