I think your experience has been with inferior tables. Drop-leaf tables I've used take a few seconds to take up and down and we've never squashed any body parts. It doesn't solve your problem of a person being trapped during a meal, but it might give you a little more room in between meals. The large family with small kitchen that I know built a custom-sized table. It was very long and narrow and had benches on the sides. You can fit a lot of skinny kid hips on a bench.

My ds would love a Redwall movie!

This is what we do, too. The first few minutes of each day are for review, no matter where we are in a step. The last few minutes are for dictation, no matter where we are in a step. In between, we make as much progress as we make.

I agree, unless the assignment was a simple summary of another article on the same subject. If, however, she's expected to sift through numerous resources, as well as draw on her own personal experience, to formulate a thesis and illustrate it with details, well, that's way more than my ds could have done in 5th grade. That's not just "writing a paragraph". It's a whole boatload of skills crammed into one deceptively simple-looking assignment.

We're in a similar situation. We live far from all of our family. When ds was younger, we just took the time off whenever there were visits. And we find one of the benefits of homeschooling is the flexible schedule, allowing us to take breaks when we travel or others visit us. We've taken some great trips over the years! But ds is getting older, and there's a fair amount of material we need to get through. He doesn't want to do a lot of school in the summer to make up for time off during the year. For this school year, we've roughly planned out the year, allotting time off around the holidays, for a big trip next spring, and to spend time with some relatives we rarely see. These were all planned out at the start of the year. My in-laws have now decided to come for a visit next month. That's wonderful, but we will be doing school while they are here. Otherwise, my ds won't be on track to finish by June, which he wants to do. What gets me is the relatives who make digs about homeschooling AND expect us to stop schooling while they visit. Obviously kids in public school don't have any choice about it when their relatives come to visit! At least we're done by lunch time, still leaving plenty of time for visiting.

Wow, this is beautiful! Not at all what I think when I hear "basement tv area." So light and airy and the ceilings look really tall. Very nice! :)

I use a colored pencil and put a dot next to any mistakes. I don't put anything next to correct answers. Ds makes his corrections and then I put a check mark, covering up the dot. That way all that's left is a "good" mark. But I like having the record of the check mark. I (or he) can go back and see which problems were troublesome. When he studies for a grammar test, for example, he always reviews problems with a check mark, because those were ones he got wrong on his first try.

Our list is most similar to this, except for the suits. Some of the other lists are making me gasp. TEN pairs of pants? My ds has 2-3 casual plus one pair of dress pants.

The dinner quantity sounds about like what my 11yo would eat. He's normal weight and height. The snacks seem like a lot, though. My ds doesn't snack a lot, maybe a handful of nuts in mid-afternoon. I would also encourage a greater proportion of fruits and vegetables, especially in the snacks. At our house, if you need a little something to help you hang on until dinner, then carrots or apple slices would be the first choice, not chips and crackers.

Can you explain this? One of my facebook friends did post a request along these lines, but I don't understand. How does my subscribing to her "comments and likes" lead to strangers seeing it? If I unsubscribe to her "comments and likes" does that mean I won't see them in my newsfeed? I'm one of the non-techy people Mrs. Mungo is talking about. LOL

Did somebody mention this already? I only skimmed the thread. At that level core, the Sonlight readers are not connected to the history studies. They are just a set of easy readers at your child's reading level, scheduled through the year for you. To go with Core B, you can choose a readers package at grade 1, grade 2, or grade 3 reading level. They are good books, but not aligned to the history in any way. Just wanted to make sure you understood that.

Writing With Skill. You can read more about it in this thread -- Answering questions about Writing With Skill.

Hmm . . . I'm rather new here, so perhaps you're referring to a system that I don't know. I use a binder for memory work, and I just prepare one page worth of material at a time. For example, when we've finished one page of poems, I make a new Word doc and add poems until the page is full. Then I print it out and we start working on that page. I do the same with geography and all the other things we do for memory work. All my pages are pretty full. We use Latin for Children, and I copied the vocabulary lists from the back of the book to stick in our memory work binder. Two chapters of vocabulary fit on one page.

How much revising and editing do you do with your WWS student? Note: I use the term "revision" to refer to changes to ideas, organization, and structure of a piece of writing. I use the term "editing" to refer to changes to conform with conventions of spelling, grammar, usage and mechanics. In another thread, I read about a student's first and second drafts of his narrations, and I suddenly realized that we haven't been doing much editing at all. Should we be? I always require ds to check any writing he does for spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. Any mistakes he misses, I help him find and correct. In the past we have done more substantial revision and editing on a few select pieces, not every piece. I very much enjoyed Janice in NJ's Pencasts that step through some revision ideas for two narrations. She mentions a few issues, such as comma usage and passive voice, that I would normally save for a more substantial editing. I am wondering if I need to rethink my strategy and do more revision on a daily basis. It doesn't appear that revision is built into the WWS schedule. How do you handle editing with your student? I'm thinking in particular as it applies to WWS assignments.

I'm not the OP, but I can see them, and I found them helpful! You have a very soothing voice. :) Edited: Oops, I just realized what forum this was in. Apologies for veering off-topic. I'll post my questions elsewhere.

If you can only read one, then Johnny Tremain. It's wonderful!

While I am in the pro-Oxford-comma camp, I disagree that the Oxford comma reduces confusion in this case. As long as there is a comma after eats, it is perfectly clear that the panda eats and shoots (a gun) and leaves (the room). In the book of that title, the confusion is between these two sentences: The panda eats shoots and leaves. The panda eats, shoots, and leaves. I don't recall whether she used the Oxford comma or not. It's immaterial, because it's the first comma (or lack thereof) which causes confusion. This is a case where the Oxford comma is necessary. Is the speaker thanking God and Ayn Rand or addressing them. ETA: Good grief, I sound pedantic in this post. I think I need a restraining order from grammar threads.

I didn't know that! I presoak my whites in hot water, bleach and a little detergent using the presoak setting on my washer. I start the water going first, then add the detergent and bleach. After there's quite a bit of water in there, I add in the clothes. That prevents them from getting undiluted bleach on them and causing holes. Sometimes I soak for 20 minutes or as long as overnight. Then I spin out the washer and do a full wash cycle with detergent and no bleach. At that point I add in any whites that shouldn't be bleached, like linen, or don't particularly need it. I'll have to try doing my soak in cold water and see if it makes a difference.

I caved in to peer pressure. :lol:

This is one reason. Also, when I read a post that seems spot-on to me about how to approach some aspect of homeschooling, I find myself looking down at the sig. I figure if the poster has such good ideas about some things (i.e. agrees with me :lol:), then I might get some good ideas from their curriculum list too. ETA: Or, if they describe a child who seems a lot like mine, I look to see what they're using to compare to what we're doing. I don't have anything in my sig. Reason? Laziness.

I support the Oxford comma. :)

Can you share your reasons for preferring a book? We don't use a huge amount of technology for learning, but a thesaurus seems to me like something particularly well-suited for computer capability. I haven't gone looking for a thesaurus yet (we're also doing WWS), but I know I want a new one because the paper thesaurus I already own is terrible. We tried using it last year for some writing assignments and had to switch to free online ones instead. For this year, I had been thinking of looking for software rather than online, but I haven't yet started to research.

I like how Sonlight does it. I'm not using their cores anymore, but I think the following is a good plan. 2 years world history, leaving out most of the heavy modern stuff 2 years American History, covering World Wars fairly well in the second year 1 year geography and world cultures 2 years world history, starting over again at Ancients 1 year American history That would take you up through eighth grade and gives a good foundation for whatever you might choose for your high school years. Here's what we're actually doing (again, up through 8th grade) -- 3 years world history 2 years American history 3 years world history, with some world cultures interspersed

Y'all are scaring me a little bit! We're going to hit this assignment tomorrow. Lord help me. :eek:

:iagree: especially with the bolded. One thing we do is to stop school work at lunch time and then do a bit more in the evening. The afternoons are completely free. This works much better for my ds11 than working straight through.