My general impression is that it's a good mix of old with new and various "ethnic" stories. But I thought some things were missing that I've noticed on other lists, but not sure if I can make a full side-by-side comparison. I scanned through the other grades, and the high school one looks pretty good, very extensive with some "hidden gems" in it (like A Tree Grows in Brooklyn), so that makes me trust that they have a good idea what they're doing. But no one who makes these lists could have read every book, or were objective about the books they read, so I'm sure every list depends on personal opinion to a certain degree. Which is why I'm non-committal about following other people's lists. :) But there's a t-shirt and certificate at stake here! Will that motivate my kid enough? :p

My kid does this too....grrrr..... Well, sometimes he does ascenders, but never descenders. He seems to have a moral objection to writing below that bottom line! I found some handwriting paper that has a descender line, like the ones see here: http://www.worksheetworks.com/english/writing/handwriting.html I'm hoping that might give him the right idea... But if anyone else has tips: :bigear:

Yeah, that's what Scholastic says http://www.scholasti...ss="clear"></p> AR Bookfinder agrees: http://www.arbookfind.com/bookdetail.aspx?q=148&l=EN&slid=355357080 If I'm thinking right. a lot of "Winnie-the-Pooh" books are actually edited and simplified versions. This is the original version, so maybe that makes a difference? But I was surprised by a few of the rankings of the books.

I usually don't like to follow other people's lists, because I have my own (opinionated) ideas. But most books on the K-3 list look pretty good, the one's I didn't hear of before I scanned the reviews on Amazon and they were all pretty much positive. I don't understand the Judy Bloom one though. I've never read that one specifically, but I really don't understand the need for any of her books. But that book it about being picked on because you're different, yes? So maybe they thought it was good for gifted kids who are a bit "odd"? But it is helpful for me to have a list of good readers. I stand in the Early Readers fiction section at my local library and feel like a complete fool, so then I scurry off to find another book about rockets, lol. My poor kid....

TJ's is a very dangerous place. I mean, everything in that store is somehow healthy, right? Right?

What a fascinating little book. :thumbup1:

So, I followed a link to the Mensa reading list. Some of the books I knew, and some I didn't. But when I was looking it over I noticed that the reading level of the books on that list varied widely. I had the bright idea to organize all the books by age level, and see what the books were at the same time. Well, that took longer than I thought it would. I attached my results to this post, just in case anyone is interested in seeing it. I relied mostly on Scholastic on the rankings, but also Amazon and a few other places. It's arranged by age level by interest, but in brackets I put the Grade Level Equivalent number. The span between age and grade level can be pretty big, but if you are wanting to follow Mensa's rules, you're allowed to read the book aloud to your child or get the book on tape. I have no idea if I'll be trying to follow this myself with my kid, but the exercise did remind me of some books I had read as a kid. mensa reading list.rtf

Here's an article about Finland that I think looks good: http://edudemic.com/2012/08/why-do-we-focus-on-finland-a-must-have-guidebook/ My husband is native N-European, so when I say it looks good I mean that it matches what my husband occasionally talks about. But on the matter of school choice: I don't know how it works exactly in Finland, but where we lived in Europe we had "school choice" even though all of our choices could be labelled "public schools." We could choose the Christian school, the general secular school or the various "philosophy" schools (like Jena plan), and all would count as a "public school" because they were, well, public. There were only a few truly private schools in the country, and those catered to the kids of diplomats and the like.

Glad it worked out! All of the other parents are obviously suffering under the mistaken impression that Art and Music classes are more important than Mythology. :glare:

Yeah, I think there is a trend of thought in Classical education that kids can't do very much Science at a young age because they lack the abstract thinking skills to apply the scientific method. Even if this is true, doesn't Science in the Grammar stage have a lot to offer? You could memorize the biological Kingdoms system, the Periodic Table, or the Laws of Motion. There's a lot of memorization involved once you get the Rhetoric stage Science, so why not knock some of it early? I'm not a Science person, so I don't think these things are particularly thrilling. But my 6yo who watches Science dvd's for fun (PMK and Bill Nye and the like) will watch them over and over and memorize all of the terms and systems used, like the layers of the atmosphere, or how fire burns. "Mesosphere" is just another interesting vocab word at this stage, so why not take advantage of that?

Sure, which is why the name of the school and it's overall "prestige" doesn't matter. What matters is if the college is able to offer you the opportunities you want. I think we pretty much agree. But there is a reason why some employers look more favorably at certain schools. My brother, for instance, joined a "club" at his new school, one which had its own debate hall and regularly scheduled swing dances for fun (idk, he fully embraced living in the South). He didn't get that at the local commuter-U. Some employers still want their mid-level techs to think and get along well with others, and certain schools have opportunities that encourage this behavior. Just being super hard-working and extra-amazing may work in some cutting-edge fields where the technology is constantly shifting, but in the basic "real-life" degrees a certain school can make your career easier or harder. To use an analogy: think of a talented young gymnast. She wakes up one morning and realizes that she has the potential to become an Elite gymnast and go to the Olympics. But she is still taking classes at the local gym where she started out, one where the coaches think success means funneling the best students into the local High School teams. Should she stay there and see if just working really hard will make her an Elite gymnast? Sure, she could try, and theoretically it could even work. But that's just plain stupid. She starts making some calls to the Elite coaches around the country and then packs her bags and moves. If that Elite coach ends up not working out, she packs her bags again and moves to a different coach. Eventually, by working really hard with a great Elite coach she clicks with she goes to the Olympics. In this analogy Olympics = career, Elite coach = college, and working hard is just a given for success. Yes, I do sort of follow Elite gymnastics, and I've seen gymnasts bomb out of what should be the peak of their performance because they refused to change coaches, or stayed with one who wasn't right for them for too long. No matter how hard they try, this is always a mistake. My basic point is this: if you can go to a school which would make the potential employer say, "oh, yes, that's a very good program" you should probably always choose that over the school which makes the employer say, "I didn't even know you could major in that there."

Thanks! But it is a sample. But - there's more than enough for me to read and and see if its helpful!

To rec an obscure book - Sir Gibbie by George MacDonald. The edited version done a few decades ago by Elizabeth Yates is fine (MacDonald and his bunny trails!) C.S. Lewis really liked it, the main character spans the ages of 6 to 26, and a lot of interesting things happen at regularly placed intervals that tweens could easily discuss. And there's nothing that would disturb 10yo's. Oh, and I see Amazon has a study guide for it.

Isn't BFSU secular? It is meant to span ages, so maybe look into that?

Are you talking about High School kids? Because at the ages your kids are at, they're just natural brats. I sometimes resort to calling my 6yo "hey, Dictator!" and threatening to ship him off to N. Korea. For my kid I found it helps to constantly model good manners and character. If I ask him to get something for me I say please and thank you. I expect the same when he asks something from me. If I do something wrong and hurt his feelings, I tell him that I am sorry. If he starts yelling at someone or hitting we immediately sit him down and tell him in no uncertain terms that that sort of behavior is not acceptable. But then always remember that kids can barely remember yesterday, or that tomorrow will always happen tomorrow. They will constantly mess up, and then you constantly have to remind them. Hopefully, by the time they get the general understanding of how often Halloween happens down, they'll start internalizing what you're saying.

I was agreeing with you. Yes. I attended a super-expensive University for a year that turned out to be complete junk. I mean, the school in general was good, but the department was run was by a-holes who thought their job was to ignore and belittle the students. I'm sure the statistics on that one is awful. But, just as money can't buy love, it can't buy a good education either. Which is why I never said the best schools were the most expensive ones. Are you being saracstic? Sure. But why put obstacles in the way of your own success if you don't have to?

He wanted to major in History, and passed up going to ND? That's just.... a waste of four years. The other problem with life is that 90% of HR people are unmitigated idiots. How people get into certain colleges, and how that impacts their job choices is, by definition, anecdotal. Which is why I think it is very relevant to mention what I have seen work, and what I have seen fail. Maybe someone can learn something from it, kwim? But sure, keep your nose clean, work hard, do what you love. That's all important. What I'm talking about is after that.

My biggest frustration is all the stupid talking heads on TV. On BBCA this morning some lady said that all Catholics are upset because they "pray to the Pope." "Pray to the Pope"? I hope she misspoke and meant "pray for the Pope." Then just now on MSNBC a guy said, with a straight face, that, since the Pope is infallible, this was the right decision. What? I'm not Roman Catholic, and I know that this is just dumb! Ugh, reminds me of the watching the funeral of JPII on CNN. I wish religion correspondents knew more about, oh, I don't know, religion!

I was thinking of doing KISS 2nd grade with my kid next year (I think he's about the same age and level as your kid). But doing it really slowly, like a lesson a week. And I'm making up sheets to do the reading selections, narration, copywork, and dictation with each lesson. So we can spread it all out. I think at that pace we'll cover a lot of what's in FLL1 and WWE1 (up to lesson 32 is modal helping verbs). I'm planning on doing SSL next year, and I kinda want to introduce grammar with English, so that the Latin is just reinforcement. That means I can't hold off too long with grammar.

I agree. But I did spend some time clicking around on some of the links on this thread, because though my kid is 6, I'm already seeing the signs that he'll go STEM, and that is a completely foreign country to me. (He asked me yesterday how water puts out fire, and my response was a lame "uh, go watch Popular Mechanics for Kids again" lol). But I did do some intensives for my own field of study, and I can hypothesize that everyone who gets into those MIT summer intensive courses are there because they think the program is The Coolest Thing Ever!!!! I'm sure lots of applicants applied just because their parents thought it would look good on their college application, but the admissions people screen those out and pick those who seem like they would be doing the program at home by themselves anyways. So, my advice, if I can offer advice, is to show the programs to your kid and ask if that is something they would be interested in. If it makes them cry with excitement, then pursue it. If their response is "meh" then find something else that excites them. Even if it's raising rabbits.

Was this a response to me? Because in my brother's case, this was definitely NOT a logical fallacy. He admits he learned not much new at his new school. He was just as smart and talented going to the local state - whatever school. My point is that certain schools open certain opportunities. And not all the opportunities stream out of MIT or Harvard, or any of the East Coast brands or the West Coast Super Schools. There are some fields where going to Harvard may be a disadvantage. And there are some fields where U of Whatever may actually be the best choice, even if U of Whatever makes everyone at the family reunion say, "where's that place you're going again?" Though obviously going to a certain school is no guarantee. I'm sure Google and IBM don't hire everyone who graduates from the UNC-CH computer science program.

Yeah, that's the thing, isn't it? I'm sure that info is out there somewhere, but is a closely guarded secret to some. But admissions counselors should brag about it. So...you just have to ask them all. And yeah, my brother didn't go to an Ivy, or even MIT. He went to UNC-CH. That being said, it's not something you can plan that far in advance. If some Google manager in California suddenly decides that they don't like the Computer Science department at UNC-CH anymore, they'll pull out completely within a week and be setting up shop somewhere else.

Well, going to a particular school does really help for some field. Google and IBM only run recruiting fairs at certain schools, for example. I have a brother who bounced around various local Universities trying to get a computer science degree. Ended up working at a carpentry shop for a bit. Then he bit the bullet and went to a very expensive University in another state, one where Google and IBM have offices located nearby (just because). Before he graduated he interviewed for both, and then worked for both (long story). He now makes an ungodly amount of money. Could you work for Google or IBM without going to a particular school? I suppose. But you'll have to jump through a bunch of hoops which are not there for all the other candidates.

I did dual enrollment, so just to share my own experiences.... I started off in 10th grade at the very small extension of the local CC. I thought the profs were pretty good, except for the Sociology prof who rambled on about "social constructs" and only used the pre-packaged tests that went with the textbook. Easy A, that one. I knew what college I wanted to go to, so I picked classes that met Gen Ed requirements. But, considering that I was 15, some things were a bit of a shock, like the English class where we read The Bluest Eye. I had a very sheltered homeschool life, so I was like.....uhhhhhhh.....whaaaa???? with that one, lol. The next year I went to a local university to have more course offerings. I had to take their ACT to get in, but that wasn't too much trouble. Though they had some weird rules, like that we could only take 14 credits. I ended up in the office of Dean of the University to get an exception (the way I had to do it, I had to enroll in my public high school to do dual enrollment, so I had to meet ps graduation requirements, and also all the college Gen Ed classes I wanted to do). The problem with the whole thing was that we used it as a cheap way to do hs and also knock off two years of college, and that part worked out fine. But I wasn't really prepared to do as well in the classes as I would have if I had actually done them in college the second time around, kwim? So when I applied to graduate schools I had all these weird transcripts from a CC with dodgey grades following me around (I have to submit them, since I used them to get transfer credit for my BA). Do Graduate admissions people take into account the fact that I was 15 when I nearly bombed a course in French taught by DL from an absolutely terrible prof? Not really. So I guess my advice is - only do dual enrollment for courses where your kid has a good background in the subject and is pretty certain that they can get an A or A-. Don't be afraid to drop a class which looks like it might be over your kid's head. This is absolutely vital if your kid is thinking about going into a field where graduate work might be in their future.

Yes, the appendix looks really. really useful. Thanks! The first part of the book looks positively delightful. And I love the little ditty about avoiding wine, lol. I'm guessing this book is Presbyterian? The author's name is Knox, after all.