We are doing the angles section in BA4, and I need to buy a high quality compass and protractor. I have a STEM kid, so I'd like to buy him other high quality math tools to use for upper math in physics, advanced math, etc. Can you recommend good quality math supplies? I know fun school supplies will get him excited about future study. Thanks!

I loved The Book Thief. I don't remember it being uber mature, beyond the general subtext of the Holocaust.

Just catching up, since we moved last week. Congratulations!

Will take more pics as soon as we come up for air. We have to be out of our place on Sunday!

Our new home arrived last night! We are over the moon excited! https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154019990933261&id=585033260&set=a.10150168523243261.307010.585033260&notif_t=like&notif_id=1474597844824898&ref=m_notif

We love History of US on audio. Does anyone know if this series is on audio as well?

I usually say that I was a reluctant homeschooler, and that I've enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

Sacha finished Sign of the Beaver, which he really enjoyed, and is now reading Sing Down the Moon. We are studying Native Americans and the early Colonial days in History of US, so I have him reading a lot of historical fiction to flesh it out. For pleasure reading, he finished all the 39 Clues Books (except the last one, which I think is being released this month), and is now reading the 5th Harry Potter book. I'm busy packing; we're moving this week.

This is definitely him. He loves all that kid stuff. When I mentioned Alcumus to him, he wondered whether it had wizards, like in Prodigy. Thank you for the suggestions and feedback on PA. I don't think he is ready for something textbooky. He really enjoys things with a narrative -- History of US is a big hit on audio vs. reading the textbook. So, BA is definitely better for him stylistically. I will look into the other RR videos as well.

He is only in 2nd (7, turning 8 in January), which is why I planned for him not to start PA until 4th. I really do think that PA is going to be too hard for him now. I wasn't planning to scrap BA now. I was wondering if we could do BA4 now, and then perhaps intersperse PA with BA5 in 3rd -- whether there would be a real downside to that approach? Maybe, I will ask my EF to pull PA from our resource center, so I can take a gander at it. Thus far, we have only been watching the videos, and doing some sample problems that we made up on scratch paper.

We are still waiting for our Beast Academy 4 practice books to arrive from our charter. So, in a fit of desperation, I started showing Sacha the RR ( :001_tt1:) Pre-Algebra videos from AOPS. In my best Julia Roberts circa Pretty Woman voice: Big Mistake. Huge. Now, he is all about RR (as is mama -- damn, that man makes math sexy :drool5: ), and wants to start on Pre-A. I'm like, but...but... what about BA 4? 5? Slow down there, little buddy! I know that some people have moved onto Pre-A after BA4, and worked the BA5 books in as they were published. What do you think of this strategy vs. my original plan (ha!!) to spend two years on BA4/5? Is there stuff in BA5 that you wish your DC had seen before pre-A? Could I alternate BA with PA? I was originally going to slow him down with a class by Cleo Borac from her Gifted Math series, but that class was cancelled for low enrollment. I am not sure if I can do the Borac stuff on my own. It looks hard!! After watching all of the Chapter 1 PA videos, I can tell that he is just doing fine, so far. I know that the beginning of PA is supposed to be review, but not all of it was for him (since he hasn't yet done BA 4 and 5). He seems to have pretty much intuited negative numbers and fractions on his own. And he loved learning about reciprocals, the new (to him) definitions of subtraction and division, and how to use the distributive property to do long division. Plus, he just loves RR's presentation of it all, and thinks RR is "epic" and "so cool." He even said something about him being cooler than Stampy. :svengo: So, do I appease him by moving into PA sooner (interspersed with BA and scary Borac) or do I keep the slow and steady path I had planned (not that BA is slow, but you get my drift)?

Awesome!!

Probably both. I have anxiety, so change is always difficult for me. My usual [ineffective] coping strategy is procrastination and denial. At the end of the day, it's probably not going to be a huge deal. We already live in a small space, so it's not like we are downsizing from a 3000 sq. foot home, and I have my husband and housekeeper to help out. So, thankfully, I am not doing this alone. I am sure the reality will hit me when this enormous beast pulls up outside my front door!

Hi! Come visit us at Campland!

My DH will let me pry that damn boat from his cold, dead hands. ;) Boat trip is still on the table, albeit waaaaay on the back burner for now. Still don't know how I will take to the RV. I'm definitely the wild card in all of this. The kids are adaptable; their princess of a mother, not so much. ;)

I should be! I'm actually more in complete denial that I'm moving in a week! :)

We are just starting WWE3 with my DS7. The first Kilgallon is Story Grammar, followed by Sentence Composing. We do them orally and they complement WWE. Kilgallon uses sentence chunking, but it is about modeling good sentences. I've been very impressed with WWE, as time has gone on. I don't recall when paragraph writing begins in WWE, but if you want extremely incremental instruction on writing paragraphs, I would look at Treasured Conversations. We plan to skip WWE4, and will instead spend the next 2-3 years doing some combo of WWE3, Kilgallon, TC, CAP W&R, MCT, and perhaps a Bravewriter class. That would put him in WWS1 in 4th or 5th, which is still really on the young side.

Another update in the original post.

Oy vey is this true! I am still torturing my oldest because....well, he is the oldest. :lol: He just seems so old to me. And then I look back on pics of him from a few years ago (when he seemed so old to me at the time), and I think, gosh, he was just a baby! Ah, to be the first born! Poor Sacha!

When Sacha and I are using BA (and our brains are melting), our mantra is "This is the Art of Problem Solving, not The Art of Calculating!" But, there is just something so satisfying in the brain melting that BA induces. It really feels like an accomplishment to us if we can figure out the starred problems -- high fives, ice cream for lunch, and all. There was never any such feeling with MM, Khan Academy, etc. for us.

Bumping for you. The teacher is at my son's charter school, so I know a bit about the class. It is designed for middle school aged kids, but she agreed to let my DS into it next year in 3rd grade (he will have already completed SSL1 and 2, Minimus and Minimus Secundus, and GSWL by then). I don't know anyone who has taken the class, so I can't give you a review until next year.

I was in my third year of law school, and was doing a fall semester internship at the JAG Office at Fort Bragg, NC. I had just left NYC the week prior, having spent the summer working at Lehman Brothers, across the street from the WTC. My husband was an Army Ranger, commanding a company in the 82nd Airborne Division. Our marriage was falling apart, and I convinced Stanford to let me do a semester as a visiting student at Duke and the internship at the JAG office to try to save it. I was driving into Fort Bragg when I heard that a small plane had crashed into one of the towers. I thought, "That's weird. The area around the WTC is restricted airspace. How in the world could a small plane crash into the WTC on accident?" When I got into the office, they had the TV on. The North tower was on fire. It was clear to me from looking at the fire that this was not a small plane. This sinking feeling swept over my body. And then the second plane hit the South tower. Live. I picked up the phone and called my parents on the west coast. I told them, "Turn on the TV now. We are under attack." I stared in disbelief as I watched the towers burn. I had walked in those towers almost every day that summer. They seemed larger than life to me. I had gone swing dancing semi-regularly at the Greatest Bar on Earth -- the bar at the top of the towers. And it truly was the greatest bar on Earth. I still have matches from the bar in my jewelry box. I cannot bring myself to throw them away. I knew in that instant that my marriage would never survive another deployment (it didn't). And, when the towers came down, I knew that thousands of people had just died in front of my eyes. I also knew that my building across the street would be blown out (it was), and that I would likely lose my post-graduation job on Wall Street (I did). Most horribly, I learned later that day that I had lost a friend and mentor on the DC plane. I had just seen her earlier that summer at a party at her home in Virginia. My husband, of course, deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in the coming months and years. The images from that day will forever be seared into my memory. I will never forget. May G-d bring peace and healing to our world, and may the memories of those lost be for a blessing.

You say that like it's a bad thing. ;) :coolgleamA: Founding member, SLAWS (Stanford Law & Wine Society)

I just watched some YouTube videos of apraxia, and I think you might be right. This little girl is closest to how he sounds, dropping final and middle consonants -- the "monkey bars" portion is dead on. "He's doing substitutions based on what he can motor plan." This rang especially true for me. I am going to make some calls tomorrow and see what else we can do to help him. I feel so lost with all of this. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences.

Echoing the sentiments of Regentrude, Quark, and Maize. I would also add that I'd have mutiny on my hands if I tried to do MM4 with my son after completing BA3. We found MM to be a total slog, even skipping half the problems. We are waiting on our BA4 books to come in from our charter, and have been skipping around in the Singapore 4A IP. Sacha, my compliant child, is grumbling, asking when BA will be here. When I find that I have to do a ton of handholding with him, it's usually a sign that he's just not ready for something. Rather than feel like a salmon swimming upstream, we set it aside. Invariably, we come back to it later, and it is smooth sailing. Unless she is begging for more math right now!!, I agree with moving sideways. Read living math books, watch math documentaries, if she is interested, and play math and logic games. Move into BA4 when the time is right for you both.