I was actually taught that the comma before the conjunction is optional. It is not necessary but not wrong either. Personally, I do not use it but I know many others that do. I am a Medical Transcriptionist and even among all of the Doctors, the grammar overall is poor.

My oldest daughter really enjoyed Alice in Wonderland and she loves The Boxcar Children. My oldest daughter tends to dislike most fiction so this is always a struggle for us as well. I will second the suggestion for From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. This is my personal favorite book of all time.

I am considering switching math programs from horizons to CLE but I have a question. Is there religious content in the math books? I looked at the samples available on the yahoo group but I cannot tell about the whole book. I know some publishers do include religious content even in the math books so I wanted to ask. I am specifically looking at 1st and 3rd grade programs. Also, I have seen reference to a free unit request that some have mentioned but I have not seen reference to this on the CLE website. Does anyone know how to get this? Thanks for the information. Jenni

For my 7 year old daughter, handwriting has always been a struggle. Even HWT has not been tearless around here. At age 5, she would get herself so worked up over the handwriting if she couldn't do it perfectly, that no matter what I said, it all resorted in a breakdown. Her fine motor skills just could not keep up with her brain and it was too frustrating for her. We backed off of it. We would do work on the dry erase board as this was not as daunting to her. She is now 7 and she does know how to form all of her letters and is now able to put them together but she still tenses up if I break out a "handwriting" book. We also did some copywork in the form of her own journal. I would give her a topic and ask for basically one thought that she wanted to say about that topic. Then, I would write it down for her and she could copy it. This seemed to also remove some of the stress for her. Hope something there helps. Good luck.