A lot of what I'm seeing are punctuation issues. I'm inclined to fix them if they impede readability. I definitely don't want to change his voice or syntax!! They are what make it so special. To further complicate matters, what I have is not the original, but a handwritten transcription SHE made of his diary. According to her, his handwriting was so bad she was about the only person who could read it. So she copied it out longhand and made copies for the family. :blink:

I am transcribing my husband's grandfather's WWII diary. We plan to have it professionally printed and bound as a gift for his grandmother for Christmas. He was well educated, and the writing is not bad. But there are still some occasional spelling and grammar errors (I guess being shot at constantly will do that to you). Should I correct the errors? Or since this is a primary source, do I leave them as is? Dh's grandmother has mentioned trying to publish this at some point, so I don't know if that makes a difference.

We have a ton on the tree in our yard. I think it will probably frost this weekend and then I can make one! :drool5:

Thinking of you this afternoon and praying for good results... :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug:

My grandma used to make the yummiest persimmon pudding. But it might be one of those things you only like because your grandma made it. :D

My sister and her fiance went as Curious George and the Man in the Yellow Hat one year. She had to be the Man because he didn't own any yellow! A couple of years ago our kids were a shark and a scuba diver.

Dd9 gets a checklist every week of things she is expected to do independently, broken down by day. She also has a master weekly schedule, so she knows when she is to be working independently (and on what subject) and when she is to be working with me. Our day is never NOT interrupted (we go to the gym, take ds3 back and forth to preschool, and I freelance, for starters) so each day is different, although I try to keep our weeks as consistent as possible. I use OneNote for planning but dd gets a physical printout to keep on her clipboard for the week. She likes to check off what she's completed. I do include her major chores -- one each day, like changing her bed, emptying the trash, cleaning the bathroom counters/sinks, etc. -- because they were getting "forgotten." I don't include things like brushing her teeth or making her bed because those are part of her routine now and we don't have a problem getting them done. I've also been known to include other reminders as needed; last year it was "Read ALL instructions carefully and WEAR YOUR GLASSES!!" because those things kept getting overlooked. ;) When she is older and has her own computer, I would like to switch to a virtual system like others have mentioned. Right now, the simple checklist works just fine for us.

Absolutely! I am interested in anything that leads to a deeper conversation in our school. Thank you for sharing!

Love, love, LOVE everything you just said! My brain is imploding, thinking of the myriad of ways we can begin implementing some of your ideas... :willy_nilly:

The pp said her husband wanted to slow their son down by adding more busy work. IMO, it's not *slowing down* to delve more deeply into a topic than might be covered in a *typical* curriculum. You're still providing a challenge that way -- developing critical thinking skills, etc. Perhaps I misunderstood, but I took what she said to mean her dh wants to keep their son in a holding pattern until his peers catch up. I would have a serious problem with that. I agree with you that there's no race. For us, I don't anticipate starting algebra until 8th grade at the earliest. I'm much more interested in developing those deep thinking skills, which is why I asked a question about challenging work. I'm still relatively new at this whole thing, and most of what I come up with for adding intensity involves either working more or working faster. I know there must be better ways to go deep, so I'm here looking for ideas (although maybe I haven't articulated that clearly -- I'm still fleshing out my own thoughts here). I appreciate everybody's input.

I have also found that dd does better work when she is being challenged consistently. If she expects to be required to think and make an effort, she does (usually). If she thinks she can get away with doing a halfway job, she will -- every time. I wish she was a bit more internally motivated, but we are working on that. Someone upthread mentioned using easier work for "brain break" times in between heavier subjects, which might work better than whole days that are easy. I would have a hard time intentionally slowing a student down. Why will it cause conflict with his friends if he's ahead of them academically? That doesn't make sense to me (and honestly wouldn't be a good reason to me, even if it did). The pace may or may not be sustainable, but when he runs into something that gives him trouble, you just slow down and spends some extra time on it, right? Just my $.02. :coolgleamA:

Well, on second thought, we are doing a lot of these kinds of things already, so maybe we are not as bad off as I feared. FTR, dd isn't profoundly gifted, but she is bright and I am sure she would have tested into the gifted program had she stayed in ps (for whatever that's worth). She did test at least 2-3 grade levels ahead in every category when she took the WJ-III a few months ago -- higher in some areas. I realize relying on standardized tests can be iffy, but it's required by our state, and it did at least give me some kind of baseline as to what we're working with. I do try to be very intentional about every assignment I choose, although I am still learning and feeling things out as we go along, so I am sometimes not confident in my reasoning. For math, we are using a combination of moving faster and going deeper. We use CLE as our spine, but she currently completes two lessons a day, and we only work the review sections once a week. We do talk about *why* she's doing what she's doing as she learns each new skill. We took a stab at BA as a supplement last year, but to say dd didn't take to it would be an understatement. I don't believe she'd ever encountered anything like it before. This year we've been working with Borac's Practice Word Problems, which she seems to enjoy (she likes word problems). We break from CLE every few weeks and spend a week in Borac. I am thinking of shifting to Saxon next year as we enter middle school, but I haven't decided yet. I'm just never sure how much is enough. For spelling, we are in Spelling Workout E (grade 5) and should finish F (grade 6) by the end of the year. I kind of forgot that she's working ahead in that area! I already mentioned literature. She's finishing The Legend of Sleepy Hollow/Rip Van Winkle now (which was harder than I remembered) and doing amazingly well. I was actually shocked at the nuances she picked up in the text. I am giving her a break after this to do some Native American legends (she loves mythology). Content areas tend to be more on grade-level. I'm going for exposure to a range of history/science topics at this level, knowing we will revisit them later in more depth. I encourage delight-directed learning here. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. ETA: We also added Latin this year, at her request, and she's doing well with it. But we are taking it slow because I'm having to learn it alongside her! Thank you for this -- it's exactly what I meant when I mentioned needing to lay a strong foundation, but I wasn't able to articulate it well, even to myself. This makes me feel much better about continuing to push things like math facts, even though she *can* work at a higher level. Fortunately, my dd has never been much for drama, so I don't have to deal with a lot of whining/tantrums/etc. Unfortunately, she tends towards the passive-aggressive -- i.e., if she doesn't want to do something, she complies, but she does intentionally poor or sloppy work. Which is just as annoying in its own way. She can also be a "coaster;" she won't work any harder than necessary, so I feel extra pressure to make sure she's challenged, because she's not apt to challenge herself (one of our major reasons for leaving ps). I think trying out a jump is definitely working for us with our lit experiment. I love your example of spelling. Like I said above, I think we actually stumbled on something similar without trying!

Venturing over here to the Accelerated Learner Board for the first time... :unsure: One of the main reasons we left ps is because we wanted to provide a more rigorous education for our children. But I find that, in reality, I struggle with knowing the difference between more challenging work, and just *more* work. The only area where I've had much success in this is literature. This year dd9 is reading and discussing late middle/early high school-level novels -- and she's thriving. I want to do similar things in other areas, but I'm afraid my version of challenge more often than not just looks like extra busy work. Even though she is bright, I still feel like she needs the a solid foundation in things like math, grammar, and spelling, so I'm hesitant to jump ahead, and I think I just end up piling on. If you have a child who is ahead in one or more subject areas (any subject areas), I'd love to talk about how you provide a challenge that's really a challenge, and not just extra work.

That looks very promising! Thank you!

Dd9 wants to enter a short story contest. She's been making up stories since kindergarten at least, and she has some natural talent. But I would like to use this opportunity to help her learn a bit about the craft of writing and expand her skills. We haven't done much formal *creative* writing to this point, just what she does on her own. I don't want a full curriculum, more like some advice on helping her take one piece from rough draft to more polished product. I know how to do this for my own writing, but I need help guiding HER through the process so it's her work, not mine, if that makes sense. We will be using this project to replace most of our other writing exercises for the next few weeks. Anyone have any suggestions or resources?

That is a hassle. I'm sorry. I guess I could see this if you were in a hurry to be seen and they were working you into an already-full schedule. But if you are scheduling well exams several months in advance, it seems kind of dumb. Your post did remind me that I needed to schedule ds's 4yo check-up though... so thanks! :laugh:

GMA showed a video of the first nurse, Nina Pham, in her hospital room this morning. She looks considerably better than I would have expected: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/ebola-infected-nurses-treated-experimental-drugs-26266159 Also, Breitbart is reporting that the government began expediting visa extensions for travelers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in August. From what I can tell, these rules only apply to travelers who are already in the US, presumably to keep them from having to go back home during the epidemic. Just thought it was interesting in light of the current debate over travel restrictions. http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Texas/2014/10/17/DHS-Started-Expediting-Visa-Extensions-From-Ebola-Countries-in-August

The video they've been showing on the news depicts her climbing the stairs to the airplane with assistance (she's the one in the yellow protective suit). I believe that was this afternoon. I wouldn't think she would be ambulatory at all if she were that bad off. I haven't heard anything specifically describing her current condition, but this leads me to believe the transfer to Emory is more of a precautionary measure.

This was true for me too. Walking -- and even swimming -- did relatively little to help me lose any weight. Once I started to push myself into activities that I had thought were too hard for me to do, I began to see results. A year ago, I would have fallen over dead if you'd told me I'd be running, or taking spin classes every week, or God forbid doing our Y's version of CrossFit (that one I wouldn't have believed three months ago, but now I'm addicted)! Walking and swimming first did help me to make that transition because I was a couch potato in the extreme, but the real weight loss didn't start until I began to exert myself physically in ways I'd never tried. Of course, injury prevention is extremely important, and you should definitely take precautions, learn correct form, talk to your doctor, etc. But I know that FOR ME (not speaking for anybody else here), it was easy to take advice like "don't do anything high-impact while you're overweight or you risk injury" and use it as an excuse not to exert myself. My point is, you know your body. If you feel like you're ready to step it up, go for it. Use common sense, but don't let fear hold you back. I also agree with a pp that, while diet is crucial, exercise has been the key to keeping me on track nutrition-wise. When I wasn't really exerting myself, it was next to impossible for me to fight off the cravings. Now I feel so good, I actually crave healthier foods. And when I do want something junky on occasion, I can have it, and it doesn't affect me because I'm so active. What I love now is getting into the gym and seeing what I can do today that I couldn't do yesterday.

I have never been a runner. In middle school, when we had to run the mile, I came in last. Every time. Did I mention I'm not a runner? But last spring, dh and I did a fitness program at the Y. Part of the deal was that we had a do a 5K on the last weekend of the program. We did not do any training specifically for that, but we did have group workouts with our trainers twice a week, where we tried a variety of different things, from kettlebells classes to cycling. At our last class before the 5K, our trainer took us to the track. Despite being in much better shape from the other workouts, I could jog only a half to three-quarters of a lap (not mile -- LAP) before feeling like I was going to collapse, even with my trainer urging me on. We did the 5K, I walked a great deal of it, and I decided that I would work on improving before we repeated the program this fall (we're halfway through now). I went for a run last weekend and did 3 miles with only a couple of short breaks to walk. That is HUGE for me. Early on, I used the Couch to 5K app to help me increase distance. It tells you when to walk and when to run and helps you work up to running for longer stretches. Sometimes I had to repeat a workout several times before I could complete it. That's okay -- I was working at my own pace. Cross-training has been important for me, but I have been heavily focused on weight loss and improving overall fitness. I need a good combination of cardio and weight training. To date, I have lost almost 60 pounds. I usually run 1 or 2 times per week, with a mix of cardio and weights on other days. I'm not sure I would have seen the improvement in my running without the cross-training. But I'm no expert, by any means. YMMV. I say go for it! It feels SO good to do something you didn't think you could do. That feeling is a bit addictive -- and you might find that you start to actually like exercise! Good luck!!

Second Oak Island, NC or Pawley's Island, SC.

My sister is six years younger than me. The gap doesn't feel as big as it did when we were kids, but I still play the "big sister" role -- giving her advice, etc. However, now that we are both in our 30's that seems to be shifting, and I sometimes go to her for advice (still not as often as she comes to me). I'm married with kids and she's not, so I think in some respects just being in different stages (as opposed to ages) influences our relationship more. I had another sister who was nine years my junior, and that gap always felt huge -- but we got along better with each other growing up than either of us did with our middle sister. She was like my kid in a lot of ways. I took her shopping for her prom dress, etc. She was only 12 when I got married, and I was working and had money when she was in middle/high school so I could take her fun places. Unfortunately, she was killed in an accident when she was 19, so I didn't get to see how that relationship developed. It's weird, I often have dreams about my dd9, only when I wake up, I realize that dd was really my sister, or vice versa.

Depends on what you mean by difference. Mainlines are the "old" Protestant denominations: Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopal, etc. On the other hand, you have the non-denominational churches, which may or may not be linked via some kind of loose association. A lot of the difference has to do with church government, with the mainlines generally having a more rigid structure and the non-denominationals being more or less independent of a greater body of churches and completely self-governing (usually by a board of elders or something similar). Of course, this is an over-simplification; although I do have some familiarity with the polity of several denominations, I can't claim to know the intricacies of them all. Baptists, as I understand them, fall somewhere in the middle. In terms of worship, mainlines do at least have a history of more formal worship services -- following a set structure, reciting creeds and singing hymns, etc. -- although some congregations have adopted the more contemporary styles preferred by non-denominational churches. My point is, Protestantism encompasses a wide range of styles. A service at one might look very similar to an RCC mass (not that there aren't significant theological differences, but in terms of style), while another might more closely resemble a rock concert. Again, probably a gross over-simplification, and I'm not attempting to place any value judgments. If someone else can add to or clarify these distinctions, please do.

The more liturgical things seems to be making a comeback in some of the mainline Protestant denominations. I didn't know what Ash Wednesday was until I went to work for an Episcopal church after college, but now my old Methodist church celebrates it. Lent and Holy Week too -- especially Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. The liturgical calendar has always been a part of the Methodist Church's worship, but I think different congregations place differing amounts of emphasis on it. I do think it's important for the purposes of this discussion that not all Protestants get lumped into the same category. The mainline denominations can be quite different from the more independent evangelical churches. Many share elements of belief/worship that exist in the RCC (and maybe EO as well, I'm just not as familiar). Of course, each congregation can look different too.

What did I miss????