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Caitilin

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Everything posted by Caitilin

  1. Oh, definitely read them all! They're all excellent! :) Magic by the Lake has the same kids in it; then Knight's Castle and The Time Garden have their kids in them; and Magic or Not and The Wellwishers have a third set of kids. Seven Day Magic also has an unrelated third set. They are all really good, fun books which emphasize how fun and cool reading is! Knock yourselves out! :)
  2. we have used the Intermediate LL, with my 2 olders, and are planning to use PLL as a follow-up to EFTC for my 3rd grader. I haven't ever wanted something as scripted as FLL for our grammar lessons, as I feel confident in my abilities to explain and clarify any issues we may have. I really like the alternation of grammar exercises with composition exercises too, so that has informed my decision a lot. Also, I tend to have a very relaxed approach to grammar instruction, as it matters far more to me that my DC are articulate than that they can identify all and sundry parts of speech. That said, we are planning to use Mary Daly's First Whole Book of Diagrams as a supplement for both the olders and my 3rd grader. I like the idea of identifying all the words in a given sentence rather than individually, in a vacuum, as it were. :) Hope you get the info you need! And, yes, you are right--a certain amount of adjusting is normal and probably necessary in the HSing journey. :) Good luck!
  3. For mine, I plan to use Singapore 1A and 1B for Math, McGuffey Primer for reading, D'Nealian Handwriting, SOTW CDs and EH Gombrich's A Little History of the World CDs (he's a very auditory learner), Memoria Press Christian Studies I w/ his older sibs, Adventures in Phonics, Everyday Spelling as he progresses, and Big Book of Animals for science, with read-alouds to fill in the rest. :)
  4. It depends. ;) I don't buy curriculum from publishers whose philosophies I disagree with. I don't go out of my way to boycott companies, but I make an effort to, for instance, buy "green" products, from manufacturers with whom my philosophy aligns pretty well.
  5. With my first 3 kids I used Saxon math, and it was fine, but as I add more kiddos into the schooling mix, this is no longer going to work. Saxon in the early grades is just too time consuming. So this year I am going to give Singapore a try with my rising 3rd ds, rising 1st ds, and rising K dd. My older two dd though, are thriving on Saxon and enjoy it, so will continue with 7/6. We'll see how it goes. :) We also tried Calvert one year, but found that it was too hard to schedule in a 4-day schoolweek. I am not really a curriculum junkie, so I generally shop around for a bit before committing to a new program.
  6. You might like the looks of All American History, which is put out by Bright Ideas Press. It is meant to be for the 6-8th grade level. You can see it here.
  7. I like traditional names, so I voted for Sophia Abigail and Christopher Matthew. :)
  8. we don't use one at all. We hang grocery bags from the handles of our kitchen drawers, and toss 'em as they fill. Free bags, quick turnaround, minimal smell. Also, we are dedicated recyclers, so we have a paper bag for cardboard, etc. and usually an empty dog food bag for plastics, cans, and bottles. Good luck in your decision!
  9. I take your point that original texts are better than summaries or synopses thereof; however, to again use Augustine as our convenient "case in point," Augustine's goal in his writing was NOT to teach others ( esp. those far in the future) how to implement the instruction he received. We can read his writings, as well as the texts he was given to read, (as far as possible) BUT at the end of the day, there will be holes, gaps, lacunae, and missing elements where the record is incomplete, or he failed to mention something which may have been crucial. Of course, as humans we fall infinitely far short of the perfection of the Divine, and also of course, that is not reason to fail to attempt and strive for perfection. However, I think it is dangerous to put too much "faith" (another heavily loaded word! ;)) in the responsibility of academic education in good strong religious formation. There are those who do move from questioning everything to an understanding of the True, Beautiful, and Good; but frequently (more frequently?) the habit of questioning leads not to this perception of the ultimate Truth of the Divine, but rather to the constant and insurmountable perception of the imperfections of the world, and thus to cynicism. I myself fight this internal battle daily--it is extremely difficult for me as a thinking person to maintain my religious faith; and yet, I keep at it, so maybe there's hope for me yet. :) This is all a long-winded way of saying that I think we must be careful what we wish for. Our desire for an academically perfect education for our children does have strong potential to backfire on us and them in terms of faith. Do I think that means that we shouldn't attempt to give them the very best education we can? No. In fact, I strongly disagree with that philosophy. But I do think that it's a calculated risk, and one we must take with our eyes open. It seems to me that the greatest thinkers are not necessarily those people on whom we would want our children to model their lives--but it is important to read them anyway. Nevertheless, I still believe that we cannot truly give to our children the "perfect, truly Classical" education, as we have neither the tools ourselves, nor the historical records, nor all the sources necessary to that endeavor. But really, what we must do is examine ourselves and determine what our most important goal in education is. If our goal is to bring up children whose faith is unshakeable, well, I am not sure this form of "education through inquiry" is the best way to that end. If our goal is to bring up children whose thirst for knowledge is unslakeable, inquiring education is probably an excellent way to that end. For some, the first is paramount, and for some the second. And some, like me, hope that for their children the second will lead with surety and certainty to the first. Thank you for answering my previous post. I am really enjoying this conversation--it feels good to flex the intellectual muscles once in a while! :D
  10. I love this! I get to be... Captain Charity Flint Even though there's no legal rank on a pirate ship, everyone recognizes you're the one in charge. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!
  11. The teens in our HS group get together weekly as soon and as long as the weather permits to play Ultimate Frisbee; they love it! Maybe your kids could start an Ultimate group?? Best to you and them this summer! :)
  12. Here's my difficulty with the ideas you're presenting here: we CONSTANTLY use the same words in more than one way, we constantly equivocate, either intentionally or not. It's not enough to simply say that we must all use the same definition of a word to prevent confusion--nearly anything we say can be construed in several ways (witness all the misunderstandings that occur in cyberspace that wouldn't occur IRL, because of tone of voice!). It appears to me from my reading of your posts in this thread that you are approaching this question from a Catholic viewpoint; but do you really anticipate that your Protestant, Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish, secular, et. al. sisters have precisely the same definitions of words, concepts, and goals that you do? Even the word "saint" has different connotations, depending on the branch of Christianity that one follows. It seems to me that there's very little possibility of convincing us all that we are not authentically Classical in our approach to educating our children because we don't use the education that was provided to St. Augustine and others--and of convincing us that it is more important to be authentically Classical than it is to do something that works for us as teachers, and our children as students. In addition, the privileging of this perfect Classical education negates the achievements of other great thinkers who were not given the education you espouse. Lincoln was certainly not the recipient of the education you desire for your children--does that mean that he was not a great thinker? What about other great saints and Doctors of the Church? As a woman, St. Catherine of Sienna was certainly not given the education afforded to Augustine. Is she somehow less in possession of the Truth of the Divine? Finally, none of us received a true Classical education in the Augustinian sense; how can we really implement something that we not only didn't receive, but is very distant from our own pool of knowledge and experience? It's all very well to read Augustine's description of his education and to learn from it; however, if we have nothing more to go on than that, we might as well be trying to teach calculus to our children when we ourselves have yet to grasp long division. I believe that it's better to do well what we can than to fail miserably by striving toward an unreachable ideal. Forgive me if I have offended. I certainly did not intend offense to anyone here. :grouphug:
  13. Caitilin, age almost 31 (eek!--I feel 17 still!); married to my sweet DH 12-years-in-August; I have been on the boards off and on for several years, since the "old format" days; we have been hsing since my twins were in K--and now can't imagine anything else, although High school is still a bit intimidating; we try to do TWTM "lite," but really like the philosophy behind it; high church Episcopalian in a Catholic HS group; we do all holidays with "imaginary" people like Santa and the Easter bunny, and we love Halloween costumes!; liberal in many areas, conservative in others, don't fit in any boxes; big fans of Harry Potter and the like; trying to have free range kids; novice gardener; cloth diapering, extended nursing, extended rear-facing, but not really attachment parenting; my parenting philosophy is informed by the story Understood Betsy, and from a comment of my mother's: starting the day that they're born, you have to let go of your children a little bit more every day. I enjoy the variety of life here on the boards!
  14. The Gammage Cup and The Whisper of Glocken; The Hobbit and LOTR; The Indian in the Cupboard series; Inkheart Trilogy, The Thief Lord, Igraine the Brave, Dragon Rider, all by Cornelia Funke; Carry On Mr. Bowditch; Understood Betsy; A Tree Grows In Brooklyn; Mary Poppins books; The Phantom Tollbooth; The Silver Crown; Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm...
  15. There are probably people on here who know the answer to this question, but for answers to all things cloth diapers, including this question, I recommend diaperswappers.com. They have a community similar to this, but dedicated to cloth diapering and natural parenting. You can find anything you want to know there. :) Remember to use your detergent, whatever it is, at about 1/3 strength. Good luck!
  16. :grouphug: I hope things look better in the morning.
  17. I haven't seen anyone else here recommend it, but the spelling we use and like is Everyday Spelling; I came upon it in the single year we tried the Calvert school thing, and it came "in the box." My dds11 like it, who are not especially good spellers, my ds8 likes it, who is a very strong speller. It's colorful, but not too busy, revisits "frequently misspelled words," and works on proofreading in every lesson. You can also buy the D'Nealian editions, if that's the handwriting you use. Best to you in your choice!
  18. Thanks for the input, ladies! Anyone else have other opinions to share? :) I am not especially put off by "dry" if it's well written, so hopefully that won't be too much of an issue for us. I liked, nay, LOVED, the fact that it's not obviously biased in any particular direction. I had a hard time with several others that I looked at.
  19. I would give an emphatic YES! to LOTR as a read-aloud at that age. My younger sister read them herself at 8. Only problem was, she fell in love with Aragorn, and had a hard time finding a real-life man who measured up! ;) But we listened to the Mind's Eye, BBC, and Recorded Books versions of this more times than I care to think about--and my children are the same way. I think it's a wonderful series, and has more depth than many people are aware of. I think, if you think it's OK for them, it's fine. Enjoy! :)
  20. I tried to do too much too fast with my identical twin dds when they were in K. If I had it to do over, I would lower my expectations slightly, and try to do more of the things THEY wanted to do. I didn't have any need to teach them separately in any subjects, then or now. Academically, they track each other just about perfectly. Good luck to you! :)
  21. I am spending about $500 for 5 school-age kids, including our co-op fee, but not including things like dance, tae kwon do, and piano, which the grandmas pay for (thank heavens!). :)
  22. I just bought Part One of this program, and am excited to use it. Is anyone here familiar with it? If so, pros, cons? I like the idea of its being written by and for a homeschool mother, and I like the format of the chapters; plus it has a workbook with multiple choice, fill-in-the-blanks, and essay/further study questions.
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