I do too...:-(

Wow, all the oldies back in for the clean-up! I think this is my first post since 2010.

My oldest is using the GC Biology course along with a textbook, written assignments, fieldwork, and online quizes and tests (correlated to the text). All that together will earn him his biology credit.

We have done FLL for the last three years and this year is the first year we may not have a team. The local competition is great, lots of teams, kids doing the work (for the most part)... and most of the teams at the state competition are the same way... but not the teams that win. The teams that win have FAR more adult involvement. Our kids last year had spend a huge amount of time on their project and it was very well done. They came away frustrated because they were marked down because (and this is a written quote from a state level judge) their "project book was not word processed." This was in the younger division, not older. The kids had made up an organized book of their brainstorming notes, research, etc... and it was all handwritten, legible and age appropriate. They could not have word processed that and I have a hard time believing that any of the teams could have managed that unless it was done by a parent. The winning team had a word processed project book that was 700 (!) pages long. For real. AND they were 9-11 year olds. It had clearly been put together by an adult. Another team who won for robot design was in the practice area of the competition. Three adult men were running the robot and making programming changes. Their team of mostly 9-10 yos were actually told by these "coaches" (and I heard this myself) "get back from the table and do NOT touch it. You can watch." Our team left feeling that they had worked their butts off, but didn't realize til they got to the competition that they would be competing against adult engineers. They were frustrated and we adults were as well.

Art of Argument spends an entire book on what is covered in 1-2 chapters in Critical Thinking. If I were going to use both (and I decided against A of A) I would do A of A first and then CT 1&2 the next year.

I agree. This was incredibly stupid. The test protocol is so ridiculously strict that having a kid get up in the middle of the test and leave the room invalidates the scores for the entire class. BUT SO DOES HAVING A KID HAVE AN ACCIDENT! What an idiot. She should lose her job. I'm just hoping she doesn't have tenure.

delete

I'm so, so sorry.

R&S would be difficult for a kid to jump into at grade level, especially if grammar wasn't one of his stronger subjects. It is also very dry and humorless, but gets the job done. I'd consider R&S 4 or 5 if you really want to use it, otherwise, I would suggest a year in First Language Lessons either level 3 or 4. R&S Spelling is somewhat easy in comparison. I've only ever looked at it, never used it. It was much easier than the same level of Spelling Workout, IMO.

P.D. James has written a sequel called Death Comes to Pemberley. It is enjoyable.

My son is taking Third Form right now as an online class. We have had issue after issue; the latest was when the instructor decided to use the class time to let a student screen share a YouTube video totally unrelated to Latin DURING class time. It has taken DAYS for the instructor to respond to emails, and my email of concern to the online school director has gone unanswered now for four days. I am not at all pleased.

We dropped Netflix... Our internet connection couldn't support the streaming (We have DSL) and the whole price change thing made me angry. So we cancelled and have not missed it at all. We can get most of what we want at the library, we buy the series that we want to see and then get rid of them, and we use redbox for new movies. The only things we have missed are the foreign movies.

Stomp rockets are wonderful.

Our dogs get Christmas gifts and a birthday treat. My sister and I got gifts for my mom's cat, too. I guess I'll be crazy, too.

And Jenny and I have different religious beliefs, but I agree with this. I believe pets do have a conscious, and I believe that they go to heaven. What is more, C.S. Lewis agrees with me. :iagree: It doesn't bother me when people call their pets their furbabies. I've known people whose pets were MUCH more loving toward them than their own kids/family were!