I did read the first few Gentry books but was able to stop with them after the third or fourth. I still get drawn into the Blake books. :glare: Luckily I read fast. Read the recent one and in some ways Hamilton is getting back into stories. It actually had some semblance of a plot and things did happen other than just sex. I also think the first sex scene wasn't until at least 40 or 50 pages into the book, so that's quite an improvement over the middle books. For fun, you can read some of the Amazon reviews of Hamilton's later books. Many people are really ticked off at how she changed. I figure she has used the books instead of getting actual therapy. And the first few really were good. Sigh.

We're using the books as family read-alouds. We did Book 1 and 2 when ds was in first grade, then we're doing the next book when we finish our school year. Right now we're reading Bk 4. Getting close to the end, and we'll need to do quite a bit of reading at once after the Triwizard Tournament ends. Ds is somewhat sensitive, so keeping to one book a year seems to help him grow with the characters.

In the Dresden vein: authors: Kim Harrison, Patricia Briggs (unsure about sex but it doesn't stand out in my memory), Kelley Armstrong, Ilona Andrews (FUN!), Charlaine Harris (maybe), Carrie Vaughn. These are all supernatural character series. I don't have a problem with sex, language, or violence, but none of these stand out as extreme. You should absolutely avoid Laurell K Hamilton books. Her first 5 or 6 were very good but then she later turns into just pornography - and poorly written porn at that. :glare: In the Codex Alera fantasy type: John Flanagan: Ranger's Apprentice series, Tamora Pierce: Alanna series (may be not a good mesh, but still good fantasy), Robin McKinley: Hero & Crown, Blue Sword (in same world, stand-alone books but I'd do Hero & Crown first), Barb & JC Hendee: Dhampir (first book in series - kind of a tie in with both types: supernatural and more adventure/fantasy). You may want to read reviews of books watching for any issues you want to avoid. Butcher has a collection of short stories that just came out - most previously published in other anthologies - about Dresden. It was enjoyable.

Hope tomorrow goes better for you. Our days often take longer than they should. On the plus side, I've finally convinced ds that it's not wise to turn off my alarm in the morning and tuck me back in bed. :glare:

Our state gets it and all homeschoolers have access :)

I use Educational Fontware for the GDI fonts. It works pretty well. We started with Book A of GDI and are in Book D now - finally making some serious progress with cursive. I'm pleased with how it's working. I just have the textbooks (and instructor's manual - for reference for me). If I want additional practice, I type up a page using the fontware program and Word.

I need to see the schedule so I can make clearer plans! I don't know if I'll drive up each day (a bit over an hour away) or if I'll get a hotel. It depends on the schedule! It looks like MCT is speaking on Thursday and Friday on different topics, so that'll be tough to decide which to go to if I don't get both. This is my first homeschool convention. I've done conventions for work before and they were wonderful so I'm hoping I get some good information here as well.

Bought tickets a couple weeks ago (although credit card hasn't been charged yet, so that seems strange). I'm looking forward to hearing MCT. I hope to hear SWB as well. I don't know that many other speakers will be applicable to me but I'm waiting on the schedule. I'd like to look at some high school materials (check out Singapore at higher levels if the books are there). I'm going to have a list of Latin programs I want to look at and see if I can find something that'll work for us.

Because they're making the switch to forums: http://rfwpsupport.com/forum.php I think it'll make searching easier. And I hope it makes checking errata easier too.

I haven't seen upper levels at all, but I thought on the Yahoo group it was said clearly by MCT that he doesn't use diagramming, so I don't expect it to be anywhere (there're forums now and the yahoo group is ending - but the forums will likely be helpful for MCT users). Cheryl - just as a heads-up - the Island level is recommended for 3rd/4th grade. I don't know that my son would have been able to use it well in 1st or 2nd. YMMV :)

Everything except Practice Island is nonconsumable. They are softcover. I have had to type a few pages from the TM for ds (pretest, posttest, quiz) because answers are on the page in the TM or on the next page. I've just used Post-Its (software stars out letters if you don't use the hyphen here... wow) to cover some of the notes in the TM. None of the levels teach diagramming. The "four level analysis" does teach parts of speech. We modify it and I have ds draw arrows from adjectives and adverbs to what they are modifying. I also got Rex Barks and we're using it for diagramming. It felt really strange to me starting out with the MCT program. Overall, I'm liking it though and it's getting done more than Write Source did last year! I am planning on going to the Town level next year and am looking forward to seeing MCT present at the SE convention this year!

Bonniebeth gives a concise explanation :) I used US edition for 1 and switched to Standards in 2. I like the standards edition better. I still add in the US IP and we use the old edition of CWP.

I was 11 for that and Valley of the Horses. My mom said if she'd read Valley first, she'd have kept me from reading it. Too late! I was probably middle school/early high school for This Perfect Day as well. I think it'll be interesting to watch as ds gets older and see where his interests lie. I'm far more likely to let him read a story rather than watch a video with similar content - and I'm more concerned about graphic violence than with language and sex - although he'll sure get plenty of all if he reads the classics in high school. :lol:

I also find that the Standards edition has significantly more review and practice than the Primary Math version. We switched to Standards in 2 and now that we're in 3, I'm actually skipping some of the review problems in the text rather than supplementing with additional workbooks.

Congratulations! :party:

Not Safe For Work (possibly off-color). These two links should be completely safe, but the group does have some songs that do contain language that some might find objectionable, thus the NSFW tag :) When I was going through a tough time recently, I spent a good bit of time watching the OK GO videos. http://www.okgo.net/media/videos/ Do What You Want (wallpaper version) just makes me smile :) (unsure if lyrics are safe or not)

and I enjoy the videos a lot. Some of their other songs have possibly NSFW lyrics but I think this one is safe. All their videos are incredibly fun! :D

Check with your allergist, but I'd want the Epi. I had to use ours on my son when he was 5. We knew of his dairy allergy but didn't know he was allergic to cashews. I was so grateful we had the Epi. Better safe than sorry - and do talk with your allergist. I'd have given the Epi tonight given the description. Very glad Benadryl was enough.

We're working on the difference between US and metric measurements and ds asked if I could get a cookbook that has metric units of measure (since I told him that's how things are in the rest of the world). However, I'm not quite sure how to find one. If anyone has specific titles of cookbooks (or links to where I could order one), that'd be really helpful! Basically, I imagine I'm looking for a cookbook that has mL instead of cups, temperature in C instead of F would be nifty too! Thanks for any suggestions!

Yeah... but next year you'll be here. Ha! ;)

:iagree: Hate it, hate it, hate it. I don't mind "fall back" apart from changing every clock and driving to work in the dark (I work in the evening). But I despise "springing forward". I would LOVE to do away with all the time changes.

You can go back (if you haven't) and do the writing assignments in Sentence Island (back of the book in the TM). I think if I let my son just read the story, he'd move through Sentence Island really quickly. With MoH, we're often reading the full poem rather than just the selection in MoH. Building Language goes a bit slower for us too when we look up words in the dictionary (both English and Spanish). We aren't using a reading curriculum, but Writing with Ease seems to fit nicely in for us and my son has enjoyed reading the full stories that pieces are selected from in the books. You also could just keep reading (Classics in the Classroom has some good ideas) and analyze selections using tools from Island level.

Her blog is in her sig: http://hmsindefatigable.blogspot.com/

He supports me 100%. He lets me be me, and accepts me for who I am - all the bad parts as well as the good. He's always on my side. We're both really lucky to have each other. I hope our son is able to have a marriage like ours.

That's the danger with that mnemonic. It's multiplication and division in the order they appear from left to right. Then same for addition and subtraction.