It just bugged her more! ;) I'm lucky that my husband has less tolerance for clutter and mess than I do!

As long as it bothers you more than them, it won't change. Can you do an experiment and let things go for a time? See how long it takes for the mess to get on your husband's nerves? Keep a journal of how they step over the mess and ignore it? I wouldn't be surprised if my husband does that with me on occasion. I just don't see (or care) about the mess/clutter. But I do have a point where it starts getting to me. Hope you find a way to make it work!

There are no current plans for doing a HiG for 6 standards from what I've read on the Singapore site.

And I just checked amazon. This is a Dirk Pitt book. Absolutely inappropriate for a child. There'll be sex and violence and very poor writing.

We were just talking about this last night! I have strong opinions ;) If you're going to consider it, you may also want to read amazon reviews.

My initial response is, "Good grief! No!!!" I read a lot of Cussler - up until the mid-90s where he started putting himself in the books (Dirk Pitt meets a character and has a conversation with him, then comments, "That guy seems familiar."). Ick, ick, ick, ick! In Raise the Titanic!, there's a scene where a woman strips in front of a bunch of men. I don't know if he's branched out in recent years to young adult books, but I would cheerfully let my 10 yo son read Hunger Games before I'd let him read Cussler. Cussler just writes so very very very very very poorly. And I say this as the owner of a number of Cussler books. I even bought a couple in hardback when I was in college or soon after - before I finally gave up reading him at all. I'd give him Stephen King before I'd give him Cussler. Ick, ick, ick. No, no, no!! In the Dirk Pitt books, Cussler seems to be trying to create a Bond-type of character. In Night Probe Pitt runs into Bond in a wheelchair being cared for by Moneypenny (although they aren't named). We were actually talking about Cussler last night (or I was on a diatribe about him). My son is reading Bright Shark by Bob Ballard. It's from the late 80s/early 90s and I think was written to see if Ballard's name could compete with Cussler. It's fiction and has lead to some discussions. I think I probably should have pre-read or not gotten it from the library. And there may be some YA Cussler books that shouldn't just be burned. This may be one of them. But poor writing is only the start. I'd avoid ;)

Agreeing with nmoira. Also, prime factorization of a number is very helpful with simplifying radicals. Prime factorization of a number is unique is so important a concept, it's the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic. I wouldn't skip it :)

Boscopup's correct.

The Black Box by Michael Connelly

I hate lattice from the little I've seen of it. I don't see how it's generalizable to polynomial multiplication for instance, whereas the traditional algorithm is.

It's now social promotion. In our state, currently all districts (to my knowledge) don't assign grades below 50 to help prevent students from failing. It is vey very rare to have a student repeat a year. And the summer remediation programs just have the students attend and pass.

I chose the bridges about 12 years ago. Insurance wouldn't cover any of the implant at the time. I've also had really bad luck with dental surgeries. I have an excellent dentist and he did an excellent job. It was very sad though to drill away four very healthy teeth to be able to do the bridges (I have two at the front of my mouth). I needed more novocaine in the middle of the drilling because it wears off pretty quickly for me (lots of oral surgery with the braces when I was younger). If I were doing it now with my mouth as it was then, I'd have gone for the implant (due to changes in procedures and changes in insurance coverage). At the time, I think the bridges were the better choice. But the teeth on each side will make a difference (mine were fine).

YES, YES, YES!!! My son had a cut in his hand when he cracked an egg recently while cooking. It swelled up about 1 cm just from the contact. Drat, drat, drat. He's also got severe dairy & nut allergies. It really helps me to know in advance what dangers for us may be in the course. I don't want "homework", but I've really been enjoying a zoo class that sends out information in advance so we can do additional reading or research first. If a book list were also supplied with recommended reading or website addresses for more information, I'd love that! I prefer morning classes over afternoon. I want the website to make information easy for me to find. Let me know who to contact with email addresses. Let me know dates/times/locations/topics. Make online registration EASY (I've been having a frustrating time with art classes lately and their online registration system). If another family is disruptive during the program, please ask them to be quiet or leave. I understand multiple ages, but if people are being rude, kick them out. We were at a recent program where some children were just too young for the program. I was very pleased that their mother took them out while leaving her other kids with the program. I've been at others where disruptive families just stayed. I'd like the facilitator to speak up at that point.

It used to be that some students getting Pell Grants (in particular, I believe) would drop soon after they got the check. Checks are now disbursed closer to the middle of the semester. There are also much more stringent guidelines for "satisfactory academic progress", including number of credits attempted. Our cc has a pretty strict attendance policy & after a student has missed 3 classes for any reason in a 2-day a week class, I drop them. The college wants the last date of attendance reported clearly as well for financial aid purposes. Some of the parking lot crowds also can be because some of the classes may be practicums where students meet on campus at the start of the semester and then are at a different location much of the semester.

Christopher Perrin, Jim Weiss, Michael Clay Thompson, Carol Reynolds, Ed Zaccaro were all fun to listen to. (And SWB was great despite being in a really bad location, but she won't be there this year.)

I'm thinking of this thread some as my son is reading a book, Bright Shark (co-written by Bob Ballard - fiction), that I haven't pre-read. It's not assigned, and I'd planned to read it before handing it to him, but he grabbed it from the library stack and is having a grand time with it. He's also telling me all the curse words that are in it and he did ask me whether one was racist (it wasn't). So I'm a bit torn at letting him continue with it, but he'll get the opportunity to self-censor if he gets uncomfortable with the book or with any topics in it. I do think it's much easier to step away from a book than a movie or tv show. We'll see how it goes!

If you're going to look at the exhibit hall, I'd think it would be pretty tricky with a group of kids. I'm going mainly so my son can take a look at some different possibilities we can use next year. If there are some speakers who interest you, it can be worth going to see them. Unfortunately there aren't enough for me. We're definitely non religious, so that limits what is useful there. My husband walked out of a session he attended because it was too misogynistic for him :) But I'm going for MCT and the exhibit hall. But I'm going with a 10 yo. It would have been hard to look with him when he was 8. DH kept him entertained. They do have a kids program, but I don't know much about it. If there are exhibitors or speakers that you really want to see, it may be worth it.

Just as a FYI, Stephen King's book On Writing is pretty good. I've had my son read parts of it (kill the adverbs!). Language is still an issue if that matters to you. He also shows the first pages of a short story and then with his editing notes on it, so that's really cool.

We will be going briefly. I'm not sure if it'll just be a day trip or not. I enjoyed seeing SWB a few years ago and MCT. I expect I'll try to see MCT again and we'll be looking at the Rainbow Resource display.

Thanks. I've looked at that some before. I figure we'll have an interesting time. He's getting excited about it, so that's cool.

I really wish there were a way for other posters to tag threads. I don't miss the snarky tag wars as comments on the old general board, but I really appreciated posters who'd tag thread for programs consistently. It helped tremendously with searches!

When my son outgrew the children's dictionary, we just moved on to the Collegiate dictionary that we already had around the house. It's got word etymology and has worked well. Why use the intermediate dictionary at all?

We're going to try it next year. Ds is going to repeat 5th grade so he'll have an extra year at home. (Cut-off here is Sept. 1. His birthday is Aug. 29. I didn't know about redshirting in Kindergarten, so we just started. I want him to have another year before college - in particular due to severe food allergies - another year so he can be a stronger advocate sounds good too.) So right now the plan is one day a week is mine. The other 4 he can basically study what he wants. I'm sure I'll still be doing some planning & leading, but if he wants to study calculus, I'll be seeing what approaches I can do at his level (for instance). We may spend days watching science or history videos. There may be days or weeks of just reading fiction. I'm really going to try and relax and see where he leads us. Ask me how it's working next Christmas :) (Or watch me have a nervous breakdown... There was a Signals t-shirt I liked that had the saying "Does anal retentive have a hyphen". It'll be interesting to see if I can let go!)

I use Word. The equation editor is (or used to be) under "insert" "object" "equation".

I think the more options you have, the better. WIth proportions, I want students to understand WHY they do the cross-multiplication & division. Proportions are just rational equations. The properties of solving linear equations work (so long as you don't end with a denominator of zero when substituting back). So you can simplify each side first, and multiply both sides by any non-zero number. You can do this in any order. So solving 5/15 = x/7, I might reduce 5/15 first, giving 1/3 = x/7. Rather than cross-multiply here, to get x by itself, I just want to multiply by 7. Thus 7/3 = x. This is the same as if I'd done 7(5) = 15(x), then divided by 15. Note that if I write that out... [7*5] / 15 = x, I can still reduce the 5/15 by properties of fractions (divide by 1: cancel the 5/5). So yes, your method is fine. Sometimes one procedure is easier than others though. Thus having multiple approaches can be helpful. And, most importantly, showing why a procedure works is crucial.