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Hedgehogs4

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Everything posted by Hedgehogs4

  1. LoF for my oldest who will finish Zeta next week and Beast Academy for my DD who is finishing Beta.
  2. I second, third, fourth or whatever everyone who has suggested Paleo. I have done HcG and lost 30 pounds. I gained 20 of them back within six months. The one thing that diet did for me was break my addictions to carbs and show me what is really necessary to have in my diet, and what definitely is not necessary. I don't recommend such a severe diet. I am now eating a Paleo / Primal style diet and doing CrossFit. I have no more aches and pains, I have lost inches, gained muscle, and changed my whole lifestyle and mindset with regard to diet and fitness. I feel stronger and better than I have since I was a kid. I have not reached my weight goal yet, but I am WELL on my way, five months in. I have no interest in changing back to the old way of eating. In my sig. line is a link to my CF blog. I've been logging all my workouts and progress, as well as reflections on how I am changing, mainly for myself, but it's there if anyone wants to read it.
  3. We have used them with tremendous success for my older ds11. We didn't do one this year, but when we did them, he WROTE without realizing he was writing, he did RESEARCH without realizing it, he managed details, made decisions, and practiced visual design all in one project. We did one on ancient Greece, one on the middle ages,and one on Lewis and Clark, and he loves looking back at them. we used file folders, a little card stock, and pictures that we printed off of the internet. I honestly never felt a pinch financially because of them. These are things I keep on hand anyway, so it really didn't make a difference. YMMV. I think it's partly in the attitude, and partly in the learning style of the people involved. We are kind of whole-to-parts kind of people. We'll look at the big picture, then break down what parts of that we want to learn about. Then we lay out a design, do the research, then fill it in, tweaking along the way. It has been extremely rewarding for my son and I, who work well with that system. I can imagine, though, that it could be incredibly frustrating for others who don't think that way. If you go to my blog (accidental homeschooler) and search lap books, I have photos of the ones we have done and some reviews of the process.
  4. I think they are important, mainly because I noticed that my kids got so many of them wrong. It shows that they are not fully listening, and the questions help them to tune in and focus. Sometimes I will read the questions over and tell dd, "make sure you pay attention to..." then I start reading. It helps her to gather more of the information. We are in WWE 2 now and she seldom misses the answers now.
  5. Make sure you plan in advance and get passes from your senator or representative's office for the tour of the Capitol. You cannot just go and see. Also, the spy museum is a blast! I second that. The Marine Corps museum is really great, but is about an hour south of DC, not accessible by metro. It is worth it if you have a car to get around. Udvar-Hazy Air and Space museum is also really great, as you can see the the Space Shuttle, as well as some really great pieces of aeronautic / space history, but you have to figure out transport out there. It is near Dulles airport. I agree that you should get in an art museum--they are wonderful. Since we live here and can go anytime, my kids' favorites are the Air and Space museum on the mall, the Natural History museum, the American history museum, and the Spy Museum. The Spy Museum is not free, but well worth the money. You can find deals online for tickets. For the best burgers, fries and milkshakes in. the. world. check out a restaurant called "Good Stuff Eatery"--you won't feel like you've poisoned yourself, and you get a good look at the locals. Just a few stores down from there (at the Capitol Hill location) is a toy store called Labyrinth which is a wonderful break for the parents. The people who work there will sit down and play games with your kids and show you all kinds of cool toys and games that are good for the brain--a homeschooled kid's paradise. My son asks to go to those two places every time we go into the city.
  6. I think WWE 3 is the perfect balance of narration and dictation. In WWE 4 the dictations get really long. I think that if they are able to do well what is laid out in 3, they are plenty ready for what they need to do in WWS, as long as they can work independently. I think WWE 4 could be good for a kid who is not quite ready to work independently on this style of assignment. I started WWE when my ds was well into 3rd grade. He was the kind of kid for whom writing was physically painful, and his spelling needed tons of help, so we took our time. His reading and narration ability far exceded his writing and spelling ability, so I started him in WWE1 and quickly discovered that this was too easy. WWE 2 was perfect at that point. I can't remember exactly how it all timed out, but I do know that we finished WWE 3 at the end of 5th grade. I didn't bother with 4 because the dictations were (IMO) far longer than necessary and cognitively, my ds was just ready to move into the WWS. WWE4 is optional. My friend has two girls, one in 7th and one in 5th. They both finished WWE3 last year, and the older girl was more than ready for WWS, the younger was not, so she is doing WWE4--this turned out to be a very good decision for them. My DD 7 (second grader, will be 8 in May) just finished WWE 1 and is doing well with WWE 2. I expect to need to make the choice of WWE 4 vs. WWS in 5th grade with her. We will see where she is cognitively at that point. She is already strong in her writing, spelling and narration skills.
  7. We just started phonetic zoo in 6th grade, 2nd term. I did not know about it. DS 11 tested into level B and is doing great! He really likes it, and I like it because I don't have to do ANYTHING. They recommend AAS before Phonetic Zoo. SS was an absolute flop for us. AAS saved our lives, and PZ is delivering on its promises.
  8. Haha, I just read this out loud to my husband. I went into the settings of my Mac and figured out how to do it on my computer, and my ds heard me say, "holy cow, it works." He was up the stairs in a flash, and then he wanted to know how to do it on his computer, he also has a Mac. I told him that I was not going to tell him how to do it but if he figured it out himself that was fine. He is now downstairs yelling at his computer trying to figure out how to turn on the voice recognition feature on his Mac. I predict it will take him about another 2 minutes before he has it all worked out.
  9. We skipped WWE 4 and went straight to WWS. I agree with the pp who said if she is confident with narrations, then she should have no problem with WWS. You might want to take it really slowly though. We are planning to do it in 2 years, just because I like to make sure he has really grasped all the concepts and done his best work on the writing portions.
  10. WWE is definitely something that can be done on its own. My son started WWE 2 in late 3rd grade, finished WWE 3 in 5th and started WWS in 6th, and we will cover it over two years. He was the kind of boy who really physically struggled with writing, as in it was an exhausting endeavor for his little mitts to hold and move the pencil. He would much rather have been jumping, rolling, flipping, and bashing. Now he writes beautifully - is extremely articulate and has beautiful penmanship (when he takes his time!)
  11. and who knows if it will all work next year? I hope so for your sake, but really, I sense the theme here of constant fluctuation and readjustment. I know that it took us three years to know who we really were as a homeschooling family, and since then things have been much smoother, but I'm constantly struggling with routine, changes, and curriculum tweaks. We are not doing school...we are educating while in the midst of living busy lives. Furthermore, we compare our progress to a brick and mortar, scheduled, programmed institution. I think that sometimes we need to sit down with our kids and remind them that we are not trying to be a school. Perhaps part of her routine needs to be helping you with the siblings and doing some chores so that your hands can then later be free to sit and work with her on something she really needs help with. Sometimes communication with our kids goes a long way to helping them grasp what the differences are between "school" and "education." Then ask which they really want.
  12. If you are not sure about switching, I will just give this plug. My DS 11 has gone through WWE 1-3 then to WWS 1. He is doing wonderfully in the more advanced writing and is proving to be an excellent writer. I have never used anything but SWB's program. If you listen to her lectures on how to teach writing, it just makes so much sense. You have to trust the process to some extent.
  13. If your 5th grader has never done SWB's style of writing, I would do a few things first: 1. listen to her lectures from PHP on how to teach writing (they are so engaging and make so. much. sense!), 2. do WWE 3 for the practice. I know you said you don't use WWE, but these things build on each other, and for me it has been helpful to have the structured, predictable, practiced skills that are contained in it. It doesn't mean you shouldn't / couldn't do more narration in your other subjects. 3. start WWS in 6th grade. My 6th grader is working on it currently and I plan to take two years to go through it. It just takes us longer than a week to get through the assignments, not because they are too hard, but because with everything else (grammar, vocab, spelling, math, science, history....) there isn't enough time in a day to fit everything in, so I give him a couple days extra with the final writing assignment in each chapter. He is doing EXTREMELY well with it. I couldn't be more pleased.
  14. To the OP, it sounds to me like your kids are just the right age for it. I started TOG with my son in 5th grade (last year) and my dd in 1st. Next year we will be covering y1 with him in 7th and her in 3rd. (is that possible? wow.) I am looking at it as a long-term investment. It is somewhat planning intensive, but there is so much flexibility. If nothing else it will keep your kids reading, reading, reading, and you can have some great discussions. If there is time for it there are wonderful projects, but by no means have you failed if you choose not to do them. Those are for those other super-moms, which I have not yet learned how to be, but I'm okay with that.
  15. My dd went through a similar phase, so I taught her cursive. She now has lovely handwriting, and takes a lot of pride in the fact that she can write cursive well, and she is getting faster at it than she ever was at printing.
  16. I agree that God makes himself known. I wouldn't say it even requires an open mind and heart. Saul was not exactly "open" to Christianity when he was struck blind on the road to Damascus.
  17. If your husband has chosen to believe, then the likelihood is that your son will too. However, he is 14, and has had a long time to form his ideas. Look how long it took you! Even so, coming to faith in the living God who does exist and has the power to draw us to himself is not entirely our doing--it is a work of God. Therefore, pray. Pray for your son that he will come to faith. Do not push him. Ask God to do the beckoning and begin living your Christian life, and let your son see it happen. If it were up to me, I would tell my son that I'll answer any questions he has, but would not initiate these conversations. I would require him to go to church until he is 18, as long as he is my legal responsibility, but he would not be required to participate in church functions...just attend service, because I would want to be sure that (regardless of his decisions) he is fully aware of the changes in his family and he should learn about them, even if he doesn't believe.
  18. Yeah, um...it's March. I'm wearing a matching tee-shirt right now.
  19. we correct them. The frustration of having to go back and take the extra time is usually enough to create a more careful student.
  20. We are currently in year 4 and so far have only covered to WW2, which is Unit 2. We will discuss the civil rights movement and the founding of Israel, but after that I am going to leave the modern history alone. We talk a lot about politics, economics, etc, and my dh loves to teach ds about that stuff, so it will work out in the end. I am starting back at Y1U1 this summer.
  21. Thanks for the tips. I am looking forward to the worldview component next year. I am glad to hear of the documentaries. I'm sure we will take advantage of that!
  22. Yes first time with Tapestry. Used SOTW before (which I enjoyed very much...I just don't have a real interest in picking at ancient history like we do with the other stuff).
  23. I am cycling back around to year one of history next year. My DS will be 12, and we will be using TOG Ancients for his curriculum. My problem is that neither he nor I is especially fond of Ancient History and if I had my way we'd skip it all together. I know I don't want to do that though, so I am wondering what you have found to be the most interesting / fun / useful part of year one. We have already used years 3 & 4, so I am well-familiar with the system... TIA Kelly
  24. Moccasin Trail not fiction but we loved the Little Britches series (period biography, reads like a novel)
  25. I absolutely agree, and this is the reason we switched.
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