LOVE Jane Austen! I have always despised Twain. It only got worse when I watched an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation where some of the Enterprise crew went back in time and met Twain. Yes, that is ridiculously silly, but so are his quotes about Jane Austen.

Same here! :lol:

We shoot each other with the pistols. It does not hurt like paintball. I tried shooting the cat once to keep her off the table, but it didn't seem to bother her. Someone gave the boys a rifle. It packs more of a punch. It left a red mark on my son's leg. It went away in just a couple of hours. They also shoot at their Styrofoam targets. The pistols just bounce off but the rifle will go in.

I fully agree. My oldest son spent grades K-5 in public school. He was not introduced to math and grammar vocabulary. Some things have been harder to work through than they should. My youngest son, who has never known anything other than homeschool, has no problem being told to write an expository paragraph, or to find the the congruent triangles. He also likes to look for the binomial nomenclature on seed packets. It's just his form of normal.

That's the same thing I was thinking. :D

AHHHH!!! I'm so excited!!! I was actually wondering whether to keep my Amazon Prime after the trial period or not. Woo-hoo!! Looks like I will!!

I have these sheets from Target. I love them.

I LOVE TOG in the younger years. Yes, it is more rigorous and intense for the older students. But for the younger ones it is fun. The books have gorgeous illustrations. There are so many hands on activities. Today my son is going to make a crown. He is learning about Napoleon crowning himself emperor. Lower grammar is very gentle. It seems to ignite a love of learning so that when they come to the heavier levels they feel more prepared. They have learned about Romans gods and goddesses and read about the emperor Nero being bad. Later on that helps to prepare them for learning just how bad Nero was and to see the darkness of his heart.

Connecting the dots is better left to the dialectic and rhetoric stages. In the grammar stages it is more about becoming familiar with the stories and histories of other cultures. I either read that on the TOG website or Marcia's blog. I can't remember. I will say that I have seen it to be true in our household. My oldest son, who did not even use TOG in his younger days, will sometimes have aha! moments where he realizes that a led to b which resulted in c..... We have a KONOS wall chart for a timeline. We just print off a picture of a person, document, battle, or whatever and place it on the timeline in the proper spot. You could do the same thing with a few sheets of poster board. On a smaller scale you can draw a line going across the middle of a piece of paper (longwise) and mark off dates.

I haven't used the others, but TOG has some wonderful books for the lower grammar years. Beautifully illustrated and engaging stories that kept Samuel's attention. Does he like hands-on crafty things? There is at least one hands on book for each unit of TOG. You can also get lapbook kits to go along with it. Personally my kids hate lapbooks, so we did that once and only once. :glare: The geography portion of TOG is very nice. Also, does he like to make up stories of his own? We have lots of poems, fables, plays, etc from our TOG studies.

We didn't have any problems.

Would you believe that the only person I know in real life who dresses like that is a public school teacher?!??!

I would be angry about someone using that word when talking directly to my child. She could have something along the lines of "Don't say that. Some people might think that is offensive." For what is is worth, around here that phrase might end with crud, crap, fuzz, heck, h*!!, fudge, f***. I have even heard people say what the stink. So, even though many people will automatically think the f-bomb, not everyone will.

I ordered some books last week from Bookshelf Central. The day I placed my order, I got an email confirmation. Everything looked fine on it. Today I got an update from UPS saying my package is ahead of schedule and will be delivered today. TO THE WRONG ADDRESS!!!! (Granted, it is the address where I used to live) I called UPS to see about changing the address. They told me that I have to call BC because they (UPS) are under financial obligation to deliver the package to the address they were given. :banghead: Bookshelf Central is closed until 9:00 am. :cursing: I checked my account information. It is showing my current address. I checked my emails from them again. They are showing the correct address.

I agree with this line of thinking. My middle son (who taught himself to read at age 3) was doing upper grammar in third grade, is now doing dialectic in grade 5. My youngest son, on the other hand, used to say at age 6 that he didn't need to know how to read by himself since he has a mom and dad who can read. He is 8, in 3rd grade, and doing lower grammar.

:iagree: My husband and I were talking yesterday about how we missed days of nicer clothes.

BOYS!!! They might eat me out of house and home, but there is a lot less drama than with the girls I see around us.

We have not actually had tears, but lots of whining and carrying on in Delta about Roman numerals. Algebra 1 would sometimes cause my son to ask for a break.

I feel your pain. The town we used to live had no children's biographies on historical figures, but a whole shelf of Beyonce, Justin Beiber, and the like. The town we live in now has a better one, but is still not great. We also have cards in the library in another town. They have more, but it is not very organized so going is a hassle.

I agree. My youngest son (who was first grade at the time) enjoyed Year 1 more than his brothers. He still has his pharaoh costume, some of his crafts, his high priest breastplate, and some other stuff that I can't remember right now. He can still (two years later) tell you things about ancient cultures. I truly wish that we had known about TOG years ago and used nothing else. They [TOG] even suggest that if your oldest child is in the grammar stage you can take it slower and do a year plan over the course of two years. I think that would be especially handy in year 2. There is a loooooong period of history covered there.

My youngest son's favorite is Bacon Cheeseburger. it is just regular sauce, crumbled ground beef, crumbles bacon, topped with cheddar and mozzarella. My middle son only likes cheese. Sometimes I will do a candy corn pizza for him. (just arrange the cheese so that the mozzarella is in the center something orange, like cheddar, arranged in a ring around that; put something lighter {Gouda maybe} around the edges) When you slice it, each slice will have white at eh top, orange in the center, and yellow at the bottom, like a piece of candy corn.

Grade 3- Shurley English Level 3 Grade 5- Shurley English Level 5 We just do the grammar portion. The vocabulary and writing leave something to be desired. It takes usually 25-30 minutes a day, three days per week. It is very repetitive. That causes a lot of people I know to hate it. The repetition causes my kids to really get what they are learning. They know how to form coherent sentences. They know their parts of speech. Grade Nine- Learning Language Arts Through Literature Once again, we do not do the writing assignments. All Grades- Writing Aids From Tapestry of Grace I love the writing assignments that Tapestry suggests. My kids do not always love them because they are not always easy and require some thought.

We never really watched the DVD at all until Samuel watched on of his brother's Pre-Algebra lessons and said,"Hey that guy is funny! Do you have DVD of MY math, too?" He would do as many pages as he wanted each day and build stuff with the blocks. Part of me sort of felt like Primer was a waste of time. As the year went on though, I began to see that he was learning and that it did have value. It just.starts.off.soooo.slooooowwwwwwlllly.

My eyelashes are long. Pale but long. If I put mascara on the lower lashes, I end up with lines on my face where the lashes hit below my eye before the mascara dried.

Peppered Steak and Caramelized Onion Tacos These were awesome! My middle son (aka the picky eater who does not meat very well) was not very impressed. But overall they were a hit.