I've looked high and low, but cannot seem to find BFSU. Any ideas on this one? And btw, this is kind of old, but s/o is short for "spin off". You know, like a tv show that generates yet another show with similar or some of the same characters? Thanks so much for your help, Violet. Blessings, Lucinda

"The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government." ~ Thomas Jefferson Susan B. Anthony (1889), abolitionist and early leader of the women's suffrage movement, opposed abortion, saying: "Sweeter even than to have had the joy of caring for children of my own has it been to me to help bring about a better state of things for mothers generally, so their unborn little ones could not be willed away from them." "The greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion, which is war against the child. The mother doesn't learn to love, but kills to solve her own problems. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want." ~ Mother Teresa In 1964, a Planned Parenthood brochure said, "An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun." "Don't force your beliefs on me." ~ Unborn baby. And my current favorite bumper sticker, "Choose life -- your mom did!" Blessings, Lucinda

If my dd and I were not hooked on TOG, I would be following WTM and most likely using SOTW for our history curriculum. For a third grader especially, it seems like you could easily pare TOG down to just SOTW for all history yet follow the TOG literature and writing assignments. Then your 3rd grader would still have some learning in common with the other children. I don't know why it wouldn't work very smoothly that way. What do you think? Blessings, Lucinda

I don't know how it would be a stand alone, but WTM recommends using LOF to supplement other, more traditional, math programs for the logic stage. The suggestion is that you use LOF once a week to add variety and make math fun and interesting for students because of its unique, non-traditional approach. I have not read ahead to know if this the recommendation is the same for rhetoric level, but I ordered LOF for my dd to use this way during 6th - 8th grades along side TT. Blessings, Lucinda

Isn't that the way it always goes? I hear you, sister! Your plan looks really good, by the way. Blessings, Lucinda

Very good suggestion here, Tina. The only problem is that I had already purchased all the UG core books for this unit because the original plan was to do it during 5th grade. We have been acquiring D level books and setting aside for YR 2. I may need to look over again and see if I can pull some D level books in there for U4 - although at this point money is tight and I can't afford to add extra books to my lists. With only one student, we don't have a family library built up that I can just pull from. Please pray for wisdom as I consider all of this. I'm not in a support group either. Since I work part-time outside the home, PLUS hs, I just can't afford the time. I have a close friend nearby that hs's and we have what we call a little co-op, but its really just for class time, not mommy sharing time. Like you, this forum has been my support group. I belong to a couple of other forums, but there is very little activity at them compared to the Hive. I've connected with some really great people here that have been very instrumental in my hs practices. I'm starting to think of you as my TOG expert lately! Did you think of that other thing yet? I'm all :bigear:s! Blessings, Lucinda

We always list my cell phone number as the main contact for our family. Dh works and is on the road frequently, so it just makes sense. If we had a land line I would be the one picking up the phone, answering anyway. Blessings, Lucinda

Again, thanks for the reply to my request and for all of the wonderful insight. What an amazing teacher you are. Here are my replies to your questions and points: Basically, what I'm planning to do is use UG materials, but I'm also going to lecture from the Teacher's Notes and lead her into D level discussions. I have not plotted this all out yet, but it is my goal with this unit to start getting our feet wet as we prepare to move over to the next level. I am also thinking about having her start a timeline with U4 too because we have not done that yet. Anyway, does this clarify what I said and does it seem doable? I totally expect this, and will try not to demand too much too soon. My dd has been reading ALL of the core reading for UG so far, in addition to adding SOTW nearly every week. She is a strong reader, so I believe this will be a good challenge for her. I do think she is ready to make the transition. Actually we have not been outlining much at all so far.:D I'm just now reading up on this practice and plan to work with her during 6th grade. We will use Kingfisher along with some of the other core reading for this. I'm very interested to see how she does with it. You are so right!! This should work out beautifully! Thanks so much for the suggestion. I love it! I don't know how this whole thing about outlining went right over my head during 5th grade -- I guess I didn't refer back to TWTM like I should have at the beginning of the year -- but I'm on board now and ready to rock-n-roll with it. What wonderful advice. We could practice this during YR 1/Unit 4 as part of the preparation for the big change. Tina, you are a godsend! I knew you would have some good tips for me for this year. I always find your posts to be so helpful and inspiring. Thanks for being here on the boards with us. Blessings, Lucinda

Same here...cell phones for everyone in the family (even 80 yo Grandma who lives with us, and 11 yo dd), and we have high speed internet through our cable company. We have had such great service through both providers that we just dumped the land line as it seemed unnecessary. Blessings, Lucinda

TWTM suggest using LOF during upper grammar and logic stages to supplement the regular math curriculum about once per week. LOF uses a non-traditional approach and kids find it to be fun, so the idea is to give them some variety. I'm sure there are other ways to implement LOF, but that is what I read just recently, so I bought two volumes for my soon to be 6th grader. We will do LOF every Friday, and I think it will be great because she is not as crazy about math as she is reading books and writing. Blessings, Lucinda

You are my heroine today for sure. I will sit down and write a decent reply tomorrow. I hosted a standardized testing group at our house today and have been painting the walls in my studio/classroom all afternoon. It's been a crazy day. TTFN - yes, from that gorgeous farm and vineyard country way out west! Blessings, Lucinda

I would agree with Tina, in that you don't have to begin with Yr 1. You honestly can jump in at Yr 2, or at any point. But saying all that, if I had one LG student that was not going to remain at home long term I don't think I would go with TOG either. I absolutely love TOG, and I'm using it for one child, but we are in it for the long haul or at least through middle school. We began last year at UG level and it was perfect for my 5th grader. If she had been at LG level, I believe I would have waited until 5th grade. In fact, Lampstand Press recommends that families begin using the curriculum when the oldest child is in 5th grade. The younger students simply get exposed to the subjects and concepts as the family gets the cycles and rhythms down and the older students go more in-depth. Do keep in mind that when you buy TOG, you are buying lesson plans that cover all grades from K-12. Most people buy it to build upon over a period of time, acquiring the resource books that will be used at each grade level as they amass a great library. Of course with one student, that is not necessary, but I guess what I'm getting at is that when you purchase TOG you are buying a very structured teacher's manual that is not used in its entirety in one year . It just may be overkill for your situation. One thought came to mind as I was writing this. Why don't you just get all the resource books for LG and use the along with SOTW YR 2? Unless you want the whole lesson plan w/teacher's notes for your own education, that is really all that you would need. I think if I were in your shoes, that is exactly what I would do. Blessings, Lucinda

We are doing TT Math 7 next year too, and I am going to supplement with LOF one day per week. I bought LOF Fractions and also LOF Decimals & Percents. Going by the WTM recommendation, I thought this would add some interest and variety to what we are doing, plus reinforce on the two areas of math. As to regular drills, have you ever checked out Calculadders? I've used them before and they are great. Here is a link to Calculadder 6, which drills on fractions, decimals and percents. Blessings, Lucinda

Startwrite is a great program for this very thing, and a real bonus with it is that you can choose from several different writing styles. For example you could create handwriting sheets for your youngers in manuscript, then you could also create sheets for older students with several choices of cursive handwriting styles - including italics very much like Getty-Dubay. It sure is nice to know there are so many great tools out there for us to choose from and put to use! Blessings, Lucinda

What suggestions would you have for us for next year? So far, I am planning to start the year out with YR1/U4 at UG level, adding some D level lectures and discussions in order to transition over to D level. Then in the fall we will go into YR2/U1 at D level all the way. My daughter is really looking forward to studying medieval history, so we may slow down just a bit on that unit. Because she reads fast, I'm going to try to slip in some UG books here and there as well, plus she is going to continue to do lapbooks. I expect we will get through YR1/U2 by the end of the year, but I'm going to make an effort to also do U3 if at all possible because I want her to be ready to do US History in 7th grade. Our subjects and curriculum are on my siggy if that helps any. I'd just really love to hear your thoughts and suggestions for a new D level student that is at this point in the program. Thanks in advance for your input, Tina. I really do appreciate it. Blessings, Lucinda

Bump...

I'm really leaning harder towards R & S, because I can't help but think it will help fill in some holes here and there, and I do trust the recommendation of SWB. Every time I think about picking up with EG again at the beginning of the year I feel troubled - despite everything I thought I'd believed about it before. I've been praying for wisdom in this, and my mind just keeps going to R & S. The composition assignments with R & S may or may not work since we are using WA with our TOG this year, but I will take that by each given week. In the meantime, if you have suggestions on how to use R & S just let me know. Blessings, Lucinda

:iagree: I was just going to say that! AG is a 2 year condensed program with several weeks on, weekly review, then several weeks on for year 2, followed by more weekly review. It seems very appealing to me by what I've read about so far. Another option would be to pull out Rod & Staff English Grade 5. WTM recommends this for older students that have had little to no grammar, then work your way up. Blessings, Lucinda

Bump...

Not a bad idea really! Unless there is a list out there somewhere, I will give this a try. Thanks specialmama. :) Blessings, Lucinda

nt

And I'm not absolutely sure yet, but I've narrowed it down to two options. I believe that both options are really good and will get us where we need to be. 1. Start the year out with EG, trying to do grammar 4 days per week steadily and keep primary focus on writing skills. Switch to AG next year. AG looks like a really sweet grammar program and I'm interested for sure. 2. Purchase R & S English 5 and start at the basics, filling in gaps and reviewing basic concepts that dd has forgotten this past year. I have to admit, I feel very drawn to this idea. WTM highly recommends R & S, many on this board also love it and use it, and as I looked over samples of the lessons online it looked very thorough yet easy to teach. I did take a look at GWG as well, but have to admit that R & S looked much easier to follow. I'm getting closer, but still open to suggestions/comments. Blessings, Lucinda

Yes, I did. But you know how static that forum is. It may or may not happen, and it will take awhile most likely. I thought I'd post my question in both places. Blessings, Lucinda

I'm sure this is doable on my own, but thought I'd ask...I'm wondering if there is an existing list somewhere for using Kingfisher with TOG YR2, D level? Wouldn't that be nice if I could just find a list, print it out and add it to my lesson plans? Blessings, Lucinda

I did get that part, Linda. You're right, its not so bad spread out over three years. I am just a little shy about it at the moment due to other costs in curriculum for the year. Do you suppose people sell this used? Blessings, Lucinda