We have this book for dh and the kids' sports. If anything is sore, I can grab it and find a few stretches or many. We have an inexpensive yoga mat from Walmart stored under one of the couches, so it's easy to grab and use or grab and go. My Zumba dvds came with a quick warm-up/cool-down set of stretches. Since I'm doing them a couple of times every day they've become completely automatic and I can do them in a few minutes before and after any activity. ETA: The benefit of these stretches is they are all standing. Much more likely to get done. I would eventually like to try Yoga, Pilates or Tai Chi in a more serious way, too. Someday!

Seconding these. :iagree:

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series (McCall Smith).

The only way I can see another side of Trail of Tears as doable is to juxtapose modern concepts with older issues. One popular idea right now with local English teachers is to have the kids draw a Facebook page for a literary character, for example. So if you had students act as defense lawyers at a Nuremberg-type war crimes trial? Then maybe. Still not middle school, though.

Tried out the Zumba Fitness Concert dvd yesterday. Neat idea, pretty hard to work out to if you don't already have the routines down cold. Again, I can say I tried it. :-) Back to 40 minute Activate dvd today. <3.

Mmm, yes the idea that the logic stage is when children are precisely in gr. 5-8 and the rhetoric stage precisely in gr. 9-12, while convenient for publisher's specifications, does not always hold up when applied across a broad spectrum of children. Many posters here advocating that middle school (gr. 6-8?) might be good time to begin introducing and discussing difficult concepts but perhaps not everyone is ready for debate likely reflects their real-life experience rather than any sort of judgement on the neo-classical trivium, particularly in the context of this thread, which is not a classical school, I don't think. I *do* agree that our education systems could use a really strong dose of said skills in gr. 10-12, but the system is leaking in so many areas it's easy to see why potentially troublesome topics might be avoided or watered down... though in the OP's case, clearly not.

Oh hugs to your son. What a rough 24 hours. Such a hard moment in time.

Yup. And then in the higher grades they start racing through every. single. chapter. to cover everything for finals. Brutal. Knowing how to sift through the learning outcomes, spend the bulk of the time on what is important, and how to touch on the less important topics seems to be a real art form that is not as common as one might like.

Since we are on The Well-Trained Mind, we can probably all agree with Aristotle that "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." Given that your dd is in middle school I would support her decision, too, and am sorry you had to debate that here. Thanks for posting an interesting poll.

Check your activity log. Sometimes if you have liked one thing by a group/page, they seems to be able to "invisibly" start liking/sharing everything. It may not stay innocent. This has happened to my dd at least three times, and she is finally being more careful. You can go to the page and block them/report them.

40 minute Jazzercize Latin Live dvd. Forgot what a good workout that one was.

Got in 30 minutes of Zumba Santao this morning. Helped kids move firewood for about an hour this afternoon. Was gorgeous spring weather here this weekend, early but lovely.

That was a strange, mystical book. Worth the read.

Here ya go: http://wellnessfort.com/oncologists-dont-like-baking-soda-cancer-treatment-because-its-too-effective-and-too-cheap/ A little light on what the possible scientific mechanism could be. Because oncologists don't like it, that should be proof enough, right?!?

Tonight's Facebook feed brought me, "Even the most aggressive cancers which have metastasized have been reversed with baking soda cancer treatments." Awesome. I'll get right on that and share with my cancer-suffering friends.

So are you looking for spelling program recommendations? Maybe try a new thread with that title, see if you get more replies? There are so many good ones out there now, I can't recommend any, though it would a lot of fun to try!

Oh, I live in a very active area. People move here to get outdoors. Yeah, I guess I could have mentioned that a couple of those dvds move past just cardio and target muscles a bit, like the one with the chair is pretty good for the abs, I think.

I managed to get to the last Zumba class of the season Tuesday night. I suspect the instructor incorporated some moves from the Tabata class she takes. I enjoyed the burn! Work was super busy yesterday, so that had to be my workout. Today I got in the 30 minute Zumba toning. I had a doctor's appointment. He said Pilates and Yoga were better for the core than Zumba. Hmmm.

If the goal is summarizing, I do think WWS fits the requirements. I'm not sure how far you'd get in 10 weeks, but it would still be great preparation. Your Seton book sounds like it will work as well.

I had tentatively planned for my dd when she got to that age to pair WWS with The Creative Writer.

If you want to introduce formal grammar, you could look into Winston Grammar. Do you think she needs spelling or is ready to move on to word roots? I've used WA with two kids who were struggling spellers, so we were using Sequential Spelling at that time with one, and Megawords with the next.

Ah! I've read A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian.

I've been so busy enjoying these threads, I haven't been posting. Yikes! On the recommendations of a poster(s) here in BaW, I read Being Mortal (Gawande) a few weeks ago. What a wonderful book, and I agree with whoever said everyone should read it. I appreciated how Gawande, like Malcolm Gladwell, could take complex ideas and make them so readable. Last week's book was Brave New World (Huxley). I felt the need to check off that classic dystopian title. While hard for me to get into, once the characters visited the reservation, it sailed along. This week I am happily immersed in Elizabeth George's A Banquet of Consequences.

Liking that you managed hot yoga, and it opened your sinuses. Hoping your chest stops hurting and the coughing stops soon. Sunday I finagled dh to critique a couple minutes of the 30 min. Zumba Santao workout to see what I was doing wrong. That helped. I was looking forward to 60 min. today but life happened. :tongue_smilie: I'm hoping I can make it to the last actual Zumba class of the season tomorrow night. Fingers crossed!

Now you've got me googling. There are recipes out there for homemade savory granola bars.