Thank you! We'll start on EV as soon as we finish GV. It does sound like it will complement well. :)

Oh, yes, please share! :)

We have some of that going on here, too. Lil'un is K'er this year, and I knew as we approached it that we would have an interesting time. I don't think she has ASD, though ADHD does run in the family, I don't think that's her issue either. I think she's just strong willed. What is working this week: if she is going to "mess up" the atmosphere of our home with attitude, tantruming, hitting, being uncooperative, etc. then she gets to help clean it up by doing a chore. She has folded laundry, washed dishes, cleaned the parakeet's cage, cleaned her room, etc. It seems to really be helping. The first day of it she ended up with something like 9 chores, and it took the better part of the afternoon & evening, but partway through she looked happier than I've seen her in weeks, even before school started. We also work hard to show that we are listening to her, that we understand that she's not happy about certain things, especially when we can see them from her perspective. If she has spent a day with her sister refusing to play with her, and we get to the evening and she's miserable, I can totally understand why she's so upset. I can see that she's hurting. So we talk about it and I try to give her coping tools, and sometimes I can play with her, or sometimes I tell her sister to play with her. The combination of empathy and chores has been working well. I have definitely planned her schoolwork around her style of working. I have in my signature that she's doing Right Start B, and that's true, sort of. We're not working through it in the standard way, but I'm looking at the skills requested and we're playing the Right Start games to learn them. And honestly, I'm bribing her to do that. She isn't one to follow instructions (she's just like my mom!) but offer 2 peanut M&Ms for every math game played, and she's right there. :) All that said, we're also going the therapy route. I need more tools to work with her, and a child psychologist is the right type of person to help with that. We've only had one family session thus far, so I've got my fingers crossed. Good luck! It sounds like you need it.

Hey... I've been reading through the WWS thread, and it hit me that MCT has writing built in, and we're already doing WWS. How do those fit together? Do you have your child do both sets of assignments? (Oh, we're doing Voyage level & WWS1) Thanks!

That would make for some in-shape homeschool moms! (Now I'm off to the Immodest group... some of them might just be twerking daily) :)

I reach for grains and dairy most easily, but I'm finding that they don't work for me as well as I'd like. These days I'm "pushing" protein first for me, because it seems to stabilize my mood & keeps me focused. Then I *try* to eat veggies, but I'm terrible at including them even when I'm trying to, with the exception of tomatoes. I can eat a tomato anytime anywhere, it seems. Oh, and I only answered for me... dh needs a whole different lineup of food than I do to keep his fast metabolism going. :)

I have a friend who has used Saxon with all three of her accelerated kids, including one who is ultra-mathy. What she did with the mathy one was she worked through Saxon, lesson by lesson, asking him if he knew that material already. If he said he did, she would just have him do a couple problems to show it, then they'd move on. When they found a topic he hadn't encountered before, she would give him more problems to work through than usual. When he was comfortable, they'd move on in their usual pattern. :)

Part of the issue is that my kids are so far apart; generally they don't/can't share extracurriculars because they're in such different places and honestly they have fairly different needs. I suppose it's not necessary for her to have outside French classes, but she's passed my ability to teach her, and she loves that class. French and Japanese are two subjects that she actively likes and looks forward to. Science class is actually a friend teaching BFSU, so it's much like me teaching it at home, except done in a group (and it actually gets done!). Her handwriting is an odd thing. She holds the pencil fine, but at times her writing is nearly illegible. That's why we're working on it. :) The calculating the number of hours per week is an interesting direction to go... I'm guessing she has about 31 hours/week including all the classes. If she dropped Japanese (which she doesn't want to do) she'd be closer to 25hrs. Ok... not dropping Japanese... if we drop the Thursday part of Caesar's English/spelling, and Thursday's WWS, we're closer to 27 hours for the week. That includes her 3 hour Saturday class, so it's more like 25 hours for the school week. It also makes Thursdays a little more sensible. It's still a loaded day, but I'm not sure how to make it better without dropping something major, like math. We definitely need to work on her efficiency, but that's not easy to do. My ADHD is currently unmedicated, and it'll stay that way at least until the baby starts solids. I have a hard time staying on top of things! Last year, before the pregnancy and when I was on meds, we got things done in record time! I'm SO looking forward to that again. Thanks for the feedback! :)

I feel like she needs downtime too, but when a kid dallies their way through the whole day what do you do? That's often what we're facing.

Hey... we have a sentence I can't figure out how to diagram. The internet hasn't been as helpful as usual. The sentence is: Everyone is in agreement; the ship's ornamentation is ostentatious. 1) MCT doesn't have "in agreement" as a subject complement, so does it hang off "Everyone" or "is"? And why isn't it a subject complement? 2) It looks like the clauses are connected with a dotted/zig-zagish line between the verbs. Is this correct? Why between the verbs? 3) "ship's" seems to describe "ornamentation" so I figure it goes on an adjective-type line. Does "the" come off "ship's" with an adjective-type line? My initial reaction is that "the" refers to "ship", but I suppose it could come off "ornamentation" instead. Thoughts? Thank you!

Thank you! I like the carschooling idea, though I'll have to see what implementation looks like in our case. On a good day we don't go past 5pm, but here it is almost 10am and we've just finished breakfast. I'm thinking that our schedule is just different than the norm, and I shouldn't stress out about going later since there we do get started so late. If she could work diligently, and we didn't have to go anywhere, even with a break for lunch she should be able to be done by around 4pm. We won't, but it's possible. Thanks! Anabel

Hello! I've been tweaking (as I mentioned earlier) and I think we're closer to having a manageable course load for my 5th grader. I'm afraid I may have gone too far with cutting things, but at the same time we're struggling to finish everything every day given all our extra classes & time spent with the 4mo baby. Here's what things look like: Daily: Calendar Notebook (includes SWB's planner idea, MCT's practice pages, logic, math facts practice, handwriting (dd's needs work)) Math (MEP Year 5) Foreign Language (French & Japanese, dd is committed to both) Assigned Readings (Literature, religion, Plutarch ala AO (dd loves this :huh:), US & World History) WWS1 (30min, skip Wednesdays usually) plus: Monday: Caesar's English, little sister has French class Tuesday: do "school" with friends over, little sister has ballet Wednesday: French class, Homeschool Park Day, Aikido class Thursday: Caesar's English, science class all afternoon Friday: Grammar/Remaining MCT material I don't really feel like this is too much; when I tally up estimated times it tops out at just over 5hrs/day, though (light on Wednesday in particular). But with the baby, and we're slow-moving in the mornings, and dd is a bit distractable... I feel like I'm making her do school work all the livelong day! She hasn't read a book for fun in a couple weeks. Are we doing too much? I think the hard part is that she has a hard time doing work while her sister has the extra classes -- she loses a big chunk of time every time we get in the car. Arg! Thanks! I'd love some feedback. :)

I have read TWTM, and had done so before coming to the Hive. I've owned all three editions, though I'm now down to one and am considering selling it and buying a Kindle edition :lol: . I followed TWTM closely for K & 1st, then added in AO starting in 2nd. I'm leaning more WTMish this year with 5th, but I'm not too sure how far that will go. :) Anabel

Ok, it must be. She has cupcake and tea shirts too. Good fun. :)

I was looking for a particular educational shirt, and found a big books shirt on Etsy. Just wanted to be sure folks here had seen it. Seems like it might be a Hivey's shop given the grammar tee. :) http://www.etsy.com/listing/150569781/i-like-big-books-and-i-can-not-lie-t?ref=sr_gallery_26&ga_search_query=language+shirt+-sign&ga_order=most_relevant&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_ship_to=US&ga_page=2&ga_search_type=handmade

Thank you everyone! I may need to find a synagogue to talk to people at. I have friends who are Conservative in the area, so I may connect with them. I think about that from time to time; I just need to get the nerve up and do it. :) milovany, you're right that I'm Christian (Catholic to be specific)... I am active in my church, but I'm always feeling pulled in different directions. I had a dream the week that I entered the Catholic church that I became Jewish, so I'm never quite sure if I'm interested in conversion or not. It's a tension I allow myself to savor, I guess you could say. I also feel pulled "East" as a friend would say... this year for religion my daughter and I are reading "The Sabbath" by Abraham Heschel followed by "For the Life of the World" by Alexander Schmemann. Goodness knows when we'll read an actual Catholic author. :)

Yes, there are Synagogues in the area. But does one just start attending services? Thanks!

Hello! I'm looking for resources but I'm not too sure where to start, so of course I turn to the Hive :laugh: I have a background in religious studies, and in the past decade I've become increasingly interested in Judaism. I've read books that I've come across, but I'm really interested in beginning studying scripture from a Jewish perspective. I've done some scripture study in the past, but given my life right now (new baby, homeschooling 2, over-committed volunteer life) I need very beginner books/blogs/etc. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks!

We're doing them on Spelling City. My lists aren't perfect, and I'm not entirely sure how the site works yet, but here are my lists so far: Caesar's English Lesson 1 Caesar's English Lesson 2 Caesar's English Lesson 3 Caesar's English I Lesson 4 (note that the Lesson 4 has an extra letter in the title) :)

Just checking in... we've done 7 days of "school" and I'm already tweaking. My dh says that my eyes were bigger than my schedule. :tongue_smilie: I think part of my issue was that I was trying to blend AO (tweaked) with TWTM. Oh, and we're doing 2 foreign languages. But there's only so much time in the day, right? But I've cut out almost half of the readings, and I've cut back on how often we're covering certain topics. We're doing MCT, and somehow just that feels like a lot. Anyone else?

We start French exposure early (English is our primary language), and at 4th grade my eldest got to choose a 2nd language. Latin was an option, but she chose Japanese. My 2nd is in K this year, starting formal French classes, and then next year will likely add Japanese (she's being exposed already b/c of dd#1). I'm still on the fence about whether or not she will get to choose a language at 4th grade; that would likely mean my #3 would be exposed to French, Japanese, and a 3rd language... but as the pp said, there's only so much time in the day! :)

I'm in the U.S.; I've gotten the stuff at our local natural food stores, both the small independent one and at Whole Foods. It has a richer flavor than brown sugar, because it retains more of the nutrients, but generally when I run out I just sub in brown sugar. It works out pretty well. :)

I'm in the U.S.; I've gotten the stuff at our local natural food stores, both the small independent one and at Whole Foods. It has a richer flavor than brown sugar, because it retains more of the nutrients, but generally when I run out I just sub in brown sugar. It works out pretty well. :)

Ok, a grain-free friend and I were messing around with these last weekend, and modified the recipe a bit to be less dry, less almond-y, and more chocolatey. :) We're not paleo, fwiw. 2 Tbl butter 1 oz dark chocolate (I use 2 squares from TJ's dark pound-of-chocolate bar) Place in mug, microwave 1 minute. Stir until the chocolate is melted. Add: 2 Tbl almond flour/meal (we have TJ's) 2 Tbl rapadura/brown sugar 3 Tbl cocoa powder 1 tsp vanilla extract pinch of salt 1 egg Stir together until entirely mixed. Microwave 1-1/2 minutes (I need to try less time; this still produces a cakey brownie & I like fudgy better) It's still great with cream! :)

I love color-coding too! We even have color-coded towels so I can keep track of whose is whose. :)