Is there a list or recommendations for historical movies, or movies in general that covers history from 1900-present? Thanks ahead!

Agree completely! I'd rather him learn less at home then to learn it's acceptable to lose your integrity and honor over athletics! Not that it's ever acceptable to lose your honor/integrity, ykwim.

5 of the 10 students are football players...interesting. This is also a private school, so one player missing would most likely end in a forfeit. However, we are not some competitive team with a great record..lol. Also, I've met with this teacher before and she seems very serious about her class, not one who would ease up on students. I could be totally wrong though. This is our first time in any type of school system outside of our homeschool, so I'm not so savvy in the ways.

This is exactly what my husband said! He said she probably marked all the incorrect answers on the key to see if any would do it. lol..he also said he knew that from personal experience..lol

Today ds15 had a Chemistry test. He studied long and hard for it, and said he felt he did great. However, he told me that the teacher walked out of the classroom briefly, and at that point, all of the kids except him and his friend next to him went up to the desk and took pictures of the test key that was sitting on the teacher's desk. There are only 9 other kids in his class so it's doable if the teacher was out of the room long enough. I'm not sure why she left the room, but I'm certain she expects kids their age to not do that kind of stuff, right? It seemed so blatant. So ds is feeling like he needs to tell her, but that since it was just him and one other kid, that the others will most certainly know it was one of them who told. Then again, ds feels it's bound to come out since there were 8 kids who did it, and when it does, he doesn't want the teacher to assume he was part of it. He worked hard to prepare for this test. So, I'm not sure if this is something I need to be involved in or not? I'm afraid ds will not say anything and that the teacher will find out, and ds will reap the consequences. Should I email the teacher myself, or let ds tell her? I feel it would be more powerful if he did, but I know the predicament he feels he's in. What to do!! I'm really disappointed because I just moved ds out of Honors Chemistry because he was struggling, and now he's in a class that are cut-ups and cheaters. I've already noticed the material significantly dumbed-down in his class, and ds told me that the teacher has to spend time disciplining some of the kids. Is there anything I'm missing here? I need to have things pointed out to me that perhaps I haven't considered. Any thoughts?

I agree, I think they need help from me in this. I don't mean to completely control every aspect, but I feel it's my job to help them understand the difference in pace, to learn how to study ahead of time, in spare time, remind them of expectations of teachers. It's not in my nature to sit and watch them fail because they should be doing this at their age. Dd is great. She keeps up with things, with very little assist from me. I only remind her of tests/due dates, and she goes with it. Ds, otoh, he's quite different, and I'm working with him on this. I've always received emails from teachers saying that parent involvement is key in the kids success. So, I plan to be involved, and ease them to more independence as they can handle it.

Exactly my thoughts. She did receive a 0 and it did devastate her. She studies hard, was prepared for her vocab test that was the next day, but felt had she known she most certainly would've memorized it.

My daughter was the one who has been requesting to take some outside classes, as well as Honors courses because that's just the kind of kid she is. She like challenging work once she gets the hang of it. If she wasn't prepared for Honors courses, I most certainly wouldn't have even placed her in them. I was an honors student and realize the expectations. As for the mission statement, It's not so much that I don't think it's important, but to test on the 3rd day of classes, no notice, for something not related to English doesn't seem professional to me, or in the interest of helping kids succeed...jmho. I just that kind of testing sets the kids up for failure. Had it been in the contract she signed in order to take honors, I would understand, but it wasn't. I personally asked several teachers and found they could neither fully complete the mission statement..not sure what that means.

Is there a deadline by which you would have to transfer them to a "standard" class or withdraw? Can you give your students a little longer in the honors classes? Be supportive of both your students and the classes. See what they missed on the tests and help them figure out what they need to do to do better on the next one. There isn't a deadline at their school..it's always available if needed. I've told both teachers that we plan to try to adjust to it before we immediately pulled out, and my dc also expressed that. The main problem for dd was the attention to detail when she read. She handles the workload well, works ahead of due dates, but when had her quiz she didn't do well. She feels we need to probably make sure her notes are better organized and she's understanding the discussions in class. For ds, I really have no idea and neither does he. I did look at his test and it seemed relatively easy to take. After talking with him, he seems to second guess himself on the answers. For example, he said he had already used the word, "Chemistry" as an answer so he didn't use it again. Well, the answer was chemistry, so he missed it. He probably just needs more confidence in it. He said he was fine moving to a standards class if that's what was best for him. I just didn't want him to give it up because he didn't do so well at the beginning. He usually takes some warming up in school before he starts understanding things and how they work. A lot of it was careless mistakes that can be fixed. It's funny you mention ridiculous tests because dd's English teacher tested them on 3rd day of school on the Mission statement of the school. No notice at all. Being that dd has never been there, and no one really memorizes mission statements, she made a 0...yep, a 0 and it was added into her average. Ds had a chem test on safety/equiptment and he overlooked the back side of the page and missed all the ones on that side. So he didn't do well. I pleaded with the teacher after ds went in early in morn to see if he could correct it and get points taken off and she wouldn't do it. That kind of stuff baffles me, but I guess it's just a hard lesson in thoroughness for ds. I'm not reading either ds or dd's work to them. I was generally speaking like in Literature, and we mainly do that so we can all join in on discussion. DD is most certainly a different kid in terms of school. She's self-motivated and I don't have to follow her around making sure she does her work. Ds, otoh, is an entirely different story. He can be a PITB. Moving him to standards may be very probable for him. He's very interested in Chemistry, which Is why we did honors. He wanted to really be able to go in-depth with it, but he may not have understood what that meant. Yes, they both did before I did. I went in to see what changes I could make on my part and what they thought about the situation...I guess I got what I wanted...lol

We are on our 12th year of homeschooling. We've enjoyed our years together, we're very close with our children, and they are all full of character and integrity. I've always felt that anything they may have lacked in education, they made up for in character. They really are great children. I've also always felt like I've been fairly thorough in our schooling. I'm not a lazy parent, believe in teaching my kids, but also enjoying our time together and knowing that some of the best lessons have nothing to do with pencils and paper. Having said all that, my 10th grader and 9th grader take some classes at our local private school. They allow homeschoolers to come in part-time if needed. Both of my kids take honors courses there as well. I decided to put them in honors classes for the classes they were most interested in because They both expressed wanting to be able to get as much out of the course as possible. This past week both of them made 72's on their test (different classes), despite studying (with me). Of course this concerned me so I made appointments with each of their teachers so I could discuss where we may be going wrong in our study efforts, or where we need to focus more. Mind you, I have my Bachelor's in Science in Nursing so it's not that I've never learned study skills; I know how to study for a test and have taught my children. Unfortunately, after meeting with both teachers, I left feeling like a failure as a parent, more so as a home schooling parent. I've always been very confident in our schooling, our methods, and what our children have learned. Of course I know that it's not possible for me to cover everything, and I've always had the thought that I think many homeschooling parents have, "Am I doing enough?" Overall, I've felt confident in our years of schooling. The teachers (honors only) were very condescending to me. They kept saying things like, "Well, these ARE honors kids." It was like they assumed because mine are home schooled that they couldn't possibly think on a higher level. They also made comments about how homeschoolers were often unprepared, which I agree, but so are other kids who aren't home schooled. My goal of enrolling them in honors courses was to help foster that higher level of thinking... Not that my kids should already know all the skills, but to be involved in a class that they can have that kind of interaction. Of course, immediately both teachers recommended that I take them out of Honors and put them in Standard classes. Mind you, their overall grades are still A's and B's in all of their classes. They also reminded me that these kids have had them before so they know their techniques. Ok, that's fine, but that shouldn't make it difficult for a new kid to be successful, or have to immediately be put in standards classes because they make a low grade on a test. I almost felt like they have formed this special group that no one is allowed in, and that they look for the first sign of trouble then try to boot them out? I really try not to be sensitive and try to be objective, but I just didn't get the overall feel of support from them. One of the teachers told me that I was setting my son up for failure in college by reading aloud to him, or doing popcorn reading because he will never be prepared for college level reading. I explained to her that he's been a reluctant reader, really doesn't enjoy it, and each year we increase the level and amount of reading so as to ease into it. Then I felt like, "Why am I defending my methods of teaching my children? She doesn't know my son like I do." The other teacher immediately went into a spill of how honors classes are for serious students, not ones who join because their friends are in it. Ummm....my kids really don't have friends in there; they are new to the school. I reassured that teacher of the reasons for us being in her class, yet she still recommended moving to standards. After hearing that, my daughter took that as a challenge and aced all the tests in her class this week. :hurray: I realize that perhaps these teachers are trying to be realistic with me (maybe), but I assumed teachers would be more interested in being supportive in helping them be successful in their class as opposed to immediately dropping their course. There will be hard courses in their lives; shouldn't they at least TRY to learn how to tweek things to become successful in there? So today I find myself fearful; I'm fearful that I have not prepared my kids for "real school", or whatever they consider it. I'm looking at my 7th grader, afraid that I'm setting her up for failure as well. I have decided that I am going to take some of their advice and try to implement some different studying skills with my kids. However, now I wonder if I just need to enroll them full-time in school, because I'm not preparing them for college? I mean, I've taken high school as the main years of preparation for College, and I feel I've already failed before even starting it. In no way am I disrespecting our teachers at the school; I just really want to understand them. I want my kids to feel supported by them, not like they are looking for a reason to boot them out of their classes. That is really how I feel-like they don't feel they are competent because they are homeschooled and don't know them. I am in constant contact with these teachers as well, making sure they know I am an involved parent, but still feel they really aren't supportive of us. I would love to hear from some of you who may have experienced this, or from some teachers who can give me a better perspective and interpretation of this. I don't want to be unprofessional in this, or have a bad attitude that can be picked up by my kids. And I really just want to hear that everything will be okay. I know this, but need to hear it...lol I did try to talk to dh about this, but being my biggest fan, his words were not so objective, but more protective. I'm not so naïve to think I can't learn something from these teachers, or that I'm doing everything right. Thanks so much if you've read this far. My heart is heavy today with uncertainty.

I'm an RN and I was NOT strong in math at all. I only completed through Alg. 2 in High School because at the time that was all that was really needed, and it wasn't as competitive. I took College Algebra once in college and nursing school taught me how to do calculations. Aside from basic math/ratios/conversions, there's not that much more difficulty to it. I agree with focus needing to be on making sure her grades are competitive enough to get into nursing school. It was difficult when I entered (1996), and has increased in difficulty, I believe.

Please?

I'm going to need to start doing English 2 for my 10th grader. Could y'all please take a look and tell me what you think, please? Thanks! Windows to the World Literature (plan to work through quickly on fundamentals then move to what's next) Essentials In Writing Daily Grams/MCT sentence parsing Read alouds with discussion SAT prep that covers some writing prep Time 4 Learning to supplement

Yes, I was just wanting to do the Civil War-Modern times and Notgrass has the separate book covering that time period. I know I can just move through the other one, but I'm weird like that... :tongue_smilie: It would totally stress me to not use the entire book. I know, weird..lol.

I was considering Notgrass, America the Beautiful, vol 2. It just seemed more interesting to me than the high School texts. However, it may just be because I'm not aware of other texts that are interesting. I wanted to use it for 9th and 10th grades. I wanted to use Notgrass and supplement with other sources. My kids really enjoy history, but I think because all of these years I've made it relaxed, fun and somewhat interesting. We've always read history together so that we could discuss topics. We were going to do in-depth of US Hist from Civil War-Modern times. I'm guessing Notgrass (America the Beautiful) may not go in-depth enough. I think I may use the America:Past and Present (since 1865). It seems to be well-liked and definitely thorough.