We've used wordly wise, and we also use vocabulary with classical roots. We just ordered MCT's series, and it looks interesting but we haven't finished the grammar and gotten started with the vocab yet.

One of my children was map-obsesed - years later, they're still a map-studier. We recently bought pin-it maps http://www.pinitmaps.com and they were a big hit. One thing that this map habit has done is thaqt it's helped us all to see how much history is influenced by location, so maybe your son would like learning about history (ancient, military, etc) with a lot of map use. My map-lover was also thrilled with a world history timeline (we have the one by schofield and sims on amaazon) because it made it easy to see history and geography at the same time.

Toddler behavior doesn't really indicate big kid/adult interests. One of my kids would listen to us read for as long as we would sit there, but never looked at a book on their own...ever...until they learned to read. They now devour books and hate being read to because it's slower than what they can do on their own. My other child didn't like being read to as a toddler - for a while, we didn't even do a bedtime story because they wouldn't listen. Now in elementary school, this child happily reads silly books for fun and wants for me to read history out loud. Kids cycle through a lot of phases - books, music, physical activity, art - and interests (trains, planes, dinosaurs, robots, dolls, animals, characters) as they grow up.

It's been a few years since my older child did Singapore 5, and my younger one isn't there yet. I do remember a few problems that I stared at because I could solve them quickly with algebra and I had to stop and figure out how to turn them into something that my child knew. But, Attachedmama's drawing for the first problem is right. You draw the sister as _____I_____ l 4 l because you need 2 parent gifts plus 2x2 to equal Jane. Then under it draw Jane so that it is _____l 7 l so that the bar (what the parents give) is 3 - one bar is 7-4, because both sisters have the first bar in common, and then the sister would need another bar +4 to equal Jane's 7. For the bottom problem, you would first draw a box + 250 to equal the fridge, with a box the same as the first box to equal the washer. Then reading that the washer is twice the dryer, you would draw a 1/2 sized box for the dryer, and divide the big boxes for the washer and fridge in half. Then you could start solving - 1800 - 250 equals the 5 boxes. Divide by 5 to figure out how much is in each box.

We do basics (math, grammar/writing, phonics in the early years, handwriting, vocab) 3-4x/week. We have one day of co-op where my kids get an assortment of different classes that vary from year to year. We do the other subjects as units. Usually we do geography and world history for the first half (or 2/3) of the first semester and do a science unit (usually some sort of physcial science) for the second half, with the last few weeks being a study of art history. In the spring, we do half of a semester of US history, half of a semester of some sort of biological science, and a few weeks of music history/appreciation. My kids are a few years apart and our curriculum guide (core knowledge) isn't really set up to work easily with multiple grades, but I take the topics and sort them out into broad categories. Sometimes both kids are doing very similar things, or related topics (one studying Ancient Greece while the other studies Ancient China), so I can put a stack of unit study books in a box and then work with each student on the right section of SOTW or the Usborne Ancient History book. The units seem to work better for use because we're don't have to shift gears a lot. They also give us a lot of flexibility - we can read for a long time one day, or dig deeper into a part of the area, or do an experiment, project, or video. We also sometimes move more quickly if something is review or uninteresting. This actually isn't how I had planned to do it, but once we got started I realized at we didn't do well with too many topics in one day, and it made doing anything long too complicated. My older child starts middle school grades next year, so I don't know whether that will change things - time will tell, I suppose. Good luck!

I have a child with speech issues and the professor who oversees the therapy has told me that it's typical for kids with speech problesm to have a lot of reading problems - the act of hearing and saying the sounds seems to be part of helping to learn to read. There were surprised that my speech-delayed child was an early reader because it's really unusual. I don't know when this child was last evaluated, but they will want to stay on top of that. My child went from being in the 40th percentile (below, but close, to average) and not needing therapy, to being in the 5th percentile in about a year - at an age when most kids are improving rapidly, having little progress in 6 months can be a big deal. I don't have any professional advice to back this up, but until she can find somebody who can help, she might try working with him on letters and words that include sounds that he can make. We used hooked on phonics (and I'm sure other similar programs would work) and it was helpful in figuring out exactly what sounds were a problem. The writing backwards might be a sign of another problem - I don't know about that, but the speech thing jumped out at me. Good luck to your friend.

We're just starting the MCT books, but I thought I'd let you know that Growing with Grammar has a 'Digging into Diagraming' book - it's a single book focused on diagramming. We haen't used it yet, but it might be something that your daughter would like if she wants to diagram for fun.

Go to the NCAA site http://web3.ncaa.org/ECWR2/NCAA_EMS/NCAA.jsp NCAA eligibility is weird. I had to fill out paperwork for a student once, and they approved my class (yay!), but there were a lot of pages to fill out. I would think that dual enrollment credit would actually be easier, since they're looking to make sure that people aren't just passing their students and giving them the grades that will keep them eligible - an official college transcript might help. Definitely read their information and ask questions on their site.

Mine do sports, scouts, and church activities. Playdates can be trickier, but outside time is always good (shooting baskets, throwing a ball, playing in mud, swinging, stilts, bikes, scooters, etc, or boys seem to play a generic game of 'tackle'). Crafts, army men battles, legos, and board games that involve chance are also good (strategy games can be a problem - when one of mine has a break at co-op, I sometimes see them playing 2 chess games simultaneously with 2 different kids - everybody seems happy, go figure).

My co-op class and the new online version are based on the Miller-Levine Dragonfly book. This class is mostly 9th and 10th graders at co-op, depending on their sequence (some do physical science in 9th, others do physical science in middle school and biology in 9th so that they can get through chem, Bio II, and physics). I'm attaching my syllabus - we don't do the entire book. Many high school biology texts are set up so that they could be used for either a molecular biology-based course or an ecology/comparative biology course, and I use the one that meets the requirements for my state (which, coincidentally, is the part that I like best, so yay!). I also teach a Bio II class that we're debating how to take online (or whether it's even possible). It varies so much from year to year because it's very student-driven. They choose topics, and we research them. Some years are mostly discussion, some years I lecture on advanced topics - it's really about what the students are interested in, and we usually do around 8 unrelated topics each year. It can be hard find good resources for this age. I teach Bio II from college texts, mostly because I have a lot of them that I used in college/grad school, and also primary literature and 'general interest science' sources like Scientific American. For molecular biology, cell biology, microbiology or biochemistry, you could buy a used textbook and have students work through parts of it. These are going to be more reading-intense. The book Genes is an easier read than some and talks about a lot of molecular biology topics. Although the books are often really expensive, you can sometimes find used old editions fairly cheaply, and although they might not be completely current, they are plenty for a high school student. If you decided to get a genetics text, you would probably need a solutions manual because genetics is more problem-based. There are sections that you can read, but the part that most students like is solving the crosses. In a completely different direction, we came across the book 'The Brain' by Eagleman, and we spent a few weeks talking about it. For students who are interested in the overlap between biology and psychology, it might make a fun mini-unit as part of a biology class (it's not technical). OK...I've written a lot, but in case this helps anybody, the Dragonfly book is a good advanced high school book. Campbell Concepts and Connections is a basic college book, and Campbell Biology is an AP biology/college pre-med and research biology text. For students interested in particular areas (such as protein structure, or biotechnology) there are thinner texts that students could use, but these are often pretty advanced and assume a good knowledge of molecular biology. Even though college genetics is later in the biology sequence, the material is probably something that a good high school student could learn. Genes covers difficult topics with lots of drawings - it might be one of the more accessible books for an interested student with a good grasp of biology. And, for the curious, there are lots of other texts out there that, if you could get an inexpensive old copy, your student might enjoy looking at. You don't need to cover a whole book in a year - college classes definitely don't - and it's all advanced compared to standard high school material. I've you've got any questions, I'll follow this thread or you can message me. syllabus 2016-2017.pdf syllabus 2016-2017.pdf

If your student likes physics and chemistry, might they prefer a molecular biololgy course? You had mentioned dissections in your intro, but in my state dissection is a middle school course, and high school is molecular biology (molecules, cells, DNA replication, transcription, translation, cell cycle, metabolism, and genetics) with a little ecology and classification thrown in at the end. My co-op has me teach based on state standards to accommodate students moving in and out of the school system, but you could have you student do a class that is entirely molecular biology if that works for your requirements. I've foung that students who like chemistry often enjoy cellular metabolsim and find the cells material to be easy. Genetics is very math-y, so it's also popular with physics-loving students.

I've never had any problems. I've been really blessed by our co-op. They group the classes in age ranges (K-2, 3-5, some are 5-8 or 6-8, and then high school - some, like chess, are 4-12), and they will bump students up or down so that they can take the appropriate classes. We have students who are advanced, students with delays, and students with physical complications, and we try to work with students wherever they are. Both of my children have taken classes with older students, and it's been fine. There are also enrichment classes like PE, fencing, languages, cooking, and art, so academic abilities aren't as much of an issue in those. I've had parents of older students make suggestions for books and activities that my children might like, and I've had parents of same-age or younger students ask about curriculum that they know that we're completed. I sometimes think that parents can make this more complicated than it needs to be - whether a student is advanced, behind, athletic, musical, and/or artistic, it's just something that 'is', the same as if they have a vision problem, dyslexia, excellent or poor coordination, or a speech delay- and parents and teachers do their best to give the students what they need. When asking about curriculum, it can actually be helpful to know if the subject comes easily to the student. I can give the advice that we use math program X, but math comes easily to my student, we use grammar Y, but it's very bare-bones, and we're still looking for writing that we like because we struggle to organize a mass of details into a coherent paper. Even if we're not working at the right grade level, the discussion about the type of curriculum is still possible. But, it only works if parents have the approach 'What do I know that could help your kids, what do you know that could help mine, and what do our kids have in common that they might enjoy?'.

I find that a lot of homeschooling talk is about school issues, rather than school subjects. I can often have a conversation about what to do when my student is frustrated, or bored, or doesn't want to write, and it doesn't matter so much what the grade level of the work is - one student may be frustrated by decimals while another is frustrated with factoring algebraic equations, but we might need to do the same thing to help frustrated 10 year old boys. There are also times when we can talk about a specific curriculum and it doesn't matter that the children aren't doing the same grade - I can talk about Singapore math, even though my older child is now finished with it. And, with homeschooling you can't fit in everything that you'd like to do. Other folks are often doing something that we're not, so I can ask about that - Where do you get your ideas for those art projects? Do you use a guide to talk about poetry or do you just read? What field trips have you enjoyed? When and how do you learn typing? How did you decide what foreign language to try? What extracurriculars do you do? As students get older, there are required subjects like typing, state history, and personal finance (a requirement in our state for high schoolers) that don't really have advanced levels - most people just pick something and do it - and those can also be common ground.

Most bacteria will grow at room temp, but it takes longer. They tend to like 37C, which is body temp. In the lab, most tended to grow by 12-24 hours in the incubator and 24 hrs-2 days at room temp.

I would take the time to work on this with your daughter because this skill is helpful in being able to do math in your head. Singapore writes a lot of their problems horizontally instead of vertically because it makes the assumption that students are doing this regrouping in their heads. It will continue to use this idea as it adds new digits (hundreds, thousands) over the next few years. I was worried about teaching this to my math-averse younger child (my older child immediately understood it) but she picked it up pretty quickly. We started with numbers in the teens because it was easier to see that it really was just 10 + ones, and then moved to twenties and bigger numbers. Good luck!

I got mixed up between 2 threads, so I've got some review about the MCT that we just got posted here http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/624197-anyone-have-a-review-for-mct-literature-level/ ETA - copied and pasted from the other one I got the complete homeschool package for the Island level in the mail on Friday (yay, new book!). I've had a chance to look over everything and do a little with the first book, Grammar Island, so here's the promised write-up. For most of the books, the difference between the teacher guide and student book is that teacher books have blocks with tips and questions to use as your students read. I like that the pages match up - your page 15 looks like their page 15, plus a little box with a tip or question. We actually started with Grammar Island while on a road trip Friday, and my kids passed the student book back and forth to read out loud while I could follow along in the front seat with the teacher guide and ask questions (don't worry, my husband was driving). My MIL, a retired 3rd grade teacher, looked at it and said that she thought that it did a great job of explaining how the parts of speech work. We've been using Growing with Grammar, and I'll probably keep using it, too (it takes us 10 min or less, 3x per week) because I think that my kids need the practice at capitalization and punctuation, but MCT really makes the parts of speech and how they're used (direct objects, linking verbs, etc) clear. In books that ask questions, the answers are in the teacher's guide in the lesson - there might be a work-around, but it wouldn't be simple to let the student work from the guide. There are also extra activities and explanations at the end. I think that I would probably know enough to get through it without the teacher guide, but I there are points that I wouldn't recognize, so we wouldn't get the full benefit from it. The language book frequently shows Latin roots and then shows both the English and Spanish words that derive from the root; this may be really cool for my family, since one child takes Latin and the other takes Spanish at co-op. I also think that I will learn from the poetry book - I did well in English in school, including poetry, but I don't think that most of the concepts were explained so thoroughly. I also like that he takes poetry from lots of different classical sources and point out lots of different details - meter, alliteration, types of rhyme - and also incorporates occasional art/photography that fits the poems. I don't think that I could pull this together on my own, but it feels like what I try to do with my high school students, pulling in interesting ideas from lots of other places because I want them to think that biology is as cool as I do. I'll have to see how this works with my actual children, but I'm cautiously optimistic that it might help my kids to see language as something more than a utilitarian way of communicating. My son, especially, is great at 'technical writing' like step-by-step directions but doesn't see the point of descriptive writing. I'll try to remember to post again once we're through the grammar and into the more interesting parts...and if this is popular, I'll be interested in checking out the trilogies and some of the other books offered by RFP... the dangers of getting a catalog from a company that you've never used before!

I got the complete homeschool package for the Island level in the mail on Friday (yay, new book!). I've had a chance to look over everything and do a little with the first book, Grammar Island, so here's the promised write-up. For most of the books, the difference between the teacher guide and student book is that teacher books have blocks with tips and questions to use as your students read. I like that the pages match up - your page 15 looks like their page 15, plus a little box with a tip or question. We actually started with Grammar Island while on a road trip Friday, and my kids passed the student book back and forth to read out loud while I could follow along in the front seat with the teacher guide and ask questions (don't worry, my husband was driving). My MIL, a retired 3rd grade teacher, looked at it and said that she thought that it did a great job of explaining how the parts of speech work. We've been using Growing with Grammar, and I'll probably keep using it, too (it takes us 10 min or less, 3x per week) because I think that my kids need the practice at capitalization and punctuation, but MCT really makes the parts of speech and how they're used (direct objects, linking verbs, etc) clear. In books that ask questions, the answers are in the teacher's guide in the lesson - there might be a work-around, but it wouldn't be simple to let the student work from the guide. There are also extra activities and explanations at the end. I think that I would probably know enough to get through it without the teacher guide, but I there are points that I wouldn't recognize, so we wouldn't get the full benefit from it. The language book frequently shows Latin roots and then shows both the English and Spanish words that derive from the root; this may be really cool for my family, since one child takes Latin and the other takes Spanish at co-op. I also think that I will learn from the poetry book - I did well in English in school, including poetry, but I don't think that most of the concepts were explained so thoroughly. I also like that he takes poetry from lots of different classical sources and point out lots of different details - meter, alliteration, types of rhyme - and also incorporates occasional art/photography that fits the poems. I don't think that I could pull this together on my own, but it feels like what I try to do with my high school students, pulling in interesting ideas from lots of other places because I want them to think that biology is as cool as I do. I'll have to see how this works with my actual children, but I'm cautiously optimistic that it might help my kids to see language as something more than a utilitarian way of communicating. My son, especially, is great at 'technical writing' like step-by-step directions but doesn't see the point of descriptive writing. I'll try to remember to post again once we're through the grammar and into the more interesting parts...and if this is popular, I'll be interested in checking out the trilogies and some of the other books offered by RFP... the dangers of getting a catalog from a company that you've never used before!

When you talk about your choices, add the words 'for us' on the end, and when somebody else is talking about their plans, mentally tack the words 'for us' onto the end of their statements. It seem like people feel criticized or judged by statements like 'That curriculum or plan is too...' whether the description is too open-ended, too structured, too unstructured, too rigorous, too simple, etc, but in what most people mean is that it is too structured or too easy ​for their family/student. Some families like a lot of academic rigor, some prefer to make sure that their students learn the basics and then have free time to pursue other interests, for some families a medical or emotional situation may be the most pressing issue and they need a bare-bones education plan for a while, some families like activities and hands-on projects, and some families like a checklist of workbooks...and many families use a combination of those over time, or even different approaches for different subjects or different children. If a family prefers more activity, or a more relaxed pace, or more workbooks, or more creative plans, it's not a commentary on what you are doing right or wrong, it's just an approach that works for them.

I decided to get the whole introductory level and try it out - it came today, so I'll check it out and hopefully can start working with it next week. I'll post an update once we've gotten started.

We combine spelling with vocabulary, so that he's learning to spell words that are new to him. We do either wordly wise or vocabulary with classical roots, but I'm sure that there are others.

Handwriting without Tears was designed by (I think) an occupational or physical therapist and has kids write really big, using chalk, before trying it on paper, and they also make letters out of wood pieces so that they can learn before they can write. I used to give my kids a dry erase marker and let them write on the sliding glass door so that they'd have a big surface (butcher paper or 11/13 paper might also work). Kumon sells some inexpensive cutting workbooks, where kids can practice cutting lines, zigzags, etc. One of my kids liked maze books, and the other liked dot-to-dot. We also practiced dribbling a basketball and catching a nerf ball, which was more fun than school work but still good hands practice.

I can see their point - one of my childrent is an excellent speller and does a great job with his grammar workbook, but hates to write and struggles to put descriptive sentences together. I think that learning basic spelling rules, like what happens when you put e at the end of a word (rat becomes rate), or 'change y to i and add es for plurals', can be useful. With my son, we now couple spelling and vocabulary (sometimes using wordly wise, other times using 'vocabulary with classical roots'). When we learn spelling with the root words, the spelling reinforces the 'common root' idea. And, although grammar (outside of basics like punctuation and capitalization) doesn't seem to help with writing, it has helped with foreign language. And, in his Bible study book, there have been sections about grammar and how to see what the clauses are referring to. We had some synergy this week when there were appositives in Latin and also Bible, although we haven't seen them in grammar yet. :-) I don't have any suggestions - we've been fine with Growing with Grammar, and have made progress with Winning with Writing, but I just ordered some MCT Language Arts from Royal Fireworks to see if I can jumpstart the writing a little bit - I'll try to post a follow-up once we've used it.

My son loves vocabulary with classical roots, so I pick his spelling words from that each week. If your son is already spelling really well, maybe just switch from the old spelling the vocabulary? And, I understand the angst about leaving an unfinished book - I'm debating a writing curriculum switch.

I'd love to hear more, too. I just looked at it and am interested, but not sure where to start my child. It has recommendations for where to begin for different ages/grades, but I'm a little concerned about missing some of the poetry and literature ideas that are introduced in the early levels. I have a younger child who can use it later, so I'm debating getting the first series and letting my older child start with it even though it's a few levels below where he is, grade-wise. He's not a great writing - he understands grammar well, can diagram sentences, and has a big vocabulary, but really struggles to write paragraphs. Is this the kind of thing that we could move through a little more quickly in the beginning if we start at a lower level? Edited - after more reading on the site and looking at the samples, it looks like the grammar at early levels (and even at his level) would have a lot of review. I know that one of the benefits is that the strands are integrated, but does anybody have experience with using parts of it (writing and poetry, for instance) but not all of it? When I asked my son to take a look today, he didn't want to change grammar, but was interested in looking into the other sections. He's already taking Latin and we do Vocab with Classical Roots, so he's getting a lot of that material in a format that he really enjoys, so he was dubious about adding more. I'm debating buying an early writing book so that we an test it out and then incorporate more if we like it. Thoughts?

I think that it can be really hard to plan this far ahead becasue you don't know what your kids will be ready for. I started K with one child reading fluently, while another started with phonics instruction. One of my children was obsessed with maps at an early age, so I incorporated maps and globes frequently - it turns out that frequent use of maps and timelines has changed how all of us understand history. I've found that having a scope and sequence to outline what science and history is being taught each year is really helpful (we use core knowledge, but there are others) because it helps us to remember to learn about a lot of topics without dictating how we do it (books, crafts, videos, labs) - few topics have been done exactly the same way for my 2 kids. You'll also want to consider the temperament of your family - do you like read-alouds, independent work, workbooks, more crafty methods like lapbooking, etc, - to help you can choose a curriculum that fits. Will your children enjoy 'family reading time' followed by 'working on a project together time', or do they work best sitting across the room from each other, or in a quiet place? In my family, we use a 'quick and easy' approach to grammar while choosing a more time-consuming math program, but other families choose literature and writing intensive approaches coupled with a more straightforward math curriculum. My kids don't like things like lapbooking, which they see as too time consuming when you could just read about it, but others will be different. This forum and other review sites can help you get a sense of the pros and cons of different materials, although unexpected things will pop up (I liked the thought of incorporating literature from sonlight into our unit studies, but the emotionally intense books caused my sensitive book-loving child to refuse to read anything - it works for lots of people, but apparently not us).