No Starch Press will have Website Adventure soon, we are going to get it. (We might get it free as they have asked us to review books for them, but I might have gotten it anyway)

My eldest DS14 takes coursera courses out of interest. He has taken 5 at this stage, and keeps signing up for more! He is learning a lot doing them, not just content but managing his time to get everything done by the deadlines There have been a couple of late nights just before deadlines, which has been a great lesson for him too.

They both started in Java with code academy, it sparked their intrest and moved on to use Super Scratch Programming Adventure, review, and Python for Kids, review. We loved both these books. No Starch Press offered us Realm of Racket to review, so now DS11 is learning Racket, and wants to move onto Lisp when he is finished. I wouldn't bother with Scratch if I were you, it is a very easy beginner language, lots of fun, but then again both mine still play around with it, so maybe your son would like it to play with. I can't see any problem for your son learning Python after Java, it is good to be able to code it various languages to be a good hacker. Java and Python share a common ancestor, they are both imperative programming languages. There are significant similarities between them, so knowing some Java would help with learning Python. The real benefit of taking the NCSS challenge is that by seeing the same subject via a slightly different language it will drive home the fundamental concepts. HTH

My boys have done some coding with Scratch, and Python for Kids so I put then in the intermediate level. Has your ds done some coding?

Bumping for anyone who may be intrested.

I got a reply form Grok Learning. There are no prizes (other than fame and glory) but students strive to achieving a spot on the leaderboards. We also organise certificates for all the students who participate, and give them a breakdown on how they performed relative to their peers. HTH

MonsintheGarden, I don't think there are any prizes, but I have sent a mail to ask about cerfificates. About placement, I took this straight from their site: Each stream of the NCSS Challenge has its own leaderboard where you can see how you're doing against all of your peers. Compete for glory on a stage dominated by the hardest working. But don't worry, you're only competing against those in your stream. Each question answered correctly gets you points that improve your ranking. Bringing you closer to global programming domination. HTH

Grok Learning posted on my blog about this challenge, after looking into it I have signed my two older boys up ( 11 and 14), I thought I would post here in case anyone is intrested: The NCSS Challenge is an online programming competition that runs for 5 weeks from Monday the 5th of August, 2013. Unlike other competitions, we don't expect students to know how to program in advance, but teach them to program as they compete. Each week, a set of notes for self-directed learning is released, along with a set of challenge questions testing this material. The questions range in difficulty to allow beginners to progress at their own rate while still extending gifted students. The challenges increase in complexity as more and more programming concepts are covered over the 5 weeks. There are 3 streams offered: Beginners, designed for students with no programming experience; Intermediate, for students with some programming experience; and Advanced, designed to stretch and challenge the best students. In 2012, over 4200 students across Australia and New Zealand participated in the Challenge, solving problems from cryptography to computational linguistics, generating Twitter poetry to estimating the speed of light using marshmallows and a microwave. Participants submit their solutions to our web-based intelligent auto-marking system which is designed to lead the student through solving the problem. Students can get help from university tutors using the message system or asking a question on the moderated forums. As well as a place to get hints on solving questions, for the 5 weeks of the Challenge the 'General Discussion' forums are abuzz with passionate discussion on topics from computer games to designing efficient algorithms. Enrolment in a Challenge stream costs $AU20, and is open to all students worldwide. An annual subscription to all Grok Learning content, including all three streams of the NCSS Challenge, costs $AU30 (school discount rate, including Homeschool students). For more information, see groklearning.com/challenge or email challenge@ncss.edu.au

If you fell like sharing 8FillTheHeart, I wouldn't mind hearing how you use French in Action? We have watched all the videos once, and now are going through them again, listening to the audios too. Are you doing anything else?

I didn't, but I didn't look very hard. I asked our French tutor is she new any kids in France that wanted to Skype with mine. They have been at it a while now. They only talk for a few minutes, as they are all shy especially speaking a different language. I put them on speaker, so I can help when they run into difficulty. You could do that to monitor the call if you found anyone.

There are some great suggestions on this thread, using Skype for lessons.

:lurk5:

We love Mapping the World with Art, my boys know the world better than me now!

We love all our NYRCC books. Here are our favourites. Terrible, Horrible Edie (would love the other ones of these, NYRCC will publish it if they get enough requests for it. Uncle Uncle Cleans Up The Midnight Folk The Box of Delights Sequel to The Midnight Folk 13 Clocks The House of Arden

I just wrote a post about our History Through the Ages timeline in case anyone is intrested.

Cool, thanks!

Thanks, it did help!

Here is a site that pronounces the most common Irish names, if that's any help. Keep in mind that within Ireland some names are pronounced differently depending on where you live.

Monica, how do you post you pic like that?

I have Besta shelves all over my house, in my living room, dining area, and homeschool room. They are about two books deep, so not great if space it tight. Here are pictures of the ones in my living room.

You could also get him to sit on an exercise ball while he is doing his school work, and on a computer. Sitting on one engages his core muscles and encourages proper posture. "Your body, when positioned on top of an exercise ball, is constantly making small adjustments, often imperceptible, to remain balanced and thus is constantly exercising a large group of muscles in doing so. By strengthening your body's core muscle group you help improve your posture, have better balance and guard against back injuries." Read some more here.

Yeah, me too!! Shipping to Australia is astronomical!!

LOL! Great slogan! I'm doing a lot of gambling lately too ;)

Good luck! How about a picture of current yellow ones, and then orangey red when you get them going?

I love PDFs for all the reasons you mentioned. Just do it :)