We do have the student guides and the final exam is in the student guide.

My daughter is using http://www.startsateight.com/uncle-eric-books-lesson-plan/. They use 2 "Uncle Eric" books and crash course videos to got with them.

Thanks for your help in this. He does enjoy and easily gets math done each day, so maybe I just need to be thankful that he's found something that works well for him. I appreciate the time y'all took to help me remember that finding a good fit so the student can understand is probably the best program for that student.

Forgive me as I'm sure this question has been asked, but I can't seem to find the correct search terms to find the answer. My son is going into 9th grade soon and he's looking at a possible engineering degree in the future. He has completed through TT Algebra 1 already. I've been hearing that TT isn't rigorous enough for those needing the higher college maths. Is this true? If so, what do y'all recommend? Thanks for you help.

Just bumping this to the top since it's that season when we all start looking for next year!

Anyone using this?

We are planning to use America from the Beginning from Answers in Genesis. I know that people often form groups through yahoo or facebook for the curriculum they are using but a quick google search yielded nothing. Does anyone know if such a group exists?

I would vote for HOD. It is an all-in-one schedule that the 8th grader can work through parts on their own. The manual is easy to use and follow and it's CM flavored.

Wildwood - I'm glad to hear that someone else has felt the same way. I understand that some really love this curriculum. And I was excited to have an affordable, well reviewed option for next year. Unfortunately, we've come from a lit based curriculum, so this felt too much like a textbook. I was hoping to find a way to spice it up some.

I have the America the Beautiful set from Notgrass for DD. She is currently in 6th grade and looking to use this in 7th grade. I had her look at a few lessons over the course of a few days. She thought the lessons were dry and had too many facts. She really enjoys things like SOTW and even MOH which are more of a story format. Has anyone else felt this way? Is this just what happens when you move away from elementary and into high school? Please share your thoughts or experiences.

For my DD in 6th grade we are reading a chapter a day out of the SOTW series. She likes it for the most part and is retaining more than she has with other curriculum. We don't do most of the activities in the activity guide, but she does do the map work just to be sure she understands where we are studying for the day. At this rate, she will finish most of the series by the end of the year. You could also look into getting a used Sonlight guide to help you get the series up to a middle school level. I know most here say that the series is only for grades 1-4, but in the beginning of the activity guides it says book one was written for grades 1-4, book 2 was written for grades 2-5, book three was written for grades 3-6, and book four was written for grades 4-8.

Here is a comparison that the ladies on the HOD forums did awhile back. http://www.heartofdakota.com/board3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4553&hilit=winterpromise A few years ago when I was making this choice, I personally picked HOD over WP due to cost and the fact that my DD liked one book at a time for each subject instead of WP using a few different resources each day. For reference, I did own Animals and Their Worlds and used it successfully. We also owned the old Hideaways using SOTW and American Story 1. But neither worked well for us.

With HOD you really need to rely on the placement chart. If he places in the higher level, than bump him up. But if he places in the level that would have been "next in line" for this year, use that one. Since he is in the older guides, you could do school 5 days a week instead of 4 which would make up some of that time. Also, if you school 180 days, that would help you be able to finish all the guides since most only have 140 days of plans.

Wow, thanks for those sites! Looks like I've got some downloading to do.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll have to see if Amazon has any in audio form.