See if your library has a community chess club. Our library is tiny, but we found out that a small group of older men was getting together on Saturday mornings to play chess. When ds first began going, he was the only person there under the age of 68. This group of older men seemed to really enjoy having a younger learner to mentor, and ds developed his chess passion in this gentle, nurturing environment.

I'm looking for online DE (for college credit) options. Please tell me what you've seen available and any experiences good or bad.

Thank you. He's 7th grade right now and has been using these as fun supplements. He enjoys reading the books and doing the quizzes at the end of each chapter. Since these aren't his main texts, I wonder if we should just continue without the parent lessons.

Thank you for mentioning this. Although ds is enjoying the two books, The World of Mathematics and The World of Physics, I had never heard about the Parent Lesson Plans. Do you find these helpful?

I agree. We've used both these, and my kids enjoy Physics 101 more, but it's definitely Christian, and I wasn't sure the op would want that. If so, Tiner's World of Physics goes really well with Physics 101 and is perfect for the 8th grade level.

Physics in Your Life from Great Courses is good. Your library may have it.

Yes, go with the second option! I have a son with a B.A. in History and that's how we did some of his high school history courses. You may find that that approach increases his reading speed.

There is no such thing as standardized metrics in high school courses from different schools in this country. Pick any two schools in the country and their grading systems and standards are going to be different. That's why we use tests such as ACT, SAT, AP, etc . . . Schools are just different, like homeschools. Admissions officers understand that homeschool transcripts are parent generated with parent grades. That's why they place more priority on standardized tests. FWIW, I went with my gut on some of my homeschooled kids grades because there is simply no other reasonable way to do it sometimes, and of the six that have (or almost have) graduated from college, every single one of them had a college gpa that nearly matched or was better than the high school gpa I gave them.

Yes, that looks like a good plan. Unless the younger is advanced, I would keep them on different levels. I've successfully combined students in IEW though. When you get to that point, call IEW to get advice and recommendations. They are tremendously helpful.

I disagree with this post, especially the bolded, but the rest of it too. (I'm sorry, Tsuga. I love so many of your posts.) Homeschool is not public or traditional school. They are not alike and should not be compared. If we apply the same standards and practices to homeschool that are applied to public school, we are dismissing all the advantages of homeschool while retaining all the disadvantages. For example, one major disadvantage for homeschool parents is the simple fact that they don't have the experience of having taught 100 students in each and every class. I don't get a boatload of free textbooks to preview before I assign one to my child. Consequently, as parents we sometimes choose untried courses that end up being a particularly bad fit for our students. In that case, part of the blame lies on us when a student gets a bad grade, and part of the blame is simply lack of experience due to the nature of homeschool. If we start applying traditional practices so stringently, we'll be tempted to use only courses that are not likely to challenge our students. We won't use any untried materials lest we unwittingly push our students past their ability. We'll actually be lowering our standards, which by the way, as other posters have pointed out, is exactly what has happened in some public schools. Sure, if this was an attitude or motivation problem I might have a different answer here, but that has not been my experience, and I don't see that in the op's post. A homeschooling parent is the best judge of her child's problem and should have the final say in awarding the grade. Admissions officers already understand that homeschool is not traditional school. They don't expect us to treat it as such, so why should we place this unnecessary and unfair burden on ourselves? And since in a homeschool the parent is the manager, leaving an unaccredited course off a transcript is in no way "a lie of omission" and calling it such is indeed harsh.

I've used both these programs quite a lot. There is great benefit to WWE period, no matter what you plan to follow it up with. I strongly prefer WWE for early elementary. If you were looking at WWE 4 for your 4th grader, I might suggest that you consider switching to IEW at this point, depending on how well he's writing, but if he's at the WWE 3 level, I'd go with that. Where IEW really shines for some kids is in the middle school years, grade 5 and up. That said, I'm using WWS for my current middle schoolers.

It sounds like the class was just a bad fit for your ds. (i.e. This was not a motivation or attitude problem.) If this was my child, I would give him extra credit opportunities over the summer. If he worked on that, I would adjust the grade and not have the original grade on the transcript at all. You are the principal and teacher. You have the authority to do this. Giving extra credit is a totally accepted practice in higher education, so I wouldn't have any qualms whatsoever about this. A couple examples from this semester: Ds just finished his third year as a dental student at a well-respected school. At the end of the semester, the class was given an exam that earned an automatic fail if they missed one question. However, if only one question was missed, they could make it up by writing a paper. Most students in the class were writing papers last weekend. Dd took an online DE music appreciation class through the university she plans to attend in the fall. She has never had an ear for music, so the listening portions of the exams were extremely difficult for her. Her professor offered several opportunities for extra credit, such as attending concerts and watching operas and writing papers about them. She did all the extra credit and ended up with an A. More importantly, she has a much greater appreciation for music now. Imagine how much she would like music if the prof had failed her! The professor's goal seemed to be to expose the kids who weren't naturally gifted in music to an extra wide variety of music thereby increasing their enjoyment of the subject. And isn't that the goal? To broaden their world and increase their enjoyment of the subjects they're exposed to? I'm sure that's what you want for your ds. You mentioned that he's done Apologia. I couldn't tell if he'd done the physics book or not. If he likes that format, I'd have him do selected modules and assignments from that text over the summer. Another great option would be the Physics 101 DVDs. My kids watch these DVDs for fun, and they learn a lot. There's a guide book with extra activities you could select from for extra credit.

Thanks. I didn't see your post before I asked about Lands End. Thanks for your response. Dh does wear a white t-shirt and a tie. It's the cuffs and collars that are wearing out. And, yeah, we figured out to stay away from shirts from Target etc. a long time ago.

Our Costco quit selling dress shirts. I did like the Kirkland brand for awhile, but the more recent purchases had been wearing out more quickly anyway. Plus, did they get more baggy or something? He was swimming in the last few I bought. I've ordered a shirt from LL Bean and am looking at the other recommendations now. Has anyone had any luck with Lands End? You ladies are terrific. Thanks for the help!

Where do you buy them? I can't believe how quickly dh's shirts wear out. I'm looking for easy care/wrinkle free or wrinkle resistant shirts that actually hold up over time. Is there a certain brand that has worked better for you than others?

Terry Walters' books: Clean Food and Eat Clean Live Well These recipes are vegetarian, dairy free, and mostly gluten free. We are not vegetarian, but many of our family favorites are in these books.

Fascinating article. Thanks for linking.

Dd used this for her senior year. She liked it very much. Encountering the Old Testament We've also used The Most Important Thing You'll Ever Study and can highly recommend it, especially if most of your students are early high school.

I'm sorry, Heather. :( I had been wondering since your first post. I hope you find something that works well for your family.

Continued: So besides the uneven writing quality, one thing that concerned me when I previewed ​Omnibus was that it handed everything to the child pre-digested. I've preferred the methods described in WTM's chapter "Great Books: History and Reading" where the student does the work of researching background information on a work and an author before reading. This is a valuable learning experience for them. I've told my kids to avoid using sites like Wikipedia and Spark Notes when doing their research and to write things in their own words. Finding out that the writers of Omnibus didn't even hold themselves to those bare minimum standards seems totally ironic to me. So, yes, this would have been a deal breaker for me, even if it was the only issue I had with the books (which, as I stated before, it's not) and even if I had already purchased it.

To answer my own question: I bought and sold two volumes of Omnibus without using them. I had several reasons for rejecting it. The uneven writing quality concerned me. For instance, compare Nancy Wilson's essay on ​Pilgrim's Progress​ with the essay on the same work in ​Invitation to the Classics. ​​eta: I'm not finished. My computer is acting up and posted without my permission. :-) I will continue below.

I'm just wondering: Does something like this affect anyone's decision to use a curriculum? I mean, if you were set on using it next fall, would you still use it, or would this be a deal breaker?

I think it's a great idea. I don't know why you wouldn't just give a traditional grade for something like that.

From the article: "Obese people who exercise, eat enough vegetables and don’t smoke are no more likely to die young than normal-weight people with the same habits." Dh (MD, Family Practice, B.S. Nutritional Science) has observed for decades that exercise, not diet or weight, is the primary determiner of overall health and well-being in his patients. However, excess weight can make exercise difficult. Interesting article. Thanks, op.

Introductory Logic and Intermediate Logic (Canon Press), ​recommended in the 1st and 2nd editions of WTM but replaced by Traditional Logic (Memoria Press) in the 3rd edition, are co-authored by him. In Appendix 5 of WTM, 3rd ed., the authors explained that they made the switch because Traditional Logic is easier to teach in a homeschool setting, and I couldn't agree more. Besides that, I felt that many of the examples in the 4th edition of ​Introductory Logic didn't make sense. (i.e. They seemed illogical, which is particularly egregious in a logic text :glare:.) Perhaps they were modified in the more recent edition.