DD got back from her grandmother's yesterday and was rather stroppy. The reason? Her grandmother had told her that she should do her school work during the day. What my mother doesn't realise is that she already has. She was doing A Level maths (she bought the textbook herself) and it's something you don't do until 16-18 over here. Her grandmother apparently just sniffed at this fact and asked why she was doing it and why she'd ever use what she was learning again. I don't know what's wrong with the woman myself, I've never been prouder of DD. :]

There's also a free Latin curriculum called Latinum which uses a textbook available on google books and has an audio podcast for every lesson. My daughter hasn't used it yet but we're considering it. Good luck :]

Hi, Thanks a lot both of you. (: And Laura's been very helpful with textbooks and stuff but I think her sons are quite at high school age yet? I'm not 100% sure on that though. Intergrated is probably a good idea. Would I put Integrated Maths III however because she's covered most of while in school or since she's come home and will only really need one year before she starts AS maths. I think however, I might have gotten around the transcript. The international common app section just asks us to list school-leaving exams, not all our subjects so I think we should be okay but thank you so much for all your help! Jo

DD has always been very interested in religion. She isn't religious herself but she's always interested in people's beliefs. Her dad's side of the family are catholic, though she attended a church of england school when she was younger. She's interested in learning more about the differences between the two and she's interested in Judaism too. She's taking a religious studies GCSE this year too, and these are more than likely the religons she will choose to study. I've no doubt she'll continue learning about relgions past GCSE level either. It's always been something that's interested her. So basically, any advice? It'd also be brilliant if they were available on the Amazon UK site but it's not 100% necessary. Thank you :]

Okay, as you might already know, we're actually British. So, over here in the UK we do things slightly differently in the fact that we just have 'maths'. We don't have Algebra I, Algebra I, Trig, Geometry, etc. We just have maths. So what would you call that on a transcript. Mathematics I, Advanced Subsidiary Mathematics & Advanced Level Mathematics? DD will be taking her GCSE Maths exam in June. For that, you apparently need Algebra I, II and Geometry and DD will only be 15. So do we call it something that sounds more advanced than Mathematics I? AS & A Level mathematics are obviously British A Level mathematics and she'll be taking the exams too, obviously. She's capable of A Level maths now, I think but I don't want her to rush into it. So basically, what would you recommend for a replacement to Mathematics I name-wise? Also, after she finishes A Level mathematics, what would you recommend as her last year of Mathematics since american colleges require four years? DD wants to get all these exams and such out of the way as soon as possible so she can enjoy the year she turns eighteen. So any recommendations for naming that course and for her last year of mathematics? She's interested in Accounting, would that be an accepted mathematics course for her senior year? Thanks, and sorry for rambling. Jo

Thank you (: We're just looking for used copies on amazon so the p&p costs less for us here in the UK and even then we'll have to wait 'till the money comes in at the end of the month. Agh, the wait is never-ending! Haha! We also need to sort out getting our history book for DD's first year of doing a four-year history cycle and we're waiting on her biology textbook & kingfisher encyclopedia supplement. Then there's... aghhh! It's chaos. I don't know how you all cope with more than one! ;D

Thanks so much for all your suggestions. (: I'm going to look through them later with DD and then we can make a decision! The panic's setting in since it's half way through august and we have absolutely nothing textbook/curriculum wise. We're waiting for our biology textbook to arrive and our kingfisher encyc but everything else is waiting to be ordered. Arghhhh!

DD is scoring about half in the placement tests for Algebra I with Saxon so we're going to have to go back a little, which worries me, to be honest. DD's confidence got knocked a bit by this too so now we're hoping to cover all she'll need to know as quickly as possible before starting Algebra I but is 8/7 with Pre-Algebra or Pre-Algebra on it's own a better idea? And why is 8/7 with Pre-Algebra cheaper? Hmmm.... (:

DD is going to do a four year rotation, yup but I'm feeling the pressure since she'll only go through it once before going to college. I didn't know SWB had written another book but we've just found it on amazon and will probably order it as soon as one of us has put money in our bank account. Kingfisher we bought purely as a supplement anyway. She knows most British history from what she's learnt herself or the small amount she's learnt in school but we bought it as a quick refresher. Still waiting for it to arrive D: CC wise, we're in the UK unfortunately and unless we pay pretty extortionate amounts (£3498 for five GCSEs plus exam fees) there's no chance there. Our colleges don't really work in the same way and we envy the people that can go to CC, believe me. Haha! : D Because of what you said about them evaluating her though for some reason the idea clicked in my head about placement tests for curriculums. No idea why I didn't think of that sooner but I suppose we'll have to find a curriculum to take a placement test for first. The search goes on xD Thank you so much for your help. =)

DD is very interested in languages. She's been excited about latin for a long time but she's also interested in a few other languages: greek, japanese, spanish, german and french. Greek is something she's willing to drop but then there's all the others... She's always thought japanese would be too difficult for her but she was encouraged my a friend to do it. Spanish, she's also willing to drop and pick up in a few years time when she's at college if the worst comes to the worst but that still leaves Japanese, German and French as well as Latin. French is something she's done in school for years so she's past the basics but the others are languages she's never done before. We've been given recommendations for Minna no Nihongo books 1 and 2 and the Genki books for Japanese and we haven't decided on which to go for yet. What would you recommend for the other languages, particularly French? Would you recommend we work out where she's up to in the textbook and start from there skipping the stuff she already knows? She's told me she has difficult with understanding how the verbs work and a few grammar problems and then all she needs is some more advanced vocabulary so I wonder if a textbook would even be worth it? For the other languages - Latin and German, any recommendations? DD's goal is a to be able to read books in another language and apparently lots of languages. I'm pleased she's taken such an interest in languages since I never picked anything other than basic french up. She's also a big fan of history and I'm going to merge the languages into them slightly but is this all going to be too much? We're also puzzled about where to start with history. DD wants to buy the story of the world: history for the classical child but supplement it with kingfisher history of britain for british history and great books too. I'm worried it's going to be too young for her but this will be her first time going through history completely. What do you think? Sorry, there's a lot of questions =D

Thanks so much Jennifer (: I'll have to kick myself into shape and put some money into my bank account to order them. We've had a death in the family recently and we're barely getting back to normal now... Ugh. Thanks for the links to the writing curriculums too. I don't know if it's me not being used to curriculum prices but they seem a little expensive? Is it just me? ;D Thanks so much again! Jo

Hi Danielle & Jennifer, First of all thank you so much for your book suggestions :] We'll look at them later on when DD's attention span is back. She's listening to music and trying to 'get her brain to work again' in her words. ;D She's been reading about Jane Austen books and said her head hurts from the language in them. She's not used to reading classics, if I'm honest. I read them in school and assumed she did too. We didn't interfere in her school work and such because she was such a good student up until she was 11 and they went to secondary school. From then she was a strictly bare-minimum student and since she was neither required nor encouraged to read she simply didn't. She wants to get back into reading though and I've told her to just read through the summer. Not do anything in particular but to just read. She's not doing very well so far. Or at least, she's not finishing any books. She's read a few pages here and there but. Eeep. D: We can access the site you gave and I'm sure DD will appreciate that (: Essay-wise DD says she doesn't know how to write an essay so obviously that's something we need to address before we get into any of that. She's actually relatively keen on 'this outlining lark' and thinks it might be useful in college so she actually wants to do that but I'm sure essays in between will be a welcome change for her. I just looked on both sites you suggested for Spielvogel's World History and couldn't find it on either of them nor Amazon so I've no idea what we'll do. xD We're going to look for all the other books and hopefully find some sample chapters then decide what we're doing. DD's going to carry on with TWTM later and now I mention it I might go and see if I can steal if off her when she's not looking... Jo

Hi Danielle, DD's told me what she'd like to do is do a bit history overview and then the periods she wants to do into are the Victorians, American FBI and crime history, a bit of concentration on the 1920s jazz era. She wants to do some writing on each of these periods as in fictional stuff or fanfiction or something because these are all eras that have caught her interest but she hasn't managed to learn much about yet. My worry is that she won't be able to wait until she's finished the outlining. She wants to try some forensic science and criminology alongside the American FBI and crime history so a bit of unit studies going on there, I suppose xD She's also a big psychology nerd but she's not so big on going really indepth with specific people in history when she could be missing out on something so I don't know if they second two would work as primary materials. She might appreciate them as supplements though. Do you think they'd suit her? (: Jo

Hi Jennifer, We're hoping to do a lot of British History (I forgot to mention ;D) because it's where we live as well as some american and world history but I've no idea how to fit it all in. We've ordered Kingfisher's British History Encyclopedia and we're hoping to go through a lot of that. I think she's done most of the ancient stuff but didn't have any supplementary literature in (shudder) school so we might just solidify that with some outlining and literature. I only just realised that she has actually covered most of it. I think if she even heard the mention of Romans at the minute she might go running but I think she'd be okay with the literature. We couldn't find any cheap-ish copies of the book you mentioned unfortunately so I don't think we'll be able to use it... oh how I hate budgets. So really I've no idea what to do... our WTM book arrived while we were away at the weekend so now my DD's reading it and quoting the important bits to me before I read it and she says she's just got to the history section. Woo! ;D Jo

DD is very interested in history & geography but is very, very weak in both. She came out of school in January knowing barely anything. She can vaguely identify our city on a UK map and knows the continents and where Italy and France are but she can't do much more. She's done Romans in history for the last few years and a little of WWI but very little else. It's been very frustrating for her considering how much she loves both subjects but now we're confused about where to begin... It'll be DD's first year of classical ed and it'll be entirely her choice to do it so it's sort of unschooled classical ed? Yeah, we're weird. Anyway, should we go back to outlining history from the very beginning and supplementing it as we go along with great books or what? D: DD would hate to miss out on any of the great books and would want to read all of them but will we be able to fit this in? Agh DDD:

We haven't used any math programs yet (we'll be starting in September and haven't bought anything yet D:) but maybe it's actually the curriculum that isn't working for him. Maybe try something different like Life of Fred? Get him to read the sample chapter and see how it works for him? It might be useful. (:

DD's now found that KB do textbooks to accompany the on-screen thing so she's now interested ;D She 'couldn't be dealing with just the computer'. I don't know, maybe she had an argument with it? Anyway... she's pleased again now and has emailed KB to find out how much they'd charge to ship here for the textbook so we'll seeeeeee. My only child is DD though so we definately don't have five kids to pass the curriculum down to. ;D But basically... thank you thank you thank you. : D

Hi, Thanks for your answers. :] A major problem for us is shipping costs. It's costing close to $45 at the cheapest just for shipping because we're in the UK so that's something unavoidable. We're gonna hunt around for a used copy so thanks for that. :] Me and DD also looked at Kinetic Books, or the sample chapter anyway ;D. DD said she 'liked it but didn't like it like it like she liked TT'. She said she'd suffer through it if we had to though but she preferred TT. Ahhhhh D: Haha!

Can't help much on the curriculum front but have you tried them with a practice SAT test to see how well they fare in the critical reading? That'll give you an idea of how much you need to work on it. Make sure it's the proper test straight from College Board though. :]

DD is wanting to get Algebra I of Teaching Textbooks for her Freshman year. Mom is worried that since she got a few questions right on the placement test and she's done quite a bit on algebra in school (they're been doing algebra on and off for a few years quite badly, apparently) as well as the fact that she's pretty good with maths, I'm worried she'll finish it before the year is up and we won't have the money for Geometry or Algebra II depending on what she wants to do next. Agh D: Help, anyone?

That's perfect! I can't believe how easy that was ;D We're obviously not up on places to look. Thank youuuu. (:

Hi, Me and DD have decided on American Literature alongside Composition this year for her english curriculum. I think we'll be using Brave Writer for composition but for American Lit we're at a loss. We're looking for a curriculum that isn't religiously affiliated, which seems to be the problem. Any ideas? (: Jo

Ah the amount of times I've done that. D: It does seem that a lot of them just involve a lot of memorization and DD didn't want to have to remember everything from the different types of erosion to... whatever else to do with geography ;D She's more than interested in different parts of the world and actually asked me to look out for a big world map so she could do this big project which was a bit politics/culture crossover with pictures of the person in charge of that area (prime ministers, presidents, etc) and bits and pieces about culture and pictures of landmarks in the area with arrows going from the picture to the place. It sounds good, but I doubt it'll cover anything to do with Geography at GCSE level. D: Her Geography lessons obviously weren't very good when she was younger because she can't identify any places on a map, really. She knows all the continents, can pick out the UK and can pick our city out on the UK map but that's basically it. Oh, and she knows where London is on a UK map too. But other than that, nope. She was amused to no end by the fact that the equator crossed right across Uganda because she wants to volunteer there when she's older and she says she should definately get a tan there then. ;D English Language for IGCSE is supposed to be impossible to revise for too, but in a good way. As long as you go in having done English for long enough so that you can do the basics and some good test taking skills (like you said - make a point, back it up) it's supposed to be relatively easy. DD wants to go over different types of writing though (persuasive in particular) because she's forgotten it from her last test she did in school. Make a point, back it up is apparently very familiar to her. When she was revising for the SAT Shakespeare part of writing about a character she says they heard that every single day and they even told them that stood at the front of the exam hall and went through how to write the essay on the interactive board just before the exam. Isn't that a bit like cheating? xD Thanks for that link to the Chemistry guy. I might order them and see whether they are noticably creationist in their approach. If they are, I know DD will be put off immediately since she's agnostic (the reason we didn't do Ambleside Online's Charlotte Mason curriculum, most of the books were religious in approach) so we'd have to find something else but still use everything besides the book, I suppose. DD's laughing at how she could make a beaker overflow and we'd have a kitchen full of foam. Pink foam, she insists. ;D I think that could be a problem with the grammar side of things, but I'm sure we could find some random rhymes, games, etc to help her remember. Her french teacher apparently started this chant type thing with the verbs they had to learn but didn't actually tell the kids what they were learning and what the different endings were for and when they asked she told them they didn't need to know, they just had to remember it so maybe, because of that, she'll make more of an effort with Latin grammar and she does want to start over on french grammar and verbs, etc. I think DD's a member of that group. I'll check with her. Thanks for that. (: And I'm Jo, sorry I forgot to say. = )

Hello again Laura, I didn't really think of it like that. She actually is still unschooling. xD I'll show that article to DD tommorow too, she couldn't find anywhere that compared the two, really. Thanks for the ideas on Latin too. Maybe if she had an easier curriculum and could work through it quicker it'd feel like she was accomplishing more, or accomplishing it easier and it might encourage her more. I'll ask her to read the sample chapters tommorow and tell me what she thinks. She's definately not interested in Rosetta Stone for French, I know that. She's been doing french since she was 5 right up until 13 and although it was a slow progression, I think she's learnt quite a lot. She does insist that it's just entire improvisation when she writes in french though and I overheard her best friend saying 'and one of those pointy things on top of the e, cause it looks good' and they laughed about it but it was genuinely what they did. ;D I think she has chosen what she wants to do for GCSEs though, actually. I think the list is now Maths GCSE, English Language IGCSE, Psychology GCSE, Biology IGCSE and Geography/History IGCSE. She wants to look into what's involved in the Geography one before she decides between them, or chooses both. She's worried it's going to be too much memorization and really, I think she only chose it to add up to give GCSEs so we'll probably do history, if she chooses but we have to pick the specific topics we're going to do. Then there's the exam centres part, which should be fun considering DD's drawn a blank so far. She even resorted to looking for colleges/sixth forms that took A Level external candidates eventually but so far, it hasn't worked. She's still waiting to hear back from one though, so fingers crossed. Her old school's the only school local home ed groups can recommend and she doesn't really want to go back there, I don't think so that could be a problem. We did get given a link to 3a tutors though and even though they're quite expensive we're considering them now for her IGCSEs just to save hunting around everywhere else. I think it's £150 per subject which is expensive in my opinion but we haven't found anywhere to compare it to yet. xD It'd be good to get that chemistry guy's details too. = ) I think it'd be good for her to have a bit of fun with science I think, rather than being taught to the test. It might make her a bit more interested in Science in general. DD's still really excited about those maths books too which is good to see. xD

I'm not familiar with Asperger Syndrome so I did look it up ;D I noticed one thing about specific and repetitive interests. Does your ds have a specific interest? Since you said he wanted to be an astrophysicist I'm assuming it might be astronomy and if it is, maybe you could get him to write about planets, etc? If he stargazes, he could write in his journal about stars he can see, that kind of thing? I know it'd be nice for him to just say 'yep' and carry on with it but it's very rare for a teenager to do that. xD Good luck (: