I will tell you last black Friday, k12 had independent courses for 1/2 off. I don't know if they will run the sale again this year, but it makes a huge difference in cost if they do.

A lot of the bad reviews come from people in charters that don't realize that each charter is not k12 the curriculum. It is a public school that implements k12 to fit their public school rules. It is more advanced than the local public schools and does require a lot more work than kids in public school may be used to as well. I won't lie. It has both good and bad, but most of the negative reviews are specific to the schools they are enrolled in not the k12 curriculum. It is the same way that people complain about different public schools. That is not reflective of buying k12 independently prior to high school. I have used it successfully for 5 years with 4 kids. My 2 oldest went back to public high school for sports and went straight into Pre-AP, AP, and Honors classes. They had learned to work independently using k12 for their middle school years. They went into their freshman year with teachers thinking that they were juniors and seniors b/c they didn't need hand holding for things and had a maturity that the incoming freshman coming from middle school did not. I would not base my opinion on reviews from public school kids that left public school and struggled in a k12 public charter. If you do k12 independently, those complaints and problems do not exist. You won't find a lot of reviews for k12 independent as most all the reviews start off--we left public school and this charter was so hard and asked so much and it was impossible.

Out of those 3 options, I would go with BJU or K12. We have done Calvert and it is too costly for private homeschoolers at this point. BJU is really good, but I do find that my kids tune out watching a video taped teacher. We have done k12 the last 5 years. Sixth grade is actually a really good year with the k12 setup. It is American History-civil war to present, Earth Science, Fundamentals of Geometry and Algebra (which I actually like...I agree elementary k12 math is not great, but the middle school math is pretty good if you do the FGA, Pre-Algebra, Algebra 1 line up not the new Intermediate Math series), Intermediate Literature A with either The Secret Garden or Tom Sawyer as the novels, Intermediate Language Skills A with GUM grammar, Vocabulary with Vocabulary from Classical Roots A, and Compostion (not terribly fond of the composition). I think it is a pretty good middle school start actually. The literature has 4 more novels you choose from a list, a work of Shakespeare (can't remember which), and an anthology that is interesting. So out of those 3, I would probably do k12...but I have done k12 6th grade 3 times now and feel really comfortable with it now.

I am on my 3rd middle schooler. I honestly think some of the reason I was so keen for mine to try high school was because of how narrowly we survived the middle school years. It is just horrible. I can't imagine how teachers in b&m schools deal with all that with hundreds of students. I have 1 more year of middle school with my 3rd child then I get a reprieve for a few years. I plan to savor the non-middle school years.

http://carpediemprepathome.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-leaning-tower-ofmath.html

I know it is summer and most are winding down. I have been homeschooling for 6 years now and off and on the board for most of that time. My oldest son has dysgraphia/dyslexia and I am always seeing posts about people wondering if their child has either or both and posts looking for materials to help with it. I am going to blog our journey this year of going through Dianne Craft materials to try and help my son be better prepared for high school He is 7th grade now. I am creating a link up for anyone with a blog with a right brained learner to share their experiences or materials that help or just to share their week with their right brained learner. This is my first ever link up. If you blog and have a right brained learner, I would love to follow your blog and see what you are doing with your right brained learner. http://carpediemprepathome.blogspot.com/2016/05/dysgraphia.html I am going to post bi-weekly on how things are going with us and our journey this year with the materials we are using. The link up will be on each of those posts.

We actually moved to k12 with our boys and that has worked great for them. They are 7th and 4th now but my older son did so much better with the textbook style books than multiple books and notebooking. He has mainly done K12's Am. History with Hakim's US History. He also has done History Odyssey for world history through k12. My girls went to school for high school. They also did a few years of middle school each with k12. We did try Rev to Rev and WG after k12 and before they went back to public school for a year. My girls did the most with HOD before going to K12 and they did start to get where it was too much piecing here and there and too many parts. Although my middle daughter did enjoy the What in the World CD's. They did from BHFHG through CTC before going to K12 for middle school. They went to k12 for a year and a half, then back to HOD for a year, then my oldest went to high school and I put the rest back in k12 before my middle daughter went to high school also this year. There were things about HOD that they enjoyed--the watercolors in CTC, What in the World CD's, and Draw and Write, and others...but, the amount of left side devoted to history and Bible with the many parts just seemed to drag our day somewhat and they were hard to get to do school before we switched to K12 and they really could have a simple daily plan that was a list and they used the k12 history text with much more enthusiasm.

I have used HOD LHTH, LHFHG, BLHFHG, BHFHG, PHFHG, CTC, Rev2Rev, and WG each at some point and to some degree. I don't think HOD loses the pieces and parts feel to it. You do stay in one book for longer as they get older, but it is still the same style of learning with the same style of directions. It just gets longer and longer days as you go through. It never gets to the point where history is condensed to a few items and less pieces and parts. History is their bread and butter for the program and Bible and History package is combined all the way up through the guides. The science becomes textbook and the electives are mainly textbook style, but the history stays the same look and feel to keep the history notebooking as the main things they are selling in the packages with the living books feel to it. I haven't used Notgrass, but have looked at it at convention. If I had a smart child that didn't need the bouncing back and forth to not get bored with a subject, I would go with the Notgrass over HOD. Some kids do better when things switch up a lot to keep their interest. For my kids, that was not the case. I even thought about going back to HOD this next year, but when showing it to a friend at convention and looking at the books in my hand and the guides...well, I remember the days of the history project, reading bouncing back and forth, and well it always felt like we just went through the motions to get it done. And the more kids and guides the harder it became to actually have a working knowledge of the books they are reading for discussions. The suggestion to skim while they narrate does not work as they get older and the discussion is supposed to step up in critical thinking. I would have to spend the summer reading all of those books myself x 4. I found that I was clueless a lot of times as to whether my child was really getting what they were supposed to be getting b/c I had not had time to read and think through it all myself. I think it is really well done if you or your child thrive on that style of learning, but for us it became redundant. Especially the way the guide begins with new skills then just repeats the same pattern the entire year with the boxes and activities. I would give the Notgrass a try and see if you like it.

I would suggest Miquon for k-2 and transitioning to TT3 whenever you finish Miquon. It uses the rods as manipulatives and is a strong foundation.

I see your children are young. I would say the writing in the lower guides is very CM. It is slow to start. I would say you aren't really doing writing until Preparing which is the 3rd/4th grade guide depending on which guide you start with for kindergarten. For k-3rd grade, I would say it is lower than what is expected of peers of the same age/grade. It does ramp up in the middle school guides. We did not like either Write with the Best writing components. IEW worked really well for my kids. I would say if you start HOD in the younger guides and try to jump to something else before 6th grade or so your writing skills would be lacking at that time b/c of the CM nature of the early guides. I think it evens out after the guide with IEW. I would say it ramps up and evens out writing in Resurrection to Reformation. Before that, I would say it is light on the writing.

I would wait until 9th. We knew friends that switched in 8th and got put in a not so great class line up. They really don't try to validate your schooling to put in the right course levels jumping into the middle of middle school. They just stick you on the hum drum path. We watched a friend put her daughter in for the transition 8th grade and that is what happened. She was as smart as my girls and tested the same but b/c she hadn't been on that path in the middle school for the prior years--into the hum drum path she went. We put our girls back in at 9th grade registration. Since high school was a new beast, they actually looked at their test scores and all with some interest. They put them into the higher level classes with no problem. Again we had a friend mid-year transfer her daughter in and into the hum-drum path she went b/c she didn't start on the higher path and with homeschooling their is no validating the grades you gave b/c the school doesn't believe that you are unbiased. This is my experience. My girls wanted to go back b/c there are zero extracurricular opportunities after 14 here for sports and no opportunities for band no matter the age. We did private lessons for dd to walk on to the high school band and even then we had to have an in person that talked her up. If your middle school is a junior high that starts in 7th, then I say give it a try...but if it is a middle school that starts in 6th...wait until 9th to go back. The transition year is so not worth it. Mine went back in 9th and did well. I agree with the previous poster that all the 9th graders had some adjusting to do.

It was online through classical conversations. They send you an email listing the times. It is broken down over 2 days. http://cctestingservices.com/ Click the online testing button and you will see a calendar to sign up.

Stanford is timed and during the time for that test section you can go back and check your work, but not after the time is up. It is proctored and the proctor would have to open it again. It has a schedule for each section and a time. We did Stanford through classical conversations and it was a good experience, but once the time for the section was up you couldn't go back without the proctor opening it up again. You can go back with the CAT as long as you haven't ended the section as well. It is when you submit the section that you can't go back.

I think most people are much more passionate about reviews when they don't like something unless they got the item for free and are essentially being paid with free material to write a review. You don't see really harsh negative reviews on any of the bloggers sites that get their materials free to review. You see waxing lyrical reviews from paid reviewers. I also think not everyone goes online and praises curriculum that gets the job done. We have used LLATL with our older girls and now with the boys in between being in a k12 charter using a lot of intense material for each individual language arts subject. I can tell you that we had more frustration and tears over the intense language arts. LLATL got done and the kids did well with it and understood the grammar concepts and their writing improved. The spelling is really not much in it, but that would be my only complaint. I have kids that range from gifted to dyslexic/dysgraphic. All of them got something out of LLATL. I never used the blue. I did use the red with one of my boys. It wasn't awful, but I would rather start with yellow. We have done yellow, orange, purple, and tan. My son that is dysgraphic/dyslexic is writing more and without the stress and frustration that came from having huge chunks of time in each language arts sub subject. It is short and sweet but gets the job done. We add in Spelling You See. I think you have to look at what will fit your family and your needs. I used to research and buy and try so many things. The grass is greener syndrome was alive and well in our house. I would think things weren't working or that the children weren't learning and would look for something that would be better. It really didn't get us anywhere but a disjointed scope and sequence that never built upon itself. In school, they pick publishers or curriculum and it flows through the years. They don't change every year and the kids move steady and learn everything over time. After using k12 and coming back to homeschooling, I really looked at what got done in our house. What curriculum got done with minimal issues and fuss and the children learned. For us, LLATL gets done and works.