Long story short, at the beginning of the 2017-18 school year, my 12yo took an online Algebra 1 class that was scheduled to be two semesters long. The instructor (for reasons unknown) pushed forward at a very fast pace in order to shorten the course to one semester. My son was overwhelmed, and the Holt textbook used for the course was rather lacking. Long story short, his love of math was quickly dwindling after that even though he did well in the class. Given that we still had half of the school year left, we went on to try Saxon, but he found it too repetitive and slow going. That's when I discovered AoPS. It is interesting to note that while he had completed a HS level course, he did not score into AoPS' Algebra but rather the Pre-Algebra level. So we went with that. I purchased both the AoPS workbook and solutions manual and he completed it on his own. Much to my surprise, he did so in 4 months time. Being new to this program, he decided to complete all of the work in the book (problem/exercise/review and challenge questions) just to be sure he didn't miss anything. This took several hours a day, but he was determined. AoPS' online classes start at 7pm which is too late for him so I enrolled him in WTMA's online class for Algebra I this fall. After reading this post, I now wonder how Alcumus compares to the problems in the book and whether or not we've missed something.

So glad I asked! Thank you for that clarification. And thank you to everyone who responded. I really appreciate the info.

Is she taking the Chemistry and the Lab class as well, or just the Chemistry? I was thinking of pairing these but not sure if it would be too much alongside the writing class.

Got it! Thanks so much. I kept seeing that and had no clue!

I noticed in your signature line that your DD8 is taking WTM Chemistry, correct? If so, what is that time commitment like? That's on my list also.

Please forgive my ignorance, but what is WWS?

I am interested in enrolling my 12yo in several WTMA courses throughout the year, but would like to have an idea of how much time is required to complete homework or other assignments outside of class. I want to make sure I don't overwhelm him with too much work if he takes more than one class at a time. We had this happen to us last year (new, local program to us) and it really turned him off to some of his favorite subjects as a result. The course was intended to be a full year, but the instructor decided to double up on the work for unknown reasons, and completed a year's worth of high school Algebra and Chemistry in just 4 months. My son, while gifted, was overwhelmed with excessive homework that sometimes took him 16 hours to complete (twice a week!), and that was just the Algebra homework alone. He refused to quit and stuck with it, but I never want him to be in that situation again. He was so overwhelmed that he now feels he should retake both of those classes, even though he did very well. We have been looking at a number of WTMA courses, but which ones we choose will determine on the time commitment required: Online Study Skills Fundamental Grammar World Geography World History (Ancient, Medieval and Rennaisance) Expository Writing II Chemistry 1 or 2 Chem Lab Algebra 1 or 2 (Saxon or AopS?) Thanks for your help.

I am curious as to how the Pearson chemistry books compare to Cengage's. I noticed they both offer introductory, regular, and AP versions. I really enjoyed exploring the many options available. I wish there were something like this (interactive, versatile, easily accesible) available for homeschoolers. I priced out the textbooks and they are quite expensive. I'd have a hard time teaching this to my son as science was never my thing. He can't get enough of it, though, so I need to find quality resources for him to learn from. Looking through these links, I realize I am going to really have to figure something out very quickly when it comes to science!

What is APES TM?