I found a few old threads about this. Here's one I thought was helpful: https://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/558528-conceptual-physics/

Wow, that is dedication! On the bright side, you're a biology and anatomy expert by now. 😄

Ha! Funny. We also had some Dad-school this morning, which involved reading ALL the rest of the lessons on propaganda in The Fallacy Detective, because Dad wanted to know all of it. DS13 didn't have anything else to do, so they laughed through all of them on the couch together. Ruins my nice schedule for the next month, but they had fun. 🙂

Anyone else have a senior who is doing something other than going to college after graduation? Gap years, trade schools, working, etc.? The college acceptance thread on the college board is lovely, but my kid doesn't fit on that list. Wondering if I'm the only one. Mine isn't sure yet. Right now he is exploring flight school.

I have a feeling I'd get more answers if I were asking this 10 years ago, but I'll ask anyway. 🙂 Has anyone used this course? The textbook is considered a middle school text, but CLE lists the course on their website as for Grades 8-10. I'm wondering if they add anything in their student materials that makes it worthy of high school credit. There are no samples of the student stuff on their website so I can't look inside to see for myself. Does anybody know? I emailed them to ask but I thought I would ask here as well, in case anyone has seen it or used it.

My thoughts after our first semester: I'm really glad I decided to adopt SWB's idea of a senior project. DS17 is spending 3 weeks on a big research paper about genetic engineering, learning a lot about the subject itself and also about how to quote and cite things properly. I'm not terribly impressed with Master Books' science course General Science 2: Survey of Archaeology and Geology. While the content is fine and I think my son is enjoying it, the pre-made schedule is awful. It looks as though you are doing science 5 days a week for 36 weeks, but sometimes the assignments take literally minutes per day (the worst one was the day he was supposed to look up a picture online of some archaeological find. That's it). So I had to rewrite the whole schedule myself. Now the course is only 25 weeks long and I'm going to have to add to it to make it last the full year. The tests are also not that great - some of them are very nit picky and detailed and some give way too many points for 1-2 sentence answers. Dropped one elective for DS17 and changed to something else, which is fine, but I wish the darn textbook hadn't been so expensive. Everything else has gone pretty well. MUS Geometry has been great for DS15, and DS17 is still really enjoying Physics 101. I sort of regret not having him do Conceptual Physics but I keep reminding myself that he doesn't need physics for anything, in which case it's probably better for him (not really a science lover) to keep it fun and interesting.

I'm not sure I view it as necessary across the board, because there are a lot of people here smarter than me, who maybe wouldn't need to. But for me personally, yes. That's largely because I don't remember my own high school education, or was taught some things poorly, so I have felt the need to expand my own knowledge in order to teach my high schoolers, or have discussions with them about what they are learning. As to the how, I usually just recognize an area I am weak in and I do what it takes to learn - read books (I've read so much classic literature as an adult that I totally missed as a child, even things like Winnie the Pooh), look things up online, read my kids' textbooks ahead of them (I remember reading all of Apologia Biology one summer and last summer I read all of Notgrass Exploring World History). I have also worked through entire math books to make sure I am familiar with the contents, so that I can at least help my kids. I need to do this again this coming summer as the course I have lined up for my rising 11th grader has no answer key, so I need to make one while I am familiarizing myself with the contents. How I keep track of ideas and methods: I keep a daily journal so I usually write about those things in there. I'm not sure I've answered exactly what you are asking, since I'm not necessarily expanding on my education; I'm just relearning or expanding on what I should have learned in high school. I'm probably not going beyond high school level stuff in most areas.

A couple thoughts: My boys sometimes found the lectures confusing as well. It seems that TT breaks things down so far that they sort of get lost in all the details. Sometimes I had to come in and show my boys the shortcuts, and then it would make sense to them. My current 8th grader is having this issue a little bit in pre-algebra right now. I would maybe consider having her back up to the point where she isn't confused and redo the lessons starting there. Sometimes the second time around things make much more sense. Or, you could try Math U See. The video is only once a week. The lessons and worksheets are short and to the point. There is quite a bit of review, but if she masters the concepts, she can also just move on. I own it, but haven't used it (I have one using MUS geometry right now), but it looks to be a step easier than TT.

A few others not mentioned yet: Mystery of History for history and God's Design science. For art, I usually just find fun projects on Pinterest and do them all together rather than follow a program.

Just echoing everyone else. My kids want to get their school done so that they can run away and do the things they really want to do, which involves learning all kinds of things, just not things I require for school. I structure my homeschool that way on purpose so they have lots of free time to work on their own things. And they wouldn't like those things anymore if I made them part of school. I do try, especially with my high schoolers, to structure courses around their interests, but sometimes their interests are things that can't be made into a subject. So I guess you could say that we do half the day structured schooling and half the day interest-led, however I have very little say in the interest-led part aside from sometimes providing materials. Things like: learning programming languages, learning to film and edit videos, building gigantic sailing ships out of Lego and figuring out what all the parts of a ship are called, playing hockey outside, learning to weld in our shop with Dad, modifying bikes so that the back tire is tiny, replacing the engine on a tiller, etc.

If MUS works for him, I think I would keep going with it. If he does end up finding it too easy, you can always look for a supplement or something else at that point. It sounds like you have other programs at home, so that's great. My oldest son did really well with MUS Geometry but the Algebra 2 wasn't a good fit for him. He ended up doing TT Algebra 2, which was perfect.

Did we ever use it? Can I see myself using it for someone in the future? Do I hate it? I don't get rid of a lot, but those two things are usually what I think about.

When I do interest-led science for elementary, I keep it very simple. I own a lot of science books (whole God's Design series, Wonders of Creation series, all the Tiner Exploring books, etc.). I have my kid pick a book they are interested in, they read through it, and since they write two narrations a week anyway, I have them write one from science. If they like drawing, they can illustrate their narration. If they like experiments, they can do the ones in the book, or I can find something related for them to do, but so far my interest-led guys haven't like experiments much, so it was mostly read and narrate. (One of them liked hands-on, just not actual experiments, like when he studied birds, he spent lots of time filling bird feeders and taking pictures, etc.) If written narration killed the love of science, I would maybe instead do oral narration, but informally so there was no pressure ("So, what was that about?" type of thing).

My guess is book 3. It begins with silent e words. Maybe check the table of contents to see if the rest of it is doable for him. There are vowel teams toward the end of the book.

It's always nice to use something you have rather than buy more. I hope you find something that works for him. 🙂

ETC is good for independence because the pages are repetitive, so once they've done a few lessons, they know what to do for each page. But yes, we have had some trouble with some of the pictures. My kids have always had to ask about a few of them. Another of my favourites is Spectrum phonics. I use the newest version. Take a look at the samples and see if that's something that would work for your son. I've used various levels with 3 kids now, and it's been good for all of them. With my current 6yo, reading and writing are her strengths so she's doing the 2nd grade book for 1st and it's been a good fit. You should be able to tell by the samples and table of contents about where to place him. ETA: I also like that Spectrum is one book, whereas you have to buy about 3 per year with ETC.

A Rulebook for Arguments has some stuff about writing argumentative essays in it, but I would say it's more logic/rhetoric than writing. They Say/I Say is a good resource for persuasion/argument. I found On Writing Well too technical for me. I have especially liked The Lively Art of Writing and Writing to the Point by Kerrigan. Those two are my favourites. Writing With a Thesis, mentioned above, is really good for showing how every type of essay can be used to write persuasively, and it also has lots of example essays. If you have a Charlotte Mason bent, Know and Tell by Karen Glass is really good. It's more about turning written narration into essays.

Yes, there are a number of us here. 🙂

My 6yo daughter loves doing projects and activities for science. We're using Let's Read and Find Out books, which I love, but not enough of them have something hands-on to do after we read. Any suggestions for a 1st grade science that has lots of (not-too-complicated) activities? Something simple is best, like a workbook or single book. Inexpensive is definitely an asset, as she will be the only one who uses it. Most of the things I already own are more for 3rd grade and up. Thanks!

Have you looked at Rod & Staff English? It's grammar and writing, inexpensive, and very simple and clear. The writing instruction is very straight-forward and works on all the things you listed. It is religious (not sure if that is an issue for you) but the instruction is very good.

This is basically what we do, too. It's not that our school work is interesting or exciting. It's that our school time is relatively short and then they have lots of free time in the afternoons and evenings. They film movies and edit them, bake, do projects, learn to weld, haul grain, do field work (farm stuff) for neighbours. One is learning a programming language. One loves flight simulators. They fix cars and replace engines on small equipment.

I agree with the others that you can start with 3. However, I find the series advances quickly (it's pretty hard by 6th grade) so I prefer to start in level 2 for 3rd grade, just so it's a little gentler on my grammar-phobes. 🙂

Each of mine has a spiral notebook where I write all assignments for the week. Then they can check them off as they do them. I have a master sheet in a clipboard with everyone's work on it, so I just copy each kid's stuff from there. Not very exciting, but it's cheap and it works.

I have used every level (except 7 because it wasn't out yet) with my kids. My list of pros and cons is similar to the above posts. I especially love levels 1-2. The pages are a bit cluttered and you may have to cross out some problems, but the instruction is fantastic. It teaches kids how to think about math, and different strategies for figuring things out, so that the kid can choose which strategy works for them. There is so much practice in the first two levels, that all my kids knew their addition and subtraction facts solidly without ever having to drill or supplement. However, I feel that the higher levels get more and more advanced as you go along. My kids also needed much more review. After doing level 4, which spends weeks and weeks on long division, my son did not remember how to divide at all at the end of the year, because after the division chapter, he really didn't practice long division much. The courses are also quite long and I found it a challenge to get through a level in one school year. I also feel that there isn't enough practice with long multiplication and maybe a few other things. My kids found it quite a challenge, especially when they got to level 5, and my youngest began struggling in level 2. I decided I wanted a math for them that would build confidence, and not be so time consuming and challenging ALL the time. However, I still love levels 1-2 because they create such a solid foundation for elementary math. I'm using them currently for my 5th student.

Henry's Red Sea or Days of Terror (both by Barbara Smucker) are about Mennonites escaping communist Russia. I would recommend Henry's Red Sea for her age. I think Days of Terror might be too mature and a little scarier. I can't remember if they go to the US or Canada, but one of the two. I use these books when we study our family history.