Point of clarification: through Algebra 2 = 1/2 credit of Geometry. To get the other 1/2 credit, you need to complete the first 60 lessons of Saxon Adv. Math, I believe.

Okay, now on to HSLDA online classes for: Precalculus with Mrs. Shimada (a more gracious and wonderful math teacher, I do not know), AP English Language and Composition with Mrs. Barbosa (simply the most inspirational English teacher my ds has ever had; her guiding comments on his writing have truly propelled him to excel more and more), and AP U.S. History with Mrs. Tyrrell (negative review thus far, but this may simply be due to a personality mismatch between student and instructor...I am not sure). Mrs. Shimada is the master teacher for Precalculus and I cannot recommend her more highly. She works with each student in such a way that they know she is rooting for them to do their very best. She makes herself available for extra help sessions very often, she gives detailed emails with added videos to view that may help explain this or that concept, she states incredibly clearly what needs to be done to get the best score, and she does not give grades solely based on tests and just a few quizzes. She looks over every single homework assignment and has established a way to see that students have indeed self-checked and corrected their own assignments each week, with them highlighting any problems that they still did not understand. And she has the students break out to do group work each week as part of their in-class time, which my ds really enjoys since he is a natural leader. I love how he is continuing to develop this skill while he is taking math! Mrs. Barbosa is the head instructor for AP English Language and Composition, and I love her, too. Most importantly, my ds loves her and strives to do his very best work for her. She does not only focus on technical grammar errors, but she is delighted when she sees students using words, rhetorical devices, and summary skills to cleverly compose their paragraphs and essays. She seems to be able to zero in very quickly on the student's capabilities and is simply the best writing coach I have ever seen! Lastly, the APUSH instructor has been a terrible fit from the start when she was expecting her first baby at any moment and my ds was not interested in any personal details whatsoever. So this is a big caveat to mention before we start any kind of review. I am sure others would have been enthralled to be a part of this important event, just saying. Life experiences happen, and there is a lot to be learned from having instructors on both sides of the personality aisle. It also did not help that my ds had another teacher for two weeks when the delivery happened, and he MUCH preferred the class debates and teaching style of the other instructor. Sigh... As to the course content itself, we were disappointed to learn that the video lectures that my ds experienced during each week last year in AP World History, were not available this year for U.S. History. Instead, they were PUBLISHED lectures which required more heavy reading each week. This was a tough sale to a student who has a natural 'audio' bent. However, if your student is a visual learner, this would probably be a 'plus'. Another change is that the Unit Exams this year are now mostly multiple choice with a smaller section of essay questions. Instead, though, they have students write several essays throughout the year as a separate assignment. Despite all the negatives, I still believe my dc is learning way more than he realizes, and is doing a lot of rigorous textbook reading and academic work that will indeed prepare him for college life and academics in the years to come.

Now on to reviewing our other online classes... My dd is doing 5 classes at WHA this year (all of which I give high marks for): Geometry with Mrs. Smith; GC 1&4 with Mr. Etter (he's the BEST!); Logic 2 with Mr. Vierra (very personable while still pushing students on to excel); Physics 1 Honors with Mrs. Jester, and Latin 2 with Mrs. Hensley. Since I just reviewed a bit with Mrs. Timmis in MP, I will take a moment to compare with WHA Latin 2. For me personally, I am learning more with Mrs. Timmis. This is probably because I have used Henle for 3 years now with Classical Conversations, and I am psyched to actually finish the book this year! I enjoy Henle as there is no excuse not to know every single word that you are translating as you move along in the book, since it is tailored so well that way. However, Henle's layout of grammar leaves something to be desired, but Memoria Press is known for their excellent approach to grammar as laid out in their Form Series, so I give MP 4.5 stars for their latin instruction, compared with the little I have experienced with Classical Academic Press and their Latin Alive Book Series. However, Mrs. Hensley is a wonderfully engaging instructor and I think she does a more thorough job of making sure all students are tracking with her in class. But the goal here seems a bit different. The Latin Alive Series that WHA uses gives you way more material in a lesson than you can actually even begin to hope to master; instead, exposure to Roman culture, mythology, Latin derivatives, etc. is heavily included. If your goal is to do well in the National Latin Exam, it seems to me that WHA for Latin is a good place to come. Whereas MP takes an 'all or nothing' approach in correcting quizzes (all grading is computer-driven); WHA specializes in giving partial credit, and grading is split between computer and done by hand. Additionally, there appears to be more tracking of student's work and abilities in WHA, since all homework is turned in each week for WHA, but parents are advised to do homework 'spot checks' to see that Latin is being completed each week for MP. Of course, WHA has two 90 minute segments to class each week, but MP has only one. Besides Mrs. Hensley, we have also had Mrs. Salmon fill in a couple of times in WHA Latin, and she strikes me as a TOP NOTCH instructor, as well. Let's see...on to other subjects besides Latin...Well, first of all, I have to admit that I am 'nuts' about Latin and have viewed and done homework for every single one of the above classes my two dc have taken via MP and WHA this year, so the rest of my 'reviews' will be much shorter. :lol: If anyone would like to know more about WHA generally, they just had an Open House last evening which should be archived and available for viewing. In it, they listed WHA distinctives and also mentioned that they are growing so much that they are on the look out for new teachers! I guess they may have upwards of 1000 students this year! Also, they are fast-tracking toward accreditation. Although we felt a bit overwhelmed at first, we are now comfortably into a routine. Geometry tests and units are generally completed every two weeks, with tests given on a Friday. Classes at WHA are M-Th with Friday a great day for getting quizzes and tests proctored and completed. Physics I (honors) has been a great class. They have weekly quizzes that are 40% of your grade, with students being expected to know all the material from beginning of text (so cumulative) as you go along. Only one lab so far was entirely done at home, with a very formal and long lab report. Other labs were done in class, with one of them requiring data and graphs done by students at home as a 'partial' lab report. There is a big homework project that students are encouraged to complete over the next couple of weeks. The instructor is excellent and we really like the Novare textbook with John Mays. If anyone ever gets a chance to take a class with Mr. Etter, they will not be disappointed. I saw one 'episode' where he had breaking news reports with helicopter sightings of Odysseus and his travels, and it was hilarious (just saying!). Probably the hardest class this year is Logic 2, but that is probably due in part to the fact that we did not take Logic 1 with WHA, so my dd had no exposure the the Kreeft author before now. However, she did take Logic 1 via Classical Conversations and both use the Nance textbooks, so it has worked out fine for us to 'transfer in' for this course. Watch the Open House to see Mr. Vierra explain the vision and goals for this course and others at WHA.

Since Fourisenough started a trend, I will go ahead and quote myself, too.:) Our MP Latin teacher is TOP NOTCH in her instruction, and my ds both respects her and (shock) actually enjoys the class. He does his Latin work each week without complaining, which is wonderful. My only caution is that quizzes are graded as 'all or nothing' with no partial credit given for getting the right vocab. word, but using the wrong ending (for example). However, two tries are offered for each quiz, with the scores being averaged. Depending on the dc, they may or may not be motivated to try that second time for the better score. Each week has two quizzes; one for grammar and another for translation. If going this route, I highly recommend Mrs. Timmis as she is young, but 'no-nonsense' and efficient with using every single second of that 90 minute class each week!

Learning those charts in Essentials really helps you to understand there is a grammatical pattern to language, which can then, in principle, be applied to any foreign language your dc may happen to study. My dd's friend just switched to public school as a freshman and is in the extreme minority that she understands grammar so well (having taken Essentials). In fact, in her new Latin 2 class, they can only study two Latin cases (Nom. and Acc.) as students are too limited in grammar to take on all 5 noun declensions yet! They really do not seem to be teaching much grammar in public schools these days, so the charts in Essentials might appear to be over the top to some. As a student of linguistics and a TA for grammatical analysis in college; however, I LOVE them! :lol:

Memoria Press is a great choice. If you want quizzes, get the corresponding quizzes and tests booklet that matches the units in Henle that you are wanting to cover this year. Henle is typically broken down by MP into Units I&II, Units III-V, and Units VI-IV. Brenda

God bless and lead you as you go, Rose. You are in our prayers. Brenda

We just ditched our Cabrio as the circuit board went bad twice! We just bought a new washing machine and I do NOT love it...honestly, I liked our Cabrio better because this LG Invertor Direct Drive top loader with True Balance System that we have now seems to wrinkle the clothes even more than our Cabrio. Sigh... But it was getting annoying to have constant F1 messages on our Cabrio, where I needed to hit the restart button 4 or 5 times with every new load in order to get it up and running. Then, recently, we had to do an additional restart for our rinse and drain cycle, too. Hope you find one that works well for you!!! Brenda

My ds is taking his first MP online course (Henle Units 6-14) this year as well. His class is on Fridays, so jury is still out on how it's going to go, but I will let you know! FWIW, he has Mrs.Catherine Timmis. Brenda

My guess would be that it was the imperfect, which includes the idea of habitual or continuous action in the past; ie. he used to terrify her every day on the school bus, or he was terrifying her (continuously). Would love to hear other, more knowledgeable responses, as I am still quite new to Latin myself, but I think it is so fun to discuss Latin grammar! :)

My ds got accepted to Cedarville, too, for next year. We were traveling to physical therapy when he looked down at his phone and announced the news...and it was only AUGUST!!! :hurray:

Absolutely yay here for both myself and my dc.

Wow, this is a whole month later. So sorry for what you are going through, ScoutTN!!

Drumroll please... The exciting university that requires all these additional hoops to jump through is.... UCONN! Freesia was very close!

Wow, these kinds of numbers (with the 60 I heard before) sound completely hilarious to me...and yet, who knows what will happen when my dd gets ready to graduate!!!

Well, at least the one app. we have completed is for a school he has already visited and loved, plus this school actually likes homeschoolers!

Only 1 or 2. The second university he is interested in has major hoops for homeschoolers to jump through...and this is a state university! The added requirements (besides ACT/SAT scores and official transcripts) include: 1. A specific and comprehensive outline of the academic curriculum 2. A syllabi (for each course) 3. A portfolio and/or learning log (for each course) 4. Official college transcripts (if applicable...this one is not bad) 5. State whether each class has come from an accredited program 6. Give documentation that homeschooler's program meets high school grad. requirements of your home town. Honestly, I am not excited about doing the above, but if I don't do it, then ds will only have 1 college application...Sigh...

What did you say about the Geometry materials list being revised? We bought that tablet a couple of months ago just so we could use it for Geometry. Guess we'll use it someday anyway, but didn't realize changes have been made. I guess I better check the other classes, too...

I would just add that we did Chemistry 'on our own' this year, hooking up with a couple of friends to do lab experiments every other week. It was tough, tough, tough to grade assignments and tests as you have to follow the math in the chemical equations to know where your student went wrong (or not). I thought I would be able to keep up with the Chemistry and do the course alongside my ds since I had achieved an 'A' in high school chemistry EONS ago, but I ended up having my dh take over the grading that year and he did not have an easy time, either. We had used Jay Wile's latest chemistry book on discovering design in chemistry, but we had to buy a BJU textbook as a supplement plus my ds did a lot of Khan Academy on his own to learn the material. The HSLDA Online Academy Chemistry is new this year, so we didn't have that option last year. But we did use them for AP World History and World Lit. with great success!

HSLDA Online Academy is offering an online Chemistry course that uses the BJU textbook. If you are a newbie that signs up, I can give you a special code for $30 off. Registration closes Aug. 9th, so you still have time to sign up! Brenda

Honestly, it does seem the best if we were able to go with Kolbe Academy as they would cover the exact portions that my ds would need to get done in a year. I will have to investigate a bit further as they seem to offer both self-paced and live online. Thank you for your response, Kathy and your agreement/like, chiguirre. Brenda

I noticed that the WHA website does refer to an official WHA transcript of grades for those in the diploma program. It appears that you can transfer in credits from elsewhere and it will just show up as a 'T' on their transcript which will not figure in on their WHA GPA. But I am still too new to know how this will all work with regard to college applications.

I noticed that Kolbe suggests one transfer credit be given for finishing 1st and 2nd Form Latin. And then Henle I up to Lesson 28 could maybe be another credit, with finishing Henle I and going on to Henle II could be the third credit? I just have to decide if he could do this at home (since I LOVE studying Latin). We discussed whether we could be disciplined enough to study 3+ hours a week on our own. The issue is that I am not far ahead of him in the Henle book...I love verbs but memorizing all those pronouns is quite daunting for my older brain! Isn't there anyone out there who has had experience with Kolbe? I'd do Memoria Press online, but he'd only finish Henle I with their class and I'm not sure that is enough to count as three years of Latin on his transcript.

bump

Suddenly my ds is interested in a college that strongly recommends 3 years of the same foreign language, and it should not come from 'repeating' a level (2 years is required). Okay, so here is what my ds has taken so far in Latin: Henle I (First Year)...he has studied this for 3 years, but only gotten up to about Lesson 28 or so (this was done in Classical Conversations) Memoria Press First Form and Second Form Latin, plus a bit of Lingua Biblica. He has done the above over a period of 4 years and is now facing his senior year in high school this fall. This is a dc who excels in the translation part, but not so much the nitty gritty of the grammar endings, although I have worked particularly hard with him on verbs as I taught a Latin Study Group where we focused on verbs from First Form and Second Form Latin and then reviewed Second Form Latin this past year. I noticed that Kolbe Academy offers an online class which covers the last 14 lessons of Henle I plus the whole of Henle II. This seems like it has the most potential to get us advancing to be able to translate Caesar which I think my ds would enjoy and which would certainly count as 'new material' and a 'new level'. Any opinions or other options you might recommend, plus how would you label the above on a transcript? Thanks, Brenda