When I took a look at The Prince, I asked her about the difficulty and whether or not she wanted to save that for class and choose something different for the summer. She said no that it was all good. Yup, Thucydides is on our Lit list for next year. However, I've never heard of Clausewitz. Off to go check that one out. Thanks!

We've read some Plato and plan to read quite a bit more during her Ancient Lit class next year. I gave her the College Bound Reading List so she could choose her required summer reading. I gave her a certain number of books she had to read for the summer and she chose 2 extra. This kid loves to read. One of the first one's she chose was The Prince by Machiavelli. Other choices included Dr. Faustus and The Screwtape Letters. DD asked for The Art of War by Sun Tzu for Christmas. She did get it, and we plan to use it with this class. However, I see that Machiavelli also has a manuscript by the same title. Do you know anything about that one? Would it be worth us reading that as well? Thanks for your thoughts!

My DD is almost 15 and has a 9:30 PM bedtime. School starts anywhere from 8 AM to 8:30 AM. The interesting thing is that we told her a year ago that she could stay up till 10 PM, but she quickly abandoned that plan on her own and returned to 9:30 PM.

:iagree: DD needs her sleep or she's a mess the next morning.

The first bolded - we've already delineated those: Geometry; Ancient History; Science; Lit/Comp; Japanese; Bible. The rest are electives. She will work on two of those by herself - Strategy & Astronomy. The other two I will do with her because I also have an interest in those classes. We like to learn together on some things. Regarding the second bolded, DD specifically asks me for a schedule on all her classes each year because she recognizes her major weaknesses: procrastination and general academic laziness. We've tried not doing a formal schedule, but she always comes to me within two weeks or so and begs me to institute a schedule to keep her on task. While I appreciate your thoughts in this regard, and it would be great, regrettably, it wouldn't work with my DD. I don't know what has gotten into DD lately, but it's like the knowledge bug has bitten her. She wants sooooooo many classes and she wants them now! I've never seen her so excited about an upcoming school year. In fact, she was postulating about attending school year-round (she already has to do math and a reading list during the summers). During past years I've tried to get her to agree to year-round schooling, but she absolutely refused. Now, just this year, she's actually thinking about it for the future. I think a lot of this comes from moving to more mature subject content - college texts, more extensive primary documents and more academic books and resources. It's like a switch has been turned on and there's no turning it off. It's actually a good thing because she was apathetic about most of her subjects before. Like I said, if it gets to be too much, we'll drop something, or as you suggested, count the hours spent towards fulfilling either 1/4, 1/2, or full credit as applicable and pick it up, if necessary, over the summer. Thanks for the input.

I'm in the same boat as you. DD's a rising 9th grader. I desperately wanted her to do Spanish this past year and into HS because I still retain quite a bit of my Spanish and could help her tremendously. However, because she wasn't enthused with the language or languages in general, it fizzled. What she really wants to learn is Japanese! I know absolutely nothing about Japanese! I figure she has 4 years of HS and most colleges only want to see 2 years of a language on the transcript. So, I made a deal with DD. She would get to try Japanese next year providing she works hard and really shows me she has learned some basics of the language. If she can do that, she can continue with Japanese. If not, she has to take Spanish the remaining 3 years of HS. She agreed. Thankfully, Duolingo just added Japanese to their program of languages. DD will use that as well as a book program I've found on Amazon and some YT videos as her resources. I figure that if she's really interested and invested in learning Japanese, she will be more motivated than learning a language she doesn't care about. We'll see how it goes. Since your DS will be in 8th, if it was me, I would let him explore Chinese. Neither of you has anything to lose. He will still have four years to study a different language if Chinese doesn't work. I don't know anything about "Chinese with Mike". As an additional resource, you may want to check out the Hello Chinese app. It's supposed to be excellent.

This is what I'm most concerned about. I talked with her about it this morning, and she said it may be fun to integrate the game, and she'd be willing to do it on a limited basis. I thought that was fair. I would maybe ask her to do a paper at the end of the class asking her about which strategies she applied from her class into the game and how it affected the game, or looking back, what have been her biggest strategic moves in the game that may be reminiscent of things she learned in her class and the outcome, ramifications, or positive resolutions in the game. Thanks for responding and assuring me I don't have to have as much output for electives as for core classes. That relieves some stress and a lot of the workload from my shoulders.

This is exactly what I've done. We're doing Ancients next year. DD LOVES Ancient history. She wants to concentrate on ANE history in conjunction with the Bible, as well as delving DEEPLY into ANE Mythology as it correlates to the Bible, oh, and while we're at it, Ancient Lit with all the usual suspects, and wouldn't it be great to add in ancient art as well. While our history spine touches on Bible, history, and literature, it doesn't go into the depth DD is wanting. Therefore, I've split the classes up: Ancient History, Bible, Mythology, Lit & Comp. In addition, she wants Ancient Astronomy/Archaeoastronomy, Strategic Thinking (thru GCP Masters of War) & GCP 30 Masterpieces of the Ancient World. For a foreign language, she wants to try Japanese with the understanding that if it fizzles, we go to Spanish in which I can help her quite a bit. So, for instance, in Mythology we'll be concentrating on ANE myths. She'll be reading: Enuma Elish Enmerkar & the Lord of Aratta Merodach the Dragon Slayer The Book of the Giants Gilgamesh Etana & Gilgamesh The Island of the Blessed & Hades Eridu Genesis Enki & Ninhursag Enki & The Ordering of the World Enki, Ninmakh, & The Creation of Humankind Epic of Atra-khasis Baal Cycle Memphis Creation Story Song of Ullikummi Epic (Autobiography) of Sargon Tale of Sinuhe Tale of Aqhat Legend of King Kirta Man & His God Babylonian Theodicy On..and on...and on...we have a ton of stuff like the above. All of it will be contrasted & compared with the Bible and we have academic papers with scholars reflecting on the origins, potential meanings, cultural context etc... To be honest, all this ANE interest stems from us reading the book Unseen Realm. DD was ambivalent about history until we read that book. Now she's on fire to absorb everything she can about ANE culture and history in general as well. If she didn't get anything else from that book, I'm thankful that it lit a fire for history within her. Actually, it also spurred a new interest in the Bible for her as well. In order to make room for all that ANE stuff (DD's bread and butter), I structured our Lit/Composition class around the typical Ancient lit that is usually read like Plato, Homer's epics, Virgil, etc. To give me a break, we'll be using RR's Old Western Culture with Wes Callihan. DD will use the workbooks here. Although she usually hates workbooks, it's the trade-off for the ANE Myth class. Geometry is a get-her-done class (she hates math.) Science is finishing up GCP: Joy of Science which she loves, plus she'll have the Ancient Astronomy/Archaeoastronomy as an elective second science. I'm just wondering...will all her HS years be this convoluted??? How do you even decide whether or not this is AP or honors material? I'll be basing credit on hours and output. However, sometimes, with self-designed courses, I'm fuzzy on the appropriate amount of output. So yeah, that's what I'm working on now. Getting all these classes structured and put together. Oh, and in my free time I'm working on writing a curriculum for Unseen Realm now that I've gotten the author's permission. However, that's a lower priority at the moment.

Regarding science, since your DS likes GCP, why not choose a science from there? That's what we did for DD for 8th. We are splitting Joy of Science into two years. We just finished 8th Grade. She will finish the lectures next year for her first science credit - Conceptual Integrated Science. We purchased the text (used) corresponding to the course and DD kept a notebook. She reviewed the online vocabulary daily and took the online quizzes. I also integrated academic articles, short videos, and documentaries as appropriate. DD claimed it was her favorite class all year (it also had the most work associated with it ironically). She can't wait to continue the course next year. I'm sure your DS could find a science course on GCP that he would be enthused about. FWIW, I will tell you that DD has disliked just about every other science we've ever done. In fact, she never liked science and had little interest in it until this GCP class. Now she wants to progress in Chemistry & Physics of all things. I was stunned. Another thing, I wouldn't call DD an accelerated or gifted student. She's average. She's a procrastinator and lazy. However, if she really likes a class, she'll push herself more and really dig into the material. Anyhoo, just a suggestion on my part.

I also have an incoming Freshman, and I'm worried about burnout already! We have 10 classes scheduled; five classes/day, 80 mins. each on an alternating, block schedule. These are classes DD WANTS and is excited about. Twice, since we finished school on the 12th, she has come to me and told me how extremely excited she is about the upcoming year. She has even tentatively suggested we may be able to start early! Six of the classes are core, including a foreign language (Japanese, which I'm nervous about) and four are electives that DD just can't wait to dive into. I'm also excited right now, but I'm also worried it will be too much. While I don't designate AP or Honors, many of these classes are meaty enough to garner those designations. Most are using college-level resources with lots of primary documents, academic and research papers. Again, what DD wants. Another issue is that DD likes to delve extremely deeply into a subject she's interested in. That is why we can't use normal, planned-out curricula and the reason for the heavy-duty resources for most of her classes. It took me years to realize that the reason DD was bored with school was because most curricula were only scraping the surface of content as far as DD was concerned. She got bored with all of it early on. That's when I started actually composing her curricula myself. This makes it extremely difficult to limit any of her classes to one semester. I struggle with that. However, I have no problem scaling back or dropping a class if necessary. Unfortunately for DD, the first class dropped will be one of her eagerly anticipated electives if necessary. Hopefully, we both will be able to maintain momentum and enthusiasm. I will say that I've never seen DD so excited about an upcoming school year. It's quite refreshing.

My DD (incoming Freshman) wants to take a Strategic Thinking elective. She's chosen the GCP course, "Masters of War: History's Greatest Strategic Thinkers" as her spine. This is fine with me. We've also chosen to read the books, The Art of War and 33 Strategies of War, as part of this class. I'm running into a sticking point with the accountability resources, however. Yes, she will answer the two questions at the end of each of the lecture notes, but I'm thinking there needs to be more. One idea I'm toying with is to integrate her RPG into this class. This is what I mean: DD has an older sister (by 12 years). Her sister is the author, facilitator, and coordinator of a medieval-type live RPG that gathers twice during the year to actively role-play over two weekends as a major, live-action game event that has quite a following. During the rest of the year, they continue the game together via computer. Now that DD2 is 14, DD1 has asked her to join the game. Over the past week, DD1 has been working with DD2 individually to get her caught up in the game. DD2 had to get through 12 levels by Tuesday night, which she did, and subsequently, her character was introduced to the other players during the live game on the computer last night. Now all through this, DD2 has been relaying her adventures to us and the various strategic decisions she has had to make to progress through the game and how those decisions have affected both the game and her character. This is where I think we could do something with her class. What if I asked her to write about a scenario she was in, in which she had to make a major strategic decision then acted upon it. She would have to explain why she chose that avenue of action, whether the outcome was positive or negative, and how it affected her character and the game. Lastly, looking back, was it the right strategic decision, or could a different strategy have proved more effective or improve the outcome. She could do this type of essay two or three times. Another option would be to keep a journal of her decisions and the outcomes, something along those lines. Does this sound like it could be a justifiable measure of accountability, or should I look elsewhere? Do any of you have any suggestions on what else we could do to make this a 1/2 credit or possibly full credit class? Any suggestions would be appreciated. TIA

Years ago I purchased a complete grade package. It was a bust for us, unfortunately. DD is just not a workbook person and I am a perpetual, chronic tweaker... :blushing: It really is a sickness. Fortunately for us, DD likes my tweaking and, therefore, supports my habit. However, this does mean that pre-packaged curricula don't work for us unless I want to waste a ton of money. So I say, if you know your DD really likes workbooks, go for it. If not, you may want to rethink using MP or only using parts of it.

Ten miles.

My DD loves Mythology as well. She has picked it as one of her 9th-grade electives next fall. I purchased a used copy of Mythology, The Illustrated Anthology of World Myth & Storytelling. It's a huge book and covers Eastern & Northern Mythology as well. There are quite a few copies available right now on Amazon starting at $3.25 for the hardcover (which I recommend because it's such a large book.) Since DD will also be embarking upon learning Japanese, I plan to integrate the Japanese myths from this book into her foreign language class as well. Another resource you may want to purchase for Norse mythology would be the Poetic Edda. I'm hoping to get this for DD at some point as well, but for next year, she wants to focus more on Mesopotamian myths. HTH

When I used TOG for Y2, I just added the appropriate primary documents according to what we were learning about at the time using Eyewitness to History - Middle Ages/Renaissance. You could also choose to incorporate some of the resources from Stanford's Reading Like a Historian plans for Middle Ages. For each sub-heading on the Middle Ages page, you can access original documents to read. However, you have to sign up to access the info (it's free). So for instance, if I know we'll be reading about the Crusades next week, I'll first check Eyewitness to History. I see that there are 3 items regarding the Crusades. Therefore, I'll schedule those 3 readings via hyperlinks (because we use Onenote) into that week's lesson. Then I'll move on to Stanford's site - Reading Like a Historian. There I see information for the First Crusade. I'll click on that and access the original documents there, incorporating them into my TOG reading for next week. Done! Here are some other primary source readers for the Middle Ages: Medieval Warfare Understanding Medieval Primary Sources The Anglo/Saxon Chronicle Annotated The Portable Medieval Reader Medieval Worlds: A Sourcebook A Sourcebook of Medieval History The Later Middle Ages: A Sourcebook (get this one used for $5) You could easily substitute one of the above books for one of TOG's selections. HTH.

When I first started homeschooling, I set up our space just like a classroom. I ran our homeschool just like a regular school classroom. The sad part is I was never a teacher, and I only had one student! Oh, how I wish I could repeat those first few years and apply what I know now. Homeschooling is a totally different animal than PS. You don't have to follow the rules. You can flow, bend, and change on the fly to suit your kids. Who cares what the specific curriculum tells you at which ages you can and can't teach their material. If that was the case, I couldn't use the college text I used this past year for DD's science class. I couldn't have used the academic text I used for DD's Bible class either. Please relax....take all that with a grain of salt. Do what you know works for your kids. If you and they enjoy HOD -- stick with it. It's hard enough to find a curriculum everyone likes and that works for you. If I was in your shoes, I would use the program I bought and make it fit the needs of my kids. The curriculum police aren't going to come and take away your books if you don't use them as they have directed. Read the history and science to all your kids. The 5YO will get something out of them and can color a relevant coloring page, draw a picture, or put a puzzle together about what is being read while you read. Instigate lively discussions; follow adventurous rabbit trails. Afterwards, you can have your DD do the questions/worksheet/whatever independently while you work with your DS on his. Their ages are so close that there's no reason to separate them if you all want to read the information from the texts together. It's a great time to huddle and have storytime together. If I had had multiples, this is how I would have done it. Enjoy this time you all have together while you have it. Pretty soon, they will grow up and want to be independent. My DD is at the point where she wants to do most of her work on her own. There are only two classes we read together now, and I miss those years of working closely together.

I mostly purchase my books from Amazon. I gravitate toward their used books first and then purchase new if necessary.

Upper grades bundles were a dud for me too this year. I'll be skipping it.

I just showed this to DH. His eyes got huge and he said, "OMG, WHAT IS THAT?!" I LAUGHED so hard. My DH is usually so stoic that I have a hard time ever getting a strong reaction from him. Thank you for making my day!

I've always had painful ovulation; mainly on the right side. That's why it was always so easy for me to get pregnant. I always knew when it was the "right" time. I've also always had very painful, heavy periods. However, now that I'm going through menopause, my periods are quite a bit lighter, shorter, and no pain. Best of all, no more ovulation pain either.

For your older ones, it's really important to understand how they learn. Are they visual, kinesthetic, or audio learners, etc.? For instance, my DD will also be entering 9th in the fall. This will be our first high school year; my first and only high schooler. However, I know, by now, that DD learns best through a mix of lectures and reading. She absolutely hates hands-on stuff. I also know that she always needs to be doing something with her hands while listening to a lecture or me reading to her. Having this info, I've geared her classes towards a mix of GCP Courses, textbooks, living books, academic papers, and documentaries. I've also asked for her input regarding which classes she would like to study. The only caveats I provided was that we would be doing Ancient History next year, finish GCP Joy of Science (which she loves) for a credit in Conceptual Integrated Science, take a foreign language, and Geometry. This was fine because she really loves Ancient History. It didn't matter which math because she HATES any math. So, based upon that info, she came up with the following electives on her own: GCP Ancient Astronomy (I purchased two books to flesh this out) GCP Masters of War: Histories Greatest Strategic Thinkers (The Art of War & 33 Strategies of War will be her texts for this one) GCP Mythology w/concentration on Mesopotamian Myths correlating with the Bible (Lots of material for this which will dovetail nicely with our Lit) GCP Masterpieces of the Ancient World (One lecture/week because she will already be taking an art class at the local high school) For a foreign language, she chose Japanese. Thankfully, Duolingo will begin offering that tomorrow. I'm also getting a book for her with an accompanying website to facilitate this difficult choice. She's highly motivated to learn this rather than the Spanish I had planned, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed on this one. That's our plan anyway. Keep it geared towards DD's interests and learning style then build around those classes.

Our DD did two years of Latin which helped a lot. However, DD was always very good at pulling meanings of words from their context, so we didn't bother with a formal vocabulary program. Just over the last year, DD has become a word collector. When we read together, she'll stop me when we come to an unfamiliar word and write it down. Then later she'll look it up. If she's reading on her own, she'll highlight words and look them up. She's collected over 400 words this year. Her newest thing is to (with permission) write the words on her bedroom walls with their definitions. This is her "wallpaper". We figure with all this going on, we don't need to worry about her and vocabulary.

My faith has grown tremendously and undergone major transformations within the last few years. I used to be a die-hard YE, literal, evangelistic, conservative Christian. Although I'm still pretty conservative, I'm not YE, literal, or majorly evangelistic anymore and neither is my DH or DD. In fact, we are non-denominational. Having denominations just means that no one can agree on what the scriptures actually teach or what they're really about. I've been doing a lot of studying & actually think most denominations have it all wrong. Our kind of thinking means that most run-of-the-mill Christians will most likely think we're heretics. That's okay by us. Anyway, we used to get Mormons and JWs knocking on our doors. I hated having them come to our door every year. I would be the one to go out and talk with them and argue against what they teach, as they would get pretty insistent that I was wrong and in need of salvation. Now I realize we were both wrong. I don't bother anymore and we, as a family, have never felt comfortable accosting people in their homes to "spread the good news". That is one area in which we always fell short, according to the teachings of whatever church we attended. I try to think of what Jesus did in the first century. He didn't go door-to-door. He went to the synagogues first and taught. He went to towns and villages and taught those who showed an interest in His message by following Him and listening as He taught at the Mt of Olives or from a boat. People flocked to Him. He didn't go to their homes unless He went to share a meal or someone needed healing. The only exception to this was in His dealings with the Pharisees. However, the Pharisees usually instigated those incidents as well. Jesus was not fond of the Pharisees because of their legalism. Unfortunately, that is what we see as the problem with churches today. They are steeped in legalism; split into so many denominations because they can't agree on anything. They've created doctrines (such as the rapture) that were never present in the scriptures. If you asked a first century Israelite about the rapture, they'd say, "Huh, what's that?" No one can agree on which doctrines are man-made and which are inspired. It's sad. Now, when we go to our church and listen to the message, our DD will whisper to me, "Mom, he's got that all wrong." I'll respond, "That's okay, Hon, just glean the wheat and throw away the chaff." Our philosophy now is to demonstrate the love of Jesus through our actions towards others. Then, if someone asks, we tell them.

My DD will be starting 9th in the fall. We plan to do Ancients w/Ancient Literature with one of her electives as Mythology. She would really like to place more emphasis on Mesopotamian Myths due to its correlation with the Bible. They will be compared & Contrasted with scripture. So, we are incorporating part of her Lit as her Mythology class (if we don't get to it all that's fine, but at least we have it on hand if we do): Short Myths from Mesopotamia (These will not take very long to read as they are contained within a 282-pp. book. Most of them will just be discussed, however, I will be requiring a few compare/contrast essays as writing assignments.) Enuma Elish Eridu Genesis Memphis Creation Story Enki & The Ordering of the World Enki, Ninmakh & The Creation of Humankind Enki & Ninhursag Enki & Inanna & the Me Enmerkar & The Lord of Aratta Epic of Atra-khasis Song of Ullikummi The Descent of Ishtar to the Underworld Nergal & Ereshkigal Adapa Etana Anzu Theogony of Dunnu Erra & Ishum Confusion of Tongues Mesopotamian Epics: (Again, not very long; about 100 pps. total) Autobiography of Sargon The Epic of Creation Epic of Gilgamesh Tale of Sinuhe Tale of Aqhat Legend of King Kirta Egyptian Myths: Selections from the book, The Literature of Ancient Egypt For regular Literature: (We will use Wes Callahan's Old Western Culture for the Greeks-Drama & Lyric & Romans-The Epics with the accompanying workbooks for the following--this will make it much easier for me... :hurray: ) The Odyssey The Iliad The Aeneid The Agamemnon (Aeschylus) The Libation Bearers (Aeschylus) The Eumenides (Aeschylus) Oedipus the King (Sophocles) Oedipus at Colonus (Sophocles) Antigone (Sophocles) The Trojan Women (Euripides) The Medea (Euripides) The Frogs (Aristophanes) Sappho's Poems Odes of Pindar Idylls of Theocritus Works & Days (Hesiod) The Fall of Troy (Quintus) It looks like a lot, but several of them are short and this is what DD wants to do. This is also why, when she approached me about doing a more in-depth Mesopotamian Mythology class, I jumped at the chance so I could split all this material into two separate classes. This will make it easier to do, however, we may have to cut some in the end. That's okay though. I'd rather have too many and have to cut than too few and be scrambling to fill out the classes. We don't really follow any one method. We basically do what DD wants within reason and as long as graduation requirements will be met. This way, she is more interested in her classes and more invested in her education.

I have an aversion to the tetanus shot because it could literally kill me. The last tetanus shot I got was 32 years ago. I was 21 and cut myself. I went to the Dr's; got the shot; went home. Within hours my arm at the shot site started to swell and itch. I showed it to my mom who was a surgical nurse. She said I was having a mild reaction and not to worry, a little swelling was normal. By the next morning (a Saturday), my the shot site was the size of a baseball with blisters covering it, and I was out of it. I never said anything else to my mother. Instead, I laid on the couch because I didn't feel very well. A while later, I noticed that every movie I tried to watch would be over within minutes. That's when I realized I was going in and out of consciousness. I decided I needed some air. When I got up, still really groggy, I vaguely noticed I couldn't support my head. It was like my neck was a wet noodle. Amazingly, I was so out of it, I wasn't alarmed by this. I got outside and sat on the steps of our house. This is when my mom and dad got home. Mom took one look at me and rushed me into the ER. I was under observation for a few hours. The only thing the ER Drs. could figure is that the tetanus shot actually gave me a mild case of tetanus. Back then, the shot came in two different serums: human and horse. The Dr who gave me the shot couldn't recall and had no records of which he had given me. Wonderful. I was told, by the ER docs. that I should never, ever receive another shot under any circumstances. If I did, I had a 50/50 chance of it killing me the next time. So, that's why I don't get Tetanus. Everyone else in my family does. However, because of the Tetanus fiasco and the fact that my mother has developed, over the years, reactions to otherwise normal vaccines and medications -- as well as me, I'm very careful not to just willy-nilly grab the newest and most promising vaccines. I'm very careful because of our medical history. Youngest DD had delayed shots and NONE of us get the flu shot ever. So far, we're about the only ones who DON'T get the flu every year.