I watched, even though we aren't doing chemistry until next year. :) I thought the video hit the middle well. The Oreo illustration is very good. The example chosen was hard enough to explain the concepts, but not too hard. Are you planning on prerecording videos for the classes? Would it be possible to record an intro video for those who need to start with a simpler equation? A five-minute version for the impatient student might be nice, but I've noticed that the more impatient with the video, the more likely to understand the text. Of course, if you are teaching live, the middle is the way to go. But it is easier for more-confused students to start simpler and move forward than to start harder and go back. My laptop has pathetic speakers, so the volume was adequate for a quiet space, but too low for background noise. All the ads play loudly so maybe it has something to do with the recording, too. I don't know if it is possible to make it louder on your end or not. Thank you so much for all the great information you have posted about chemistry planning, especially of the lab skills to cover. I went a wee-bit overboard with biology labs this year, so I am hoping to make better choices next year. That about was more of an aboout than an aboot. I only caught it because I was listening for it. On the other hand, as a Yooper with a Canadian-born mother, I may not be the best judge in this case.

The trees need to be big enough that they aren't damaged by tapping them. I believe 8 inches diameter is the minimum, but you should definitely look that up!

Our experience with a K12 public virtual school was extremely poor. The pros: It was free. The humanities are done well. The teachers we had were all pleasant and helpful. The cons: It was like doing two full school days every day. Because the K12 curricula doesn't exactly follow state mandates, Study Island was mandatory. If they didn't get a ribbon on the lessons, then extra intravention classes were mandatory. The problem we had is that I was often teaching something that would be taught later in the year in the regular curriculum. This was especially distressing in math, where logical progression is a necessity. In the K-8 years quizzes are taken over again until the child reaches 80%. It's supposed to lead to mastery, but in my son's case led to memorizing the order of the answers. I didn't like the math or the science, but I will admit I am incredibly picky in those areas. Even though there are written materials in some subjects, he was tied to the computer all day because that is where the lessons are. We also had many technical difficulties that were always "our ISP's fault." At the time the interface was not very compatible with tablets, so you'd want one computer per child. While my son received feedback during online classes, all work done at home was graded by the parent, including writing assignments. (This could be a pro for some.) Other thoughts: It's a better choice for people who feel satisfied with accomplishing the end result, never mind how they get there. If you feel you need to follow the path laid out for you, you will likely find it very stressful. For comparison, our experience with Connections was overall slightly better. Part of the reason for that is what I was looking for was for the kids to get feedback from someone else, and Connections does a good job with that. Connections does provide more oversight, and that can be good or bad, depending on your situation. Connections curricula are aligned with state standards, so Study Island was always on something we'd already covered. On the other hand, I wasn't happy with most of the curricula. Frankly the newer redesigned courses were too tied to the computer and had too many errors fundamental to the subject. We had no problems with technical difficulties which was a great relief. You would want a computer for every child, although for some subjects the tablet worked OK. In both schools online classes weren't required K-8 unless your child had difficulties with Scantron (3 times a year) or Study Island. We live in a rural area and had to travel about an hour away for 4 days to do our state testing. I hate to say Ellie is always right, but, so far, every time I have ignored her advice I have regretted it sooner or later. :D Of course, it was a "learning experience" for all of us, as my dad would say, but I don't think it's quite the learning experience they were intending. I hope this isn't too much information; I think there can be good reasons to enroll in a public charter, but it's important to know what you are getting into.

Sorry for the late response. Maybe the Hewitt syllabus worked out for you. I just wanted to chime in on the History of US guides. I ordered one of each kind to see if they would help. We didn't use them for most of the books. The most useful supplement for us was the assessment guide for middle and high school. I don't know if you can still find it. Each book in the series is broken down into 6-8 parts (like units), and there is a 15-question multiple-choice test for each part. One book covers the whole series and answers are in the back. After they took the test, I asked them to write a couple of paragraphs about one of the topics in the questions. I found they put more effort into their work if they knew there was a test at the end. Sad but true. The elementary teacher guides are the most useful for a parent who doesn't want to read the material themselves. The chapter is broken down in more detail so it is easier for the lazy parent to discuss. The teacher guides for middle and high school are more focused on big questions. This may be more appropriate for the age of your students, but I could generally come up with my own big questions if I had the detail questions from the elementary guide. Did that make any sense at all? Both guides have reviews for each section and some resources with a handful of maps in the back. Generally you needed to come up with your own projects for the maps. The student guides (tried both levels here, too) weren't very helpful for us. Much of it seemed to be the sort of thing you do yourself when doing WTM history, or it was similar to ideas already in the teacher guides. If there were answers somewhere, maybe they would be more useful for a student working largely independently. Otherwise, the teacher guides were more helpful. Julie D.

Most of the lessons easily divide into two parts. We had math lessons every day, taking two days to do a lesson.

Three Blessings, I prefer the teacher pages together with the corresponding student pages directly after in a PDF, but I may be the only one in the world who feels that way! Julie D.

I really prefer fonts with serifs for reading. On the computer, fonts without serifs look OK, but I find them especially hard to read on paper. If I used the Verdana at all, I would only use it for the actual spelling words. One concern I had was how close the lines are placed together on the student pages. I couldn't tell for sure how far apart they are, but I suspect my son would be frustrated. It would be nice to have wide-rule spacing between lines. In general for printed books I prefer separate teacher and student pages, but for PDFs I prefer them together. I suppose it is because I don't have a large screen so it is easier for me to go back and forth when the pages are together. It doesn't work too well to try to open them both at the same time. I like the simple layout of the spelling book. It's easy to see the directions and what to do. Well, good luck trying to make us all happy! Julie D.

:iagree:The great thing is that all the uppercase manuscript letters can be started at the top and all the lowercase cursive letter can be started at the bottom. (I think Spalding teaches them all from the baseline.) Sooo much easier to get across to a struggling student. Lowercase cursive is also good for helping students see a word as a whole. I think uppercase manuscript with lowercase cursive looks nice, too. I've never seen a form where you couldn't just print uppercase letters; in fact, I always use uppercase for forms. (Although I have trouble writing my e-mail address in uppercase, it has nothing to do with the form's requirements.:tongue_smilie:) Sorry I'm not up on the historical precedence, although I vaguely recall it having something to do with the writing tool used. Hope it works out for you! Julie D.

I love the whole method of teaching lowercase cursive. It worked very well for my handwriting-challenged son. Julie D.

I live in the UP, but I have relatives in Sarnia, London, and Windsor. We only visit them once a year, though. Julie D.

I don't have a CDHP, I have an HDHP. Make sure the CDHP isn't providing an HRA instead of an HSA. There are different rules for each. The HSA works well, and yes, it is all tax deductible and rolls over from year to year. We don't itemize; we just use the form for HSAs. I looked at cost for a normal year of medical insurance/bills, $3000 bill, $10000 bill, and $100000 bill. For me the HDHP with HSA was a better deal with all amounts. I also like that you can change the amount you put in your HSA at any time. We have had to put more in this year than I ever would have expected. Just make sure not to put in more than the maximum allowed. Neither my husband or I have died at this point, so I can't give you any real-life experience there. One thing I noticed different about our two situations, though, is that you would have a much higher out-of-pocket maximum with the CHDP rather than the regular plan. This was not the case for us. The deductible for the HDHP was much higher, but the out-of-pocket maximums were about the same. Our HDHP used the same doctors and hospitals as our other plan did, and also would pay out-of-network which our PPO would not, so that was a plus. Julie D.

I have a hard time choosing, too. I never get to see anything in person that I'm interested in unless I order it myself. Well, I have seen K12 materials for the lower grades and Abeka, but that's about it. These boards are great, but sometimes the more information you have, the harder it is to choose. I have had the luxury of being able to order things and try them. I often try to find used things in horrible condition, cheap, just to see them. But that's not always easy. Also, I prefer to order new materials direct from the publisher if they have a guarantee that allows you to use the items for a bit. I've learned not to change because a child doesn't like something. Often, it's because that particular subject is hard for them, and they aren't going to like anything. I do change when it's clear that they aren't making progress. Sometimes this makes it easier to go back and redo an earlier level also. I had an especially difficult time figuring out what to do with my son after RightStart E. I currently have fifth-grade math from Math Mammoth, Saxon, and Math-U-See. I also have VideoText Algebra Level A. My daughter likely won't use any of these. What I'm going to do with her is beyond me. Fortunately I don't have to decide for another few months. For science my favorite approach for middle elementary so far has been Science in a Nutshell kits with Delta readers. They're a bit pricey, but we seem to get the most out of them, although we have only used some of the physical science kits so far. I've used the Delta Science Content Readers physical science set. You can download a little teacher instruction pamphlet for those that have a quiz in the back. We supplement with science books from the library. Since books on lists never seem to be at our library, I'm just as happy not having a list. If you want to mix it up and do a little of each science, Delta Science Readers are mixed sets, no quiz in the teacher instruction pamphlet (these can be downloaded from the DSMIII kit part of the website). We enjoy reading science history and often learn more science theory from these than from regular science books. If there's a science history series at your library you could use those for a spine and pick kits to go with them. I hope you figure out what you need soon. Julie D.

Spanish for Children from Classical Academic Press? It's been very helpful for me, but I wouldn't use it with a second grader with little grammar instruction. Last year my third grader and fifth grader and I went through the first half of Primer A. My third grader is pretty good with grammar, but we wouldn't have been able to go full speed. The practice site is nice, though. The kids thought it was a treat to do the flashcards on the computer. If you want to use this with your son, I'd suggest a good grammar program in second grade and then use this in third grade. This summer we have been trying out Español para chicos y grandes from allbilingualpress.com. I like the combination of conversation and applied grammar. There are English translations of new words at the bottom of the page if you need them. The grammar explanations are simplified so they may not be as thorough as you'd like. (For example it is explained that you need to use me, te, and le with gusta instead of yo, tú, and él/ella. But it doesn't explain why.) There is not a DVD for it. The CD that comes with the manual focuses on pronunciation. The work in the manual would be something your second grader should be able to handle. The more difficult work is in the teacher resource guide. For example in lesson 4 it explains how to change the singular Spanish sentences to plural Spanish sentences. (El mosquito es negro. --> Los mosquitos son negros.) They also have an earlier level for ages 4-7. I haven't looked at that. I'm not sure how much La Clase Divertida or Easy Spanish covers so I can't compare them all. Español para chicos y grandes claims to cover 700 words in Level 1 although I only see about 500 in the glossary. I do find it easier to learn vocabulary grouped by topic than by grammatical form. Next year I am combining the rest of Primer A with the rest of Español para chicos y grandes. I think we'll throw in a little Rosetta Stone (old version 2) in there for listening practice. We'll see how it goes. If I were only going to teach one, it would be Español para chicos y grandes. Well, there you have my language woes. Having people your kids can converse with will really help, though. I hope you find something that works for your family. Julie D.

I'd personally hand this over to dh if it's at all possible. If he is good at languages and enthusiastic about learning them, it will go far better. We have struggled with Spanish from first grade to fifth grade without really going anywhere, because frankly, I am not good at it. Julie D.

How are his mechanics when he writes from dictation? his own work? Many kids do just fine with that, but they aren't good proofreaders. If that's the case with your son, you might want to throw in some specific practice to help. You could give him an incorrect sentence to edit a couple of times a week, or you could use some of the editing practice books. On the other hand, it might not be that important at this stage if his own writing is correct. Julie D.

My son struggled with handwriting and spelling, and I started him on WWE 1 in the middle of third grade. He really needed to do the copywork before moving on to dictation, but he found the narrations easy and enjoyable. With WWE 1 we were able to do two days worth each day for quite a while (only one copywork page each day, along with a narration). After that we slowed down as we went into dictation in WWE 2. We finished WWE 3 this year, and the gradual improvement in his skills has been astounding. He enjoys writing so much more as the spelling and mechanics have come more automatically. I don't know where your older daughter is at, but don't be afraid to start with the first book if necessary. WWE works on a whole different skill set than most writing programs (even WWS), and you can keep making progress with composition writing even while working through WWE. Julie D.

We had tons of fun with it. At this age familiarity with the stories of history is what we were going for. We got more out of it than that, but I wouldn't have been upset if we hadn't. Egypt was lots of fun. My kids also liked the early writing activities we did. Both of them struggled with handwriting; I think they appreciated that not everyone wrote then. Greece and Rome have great stories. We ended up spending a year and a half on the ancients since we were having fun. Plus my librarian is a Latin major and stocked the shelves with books about Greece and Rome. So my daughter will be finishing early modern and starting modern times next year in fourth grade. On the other hand, it's good not to get too caught up in following the cycle perfectly. It all works out in the end. Julie D.

I'd go ahead and start AAS. We used PP for the quick introduction to phonics needed for reading. Then AAS is the slow and steady phonics for spelling. We only did a page a day at the end of PP, so it wasn't too much to do both. Julie D.

On the recommendation of the Hive, I bought CPO Physical Science. I was able to find it fairly inexpensively, and I'm looking forward to using it. I was strongly influenced by the reasons redsquirrel mentioned. Another reason I selected it was that I enjoyed reading it. It didn't seem quite as choppy as a lot of middle-school science books. I liked that many resources are freely available on the website, too. We will not be fully implementing the book this year, though. My son will be reading it and doing the math. We will be doing simpler Science in a Nutshell kits together with my daughter. I really, really wanted to implement the book fully, but I had to face the fact that I just don't have time to do labs with two children separately. My son will only be in sixth grade, so he has plenty of time to do more precise experiments later. We will still do labs relating to the work first, and then the reading. We may do some of the simpler labs such as measurement as well. Julie D.

We're using Peterson Directed Handwriting here. I love how it teaches lowercase cursive. Julie D.

Just updating in case anyone down the road wonders. He did well with both the MUS and the Saxon pages. When I asked if he had any preferences, he said he liked the explanation better in MUS, but that Saxon had more interesting problems. He wanted to do both. I have some older Saxon books that I had loaned to a friend, so I think we will get a couple back to use once a week or so. Then MUS will be his main program while we try to get his speed up, but Saxon should provide better mixed review. I think I should be able to pick fairly randomly from Saxon. So hopefully I should be set for sixth grade anyway. Thanks for all your suggestions. Sometimes I really need to hear a few different viewpoints to make sense of it all. Julie D.

I've been spending way too much time looking at math texts tonight. I think Lial's and CLE are both going to be too busy for my son. Saxon might be OK. I'll try him with it tomorrow so I can see. MUS looks a lot like the Singapore workbooks, so I think it would be OK. I keep thinking I should have just stuck with Singapore. I don't know. I like the combination of focused practice and mixed practice in MUS, but I'm not sure if the mixed practice is mixed enough. Saxon seems to have the nicest mixed practice, but I find the order of topics confusing. Singapore makes sense to me, but doesn't have as much practice. :banghead::banghead::banghead: I must try to go to sleep now. Julie D.

OK, thanks for the suggestions. I'm off to check out CLE, Lial's, and Saxon. Julie D.

Actually, the more problems I give him to do the faster he goes, which is why I thought Math Mammoth would work for him. However, the problem with Math Mammoth is truly the layout. I've been retyping the pages which works fine for him, but he's really bothered by the format. He also doesn't do well with encyclopedia-type pages for history and science. I don't want to keep retyping pages, though. It's just too much work for me. Julie D.

Not really info. It's mentioned in a blog post. Julie D.