I am looking at the Starline Press World Geography set. Downside is it is pretty expensive; upside is it is open-and-go. I am also looking at the HMH World Geography package available through HSBC through the end of the month. At $60 compared to almost $200, the HMH looks like a better deal!

Thank you so much!!

My son can't figure out how/why a step in the problem at the bottom of page 111 in Life of Fred trigonometry was arrived at. I'm no help, either. Can anyone help? To show that 1 + cot2 x = csc2 x Changing to sines and cosines (ok here) 1 + cos2x/sin2x = 1/sin2x Adding the fractions (this is what he doesn't get) (sin2x + cos2x)/sin2x Since sin2x + cos2x = 1 (ok here too) 1/sin2x He doesn't understand how the term in the second step is derived. Anyone? Thanks! Amy

You can use an online graphing utility, but you might want to go ahead and buy the calculator now. He'll need it later on, anyway. There will be other mentions/demonstrations of the graphing calculator as the year goes on. I went ahead and bought the calculator around the same point you're at because I had never used one and figured my son would be best served by taking advantage of all the instruction in its use that Dana Mosely would be providing!

I really have no idea about the question you are asking. (So, why are you responding, woman?!) ;-D I just wanted to say that I had originally intended to use Hewitt's Conceptual Physics, but I ended up signing my son up for the physics course with Derek Owens. I couldn't be happier. DS is learning at his own pace (which is sometimes fast, sometimes SLOW) and doing a great job so far. The instructor doesn't seem daunted by my smart-alek-y son's goofy comments on his homeworks/tests, and has actually responded to them in a humorous way (far cry from the beleaguered public school teachers who took immature boy humor as an immediate sign of disrespect.) Mr. Owens does the grading and is available to answer questions. The physics course is essentially a conceptual physics course with labs; prereq is algebra I. DS has recently spent some time with trig concepts on Khan Academy bc there is apparently some trig in the course; I think there is a sufficient amount of instruction in the course for what is required, but he wants to earn badges and whatnot on KA!! Just wanted to throw another option out there.

Have you looked at Literary Lessons from Lord of the Rings? www.homescholar.org

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? I'm sure regular readers of this board are tired of the "which Latin" question. I searched this board for a long time before posting my question, but that only made me more indecisive! Sometimes a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I thought of having the 9th grader to continue doing the LFC series, which would give him some grammar, and then also have him do the Power-Glide lessons so I feel like he's using SOMEthing that's allegedly high-school level! We're already doing double maths and lots of language arts on top of his LLfLOTR, though, so as I sit here doing next week's schedule I worry whether we're really going to have time to do two Latin courses! Amy

I know that Kinetic books does offer an online homework component, but I don't know if that's "enough." The lack of availability of solutions led me to decide on the Derek Owens physics class for my 9th grader. Amy

Let me preface this by saying we started our school year last week, so clearly I am late to finalizing this decision! Last year was my now 9th grader's first year homeschooling. I already owned LFC A, so I just used that with both boys since I wasn't concerned with awarding credit and just wanted something easy (for me!) for our transition year. We only made it through part of book A because we weren't doing it consistently. It was a bit of a slacker year. When I was trying to decide what to use for Latin this year, I found the info on Classical Academic Press' webpage that suggested that LFC A and B could be used together to constitute a high school credit. "Great! I'll just buy B and have him do A+B." Then I started worrying whether that would REALLY be sufficient. Couple of used curriculum sales later and I found myself the owner of Latin for Children B, the Power-Glide high school set, AND several of the Oxford Latin books (I have a curriculum problem.) "Great! Sixth grader can stick with LFC and the high-schooler can do the Power-Glide set, we can look at the Oxford books for additional info if necessary and we will be ALL SET." Then I started researching Power-Glide and questioning whether THAT was sufficient, since what I am reading suggests it is light on grammar. I like that my son could do it completely independently. My own Latin knowledge is limited to whatever is in LFC A lesson 10, and I don't know how good the Oxford books are for self-teaching. So, WWYD? I would like to be able to use the resources I already own (so we can start Latin tomorrow) but I am wiling to buy something else if necessary. I was looking at Artes Latinae because it looks like something he could do completely on his own (but does it offer an advantage over Power Glide, which again I already own?) I also looked at Latin Alive since it looks like it would have a similar format to what he's used to from LFC and would also be possible for him to do on his own with the videos. I see there are CDs available for Oxford Latin and I could/would buy those if we decide to make Oxford the primary text for his Latin studies (but I don't have them yet, or the teacher's book.) FWIW this is a math-science kid who isn't your typical "classical scholar." In other words, he is willing to work hard at math, science, and computer science but wants to breeze through other topics with as little work as possible. :-P HE just wants to stick with LFC because that's what he started with, and it's fun and easy. Honestly, I don't want to torture either of us over it, either, but I do want it to be rigorous enough that I can legitimately call it Latin I. If you've read this far through my ramblings, I thank you! I'm trying to sort this all out in my own head. I would welcome any feedback! Thanks, Amy

What do you need? You could try posting in the wanted section of the sale board! Amy (who has some Singapore stuff she ought to list for sale!)

Thank you for your response! In that case I think I am going to be best served by ponying up the $$ for the intermediate text. That's what I get for trying to be clever. :)

Before I reinvent the wheel here, I thought I'd see if anyone had already figured this out. We used the actual Chalkdust Algebra I (2nd edition) last year, and this year my son is doing both Geometry (old, on VHS) and Algebra 2. I bought the Houghton Mifflin combined DVD set and the Larson 5th edition combined Elementary and Intermediate Algebra book figuring I could use that with my younger son for Algebra I and II when the time came. Well. Now I don't know what to do in the combined volume for Algebra 2! Somehow I thought it would be an easy split, and the book would be split into two parts, but it seems to actually BE a combined course! Even looking at the table of contents for just the intermediate book doesn't really help b/c there seems to be a great degree of overlap from beginner and intermediate. We had done chapters 1-9 in Algebra I, which just left quadratic equations. Eyeballing the table of contents of the Algebra I 2nd edition vs the combined course 5th edition I can see that complex numbers (ch 9) wasn't covered in Algebra 1, but if we start with that we would cover only four chapters plus the complex numbers section for Algebra 2! That doesn't seem right. I'll have to sit down and look more closely at the preceding chapters and see if they cover new content that we will need to go over. Thus my post and my question: Has anyone sat down and broken down what is new to the intermediate edition and not included in elementary? I know a certain amount of review will be necessary, but not an entire COURSE worth, esp since we are doing 1 and 2 consecutively rather than with a year off in between! Probably should've just bought the intermediate book! Amy

I have searched on "Spielvogel" but not used the tags; have to figure out how to do that. :) I agree the book is intimidating--in fact, my son said "aghh!!" when he saw it. LOL! Thanks for the feedback--I am reassured that it will be ok to do it in two years. I find myself kind of paranoid about what is sufficient for a high school credit. I KNOW we are not going to be good about recording time spent on a topic, so I want to be sure that the materials we use are "good enough!" Amy

I had originally planned to use this text over two years using the mental rationale that they also sell it as two separate texts, but now I'm questioning whether that would be sufficient for two credits. I'm also going to be using the TC World History videos and having him do map work and other reading. Thoughts? Amy

Students sue college professors? For WHAT?