My daughter had just come out of ps and it was evident through our work in Saxon 54 all the holes she had in her math education! At least an hour and a half for a lesson, although I insisted on all the problems being done. Having said that, though, for the following four years she continued with Saxon, doing almost all of it independently and usually in under an hour. This year we're using Foerster's Algebra and so far she needs a bit more help from me, but it's going along fine. I would stick with it. I think Saxon helps students develop good math habits and a very solid foundation for high school math.

The Smithsonian Animals (a big black book) is by far the best. None of them cover classification well at all, though. I know because we've been trying to study this in particular. I found a couple of good books on classification for kids at the library: "The Tree of Life" and "Classifying Living Things". It seems that all these encyclopediae think kids can't understand classification. . .

Keep it all fun at this age. She's only 5. I would hope that math facts would be rote by 9-10, that gives you years!

Our system is a LaCrosse system. . . I think it was about $200 but it's been about three years since we got it. It is hooked up to the computer and comes with a program to track weather but we haven't really used the computer program much. The display shows you everything, so we just watch that. We often compare our weather conditions here to what we see on Weatherbug (which is taking a reading a few miles away at the Middle School.) The roof top component includes the anenometer (wind) and wind direction. There's also a piece with temperature and barometer readings that goes outside. We never hooked up the rain gauge thing. You could also track weather by getting readings from the paper, or various sites without having to buy the expensive thing. You could do alot with just an anenometer, thermometer and barometer you set up in a box (if you don't mind always trekking out to read it!) I love weather studies because you can tie it in to so many different areas of science. There are lots of good books out there.

It's totally worth it but you do have to put the time in to understand the program. Our favorite days are six sentence shuffle days!

I can offer some information. We spent quite a bit of time building simple weather instruments out of common materials. There's a pretty good book called 'Weather Forecasting" by KidsCan Press, if I remember correctly, and there are lots of others out there that offer build-it-yourself stuff out of cardboard, pingpong balls, etc. My experience with all these was that they were good for getting the kids to understand the principals and seeing how the instruments work, but not all that great if you really want to start tracking weather. I never got one of those barometer glass-tube-in-a-bottle-with -colored-water things to work at all. We experimented with all of these but in the end we bought one of those units where you mount the instruments on the roof and have a feed into the display in your house. We love it. At one point we did have a box set up outside with a thermometer, an anenometer (not so cheap for a decent one) and a barometer inside. We also had a rain gauge. It was a great learning exercise. You can also do some fun stuff if you can get a hold of some cobalt chloride (try Homeschool Training Tools) which has the property of changing color depending on how much water is in the air. Weather is fun. . . hope that helps!:001_smile:

We also used RS4K with two different levels and it worked out very well. Wish I could find a history program that worked the same way for high school/middle school!

I think you'll find that the time working thoroughly through 54 is well spent, because then he'll have good habits and a solid foundation afterwards. We found that every year after 54 went much more easily and quickly. You'll probably be able to whiz through the first third of most of the Saxon books if you've really thoroughly finished the one before. Good luck!

What is the sequence of high school math nowadays? It used to be Algebra, Geometry, Trig and Calculus back in the day, but things seem to have changed (or at least the names of things seem to have changed :) ) We're doing Foerster's Algebra I this year (8th grade) so do I go to Geometry next? Or Algebra II? What IS Algebra II anyway?:confused:

We've been happily working through Latin Prep I, and are getting ready to order Book 2, but I'm trying to understand how "So You Really Want To Learn Latin" fits into the sequence. The first book looks like it covers alot of the same material in the Latin Prep, plus some more. What's the difference between these two series? Since I don't quite understand the entrance exams, etc., the website doesn't clarify much for me! Anyone know?

We've been happily working through Latin Prep I, and are getting ready to order Book 2, but I'm trying to understand how "So You Really Want To Learn Latin" fits into the sequence. The first book looks like it covers alot of the same material in the Latin Prep, plus some more. What's the difference between these two series? Since I don't quite understand the entrance exams, etc., the website doesn't clarify much for me! Anyone know?

We used the maps in SOTW as reference and drew our own maps. I would make an underlay using Uncle Josh's Maps, or National Geographic, or anywhere I could find a map of the area in question, blow it up and make a bigger map. We would trace the whole new map on nice vellum, add all geographic features (perhaps using our atlas as reference) and then add the specific historical information from SOTW. Often we would add illustrations, or diagrams, to the maps. We've done this for all four years and my kids sure know their geography now.

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Does anyone have good suggestions for a secular science series for high school? We've used Prentice Hall Science Explorer series through middle school and I don't know where to go next!

My daughter is 8th grade this year and we've been doing Latin for three years. albeit at a somewhat leisurely pace: We did Prima Latin, Latina Christiana I, Latin Prep Book 1 and will finish most of Latin Prep Book 2 (Galore Park) this year. I would like her to have credit for four years of Latin for high school, but would sort of like to get credit for what we've already done. How do you handle this? I thought we might switch next year to a standard high school program (like Wheelock, or maybe Galore Park's "So You Really Want to Learn . . . ") with the beginning all being review. (I sort of like this plan because her course load will be heavier and free up a little time to get used to the bio lab course she'll be taking away from home) Does anyone have any thoughts about handling Latin high school credit when you've been doing Latin for a while? I guess another option is just to carry on and then she can take the Latin AP when she's ready.

A compound sentence with two subjects would not have a comma: The dog and the cat ate the fish. A compound sentence with three subjects would have a comma and a conjunction: The dog, the cat and the cow at the fish. Clearly a sentence with two subjects (or verbs) doesn't always need a comma, unless there's alot of other stuff in there: The dog who lived across the street, and the cat from the yellow house. . . Is that what they meant maybe?

We've worked through Aesop and are most of the way through Homer. I think the strength of CW is the whole package. It does start out slowly with grammar but the grammar is quite rigorous now that we're further along. The analysis portion of the program is that part that has really improved the girls' writing: all that diagramming, parsing and six sentence shuffle is very valuable stuff and I think you'd be really missing out if you skipped that part. I also really appreciate the fact that I don't have to have a separate grammar, spelling, vocabulary program. . . that it's all rolled into one. It's much more time efficient (and cheaper) for us. Additionally, although we work together, each child can still work at their own level. After two years of CW, they are very solid on their grammar, vocabulary and writing well. I'm a big fan. I tend to think if you're just taking little parts of it, you may want to consider a different program. It's alot of effort to put in if you're not going to reap all the benefits!

When he gets a little further along, he'll be multiplying and adding those numbers and he'll be faced with HUGE, LONG mulitiplication problems if he doesn't reduce them down! Say instead of 3/4 x 2/3 he can multiply 75/100 x 66/99 and see how he likes that! (I guess you can't always say "because I said so!")

We have one wall that is magnetic for maps, posters, etc., which you can take down anytime you want. The only thing I needed to make it work perfectly was ordering some extra strong magnets on-line. . . all the ones I bought other places weren't strong enough.

Think about hunting one of Geralidine McCaughrean's down. We read her retelling of both the Iliad and the Odyssey, and four years later they still say they were their favorite books! You might try Nathaniel Hawthorne's Wonder Book which retells alot of Greek myths. . .

If you read TWTM, there is a list of artists (and composers) for each of the four years in the cycle.

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The front of the book gives you a list of recommended books to go with each section, if I remember correctly.

We're starting our second rotation of history after completing SOTW. I want to throw in a couple of history-based projects as relief between some of the harder reading we'll be tackling. Anyone know of a resource for projects for slightly older kids (middle-junior high)? I've got tons of resources for younger, many of which we've done. . . I'm secretly hoping there's some compendium out there titled "History-based Projects for Junior High School".

I got called last year in early September, right as we were getting going. I got seated on a trial which lasted a week! My dh took a week off and taught the girls (which lots of instructions from me) which was good for them, I suppose.