Crud, OP - sorry you had to spend so much money! I had written this in post #5 of the pinned chem thread: *The Home Scientist sells a Honours Chem Lab kit with lab manual that can be correlated to many different chem programs (the lab manual is free to download even if you don't purchase the kit) http://www.thehomesc.../ck01-main.html He also sells a simplified and less expensive version of the kit meant for Standard (or Regular) Chemistry which also has a free, downloadable lab manual: http://www.thehomesc...ck01b-main.html NOTE: The free lab manual that comes with this kit is NOT the same as the Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments (by the same author). This kit (and the free lab manual) will give a lab component for a first-year high school chemistry course. The Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments (which can be purchased through Amazon) is meant to give the equivalent of the lab component for a two-year high school chemistry course and would require more equipment and chemicals than are included in this kit. Just to clarify things if anyone else is wondering about The Home Scientist kits and book. There's so much out there that it can be confusing and overwhelming to sift through and figure out what's needed. I feel this way about all of the choices for high school language arts!! :svengo: :D

I believe that it's the Ministry of Education in each province that determines whether or not RCM exams can be used for credit and what level they will accept. Here in Ontario, Grade 7 Piano performance plus Intermediate Rudiments will equate to a Grade 11 Music credit and Grade 8 plus Advanced Rudiments will give a Grade 12 Music credit. I would think that you would have to check with your State's department of ed to see if they will accept RCM credits on a transcript. Or check with the postsecondary institutions where your dc plan on applying to see if they will accept the RCM credits. One thing you may want to keep in mind - it's very difficult to get high grades on these exams and they tend to follow the Canadian grading system where an 80-89% is an A and 90-100% is an A+. It's common for students to receive grades in the 70's on performance exams (which would be a B here). Very well prepared students will get 80's and exceptional students will receive 90's. If your grading system gives low letter grades for anything below 90's, then taking these exams may end up lowering your GPA. Forgive me if that doesn't make sense - I'm not terribly familiar with the GPA system. I just wanted to make folks aware that Canadian grading systems may award grades (percentage equivalents for A's, B's, etc.) differently than US systems do.

That's an awesome link - thanks for sharing!

That's what dd and dh request for their respective birthdays every year. :) Homemade "Lightning Chocolate Cake" with Smarties - mmmmmmmm... :D Here's a close-up of dd's cake this year: I can go about 2 hours drive down into Minnesota, ask for vinegar for my fries, and not get weird looks - there must be enough Canadians visiting those places that they're used to it. Any farther south than that and servers at restaurants don't quite know what to think.

Today is cooler. My bug bites are less itchy. I've dialed my crankiness back. :D I think complaining about the weather, no matter what it is, is a Canadian past-time. I'd still like to know if the location I described above actually exists. I may have to give up on the snow for Christmas. I'm still hoping for New Zealand. :) England, maybe? PNW?

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It's now 9:30pm. It's 25C (77F) and 30C (87F) with the humidity, which is now 65%. Bleh. On the bright side, it's still light out. We'll have some daylight until just after 10pm. And the sun comes up tomorrow just after 5am. I've always wanted to visit someplace with midnight sun...

KungFuPanda - either you're REALLY retracting your sympathy or you've managed to penta-post! Bravo!! :D

OK. Here's where I have a little confession to make... I actually have central air. And I keep it pretty frigid in here. "So what the h-e-double-hockey-sticks is she complaining about??????", I hear being shouted. Wellllll... I still have to go outside and do horse chores. And other outside stuff. Ya - I know. I'm being really whiny. I think a mosquito bit me on top of a blackfly bite. It's really itchy and swollen. I'm just cranky. :D I'd still like to know if New Zealand is everything I've imagined it to be. Maybe Lewelma would like some company... :)

See - I think I could do the rain. Although I've never lived where it was very overcast all the time so maybe I'm just wishfully-thinking I can... I've also never experience heat without humidity so I don't know if I could do 116F without humidity. It still sounds dang hot. I've heard New Zealand is similar to what I'm wishing for. Maybe once the folks there are up (and we're all in bed) they can tell me if I'm right. Or they can tell me I'm mistaken and then I'll just be sad. (Can you tell that the humid heat and 8 gazillion fly/mosquito bites I have are making me melodramatic and cranky? ;))

I, quite literally, can't imagine what 116F feels like. I don't think I've ever experienced any temperature over 42C (108F) and that was the humidex ("feels like") temperature. I've often wondered if it can possibly be good for me to be living in a place where the temperature swings from -40C (-40F) in winter to 40C (104F) in summer. I'd really love to find a place to live where it got down to around -5C (23F) in winter with snow for Christmas and a high of 15C (59F) in summer with really long springs and falls. And no biting flies or mosquitoes. Such a place exists, right????? RIGHT???????????? Sigh...

It's currently almost 6pm. It's 31C (87F) here, with 40% humidity, which means it feels like 35C (95F). That's WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too hot for this Canadian. (I know, I know - that's winter for some of you folks. :D)

Congratulations, Chicago!!!!! Well done, Boston - very classy to stay and cheer for the Cup.

We have Xplornet (don't know if that's a Canadian company or if it's available elsewhere) and if we had any other options, we'd take them. It's not that Xplornet is so terrible, it's that satellite internet in general is only one small step up from dial-up. I can stream a short (2 minute) YouTube video and that's about it - the satellite company automatically detects that my bandwidth usage is too high and cuts me back. Netflix is absolutely NOT an option. For regular net-surfing, it's not bad but you will find that it's noticeably slower than you're used to for pretty much everything. You have to wait up to a minute sometimes for a webpage to load - it won't be instant. It's also horribly expensive. I pay almost $100/month for the service described above. I agree with Erin - if I had a decent, reliable cell signal out here, I'd switch.

Just got an email this morning that ClassiQuest Astronomy & Geoscience is released! You can buy it at Amazon: http://www.amazon.co...rds=classiquest Or at her Create Space store: https://www.createspace.com/4045313 When you go to the ClassiQuest website, though, it doesn't yet say it's available - hopefully, Angela will fix that soon. (Note: I'm not affiliated with the company in any way. :) I just know how hard it is to find secular-friendly science curricula and so wanted to share that this was out.)

Well... I wouldn't say all Canadians. :D I'm one of those "never get cold" people and my dd seems to be the same. My dh is a little more prone to chilliness. I'm a curmudeon when it comes to rules, though - if it says "No one under the age of 16" then dd isn't going in. If she's cold, there are towels, hot showers, and wrapping up in mum or dad's arms when she was a little one. But that's just me. :)

:laugh: :iagree: That was my Mother's Day present this year. It was beautiful. I'm so glad my dh and dd "get" me. :)

Just thought I'd mention... I updated the Reg Chem post with a new link for Singapore's Chemistry Matters: http://www.singaporemath.com/product_p/machemtx.htm I had originally stated that it was out of print and could possibly be found used but they've since come out with the 2nd edition and it's now available new. Enjoy! ;)

I'm not from the States so maybe someone with experience writing transcripts in the States can chime in. :) I do know, though, that you can't list it as AP Biology unless you write in to the College Board, submit a syllabus for their approval, and have your syllabus audited and approved. You may be able to list is as Advanced Biology but, again, someone with more experience and knowledge with writing transcripts in the States would have a better idea.

This is what the Apologia website says: This is our advanced biology course. Combined with Exploring Creation With Biology, it gives the student the equivalent of a university biology course. In other words, these two courses together cover the entire "advanced placement" (AP) curriculum. In order to take this course, the student MUST have completed a first-year biology course AND a first-year chemistry course. It covers both the anatomy and the physiology of the human body’s 11 organ systems in detail.

Lewelma, Are you trying to contact Pearson? I tried contacting Pearson about purchasing instructor materials for Tarbuck and got an email back stating that they don't sell instructor materials to individuals or home schoolers. I know folks in the States have gone through Pearson's Oasis system and gotten access to instructor materials that way but I tried and was told Oasis was only for individuals in the States. I was given the contact info for Pearson Canada, contacted them about the instructor resources, and that's when I was told that Pearson Canada won't sell instructor stuff to home schoolers. Hopefully, you have more luck in NZ!

I don't know if someone else has already done this but I seem to remember someone asking in past about a document like this but no one could find it. :) As I was planning for next year and the future, I wanted to correlate the books used by Excellence in Literature (EIL) to the 4 history periods in the WTM. I took the author's free list that she has posted on her website, used highlighters to colour code it, and then scanned it into my computer and saved it as a PDF. I'll attach it here in case anyone else finds it useful. I don't think I'm breaking any copyright laws - the page that I'm attaching is available for free on the EIL website and all I did was highlight it. :) Note: The yellow highlighter didn't show up well when I scanned it. If a title looks as though it hasn't been highlighted, it's supposed to be yellow, which corresponds to "Ancients". Edited: I had to remove the attachment so I could attach something else somewhere else on the forum. :) If anyone still needs it, just PM me and I can email you a PDF copy.

This is because of your proximity to Canada, as KK pointed out. :) And we really are sorry about your beer. ;)

:D I'm not sure I was here either. I think I originally joined up in 2010, promptly forgot about it, and didn't start posting until relatively recently. I worry sometimes, too, about asking questions but I figure we're all here to help each other, so it's all good. :)

It's not me - it's this place! :D This community has so many amazing people who are willing to freely and generously provide their knowledge, experience, wisdom, and advice. It's truly been a godsend for me. I just want to try and give a little back in return for all I've gotten and gleaned from my time here. :) Plus, the more people I can suck into the chemistry vortex, the better for my evil plan of having chemists take over the world!!!!!!!! Bwah, ha, ha, ha, haaaaaaaaa... Wait - did I say that out loud? Ah crud... :leaving: