A friend of mine has had two of her sons take the grade 9 Canadian geography course through the Virtual High School. She speaks very highly of the experience and of the teacher, although looking at the website today I think perhaps their teacher may have been someone else. I've also had several homeschoolers tell me that taking math through any online school is not generally a good idea, because the workload is inevitably heavy and unforgiving. I think their experiences were primarily with AMDEC. Nikita

Thanks to all of you!! I did manage to get the pdf of Sheldon's Advanced Language Lessons (which is the one I wanted) from the other link by searching at http://www.archive.org. I had to click on the "All Files: HTTP" link which gave me direct access to the PDF file (clicking on the "PDF on Google.com" link just gave me the same info page as going directly into Google Books.) I was also able to get the Serl Intermediate Language Lessons in the same way. So thanks again to all of you for your help :-) Nikita

Thanks Tara. I did exactly as you described and still can't see or download any of it. I did manage to get a limited preview of the Advanced Language Lessons (ie, I can see it but can't download). I wonder if it is because I am in Canada? I wouldn't think that would make any difference since it's so old it can't be copyrighted anymore. Oh well, thanks for all your help! Nikita

Thanks Sweetfeet, but I'm not even seeing a single page. Just the Table of Contents listed below, with none of it clickable. And when I search for the book by title, every edition comes up saying No Preview Available. What am I doing wrong? Nikita

how do you actually see the content of the books? When I click on the links in the original message, all I get is the TOC, not even a preview?

Carnegie Mellon publishes an excellent curriculum specifically designed to go with the Mindstorms kits. Find it here: http://www.education.rec.ri.cmu.edu/content/lego/curriculum/index.htm There is also a fabulous book called NXT Zoo which includes instructions and programming for robot animals. Here's the amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/LEGO-MINDSTORMS-NXT-Zoo-Kid-Friendly/dp/1593271700/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238277965&sr=8-2 But I agree with others that 7yo is too young to do much with Mindstorms unless an adult is willing to learn along with him. And be forewarned, it takes a *long* time to learn enough to program a robot to do anything really cool. When he's old enough (around 9 or 10), look into First Lego League (FLL) which is a cool competition where kids work together to build a Mindstorms robot that completes challenges on an obstacle course. I coached a homeschool team for 3 years so my son could participate, and all the kids got a lot out of it. (They also do an indepth research project on a science topic, which all my team members enjoyed just as much as working on the robot.) I think there have been discussions about FLL on this forum before so you may find more info if you search for it. Hope this helps, Nikita

I'd go with the children's chorus. My son sang for several years as a soprano, then had to find a new chorus after his voice changed. My experience was that conductors of children's choirs really know how to develop a boy's voice and are very encouraging. A good children's chorus will also spend more rehearsal time on teaching - developing sight-singing and technique. (Now I'm feeling sad that my boy has decided not to continue with it this year...) Nikita

Thank so much, Colleen and Tonia. I think that's the same company, I'd just thrown away my old invoices and didn't keep the info. Thanks again, Nikita

Does anyone know how to obtain Rod and Staff materials in Canada? I'm sure there is a distributor who handles them by mail-order - I used to get them at a curriculum fair that is, sadly, not being held this year. Thanks! Nikita

We've done co-op activities for 5 years, and also decided that this is the year to cut it out of our schedule. I do think my kids will miss it though. However, we live in a big city with lots of homeschoolers, so we will still have other group activities (a homeschoolers gym class, maybe a craft club for my daughter with a few friends, group field trips) but it will be less stress. I was always involved in organizing the co-ops and the burden of planning plus the travel time just took too much away from my own kids. Good luck, it sounds like a good decision. Nikita

We did a lot of adventure books in those grades at school. The ones I remember vividly are: Treasure Island Banner in the Sky Mutiny on the Bounty Those are still among my very favourite books. You also might want to look at the booklists for Bravewriter's Boomerang (gr 7-9) subscription. I think you could sign up for individual book discussions if any of those titles are appealing. (I think you have to sign up for the monthly subscription and then cancel it.) She also has lists from previous years which might contain useful suggestions for you. Nikita

This is funny, because just this morning I thought to myself, our whiteboards are probably the homeschool investment that I've gotten the most use out of. We have two whiteboards, one for each kid, that are about 2x3 feet each. We don't have a school room so they move with us to the kitchen, dining room or living room floor! I got them first for my reluctant writer who complained so much about the scratchy feel of pen or pencil on paper, and of course he hated chalkboards for the same reason! By using a whiteboard he was finally willing to work on spelling or diagramming sentences. (We spent many $$ on pens and pencils before finding ones he was comfortable with - ones that had a comfortable grip and moved smoothly enough across the paper for him.) The kids (10 and 14) still use them for grammar, as well as math. My son, even at 14, much prefers to work out problems on whiteboard rather than paper. The kids create game boards on them. My daughter draws while we read aloud. I prop one up and make notes while I'm teaching math or we're talking through a novel (venn diagrams, or lists of characters, or new vocabulary). DD practices her cursive on them. We make lists of what we need to get done that day and check things off in a different colour. I like the smallish size of ours because they are portable. When someone is sick, we might even take one upstairs and all of us sprawl around it on my bed to play a word game or a math game. BTW, the dry-erase markers do double-duty for workbooks as well - I put page protectors with the logic workbooks and the kids do the pages with the dry-erase markers, check their answers, then erase their answers and initial the page. That way both kids can use the same workbook and I don't have to do any photocopying. Nikita

I think Book Depository does carry all those titles, but may not have them all in stock at once. When I ordered (your entire list except for the answer keys) they shipped all three titles separately but within a day or two. So they seem to ship as soon as titles are available, rather than holding the order until it is complete. They all arrived very quickly. I checked the ISBN numbers on the Galore Park website and compared them to the numbers at Book Depository, to be sure I was ordering the correct titles. Nikita

If you can stand another science option, then I suggest you look at Nebel's Elementary Education. I mention it because it is a bit like Bravewriter and very unschooling-friendly in that you can just dip into it wherever you like, but it is also very strong conceptually and describes a lot of hands-on activities. It is meant as an entire curriculum for gr 1-5, but more than half of it is devoted to science concepts and I think it takes the concepts into enough depth at least for middle school. I used it extensively about 3 years ago, then we got involved in a science coop doing FLL and that took over our science for a while. I just pulled it off the shelf yesterday and happily realized how easily it will dovetail with the TOPS units that I'm thinking about. You can see sample pages on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Nebels-Elementary-Education-Creating-Tapestry/dp/1588208923/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217274495&sr=1-1) One drawback is that it is really a teacher manual and not very kid-friendly - small print, only a few line drawings - it doesn't lend itself to browsing by the kids. Nikita

It really sounds like these should work for us, and the kids are excited about them, which is a pleasant surprise for me. You ladies are fantastic! :-) Nikita