My DD is in 9th grade, so she makes flashcards herself for each of her words. Then she and I sit together with the word list and discuss it. I make up sentences that are relevant to her life to help the word be more significant to her. Then, and this is what has really done the trick for her, I give silly little rewards for using the words throughout the day in the course of normal conversation. The word has to be used correctly and be applicable to the conversation. She came up with the idea, and on the surface it seems a little silly to give a 15 year-old a "Sour Patch Kid" candy for each word she uses (or something of the sort). However, she will ponder those words and spend a lot of time thinking of creative ways to get as many as possible into a sentence. Then she comes bounding into the kitchen ready to amaze me with her skills!

My DS is 8 and we are just finishing MEP Y1 this week. We have stretched it out over about a year and a half. He is more mathematical than verbal and understands concepts quickly, but the language of math, such as "increasing"/"decreasing" and "less than"/"more than" took repeated reinforcing before they became natural. MEP is highly conceptual compared to many standard American math curricula which seem to focus more on mechanics in the early years. What has worked for us is letting it take as much time as it needs to take in order to internalize the concept. We don't necessarily do a page a day. There are days when we spend 30 minutes on just one section of a page, but he has learned and not just gotten the answers. The extra time that you are taking to illustrate and break down concepts into smaller components is what teaching is about. You are individualizing the curriculum based on your daughter's learning style and strengths and weaknesses. Congratulations, Mom! Be sure to keep the "math atmosphere" positive by giving congratulations and encouragement when a new skill is accomplished and not showing frustration or disappointment when something seems to be taking forever to sink in. I let my DS use a number line even yet on all of his calculations. We have not focused at all on drilling facts; because he has spent so much time seeing the numbers on the number line and watching his finger move up and down the line as he adds and subtracts, he has naturally absorbed the facts and knows many of them without drill. I also draw many diagrams and use cuisenaire rods to build his problems. At this stage of development, children need the concrete in order to understand the abstract. If it were me, unless the student is completely stymied by every section on the page, I would keep plugging away at a "slow and steady" pace and teach in as many different ways as the student needs in order to turn on the lightbulb of understanding. Remember that some of the concepts that show up in Y1 are fairly meaty, such as the more complex patterning, multi-step story problems and basic algebraic equations. By persisting, your daughter will realize relationships between numbers and not just have procedures memorized. Blessings, Adrienne

I just wanted to also encourage that what you can do at home is bound to be at least as good as what is being done in ps. My daughter, who is graduating this year from ps, had 3 years of Spanish in high school. AP was not available, but the teacher insisted they take the exam anyway. She can hold a decent conversation, reads Spanish fairly well, and can understand it in spoken conversation if it is not too fast, and she only scored a 2 on the AP Spanish Language exam. It's a doozey (sp?) of a test--both written and listening components. The only student in the class who scored well was a native speaker from Latin America who was taking Spanish for an "easy A". Now, that's not to say that the test is not doable. The preparation at our school just wasn't sufficient. She took 3 other AP tests last year and scored 5 on all of them. FWIW I took 2 years of Spanish in high school and a year in college and still felt like a novice! Oh!!! Almost forgot . . . The reason they had to take the AP test was because the teacher didn't want to prepare a final exam. She told the class that if any students chose not to take the AP test, and she had to prepare a final for them, that she guaranteed it would be so hard that they could not pass it! Ugh!! My daughter had many good teachers in high school, but this was not one of them.

Although she is probably not old enough yet for this option, you might hold it out as a carrot on a stick for the following year. We let our dd who is a freshman this year get a job. She is very social, has several ongoing community service commitments, and just loves to be around people. She is the social butterfly of our family. However, she is not our academian. She knows what she wants to do after high school and would just like to "get it done" with as little "hoo-ha" (her word) as possible and move on. So, we are focusing on getting some solid courses in (without all the bells and whistles that I would have liked) and equipping her with life skills. There are a few businesses here that will hire kids at 15 (grocery stores and fast food). We asked friends at church and got a wonderful recommendation for the Chick-Fil-A near our church. They were thrilled that she could work during the day while other teens are unavailable. She gets up and does school from 8:00 to 10:30, works from 11:00 to 2:00, and then comes home and finishes up school in the afternoon or evening depending on other commitments. She is thrilled to be making some money and be out of the house. We are comfortable with the adults that she is in the company of, and we feel that this will help her be more ready for those CC classes in her junior and senior years because she will have honed some people skills. This experience will also enhance her college applications. She will likely not have stellar SAT scores or AP exams, but she will have a consistent track record of both job and community service experience.

I completely understand your dd wanting to be around mature peers and find a more social environment. My concern (regarding the social aspect) is that with the good comes some very bad. I have had 2 dds who have attended public high school. We have what I consider a good school district in a very "churchy" town with primarily family-oriented, Christian teachers. However, many of the students are from families who do not have a strong set of defined morals, and these children are left to sort it out on their own with the influence of media as their primary example of how a teen should live. My eldest dd flourished despite the negative aspects of ps, but she has always been very strong in her convictions and lets the junk just "roll off". We removed my younger dd from ps 9th grade midway through the year because the junk was beginning to pull her down. Since bringing her home, she has realized how the environment was changing her, has solidified her own convictions, and has decided that she does not ever want to go back to ps. We found that the caliber of student, both academically and morally, is higher in Honors/AP classes, although not entirely. However, in regular classes, my younger dd was often exposed to conversations full of foul language about s*x, drinking, drugs, and "hooking up". It's not unusual to see "making out" in the parking lot and walkways, there are openly homosexual couples, and they even have to lock the bandhall bathrooms before and after school because students were meeting there to have s*x. So, make sure she knows what she might be getting into. After being involved in the ps for many years now, I just don't see the wisdom in taking a bunch of searching teens and confining them in a building for the majority of their waking hours. IMHO, Adrienne

My eldest dd has been in ps for high school and will have taken 7 or 8 AP tests by the time she graduates this year. Students at our high school take these tests after they have been in the AP (junior and senior honors level) class for the entire year. The classes are obviously designed to hone in on the knowledge that is required for the test. Our school district also offers numerous Saturday prep sessions during the spring semester which include taking practice exams. The exams include very specific types of essays that the students are taught how to handle: Document-Based Question essay and the Change-Over-Time essay are the ones that come to mind. In essence, a 5 on an AP exam would be the equivalent of taking the college class and making an "A". Making a 4 would correlate to a "B"; making a 3 would correlate to a "C", and so on. This is why more prestigious schools will only give credit for a 4 or 5 (sometimes only a 5); we have seen some colleges that will accept a 3. I believe that when they give college credit, it is not given with a grade attached, but rather a pass/fail type of credit (but I could be wrong on that). One caveat that we have found in hoping for college credits through AP testing is that they don't always apply if your child will be in the Honors program at the university. Many universities are revamping their Honors programs to include multi-disciplinary, team-taught courses and symposia instead of the typical core courses. Because this is a very non-traditional format, the AP credits do not logically fit and so they are simply recorded as elective credits instead of the history, english, etc. that they normally would be. If you go to the College Board website, you can find specific information about the exams and see some sample questions. It is possible to self-study for the exam and take it without having taken the AP course at a school. HTH, Adrienne

My daughter is also going to be a history major next year, and we have had the same qualms about her future. We have become settled with the fact that she is following her passion and not pursuing a high-paying career--and we are okay with that. From our research, it seems that a bachelor's degree in history(unless you are going to teach at the elementary or secondary level) is a stepping stone to a higher degree. Our dd already has plans to pursue a doctorate and teach at the university level, so that works for her. I would caution you to really research the history department at the school she wants to attend and make certain that it is a vibrant department that is heavily involved in publishing student work and helping students pursue fellowships and higher degrees. One of the schools on my dds list had all of the bells and whistles we were looking for until we got to our visit with the history department. We were so underwhelmed; the facilities, the faculty and the program all seemed "dusty and forgotten". At my dds school of choice, the history department felt alive and "happening", the faculty is very involved in helping students pursue further studies and scholarships, they publish a journal of student research, they encourage study abroad, and their chapter of the history honor society has been placed first for this size of school for the past 13 years. Here are some fields where history majors are beneficial: education, museums/historic sites/archives, government, national and state parks ( who used historians to write all of their literature and develop educational programs), law. That's off the top of my head. My dd will have more thoughts. I'll ask her when she gets in and update info later.

My daughter is a freshman who came out of public school mid-year. We tried duplicating the "every subject every day" plan of ps, and it just didn't work. So she is going to focus on 3 subjects until they are done and then pick up the other 3 subjects. We will school into the summer to accomplish it this way, but she really likes being able to focus in on a few things and not have to jump to a new subject every hour of the day. She finishes 2 or 3 Algebra lessons per day, and then either spends the rest of her time in English or Biology for the day. She doesn't have a schedule set in stone. Some weeks are more science; some weeks are more literature/grammar/vocab. In the end, it all balances out.

I noticed that Simple Schooling has a Forensics Module in their new interactive classroom. I believe that they also have a Forensics text in their print material. I have no idea what the depth of the material is. Even if it is fairly basic, it might be a good place to start.

Here's my best shot: In winter I get up at night And dress by yellow candle light. "I"-subject "get" and "dress"-compound predicate "up"-adverb modifying "get" "at night"-prep phrase used as an adverb modifying "get" "by yellow candle light"-prep phrase used as an adverb modifying "dress" "In winter"-introductory prepositional phrase; modifies the entire independent clause and is diagrammed above and separate from the rest of the sentence. FWIW, but I'm not 100% on this one.