If you have a squiz at p.581, it may shed some light on why some fundamentalists might have a problem with this book in particular. I applaud SWB for /not/ excising this. You simply can't study classics in any depth without having at least a general awareness of such background.

How is "contains sexual references" NOT a warning?

Maybe you should read the book before making pronouncements about it? It doesn't contain "many" such accounts. There are a /few/ brief sections which some people have a problem with. Incidentally, it's extremely tame compared to what was covered in some of my 9th grade classes (at a Christian school).

I figured it was something like that, but wanted to supply the attribution so that if anyone wanted to copy it from here and send on to someone else they would know it was OK to do so and would have the appropriate credit to go with it.

The cartoon in the first post of this thread was drawn by Randall Munroe. You can find the original at: http://xkcd.com/809/ Note also: http://xkcd.com/license.html "...you are free to copy and reuse any of my drawings (noncommercially) as long as you tell people where they're from."

Try the James Lorimer "Sports Stories" series (various authors, various sports). http://www.formac.ca/formac-lorimer/index.php (go to Kids Books, then Sports Stories Series) I haven't looked at any of the baseball ones, but we have quite a few of the hockey books.

Yamaha YFL-211 is a suitable instrument for a beginner and is good enough to last up to about grade 8 standard. Many student flutes are suitable only up to about grade 5. If you're buying secondhand anyway, you might want to look out for a slightly older one that was made in Japan.

What about using Khan Academy for both a review of algebra and an intro to geometry?

Actually, there is quite a lot that's left out - for example, there's no mention of Hephaestion. That doesn't bother me though as we use other resources as well. I think that SWB does a good job of balancing different priorities. Some people clearly think she should've omitted some sections, but others may well think that there's more that should have been included, just as some people think that SOTW is too Christian and others think it's not Christian enough. There's no way to write a history book that everyone will think is perfect.

Spain, at 99, comes ahead of France in the 2002 figures which they seem to be using, and the two are equal at 98 in the 2006 figures. They seem to have "forgotten" to mention that. (In the 2006 figures, Germany and Belgium are down to 99, Austria down to 100, Mexico up to 90 and Ecuador up to 88, which suggests that the gap is closing anyway). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_Global_Inequality See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations#Criticism_of_data_sets (criticism of the way the figures were produced)

Having studied Latin does help a bit with German grammar, especially the cases. Any inflected language will give you a head start on a similarly inflected language because you'll already have the concepts and understand the grammatical terms.

In England, "compulsory school age" runs from the start of the term following a child's 5th birthday to the end of the school year in which he turns 16. The school leaving age is set to rise to 17 in a couple of years, then to 18 a couple of years after that.

York sprang to mind as soon as I saw the title of the thread. There's the Minster, the National Railway Museum, Jorvik and a bunch of other museums and historic buildings. Durham's another possibility. Sorry, but I think someone may have been having you on. There are sections of Roman wall at York, but you'd need to travel 70+ miles north for Hadrian's Wall.

How big is the age gap between him and the younger kids? Are there some older kids there too?

Phil Plait (author of Bad Astronomy) has a good section on his website about this. http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/egg_spin.html#badegg

I've read TAH and found it rather dull compared to most of her books. It's aimed at a slightly younger reader and the main character is a girl. I don't think I've ever read QES, but I know it's aimed at younger readers. Alex.

The Armourer's House (Tudor) - yes (has been set for 6th grade literature) Song for a Dark Queen (Boudicca) - depends on what you consider appropriate Flame-Coloured Taffeta (18th century) - don't know The Queen Elizabeth Story (Elizabethan) - yes

Don't panic! He'll be about 15 by then, which makes a huge difference. If you're following a 4-year history rotation and he's currently studying ancients in 5th grade, then he's got most of the logic stage still to work through before he hits ancients again in 9th grade. His reading level, vocabulary, historical understanding, thinking skills and study skills will all continue to develop during the logic stage. By the time he's completed it, he should be well prepared to tackle Thucy and Co. Alex.

I happened to read the old thread about RS4K a few days ago and had a look through the texts available on their website. One problem seems to be that, in attempting to produce something that can be marketed to both secular and fundamentalist groups, they have had to omit some key material, thus lowering the quality of the program. One example is the section in the astronomy book which covers astronomical distances. AU and parsecs are covered, but not light years. They've covered the more technical terminology, so some might argue that they're being more rigorous, but I think that it's still important for kids to be familiar with the term 'light year'. It's widely used in non-specialist material, plus it's easier for kids to get a handle on just how huge the distances involved are. A number involving a lot of zeros doesn't really mean much to most people, but the idea that it takes light an entire year to travel a distance helps convey the scale of it. The catch, for anyone trying to avoid any hint of "millions of years" (in order to appease the YEC crowd), is that if you explain what a light year is and then give any distances that are greater than 6000 light years, a smart kid is going to catch on to the idea that the light from objects at those distances must have been in transit for that many years. So, to avoid all that, they stick to parsecs, leaving kids in the dark about the scale that is involved and unaware of the terminology that's used in many resources about astronomy (particularly those for kids and general readers). For us, these sorts of omissions are as much a problem as any particular religious material that might be included in a curriculum (perhaps more so, since they're not as easy to spot). It suggests to me that the author is more interested in appeasing the YEC crowd than giving kids a good understanding of science. Meanwhile the YEC people could probably make a similar argument about problems caused by trying to appeal to the secular market. Science is not a subject where you can have a program that's all things to all people. I think that YEC folk looking to teach their kids their particular slant on things would find that it fails to do that either. If people want a creationist curriculum, there are plenty available, just as there are plenty of solid science programs available with a secular approach. Cutting out anything that anyone could possibly take issue with results in a program that can't fully meet anyone's needs. Alex.

About $8.77

I'd consider that easy for 4th grade. A better question for that level would be one that asked them to find the configuration which gave the largest area for a rectangular pen.

I don't think it's unreasonable for schools to expect kids to bring their own pens, pencils and so on, but they should be for their own use rather than for a general pool. Then kids who take care of their things can use most of them all the way through school. At my school we had to have our own dictionary, Bible, atlas and hymnbooks (specific editions of each) which we used every year. We also had to have a scientific calculator (from about 6th grade onwards), ruler, protractor, set square, compass, pencils, eraser, pencil sharpener, a few colored pencils, a fountain pen and some blue or black ink or ink cartridges. If we needed ring binders we had to bring our own, but they could be any type. The only new supplies needed each year were a couple of pencils and some more ink cartridges - not an onerous burden even for the least well-off families. Subject notebooks were supplied by the school and were color-coded (orange for math, yellow for English, beige for physics, etc.). We were given one for each subject - when we filled it up, we'd be given a replacement, but if we lost it we'd have to pay for a replacement. For most subjects (at least below 11th grade), we did our prep in them, so the color-coding allowed teachers to see at a glance if someone had turned in the wrong book. We were also given a single rough notebook (the sort that wouldn't take fountain pen) to use for rough work across all subjects. Textbooks were issued for free, but if you lost or damaged one you would have to pay for a replacement. Giving kids access to an unlimited supply of things (either from a shared pool or directly from the school) doesn't teach them to take care of their stuff and make it last. Also, all written work had to be done with a fountain pen (apart from pencil-drawn diagrams where appropriate) and we were taught from the start that you should never lend anyone else your pen or borrow anyone else's as the nib adjusts to your handwriting. Pooled resources and annual replacements don't really fit with that approach as you need to use /your/ pen, not just any pen. Having bought one you like and broken it in, you want to be able to keep using the same one from year to year.

I don't think you need to worry about teaching advanced math at all. If you homeschool right the way through, you can teach them the simple stuff like algebra, geometry and trig yourself, then use community college or a distance learning program for the higher level stuff like calculus. If you don't homeschool all the way through, they'll probably be in school by the time they get to calculus anyway (since, if you're not comfortable with it yourself, you're unlikely cover it with them ahead of schedule). Advanced math isn't likely to come up before college (unless there's someone very math-oriented in your family). If you do happen to find yourself with a kid who runs way ahead of the normal math curriculum, you can either go the CC or distance learning route, just like you might for calculus, or turn him loose with a copy of Kreyszig and see what he makes of it. As for transferring into PS, you have the advantage of knowing ahead of time about the placement exam. Assuming it's taken at the start of the school year, that gives you the whole summer to help them revise whichever level of math they just completed, so that they're not taking the test "cold". As others have mentioned, an integrated math program at home might make it harder to transition to school-based math, so if you think a transfer to PS is likely, choose your math program accordingly - there are plenty of non-integrated programs available, so you should be able to find one that works for you and still allows for a smooth transition to school. It's still a /very/ long way off for you though, so the entire math education system may have changed by then (possibly to an integrated curriculum), as could the PS approach to math placement. Try not to worry about it all too much, but do keep an eye on what's going on in schools so you can adapt your plans if necessary. Alex

I don't have access to most of them and can find sample pages online for only a few. I'm hoping to find some that use nom, acc, gen, dat, abl. Cheers! That led me to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instruction_in_Latin#Order_of_cases which tells me that British texts are likely to have what I want, while American ones use the other pattern. That's good, as the ones I'm most interested in are British anyway (Galore Park), so I'll research those further. I'd like a grammar-based program to use alongside the reading-based one we already have, which is why the order of cases matters as I want them to match. That makes sense in the light of what that article said about which countries use which pattern, given that most homeschool Latin texts seem to come from the US. Thanks everyone, you've all helped me narrow it down very nicely.