I don’t know about the ‘for life’ plan as I have just the annual plan, but do be aware that Plus doesn’t have all of the courses offered by The Great Courses. I love it and find it totally worth the money, but there are other courses I’ve had to purchase separately for dc’s school.

I'm using Understanding Astronomy from The Teaching Company as the main core of the course and will have ds work through Astronomy: A Self-Teaching Guide. I have The Astronomy Book on hand for reference and can also supplement with other Teaching Company videos as I have a Great Courses Plus membership this year, but the main required work will be Understanding Astronomy videos and Astronomy: A Self-Teaching Guide.

Great ideas, ladies! Thanks so much!

I'm still thinking through ds's astronomy course and thought it would be fun to add in a few films. All I can think of are October Sky and Apollo 13. Any other ideas for good astronomy-based films?

Thanks! I found answers on Chegg but for the 4th edition, and I've got the 5th edition. Maybe I shouldn't have waited for that latest edition to come out! Now to decide if I should register with Chegg and hope that the questions haven't changed too much between the editions. 🤣

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I was planning to have him read the book on days that he's not watching one of the GC videos, so he'd hopefully get through a good portion of it over the course of the year. I understand what you say about watching with him and discussing. I had just hoped that this would be one subject that he could do mostly on his own. I'll need to work closely with him on literature and worldview. I had hoped that science would be one of the subjects that didn't require too much of my time. Thanks for your input, though. I'll give it some thought.

Ds asked to study astronomy for his science credit this year. He's a reluctant learner, so I'm happy to follow his lead as much as possible. I have Great Courses Plus, and Understanding the Universe seems to be highly recommended, so I decided to use that for the core of his studies and then learned that Filippenko has a text. I've just received the new edition of it and discovered good comprehension questions at the end of every chapter. I'd like to have ds either answer those questions or do the questions in the guidebook for the GC videos just to make sure that he's paying attention and learning something. I'm just wondering if there is a place to find an answer key to either of those so that I don't have to basically do the whole course myself to find the answers. Any ideas?

Generally, I've kept all of my kids' school work for one year (other than some special things that were kept long-term) in case anyone came checking up on us. But I've kept all of the high school work they've completed. I'd kind of like to make some space for other things and I'm wondering if there's any reason to keep the high school work for my 21 year old. What have you done with old high school school work?

Thanks so much to you all. I've just copied and sent your responses to my friend. Thanks! 🙂

I have a friend who is looking into home educating her youngest who is now 3 or 4yo. She's interested in a Charlotte Mason style education for him. While I did look into it with my kids when they were very young, we ended up veering away from it, so I have no idea what is out there for Charlotte Mason curriculum other than Ambleside Online. I did a quick google search and found Simply Charlotte Mason. Has anyone used that and have an opinion on it? The family lives in Spain, so her access to curriculum is very limited. She can't check for copies in her local library or ask around at her local homeschool group. I'm going to give her my very old copies of Charlotte Mason Companion and Educating the Whole Hearted Child, which have been sitting on my shelf for almost 20 years. (How does time pass so quickly?!) Any other suggestions for her? Thanks.

I think it was one of the previous exams from the National Latin Exam website... https://www.nle.org. It's been several years, so I'm not 100% sure of that. I just had him do a previous exam and graded it myself, so it's not an 'official' exam or anything. Hope that helps.

We live and homeschool overseas, but I don't have any experience with integrating public school grades in a foreign country into a homeschool transcript. But if you are planning on only being in that foreign country for only a few months, I think it would be really doable to make up the credits of the one semester in other school years and summers, especially since it would be quite early in his high school. You could do only core classes in the half-year that you are at home, and it would be easier to squeeze them into a shorter school year. Then you could do some electives over the summers. And then, as others have said, you wouldn't need to include the foreign school's grades on the transcript at all. Another thing to consider, though, is the value of the public school experience as compared with the value from exploring the new country free of a school schedule. Just something to think about.

Thanks for all the great ideas, guys! He’s already read the complete Calvin and Hobbes collection and the complete TinTin collection when he was younger, but most of those suggested we haven’t tried yet, so this is super-helpful. Thanks!

Generally all he's interested in is video games and superhero movies. He's not really into sports. He's not interested in The Hobbit, Harry Potter, or Rick Riordan, but we haven't tried any of the other ones. Thanks!

Ds really dislikes reading and has for the past few years. Because his 'literature' this year is 'movies as literature,' I'm having him read anything he wants for 30 minutes a day, just to keep him doing some reading. But he doesn't even like the books that he chooses. Could you please share any books that your reluctant teen boys have enjoyed? Thanks!