I went through and taped strips of paper over the answers; it was a pain, but I'd rather do that than use Apologia. The labs in my book would not work for chemistry or physics. Here are some of the labs he's done so far: Building a Geologic Column from a Geologic Cross Section Radiometric Dating and Geologic Ages Problems on Contour Lines Problems in Scale Conversion Drawing Profiles from Topographic Maps Geologic Structures on Block Diagrams, Geologic Symbols, and Relative Ages of Formations Relationship of Fault Planes to Fault Traces, Epicenters, and Foci Locating the Epicenter of an Earthquake Spreading Rates on the East Pacific Rise and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge Restoration of the South Atlantic Coastline 50 Million Years Before the Present We still have to get through water tables, glaciers, mass wasting, volcanos, and the big finale, rock and mineral identification. (I just put a big order in at Ward's Natural Science - exciting!) A geology professor at one of the local universities has a web page, and has photos from his class field trips. I printed a list and I keep them in the glove compartment. ;) At some point before the end of the year, we will try to get over to the Big Island of Hawaii to see the volcano. That would be a very nice end to the geology study. :) Also, we've been reading The Roadside Geology of Hawaii. I think there is a book for every state; you might want to check into that for field trip opportunities. We are using How the Earth Works from TTC - bought on sale a few years ago! I love their sales. :D

We both like this geology course. It was easy for me to put together, and he is interested in the subject and is learning a lot. We'll definitely use the same system for astronomy, and perhaps physics. (I'm leaning towards sending him to the CC for biology and chemistry, but only if I can scrape up the money. I think what we're doing is perfectly adequate for high school study.)

We have moved four times during my homeschooling career, and I have never looked at a state's required courses. I'm just using the "four years of each subject" plan. :tongue_smilie:

My son is using the Geology title in 9th grade this year. We actually found it to be too basic to use by itself, but he's one of those bright, self-motivated kids. ;) This is how we are using it: 1. Watch two geology lectures from The Teaching Company. 2. Read a chapter from Geology: A Self-Teaching Guide, answering all questions and completing the self-test. 3. Read the corresponding chapter of Understanding Earth, 4th ed. (my college text). 4. Read/complete exercises from the corresponding section of Laboratory Manual for Physical Geology (my college lab book). 5. Write up any field trips. Next year we plan to use the Astronomy book in a similar manner.

My 9th grader starts at 7:00 and is done with seat work and piano practice by 2:00. (He wakes up early because he likes to keep his afternoons and evenings free.) He is studying: Saxon Advanced Mathematics: 60-90 minutes per day (He watches an Art Reed lecture and then completes a lesson over two school days.) Henle Second Year Latin: 30-60 minutes per day (He more or less follows the MODG Latin III syllabus; when he has extra time he translates a reading from Lingua Biblica.) Athenaze Greek Book 1: 30-60 minutes per day (He takes two weeks to complete each chapter, using both the student book and the workbook.) Material Logic: 60 minutes per day, 2-3 days per week English: 60 minutes per day, 2-3 days per week (Right now he is using R&S English 9, Norton's Essential Guide to Literary Terms, and The Writer's Workshop: Imitating Your Way to Better Writing by Gregory Roper. Occasionally we remember that he's supposed to be doing Vocabulary from Classical Roots.) Great Books: 2 hours per day, 4 days per week (As described in The Well-Trained Mind. He is studying ancient history this year, and is currently reading The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories and watching a Teaching Company lecture series on Herodotus by Elizabeth Vandiver.) Geology: 2 hours per day, 2 days per week (First he watches a few Teaching Company lectures, then he reads a chapter of Geology: A Self-Teaching Guide by Barbara Murck, answering the questions and completing the self-test. Then he turns to my college texts, Understanding Earth and the Laboratory Manual for Physical Geology. We're using my college syllabus at half-speed.) Music: He takes weekly piano lessons and practices for at least an hour a day. He also spends four hours each week with a Shakespearian youth theatre, and likes sailing, scuba diving, swing dancing, and hiking for phys ed.

My 9th grader learned to make outlines with the red Kingfisher history encyclopedia. My 6th grader is using DK's History: The Definitive Visual Guide.

Yes, that's my boy. :001_smile: How did you/he decide to study that? Mostly we chose to study it because it was the next book in the series. :tongue_smilie: Also, studying formal logic doesn't strike me as being particularly useful unless you can apply what you've learned to something worth arguing about, so I was happy to turn from form to substance. What is he learning? Right now he is reading "Idols of the Mind" by Francis Bacon (sections XXXVIII-LXVIII of The New Organon or True Directions Concerning the Interpretation of Nature.) After he finishes reading it, he will answer questions like, "When Bacon divides the Idols of the Mind, what is the logical whole being divided?" and "What are the subjective parts in this division?" and "Fill in the following chart representing the structure of paragraph 2." It seems that he will tear each paragraph apart, looking at structure, meaning, relationship between parts, etc. How is he applying it to life/school? Well, he's able to help people on message boards! That's a good skill to have, right? :lol: And he laughs more often than I do when reading/watching Shakespeare. Honestly, I'm not sure that he is consciously applying it to life or school, but he is beginning to think before speaking, and his writing is slowly but surely becoming, well, tighter. I don't know whether it's the logic or the Latin or the Great Books study, or some combination of the three; I just know I like the results. Oh, and why are you thinking of the Kreeft book? We're considering Socratic Logic because he enjoys logic, and because he has big plans to be a lawyer someday. I figure a little extra logic won't hurt him. :) Also, we're in the middle of the school year, and I don't think he can finish a rhetoric program by the end of the year. (That doesn't matter at all in the long run, but carrying books into the next school year distresses me to no end, so I'd just as soon not do it.)

My 9th grader is using: Saxon Advanced Math Henle Second Year Latin Athenaze Greek 1 Material Logic Rod & Staff English 9 (and other English books) Great Books study as described in TWTM (ancients) Geology (using my college texts and lectures from The Teaching Company) It takes him about six hours a day, plus one hour of piano practice.

I'm not Colleen, but I can tell you how we do it. :) My kids start Traditional Logic 1 the same year they start algebra 1. They spend 20-30 minutes per day on logic, taking a whole school year to work through each book (TL 1 and 2.) We don't follow a schedule; they just stop at a good stopping place and pick up where they left off the next day. They also watch the videos. My son liked watching them after he read each chapter, and my daughter likes watching them before reading each chapter. The books are very well written, and the videos reinforce the written material; I've never had to go to another source to clarify anything for either of them. I do not study along with them; I only check over their work with the answer key. I did have to do some quick reading in TL 2 so that I could evaluate the essay assignments, but it wasn't too bad. My son is now working through Material Logic. He works for an hour at a time, two or three times per week. (He alternates days with logic and English grammar.) He is nearly finished with the book, and now we're trying to decide if he should study more logic (specifically, we're looking at Socratic Logic by Peter Kreeft) or just move on to classical rhetoric. Neither one of them used any logic books prior to TL; I had purchased the Mind Bender books, but wasn't impressed enough by them to make them mandatory. I haven't seen anything else that could be used as a prep book for TL. As to whether or not formal logic study is necessary, I really don't know. I do know that it won't hurt, it might help, and 20-30 minutes a day certainly isn't going to kill us. ;)

He won't be home for hours, so I'm going to take a stab at this. What can I say? I'm home alone and I don't want to fold the laundry. :lol: I don't know how to identify the terms, but if his labels are correct, it looks as though it is PRNI because: M (beliefs that conflict with the Bible) is identical with S (belief that the world was created by chance) P (true beliefs) is not identical with S (belief that the world was created by chance) So, M (beliefs that conflict with the Bible) is not identical with P (true beliefs) Okay, now I'll bow out and go back to the things I understand - socks and underwear. ETA: He's home now, and says that's right. (Oh, how I savor those words. "You're right, Mom.")

I will ask him when he gets home tonight.

We started with Japanese, because the kids wanted to be able to speak to their karate sensei in his language. They soon lost interest and wanted to learn sign language so they could speak to my aunt in sign. (She isn't deaf, but is a counselor for the hearing impaired.) Then they lost interest in that, so I made a command decision and went with Spanish, since I had studied it in high school and college. They fought and fussed and complained, so we went with Latin. I had always wanted to learn it, and besides, it was recommended in The Well-Trained Mind! They quickly lost interest in Latin, but by then I had lost interest in their interest, so we stuck with it. Now it's their favorite subject. :001_smile:

We don't study formal science until high school. My freshman (who is a theatre/Latin/literature lover) is very much enjoying his geology studies this year; he has expressed an interest in studying it further in college. He points out geological features when we're out and about. He initiates discussions about what he's learned. Also, not using a formal science program has not kept him from using my college geology texts and syllabus (along with lighter books and Teaching Company lectures) successfully. In his earlier years, I made everything needed (books, equipment, supplies) for formal study available, I just didn't require that he use any of it. He read books, did projects, kept a nature journal, watched documentaries, and did random experiments as it pleased him (it usually didn't). We also made frequent family trips to science museums, zoos, and nature centers, and we did a lot of stargazing. I used to lie awake worrying about our lack of formal science studies, but if I could go back in time and change anything, I probably wouldn't.

My kid says: The middle term is "beliefs that conflict with the Bible." The predicate term is "true beliefs." The subject term is "the belief that the world was created by chance." None of these terms are synonymous, so they illustrate the Principle of Reciprocal Non-Identity. And he is denying a universal statement, so it illustrates the Dictum de Nullo. I hope that helps; I haven't studied logic myself, so I have no idea what either of you are talking about. :001_smile:

I can never bring myself to review our week until Sunday evening, so I'll always be one of the last posters. :001_smile: Week #14

:iagree: We're from Alaska, and that's what I did! My husband liked to go snowboarding. As far as every day life goes, it is just the same. Nobody stays home just because it's cold outside - you bundle up and go on about your business. I went to school in Fairbanks, and we never had an inclement weather day, not even when it hit -55. My son missed one day of kindergarten in Chugiak because the plows just couldn't keep up with the snow, but that's it.

My kids loved Stardust and Neverwhere. ETA: I don't know what you would consider appropriate; I didn't take issue with either novel, but I'm a fairly permissive parent.

If you don't want him to watch television, don't let him watch television. :) My boy doesn't like playing outside, either. He reads and writes a lot.

My children have worked entirely independently since 5/4.

We have used Saxon math from 5/4 to Advanced Math. My oldest hits a wall every single year, usually around lesson #40, sometimes as late as lesson #70. Every single year, he goes back 10, 20, 30, or 40 lessons, then finishes the book with no trouble at all. (Just last week he went back to lesson 20 of Advanced Math!) I suppose I could say that this means Saxon doesn't "work" for him, but I'm inclined to believe that my son is at fault, not the book. I've always felt that if a child isn't learning, he simply isn't studying hard enough. ;) My youngest has not had this problem yet, but she is still in the early lessons of Algebra 1. So far, so good.

We went with Saxon. My kids are slightly accelerated (9th grader in Advanced Math, 6th grader in Algebra 1) but neither one has even the slightest interest in math. It's just something they have to get out of the way so they can get to the good stuff, you know? Saxon seems to give them what they need to get the job done, but doesn't assume they want to play fascinating math games simply because they're fascinating. ;) (Oh, how I wish they wanted to play fascinating math games! But that's a complaint for another thread.) Since you school year round, and since geometry is included in the algebra books, she would be able postpone algebra until 9th grade (after R&S) and still finish calculus by the end of high school if she so chooses.

My daughter is doing Saxon Algebra 1 now, and she takes about an hour to complete a lesson (that includes making any corrections.) My son, however, took anywhere from two to four hours to get through a lesson, depending on how contrary he was feeling that day. ;)

Name: Melanie age of dc: My kids are in 9th and 6th grades. how long homeschooling? This is our 9th year. have you taught these ages/grades before? Yes. I'm definitely doing a better job this time around, which makes me happy for my daughter, but a little sad for my son. (I do my very best for him, but of course he is my guinea pig.) Do you follow a particular style of education? Our homeschool is as classical as I am able to make it. :) I'm most comfortable with a combination of WTM and LCC. Do you plan to homeschool high school? Yes. As a matter of fact, I'm doing it right now. Any favorite quotes or wisdom that get you through the day? Well, I keep this vodka bottle in my freezer... ;)

My 9th grader spends about seven hours per day on academic work (math, Latin, Greek, English, logic, science/history), about ten hours per week on outside activities (sailing, theatre, piano), and 6-7 hours per week on piano practice. He and his sister are responsible for keeping the public areas (kitchen, living room, dining room, library) of the home tidy. One cleans the kitchen, and the other does everything else. They alternate days, and it takes about 30 minutes from start to finish.

Week #9 is up. :)