Woops! I'm not teaching Algebra 1 this year. :-) Just Algebra 2 and Advanced Math. Hopefully I'll get him next year.

If you switch to Saxon I'd be his teacher! :-) I'm happy to take him if WTMA says its OK. :-)

I have twin almost 7-yo boys adopted from the foster system, and one of them has serious impulse control issues. So, I feel your pain. I don't have much great advice other than just to encourage you that the fight is one worthy of fighting! :-) Whenever I think that I can't do this, I know how much worse off he would be in a regular classroom. I know he is learning, it just isn't the FUN journey that homeschooling the big kids was! :-)

This past summer I searched everywhere to find a good resource to use with the What's in the Bible DVD series. When I couldn't find one, I decided to make something up. And, I thought I would share in case someone else wants to not have to recreate the wheel. I don't have any affiliate links on my blog, so I'm not trying to promote anything. I'm also posting Story of the World stuff, but all the WIIB posts are tagged with What's In the Bible. You will need the DVDs and I bought the coloring book, although I think you can download all the coloring pages for free on their website. http://magnumopusacademy.blogspot.com/

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/ http://notebookingpages.com/free-resource-center Here are a couple of great websites to give you some free templates. Notebooking can be ANYTHING that you want it to be! They can be simple with writing and pictures, or you can add lapbook foldables as well. I think of the notebook as a scrapbook of the things we have learned. I include pictures of projects, foldables (that I either design of find somewhere on Pinterest), copywork (or narrations, depending on the age), etc...

It has been a long time since I did grammar stage history. We used the VP timeline song the first time around, but I didn't love it. Wondering if there is anything else out there.

Some experiences from a variety of sources. 1. My son (after being homeschooled from K-9) went half days to public school last year. (I needed to make sure he could perform for other teachers better than he could perform for me before he went to Running Start this year.) I was able to hand-select the courses he took (not the typical 10th grade classes) because I didn't care about meeting the graduation requirements. The counselor at the school was MORE than happy to work with me and my goals. I explained my goals to each of his teachers and they were wonderful about working with me. I was actually surprisingly impressed with the rigor of the courses and the their willingness to keep me in the loop. It was a great experience and he did very well; it was the perfect bridge year before he started college this year. 2. I teach in a 2 day/week public school co-op for homeschooled kids. I find that most parents are happy to be hands off once they know someone else is teaching their child. As a teacher, I wish it was more of a partnership since I only see them twice a week. 3. In teaching at WTMA I find that there is a higher percentage of parents who are pretty directly involved, but many prefer to be hands off. It does take quite a bit of effort to stay involved in the classroom when you are not the primary teacher because (surprise, surprise) the students don't usually give parents/teachers all of the information. :-) I'll be interested to hear your synthesis of this info!

I missed a lot of the great PHP materials when I homeschooled the older two and I've been excited to use them the second time around. One thing I've noticed when I look at all the pieces that fit together (FLL, WWE, SOTW, science, etc...) is that there is a lot of narrations/copywork for all the different subjects. If I am trying to follow each of the curriculum as written my poor little boys will keel over and die. I would love to see (and, maybe somebody has done this and I just haven't been around for a long time) a lesson plan that combines them all so that the writing is streamlined a bit. WTM probably isn't the best place to do this, but my dream would be to have lesson plans using all the pieces like this http://www.memoriapress.com/sites/default/files/products/samples/KindergartenCurriculum_Sample2.pdfbut with all the PHP resources. (I know, I don't want much!) :-) My boys are in K, so you have until September to complete the first grade plans. No pressure!

I have gone out of my way to be patient with them, I've never asked for my money back, I've believed that they would eventually make good on what they promised. But, this is just ridiculous!!! I've never seen such poor customer service. I also understand that they probably can't afford to give refunds, but they should at least be honest with their customers and let us know. I would be MUCH more sympathetic if they actually said that!! I'm officially fed up now and plan on sending them another email. It doesn't matter if I get banned because I'm not able to use the product ANYWAYS!!

We are participating in a virtual co-op, which has been a wonderful thing for us because it forces us to be a bit more organized in our work. They had history on Thursday mornings so all of the reading and questions had to be done by then. Monday was usually a heavy history reading day. Literature class was on Wednesday and so all the reading and questions had to be done by then. I usually give them their reading for the next week early so that they can start early if they need to (although they don't usually start early) Then, on Fridays they complete the maps and take the evaluation. If you are interested in joining a virtual co-op, there is a yahoo group that you can search to see if you can find one on the same year as you.

I haven't read all the responses, so I'm sorry if I repeat. I do NOT regret the rigor in the younger years. It set a tone that when we work, we work hard and when we play, we play hard. I tried to teach them that some things are fun to learn and some aren't (initially). But, it all has to be done. Having said that, rigor does not mean drudgery! We learned a ton through songs and poems and chanting and marching around the room with drums. We did lots of history projects (which gave my kids a love of history that carries over into the hard stuff! ;)) and science experiments. We had fun, but we did school every day. We didn't do long days, but it was consistent. I didn't try to make everything fun (math facts are math facts after all) and they didn't expect me to, but when I COULD make it fun, I tried to. I got excited about the things that they were learning to try and pass that excitement on to them. (Oh, how I wish that worked with teen-agers!!) There were tears at times, and I changed things up that weren't working like I'd hoped, but NOT because of the tears. I changed things that I felt like were too much busy work for what they were learning. I stuck fairly closely (and still do) to WTM philosophy and it has served us well as we have entered Rhetoric stage with dd and almost through dialectic with ds.

I sent a blank version of mine to you.

I have a section on my transcript that says "credits earned before high school" and I list them there with the grades, but I don't factor it into their GPA. I only do this for high school level courses that a college would expect to see on a college transcript. For example, my dd took a high school Biology class as a 8th grader so I put that on there because I would want a college to know that she has had that. I wouldn't put a music credit on there because a college wouldn't necessarily care if she had that.

:auto:Racing down to mailbox now! :001_smile:

When will AP scores come if we don't want to call? I figure I've waited this long, I might as well save the $8 and wait a little longer, but should they come this week or are week looking at 2 more weeks? Thanks!

You just need to click on the blue word "this" and it will take you to the link.

I wanted to continue to up the rigor in 9th grade so, for example, we opted to do AP chemistry instead of just regular chem. My 9th grader had fewer subjects than my 7th grader, but they were much more intense. She really rose to the challenge this year and I was very happy with both her level of independence and her ability to push herself. (let's not talk about the 7th grader, though....:glare:) In terms of outside activities, we have always limited those. Our evenings are family time and we try and not let very many things encroach on that time.

Thank you very much! I will pass these ideas on to her!!

I've always used HST+ and printed weekly lists for them. I'm very interested in the new Well Planned Day online planner because it looks like my kids will be able to access their lists on their i-pods. I love this idea and hope it pans out!!

My daughter took one test her freshman year and she'll take another one this year.

This is our final year for homeschooling because she will be doing Running Start (early college) her 11th & 12th grade years, so I'm transitioning to some online courses where she will be accountable to teachers other than me. :-) (Can someone please tell me how the last 10 years have gone SO FAST?!?!?!) Pre-calc (online class) TOG history and lit-year 2 (with a virtual co-op) AP English Language (online class) Biology (online class) AP Spanish (studying on her own) Fine Arts-theater and music lessons

I can see that I've been out of the stage where I pay attention to phonics programs for awhile. What is LiPS? :-)

TOG has been GREAT for us for the logic and rhetoric stages but I wouldn't have given up my four years with SOTW for anything! It gave my kids a foundational love for history that has continued as it gets less fun and more intense. :-) I didn't find it at all difficult to incorporate our world view into SOTW-it just comes up naturally in discussions.

I would DEFINITELY have her work off the cost of camp and gas. And, I agree with tomato staking-when teens pull away I believe we really need to pull them back to us, even when it is the LAST thing they want (or quite honestly the last thing that *I* want. :glare:)

Those ideas are all way cuter than what we did. I just attached a long piece of rope across the room (near a wall) and used clothes pins.