Thanks, Karri. I hadn't seen that website--that will be helpful! Were you able to find a 9th edition lab book or are you just going with the 10th? I haven't ordered one yet but I figure I can make the 10e work.

I'd like to know this, too. I picked up a used 9th edition with a practice workbook but no TE. I've been looking with no luck--I'm afraid we're going to have to muddle through without it. Karri, do you have a lab book?

I agree with what others have said about English. My ds spends more time on English than his other subjects, but I am just giving him one credit--he does a great books reading list, writing about the great books, vocab for the high school student, and A Beka grammar & comp. However, I would give your ds a whole credit for P.E. It sounds like he is spending about 2 hours a day running and biking. If you want to add a reading element (ie reading a running magazine or a bio of an athlete) you could, but I wouldn't have a problem giving 1 credit for a year of keeping up that exercise schedule! I also think a drawing elective would be good. I'd go ahead and start it at the beginning of your school year and see if he can keep up. If you need to drop it until second semester, then go ahead. I have a 14, almost 15 yo ds who is now still finishing up a bunch of Latin and chemistry that he didn't get done on schedule, so I know what you mean about not using time wisely. :tongue_smilie:

Can you leave the big kids at home and just take the littles to class day?

Why don't you want to buy from the publisher? I've had excellent customer service from them (and I've never seen it discounted anywhere!)

I teach the Accelerated Reading program at Sylvan Learning Center. It is taught in small classes and runs for 12 hours--usually 2 hours twice a week for 3 weeks. Typically students will double their effective reading rate (ERR = speed times % comprehension). If you have a Sylvan in your area I highly recommend this program.

9th grade history was a struggle for us this year. I had hoped to do ancient history using Susan's new book, but due to the availablility of a Great Books class that was on year 4 of the cycle this year (9th) and for various other reasons we ended up doing government. Next year the class goes back to year 1 and I plan to try again with the ancient history. On ds's transcript I think he'll have: 9th - U. S. Government 10th - World History I: The Ancients 11th - World History II: The Medieval World 12th - U.S. History or World History III: Modern Times He'll probably also have Economics as a social studies elective. Our whole 9th grade year looked like this: English - A Beka grammar & Comp, Vocab for the High school student, and the aforementioned Great Books class. Geometry (Jacobs) Chemistry (The Spectrum) Latin I (Latin in the Christian Trivium) U. S. Government (using AO Lifepacs, founding document of the US, and various reading & writing assignments that I made up--we also incorporated Boy Scout citizenship merit badges, and a mom at co-op will be doing a civics/election unit in the fall--I figure all together this is plenty for a credit) Logic (Traditional Logic I and II) Journalism (1/2 credit) - elective at co-op

Have you considered Susan Wise Bauer's History of the Ancient World? I don't know if you're planning to to ancients for 9th grade (ie with a Great Books study a la TWTM) but this is a great narrative history. I think Middle Ages is supposed to be out in 2009. These do not have essay ideas but they are interesting narratives with analysis--kind of a grown-up Story of the World.

Try this link http://beginningspublishing.com/ChemSupply.htm Another option that might save you hassle and money is to just buy the "renewable" supplies kit (including pre-measured chemicals) from Beginnings Publishing and use your own "durable" supplies--beakers and syringes and stuff that you already have. Having done The Spectrum this year with my ds, one of the huge benefits of this program is that the kit is all there and ready to go. If I had to go through each lab and figure out what we need and where to get it it would have cost me a great deal of time and frustration and I'm sure we wouldn't have done all the labs.

When my ds did Foerster I made him do the whole book b/c he was in 7th grade and I was trying to slow him down. ;-) However, other ds who did Jacobs skipped a couple chapters b/c we needed to get done & move on. So, I'm not opposed to the practice when necessary. In Foerster if I were on ch 10 and wanted to finish quickly I'd skip chapters 11 (more operations w/ polynomials), 12 (rational expressions) and 14 (functions and advanced topics) and just finish ch 10 (exponents) and then do ch 13 (radicals) and call it good. I put in the topics in case your book is a different version and has the chapters arranged differently. Good luck!

Ds just finished 7th grade on Monday (yay!) We loved Rainbow Science--I highly recommend it. We've done A Beka grammar for years but next year are going to start Analytical Grammar. I've already read through it and I'm excited to do something different than A Beka. Ds will be happy to have less writing and fewer sentences to diagram! With my older one I used Apples spelling--it is good remediation for an older student that struggles. For my younger we finished spelling in 6th (used SWO for years) and went to a vocab study. I used Amsco's Scholarship vocabulary program books I and half of II in 7th, will finish level II and do level III in 8th. Vocab from Classical Roots is another option.

I have a BA in math and secondary ed certificate in WA. In my opinion, Keys to Algebra is not a full algebra I program. I might use it with a struggling student in a remedial setting, but only if I expected them not to go on to higher math than geometry or consumer math. Also, I wouldn't skip algebra II. I might skip pre-calc if a student had done a rigorous algebra II with trig--then go right to calc. Just my 2 cents. I'm not very familiar with TT so I won't comment on that as prep for calc.

Chris, I PM-ed you.

I don't like Apologia either. Science-lover ds did/is doing: 8th - A Beka Biology 9th - Spectrum Chemistry 10th - Conceptual Physics (next year) 11th & 12th - probably Microbiology and other sciences at the cc, or else AP sciences at home using texts recommended by the college board. Non-sciency ds will do BJU Physical Science in 9th and then A Beka Bio and Spectrum Chem in 10th & 11th.

When my kids take the ACT the first time during their 10th or 11th grade year they will not do the essay. At this point they haven't decided on colleges to apply to, but the ones I've looked at so far don't require the essay. I think the personal, untimed essays the kids write as part of the application process are more meaningful to colleges. If ds decides to apply to a college that requires the ACT essay later on, he can always retake it.

I think it has to do with the difficulty levels of the questions on each test. It was explained to me that it equalizes the scores of students who take the tests on different dates, but I really don't see why it matters. :confused:

Thanks for the feedback!

I just looked in my Bridge Math Teacher's Helper to refresh my memory. There are 19 lessons, and they are intended to be done one lesson a day, three times a week (taking less than 7 weeks). My ds, the king of procrastination, managed to drag it out for several months. You can do Bridge math concurrent w/ Spectrum Chemistry; your student doesn't need to finish Bridge Math before starting Chem. In fact, in the notes from Dr. Dobbins, he said that some students who have only had pre-algebra have done fine. The algebra used in the course requires basic manipulation of algebraic equations w/ exponents. HTH!

Oh, Jenny, congrats to you and "RobotBoy." My 12 yo is done today (Woohoo!) but 14 yo has another month of things he's procrastinated. I'm so grouchy with him about it! I just want to be done, lol.

I don't know whether to call it an essay or a report. 7th grade ds did SL Core 5 this year for history/lit but finished reading all the books by March, so I added a number of other books. One of the SL books was a simple biography of Genghis Khan. When ds had finished all his other books he mentioned that he would like to read a more detailed bio of GK, so I picked one up at the library. When he finshed it I asked him to do some project related to GK. Build a model of a yurt, write a letter to or from GK, I don't remember all the ideas I gave him, but he wanted to write about GK's early years. This child is an excellent (fast!) reader, but has struggled with writing from the get-go (he has always been homeschooled) and this is the longest paper he has ever written. It took him 2 weeks. I am almost ready to say, for the first time ever, he may be writing at grade level. What do you think? (I didn't give him any help, all editing was self-editing, and I haven't given him any feedback yet.) Genghis Khan Essay Genghis Khan is one of the ancient world’s most influential conquerors, yet almost no one knows about his upbringing, before he became the conqueror. In this essay, I am going to reveal to you the hidden secrets of his past. Unlike most great conquerors, who usually inherited a large kingdom, Genghis Khan started his role as leader with a group of eight. His father, Yesugei, had been poisoned, and the clan they had been tied to had abandoned them. His family had to live like animals, eating whatever they could find. They had become the lowest of the low. Soon after, another clan, the Tayichiud, hunted him down for trespassing on their lands. They took him captive and turned him over to be a slave of their slaves. The captives of the Tayichiud, unlike the Tayichiud themselves, gave him sympathy and comfort. They then allowed him to escape. Soon after he escaped the Tayichiud, at the age of sixteen, Genghis Khan married Borte, who was eighteen at the time. By the tradition of the tribes, a new bride takes a gift to her husband’s parents, and Borte bought a cloak of black sable. Genghis Khan, because his father was dead, decided to give it as a gift to revive an old friendship of his fathers. He gave the cloak to Ong Khan, who was khan of the powerful Kereyid tribe. Soon after Genghis Khan married Borte, she was kidnapped by the Merkid tribe. After she was captured, Genghis Khan enlisted the help of his new friend, Ong Khan, and raided the Merkid village, taking Borte back. After he got his wife back, Genghis Khan and his small following joined the camp of a man named Jamuka, who was Genghis Khan’s age and his anda. An anda is a sworn brother of a person, when Jamuka and Genghis Khan became andas; they were swearing to be brothers forever. Soon, however, Jamuka began to treat Genghis Khan more like a younger brother, not as an equal, and this was unacceptable to Genghis Khan (surprise surprise). He then split with Jamuka, and a large number of Jamuka’s warriors decided to follow Genghis Khan. Now that he had a following of his own, Genghis Khan decided to try to unify all the Mongols together. When he decided to unite all the Mongols, Genghis Khan was not uniting all the tribes of Mongolia, the Mongols were just one of the tribes of that area. The Mongols were one tribe; they were just split into many different groups. Over the following years, Jamuka and Genghis Khan each acquired a following of families and clans in a shifting balance of loyalties; yet neither was able to unite the Mongols into one tribe like the Kereyid, Tatars, and Naiman. After a few years, Genghis Khan summoned a khuriltai of the Mongols, as he wanted to elect himself as Khan of all the Mongols. A khuriltai is a summoned meeting among the tribes, set up by one person or group. Usually the caller of the meeting wanted to elect himself for something, in which simply showing up was a vote for the person and not showing up was a vote against the person. In this particular meeting, a sizable number of people came, so Genghis Khan now had the title of Khan of the Mongols. However, he was Khan in name alone; there were still many groups, such as Jamuka’s, who would not accept him as Khan. Ong Khan, though he seemed to support Genghis Khan, sometimes supported Jamuka in their conflicts in an effort to keep the two of them fighting, so that neither would threaten his power. Genghis Khan then tried to put himself as Ong Khan’s successor. He sent a letter to Ong Khan, asking him if he would let Ong Khan’s daughter marry his son. Ong Khan however, saw Genghis Khan as a common upstart; so he decided to say yes to the request, yet he planned to attack Genghis Khan once he was at the place of the wedding. Fortunately, Genghis Khan was told by a loyal follower of the betrayal, and fled. After he fled, Ong Khan threw a party, believing that Genghis Khan was far, far away. Genghis Khan, however, was actually racing towards the party with his army. Ong Khan was overthrown, and he fled alone, only to be killed later by the Naiman tribe. While Genghis Khan was fighting Ong Khan, Jamuka and his people joined the Naiman tribe, who where the enemies of Genghis Khan’s next campaign. Genghis Khan attacked the Naiman because their queen despised the Mongols as dirty, smelly savages. When he fought the Naiman, Genghis Khan again showed his incredible tactics. Because the Naiman had more soldiers than him, he ordered each of his soldiers to light five fires one night; thereby making his army look much, much bigger. He then spread rumors to embolden his own men and shame the Naiman. When he fought the last big battle, he used three different tactics to confuse the Naiman. First, he separated his army into groups of ten, and these groups went silently to attack the enemy and retreat before the Naiman knew they were there. Next, his army spread out into a long, thin line, forcing the Naiman to do the same. Then, when the Naiman where spread out, a reserved force that was not very wide but extremely deep attacked one point of the Naiman line, breaking through it. After he had beaten the Naiman, and Jamuka, who allied with them, Genghis Khan had now united all of the Mongol clans together. Jamuka was the last clan leader to oppose him. After he became the Khan of the Mongols, Genghis Khan went on to do his infamous, gargantuan conquests. However, that is another story, this one ends now. If you want to know more on Genghis Khan, I suggest you read Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, by Jack Weatherford.

My ds is finishing up The Spectrum now. He did algebra last year (using Jacobs) and did Geometry this year. We did do the Bridge Math book--I highly recommend it. Students should have good algebra skills coming in, but the "science math" is just a little different and Bridge math helps them learn to apply what they learned in algebra specifically to science problems. In fact, I plan to have ds do Conceptual Physics next year and I think the bridge math will carry over and help him with the necessary problem solving in that as well. Spectrum is not easy--my ds who likes science (biology is really his thing) found it difficult at times, but also very interesting, especially the labs. He's got another month or so to go before he finishes.

Related question--do you keep your own planner of what you want your teen to accomplish (ie teacher's lesson plan book) and have your high schooler keep a planner of his work and activities? Or do you only use one? If only one, who mainly keeps it?

Laura, thank you so much for taking the time to write such a detailed critique! I have HTRAB on my shelf, along with WEM and several other books about literature, and I've been debating the value of using HTRAB next year as part of our lit study. I've read about half of it and I was feeling like I didn't want to make my kids read the whole thing--our time is so short and I think you summed it up very well in your last sentence. I appreciate how you related its value in your research process. I feel better about sticking with WEM and Invitation to the Classics for next year.

Our local high school uses Lial's Trigonometry.

Rosie, I really hope Kelly in TN will chime in, because she recommended a book about the Bible that has been used in public schools. I believe her dd used it and I know she really liked it. Obviously it is written from a secular pov but gets praise from Christians for being very accurate. I wish I could remember the name of it! Maybe if she doesn't answer you could PM her.