We are looking for a microscope too. I had dh check out the one from Sonlight and the one from Home Training Tools and he preferred Sonlight's. HTH Blessings, Pat

Hmm, I have it to use with my dd next year and thought it looked okay. We haven't actually used it yet. I only glanced through it. I like the idea of using Trail Guide along side of it. Blessings, Pat

I am going to respond because I want to bump this up and maybe get a few more responses. I'm just working on 9th grade reading list so this is only a few ideas and these may change. He will be doing Civics and World Geography so some of the titles will be related to that. Geography Kon Tiki Walk Across America Peter Jenkins (Maybe some other titles here) Civics Whatever Happened to Penny Candy Richard Maybury Whatever Happened to Justice Richard Maybury Common Sense Thomas Paine Literature Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson Robinson Crusoe Daniel DeFoe Frankenstein Mary Shelley Never Give In Stephen Mansfield That is what I have so far. Blessings, Pat

Oh boy he is stuck. :001_huh: Hmm, I guess they really should try something else. No help on which one, we have tried Singapore, Saxon, R & S, Miquon, and LOF with my math challenged ds. He didn't like any of them. MUS has been the best we found for him. CLE would be my pick of the ones mentioned, I like the looks of that and it is workbook format, but he would still have fractions to do. I'm not sure CLE would present fractions any differently. :confused: I hope they find the right math for him. I will pray for them. I do know how frustrating it can be. Blessings, Pat

Epsilon is the hardest book in the series. IMHO My ds bogged down about half way through and I was ready to switch him too. The advice here was to work through it and I'm glad we did. He seems to have a good grasp of fractions now. We slowed way down in those parts. I had to sit right by him and show him step by step sometimes. The whole first page of a lesson was usually my writing. MUS doesn't present things you haven't worked up to. So if he is having trouble then they maybe need to step back and review for a while. Maybe as far back as Delta. They have wonderful practice sheets on their website under the drill. Sometimes a break from a sticky concept is all that is needed. Best of luck to your friend and her child. Blessings, Pat

Yep, Michigan requirements are: World History and Geography (1 credit) American History and Geography (1 credit) Government/Economics (1 credit) I always thought this was standard. :001_huh: It was the same when I graduated way back when. Blessings, Pat

I haven't used it yet either, but intend to with ds starting next year. I have the first three modules of algebra all ready to go. As the previous poster mentioned, your child (and you if you can) watch the short lesson, discuss, go over the notes (this is in a separate book), child works half the problems (on paper) in the set (all odd or even), checks it with the solutions manual. If they appear to have a problem. they review the lesson again and can go back and do the other half of the problems. The next day they start with a quiz on the previous days material and do the next lesson with the above mentioned steps. They would do all of Algebra and then move into Geometry and do all of that. From what I understand, there is no way to determine where algebra 1 stops and algebra 2 starts because things are inter-mixed. So it doesn't follow a traditional scope and sequence. After the student completes all of the modules of both programs the author says you can claim credits for pre-algebra, algebra I, algebra II, geometry, pre-calc. I'm not going to claim pre-algebra because it is only one module, not long enough in my mind to claim a credit. As far as if it is for a student strong or weak in math, I have heard it both ways. That it is only for a strong math student, but others have claimed it worked well for a math hater. I hope it is good for a math hater because that is what I have. I picked this one because my ds would not sit for a long lecture, as some of the other programs have. I need to keep it short and sweet for him. HTH Blessings, Pat

Rod and Staff or CLE would be as solid as Abeka. IMHO CLE is consumable. The student works through 10 Light Units (workbooks) throughout the year. It should take about 17 days to complete each Light Unit. Christian Light does have pretty good samples on their website. Also, you can order just one Light Unit at a time if you want to check it out before purchasing the complete grade. HTH Blessings, Pat

It might be too much for a child that age to do the full program , but why not let him help out with the experiments. There are a lot of them in this book. My dd (age 8) loves to help when we do the experiments. Blessings, Pat

Timberdoodle has some forensic science type books. They look to be more comic book type, but might be something your son would be interested in. HTH Blessings, Pat

Totally off the topic of this thread, but have you ever listened to Hank the Cow Dog on tape. They are so funny! Blessings, Pat

I was going to say Around the World in Eighty Days also. How about Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, or Swiss Family Robinson. Blessings, Pat

I would interested in this also. Anyone?? Blessings, Pat

Seeing the age of your child, I assume this is for 9th grade credit? I would give one credit history and one credit English assuming grammar, vocabulary, writing, and literature are part of the English credit. In the next three years you have time enough to worry about beefing up the reading. Just my humble opinion, but you do have a few titles on there that are hs level. It's more than I ever read in high school especially 9th grade. HTH Blessings, Pat

Christian Light Education would be very independent and only in the $200 range and looks to be a decent program. I especially like the looks of the Literature and language arts. I would suggest a different math as CLE's is not dvd type. We have looked at it and our concern was, if the student had a problem there didn't seem to be much support for the math. The rest of the program is open and do. HTH Blessings, Pat

The EG Plus covers each part of speech in more detail. EG Ultimate is set up like EG 2/3 level (pink book). It has one problem on capitalization, one on punctuation, one on parts of speech , one on various topics -spelling, another parts of speech, prefixes, roots, suffixes, clauses, or phrases etc. and the last one is on sentence combining. So five problems a day. I would say EG Plus if your child needs a lot of instruction in grammar. Ultimate if they just need a review. HTH Blessings, Pat P.S. If you go with the Ultimate only order the Teacher's Book. The pages are the same as the student book and the answers are at the back of the book. No real need to buy both student and teachers books.

My Father's World is centered around the Bible. Blessings, Pat

Thank you Lori for your awesome explanation. I like the idea of finishing Biology in 10th and maybe doing an anatomy after that. So then Chemistry in 11th and Physics in 12th (hopefully it works out that way). That would actually give him 4 science credits, but we only need 3 credits here in MI also. So even if he didn't finish out physics he still has all of the credits he needs. Thanks again for your post. Blessings, Pat

I would be interested in this also. Blessings, Pat

Thank you for all of your replies, it has been so helpful. I think we will go ahead and finish the Physical Science for 1 science credit. I wasn't even thinking about the Biology and how that would be even more work. In light of that, we had better take it slower and prepare more using the Physical science book. Thank you so much! Blessings, Pat

Ds has been working through Apologia Physical Science this year for 8th, but will only get about half way through. Should I have him finish the book next year or should he just move on to Biology? He has been doing pretty well with the text, but takes more time with the reading because it is so wordy and science really isn't his thing. If he were to finish next year would I give him credit for it? Thank you for your help. Blessings, Pat

This might fit the bill: Principles, Theories, and Precepts of Biology http://www.timberdoodle.com/Principles_Theories_Precepts_of_Biology_p/570-573.htm'>http://www.timberdoodle.com/Principles_Theories_Precepts_of_Biology_p/570-573.htm'>http://www.timberdoodle.com/Principles_Theories_Precepts_of_Biology_p/570-573.htm'>http://www.timberdoodle.com/Principles_Theories_Precepts_of_Biology_p/570-573.htm and Precepts of Anatomy and Physiology. It is through Timberdoodle under their 9th grade curriculum package. http://www.timberdoodle.com HTH Blessings, Pat

We are using Easy Grammar 2/3. It is a quick 10 minutes for my dd. HTH Blessings, Pat

I'm not sure if this will be helpful for you or not, but I felt that same way when we first used MFW with my ds. We used ECC and then CTG when he was in 2nd and 3rd grades and I felt the same way you have described so we moved to other things. When my dd came along we went back and used the first grade and adventures with her. It finally hit me that our most successful years were the ones in which we had used MFW. So this year both children are doing MFW ECC. We are once again having a very good year. There are several people using MFW that frequent this board that always have some very good advice to share. They may have some ideas about how to make this more what you are looking for. Which year are you doing? What doesn't feel quite right to you? Blessings, Pat

I use Magic School Bus Experiment kits with my dd (3rd grader). She wasn't enjoying the science in ECC. She wanted experiments like her older brother.(He is doing Apologia Physical Science) I do still read the Living World Encyclopedia, but not the Ecosystem book. So yes you can do other science, but I do recommend at least doing the Living World book so you learn about the different biomes. HTH Blessings, Pat