Thank you! I wasn't aware that they did online language classes although I've bought a few items over the years from Currclick. I'm not sure that our summer schedule would work with this class, but if it's offered in the fall that may be the way we go.

Thanks. I've used Pimsleur for French with the kids. Our library doesn't have it in Russian, but they do have another audio, conversation course which I've reserved to look at and perhaps assign as "prep work" over the summer. I'll take a look at the Penguin Course. Thanks!

Would you say that RS Russian 1-3 would be appropriate for three years of high school Russian? Would you say that Russian 1 would be appropriate for 1 year of high school Russian? I don't really want to enroll my 10th grader in CC, especially since I would be solely responsible for his transportation and I have two other children to teach. But in a year or two that might be o.k. Online classes might work too if it's necessary to supplement or do it instead of RS. I'd just like to know how comprehensive RS is.

DS has done Latin since 3rd grade (he's 9th grade now). I insisted that he continue through at least one year of high school to get it on the transcript, but he's truly sick of it and really wants to do something else. All along I figured he'd probably go with a Romance language--Spanish being perhaps the most useful and easily supplemented or French since I studied it in high school and college. But NooOOOooooooo. He wants to do Russian. So I figured Rosetta Stone was probably the most realistic option since I have ZERO experience with it. CC classes are a possibility for perhaps 11th or 12th grade, but to start with, what should I know about Rosetta Stone and what other options are there? I've already checked a few items out from the library, an audio conversational Russian course (haven't picked it up yet and don't remember the name) and some children's books and videos in Russian. When I have studied other languages myself, I found that children's books were very helpful for practice (French, Spanish, Icelandic). This will be for 10th grade, next year, but I'm trying to scout out what's available and get a bit of a head-start on next year. Thanks!

Yes, DS is currently finishing up Apologia Biology. He's in 9th grade and we're just trying to work out the schedule for next year. Without a compelling reason to try a different curriculum, we would use Apologia's Marine Biology, then most likely continue with Chemistry or Physics. But then that brings me to another question. Do Chemistry & Physics need to be done in that order? DS is finishing up Algebra 1 and says he'd like to do Algebra 2 next year, then Geometry, then Trig. Fine, I've heard that some people prefer that sequence, what do I care? But then we learned that there might be an opportunity in two years for him to join a friend in a Physics class taught by a fantastic teacher. If he does Marine Biology this year, then he'd have to miss out on the class unless he takes Chem/Phys in reverse order. I know that this can be done, because I attended a small DOD school that couldn't offer both Chemistry and Physics at the same time and so alternated them each year. For students arriving during a Physics year, they would take Physics whether they'd had Chemistry or not. So I assume it's o.k., but is it more difficult or otherwise less desirable to do it that way? Why does this kid have to do everything out of order?

Thanks for the reply. I asked him and he's thinking of this more as an area of interest to delve into rather than a potential major or career. He will almost certainly continue with chemistry and physics (finishing up biology this year), he just asked if he could do Marine Biology next. We're currently using Apologia and since they have a Marine Bio text I assume I would use that, but am open to other options as well. We would do it as a lab, including dissections. We've covered earth science in the past (2nd grade, 5th grade and whichever of the 7th & 8th grade Apologia books had it) so the structure of the ocean wouldn't be a completely new thing, but of course we'd want to cover it to some extent or the rest wouldn't make sense. Anyway, like I said, I had been assuming we'd do Chemistry next year so haven't really looked into the pros and cons of taking this different order. I like to give my kids a choice in subjects where it's appropriate, but I still have the final say and don't want to allow him to do something that we'll both regret later. On the other hand, I had friends who did Marine Bio in high school and they loved it. All went on to graduate from college and have careers, so obviously it's not going to ruin him. :S

What are your thoughts on Marine Biology in 10th grade, postponing Chem & Phys? I was surprised to hear DS say he wants to do this. He hasn't really expressed much of an interest in ocean life, although I know he enjoys watching Discovery Channel shows like "Blue Planet." Is this something that would be better pursued as an elective? Or maybe as the senior year science class? Just not sure whether to say "It's your choice, enjoy!" or "As your academic advisor I must insist that you follow the regular science progression." Thanks!

I beg to differ. My husband grew up primarily reading via books on tape from the Library of Congress and Recording for the Blind. He has a minor in communications, is an excellent writer, and is an attorney on Capitol Hill. When choosing book, the content of audio books is just as important as books in print. I read aloud to my children all the time. This is practically the same thing as an audio book. DD10 is an aspiring writer. She does struggle with spelling, but is coming along nicely with punctuation and has filled a small bookshelf and a filebox with stories. I won't say they are all suitable for publishing, but they are creative and interesting with a wide vocabulary and an interesting arc. I used to think of listening to books as something less than reading. But after living with my husband for some time, I realized it's not so different. If I insisted that my daughter read The Secret Garden by sight, she probably still wouldn't be finished reading it. But she's read it in audio format several times, as well as all the "Little House" books (several times), all of the Narnia books (several times), Little Women, Harry Potter, Anne of Green Gables, Charlotte's Web and many, many others.

My DD10 was born with cataracts and as a result developed glaucoma which resulted in underdevelopment of the optic nerve in one eye. Because of the cataract surgery (removal of the natural lenses) it's a little hard to give a good answer when asked "What is her vision?" But it's something like 20/200 in her "good" eye and 20/400 in the other one. She's reading and writing, but we do have to get creative sometimes. When she was 2, she insisted on doing school with her older brother, so I printed out tons of coloring pages and worksheets from LearningPage.com. I tried to give her some tactile learning opportunities like foam bath letters and numbers in the tub, and magnetic letters on a cookie sheet. And we got Counting Frogs from Rainbow Resource which she enjoyed. I also found lots of children's books in larger formats. The very large board books are called "Lap Editions" and I've even found some things like the Ramona and Little House books in large print. My husband was also born with cataracts and grew up listening to audio books, so we've always done them in our house, but DD listens to them all the time. DD was comfortable with the format of Saxon math (with the exception of the drill sheets with 100 problems--print was too small) for books 1-3. However the format changes with Saxon 5/4 and the cost of buying a large print text was outrageous ($600!!!) So we switched to Teaching Textbooks. We have a large computer monitor so the lessons are nice and big and easy for her to navigate. And there's an audio component too, with a voice explaining the lesson, then explaining how to do things if she gets something wrong. I'm generally in the same room with her and will step in where needed, but it's working beautifully right now. For Spelling, I asked DH what he thought we should do. He said, "Face it, if she's like me she'll probably always be a poor speller." I wasn't willing to accept that, so we worked a bit extra on phonics even after she was reading to get ready for spelling. Then in 3rd grade we began Phonetic Zoo and it's a perfect fit for her. Her spelling is still pretty bad for words she hasn't worked on, simply because she doesn't have quite as much of that visual component to help her recognize the correct spelling. But I have her read by sight at least a little every day, outside of normal schoolwork. I figure this is a case of "slow and steady wins the race." I used First Language Lessons with my older son and since the first book (FLL 1 and 2) is all oral it worked well for DD too. I wasn't sure about moving to the workbook, but when I had a chance to look at it I was pleased to see that even thought the font size is a bit on the small side, the is a lot of white space between lines. This makes it SO much easier for DD to read the sentences! I do much more reading aloud for her, both of textbooks and story books than I did for my older son. I often give her supplementary history and science books that are really below her reading level because the print size is usually larger. She is required to read by sight at least 20 minutes a day, in addition to regular school work. And like I said, she really enjoys audio books so there are plenty of those as well. I was a little disappointed when I was actively looking for homeschool support for parents of blind and visually impaired kids compared to other groups. There's Blindhomeschoolers.com and another list. But really what I've found is that trying to find large print and audio materials is the best help. DD uses a magnifying glass sometimes, but she gets irritated with it. She has glasses, but she often "forgets" them in another room. We've found that adjusting the lighting helps. Sometimes I'll enlarge things for her on the copier or re-draw charts or things with higher contrast so she can see them better. We just do the best we can. Blessings!

My kids have always loved SOTW. I had a few qualms about not getting to US history right away, but believe me, they will have so much great background on just how we got where we are if you can stick it out through the chronological approach. If you decide to switch, no one will blame you. I remember so worried when I caught a glimpse of the Stanford Test my son was taking one year (not his paper, another student) and saw questions about Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. We wouldn't get to that until 4th grade! But I have my kids for all twelve years and know that they won't just cover it in 4th grade, but also 8th and 12th. They'll really have a good idea of what happened and when and why for every era by the time we're through. Blessings!

Thank you for your response. In the early years I assumed we would have done some online classes by now. But to date I've never felt like the benefit was worth the cost. I guess I'm just not sure what questions to ask about it.

My kids are spaced too far apart for this to be much of an issue. We keep everyone in the same time period, but DS is doing Omnibus (and since we read SOTW during lunch I guess he sort of does that too, but that's not his history) and DD does SOTW with suggested books from the the Activity Guide or WTM list. There might be something to be said for having an older student in Omnibus and a younger student reading some of the same stories in a simpler version. That way discussions could still take place together and you don't have to tinker quite so much to make something fit that really doesn't.

When DS was in 6th grade I noticed that many of the WTM recommended readings matched up with Omnibus 2, so we did Omnibus 2 for 6th grade. I didn't do any of the writing assignments (we use another writing program) but we did do all of the discussions and many of the other activities. (We don't do any of the Biblical book studies since we do our own Bible study.) It worked out really well. When it came to Omnibus 3, however, I am so wedded to the WTM 4-year history cycle that I split Omni into two parts. We did most of the first semester readings in 7th grade and most of the second semester readings in 8th grade. And each year I required a bit more from DS since he was older. And using the WTM reading list, I added other books to fill-out those two years. For this year, 9th grade, I've combined Omnibus 1 and 4, relying heavily on WTM's recommended reading list again. I don't think there's anything magical about doing a particular book in a particular year. I do think Omnibus 1-3 would be rigorous enough for high school. But I'm not sure that Omnibus 4-6 would be appropriate for middle school. And keep in mind that some of the readings do include some topics that you might not wish to cover if they are still young. The Omni books themselves are tools. They even say at the beginning that most teachers will not cover every single text. You can choose to drop some or read others (I've pulled one or two books from TOG's reading list in addition to what we are covering for Omnibus.) There has been some discussion about the views of the editors and particular religious perspectives. On the specifically religious texts, I pre-read the intro and discussion questions to determine whether or not that will be an issue. Sometimes we don't do those books. Sometimes it provides an opportunity for discussion about how our beliefs differ. Blessings!

Hmm, maybe my title isn't catchy enough. Any opinions at all on K-12 Online? I know I've seen it discussed on here before.

Sounds about right.

:lurk5:

I've done it, although this year will be my first at the high school level. We began with Omni 2 when DS was in 6th grade, with my expectations set for what he was capable of, but still requiring a rigorous amount of work. Omni 3 we divided into two years and did almost everything. This year I've combined Omni 1 and Omni 4 so that we'll be covering about the same number of books that is usually included in a single volume. Here's how we do it. I usually try to read or at least refresh my memory of the book. DS reads the introduction in Omnibus, then we discuss it. I do try to follow the discussion questions, but sometimes we just discuss it in the car, comparing it to other books or discussing different characters. Every few sessions there is a Biblical Worldview portion with several scripture citations. Ideally DS reads this sometime before we actually discuss the work so we don't have to stop and look things up (there can be quite a few.) There are some writing assignments and suggested activities which we may or may not do. We did fewer Omni writing assignments in 6ths grade, but I do like to do debates and chart comparisons. I'm perfectly happy doing Omnibus on my own. It would be nice to have more of a variety of discussion with others, but that's really the only thing I would feel like I gained by having DS do Omnibus in a class.

I know this question has been asked and answered many times, but somehow searching for "K12" and "K-12" isn't giving me useful results. A number of years ago I remember K-12 online being launched and then a short while later, developing a somewhat negative opinion of it. However, I don't recall now what my hang-up was. Price comes to mind as an obvious issue, but I cannot recall what people have said about the quality and convenience of it. I've never really been comfortable teaching math and unfortunately, DS seems to have a brain wired like mine is in that area. We are considering an online course for high school math within the next year or two (so that would be Algebra 2 &/or Geometry.) DH and I haven't discussed online options much and yesterday he came home beaming about some great thing called "K-12 Online." I told him I was aware of it and had a slight preference toward The Potter's School or Veritas, but upon reflection, I'm not really sure why that is. Maybe it was more for content-type classes? Maybe it was just that when I first learned of K-12, years ago, the idea of spending $400 on any elementary student class sounded absolutely ridiculous to me. So I guess this is really a two part question. Is K-12 worth it, since DH is uncharacteristically excited about it? And would one of the many other online options be better? Thanks!:seeya:

Oh thank you thank you! I found someone's suggested schedule but it was somehow more complicated than just creating my own. You've made my life easier!

Thanks so much for all the great responses. I'm hoping to look through some of the options with DS this week.

Mostly I've used the WTM memorization suggestions for each grade as a guide. Depending on what history cycle and science we are doing or what other things are going on, we work on the following: Kings of England Presidents of the US 13 Colonies Continents Oceans States & Capitals Layers of the Earth types of clouds order of classification (Kingdom, Phylla, etc.) Books of the Bible Boy Scout Law & Oath AHG Oath & Creed That is in addition to the perennial Bible verses, longer Bible passages, math facts, and poetry (both for FLL & Suzuki violin). Blessings!

Would your DH say that a motivated 14yo could benefit from it working independently?

If after the kids are grown and gone I have the opportunity, I would LOVE to do archaeology. I used to hang around the dig going on at Mount Vernon and watch and talk to the archaeologists while they worked. It was so cool!

When I told people I was majoring in history they would always ask "Are you going to teach?" To which I would reply with wide eyes and a shocked tone "No!" because the idea of managing a classroom of 30 kids sounded absolutely horrible. But it was and still is something I truly love and I don't know that any other major would have been worth my time since I wouldn't have been truly interested in putting forth the effort to earn a degree in it. For about a year and a half after college I was a historic interpreter at Mount Vernon. It didn't pay much, but it was interesting and fun, and I actually did teach probably many thousands of people. I've also done some historic research for a local site and a bit of genealogy for my own family. Neither of those were paid, but there are paid opportunities to be had in those areas if you look for them. Of course now I am the head of the history department at a VERY exclusive, private school--our homeschool :). I actually think history is one of those majors that can work for almost anything. Most people change their careers more than once over a lifetime, so that degree in computer science or education might not be used either once they become an attorney or an entrepreneur or a DOD contractor. But they will have learned something about learning in going through the process of earning a degree.

Free is always a plus. Thanks. I'll look into it. Suz