If we take the summer off my teenagers brain leaks out his ear. We literally lost about 20 lessons worth of algebra by not doing anything between 9th and 10th grade summer!!! So now, we take three weeks off in July/August, and work three day weeks (making four day weekends) in the summer until public school starts, then we go back to mon-thurs full school days. We take vacations over holidays, birthday weeks, etc. but always end up with around 200 days of school in!

We are looking for a secular, thorough science book for two advanced 7yr olds who love science. They ate through real science 4 kids in two months, tried a second grade science book from Pearson that was a total joke (might be good for teaching preK!) and we just received the R.E.A.L. science odyssey earth and space only to find out it's all labs and no information. I'm realizing they want the kind of big dry textbook their high school brother uses, but age appropriate for them... which doesn't exist. Anyone have a thorough text they love? I dont want to piece together, or watch videos, I want an actual organized book :)

I have a 10th grader who just finished physical science and was bored stupid with it. He actually told me he wants something challenging... so I'm trying to find a good biology curriculum for him that won't kill me in the process. I want something challenging, something that has labs and tests that come with it. I cannot write my own tests for biology! I want a secular book, because we have kept his education secular so far and I don't want to change now. I looked at apologia, since it seemed to be a package deal with labs tests and a text, but then I read a lot of families use it as a half year course and thought it wouldn't challenge him (I know it's not secular, but I can work around it). So for Campbells - has anyone used it who is willing to explain how it works? I think he would be interested in the honors level one - concepts and connections. Does it have tests with it, and labs? How do I get the answer keys for the tests? I also school my twin 6yr olds, who are working at a third grade level right now and keep me scrambling for challenging materials to keep them going, so it is hard for me to be grading tests for a subject that I have to look for each answer in the book. I just can't do that right now. I'm so confused, I am very intimidated honestly by all the listings everyone puts on the classes they are teaching! We teach what I took in high school, and I was honors. Some of the lists people put up make me feel like I'm doing nothing! And I laugh every time I read posts here (I have posted once? twice? in years) because I know almost none of the abbreviations people use for curriculum LOL!

Good morning!! I have a few questions, I hope I'm coming to the right place. This forum has been a HUGE help to me over the last two years, and all I do is read other threads! I've been homeschooling for two years, my 13 yr old has wanted to be a dentist since he was 5. We're just starting 8th grade, and for this school year we're good to go - he loves dry big school texts, so we're using Prentice Hall for social studies, literature, and science. It's a great fit. He eats right through Saxon math, he loves it and literally asks to do math first every morning. He's a smart kid, and I don't want to hold him back in high school. I'm still a newbie homeschooling as far as I'm concerned! I have no clue how to justify calling a class "honors", or what the benefit is of finding an AP class to enroll him in (other than having AP on his transcripts). A few friends have finally explained "dual enrollment" to me, which seems to be the answer to my question of how I would ever set up a chem lab in my house for high school chemistry! I live in GA so the bar is set pretty low for graduation requirements, and he really wants me to push him. I am adding a vocabulary class for 8th grade, as well as an SAT prep class. We of course read every day, he chooses a book then I do, we go back and forth. He is almost done with Latina Christiana 1, and adores it but some days says it's too easy. We also use Easy Grammar 6 still, because he didn't know what a verb was when he left public school in 5th grade. My mom does an art program with him, she's a graphic designer so he gets lots of art projects. Am I missing anything major? Can someone help me understand the honors label and the AP classes? I know once 9th grade hits I have to label classes more, no "social studies" but instead "world history" for example. I already write course descriptions of each class, the materials used, final grades, hours spent in each class, and take photos of all of our science experiments and keep examples of his work for each course. I don't plan to go the accreditation route for high school. Thanks for any help you can offer, and if I have posted in the wrong area please tell me!!!

I use this too, and being our first year out of public school my ds LOVES it! It's got a lot of "meat" to it, and isn't too dry :) I was a chem freak in high school, and rs4k really is a week program not a semester even! We tried that and did it in two weeks, with me inserting extra experiments. Thankfully we bought used!!!

Hi All! I entered this thread to see what others are using, I have a son in 6th grade and this is our first year home. I am trying to stay "secular" since that is what his experience has been thus far, and we are surprisingly successful! I am using saxon 76 and he loves it, is doing a lesson a day and just eats it up. I am using a prentice hall life science book and we are enjoying that too! I'm using easy grammar 6, and the unit studies for geography and history. The one thing we are still lacking in is writing. Does anyone have a suggestion for a kid in our situation? The public school gave him just about nothing in the way of language arts education, the grammar has been somewhat painful and slow going. He has written one paper in his school career, and it was one paragraph on Bunnicula... ugh. I'm looking for something to help him learn to organize his thoughts on paper and learn to write paragraphs that flow! Thanks for any advice you can offer, and if I have posted this in the wrong place please let me know - I'm a newbie!!!

I started homeschooling our sixth grader five months ago, and we are ready to study africa as a continent, and historically. I am trying to find a good book for a sixth grader to read about African History, something that doesn't dive TOO deeply into any one subject. We plan to hit slavery as a separate subject at a later date, although we have already talked about it while studying South America and pre-independent America! We found a book that met these requirements on South America at the library, and he ended up renewing it twice and then checking it out again he reread it so many times and loved it! I am having a really hard time finding one book to read on Africa, there are so many that are on specific countries or on specific people... any advice is much appreciated! I did find a great book on Anansi and other stories, but I want a book about the history of the continent and it's people :)

My son was in ps K-5th, we started homeschooling for the first time in July. We chose secular curriculum to stay on a similar path as ps, and he has just flourished. I went to a homeschooling expo, two workshops led by Ruth Martin, and they were very informative. I also read Cathy Duffy's top 100 picks and that helped me a TON! I read a lot of opinions on this forum, and finally chose curriculum to use and found most of it used on various sites and stores. We are doing wonderfully, much to my amazement! Tell your friend to try Cathy Duffy's books, and I agree with the earlier post of talking to the school the child was in - we did and it truly helped me figure out what type of learner my child is. I hope that helps!

We have been homeschooling our 11 yr old for two months now, and are using saxon 7/6. We don't know what the dive cd is, what exactly is it and is it what does it add to the math program? Our son is very math oriented, and is burning through this book. We stopped public school last year (5th) and this entire book seems to be review, but we want to finish it in case he has missed specific concepts (for example he had no clue how to properly align multiplication answers using numbers greater than two digits!). We are going to use the next step in saxon, which is either 8/7 or an algebra book I have seen once or twice. Haven't looked that far ahead yet!!!

One of our twins was crossing his eyes ever so slightly at two and a half, found out he was rather farsighted. Has glasses and is perfectly fine now! I can't imagine anyone telling me to wait to put a child in glasses who needs them - I would so find a new opthamologist, and I agree with the earlier poster who said find a pediatric opthamologist! Our pediatrician offered us the names of three she works with on a regular basis, and they were awesome. Maybe ask at your ped's office?