I just need to post a quick thank you! I haven't been on the boards for a couple months due to just life and busy-ness...but last night I was prepping my 10th grader for her visit to the local public school for the PSAT today. She is prepared as she can be for content but then I recalled something on here about school "codes"...not sure what triggered it, but I knew I could come here to find out everything I could ever need to know about this test. So I logged on, typed PSAT in the search and there it was... Janice in NJ's blessed PSA about the PSAT, plus numerous other reminders about the cursive statement, etc. This community is such a wonderful gift. I quickly found the state code, and I was able to walk my dd through the form-filling process, thanks to the link to the proctor guide. Wow...she feels ready and confident. This is as it should be, of course, but sometimes there is just a little extra research and work to get there. SO, before leaving this morning, dd says to me, "Homeschool moms just seem so much more well informed than everyone else. You guys really know what's going on. What other kid would have seen the proctor guide online before the test to know what to expect today?!" Yup... and I gave credit to the hive for that lifeline. Thank you all, especially Janice in NJ, whose posts have given me hope on my high school journey and kept me informed more times than you will ever know. Have a great Saturday! Melissa

My 9th grader is actually on the year 4 leg of this journey due to our schedule in previous years. She is a musician first, which is quite time consuming, and so we have streamlined the quantity of history reading a bit and made literature the focus since it's her favorite subject after music. For "fun" she has been working through Beautiful Feet "History of Classical Music" on the side. Otherwise, she is following TWTM history reading recommendations alongside the literature, especially Tindall's "America: A Narrative History" and "Idiot's Guide to American Gov't". We do not have time (nor inclination) to pursue all the other Teaching Company lectures and things that I would personally love to be doing but that might send this child over the edge. ;) What she has read for Y4 Great Books, taken from lists in TWTM, and mostly self-selected: The Rights of Man (portions) Selected Primary Sources from Fordham website Pride & Prejudice Selections from Poe Jane Eyre The Scarlet Letter Great Expectations Gettysburg Address Short Stories (from IEW's Windows to the World listings) Huck Finn (currently) Coming up this spring: Up from Slavery Poetry selections from R. Frost The Great Gatsby Their Eyes Were Watching God Our Town (maybe) Animal Farm (maybe) Mere Christianity The Crucible (maybe) An Elie Wiesel book for perhaps The Book Thief Not sure about the spring readings yet. I would also like to incorporate other readings but have yet to prepare for that. I am continually impressed by the research and additional information many of you provide your children with in GB studies. In fact, I almost didn't post because I sense that our list is not as adventurous or global as some others may be. BUT, my dd is loving her reading, writing well on her literature and history topics, and we have very enjoyable discussions...all part of what I want her first of year of high school work to include. I'd be interested to hear about what other Modern History resources you have used or plan to use, and what literature you would select. Thanks for the thread! I am bookmarking for next year when we come back around to Ancients and are making some tough choices on what to tackle.

We may be busier society in general, but I am constantly re-assessing our family needs and interests and opting out of activities and options. I just need to know when it's too much for OUR kids and stick with that. Some people are energized by more activity while others are energized by doing less. I err on the side of more activity but I have a child who needs less and I work to provide that environment for her. As for home projects, ick. My mom feels like cleaning is the key to happiness. I do not feel like this at all and would rather ignore the dust while reading a book...every time. Ha!

Great thread, and I did relate some of your responses to dd14 today. She was not too surprised to hear others have minimal time too and I think she felt reassured in a way, so thank you for starting this conversation. I think dd has more time available to her but she is still learning time management and currently has the illusion of "no time" when in reality I think she probably has an hour or so each day tucked into the schedule but it gets lost because of her slow pace. That being said, she is also involved in a couple of intense self-chosen activities (cello & piano) that we support. She does find peace and relaxation in these and will likely pursue music in some form as a career, so these feel like free time to her on most days. Even when it's work and learning, she loves it. On average that's 2-4 hours a day between practice, orchestra, and private lessons. At this point, I see this as part of the specializing aspect of high school. I am glad that her free time is spent at the piano or studying theory "for fun" rather than being online, gaming, texting, or watching TV though those are not forbidden activities in my home. She simply doesn't choose them and I suspect that if she finished her math or writing early she would sit at the piano, by choice. Yay! On weekends, she usually has a bit of homework left over from the week, music practice, church activities, family time, and then often has time to spend with a friend too. Feels fairly balanced most weeks.

Dd 14 wants a wool pea coat from Delia's...she is getting that for certain. It's her only real request and it's pricey enough that it's her only significant gift. iTunes gift card for stocking, funky socks, plus a kitchen gadget or two. Other years we've gotten her yarn for her new knitting hobby, or tix to an event or concert. My husband gives all the girls a "date with Daddy" gift certificate and they LOVE planning this with him. It becomes a future gift that involves a personalized outing. I love this idea and so do they. The first year he did it they were not sure what to do but now the certificate he makes for each of them is something they look forward to and the 14yo has really gotten creative with her requests!

We are just beginning this journey with our oldest. Except for science, I am using essentially all of her SWB's recommendations for high school and my 9th grader is loving it, especially the Great Books portion. She was thrilled to not be doing a traditional text book for history, and while it is a bit harder for me to acquire and schedule the readings we choose, it is worth it so far. We have some bumpy areas to work through but looking at the big picture I'm very happy with everything we're doing. Check back with me in mid-February and I'll let you know how things are going. ;)

Thank you Lecka for your very helpful reply. I'm making quite a list on the library inter-library loan system so I DO appreciate your suggested reading! And I like your ideas about pre-reading activities in the content areas to build background knowledge and can see a lot of applications that might help us. She is very visual I'm finding, and while I usually save the more "fun" picture books for after our core readings, I think it would be wise to use them first and I have no idea why I couldn't have thought of this before!! The vocabulary is a big piece and I can already think of some easy ways to introduce these tough words ahead of time...thanks for that tip. This is a particularly tough issue with science. She likes the Apologia "exploring creation" books (b/c she does them with her big sister) but they are SO wordy I think we might find more success with something else... Thanks again for taking the time to share so much detail!

I appreciate the different points of view on what to do first, and I'll use all of that to ask some questions when I start trying to make calls & appts. I still don't know yet what our insurance would cover, but I am hopeful that the area we live in will lend itself to finding good help. It's funny to me that there seems to not be a clear path between the work of a neuropsych and audiology and which comes first, so I'm guessing that coordinating these two to facilitate their ability to analyze dd will be critical to getting to the bottom of this. I'm starting some different reading activities with her right away to work on phonemic awareness because it seems to be an area that I can pinpoint a concern and work on some things at home while we sort out the diagnosis stuff. To be honest, I hadn't given much thought to ADD until some of the replies came in, because I've assumed her inability to follow multi-step instructions was a memory issue...I'll have to do some reading about this too. And dyslexia was not on my radar b/c I have no experience with this...I'm learning a lot here already! Has anyone read "The Mislabeled Child" and have feedback about its value? Meanwhile, I'm reserving all your other recommendations at the library. Thank you ALL for your thoughtful suggestions and speculations...it gives me more to work with so that I can do some reading on my own and feel more confident that what I'm seeing IS worthy of follow-up. And honestly it's comforting to know that others have experienced (and survived) these moments and have found working solutions for their kids.

I've never drawn out multi-step tasks, but my guess is that it might work and I'm going to try it today. When I have her repeat them to me, she does often miss the last one, so I restate everything and have her restate it and she can sometimes do this. But when it comes to doing the tasks, she still occasionally forgets the last one, but this is less frequent when she can verbally restate them successfully. Thanks for your input!

Thank you Kelli & Crimson Wife! I appreciate this input and will do a little reading on the tests and potential problems you both mentioned. I'll also do a little insurance co. research and see what's covered before getting in too deep. Glad it might not be too late. She's 8 and I think if I can get a pediatric visit in this summer, I'd like to put the ball in motion on this, while learning as much as I can as fast as I can! Thank you both...I appreciate you taking the time to reply!

Hi, This is my first post on the special needs board and I'm sure that with some guidance I could find posts related to my questions, but I'm not sure what to search for yet. Your help is appreciated! My youngest is the first to have any real trouble learning, and I feel like I've made her wait longer than I should have to recognize this...Her older sisters are both excellent students, with one working far above grade level. This scenario has had me second-guessing my gut instincts that my youngest is struggling...basically I have worried that I was subconsciously comparing her to her sisters. "Maybe she's just more 'typical' and the older two are too advanced to compare, and I'm just comparing accidentally?" Well-meaning friends have helped cement that idea for me, until now when I realize I may have lost some time. As we approach 3rd grade, I'm realizing that my gut was probably right...she is not ready to move from "learn to read" into "read to learn" AT ALL and there are multiple other issues as well that are now seeming more pronounced, including: inability to rhyme properly (she thinks "beak" rhymes with "eat", for ex.) has never been able to pronounce the letter 'r' well (though we live just north of Boston where it's 'normal') wild guesses at spelling, esp. for vowel sounds comprehension issues with fun "easy" books HUGE comprehension issues with content area that I read to her (SOTW and science) seemingly distracted and slow-moving when it's time to write anything, including copywork (spaces out instead of getting to work) can't follow multi-step instructions requires months of prompts for memory work and she often feels like every time is the first time (like FLL parts of speech definitions) makes lots of mistakes on work where she has to read a short set of instructions on her own These are just some highlights of my concerns but I can't even begin to figure out what kind of general area they may "fit" into, if that's even possible. I had similar "nothing is sticking" feelings with math until we switched to MUS and it's like a lightbulb went off...is the blocks? the videos? Mr. Demme? At her last well-visit I had a suspicion of hearing issues and the simple in-office screening showed no problems whatsoever, and was therefore discounted. I also had a pedi opthamologist look at her eyes (she has a freckle near her iris that gets looked at every 2 yrs) and asked her to look into the fact that dd squints ALL the time when reading or writing. They found NOTHING wrong...'she must just do that out of habit'. SO I'm guessing I go back to the pediatrician first, but now that I feel confident that I'm looking for more than basic eye/ear tests, what am I actually asking for? A referral for auditory issues, speech, language, memory? I'm not sure what to ask for and I am concerned that being ambiguous will result in a hesitant response from the dr. (fwiw, if this were to happen, i'm open to changing docs) I'm looking for a roadmap if that's possible, as well as some helpful resources for me to begin researching. I want to be able to help her before her frustration level increases...I feel horrible about putting this off for so long and second-guessing that feeling I've had. Thanks for reading and for offering any support you can,

I understand you completely and agree that it is okay...I will even go so far as to say that is appropriate and good!! I believe there is a difference from playing the "poor me" card and just being real, in a gentle way. My kids realize that when we go to dance or music or anywhere that involves me sitting & waiting, I am doing just that, sitting and waiting for them...they noticed early on that it might be boring for me. This gave me the chance to explain that I bring them to these activities out of love for them and their interests, but sure...I could be getting other things done at home and wouldn't just sit there for fun. ;) Sounds like you are already trying to strike a balance that seems healthy. FWIW, we are a Dave Ramsey family (on year 4 of 4 on our debt-free plan) and the sacrifices involved with this are something we are very open with as well. The point is, I don't want my kids to think the world revolves around them (because it doesn't!) and these discussions work to that end. Good luck & try to enjoy the vacation by delegating some of those duties! ;)

:party: Congratulations to all of you--what a fine example of perseverance and hard work in the face of great challenges. SO much to celebrate at your house today! Melissa

Hi, I have no answers for you but I know that it has been discussed here before...you might try a search for "Notgrass" or even a tag search and I bet you'll find all kinds of info. Good luck!

I was in Hartford (and got to meet you :D and get my TWTM signed!) and I can see where you may have had some time for browsing the hall without 'fighting the crowds'... My vote is for 1 yr American History because it's something I've tried to add in on my own as we get to Yr 3 and 4...I beef up some weeks with additional American history and at some points in these two volumes I skip or just skim quickly through certain chapters of more obscure events so that we can dwell longer on the American history chapters and add in additional readings and research. If you were to write such a resource, I'd likely use it in a similar way though, condensing what I deem to be the most important parts of SOTW 1-4 and using the 1-yr American History resource in the appropriate chronological gaps so that it still only takes 4 logic stage years to complete it all. I would use it as a supplement to the current 4 books. My alternate vote would be for a 4-yr logic-stage world history program that has a more in-depth American history component so that I wouldn't be juggling the two programs as described in the previous paragraph.

Working at catching up...I'm reading several books at once (they are all in different places for convenience!) so when I catch up I'll be close to on track. :) Currently reading: Eat, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss...FUNNY! Galloway's Book on Running by Jeff Galloway...almost done. Love his run/walk technique. The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag (audio) by Alan Bradley...Flavia Mystery #2--cute & fun to listen to. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson...this is a nightstand read. Finished in 2012: 1. Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone (audio) by J.K. Rowling 2. The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society (audio) by Annie Barrows 3. My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok 4. All the Pretty Horses (audio) by Cormack McCarthy 5. The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen 6. Bossypants by Tina Fey 7. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (audio) by Alan Bradley 8. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger 9. Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets (audio) by J.K. Rowling 10. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield 11. 1776 by David McCullough 12. The Calligrapher's Daughter (audio) by Eugenia Kim 13. Running & Fatburning for Women by Jeff Galloway (I'm back in pursuit of a 5k and several months in to a weight loss plan)

This completely cracked me up tonight--thank you! I think I related just a little *too* much so it hit home. I'll start looking for this book...

Wow. I never thought I'd be posting on a 9th grade thread on the HS board! But alas, here we are!! My plans at this point, though I am still researching & thinking: Math Finish Alg 1 (til Oct. maybe) & then Geometry, MUS w/ LOF supplement Science Apologia Biology Grammar R & S English 9/10 Book One Vocabulary from Classical Roots Writing Have been using SWB rec's and will continue via Great Books/History. Rhetoric study (maybe?) Lively Art of Writing (maybe?) History & Literature "Year 4" 1850-present. Great Books study with Spine to be determined. Windows to the World (maybe) Language Spanish I using VLACS, our free state virtual learning academy Music--this child's LOVE Piano Cello/Orchestra (at the PS--excellent program) Beautiful Feet--History of Classical Music (ongoing independent project study) Extras (no plans to award credits) Bible Study Dance--tap & ballet Piano Teaching--5 young students to plan for & teach weekly It's good to type all of this out and see how it looks. I'm excited to finalize everything and get started, and I know dd is as well.

Just wanted to chime in to say that I'm in the same boat and I feel your pain!! My oldest is finishing up 8th grade and it has me up at all hours researching, compiling, thinking, and considering the hundreds of options that I need to somehow boil down to a workable plan by September!! Seems impossible... Right now, I'm working on a simple filing system to house all the great ideas I find so I don't spend all this time online reading and searching, only to forget where to find them again and doing all the work twice. For years I have relied on this board of wise parents who have gone before us, and I suspect it will be a helpful place to be for this new season of homeschooling as well. This high school board has been my visiting place of choice in recent weeks and I am astounded by all the helpful advice being shared here. So grateful!!

Been away from the boards for a while but still reading, though not as fast as I would have hoped. Working at catching up. Have never finished 52 books in a year before, but I'm hoping that my summer reading will get me ahead since I typically read more than a book a week during that time. I'm currently reading The Calligrapher's Daughter by Eugenia Kim and love it! I'll finish it today (#12). Just started Girl with the Dragon Tattoo but not sure I'll like it enough to stick with it. Finished in 2012: 1. Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone (audio) by J.K. Rowling 2. The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society (audio) by Annie Barrows 3. My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok 4. All the Pretty Horses (audio) by Cormack McCarthy 5. The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen 6. Bossypants by Tina Fey 7. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (audio) by Alan Bradley 8. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger 9. Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets (audio) by J.K. Rowling 10. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield 11. 1776 by David McCullough All your book lists are an inspiration! Good to be back!

Congrats! This is amazing and I loved reading the personal conversation--I have many like that right now as I aim to get back to a 5k distance...11 miles is a dream! Maybe I can do it too! With stories like this, I feel like it's actually a possibility...thanks for sharing!

Just finished The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen, and I liked it--quick, easy, fun...I might try some others she wrote. Finished so far: 1. Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone 2. The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society (audio) 3. My Name is Asher Lev 4. All the Pretty Horses (audio) 5. The Sugar Queen Currently reading: The Witch of Blackbird Pond (to keep up with kids--never read it before) The House of Seven Gables (before our tour of Salem MA soon with a friend) Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets (audio with kids) The Time Traveler's Wife (audio) I have Ahab's Wife but haven't jumped in. Lots on my plate currently, but I might try to get started. I love reading about all the books everyone is reading! I'm inspired to try so many new things now.

I just read it a couple of weeks ago for the first time so you're in good company, and I haven't even seen the movies! I must live under a rock. ;)

Just finished up All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. Interesting...I enjoyed listening to it better than reading it in book form because the lack of punctuation makes me crazy. But there is something lyrical and beautiful about some of the descriptions. The story moves slowly in terms of action, but the rhythm with which the book flows when read aloud is something special. I know not all books are great in audio, but I'm glad to have heard this one. Just picked up the movie at the library too. Grabbed Ahab's Wife while I was at the library and am hoping to give it a go and get started this weekend. I would never do this without all of you along for the journey!! ;) Hope I can keep up... Finished so far: 1. Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone 2. The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society (audio) 3. My Name is Asher Lev 4. All the Pretty Horses (audio) Currently reading: The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen. This is cute and going quickly. The Witch of Blackbird Pond (to keep up with kids--never read it before) The House of Seven Gables (before our tour of Salem MA soon with a friend) Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets (audio)