I bought it used and didn't get the language arts worksheets, so can't speak for that. We didn't do the writing portions. I did assign a final paper on "my favorite character in Christian history" which morphed into "the character I can find the most information in the public library about."

I was referring to whatever religion or culture the family in question belongs to. In my case, Protestant Christianity.

I did SL 200 last year with an 8th grader and a 10th grader. It was a lot of work for me, because I did all the reading and wrote discussion questions to go along with it so we could have group discussions. It was great. I would go so far as to say it was crucial to my children's spiritual development. And having both dc do the same work gave a big boost to the younger. It was a bit of a challenge for him, but having his brother to discuss it with helped a lot. I love the way Holzman thinks, how his notes correct the biases in the books we read. I love the books he chooses. We are not doing Sonlight this year, but I will definitely do it again.

I'd like to respectfully disagree here. I absolutely agree that you should study your own culture/religion in depth. BUT it's also important to recognize that other cultures have something valuable to contribute to the world, AND that our own religion/culture has and does make mistakes. We are human and sinful even though we worship the true God. I believe in giving children a rock solid grounding in my faith, and I do so. But we also study other religions and cultures. For example, when we studied Islam, we did so from a book written from a Muslim. My ds (who was in 5th grade at the time) recognized quite quickly that the book was written from a Muslim perspective. That he could detect the slant in the material tells me that he knows his own faith well. To only expose my children to those who think just like me is to deny them the opportunity to evaluate other viewpoints while I am still there to guide them. They WILL be exposed to those viewpoints in college and afterwards as they interact with co-workers, so it's my job to prepare them now. Besides, I must admit, I really enjoy learning about other cultures and religions, and want to share that joy with my dc.

I can't speak for your local system, but oftentimes public schools look great on paper but offer an inferior education. My older ds went to public school for 9th grade. They have lots of wonderful offerings, similar to what you described at your public high school. But our experience was that the teachers didn't care, wouldn't take the time to explore ideas with gifted students, wouldn't support parents who tried to resolve problems, etc. Yes, the classes looked great on paper, but no true education was happening there. I think this is often true in large school systems where they have the resources to offer lots of exciting sounding programs.

Just wanted to say that we used ALEKS for Algebra and regretted it. It does give the parent a periodic list of exactly what the student knows and does not know, but the parent can't access the problems the student is actually working on or see the explanations in order to be able to help when the student doesn't get it. I'd much rather have a book that I can browse through to refresh myself before I try to help my child with a math problem.

I just finished Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. It is a beautiful book. I remember reading his Too Late the Phalarope in high school and enjoying it, so I think I'd recommend any of his books. Also Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and What is the What by Dave Eggers. (In case you can't tell, we're studying Africa in school right now. If you can find Elizabeth Goudge's books, those are wonderful. I especially recommend her Eliots of Damerosehay trilogy (The Bird in the Tree, Pilgrim's Innaka The Herb of Grace, and The Heart of the Family) or Green Dolphin Street. Anything by Miss Read is good. Her books are light and charming, not great literature, but enjoyable and squeaky clean and written for adults. Also Jan Karon, for a similar read but set in the U.S. instead of Britain. My current favorite book is The Hawk and the Dove by Penelope Wilcock. There's a trilogy all available in one book. Unfortunately out of print, but not hard to find used. It's a frame story about a teenaged girl in England whose mother tells her stories about a long-ago relative who was a monk. The stories really teach what love is and what following Jesus means. Not too didactic to be enjoyable, but with deep meaning. For historical fiction, try Jill Paton Walsh's books The Emperor's Winding Sheet (about the end of the Byzantine empire), or A Parcel of Patterns (about the plague in 17 century (I think) England.) You could also go the the Sonlight website and/or order their catalog. I especially enjoy browsing the paper catalog. So far I've enjoyed every book they recommend.

Wow. I hope you get some answers. I have one with similar issues, for different reasons. Whenever he thinks what I have assigned is too hard (which is most of the time) he just gives up and doesn't even try.

Can I get some of you to help me think this through? There is a full-time opening in my field in a nearby town. I am thinking of applying, but I just can't decide. Here are the facts: Pro: We desperately need the income. We have made some poor choices and now we have bill collectors calling every day and have had our utilities cut off more than once recently. I have only one child left in homeschool full time. He is in 9th grade. My other child takes most of his work at the community college. Con: I currently work 12 hours per week and when I am not at home my son doesn't do any schoolwork. I don't feel like I could put him in an institutional school at this time of year. The courses would be different from what he is doing at home and he would not be able to catch up. My son has co-op classes and a paper route that I have to drive him to on Mondays and I participate in a prayer group on Wednesday mornings that I have been leading for over 10 years. I'm not sure those things would be possible if I worked full time. I keep going back and forth. The arguments both for and against are very strong. Can you help me sort this out?

Peek a Boo, are you using this now? How is it going for you? Has your child been able to find all the information? How much do you help? How much do you allow the use of the internet for the research? When the internet is used, do you allow just a URL for the source list, or do you require a formal bibliography? I assigned these to my son along with Around the World in 180 Days, which is a good curriculum but needs more beef at the high school level. But my son is having a lot of trouble finding some of the information and is complaining that it is too much. Could you share your experience with me? Anyone else using it may also feel free to share. Thanks so much.

I don't know where you live or if the regulations are the same there as here (Michigan). But my son did this while being homeschooled and attending the public school only for band.

If you happen to have a Mac, Content Barrier does exactly what you are asking. They might have a Windows version. I'm not sure about that. It's a downloadable (but not free) program.

I'm trying to put together a booklist on Australia for my 9th grader. It can include fiction, literature (I know not mutually exclusive categories), travel, history, natural history, etc. I just want to give him a taste of Australian culture. The problem is that I have only ever read one book set in Australia. Could any of you wonderful ladies give me some suggestions? I will probably try to preread at least some of the books on the list so I know something about what he is learning.

The best thing to do is to visit the college he'd be attending and ask. My ds started in 10th grade. He goes to a local community college. He had to pass a test and show maturity in an interview. I went with to the interview. The counsellor said that his test of maturity was that ds answered all his questions without looking at me for affirmation. The test was pretty hard. The math covered was way beyond what I had in algebra ii or advanced math in high school. My ds passed it because he had taken accelerated math classes for gifted high school students through a local gifted and talented program. If he hadn't passed all sections of the test, they wouldn't have allowed him to take any classes at all.

When studying the literature of C.S. Lewis (Literature of C.S. Lewis course from Modern Scholar http://www.recordedbooks.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=scholar.show_course&course_id=49 highly recommended. They also have one on Dante by the same professor. Maybe you'd like that one.) we learned that the medievals believed (at least some of them did) that the ancient gods were real and good, but subordinate to the one true God. Somehow. I'm not sure how that worked.

Don't feel bad about not liking the Iliad. I was a classics major in college and I didn't really like it. The translation you have is one of the best, so I don't think that's your problem. I think the Iliad is just a "boys book." It doesn't really have characters that women can relate to. Although it is a little better if you understand the context. How much do you know about ancient Greek culture and the Trojan war? Studying the history might help. Failing that, either keep plugging because it's something you want to have under your belt, of just give up and read The Odyssey. The Odyssey is a much more enjoyable read.

My ds is. Since he already took the SAT in 7th grade to get into a gifted and talented program, this should be a breeze for him.

My sister is a beautician, and I know they have to know a lot of chemistry, so I'd definitely try to squeeze that in. The other subjects I wouldn't worry about unless she cares. As my sister says, some people want to know everything, and some people just learn what they need to know when they need to know it. (I'm the first, she's the second. We both homeschool.) Both ways are o.k.

I'll second this. This is my second favorite non-Bible book. This novel is probably the best book on relationships you'll ever read. Just a minor correction. It takes place during the Middle Ages, not the 1800s. Edited to specify that the book we're talking about is The Hawk and the Dove by Penelope Wilcock.

Hinds Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard. Taught me what true love is and isn't.

The problem with not "keeping God in a box" is that, while we don't know even close to everything about God, there are SOME things about God that we can know with certainty, because He has told us. I find that people who say they "don't want to keep God in a box" often seem to be saying that because they want to contradict something God has told us about Himself in scripture. I'm not necessarily saying that's your reason, just making a general observation. It's not "keeping God in a box" to believe what we know to be true. You can't use God's infiniteness as an excuse to believe something He has already told us isn't true. Again, this is not aimed at you personally, but rather at the common idea that believing God as He has revealed Himself in the Bible is somehow "keeping him in a box." Let me use an example to see if I can clarify this. I am a female. For you to believe that I am a female is not to "keep me in a box." There is a box. I am not a male. But the box is not created by your believing, but by reality. Likewise, there is a "box" around God. There are some things He is and some things He is not. We do not and will never understand the boundaries of this box, but we can understand a little of it because He has shared it with us. Speculation about the nature of God insofar as He has not revealed it to us may be okay, but specuatlon that contradicts what He HAS revealed does not help us to know more about God, but rather less.:)

When you evaluate your children's writing, how do you determine where footnotes are needed? For example, if they're writing a biographical paper, do they need to footnote things like birth and death dates? What kinds of things do look to find footnoted? I'm evaluating my first high school research paper, and I'm just not sure how many footnotes to expect.

The Flames of Rome is SL 200, which means it is meant for high school. The s*xual content is very accurate historically (I was a classics major in college). We just did SL 200 last year. I read the book, but decided not to have my kids read it. I didn't think the 13 year old was mature enough and the 15 year old was taking AP Lit with a gifted students program so he only did the history and Bible, not readers. That said, I would definitely have allowed an older teenager to read the book, with discussion. It shows how corrupt and Godless the Roman empire was, which I think is important for students to understand. I don't think the s*xual content would give kids any ideas. The book doesn't promote promiscuity or make it sound wonderful, it just tells it like it is, with all the dirty consequences. The other book you mentioned, I think, is th Cross and the Switchblade. I don't remember which SL core uses that one, but it is one of the high school cores, too. I would absolutely allow my 14 (was 13) year old to read that one, and already had my 16 (was 15) year old read it. It's a great story of God's redemption of kids from the gutter. Generally, I trust Sonlight. They think very much the same way I do on a wide variety of issues. However, I would never give questionable books to my kids without reading them first. That's just part of being a good teacher (and a responsible parent). In fact, I preread everything I assign to my children.

Henry V Braveheart Lion in Winter Kingdom of Heaven Becket Marco Polo Ivanhoe A Knight's Tale Henry V is one of my favorite movies of all time. I would call it a must.

Poe is well known and high school students usually like him, but I personally wouldn't call him a major influence on American literature. What you've chosen is fine if what you're looking for is a survey of American lit. If you're looking to engage your children in American lit, you could do with a little more Poe.