DS14 is deeply passionate about herpetology and we want to find him a self study course for this coming year. Anyone have a recommendation? Our fallback is to use an old herpetology textbook we have and determine a way to test for mastery.

Thank you! Just what I was hoping for.

Can we begin Vocabulary from Classical Roots in Book C in 9th grade if we haven't done it before? Or do we have to start with Book 4? Does it work well as a self-taught option? Is Book C a high school credit on its own?

Across Five Aprils

Totally agree with AttachedMama... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

We are a Tapestry of Grace family and are really enjoying the literature for our 6th, 7th and 8th grade boys! For Year 3 units 3-4: Jungle Book, Just So Stories, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Invisible Man, She, King Solomon's Mines, An Age of Extremes (Joy Hakim). We don't use much else on the list of TOG options outside of the maps and Accountability/Thinking questions for Dialectic students. We started with grand plans of doing it all, but then life happened. And 11 kids.

Based on time we don't do any targeted reading programs after our children complete "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Steps." The only exception is if a problem arises in reading at grade level. In this case we will assign a load of reading slightly below grade level to improve confidence and use a spelling program as "backwards phonics." Outside of this, we rely on the Tapestry of Grace reading lists every week to make sure they are constantly reading. :)

Any of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries would work.

:hurray:

Another vote here for the National Parks, National Battlefields, National Cemeteries and National Monuments. Many of them host Junior Ranger programs that can't be beat for memorable learning. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

We use the Memoria Press route. Prima Latina for your second grader and First Form Latin for your fifth grader. The MP material is dry compared to some, but I am old fashioned and think it's ok to make children learn from dry material. :) Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I would highly recommend Latin. It is not "useful" in the utilitarian sense (not like Spanish or Mandarin), but as a starting point for learning all the Romance languages it can't be beat. I was a fluent Spanish speaker in a prior life, and now teaching Latin, I see the roots of Spanish everywhere. In addition, Latin is the base of >50% of English words, is very useful to learn English grammar as an inflected language, and is simply the best way to help our children connect to the cultural heritage of the Christian West. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

We also use it for grammar, but not for writing. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

We chose to use a boxed curriculum for our first few years...one that comes complete with lessons plans. Sonlight would be our recommendation, but there are many. The idea is to do this for a couple years and then branch out as you gain confidence. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Our favorite history audiobooks for this age are the unabridged recordings of the Little House books by LI Wilder, the GA Henry abridged recordings by Jim Weiss, and the Roman Mysteries by Caroline Lawrence. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

We ran into the same thing year after year, so this year we have outsourced. My oldest three are signed up with Memoria Press Online Academy science classes. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Another option, instead of explicitly teaching about savings, is to expose her to literature about people who do save and live frugally. Benjamin Franklin comes to mind, as does the Little House series. Literature tends to leave a more indelible mark on the heart when teaching virtues. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If you are pressed for time, you should only consider chemistry if it is totally independent. Until 7th or 8th grade, a strong focus on nature study/journaling/exploring is all you really need in science. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Depends on the student, but 10-12 in general is a good range to stop. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Lots of effective curricula are out there. We use Memoria Press, but those mentioned above I am sure are good. My advice goes down a different path. I recommend you either learn the language yourself and then teach your kids (have to stay 1-2 lessons ahead, at least), hire a tutor, or enroll them in live online classes. Learning a language from a book or DVD set with no live instruction is very difficult. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The Dangerous Book for Boys

3rd grade - Prima Latina 4th - Latina Christiana 5th - First Form Latin 6th - Second Form Latin That's as far as we have gotten, but we have already purchased Henle Latin with the intention of starting in 8th grade.

The complete Beatrix Potter is available on Audible The abridged Roal Dahl series was done by Blackstone Audio, and many of them contain animals. Jim Weiss at Greathall Productions is one of our favorites. We picked up his recording of Jungle Book (abridged) at the Cincinnati homeschool convention and are enjoying it. Another idea...if you shop for any of these titles at Audible, the site will track your searches and suggest many similar works. It's a handy feature.

We are jumping into the writing programs of Classical Academic Press next year. IEW simply takes too much effort on our part, and since neither of us enjoy writing, we decided to outsource. It seems the CAP program teaches many different types of writing over the years.

Hard to beat The Lord of the Rings!