We took a week off with no requirements as far as academic work. Starting this week, I made a checklist for every weekday for the rest of the summer. The kids have about an hour per day of required light academic assignments Monday-Friday. For example for today, one child has Reading 30 min, Khan SAT practice, Duolingo, and Awana verse review. After that is finished, he can use screens. The screen rules are: --no screen time before noon --one hour per day maximum for video games --two Netflix shows per day maximum My kids do serious sports year-round including summer, so we are also busy with lots of practices and tournaments.

BJU 7th and 8th grade science are both difficult. Yes, you can switch them. No math needed for either one.

I skimmed through these answers because I don't have time to read them all now. I agree with your husband. You should make a K-8 plan of goals to accomplish. Many homeschoolers don't, and then they have to play catch up later. See how many threads you can find on these forums asking how to remediate a child in [fill in the blank subject] if you don't believe me. I used the Core Knowledge K-8 Sequence to help me come up with my goals for my children's education. I listed goals in both skills and content that I wanted to achieve by the end of eighth grade. I just had my first child finish 8th grade, by the way, and I am very thankful I took the time to set out my goals because it kept us on track. When you have your goals listed for each area, then choosing curriculum because much simpler.

Your plan looks great. I use many of those programs and have gotten excellent results. If you find you don't like Wordly Wise, try Sadlier Oxford Vocabulary Workshop workbooks. If you find you don't like Editor in Chief, try Evan Moor Daily Paragraph Editing. Then you plan would be almost exactly like mine. LOL

I liked using the TE because it has "core" and "accelerated" schedules, so you can choose which course to give your student. I also liked having all the answers rather than just the odds. It was rather expensive, though. If you want to buy the TE, make sure you find the ISBN for the one that matches the edition of the student text. Someone once listed the ISBN's of various Doliani texts. You can find the post if you search these forums.

Regarding a group project (as in the post above), to have it done well and get good grades, your child will most likely have to do the entire project without any help from the rest of the group. When my son gets assigned a group project in his courses at public school, he takes over the group and does it all himself without even asking for input from anyone. This is because he is usually the only one in the group who cares about his grades and is willing to work hard. Of course, if there happens to be another student in the group who is smart and willing to work hard, then one could divide up the work. However, the teachers usually assign groups so that one good student is paired with poor students.

My daughter is only in 6th grade, and she takes these programming courses mostly as a hobby. I haven't looked I to them enough to know how much credit they would be worth for high school. I believe they are very introductory courses, so you would probably need to combine multiple programming courses in order to come up with a half credit or whole credit for high school.

Mystery Science offers an incredible free trial. I am very thankful to them for allowing me to try their program for months for free before I bought it. Not many companies offer a free trial like theirs.

Great deal! Thanks!

We also use Dolciani Pre-Algebra (1986/1988) but we do a lecture with our child for each lesson and go over the class exercises before assigning the written exercises. Are you looking for a program your child can do independently, or are you willing to teach the course? I think that info would make a great difference in which program you should choose.

Agreeing with Carol in Cal. Since my kids have studied grammar, they understand the reasons why when I edit their compositions. Grammar knowledge has also been a tremendous help to my son in his German courses. I don't think it matters so much the particular way one teaches grammar. It could be taught through a separate program, through learning Latin, or in the context of a literature course.

I made my goals by using the Core Knowledge K-8 Sequence, which I think is still free online. I didn't follow it exactly, but I used it to get an idea of where my kids ought to be with both skills and content through 8th grade. After I made my goals in each subject, I was able to choose curriculum that met my needs. I used some programs, such as R&S English, almost cover-to-cover because they were nearly a match with what I was aiming at. At other times, I would mix and match parts of different resources to put together material that would meet my objectives.

Atelier is so easy to implement. I have a box with all of the needed art supplies, so all we have to do is find what we need from the box for each lesson. The projects turn out so well, too.

When my kids were younger (K-2 or 3ish), I used The Complete Book of Maps and Geography. That was very good. For my older kids, they do Maps, Charts, and Graphs workbook every year. In addition to that, my middle schoolers work on learning how to draw all the continents, countries, and 50 states from memory. If they can draw it, they generally remember it. We use this program which I have found to be excellent and very affordable: http://map-of-the-whole-world.weebly.com

How about using the free Khan Academy SAT practice?

I have tried various programs, but Atelier is definitely my favorite. It is so easy, and the projects come out so well each week. We have worked through level 4 and half of Level 5, and I am planning to buy level 6 for next year.

I need to doing something for my 8th grader who is graduating homeschool and going to public high school in the fall. I like the certificate idea, and maybe a photo collage or something like that... :lurk5:

My son did CTC's U.S. History Detective this year, and it was an excellent course. I agree with the poster who mentioned this program. This may be what you are looking for. Alternatively, you could look at Notgrass's U.S. middle school history program. It includes more reading and writing assignments as well as short answer questions and tests.

We use Khan Academy for SAT practice and for computer programming. Regarding programing, my daughter has taken Intro to JS: Drawing and Animation, Advanced JS: Games and Visualizations, Intro to HTML/CSS.

My kids do Maps, Charts, and Graphs every year as a supplement to our geography in order to practice map skills. This could work for your situation.

Mystery Science. It is rather new, so not a lot of people have used it for two years yet.

Horizons K-6 for all of my kids, all of the problems every day. It has given them a very solid foundation.

BJU distance learning online courses for middle school are excellent and very rigorous. These have taught my kids how to take notes from a textbook and how to study detail-oriented subject matter. They are not live, but if you implement the course schedule as written including quizzes and tests, they would function like a school course.

I feel as if I often post the opposite of the majority, so here it is again. Everyone, feel free to disagree! We talk with our kids all the time about these subjects starting when they are quite young--far before middle school. We talk to our kids about what subjects they are especially good at and what specific talents they have. We ask them what areas of school they enjoy the most. We suggest possible paths of study or careers that would match their talents and interests. In other words, we try to guide them into areas where they have natural apptitide and help them imagine careers that may be suitable. My 6th and 8th graders have a fairly clear idea where they may go to college and what they may major in. They enjoy thinking and dreaming about their future plans. Of course, plans may change, but that is fine. If they shoot for difficult colleges and high goals, they will be set up to apply for many other options if they change their minds.

Long-term programs that have worked for my kids: Reading to my kids Audio books for the car 100EZ (after they had learned upper and lower case letters and letter sounds) No scribing ever for any of my kids. (They wrote their own sentences no matter how bad the handwriting looked!) Horizons Math K-6 Flashcards to learn math facts Doliani Pre-Algebra (1986/1988) with the TM schedule) R&S English 2-8 IEW DVD courses starting in 3rd grade (SWI-A, SICC-A, B, C) Daily checklists for all the kids (to let them decide how to order their subjects over the day) Manuscript and Cursive through HWOT Duolingo (to get an introduction to a language before taking formal foreign language courses) Mystery Science (for my elementary-aged kid) BJU DLO (distance learning online) courses (6th, 7th, 8th grades) Learning to draw the world using this program: http://map-of-the-whole-world.weebly.com/ Public speaking--CC weekly presentations, and then local middle school speech club including tournaments Fallacy Detective Civil Air Patrol (leadership skills, maturity)