They are middle school. I've used them for 5th & 6th grades & we're using the Life Science this year for 7th. You could use them for 8th grade too, easily. I would start with Earth Science or Life Science. They are both about on the same level. We used Physical Science briefly last year and then realized it was a little harder and shelved it. I may pull it back out for 8th grade if she doesn't seem ready for high school level science yet.

It's a pretty big jump. It covers pre-algebra topics pretty briefly & then jumps right in. Most students find it to be a full hour of math homework at least, many find it to be more like 90 minutes. All review of decimals is covered in one lesson, lesson 4, Review of Arithmetic. And that's for the 3rd edition that most homeschools use - most schools use 4th edition, where the algebra moves even faster -all work with fractions or decimals is covered in a brief review in lessons 10 & 11 & then they move on. You can see the Table of Contents for both 3rd and 4th editions on Rainbow Resource. They pretty much start out talking about properties of algebra and move into topics like absolute value, exponents, and isolating the variable straight away. Fourth edition also has a lot about functions. I would get the school to place him in a pre-algebra class instead. If you explain to them that he has not yet covered some basic fraction and decimal topics, they should be understanding, I would hope, especially at his very young age. Most kids who struggle with algebra have problems with either fractions or exponents, and dividing fractions in particular is a concept used very frequently in algebra.

LNC, did you read the New Yorker articles by Michael Cunningham? (first one here for anyone who hasn't - http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/07/letter-from-the-pulitzer-fiction-jury-what-really-happened-this-year.html ) I'm reading this thread with great interest, as I have a great love of reading, but hate reading anything written after about, oh, 1950 or so. And every time I tell myself, oh, there must be some good modern books, I'll go find some list of the 'best' and end up reading something that I think STINKS. Case in point - go to the New Yorker article and look about halfway down the page for the opening sentence of "The Pale King". I've been listening to SWB's audio lectures on teaching writing in preparation for the upcoming school year, and the first thing I thought after I read that was, if you can't figure out where it goes in a diagram, it doesn't belong in your sentence! :lol: Seriously - there MUST be some modern fiction that is considered 'good' that isn't insanely pretentious!

My favorites - - Gilgamesh the King by Ludmilla Zeman - unfortunately, this seems to be insanely expensive to buy used, but it's worth a long wait from your inter-library loan. - One Grain of Rice by Demi - Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel - D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths

Agreed, completely secular. This will be our third year with Hake Grammar. I have had the TM all three year, never touched it the first year, looked at it maybe 2-3 times last year (and that was because I was in a hurry and that was faster than trying to figure it out myself). I expect I may need it a little more this year and a little more next year, but if you have more time than money and can take the time to go through the exercise yourself if your kid is stuck, it's definitely 'skippable'. If you want to do the writing workbook with it, you may want it for the schedule, but otherwise just remember there is a test every 5 lessons but not after lesson 5. (Test 1 is after lesson 10, test 2 is after lesson 15, and so on.)

Busytown Mysteries (teaches problem solving procedure, so could be called critical thinking) How It's Made is a HUGE hit with my DS age 6

It has a big impact on MY homeschool - our local public school system uses Everyday Math, and I tutor those kids to earn money to buy curriculum for my kids! :D It's funny tho, because I can see from looking at what the public school kids show me what the program is trying to get at - and with really good teachers, it might not be too bad. But, judging from the stories I hear, a lot of the local teachers don't get what they are supposed to be doing to teach it. In 4th grade, for example, they teach 4 different ways to multiply. I get it - they are trying to show the principles of multiplication by showing there are different ways to get to the same conclusion, I can see that. BUT the students I work with are coming home with homework that basically says 'Use this method to solve this problem, and that method to solve that problem, and method 3 to solve problem 3, and so on.' The students I work with end up with two main problems - they are confused by the multiple methods and just try to memorize them and end up mixing up steps from different procedures, and they are convinced that there is a REASON why the teacher is assigning Method A with Problem A and Method B with Problem B, and are trying to find a way to 'sort' their math problems to figure out how to predict which method to use with which problem. In other words, the curricula is clearly being understood as procedures to be learned, just now instead of learning ONE procedure to multiply, there are FOUR. It's not a great situation!

Well, I did Science Fusion with my K student this year, so I can't answer your other questions, but according to the info I got from Harcourt, your account expires one year from purchase. Now I was one of the very first homeschoolers to purchase Science Fusion - we had quite a merry dance, in fact, just to figure out how to get me set up!! And I have since found out that some of the other info I got from them is wrong....but I wanted to alert you to the possibility that you may already be 'on the clock' with this product. My suggestion would be to call Harcourt directly and ask them. Their tech support line is 1-800-419-3900. Hope that helps!!!

My public school when I was growing up used nothing but books with excerpts. I was a voracious reader tho, so I LOVED that, it was like a sampler platter! :D At the beginning of the school year, I'd take my lit book home, read the whole thing, discover a whole bunch of new authors that I wanted to read, and usually a few authors that I didn't like and was grateful I only had to read an excerpt!!! :lol: However, I doubt many other students took that approach... With my own kids, we read whole books. I probably will get a Norton anthology or two for high school, not as a main text, but as a way to expose the kids to those works that they should have SOME idea about but may not want or need to read the whole work - especially for my engineering-focused daughter! Also, Norton anthologies are great for poetry.

Try Brightstorm - http://www.brightstorm.com/science/physics/ or Hippocampus - the NROC Collection of presentations has a lot of topics http://www.hippocampus.org/Physics;jsessionid=BC2097CA0E6B80351B38ED1F9935EE94 or Khan Academy has physics videos, but they are pretty heavy on the math - http://www.khanacademy.org/#physics Of course these are all high-school level (or higher!) and may be over your kids' heads. It's VERY hard to find good science material in between the elementary basics and the high school stuff, so I'm hoping someone else will have more ideas. But there is also an old cartoony series called Eureka! that you can watch on YouTube, here's a link to the first episode - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6snX4M2_8U It does not specifically address questions about light and sound, tho, but it might still be interesting for your kids.

Most Saxon people do either 87 or Algebra 1/2, but plenty of people do both if they feel like their kid needs the extra year to 'get it'. Starting with 87 should be fine - if it turns out next year that he still needs more practice, you can do 1/2, and if he's solid you can move on. Their hormone-addled brains sometimes need the extra year :-) I also agree with the suggestion to do review for a few weeks. It sure can't hurt!

You'll have to pick it up used, because this was released 20 years ago, but you want a CD called Small Fry: Capitol Sings Kids' Songs for Grown-ups. It is WONDERFUL, a bunch of old 1940s to 1960s recordings. They have Mairzy Doats :) They also have a wonderful little alphabet song called 'A' You're Adorable that I sing to my kids all the time and will probably be sung to my grandkids at this point :)

Before my kids were born, I worked in a dog kennel. People often come over and tell me my dogs are so calm and obedient, and ask me to suggest a breed. I can't suggest a breed, but I can give you some advice for choosing your dog, whether it be a breed or a mutt. Go to visit the dog. First thing you want to pay attention to is, how does the dog react when you first come into its view? In a shelter-type situation, you want the dog that looks at you and looks interested, but does not immediately come FLYING up to the front of their cage. A friendly but calm dog will approach the front of the cage to greet you, but calmly (puppies a LITTLE more excited, of course - but even with puppies some are calmer than others! You can still tell what an adult dog's temperament will be by visiting the puppy, just be aware that the younger the puppy is, the more excited they naturally are - you still want the calmer one of the litter!). In a home situation, ask the current owner that the dog be loose in the home when you arrive. Does the dog freak out when you ring the bell? Does the dog have to be leashed or put away in another room before you can enter? Does the dog growl or hang back or hide? You don't want any of those dogs, you want the one that comes calmly to the door and is interested in this new person, but not ridiculous about it. You don't want the dog that hangs back or seems fearful - they might 'get used to you', or they might not. On the flip side, the dog that is a spazz when you first meet it will probably always be a spazz - you want to get a dog that calm but friendly when you FIRST meet it. Training can help control these tendencies, yes, and a well-trained dog can learn to overcome all kinds of obstacles, but why put yourself through the hassle of trying to train a dog to ignore its natural temperament? Choose a dog that has the personality you want from the beginning and you will have a much easier time with just ordinary training, and a lot less heartache. My other piece of advice is be prepared for this to take awhile. I looked at over 200 dogs before I found my second dog! :D The dogs with good personalities are snatched up fast! Do NOT take your kids with you to select a dog - they should meet the dog before you decide, of course, but the least emotional adult in your family should be the one doing the initial screening to find a good candidate first. Most shelters will let you put a hold on a dog to make sure no one else can leave with it while you go back home and get the kids to come meet it. Hope that helps!! I have two dogs, a lab-border collie mix and a lab-boxer mix. There ARE calm lab mixes out there, but they are few and far between :) And I did not walk into the shelters thinking I was going to get a lab mix, it just happened that way. I have seen good, calm dogs of many, many breeds. Be persistent - you'll find the right dog, just keep your standards high!

I'm excited! And so is my first grader! He LOVES to learn and is a real joy to teach - he keeps telling me that he can't wait until August, and can we please do some homeschool now? (So of course we do!! :) ) He is a very hands-on little guy, so we get to do all the fun stuff in SOTW 1 Activity Book - archaeology digs and mummified chickens, here we come! :) Now my 7th grader is another story!! :lol: She's not looking forward to this year because she knows she's going to have to tackle a few of her least favorite things, like writing, and develop some better work habits. But, I think she also knows that she is mature enough for more and I think she is looking forward to some of things we'll be doing, even if she's not as enthused as the six year old :D

WWS Hake/Saxon Grammar 7 a big list of books I picked out that she'll be reading & then we'll be covering as SWB instructs in her Literary Analysis lecture Spelling and vocabulary we just do as they come up - she's naturally a good speller, and I've always believed the best way to improve your vocabulary is to read, read, and read some more. (We'll probably do a Greek & Latin roots program for one year in high school, though.) After that, we'll hopefully have WWS2 ready so we can rinse-repeat the same basic LA program with Hake 8 in 8th grade. In high school, we'll drop the grammar and focus on heavier literature and composition. I HOPE the WWS schedule will stay ahead of us!! :) Not entirely sure what we will do, but she's not a big 'word person' so I don't think it will be the focus. Good old fashioned competence will suit me fine.

I have used Saving Dinner for several years, and I like it quite a lot, but be aware that her vegetarian options are pretty limited. A LOT of them (like 2-4 times a week) are simply "Make the regular meat recipe, but substitute tofu or non-breaded vegetarian chicken flavored patties", which just got boring, expensive, and kinda gross when we tried it. I really like her service, but she's really big on the whole low-carb/paleo eating right now, so if you are specifically looking for vegetarian, it might not be a good choice.

Pretty much, yeah. If the reasoning is sound, it's fine. If they point out every obvious step, great, but there are plenty of possible ways to build most proofs, no answer book could possibly cover them all. One caution - be careful that what you allow the student to omit as 'obvious' is truly something that they understand thoroughly, and that they really can explain how to get from Point A to Point B. The whole reason two-column proofs are used with beginners is because they force the student to be explicit with their reasoning. There are PLENTY of things my DD will tell me are 'obvious', and they are to her!! And she's right! But that doesn't necessarily mean she can explain it in words the way a professional could, and that's part of the skill you are building here too. There's a difference between being right & obvious & actually knowing how to build a chain of reasoning that someone else can follow. Hope that helps!!!

For DD: Math: get back the love. DD used to say math was her favorite subject, then we switched to another program (that I honestly thought she'd like better!) and she hated it. This year we're switching back to the original program & I hope hope hope that will bring the love back!! Writing: Improve as much with writing essays as she has with writing fiction. OK, maybe I won't make quite THAT goal, but that's the touchstone anyway :001_smile: I'll definitely settle for basic competence in non-fiction writing! We're using WWS. Reading: Learn that there are reasons to read other than pure enjoyment, and to extend her exposure to the pure enjoyment genres. She LOVES to read, but only chooses funny or fantasy books. I've made a reading list for her that has a lot of titles that are outside her comfort zone, but are still great reading. I'm not anticipating she will love everything she reads this year, but if even a couple of the books resonate with her, I'll feel like progress is being made. Science: gain some competence with labs. She has always hated any sort of hands-on activity (I know, weird kid! :001_smile: ), and we've really done minimal labs so far, and last year did history of science for science which had really very little in the way of hands-on. But we've got high school science coming up, which I'm possibly going to farm out to the local public school, she she's just gonna have to deal with it. I don't expect her to like hands-on stuff, just to learn that it's sometimes necessary and develop a 'get'er done' attitude about it. History: gain a basic background in the main events and narratives of US history. This is probably going to be the easiest of the goals, we're finishing up a program we started last year and she likes it and does it without complaint and seems to retain it well. For DS: Math: memorize addition and subtraction facts so they are down cold. Help him follow up on all his rabbit trails - he is super interested in math and has lots of questions - just this week we've spent a lot of time on place value and decimals, order of operations, and why although googolplex is the largest NAMED number, it is not the largest NUMBER. Writing: get solid on those pesky letters that are so easy to get confused on, like b, d, p, and q :-) Use capital letters appropriately - i.e., NOT randomly in the middle of a word because it's easier to make an A than an a!! :lol: Write sentences in a reasonably straight line. Reading: get him reading more picture books on his own, maybe even stretching to easy chapter books by the end of the year. He can read pretty well for his age, but just needs more practice and confidence. We have other subjects as well, but I don't really have goals for 1st grade science and history other than have a little fun and learn a little something :001_smile:

Well, I used these to teach a co-op class last year, and we used the Quest Guides that go with the first two books, there were plenty of suggested activities in those. But we also supplemented with http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkJXFGLWSmY when we got to the chapter on early number systems, that was a HUGE hit. I'd be aware that the first book is a MUCH easier read than the second book, and the second book is somewhat easier than the third. We only covered the first two books in the co-op class, and I typically had the kids read 3 chapters of Aristotle Leads the Way compared to one chapter of Newton at the Center. My own family only is reading Einstein Adds a New Dimension, but I am reading it aloud to the kids, with plenty of interruptions for further discussion - particle physics if pretty bizarre stuff!! :) It's a great series and an excellent background to high school science studies, especially for children who might not be terribly interested in science for its own sake - my DD is much more interested now when the conversation turns to anything scientific if she can place it in the narrative of history from our studies.

Oh, then disregard my post :) Try the Mrs. Pollifax series if you like light adventure. They are done by Recorded Books, the narrator is Barbara Rosenblat, who is excellent. I also love the old Jeeves and Wooster stories by Recorded Books that are narrated by Alexander Spencer. I think everyone else just gets Bertie COMPLETELY wrong! :D But they are out of print and getting pretty hard to find.

Another vote for Hank the Cowdog! :D Also, Geronimo Stilton is a huge hit at our house. Odds Bodkin's Little Proto stories are superb. His other stories are mostly for older kids, although my son does enjoy The Hidden Grail, but he is VERY into knights and such. I have to confess, Stephen Fry's Paddington didn't work for us, which was a shame because I REALLY wanted it to work! But my son couldn't understand the British accent very well...might be a problem for your littles is why I mention it.

I think you might be talking about me here :-) So I feel obliged to pop in and say I never saw a proof before college - I was a double English major in high school and took only Algebra I and Geometry, and the geometry I took was pretty remedial, just angles and figuring perimeter and area. I agree that there is a lot of bad math out there on the elementary level - I've tutored kids in our local school district. And the whole notion of cookie cutter math is a big problem, including 'cookie cutter proofs', if we take that to mean proofs that are taught as a procedure to follow instead of an argument to build. But not having seen Teaching Textbooks, I can't even imagine it, proofs that HAVE to be done only by following a specific procedure - I can't picture it. So I have to wonder, and this is JUST speculation on my part, if maybe some of the problem is perception? Like there might be some perception that proofs have to be done in a very cookie cutter manner, when really, they don't? ('Cuz REALLY, they don't!! :D ) Like I said, haven't seen TT at ALL, so I'm just not picturing it. Maybe someone could post an example? ('Cuz you've got me kinda curious now!!! :D )

Night is the shortest, but it's also really depressing and dark. None of these books really have a lot of humor in them, but of that list Peace Like a River is probably going to be the most enjoyable read.

You say your son is 8 and doing Saxon a year ahead, and could almost be 2 years ahead. My DD was the same way. We ran into what may be a similar problem, in that the MATH was fine for her, but the WRITING out of that many problems was just too much for a younger learner! We solved that problem by letting her do most of the problems as mental math, if she could - she read the problem, and if she could answer it without putting pencil to paper, we moved on to the next problem. This did AMAZING things for her mental math skills as she really hated to write!! :lol: If she gave the wrong answer, or couldn't answer it really quickly, she had to write it out. So that might be an avenue to explore, ask him if he thinks that would make math be fun again. I have to confess, tho, I carried on with this a little too long, and we have had a lot of squabbles the last 2 years as we've done pre-algebra material and she STILL wants to do it all out loud!!! :-/ If I could do it over, I would have had her write out more of the problems starting in 4th grade when she FIRST started showing signs of being able to write more, but other than that, it has worked out well. She still loves math, asked to go back to Saxon after trying a different program last year, and still has superb mental math skills :-)

Actually, Saxon uses some two-column proofs in Advanced Mathematics, but not a lot. The Saxon Geometry book, which is not part of the 'standard' Saxon sequence, does a good job introducing proofs, but it's still not what I'd consider a rigorous and thorough treatment of proofs. On a side note, I LOVE proofs. Proofs in my Symbolic Logic class as a philosophy major in college were my first inkling that I could enjoy anything remotely math-related. I loved proofs so much that I became a TA for that professor for 3 semesters just because I enjoyed grading them so much - yes, I know, that makes me certifiable!!! :lol: But perhaps if proofs are causing problems, if your child is a 'wordy' child rather than a 'number' kid, maybe you could try your luck with a little symbolic logic stuff first to get the point of proofs across in a roundabout way? It sure helped me to see it - the structure is the same, just you are using symbols instead of those dreaded numbers, it made it a lot easier for me to grasp! :001_smile: Your local library should have some books on symbolic logic. It shouldn't be too hard to find one that will suit - I taught a co-op class on symbolic logic a few years ago and used a high school text called The Snake and the Fox - it was only a 6 week class and we did not go really in depth, and I don't have the book handy so I can't recall all the details, but it's very accessible and should help. Proofs are really the doorway to higher math. It's worth spending some time on them even for a non-STEM kid. I'm in a legal field now, and believe me, the ability to build a valid chain of evidence, the ability to THINK in the manner I was taught to think in logic class, makes a huge difference in my work. I really wouldn't just give them a miss.