I haven't heard of anything the HSLDA does to assist with college admissions. They may have some scholarship available to members, and they offer some online classes, but those don't necessarily help with admissions. However..... I just noticed a "Mentor Mom" support option on WTMA's site! Has anyone tried that? Maybe it's new. I haven't seen any other information about it, who exactly will be providing the support, etc., I'm not sure one could find better support in planning or curriculum choice than we have from all the experienced moms on these boards. However, the idea of personal, individualized help with college admissions paperwork (transcript, counselor letter, student essays,...) from someone who has BTDT is appealing. "Whether you are new to home schooling or a veteran, our Mentor Mom is here to help. With planning or problem solving, kindergarten concerns or high school transcripts, we would love to provide the support you need!" $50/hour

We had a good audio cd of Norse myths. It might have been this one.

LTW - Lost Tools of Writing

Sounds like Essentials is potentially a great fit for your son! One of mine is more social and one is very introverted, but they both loved the math & IEW of Essentials. We had a first year tutor. She was a first year CC parent, in fact, so she had no prior experience at all with CC. She was very good, though. But! really, the tutor is key. Having done CC & Essentials, I never talk about CC with anyone without mentioning that each student's experience is going to be almost totally dependent on the quality of the tutor.

My boys did CC's Essentials class in 5th grade. It was a very positive experience for them. We didn't continue with CC because I knew that the upper levels were not the direction I wanted to go down the road, but that one year of IEW w/ CC was worth it. If I had it to do over, we'd do it again. My sons loved the IEW writing component, primarily because of the group aspect of it. They had an excellent "tutor" and a great group of other students in the class. The support and kindness and positive feedback they gave each other was heartwarming. They loved brainstorming ideas with their friends. The students shared their essays in class, which certainly upped the effort they put into their writing and the quality of their final, submitted work. My sons also loved the math drill component. The class was mostly boys, and boys tend to be competitive. The tutor was very good at creating a comfortable environment in which the students could be competitive in the math games, but also work together toward a goal. For some children, math drills can be much less tedious, and even fun!, when done in a group environment. The grammar component was ok. We had done Rod & Staff for a couple of years and continued it during the year we used Essentials. The EEL work was all review for my sons, which is fortunate because otherwise it would have been pretty time consuming. I think they've revised the grammar component since we did CC 5 or so years ago. I did not have my daughter do Essentials. She would have hated it because she really dislikes any sort of competition in math. She might have liked the group writing aspect of IEW. She wouldn't have liked the grammar component at all, even though it would have been all review for her, too, because she doesn't like having to learn new lingo for concepts she already understands. (CC's grammar lingo is different than R&S's to some extent.) So, bottom line, CC's Essentials program was great for my boys.... it gave them a social environment to work on writing and to participate in some competitive games & activities in a fun, positive way. They did some of the best writing of their grammar school years the year they spent doing IEW as part of Essentials. As everyone will tell you, the tutor is key. A good tutor makes for a great year. A not-so-good tutor can make for a verrrry long, not so productive year.

I use audible for GC, too. The only thing that beats it is getting the courses from the library, if available. The one advantage to streaming that would make me look at it (assuming i could get a $20/month price) is that we don't always use all the lectures within one set. I'll get a Great Course from the library, but only listen to specific lectures. For example, I'd love to be able to search for all the individual GC lectures about a certain book we're reading, or about a specific topic we're discussing, ... and be able to listen to just those individual lectures. I don't need the entire course. I could see GC streaming being useful for that. The regular subscription price is way too high, though, for the convenience of not having to bring home a bag full of GC courses or purchasing from audible. At $20/month, it gets more tempting.

I have the unframed raised relief map, too. :) When I was a child, my parents had one and I liked to run my fingers down the different mountain ranges or through valleys... Maps and books. What else does one need?

:iagree: My boys started with a local STOA debate club this year as well, and it has been one of the best things we've done, too. I wish it had been on our radar earlier. I would have had them do a year of speech in 8th and start debate in 9th. If they wanted to continue, great. If not, even having only those two years would produce a lot of growth. At this point, they do want to continue with debate next year. It's been a tremendously positive experience for both my more outgoing son and my very introverted son. My daughter will be in 9th in the fall. She doesn't know if she wants to do debate. I think watching the boys has intimidated her. However, she will do speech, if we can find a club. I think she'll want to try debate after a year of speech. Solid academic classes are important, but what these young people are getting from debate and speech will benefit them in so many ways and in so many areas for the rest of their lives. The club also provides a strong, supportive social group--another plus.

I got this three-panel physical world map from Metsker's Maps. It is beautiful! Put a piece of sheet metal up on a big kitchen wall and glued the map on top of it. I still love it. It's the only thing I'd give up wall space for other than book shelves.

I don't know if this necessarily made root study "fun," but we would keep a list of words with each root on the board, adding to it as we each came across examples while reading. I think anything becomes more interesting when it's immediately relevant or found in "the real world." My kids read a lot and tended to come up with at least a handful in the course of a week. If I noticed something in the paper or a book, I'd read the sentence and let the kids find the root word. It might have helped that, at the beginning, I gave them a dime for each word they found in their reading. They were young, and I wasn't above bribery to get things going. We put the dimes in a jar and when it was (sort of) full, we went to Jamba Juice. :)

My boys did Omni 1 & 2 Primary with online classes in 7th and 8th grade. They had wonderful teachers for both classes who really made the material accessible to the students. I am so glad they had the opportunity to read & discuss the works they did. It's surprising how often we catch references to some of them or come across something that reminds us of something from those works. It was definitely a very positive experience and one of the classes I'm most happy they did. The one thing that I wish the online classes had done more of was writing associated with the works the students were reading. It's great to read and discuss the texts, but having the students write about them would have really put the courses over the top. Some online providers are now offering a writing component to go along with their Omni classes for families who want it. The big argument that usually comes up against doing Omni in 7th & 8th is that the texts and material are beyond the reach of students this age. I would argue that, yes, the texts are dense and difficult, but _nobody_, however old and experienced they are, is going to fully understand and digest everything there is to be found in those texts. It would take multiple readings and focused study, probably in the context of other related works. A person has to start somewhere, and every person who makes an honest stab at these works will get something out of them, and, over time, as that person comes into contact with those ideas and people and events in other places, that person will add to their understanding of those ideas. Obviously, a 7th or 8th grader will not get as much out of their first (maybe only?) reading of the texts, but I know my sons got much more than I had thought they would. Having read the works, they have at least the beginnings of a framework to understand/study them in the future or as they happen across those works/authors/ideas in the course of their lives. They won't be afraid to pick up those books in the future. They may never have the opportunity or desire to study them later. I am very glad they had the opportunity to have read them at least once. When we hit 9th, it seemed as if there were suddenly all these other subject "requirements." I had a crisis of confidence and we let Omni go. I regret it. With my daughter, we will continue with Great Books.

bump - hoping for more high school ideas!

There's a sticky on the Gen Ed board soliciting suggestions for speakers & topics for the 2016 WTM online conference. If any of you high school moms don't frequent that board much (I don't & just happened to see the post) and have any ideas, pop over there and post! I'd love to see more high school topics covered as we get further into this new stage and as we approach the college search & the college applications frenzy.

Here are a couple of threads about a-g with some posts about a-g & charters: CA A-G Requirements How do you get a-g accreditation? a-g requirements for California UC/State schools An alternative for satisfying a-g requirements is to take SAT/AP/SAT subject exams and meet certain scores set by the UC system. Whether or not to jump the hoops necessary to satisfy a-g requirements through a charter really depends on your family's individual goals and priorities. If finances are a major consideration, it might be worth looking at attending a community college for two years and then transferring to the UC system, if that's where you want to be. If you go the community college route, you don't need to worry about all the a-g hoops.

dp

I got a used one off amazon. May have just been a lucky catch I tend to stalk the used book sources, too

We also did Horizons K-6 (and Singapore) and then moved to Dolciani Pre-Algebra, Dolciani Algebra I, etc. The transition went very smoothly for all three of my children, even my daughter who is really not into math and who tends to think she's "not good at it." There is a solutions manual for Dolciani Pre-Algebra, but it can be difficult to find. It works out every problem. It's handy for checking problems, but I don't know if it's critical. I had purchased Horizons Pre-Algebra, but didn't like it, especially compared to the Dolciani Pre-Algebra.

After Singapore 1-6 (and Horizons 1-6 concurrently), we moved to Dolciani Pre-Algebra: An Accelerated Course. After that, we continued w/ the Dolciani sequence. We did do Singapore 7A. We didn't have trouble with it, but I knew we'd move to a standard US math text for Algebra I and up and that we would not have time to do both Singapore and a standard text, so it just made sense for us to switch at that point.

If Dolciani is working for her, why not stick with it for Geometry and Algebra 2? ETA: The primary author for the Geometry text is Jurgensen, but I think that at some point in a previous edition Brown & Dolciani were also listed.

There are some posts in this thread that explain it. And here. Here's the official National Merit site. (I'd make a stab at answering, but others are more knowledgeable about it than I. :) )

My sons did put an email address on their forms, but did not receive any emails from the CB about the PSAT, so that might not be the problem. My boys did not have a student id since they're not at a school, so I don't think you need that. From all the people who've had trouble accessing scores, it looks like the CB site is just having a lot of problems. It took me two calls to the CB and multiple tries over two days for me to get my sons' score reports. What worked for me for one son was to get his account page to finally accept our state home school code or the generic national home school code (970000). But it wasn't until I was talking to a CB support person who could enter the code on his end that it "took." What worked for my other son was to set up his account (but you already have that for your son), and then log in/log out multiple times. On one attempt to log in, his score report got downloaded w/out my doing anything other than logging in.

SWB on anything/everything high school! Cal Newport Leah Lutz, on writing Joanna Hensley on teaching Latin/classics Carol Barnier has a beautiful talk on "Seeing the Gift in Your Child." Rea Berg (Beautiful Feet Books) on children's literature ETA: How about a Cal Newport session for high schoolers. Parents can listen in, but the target audience would be high school students themselves. Maybe two sessions for high school students..... One about tips on how to study in high school (which, of course, would carry over into college.) Another to talk about looking toward college... applying, etc

We used R&S 3-7. I was comfortable stopping with 7. However, on slower weeks, I still try to sneak in a couple lessons of R&S 8 with my daughter. For my sons, they just had too much else going on academically to continue with R&S 8. R&S's grammar has given them a fantastic foundation for their Latin and, to a lesser degree, their French studies. It's also contributed to their ability to write clearly, I think. I would have your 13 year old join your 11 year old this year and just work through 6. It is solid. It's a lot more grammar than most students get. Also, with 2 younger ones coming up, your having worked through R&S 6 will make it much easier and more effective/efficient for you to teach the younger ones. Or, as a pp mentioned, get the test booklet and have her test out of chapters you think she can already do. I'd make it easy on yourself, though, and just have her work through R&S 6. If she has time next year, she could potentially continue with R&S 7 and then call it done. Switching programs, unless really necessary, can be so inefficient because you have to figure the new program out, get into some routine for using it, figure out what the student has already covered, figure out whether the student really *knows* the material he's covered or whether he should go back over it,... And *then,* after all that, you may just run into exactly the same problem with the new program that you've been trying to solve with the old one!

:iagree: I guess I need to wade through the CB info on the PSAT, SAT, and SAT subject exams. I'd have thought all the PSAT scores would be based on the same curve. But, it sounds like a 10th grader's 99th %ile, for example, would not necessarily be an 11th grader's 99th %ile. I guess that sort of makes sense. I just didn't realize that was the case till now.

Thank you so much, cbollin!