It was a good class for my 7th grade daughter. They did a good amount of writing every single week, as well as one or two or three longer essays each semester. (Can't remember for sure....) The class also includes a review of grammar. The English 1 class has more grammar. The Narnia class is an English 1 class, but intended for students who already have a grammar foundation.

TPS classes are taught from a Christian perspective. If you need something completely secular, it will probably not work for you. My daughter took the Journey to Narnia English class last year, and it was definitely clearly Christian, although they didn't "memorize Bible verses." My boys took English 3: Lit Survey, and it, too, was taught from a Christian perspective. I think WTMAcademy is secular. Blue Tent English classes have received good reviews here, too. I think they're secular.

What books is your dd reading? I'd love to find more French titles that might appeal to my kids. Thanks!

We've used R&S English 2-7, but not math. I just picked up the R&S grade 8 book to do the two chapters on Algebra with my daughter as review over the summer. She did the Dolciani Pre-Algebra: An Accelerated Course book this past year and is supposed to start the Dolciani Algebra 1 book with a class in the fall. She lacks confidence in math, so we're reviewing over the summer. R&S English with its clean pages, clear-cut explanations, and small incremental steps has worked so well, I figured the math might work well, too, at least to review. We don't like wordy and flashy/busy/noisy texts, either. My kids, who have done well with R&S English, have also done well with the Dolciani texts (Pre-Algebra and Algebra I, so far). Like R&S English (and R&S math looks similar in style), Dolciani texts tend to have very straightforward explanations, plenty of practice problems, enough review to maintain previously taught concepts/skills. Like R&S, each lesson is a perfect size for daily work. We approach Dolciani the same way we did R&S Eng.... Read the lesson together, do the Oral/Class exercises together, do some of the Written Exercises together, and then the student does some part (evens or odds..) in writing on his own. Correct. On to the next lesson. Easy to implement because it's so clearly laid out, so it got done every day.

This is so true. The individual teacher for any given class is what matters most. It's the teacher that sets the expectations for the quality of work and participation, both explicitly and, mostly, implicitly. It's the teacher that sets the tone for class interaction, both teacher-student and student-student. (The administration also matters indirectly, since they set the tone for the whole organization.) My daughter had a good experience with a Memoria Press middle school writing class last year. We would definitely take classes from that teacher and/or MP again. We had no tech issues with MP's online platform, and our contacts with MP's administration for registration, questions, etc, while minimal, were all handled efficiently. But I can't speak to the high school Shakespeare class. ETA: Also agree with RootAnn above... Know what you most want from the class and be sure that's what the class will provide. If you have any questions about what exactly the class will be covering or providing, ask before you register!! btdt A few things I've learned to ask about, beyond the book list and syllabus: : Who will be doing the grading? What type of work will be submitted? What essay/paper assignments are there and what are some sample topics? How much teacher feedback is there? (This info is much better obtained from families who've already used the course!)

:iagree: My oldest are only rising 10th graders, so I can't help much w/ a btdt high school path. (But, like you, I like to have an overall plan, even if it's 6 years out. It gives me some peace of mind that what we're doing will get us where we currently think we want to be, and it is easy to modify as we go along and some things work and some things don't.) I am glad they did some high school level classes where they could and where they wanted to... Latin I & II, French 2-3, Algebra I. For us, it worked to outsource the Latin and Algebra and have a tutor to supplement the French. Now that my boys are going into 10th, the one thing I wish we'd done in middle school was intentionally seek out & explore different extracurricular subjects and activities. I was way too focused on a strong academic foundation in everything, and, in middle school, I didn't have to be. It would have been far better to focus on strong academic basics like writing and math (and foreign lang. since the boys are into that.) and pour the rest of the time into sampling a wide range of other subjects and/or activities. Once they hit high school, it feels like there's a lot of pressure to focus on academics, specific subjects, etc. and less time to explore. For example, my boys are just now taking a summer debate course. I wish we'd done that back in middle school as it looks like it might be something they'd be interested in continuing, and it really integrates a lot of skills and subject areas. Mostly, though, it might be something they like. Robotics would have been another good thing to try out. Museum art classes. Stuff like that. I wish we'd tried more physical activities.... windsurfing, fencing, archery, more hiking, mountain biking, tennis/soccer/basketball/different sports just to know the basics and be able to play in pick-up games or when we get together with cousins or friends, etc. Wish we'd done a little volunteer work in something they might be interested in continuing. It's hard to find that, though, until they're a little older. So, bottom line, in middle school, I'd have been serious about writing, English, and math, but tried to go for breadth/exposure/exploration in lots of other things.

For those whose students are beyond the standard French textbooks like Bien Dit, Bon Voyage, etc., and who are looking for a more literature-based approach, I thought I'd mention a couple resources I just discovered thanks to a French friend. She teaches English at a French lycée (although she's French) and she has high school aged children of her own. 1) Bescherelle: Chronologie de la littérature française du Moyen Age à nos jours is a fantastic overview of French lit. For each period (Middle Ages, 16th century, 17th c, ...21st c), it has a short 2-4 page section of info about the period, the key historical/cultural/etc events influencing the authors of the time. Then there's a series of two page spreads about specific authors and a representative work. For example, in the 17th century section, there's a two page spread on "La Fontaine réinvente la fable," and "Pascal livre ses Pensées," and "Phèdre consacre le génie de Racine," etc. There's also a timeline for each period showing several key, representative works of that period. 2) Mes Maxi Fiches pour le Bac: Français Similar to the Bescherelle above, but much simpler/pared down. Two pages to describe each literary movement ("Le romantisme","Réalisme et naturalisme," etc.) followed by one page for each of three to five different authors in that movement, including their main work/s. (The second part of the book has tips for studying lit, esp. for the Bac.) 3) There's a Hachette series, BiblioLycée and BiblioCollège, that French students use to study literature at the lycée/collège, a little like CliffNotes, but with the actual text. They include the text of the classic along with notes, analysis, and qeustions for study/analysis/writing. The ones I picked up are all unabridged versions of the classics, but I'm not sure if all BiblioLycée editions are unabridged. For example, the BiblioLycée Phèdre includes - the text - a short bio of Racine - a 7 page "contexte" section very similar to what SWB suggests doing for a context page giving the historical context of the work and the various influences on the author, a - a "chronologie"/time line of Racine's works and the historical and cultural events of the time, - a preface to the work - footnotes explaining vocabulary and/or expressions or cultural/historical references - short sections after each act or two with one or more "lecture analytique", basically lit analysis - lit analysis questions to think about - "Travaux d'écriture" - with a writing prompt ("Dissertation") An example of a writing prompt: "'Les passions n'y sont présentées aux yeux que pour montrer tout le désordre dont elles sont cause', écrit Racine dans la préface d Phèdre. Commentez cette affirmation en vous appuyant sur les textes du corpus, sur l'ensemble de la pièce de Phèdre et sur des pièces de théatre lues et vues." Even if we only use it for the footnotes and some of the analysis questions to practice speaking, it will be worth it. (The books are only around 4 euros, but they are nice books and the content seems excellent.) Happy reading! yvonne

Have you tried looking at the shipping cost w/ Amazon.fr? It seems to be more affordable to ship to the US than it used to be. I just checked and one Harry Potter audiobook is about 26 euros + 9 euros shipping (10-12 days.) Three HP audiobooks would be about 77 euros + 12 euros shipping. I just ordered 10 books for my children to use this coming year and shipping was around $24. Not cheap, like Prime cheap :) , but nowhere near as much as it would cost if I'd asked my in-laws to mail them out to me. And these books were WAY cheaper than buying them in the States, from amazon.com. Plus, I didn't have to ask my in-laws to lug them over when they come in October. The other thing to keep in mind is luggage weight. Ask me how I know. :) Baggage charges are ridiculous nowadays. We were just in France this past month, and I picked up a bunch of books. (Librairie Goulard, if you'll be in Aix!) Had to borrow an extra suitcase from my in-laws because we'd gone over with only a carry-on each. I distributed the books between the various suitcases and incurred no additional baggage charge, but I've definitely tipped the scales in the past.

I used Educational Fontware.

:iagree: We've done R&S 2-7. Same process for each lesson...... - Oral Review in the Teacher's Manual - Read the lesson together - Class Practice orally - Written Exercises orally, except they write out all diagramming exercises and the occasional exercise that would be better written than oral. - Worksheet - written I was worried about retention when we started, but all three children have a fantastic grasp of grammar. Couldn't have worked out any better. R&S was something that got done every day, without dreading it. Writing out all those exercises would have been overkill/busy work for my kids. ETA: Seconding Acacia's comment about whiteboards..... My daughter found diagramming more agreeable when done on a whiteboard, so she did most diagramming that way. I still had her do some in her notebook because she did like to look back and see how much progress she'd made. Also, because we did so much orally, we did every part of every exercise, except for some of the composition lessons when we used other writing programs.

I know someone at a brick & mortar "Rivendell Academy" on the East Coast, and if you do a google search, you'll find a "Rivendell School District" in New Hampshire, so I think you're safe!

:iagree: We did the same.... text, workbook, IP, CWP and my boys probably spent about that long on it each day. I did the text with them before letting them loose with whatever chunk of workbook and/or IP and/or CWP I'd planned for the day. Worked well for them. My daughter hit a wall with Singapore at 3rd, and I scaled back to just doing a standard math text for 4th.

:iagree: My boys used Horizons K-6 (alongside Singapore EB-7A), and my daughter used Horizons K-6 (and Singapore EB-3.) It provided a solid foundation in math and was easy to implement so it got done every day. All three made a smooth transition into Dolciani's Pre-Algebra: An Accelerated Course. I purchased Horizons Pre-Algebra when it first came out but was disappointed with it. It seemed to take a mechanical approach of.... "Here's the paradigm. Now apply it to these problems." Next lesson, next paradigm. Seemed very different than the K-6 texts. That was the first edition, though. Maybe the next will be better. I knew I wanted to move to the Dolciani series for Algebra+, so that made it easy to make the switch at the pre-algebra stage.

I can't speak to FL at a CC, but a tutor would move at whatever pace you want. Some tutors only do conversation. Some will follow a schedule you set up, using texts you've selected. Some will help you choose texts/a program to fit your needs and put together a plan to accomplish however much you want to accomplish over whatever time span you have. The weekly accountability is a big plus for us, in addition to the conversation practice & grammar/vocab/spelling reviews with a native speaker.

If you're looking for speaking practice, you could try a tutor via Skype. I've found that to be very effective for my boys' French studies. I think they each probably get more time actually talking than they do/would in a class.

Leah Lutz is a fantastic teacher, truly a "born teacher," from what I've seen in her parent workshops and student writing workshops. She clearly genuinely enjoys the students and is interested in meeting each one where s/he is and bringing the student along. One of the things I appreciated most in the last student writing workshop my children attended (and I & other parents observed) was that Leah gives the students time to THINK before answering. Most people, including many, many teachers, simply cannot tolerate silence and will fill it in themselves. They'll ask a question. If students do not immediately respond, the teacher will start talking, giving the answer or trying to "guide" the students to an answer, usually the one the teacher wants. Leah will ask a question and wait. At first it seems like a long time, as if students know the game.... don't say anything long enough and the teacher will just give the answer. But, Leah told the students at the beginning that the questions she'd ask would take some thinking and that she was completely fine waiting for the students to think before answering. And, sure enough, she was able to do it! She'd ask a question and wait. A couple tentative hands would go up, and then a few more. As students saw her call on others and listen to and acknowledge their responses, participation blossomed. Even my very introverted children wanted to put their ideas out there! Students found that she wasn't looking for one, particular, "right" answer. I don't know that I've seen many, if any, other teachers be able to create such a positive, interactive environment for discussion before. It was truly impressive. I think Leah's approach to teaching groups of students is also completely reflective of LToW's overall philosophy, with its emphasis on thinking and looking at an idea/issue from all different points of view BEFORE putting pencil to paper. The LToW student, it seems, thinks through a bunch of ideas, looking at the points that support and points that contradict each idea. In the process, he sorts out what point he wants to make, his theme, in his essay. THEN, he starts actually writing the essay.

EllaD, My kids' favorite, favorite French stories were the Caroline books by Pierre Probst! I got several from ebay, way back. If you can find some (the older ones have the best illustrations!!), try one of those with your daughter. They're about a little girl and a band of animals (cats, dogs, etc.) and their (mis-)adventures sailing, at the beach, at the carnival, etc. There are English translations, so be sure you're getting the French version. Fun, fun books. :) ETA: Here are a couple: Caroline en Vacances, Caroline et Ses Amis a la Mer, more Sometimes you have to stalk ebay for decent prices. ETA2: There's also a picture story series called Martine, but we found them cloyingly cute. Even my daughter never got into them. Kind of paled in comparison to Caroline. Some children do like them, though!

That's a great idea to apply the Five in a Row approach to simple books or rhymes! Andrew Pudewa was talking once about how, when he was learning Japanese, he couldn't achieve the fluency he was looking for. So, he took a page from his Suzuki training and set out to master a simple children's story to the point that he could tell it from memory, in a captivating way, to children. (Jack & the Beanstalk maybe? I don't remember) He practiced reading and re-reading it and telling it out loud. I can't recall exactly all the details, but I think that was the gist of his story and he credited that experience with helping to further his Japanese study & fluency.

Our very best year of elementary science was the year we did Foundations. We did not use a curriculum. We went to the library and got stacks of books about whatever the next four or five weeks of topics were in the CC science cards. Four days a week, the kids and I spent an hour a day reading whatever caught our interest from those stacks of books. If all they wanted to do was read one little section of this book, another little section from another book, .. that was fine. If all they wanted to do was go through the book looking at the pictures or diagrams and reading the captions, that was fine. Some of the books were easy readers. Some were more in depth children's books. Some were from the adult section but had great pictures with understandable captions. The fourth day, I'd pull out the whiteboard and we'd all compile what we'd learned from that week's reading. (Usually, I guided things a little since I also wanted to get them familiar with outlines as a sort of note-taking skill and I knew from my own reading what the general skeleton of information might be.) We had the best year! It was exactly what I had hoped home schooling would be like! I really think at the elementary level, my kids got so much more out of that year than the years we tried to follow some curriculum. There was a big section on rocks. All my kids STILL love rocks! Sadly, I can't say that about any other science we did.

I wouldn't ask her to write out translations. In fact, I would not ask her to translate very much at all from French into English! It sounds like you have some background in French. I'd read her the books (in French), let her look at the pictures, and ask her questions (in French, if you can manage it) as you go along. Let her answer in English if she wants. This is what my husband did with French read alouds when the kids were younger. I think it's why they have a fairly extensive vocabulary. Conscious translating from French to English will slow her fluency. Really, if you can read lots to her and/or watch some super simple cartoons, anything that has pictures that she can use to pick up the meaning of the French words from context, she'll grow her vocabulary and, hopefully, bypass that translating to English step as much as possible. My kids hear a lot of French. If I stop and ask them what x sentence meant, they have to stop and think to get it into English. If I ask them for an answer to the French sentence, they can immediately give an appropriate answer. To me that indicates that they're comprehending the French w/out needing to translate it to English. They can't necessarily answer in French; it's always harder to generate the language than to simply hear/read and understand. But they can answer immediately in English. I found that when I got very fluent in French, I no longer translated any of it to English or from English to French. I think it's the same for kids.

Thanks for the clarification, Edia.

If the teachers don't take the exam seriously enough to be preparing the students for it the week before, why should the students take it seriously.

Usually, the price of the standardized test includes scoring. You order the test booklet & administration instructions, give the test, send the bubble sheet (and test materials) back to the vendor, and they score and send you the results.

We use the Stanford 10 every year for grades 1-8. I'm registered to administer it, but the last 4 years, I've had my children take it in a group situation 1) because it's more fun for them, 2) because it more closely approximates the usual standardized testing environment they'll encounter later, and 3) because I know they earned the scores they get. Administering it myself, it was waaaaay too likely that, if they asked me something, I'd inadvertently give away the answer by some gesture, facial expression, leading reply, etc. (This was just me. I'm sure nobody else risks doing this.)

wrong board