I bought the workbook and then I didn't think we would use it. DS does not complete the workbook,but we have found it to be really useful as a review study guide. DS has the blank (i.e., not filled out) workbook in front of him, and I have the Teacher version. We go through it orally, and he has found it to be helpful for studying for the tests. Now I am glad that I bought it.

I bought this Grimm volume recently. It is really pretty, but not terribly expensive: https://www.brainpickings.org/2011/09/28/brothers-grimm-fairy-tales-taschen/

A month or so ago, I heard about these on the WTM when I asked about dealing with chronic pain. OK, I want one!! I am going to try the original orange. The pain is in my hands -would I place my hands on it?

The other recent thread reminded me that I thought this sounded like a good idea. Thanks! I am getting one :)

Bumping this thread. Because maybe I am not the only one planning for December! Lots of good ideas here... I just ordered a used copy of Kringle for $6 including shipping.

Yikes! You can't get kicked iut of the accountability club, right? Wow, only early Monday morning and already 20-some replies. I feel behind already :) Part of our 9th grade biology course is to do ecology in the field. We had the gift of perfect weather yesterday, and we took an almost 9 km ramble through a salt marsh/forest/farmland path. We had a friend with us who helped ID the wildflowers. We had hoped to spot some sunning seals, but had no luck with that.

I hope you find the perfect school for your son. But if not...well, let's just say you wouldn't be the first here to end up homeschooling high school because the planned options spontaneously combusted upon close inspection. Ask me how I know:)

I know we have some scientists and biologists on the forum. Maybe one will chime in and tell us if these ideas are any good or not. :laugh: OK, here is another ethogram at the zoo project. This one is specifically for birds. It comes from a list of free projects on this site - look to the left sidebar for Ethogram. I might use this one, or blend the two together...idk yet. We will wait for spring :) Now for the "Grinnell Method" of field notes/field journals, the ah-ha moment for me was that you make detailed observations in the field first then you distill them and write them up in the field journal afterward. In my mind this is very different than trying to make a pretty nature journal. DS did his field notes by hand and the field journal on the computer. We have only done this once so far, but it was a smashing success IMO. We went to a nature preserve (this one if you are curious), but that is absolutely not necessary. Links: The historical background and theory And for more of the how-to: http://www.fieldjournaling.com/2011/11/field-notes-traditional-basics/ http://instruct.uwo.ca/biology/320y/fj.html (Make sure you read all the way through...the first set of directions is for the field journal and the last set is for the field notes, but you take the notes before you make the journal.)

happypamamma, Sorry for the name-dropping without links!! Don't worry, I didn't know what any of the stuff I mentioned was either until I had to find labs we could do with minimal equipment. For writing lab reports, I keep recommending this book from Novare science: The Student Lab Report Handbook. You can also order it from Rainbow Resources. While Novare is not a completely secular company, this book is secular. An ethogram is a detailed observation of animal behavior. I got the idea from E.O. Wilson's free biology book (download from itunes), but I like this project I found better: http://academic.reed.edu/biology/professors/srenn/pages/teaching/2008_syllabus/2008_labs/week2_stuff/zoo_20080820.pdf It is a college level assignment AND we get to go to the zoo. What's not to like about that? :hurray: Oops gotta run. I will come back with links for Grinnell field notes/journal. ETA: See the next post.

This is pretty close to what we are doing. I chose labs from several sources (including the M-L lab book). Lots of my filtering was based on supply availability. I don't have the access that I would have in the states. We are doing a fair amount of field work (Grinnell field notes/journal method, making an ethogram) and microscope work because that is what we CAN do. He will have to write some full lab reports from scratch and we will use frogguts for virtual dissections. Bio lab can have many flavors. Oh, and I blocked two hours on Friday for either lab or fieldwork. But if we skip lab occasionally - no big deal.

Do you want to give him a Latin 1 high school credit for 8th grade? If yes, then I would take a look at the scope and sequence of some programs, and make sure that he has covered enough Latin. It wouldn't matter to me whether or not he completed the workbooks vs. translated The Hobbit. Try to imagine dropping him to a Latin 2 class - would he be ready? Or would he have to repeat Latin 1?

DS has Danish 2 and Latin 2 this year (9th). Our umbrella school requires 180 hours for a credit - pretty much an hour per day. We outsource Latin, but I design the Danish class. We live where the studied language is the local language, so it is easy to mix creative assignments with bookwork. But even if we didn't live in an immersion environment, I would try for some fun, active hours so it doesn't get tedious.

I agree with Frogger that the Student Lab Report Handbook is awesome. It goes with any curriculum, and does a super job teaching how to write a full lab report from scratch. We put our toe inti it last year (8th) for physical science and will use it extensively in any high school science that I teach. It is also available through Rainbow Resources, BTW. I am leaning towards Novare for Chemistry for Accelerated Students in 10th and would also like to hear more about Half-Elven's difficulties.

Jean, do you have titles or a link? Or are they the same as the OUP English File momling mentioned? I found that one: https://elt.oup.com/student/englishfile/?cc=dk&selLanguage=en https://elt.oup.com/teachers/englishfile/?cc=fr&selLanguage=en&mode=hub In case you did not notice my signature, I live in Europe. Most people want British English, which I can pull off except for the accent, of course!

regentrude, I have (at least temporarily) abandoned the SAT Bio test for the same reason. I had promised DS a unit on Marine Bio within his 9th grade Bio course, and we are also doing an above-average amount of fieldwork. Something had to give, and it was the test. When we get closer to the end of the year, he can think about taking in in October and doing test prep over the summer. Or maybe we'll just wait it out and see if he takes an AP Chem or AP Bio down the road.

Do you have the impression that only Foreign Language is interactive ?

Why, katilac...were you peeking into my homeschool and noticing DS struggling to grasp the nuances of microbiology? :lol:

Oh, yes X1000 in agreement with the bolded. My olders went to B&M school.

I did not want to further derail this thread about participation with my questions about mastery, so I am making a new thread. In middle school, we absolutely taught to mastery. Now, in 9th grade, I can't wrap my head around doing it any differently - mastery is what makes sense to me. But when I read about those of you teaching to mastery, I often wonder if all of you have the type of student who usually (maybe always) gets things easily. My son is bright but sometimes he gets really stuck on new concepts (usually in science), and we have to circle around and around and come in sideways until he really truly gets it. And that is when I panic over pace and what if we don't cover enough content? I would like him to be ready for an AP Science by 11th, or to be able to do well on an SAT Subject Test. I had thought that maybe he would take the SAT Biology in June, but at the moment that seems like wishful thinking. Pace is not the only limiting factor with regard to that test, but it is a factor. What happens when mastery collides with pace? (edited to make a better question!)

Thank you regentrude, that was very helpful. I like the idea of a pre-test. I think I will start a new thread about pace vs. mastery so as not to further derail this one. OP, I hope you have some good ideas to work with now. At the moment, what I consider participation is weighing heavily. Because by that I mean that he gets all of his work done, and doesn't blow off half of the directions. We have been having some struggles in that area with the adjustment to high school work load. But I plan to back down the importance of participation once he has a better handle on just keeping up.

Can you expand on this, please? Does that mean you would not administer a test/ assign the paper until you were sure that the student had mastered the material and is capable of A-range work? Does it mean that if some output (test, paper, etc.) did not reach A range then the student revisits the material for increased mastery? Grading still baffles me :(

Ah, quark! That "imposter" thing grabs me, too. As soon as I wrote that I was modeling science for my son like Ruth is doing, I thought "Imposter!" because of course I am not doing it like Ruth. Because I am NOT Ruth, and I don't posess Ruth's gift for teaching science. Nevertheless, I am modeling and learning the science alongside DS. I am showing how to puzzle through not letting biology just be a jumble of words (yesterday's jumble included amino acids, polypeptide bonds, and the tertiary structure of proteins) because, well, I haven't studied biology since 9th grade so by default we ARE in this together... WMA, you wrote about protecting activities. That has been on my mind, too. As you know, we travel quite a bit. It can make it hard to create rhythms and keep momentum. But the experiences and adventures are so worth it! I fear fallling into the it-is-too-disruptive trap, but I remind myself that we do indeed do our share of book learning, thank-you-very-much.

Just wanted to thank you for the replies!

shawthorne44: Is this the right book? http://www.amazon.co.uk/City-Secrets-Rome-Robert-Kahn/dp/0983079501/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1443782362&sr=8-1&keywords=city+secrets+of+rome Or is it this one? I just took this one from the library: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Rome-Jonglez-Publishing/dp/2361950758/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1443782428&sr=1-1&keywords=secret+rome

Some more thoughts from someone only in the beginning of 9th grade: I implemented some structural changes that are different than middle school. I decided to work on the the trimester system of three terms, even though we have to report semester grades. It is a CM idea with a twist that has always appealed to me. At the end of the term, we will put the daily, regular work aside. There will be some projects, some presentations, some CM-style exams. I am happy enough with the direction of our transition to high school, but a state of rest seems admittedly a bit elusive.