Generally speaking, yes. Wheelock covers almost all of the grammar that one would see "in the wild". Typically this is studied over two years in high school, or two semesters in college. After completing this, she can move on to the good bits -- reading real Latin authors.

It's hard to know what to say. Maybe you won't say the perfect thing, but whatever you do say will be a million time better than not saying anything.

I'm not quite sure I visualize this whole plan, but isn't the idea that the master bedroom is on the opposite side of the house from the kids' bedrooms? I'm not sure I'd like that for the very young years, nor maybe the teenage years either...

This is a fantastic question. I think there are several answers. First, when the country was founded, we didn't have 1,000 years of history to rely on, or, more to the point, we didn't want to rely too much on the history of the nation we recently declared independence from. What we did have, was about five years of completely ineffective, weak Federalism, that clearly wasn't working. Moreover, the founders wanted to pick and choose ideas about government from antiquity, English Common Law, the state constitutions and other sources, so they needed to be lawerly-clear about which bits would apply to the new country. As the various states had widely different interests, it was very important to write out what they would all agree to. And while the US now has a body of common law, now that we have more history, the Constitution is where it is all rooted. Now the Constitution is clearly not perfect (especially as we see the biases towards small states), it has held up pretty well in the face of enormous economic, societal and political change in the world. Even more powerful, is the idea of having a short, written Constitution. I can't imagine anyone establishing a new country today without one.

From the web site, it's a bit more than that. They send home quarterly report cards, and the kids are taught both by the online instructors and by the onsite Coaches. "Graduating seniors must complete a rigorous individual senior project demonstrating their cumulative curriculum skills, citizenship concerns, resourcefulness and creativity" I wonder if they issue a diploma?

I believe the school, err, the, place, is in Florida. So, hypothetically speaking, if I enroll a student in a private school, would that student no longer be eligible to enroll in the virtual charter for free? Is that why this place is so curiously not wanting to call itself a school? Or are there other rules and regulations that a Florida private school would have to obey that this organization is trying to avoid? I'm just curious why they are so adamant against calling themselves a school, or calling the employees teachers. Or are they just unschoolers at heart, and dead set against using the word "school"?

All joking about price aside, I think that more options are better, and looking at the web side, seems like they've got about a dozen "coaches" (no one with a title of "teacher"), and about two dozen students, so that's bound to be expensive to run. It seems like there is some legal reason they can't call themselves a school. It's unclear to me, but do the kids get to sign up for K12 for free under this arrangement, so technically they are enrolled in public school, and if this institution were to call itself a "school", then they kids couldn't enroll in K12? Don't know what the rules in Florida are about this. One aspect that I do like about this is that it reinforces that idea that most virtual schools still require parental (or "coach") involvement. So many parents I've talked to think that they can just plonk their kids down in front of the computer and the schooling is 100% taken care of.

This costs several times my mortgage, so to afford this for one kid, we'd have to sell our house and move into the school. So, I guess, that would make it "homeschool"?

"Unsupervised toddler" and "creek" together make me freak out. And I'm moderately free range.

I haven't seen it, but there is a new Teaching Company Latin I video out now.

Lots of good stuff in this thread: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/467368-new-curriculum/

By starting testing now, it does make it easy to show gains in test score year over year for the next few years....

Actually, I don't believe all kids are unique, at least with respect to Math curricular needs. If each and every kid on the planet required a completely personalized Math curriculum in order to learn the basics, we'd never get anywhere. I bet that 99% of all NT kids could learn what they need in a K-8 program by picking from one of, say, ten programs. (Maybe one would be mostly spiral, another mastery, another experiential, another "new math", etc.)

It's not too early now for you to start thinking about this. It might help to think more "backwards" about the problem, and look for jobs now that you think would be interesting, and would fit your desires and needs, then see what major/minor these jobs need, who (if anyone) in your area is hiring these kinds of people, and work from there. Do this, instead of trying to find a major that fits your interest, and only in your senior year, figure out what jobs need that major. You college should have a job placement/careers office that you should visit and see what kind of jobs history majors are landing. It might also be useful to network with seniors in history and other majors of interest, and see what their job prospects are like. Have you read the book "What color is my parachute"?

For what it is, I find it very reasonably priced. I forget the exact cost off hand, but I believe it was $10. I've never purchased prep material from them, but many (all?) of the old exams (with answers) were posted and available for free, so you know exactly what to expect. I love the NLE. There's almost no downside. They can be used to validate "Mommy grades", they make it easy for homeschoolers to take, I don't have to "teach to the test", and it doesn't take long to administer. What's not to love?

I think the above is so true, and kids can be very perceptive about these things. Parents or other adults may not know what to do even if they themselves weren't bullied. I saw a number of occasions where a well-meaning adult tried to address bullying, and actually made things worse. "Lets get you two together and have the victim talk about how the bully made you feel. OK, now that we've had this incredibly awkward five minute conversation everything is addressed and fine now". Yikes. Now the victim is even more humiliated, and the bully knows she was effective, and won't be punished in any meaningful way. And to be completely honest, I'm not sure that I myself would know how to stop a bully from going after my kids, if they were in a situation like public school, where they both had to be there, and had to be around each other all the time. Especially if there were a lot of unsupervised time, like before and after school.

Or, the question is not framed in a useful way. Let's just consider Math. One of the programs (I won't mentioned which) is working very well for us. I think it happens to be a good match for my kids. Other moms here have great success with other programs, and that doesn't make me think any less of my program or theirs or them or me. Moreover, I can't in any meaningful way describe any of these programs as "more classical" than any other. Is a spiral math program more or less classical than one that isn't? Perhaps the most "classical" math program would be reading Euclid, which I can almost guarantee would be an enormous failure here..

Are you sure that's the real Singapore Math? I've seen "Singapore Math Practice Books" sold at my local Barnes and Noble that are not published by the Singapore math people, and contained two or three blatant errors in the example I looked at just browsing through. I don't think there's any trademark on the Singapore Math name, so anyone can make a "Singapore Math" book, and just confuse the waters. And where are these Singapore Math worksheets coming from? I use the textbook, workbook, sometimes IP, sometimes CWP, but no worksheets.

What do you know about this co-op going in? How long has it existed? Have your kids attended in the past? Do you know the families? Co-ops can be very frustrating to teach, because rarely do all the families involved have the same expectations going in re: rigor, amount of effort, frequency of attendance, writing requirements, etc. I suspect problems with these issues may trump worldview related problems, and I'd certainly want to understand them before agreeing to teach. While you may nominally have carte blanche for the syllabus, ultimately, the decision to continue attending class (and thus the existence of the class) is up to the students and the parents.

Eat, Drink, Man, Woman.

I'm not entirely sure what "tabletop gaming" is, but it seems like we are now in a golden age for board games. The board games our family play today are so much more varied, interesting, and challenging that the ones we grew up with.

It is certainly a skill that can be learned, and honed with practice. I might start having her practice by trying to outline TC lectures that aren't her "real" classes, so she's not freaked out about being measured on two things at once. Most of the Great Courses come with an printed outline in the box, her goal should be to try to reproduce that outline from just listening to the lecture. To start, a good lecturer will drop a lot of clues about the outline of the lecture, and it is important to pay attention to these clues, some of which may be non-verbal. Introductions and conclusion are often key to generating the "big picture" of the structure of the lecture, and good speakers often use lists, both in intros, and in later parts of the talk. If the speaker is giving their summary, and "telling you what they told you", it is a good time to review your notes, and make sure that your notes match up with the summary. If not, then that is a good time to ask a question, or rewind the DVD. So,a lecture might start out with "Today I want to talk about Columbus' voyage of discovery. There are three main reasons he decided to sail West". Immediately, the student should know that the whole lecture is divided into three major sections, which she can then fill in later, with a sub-outline under each point. Often, the speaker will have a long pause between sections, and even if there wasn't a list of what was coming, that's a big clue than a new section is beginning, or the current digression is finishing. Sometimes, it helps to rewrite the notes in a more pretty, structured format after the lecture. If you are preparing her to take notes for college classes, I would either rewrite the notes as soon as possible after class, and certainly before the next office hours, recitation, or time for one-on-one questions, so she can bring her notes with her to help clarify any unclear points. The trick is being confident enough to write all the important stuff down, without missing anything that is being said because you are trying to catch up. Practice makes perfect. Good luck!

This can be a real problem. Sometimes, books written a while ago have more challenging and interesting language, and any problem seem further way. Titles like "Little Women" might fit here. Modern stories might include "Dragon Rider" by Cornelia Funke, or the "Catwings" series by Ursula LeGuin

I'm having a hard time believing this statistic also. You are implying that BA/BS degrees routinely ("universally") required only 96 credits. Can you provide any evidence for this claim? I bet that for most colleges it was at least 120 credits hours, pretty much same as today.

I'm not sure I believe this statistic. I just checked my big-state-school alma mater, and 90% of the Calc I students last semester received a "C" or above. This doesn't count the "withdraw before drop date", but there's no way 35% of the enrolled students do. Most colleges post a "grade distribution report", can you find one from a reputable school that shows 40% failure rate?