4-H has lots of activities available for high school students, both in rural and more urban settings. Involvement in 4-H projects and creating 4-H portfolios can also lead to college scholarship opportunities. You can find local information at the national 4-H.org website here (scroll down to "Find 4-H"). DS has learned skills such as public speaking and group leadership through our club and has gotten involved in activities such as building and launching model rockets, designing computer games, and volunteering in the community. If there's not a 4-H club near you that meets your family's needs, you can also train to be a volunteer 4-H leader in a fairly short amount of time and create a club that engages in the type of activities you and your high schoolers prefer. It's an extremely adaptable organization.

For quick coverage of current news, we have enjoyed the CNN Student News, which airs a new show online each school day. Here's a link to the page: http://www.cnn.com/studentnews/?iref=allsearch

DS and I have been studying the Epic of Gilgamesh for the past few weeks. I had him read the story of the flood in both Gilgamesh and in Genesis and write an essay comparing and contrasting the two accounts. He has really enjoyed it!

Thank you for the suggestions, Erin! I will try just having him do every other sentence, as you and the shortcuts page suggest. We may also try doing some of the exercises verbally, since I do think the writing is slowing him down. Hopefully, this will allow him to get the benefits of the AG program while also having time for literature and composition. I really appreciate your help.

Thank you for all of the great suggestions on adapting AG for my DS and for the additional creative ideas for grammar. I really appreciate all of your comments! Lori, thanks for crystallizing the issues for me so well. I think I will adapt AG to be somewhat less intensive and keep going with this program for now (and reassess in a month or two). My plans to have DS conquer grammar in grade 9 while also doing a good amount of lit and comp may be a bit too ambitious, and I do see the value of some continued review of grammar in future high school years for testing (SAT/ACT) purposes, as well.

I do expect to spend an hour a day on English, but I also expect that some part of this time will be spent on literature and composition. I'm not willing to wait to do any lit or comp until after 9th grade - I think that would be doing a disservice to my son. I expect to focus more fully on lit and comp after 9th grade, but not to just forget about them until later. I think I may have just picked the wrong program for grammar. I did buy AG new, which was a fairly substantial investment, though, and I was hoping for some ideas on how to integrate it into a program that includes grammar, lit and composition. It sounds like AG has worked well for your kids, but of course not every program works equally well for every student.

My plan was to do a unit per week, which means one exercise per day. This should have the entire book finished in one year. I'm hoping to get finished with grammar this year, so that DS can concentrate on lit and comp in the rest of his high school years. I think it is a great program in which to take a slower approach, but maybe it's just not amenable to what I'm trying to do - get a good foundation in grammar in one year.

Has anyone else had this problem? Any ideas for how to deal with it? DS does not enjoy grammar. We have been doing Easy Grammar for the past five years but have been somewhat less than extremely consistent in our grammar work. I liked the idea of really knocking out grammar with a good foundational course in 9th grade (this year) and then going on to concentrate on composition and literature in the remainder of his high school years. However, AG has been taking up about an hour a day, which does not leave us time for anything else in English. We are registered as homeschoolers with a church-related school that does not allow us to list English and Literature separately, so all lit work must come under the credit given for English. Problem is, we're not getting through much literature - and hardly any composition - because so much time is taken up with the AG program! Part of the problem is that DS has dysgraphia, so the handwritten work in AG takes him longer than it would another student. He also just does not like the program so far and groans every time I pull out the books. We're on week two of the 9th grade, and I need to make some adjustments. I like the thorough approach to grammar in AG, but I don't want it to take up all of the time we have for English this year. I'd appreciate some suggestions for covering the grammar we need while still having time for some lit and comp work.

Making a syllabus in advance for each class has been a huge help for me - I write the chapters to be covered in the book, extra projects to be completed, essays to be written and movies to be watched by week for each subject for the entire semester. It takes a good bit of planning in advance, but it makes the day-to-day work so much easier!

The book and the film have many differences, and the transformation of Scarlett is much more interesting in the book. If you live in the south, you should probably read it - if for no other reason than to be familiar with a work that is still widely referenced. However, if you live elsewhere in the country, you can almost certainly skip it with no loss. To say that the author's perspective on the value of a multicultural society is outdated is a vast understatement.

We have used a yogurt starter from Rolmex or Vachon. It's a dried powder, and two packets are $3 from Bread Beckers. Two packets is enough for us to make 96 ounces of yogurt. We usually add some store-bought yogurt, as well, for the additional live cultures not included in the dried packets. Our yogurt does not turn out as thick in consistency as store-bought yogurt, however. To thicken it, we sometimes add dried non-instant milk powder, but that does increase the cost.

You're welcome! Actually, starting in earlier grades could give the students great experience to make their entries increasingly likely to win at the competition in later grades. Scholarships and cash prizes are handed out to national medalists.

TY - great idea!

Do you have a link to the Harvard college reading list? I tried to find it online but kept coming to a login screen when I clicked on the course titles. The Loeb classics look very interesting - I can see my son becoming interested in reading some of those, as well! Isn't one of the main tenets of Climbing Parnassus that the students should be reading the books in the original Greek or Latin? Is that what your son did? My own son has been studying Latin for several years now, but he is not sufficiently fluent yet to read much at this point. Possibly, this is due to my own lack of Latin proficiency - I never studied it in school myself, and it is difficult to teach a subject with which I am unfamiliar. Can you recommend a program for my son to learn Latin that requires less involvement on my part? I'd like for him to become fluent - maybe we need to find a tutor?

Is it possible to work with his enjoyment of computers, to channel this preference into a constructive or educational activity? I would suggest having him research a topic and set up a website on a free site (weebly, for instance). He could create a website about his favorite books or games, with reviews and possibly even a blog (if you are comfortable with that) about select topics. Alternatively, he could focus his website on some area of science or history that he is studying for schoolwork. This can be a creative way to get him interested in further research! One other idea - how about PC games that are more educational? MS Flight Simulator can teach him a lot about flying an airplane, for instance. Another good choice might be the Civilization series of games, which teach quite a bit of history and geography in the game play process.

Rebecca Rupp's book Home Learning Year by Year has quite a number of resources for studies that are less Euro-centric. The edition I have was written in 2000, but I still find it extremely useful.

I feel your pain, Camarell! DS is about to enter 9th this year. From what I've read, the first step depends on the laws under which you are registered as a homeschooler. You should read for yourself what they say about requirements for graduation. Rules for giving high school credit for 8th grade classes are also something to research, as these will vary depending on your state and on how you are registered to homeschool. Are you using an umbrella organization? If so, definitely check with them regarding this issue. There are frequently limits on the 8th grade classes that can count for high school credit. It's also helpful to check out the requirements for admission to any colleges that your DD might possibly consider attending. Most have websites that list the number of courses required in particular subjects. When I did this, I was not pleased to find that the requirements for admission for homeschoolers frequently vary from those for other students. Some colleges are more enlightened than others, fortunately. You are so right to be looking into this now, when your DD is about to start 8th grade.

Are you looking for ways your son might enjoy history more? One option, which would also improve his research and writing skills, would be to get him involved in the National History Day competition. He could create an exhibit or documentary, write a paper, develop a website or write and perform a drama - alone or in a group. Entries are judged at the regional level first, and the top ones go on to state and national competition. It's one way to get students really thinking about history and analyzing events. National History Day contest information

Jenn and Lori, Thanks for all of the great suggestions! My son does not read manga (Wendi mentioned that her son did), but otherwise they all seem very useful to me in designing a lit program. I really like your idea of using literature to bring history to life, Jenn. That sounds like an approach that could work well for us. ITA about listening to works by the Bronte sisters probably serving as a good punishment for teen boys! I will definitely look into the science writers, too. Lori, thanks for your ideas - Macbeth might be more fun to cover than Julius Caesar. We have covered the ancient Romans multiple times, and delving into ancient Scottish history and legend really sounds like something that might get my DS interested in Shakespeare. I'll look up those posts by Nan in Mass. It is so helpful to hear what has worked for other parents of science-oriented teens!

You might want to look at How to Write Clearly: The Meaning Approach by Ruth Beechick. It is a slim volume (only 73 pages) but has a lot of good advice on the subject. I'm planning to use it as part of a composition course for my DS in high school.

Thanks! This looks like an excellent choice for us

I'm having my son memorize some inspirational poems and sections of the Bible. Poems that I memorized in school, still enjoy recalling, and plan to have my son memorize include "If" by Kipling, "Opportunity" by Sill, and "Eldorado" by Poe. I was on a Bible quiz team in high school (about a hundred years ago - or maybe it just feels that way :) ) and memorized entire books of the NT. Although I can no longer leap from my seat and recite passages complete with reference, I still find it very helpful to recall the verses.

Jacquard's Web looks like a very interesting book and one that my DS would really enjoy. Thanks. Still trying to figure out how to fit those classics in, though . . .

Thanks for the suggestions, Wendi! We have already read A Tale of Two Cities and the Lord of the Rings trilogy in my previous attempts at lit in his middle school years, with only mixed success. I wonder if a good abridged version of Les Miserables might be available? My son does not enjoy any kind of fiction, unfortunately, including fantasy. I have yet to find any literature that I'm not just dragging him through. It's very hard for me to fathom, because I personally have really enjoyed books such as Jane Eyre (and I love Jane Austen!) The last time he went to the library with me, I asked him to pick out something fun to read before bed. He came back with a book called The Aztecs by Michael Smith, an anthropologist who uses new evidence to examine the role of religion and human sacrifice in this culture. Not at all what I would think of as bedtime reading! I will definitely look into the Windows to the World and Teaching the Classics. I really appreciate your thoughts on this issue!

We will be using Ways of the World: A Brief Global History with Sources by Robert Strayer for a world history course, which I'm planning to spread out over two years.