Did I never answer this for you, Katie? Sorry! What I did was to look at the contents of each book and compare them to the lesson plans for Bio 101. Then I penciled in (well, actually I used a pen ;)), on the Lesson Plans, corresponding chapters to read to go along with the assignments in the Lesson Plans. We also didn't do some of their plans, so she read the books instead, and did the on-line virtual labs.

MFW has a Health Elective that uses Total Health, "I kissed Dating Goodbye" and has lesson plans. I MAY order it for DD for next year. http://www.mfwbooks.com/L045306518D24E3019738011+M50+ENG#health (ETA: If it takes you to their home page, hover over curriculum, click on High school, click on electives, then click on Health) I may go with A Beka, though. We've used it in the past, and it was fine....

Thank you ladies! It does sound fun! It does add to our busy-ness, but, I'm thinking, and hoping, it'll be worth it! I'm especially happy with the science, writing and literature portions. Those are weak spots for me, so it will be good having someone else teaching, evaluating and grading those subjects! :thumbup:

:001_smile: Your first sentence reminds me of Yoda-speak! :001_smile: I only have a pdf with the list and descriptions of the classes. I'll have to ask the teachers first though, as it has addresses and names in it, and I'm not sure if I can share that. It'd take some work, but I MAY be able to copy & paste the parts without the names and addresses and be able to send it in an e-mail....

:iagree: That's more what I was trying to say. I get overwhelmed with pulling everything together and trying to get it all organized and planned. I tweak things, but my dd and I like the idea of checking off the boxes as things get done, and changing things around to basically fit with the program, but do it the way that works best for her/us! I couldn't buy "Ninth Grade" and use everything they sell either!

Yeah, I probably would do MFW in a co-op setting! Since the teachers are qualified and we get real credit for it, it's a pay class. The classes she will be taking come to about the same as MFW and a science class, so that works out. You want a link to our co-op?

Thank you EL! I hope it works out to be a great experience! Scary though, going from a favorite curriculum to an unknown area!!! (Well, we used to go to this coop, but dd didn't have these teachers.) She says she wants a challenge, and she will get her wish, I've no doubt about that! :D Thank you! It'll be great if it DOES turn out to be wonderful! :D

I guess I am. We had nothing available for high school close enough for us to go to. That's why I was so thrilled with MFW! So, it's good that I know these teachers and what they're like, so I trust them, and could give dd the option. She really liked MFW too, so it was a big decision for both of us. We can't afford to do MFW if we pay for these classes! Sorry! :001_smile: I know, it's very strange, I'm still adjusting to it! I think I'll miss the simplicity of having it all here and her plopping to read and work on it without us having to go anywhere! But I do see some positives! Thank you! I'm glad your ds has that opportunity! Since we used to go to the co-op where this is, dd may know some of the kids she ends up in class with!

We loved MFW AHL, and were planning on MFW WHL for next school year. I just found out this week that a couple of teachers from a co-op we used to go to are teaching some high school classes now! They are amazingly wonderfu teachers, they really make the kids work for a good grade in the class, and their classes are worth, and can count for a credit! I'm THRILLED! They were only doing jr. high classes. My oldest took an English Lit. class from one and a science class from another before we stopped going to the co-op. I was sooo impressed with their teaching methods and the rigor of the classes! Nobody slides by in their classes! I talked with my dd and she wants to try having a real teacher with real other students to discuss things with for classes that are harder for me to teach. The classes meet once a week, on Monday, and dd will take 3 classes from them: her science class, and an English/Lit. and a History class. I don't know the History teacher, but I wrote to the English teacher and asked what she'd recommend (since there are 2 other English classes taught). She said she'd recommend the English Lit. (which also deals with grammar and writing) and History class, since they compliment each other (same idea as MFW). Sooo, we're going to try the live teacher, and see how it goes. This year they're teaching American Lit. and US History, so if dd decides to go back to MFW the next school year, we can always do the WHL. She's excited and I'm kind of excited. It'll be a bit busier for us, but I think the benefits will be well worth it! The help with upper level grammar and writing and literature will be wonderful! I'll miss that sharing with the other MFW peoples, though! :(

My dd is taking a science class at a coop next year. It's on Mondays, and includes grades 7-12 (there's another one for PreK-6 on the same grounds). Here's an idea of how they do it:Time: 9-10:30 Classes offered: LA (7th & 8th), Physical Science (9th-12th), Chemistry (9th-12th) Time: 10:40-12:10 Classes offered: Life Science (7th & 8th), Honors English (9th or 10th), United States History (9th-12th) Time: 12:30-1:50 Classes offered: World Studies (6th-8th.... This is after the younger kids' coop is finished), Washington State History (8th and up), English-American Literature (9th-12th) If you sign up for these classes you need to be ready for working hard! All these teacher really make the kids work. But they are great and interesting teachers, and the kids learn sooo much. It really helps prepare them for upper level and college classes!

:001_smile: I know what you mean there. MFW has plans for math and science, but I forget about that, since it's separate and we don't use them...

MFW has a lesson plan to keep people on track, but it's not all the same materials. A Beka, Bob Jones, and others use only their own curriculum. Everything you use is from them. Every assignment is in their books with their materials. The thing about MFW is that it draws from many different sources. It's not one provider doing ALL the information. It's easy to sub things in and out for what you may prefer. As I said above, I was looking and gathering information for dd's 9th grade year, and lo and behold, MFW was using much of what I was drawing together, and I didn't have lesson plans laid out yet. For us, since I get overwhelmed with making out ALL the plans and drawing the different materials together cohesively, using MFW is a better and stronger way to go. If I had it together enough to make my own curriculum, there are very few things I would have done differently. To me, that is the difference. So, I don't think we should make blanket statements saying, "Putting your own curriculum is definitely better" or "MFW is a boxed curriculum". That's just how I see it, though I can understand how people can see it differently.

:iagree: That's how we do it too, so I voted depends.

See above definition of "boxed curricula"! :001_smile:

:iagree: I was trying to be open to her considering it "boxed", even though I don't. Since it all comes in a package together (if that's how you order it), I allowed the "slightly boxed" category. :001_smile: But I agree, as I sort of said, that the "boxed" means everything comes from one publisher, which is different from the MFW packages!

I agree that the muscles atrophy and take awhile to strengthen again. We, too, were given exercises for my oldest to do after he got his cast off (he was 7). My ds didn't want to move his arm either at first. It took awhile, but pretty soon he realized it would be okay and that the exercises were making it work better and be stronger. If they didn't give you exercises that's their bad, and you should call them at least, so you can get those going!

DD started piano when she was 6 because she was begging to begin. She has LOVED it ever since, so I guess it depends on the child. We got a really good deal with a lady who gave lessons to kids in our church. She started her at 15 minute lessons so as not to overwhelm her. I thought that was good! Our middle guy started when he was 10, and was ready to quit by 8th grade. He loved the theory, but not the actual playing! :001_smile: So yeah, they're all so different! Oh, I was going to say, I'm sure there are gyms that don't have those kinds of things happen. DD just ended up in a group of girls that were very set on getting to team, not neccessarily for the fun or friendship factor, so were more aggressive in their behaviour. And yeah, part of it was that dd was younger than most of the other girls. There was one girl that was the sames size as dd but about 3 years older (and dd used to be small for her size!!!) who would stick up for her and help her in learning routines and specific moves. LOVED her for that! To me, that seems like how they SHOULD act to help each other along and be the best team they could be! Anyway, it was a great expereience while it lasted and dd remembers that time fondly........ except for the very end! ;) I wish you and your daughter well! I think she'll do great in whatever you do because of her outgoing personality! Hard to keep up with sometimes, but they make great kids/people! :001_smile:

:tongue_smilie: You have a right to your beliefs, obviously. But really, I'd try looking at/through some of the other books before making a blanket statement. Maybe you have your mind made up, then so be it. But then it would be based on incomplete info. I just think if someone said negative things about a reading program after reading the primer, saying it didn't have enough depth, etc., that wouldn't make sense. The primer isn't going to be as deep and broad as the books that come later in the series. If you HAVE looked at the other books, and still have this opinion, then nevermind what I just said. :001_smile:

To me a "boxed curriculum" would be doing everything from the same company with everything all laid out and not changing things at all. I consider MFW slightly "boxed". We have always been eclectic. One whole curricululum from one company for every class for all year would not have worked here! I have drawn from MANY different sources for my kids curriculum, making the best fit for each one. When oldest got to 10th grade he wanted BJU DVD's, so we got those, though we still used our own Bible, and a couple other things. 2nd DS used a variety of curriculum in 9th. In planning for dd for this year (9th grade), I was looking at different resources and trying to pull things together when I saw someone mention MFW high school on this board. When I checked it out, it was stuff I was trying to do on my own, but they had it already all together, with lesson plans laid out, books to use, etc. I was impressed with how well it was laid out, and how close to what I wanted it was! DD looked it over and it looked good to her too, so we ended up trying it. We LOVED it! It interweaves the Bible, History and English so much more smoothly than I could have! The lesson plans laid out for every week were a great guide for keeping us on track! HOWEVER, we changed up some things that didn't quite fit our style, and read extra books, and switched books or readings here and there. We were not slaves to the curriculum, we used it as we would anything I would put together. I just didn't have to do so much work, which I was pleased about! As much as I love researching it all, I tend to get overwhelmed, expecially with the high school classes, so help with that was fine with me! :D So I see it differently and do not consider MFW, which covers History, Bible and English, not the whole curriculum, as a boxed curriculum! They DO have lesson plans for Science and math and have some electives, I guess, though, so maybe that's what you're meaning? We only used the AHL materials.

But have you looked at the other LoF books? They're much more substantial than the Fractions book and the Decimals and Percents book! Those two books together took dd only about 1/2 a year. You can't really base a theory of LoF books with just one of those books. Check out the Pre-Algebra, Algebra and the other higher level books. They're more "meaty" than those 1st 2 books! :001_smile:

BJU DVD programs are really good, not cheap, but good! My oldest ds did the 10th grade BJU DVD curriculum. It was rigorous and took a good amount of work, but my ds looks back on that year as one where he learned to work hard and learned a lot! ETA: DD will be in 10th next year. If all goes well, then for 11th she'll most likely be doing Lial's Algebra 2, Chemistry (not sure whether to look at something like Spectrum or see if I can find a co-op that's teaching it, or what), and MFW for History, Bible and English, Piano and maybe Voice Lessons, and maybe a couple of electives.

She's a thoughtful sort, so thinks things through like that. And yes, I was thrilled to hear that! :D I think if you end up with more than 3 things (especially if you have other kids to keep up with!) it get just too hard! So, if you're open to it, you could give her the choice of which 2 or 3, or however many you decide, activities she'd like to go to. Well, dd LOVED gymnastics. She had so much fun with it! For awhile there was a Homeschool group and they did a lot of neat things, learned a bunch and had a great time. A couple of those families moved away, so there weren't enough to have a whole group, so dd joined one of the regular afternoon/evening groups. A couple of months later she was advanced to the next class up, which was pre-team. OH. MY. GOODNESS. That class was way different! DD was still going because she loved it. I think ALL of the other girls were there because they wanted to be picked for the gymnastics team. They were rough! The parents observed the classes from upstairs, and I saw some girls run into others, or push them down to get in front of them. I was surprised, and so was dd! She got a big scrape on her leg when another girl pushed her out of the way, even though dd was already in line, so she (the girl that pushed) could get in front of her! It knocked dd into the edge of a low wall thing and caused the scrape. I was upset about it as I saw it happen. :glare: The mom of the other girl? She yelled, "That's the way honey. Aint gonna get nowhere if you're not aggressive!" :001_huh: The place was a good place, the teacher was a good teacher, they just didn't see everything. DD ended up asking to stop gymnastics because of that type of thing happening over and over. She just wanted it for fun anyway, so it was better to let the girls that really wanted to be on the team to get closer to that opportunity. ANYWAY, she just recently ended her horse-riding, since the teacher had taken her as far as that teacher goes, and dd was ready to move on to other things anyway. She volunteers a lot, but isn't really in ANY of the organized activities like those anymore. She has two Youth Groups she goes to now that are active in hiking, and summer boating and skiing, VBS, etc. so those are her outlets now. Oh, she also plays piano and sings, so she helps at church with those, which she really enjoys also. So, things change as they get older! I sometimes miss my little munchkin talking all the time and enjoying life so much with the friends and classes! But now she's older, more mature, and STILL enjoys life so much! :D

:scared: :crying: I will be praying for this family!

I usually don't make big deals of things, but I refuse to go to Jack-in-the-Box! All their commercials have some sort of s*xualish content. Seriously? For fast food? And it's stuff that just doesn't have to be there. I also don't like Jack's snarky attitude. So that's my out of character stand that I am making that may make no difference other than I feel better not supporting them if they're playing to that audience. Last night we were watching a baseball game and the commercial that came on was almost x-rated! I was really surprised, I'd never seen that before! Wait a minute. Isn't Baseball supposed to be a family thing? I know it bothers some of you that it bothers some of us when there is so much of this stuff around. But I'm in the camp that sees/hears too much of it and I wish it wasn't that way!

:iagree: This is us! DH is totally supportive, always has been! He's kicked in on math, science and history stuff when he can, oh and he's helped some with grammar as well. This year our last child started high school, so he helped a little more with Algebra for her, as he did with the boys. I am THRILLED with our arrangement! He works 40+ hours a week, I love the research and homeschooling. He helps as needed. Voila, perfect situation for us! :D