Sounds like despite all your good intentions, things are a bit hectic at your house. If you still have college age child at home until Sat, I would definitely all enjoy the time with him/her and start on Monday. It will give you something to look forward to when you feel the "let down" of him/her being gone. ReneeR

Actually, We used 93-100% = A, 86-92%=B, 78-85%=C and anything under that on a test had to be completely redone (I think that happened once with my daughter in middle school). However, my kids are now in public school and they use 90-100%=A, 80-92%=B, etc AND it is all computerized so if you have a 89.5% it will round it up. ReneeR

Actually, when the kids were younger we always started school in "stages". We would start math and grammar, because my kids were really good at both subjects. We would, also, start reading alouds because my kids loved me to read to them. The next week or so we would start history and science, etc The great thing about home schooling is that you can do it in stages or when you want or when it works for your family! Start early, finish early! They are your children and you know best! ReneeR

Sadly, this is the first year that I do not read aloud to my older children. After our move, the older two high schoolers decided to go to public school this past school year. HOWEVER, up until last year, we all would read together over lunch - kids were sophomore, 8th grade, and 3rd grade. We would read great books like Great Expectations, The Christmas Carol, Kidnapped, etc. My kids all loved it, and I do miss it. I still read to my youngest who is still at home, and I intend to read to her until she goes to high school. We call it our coffee time, and it is the first thing that we do in the morning in our library/study. I used to read to everyone when we would travel by car on long trips - Narnia, Cleary books, Dr. Doolittle, Mary Poppins, etc. We all loved those times, and heavens knows, it gave me something to do while my dh was driving! Read to them as long as they are home!!!!

What I have found with teachers and colleges is that if you designate anything AP, you had better be willing to back it up with AP test scores. Also, the grade from the AP course better be supported by AP test scores. Colleges don't much care if you say that you have taken an AP course if you don't take the test. The point of AP courses is to prepare students for the test. My kids are in public high school now, since our move last year, and their high school requires that a student taking an AP course sit for the AP test. Otherwise, they do not give them credit for the course!!! We have friends in other states whose kids are taking so called "AP" courses, but they have never sat for an AP test. I have warned these parents that they are being misled by their school and to get on this immediately. Also, there are certain text books, supplemental books, etc that the College Board recommends for these AP courses. You might want to look into using those books since the tests will follow them. You can go to PA Homeschoolers site and get the list from their website. They use the recommended AP books. Good luck. ReneeR

What about any of Willa Cather's books? I am an Austen addict. I enjoyed all the books you mentioned, and I have read everything that Cather has written and enjoyed them. Also, The Keeper of the Bees by Stratton Porter. I loved that book and my son just read it and loved it, also!

My son did not take any his fresh/soph year as a home schooler. Had I known what I know now, he would have started as a fresh. He is now in public high school since we moved to FL. He took 2 or 3 this year, and he will take all AP courses next year except orchestra. This school district requires all students that take AP courses to sit for the exams, or they do not get credit at all for the classl! The public high school that he attends teaches every AP course available except Latin. When my son had his senior course schedule reviewed, he was not even allowed to take Honors in most areas - Eng, Sc, math - but his teachers insisted on AP in these areas. He is taking an additional science AP and AP Human geography as his last electives. If your child is very bright, I would recommend starting as a fresh with one class and increasing each year afterwards. Here they allow bright fresh to take AP Environmental Science, and they say AP Psychology is one of the easiest. Good luck! ReneeR

I don't know about now, but 8 years ago when my son took the IOWA at home, the Duke TIP program along with other programs found him! Then two years after that he took a standardized test with our local school board, and they found him again! I always assumed that it was from his tests scores. We opted not to do the program at either time for different reasons. Also, I think that Hewitt Homeschooling offers PASS tests. You could look there. Good luck ReneeR

Wow! We experienced an interesting questionnaire when my kids turned 14 - entering high school. It was very long and was given to them directly to complete without our input. However, before it was given to them, the nurse/doctor made sure that we were ok with them completing it. I mean, we are still their parents, aren't we? The questionnaire asked mostly about things that adolescents/teens would have issues with - depression, feeling left out, bullying, fighting, smoking, drugs, etc. It might have asked about dating, but I don't remember anything about sex. My son was hysterical with laughter, and he really did not know how to complete this. I told him to do the best he could - obviously, most of his answers were "NO". In the comment section he wrote that he was home schooled and involved in youth orchestra and USA swimming and that most of the kids he knew were very bright, educated, caring individuals that he could not imagine would ever do most of the "above" things. The doctor laughed when he read ds comment and congratulated him on keeping such good company and keeping such good care of himself and his body. My dh, a physician, thinks that 6th grade is a bit young to be taking such a survey without talking with the parents first and giving them a 1) head's up on the survey's content and 2)option to NOT have their child take it. Just my two cents! ReneeR

For those of you that have used Singapore math in the past, when do they introduce negative numbers - adding, subtracting, etc? I have just been looking through the books for next year - 5A and 5B, and there is no mention of negative numbers. I know that they are introduced during 5th grade in our school district, and my daughter will have to take a standardized test next spring. Thanks in advance ReneeR

My father and brother are avid hunters - during these economic times, it supplies them with most of their meat! They usually take some to an ole guy that makes link sausage with it - 1/2 pork and 1/2 venison. He takes some of it for his work. Also, my mom cooks alot of veggie soup and chili with it. She uses some hamburger to help with the taste. My brother puts lil steaks and back strap loins on the grill, cooking very slowly, with bacon wrapped around them. Usually he soaks them in olive oil or something for a day or more, then he cooks them all on the pit and they eat on them all weekend. Hope this helps. ReneeR

My dd loved these. I was so excited to see them on Netflix since my high schoolers had watched them on PBS years ago. I wish they had made some for other historical times, and I wish that children's TV today was more like these shows

Ladies, I am looking for a guide or study that would help my dd, 5th grade, and myself study this book in depth next year. It is a book that I have read with my others, but I thought that a really good Bible/literature study of it would be interesting and rewarding spiritually for me and my dd next year. Thanks ReneeR

Ladies, Have any of you any opinions of these? I want to read "Dangerous Journey" with my 5th grader next year, and I want to study it in depth along with maybe, "The Hobbit". If you have any thoughts, I would greatly appreciate them. Thanks ReneeR

I don't know if this will help you, but although I could afford SL, there were several women/families that were close friends that did SL together. One year we all did SL 5 and passed the books and a list of DVD's around from one family to another. We all traveled or started school at different times so it worked for us that year. Granted we all were good friends, saw each other several times per week, and all respected each other's time. Also, there was a year that the same group did different things so we all bought stuff used, utilized the library often, etc, and then we would lend it out to the others the next year - like a cycle. SL is very easy to resell so when we were all done with 3/4, for instance, whoever bought it sold it! I am rambling probably. We, also, had some friends in our support group that lived near one another with kids near the same age. They would buy curriculum for one kid and then on Fridays one of the moms did History and Science with them all. The moms would rotate, deciding what they wanted to teach. I hope you have friends and a support group to help you. I have moved, and I can honestly say I miss them more than anything else about my old town/home! : ( GoodLuck ReneeR P.S. One gal I knew, would make her kids right out math so they did not use their workbooks and she used them through 4 kids. She, also, bought the IG's from Sonlight and used the library for everything else.

Has anyone ever used this guide which uses the Holling books? We have all the books, and I was looking for a geography type program to do with my 5th grader next year. We did Sonlight 5 with big sister two years ago so she has already read all those books. I wanted something fun that I could use with her and what we had. I wanted to do something other than "history" next year. Thanks ReneeR

My kids went to public high school this year after our move. They take 7 classes. That makes 28 to graduate, but they have options to take online classes, including some which are AP classes. Also, Florida gives honor credits to high schoolers for taking Alg I and Spanish I during their 8th grade year. My son did freshman and sophomore years at home, and he took 17 credits during those two years. We only were able to count competitive swimming as PE for one credit, and we used private violin and orchestra as extra curricular. He took physics and a college geology course last year since he needed them for a Science Olympiad competition, and he loved them both. He is taking 2 science courses as a senior - one as an elective so he will graduate with 6 science credits. I was told by someone that colleges rather see 24-30 credits of real classes than to see more with stuff that should be extra curricular. The high school here and in Tn only required 1 1/2 credits of PE/Health. I think anything over that should just be extra exercise. Also, I think that Bible could be used as 1 elective credit, but I would not count it every year even though it is an important part of our lives and done daily. These are just my 2 cents. Good luck ReneeR

How about - Photography Art History - AP (you can take this online at some places or do it yourself) Church History Dance Culinary Arts Good luck ReneeR

Our library system has a testing center as a resource online - free. You can take three full tests, and they will grade them for you. I would recommend using your library if they offer these free testing services. Our library will let you log into the program for 90 days and then you just have to log in again for more tests. Good luck ReneeR

I would recommend Chalkdust highly. I have had two children go through Chalkdust - ds who is exceptional/gifted in math and dd who is way above average but a totally different learner than her brother. They both went on to take Geometry and Alg II with Chalkdust. My ds went on to take Pre-cal and cal in public hs which were the same books as the Chalkdust books (he appreciated the DVD's even more after a so-so teacher). I think this program can work for different learners, and it offers numerous problems for those that need extra help or those that just need to be challenged. Good luck RRice

My 4th grader will be tested using the California Achievement Test next month. We have never used this test with her or our other children so I am unfamiliar with it. Can anyone give me any advice/pointers? Is there a place where we could view some of the questions online? Practice tests online? Thanks in advance ReneeR

Pam, Last year my soph read Tarbuck's Earth: An Introduction to Physical Geology for the Science Olympiad contest. Since I did not have tests, he was required to write papers on every chapter and he won 4th in the state contest. I was told this is a college level course, and we found the book online cheap. He found it an interesting book, and we supplemented documentaries from the library and Netflix with it. Although he completed all this work in a 4 month period, he had enough hours involved in it to give him a full credit. I think that you could do it with just the book and tests/papers for 1/2 credit. When we moved to Florida this fall, he began attending a public high school and they redid his transcript. They gave him an Honors credit for the course and recognized it as a college text. Hope this helps ReneeR formerly from Knoxville

My middle daughter had/has phonemic issues as well as delayed speech. We were able to afford private therapy so we had weekly speech therapy lessons when she was about 6-7. She picked up on it very quickly, and I continued at home after 6 months. The therapist recommended a CD-rom called Earobics Step 1 Home Version, and someone else on this board way back then agreed. It is a very deliberate phonemic program full of games and animals, etc. As I remember there was also a game or two that promoted some auditory processing/memory. It is expensive for a CD-rom, but I was able to sell mine for a good price on this board - someone was looking for it. You might put out a WTB ad for it. One thing that I would have done differently with her (she is a freshman now), I would have worked on MORE vocabulary and MORE phonics earlier. We tried to work on it again during middle school to help improve her reading comprehension, but it was a struggle to get her to do more than the Wordly wise, etc that everyone else was doing. Just my 2 cents. Good luck ReneeR

Ladies, We have just moved to Naples, Collier County, Florida. We moved from Knoxville, TN where it was easy to register your kids with the county school system and they required little until high school. It seems that I am just to make a statement of intent with a form and then chose how I want them to monitor my 4th grader - a portfolio, standardized test, etc? Is anyone familiar with all this? Thanks ReneeR

Yes, I taught (and learned) Latin with my ds in 5th grade. We did everything that Memoria Press offered including the Henle Latin. Then he finished the 1st 1/2 of Wheelock's on his own mostly in 8th grade. At that point, I asked him to choose what foreign language to study in high school. It was between German and Spanish. Spanish was chosen, and he was thrilled when he discovered how easy it was after Latin. We visited Spain and Portugal during his 8th grade year, and I was amazed at how much I understood just from the Latin we had studied together. I will start my 4th grader on Latina Christiana this year and go through a few years of it with her before getting serious about Spanish in 7th/8th grade ReneeR