I just checked my Piecing Together the High School Puzzle by Joanne Mastronicola and the sample transcript lists the courses but leaves the grades and credits areas blank. I like the idea of using "in progress" as well.

We too are writing in our books this year. And he is also having a hard time doing that after years of mom telling him not to. :lol: I copied the first chapter from his text books onto paper to help ease him into it.

I really like the look of the samples. Can I ask about the religious content or if there is any? I noticed that he does address evolution and creation but what about the religious content in the rest of the book. Thanks!

Isn't that funny? I'm the same way. I enjoy son's books just as much or maybe even more than he does. We are always fighting over who gets to read the books first.

We do and I can't wait. I totally ditto the crack comment. :lol:

Wow, what a great site! Thank you.

I would but I never find more than one guide in the same place. I just google the name of the book and either the words "study guide" or "lesson plans" ( or some combination thereof) and sort my way through the results. Sometimes I get lucky and find something that works right away, other times I might have to go through several pages of results or change my search parameters until I find something that's a good fit for us.

Beautiful! How do you ladies do that? I've been blogging for less than a month and I'm feeling rather stupid about it. For the life of me, I can't figure out how to spice things up.

You've probably already found this: http://waylifeworks.jbpub.com/student_resources.cfm It's not much but the best I could find (actually Rhea found it, thanks Rhea!). You might be able to form tests from what they have available. I decided to go with essays as a form of assessment. He'll write one after each topic we study. I'll grade it on content and if there appears to be a big gap in knowledge we'll go back and review it. If he were going to do the AP or SAT subject test then I might do it differently, but with all the notes he's taking and the process of organizing those and his thoughts into an essay, I feel it's a fair manner of assessment.

I have been exceptionally fortunate in finding free study guides on the web. It may be because we are studying the ancients and there are more available for that time period but you might want to take a look just in case. Even if the search only produces a couple, it might be worth the time to save buying a few guides. Mainly I have found guides written by college professors and high school teachers. The high school ones tend to have a great ideas to add to my son's reading journal and projects to do in case we want a break from essay writing.

I'm the wrong person to ask this question because we aren't that far along yet. We are doing the ancients and are using Spielvogel's Human Odyssey but I have the Western Civilization text as well in case I want to flesh out a topic a bit more. More than likely when we do reach that stage I will add in a US history spine, probably Johnson's A History of the American People. You can find SWB's lectures at Peace Hill Press. Her writing lecture is well worth a listen too.

Thank you :001_smile:

Probably not with all the bacteria that could be breeding underneath them. :lol:

:cheers2: Congratulations on a job well done! That is truly impressive. It must be sad though to place that last order. I know I get bit melancholy just placing our last order for each year.

SWB discusses that in the WTM. The gist of it is that you are covering all those courses during your 4 year rotation. To make it easier for the colleges to understand, you simply list them under those more well known course names. You'll probably have to throw in more US Government than will probably come naturally through your studies but that would be easy enough with a US government book tossed in the mix. Oops, just noticed you are in the UK. But the same goes for a civics book. Hope that helps.

:iagree: I'm very impressed and a bit envious of all the wonderful activities your children and families are involved in. So far our out of the box plans are still in the box and taped tightly shut. It's hard to know what we can handle during the evenings with baseball such a big part of son's life. He wants to do Teen Court where kids become the lawyers, bailiffs, and jury (the judge is the only adult) to children in trouble. They conduct a trial and pronounce due punishment upon those children. Being part of Teen Court counts as community service plus I think it will help with public speaking. Yesterday I got the community education schedule in the mail and they are offering Conversational Spanish for 2 hours a week for 8 weeks for $65. I think that would take our Spanish lessons to a whole new level but son was less than thrilled when I discussed it with him. Can you guys give him a poke?

Thanks! You are too sweet. It's nice to know though that all those hours wasted putting it together maybe weren't so wasted after all. :D

Not guides, but here is a schedule of readings already matched to SWB. We aren't following it exactly but it did help me put together my own list of books. http://www.docstoc.com/docs/40452604/Year-12-Reading-List

:iagree:

Yep, that's exactly what we do. Have you listened to SWB's literary analysis lecture? It's that which gave me the courage and confidence to go ahead. I've had to listen to it several times to update my inoculations of courage and confidence and I keep it on my iPod in case I need more but really it is easier than it seems.

We are. I probably would have chickened out if financial concerns weren't a huge factor but, after two weeks, we are enjoying it. Plus it's nice to play with our own ideas, analysis and rabbit trails.

When my eldest left school, I asked the school for a copy of all his courses he had taken to date. I used those class names and course codes on my transcript and made a note at the bottom with the name of the school he attended. I then added all the courses he took at home and through the virtual school right in with the school's classes along with notes at the bottom about which was which. The college never asked for more and I never requested the high school send a copy. It was all pretty simple and straightforward. It made me feel silly for being so stress about it. :blush:

My oldest came home for his last 2 years of high school. I made one transcript, included both homeschool and public school courses and made a key to note which was which. The college never said anything about it so I can only assume it was acceptable.

I finally got around to creating our Ancient History notebook cover. I don't know if that will help at all but I thought I'd post the link just in case. http://daisiesanddominos.blogspot.com/2010/08/another-notebook-cover.html

Another great thing about The Lively Art of Writing is that it's been around so long (it's as old as I am :tongue_smilie:) that it can be found rather cheaply in an used bookstore.