. . .wait til you hit your 50's. I'm now 1/3 heavier than I was in my mid-30's.. The weight started coming on in my late-30's to early-40's, and kept coming. (Gone are the days of what used to be size 5-7, and now would be a size 3, without any effort!) I eat less these days, exercise more, and have sort of plateaued for the past few years at an unfortunate weight, but haven't lost any weight. Good grief, who knows how heavy I'd be if I currently was eating as much and exercising as little as I did when I was in my 30's? My size 3 college freshman-eats-whatever-she-wants (as I did at that age) dd looks at me, and fears for her future. . . . Heh heh.

We originally brought my youngest ds home from full-time ps after having afterschooled him for a couple of years. That was seven years ago, and he's never wanted to return to ps. He was in special education with some mainstream inclusion, and although the placement was fine for him (most of the time) while he was there, his academic progress really (REALLY) shot up after we brought him home to homeschool full time. If he were to return to ps now, he probably would not qualify for special ed. Unless something unexpected occurs making it necessary for me to return to work, we will probably homeschool him through high school.

Thanks for taking the time to post it! I only took the time to try one patient, but got him well. I like the way that you had to come up with a second correct option in addition to the first, obvious, one. Thanks again!

:) The two older kids used UCSMP from Transition Math (pre-algebra) into Statistics, Functions and Trigonometry with the eldest (who had health problems and so didn't get as far as he should have), and almost all the way through Precalculus (UCSMP's Precalculus gets through precalculus plus about half of what is in Chalkdust's Calculus) with Child #2. The oldest currently tutors math while in college, and Child #2 scored high enough on the SAT to get a full-ride academic scholarship to the University of California. So, although UCSMP sometimes gets ragged on, it worked well enough here. That being said, I didn't think UCSMP would be a good fit for my youngest after algebra. Therefore, he's done UCSMP Transition Math and Algebra, but is currently in Jacob's 2nd edition Geometry. I'm currently in the midst of obsessing whether to use Foerster, Chalkdust (Larson), or Lial with him for Algebra 2. I've worked several lessons in Forester and Larson, and so far like Larson a little better. (I'm referring to the texts alone, without the videos.) I'm waiting for Lial to arrive so that I can try it. My two older ones were largely self-taught, coming to me only when they got stuck. In contrast, I've had to spend more time teaching Child #3. I'll probably be okay through algebra 2, but since my calculus days were almost 3-1/2 decades ago, I'll probably be spending this spring and summer trying to (re-)teach myself trig and calculus. Actually, I'm kind of looking forward to it. . . .maybe a little.

We did do a little of BJUP's Physical World last year, but mostly mixed A Beka and Apologia's Physical Science during 8th grade. We had done BJUP's Life Science in 7th grade. I have used Apologia Biology and A Beka Biology with my older children. BJUP's THIRD (not the 2nd) edition of biology is more rigorous than either Apologia Biology or A Beka Biology. This comment applies to both the text and the labs. (However, this is not the same thing as saying that Apologia and A Beka aren't rigorous; it's just that BJUP is more rigorous.) As such, I think it would be difficult, although definitely possible, to teach without a science background (or without the DVD's), especially the sections on cell biology and biochemistry. Oh! I almost forgot to address your first question: No, I don't think it's necessary to have done BJUP's 9th grade Physical World in order to succeed with BJUP's 3rd ed Biology. But, as I mentioned above, there may be other considerations to factor in. HTH!

We used this a decade ago with our ds, and it made a definite improvement in our ds's ability to distinguish phonemes. It was pricey, although in the years that followed our using it, our public school district began providing it for children. I have heard of Earobics described as "the poor man's FastForWord," but I do not know how accurate this description is. HTH!

Trouble is, I've already graduated two and I only have one more left. I realized I couldn't learn everything as much as I wanted to. While I had all three at home (including the youngest, who has special needs), it simply wasn't possible. Fortunately, I already had learned a lot (at least once) from high school (I actually went to a pretty good public high school), college, and grad school, so a lot of what I had to learn was simply remembering what had once been inputted several decades earlier. The rest I had to outsource--like to the Teaching Company for lectures on Dante or Shakespeare, or to a knowledgeable homeschooling friend for American government, or to a tutor for Spanish. Now that two are in college, I can concentrate on learning, e.g., I took a year of Spanish at our local cc so that I could help the youngest in his homeschool Spanish class now. I'm currently trying to relearn math; I went through a year and a half or so of calculus in college, but it's long gone, so I have to back up to somewhere in algebra 2/trig and start from there. Don't get anxious; you'll do fine learning along with your children, especially since they're still young (I think). And if I may make a specific comment about one or two of the subjects you're trying to learn: Don't bother trying to learn physics until you have more math under your belt! :) Greek is easier to learn if you have some exposure to Latin first. Vice versa is true, as well, but introductory Latin is, IMHO, easier than introductory Greek, even koiné Greek (which is easier than Attic Greek). Best wishes. P.S. It's also easier when the kids are old enough to help out with the housework and if you have a spouse who has kindly resigned himself to a not-exactly-tidy house and who also does a lot of what little housework does get done. :)

When my ds with hfa was in elementary, we used a number of supplemental approaches to help solidify his grasp of math-- Mention has already been made of the "Key to" series. For fractions, I used Everything's Coming up Fractions (used with Cuisenaire rods) I had ds on the computer, using software designed specifically to supplement his math program, as well as general market math software like Math Blaster I also ended up using two math curricula simultaneously, since they had contrasting approaches to teaching math, and I felt that ds needed both. HTH!

The trick is that these must be written correctly, or they can backfire. One can't just simply put one's own agenda onto a piece of paper, change it to first person, and expect the child to own it. I'm no expert in this. Our child was (and is) very compliant, so with our social stories we could almost do what I just said above not to do, and they would probably still have worked. Social stories were a useful tool our ds with hfa when he was younger, although we did not use them as extensively as others have.

Hi, Braxton-- I'm just a Spanish novice myself, but I'll give it a shot. Hopefully, one of the people here who really know how to speak Spanish will correct me if I mess up. Although "¿Cómo es usted?" or "¿Cómo eres tú?" would literally translate as "How are you?" in English, they're not what we mean by the question "How are you?", since this question in English generally refers to a transient state of being. Therefore, the usual English "How are you?" would be translated by a form of the verb estar, not ser, and so would be, for example, "¿Cómo está [not es] usted?" The "How are you?" using "es" or "eres" means asking about enduring characteristics--like being handsome or intelligent, as in your SOS question--and so would be better translated by something like "What are you like?" Did that help at all?

We've done this, or something similar, i.e., moved through the early sections very quickly if the content was material both they and I felt that they knew well. However, I've also done the opposite--spent MORE time on early content. I did this with my older two kids, after they finished geometry and immediately prior to moving on to an algebra 2 book that had little review of algebra. I pulled out a different algebra course and had them review parts of algebra 1 before they started algebra 2.

Hi! I own BJUP's current edition of Chemistry, as well as Apologia, Merrill, and several of Zumdahl's titles. However, I've never actually used BJUP Chemistry with my kids. I wasn't entirely sure what you meant by the above, but I'm taking it to mean that you would like comments on using BJUP without the DVD's or satellite program. If I misunderstood, please accept my apologies! I'm afraid I can't comment on this lab kit, having never used any materials from this company. There are a lot of variables that would determine the answer to this question. One general variable is math: For a solid, college-prep chemistry program (in which category I would include BJUP), students HAVE to have a solid grasp of algebra. Just algebra 1 would be fine, but they can't be taking it at the same time that they're taking chemistry; they need to have completed algebra 1. Another variable is: What resources does the student have if s/he doesn't understand the content? If you, as the teaching parent, don't have any previous chemistry experience, are you willing to go through the text with your child and wrestle out the solution to his/her difficulty? My usual favorite chemistry text for families who have no chemistry background is Apologia. Its explanations tend to be more complete and detailed than BJUP's. However, the downside to that is that the breadth and depth of Apologia are somewhat less than that of BJUP (unless the student also completes Apologia's Advanced Chemistry). I'll probably be using Zumdahl for chemistry with my last child in the fall. Zumdahl's breadth and depth is comparable to BJUP's (if not more), but I like his explanations better. (BTW, I'm not talking about Zumdahl's Chemistry, which is a thick textbook for college science majors, but his Introductory Chemistry: A Foundation.) However, BJUP's labs are better than either Zumdahl's or Apologia's. An added plus to BJUP is that they actually have two, somewhat different, lab manuals: one for large-ish traditional schools (i.e., schools with lots of lab equipment) and one for small schools or homeschools, so the equipment requirements are not as large. JMHO, but HTH!