How did you all fulfill your health credit? I see Apologia has a program, it looks beefy. Maybe unnecessarily beefy. There's the PACE health, which... I don't like the "people with healthy issues physical or mental are a drain on society" vibe. What else is there?

Any tips or resources for a gardening unit? I'm looking for high school level and would want to include both reading and practical application (actually planting a garden). I am not a gardener myself.

I mean that I'm trying to sweeten the pot because she needs a tech credit but has no interest in computers. She's very creative so I think photography editing would appeal.

I'm suffering from too many options. I'm looking for a photography editing course meaty/technical enough to count as a high school tech credit. There are sooo many options. Ideally it would cover both photography and editing, but the editing part is what she's most interested in. I know photography is generally an art credit but this is a VERY computer averse child so I'm doing what I can.

I have a 15yo that will finish up Algebra 2 around Dec/Jan of next year (long story short, a bad case of covid put him several months behind in math and we never caught up). I don't want to put him in Pre-Cal because he won't have time to finish it before he does DE at the local community college the next year. I considered a semester of Stats. But after his tests scores I'm realizing a refresher on computation may be a better choice. This kid did amazing on concepts but apparently has forgotten some basic arithmetic (long division, ect). 🙄 Any resources for something like that?

Dorothy Heyer wrote surprisingly good historical romances, and they are all clean. I enjoy them a lot, as does my 15yo daughter.

4th time through with 8th grade and feeling like I have a good grip on the jump into high school. Math: Finishing up AOPS Algebra and then hitting one of their smaller side books. Writing: Writing and Rhetoric 8, a daily sentence to diagram, and Sequential Spelling. Plus regular narration and common placing. History/Literature: Story of the Ancients, Story of the Greeks, and Story of the Romans by Miller. Paired with the Iliad, Odyssey, and Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Plus quite a bit of mythology, some Plutarch and a touch of ancient poetry. Science: Berean Builders Chemistry with his older siblings. Extras: I'm letting this kid quit Latin this year because he hates it with a passion. He's really interested in ASL so trying to figure out if there's a politically correct way to learn that. It's a whole worm can, apparently. He will continue in Homeschool band where he plays trombone. Hiking and ice skating will count as PE.

DS, last year before he starts dual enrolling for most of his school 😞 Math- finish up D.O. Algebra 2 (a bad bout of covid put his math at odds with his school year) then do a semester of statistics or maybe double time it through Mr D consumer math. Programming or Tek lvl 4 with Mytek- will decide after we see the schedule, right now level 4 would mean an 8am class 😬 DD, thankfully not leaving me yet Math- Saxon Algebra 1 Sign Language- still looking for a good class. Maybe Mr. D? BOTH: Writing- finish up the Writing and Rhetoric series with books 11 and 12. Literature/Social Studies- Ancients using the Old Western Culture Greek DVDs. Science- Berean Builders Chemistry

I have an 8th grader and 10th grader interested in American sign language. We know several families that use it so we would potentially get a lot of practice. I like that Life print looks like it gets you having conversations right away, it's not just a list of vocab. But Im struggling to know how to use it/how to organize lessons with it. Any advice? Im also looking at Mr D, which is much more straight forward as to planned lessons. But will it teach grammar/culture? Or is it just vocab? Has anyone used either program and could give a review?

I used an exel form in the past but this year (1 year old plus a pregnancy) I've just been doing what's next and honestly? It works just as well. kids range 10-15. My daily line up, for the record, is: Current Events (CNN10) Prayers and hymn (new one each month) Bible (read the next chapter, when we get to the end of a book, pick a new book) Saint Story (saint of the day) Memory Work (group new, individual new taking turns picking things, 1 from weekly review, 2 from long term review) Poetry Reading (same poem for 3 days) and picture study the 4th day Lit reading (chapter a sat, when we get to the end, pick a new book) History Reading (chapter a day)

Any suggestions for a high school level creative writing course? Half or full credit would both work. Online or self paced. We are coming off of Writing and Rhetoric Thesis and need a bit of an essay break, but I don't want to stop writing all together. She does enjoy writing stories/creative writing in general. Editing to add she's sitting next to me and said a poetry course might even be fun. 🤷

I feel like 6th/7th grade just takes forever. It's a distractible age. If the time isn't killing her I'd just let it be, safe in tht knowledge that she will get over this developmental hump sometime next year 😂

This would be for my current high school students, who don't have phones yet. I have ds12 in AOPS Introduction to Algebra (hasn't needed a calc yet, but I assume will soon), ds13 in public school Algebra 1 (teacher recommends one about halfway through the year), dd14 in Saxon Pre-A (won't need one for quite a while I think), and ds14 in Derek Owens Algebra 2 (the current calculator user). I may even end up with two calculators depending how needs fall.

My 20 year old graphing calculator is finally dead. Big line down the screen. It's a Texas instrument TI 89, and I was just going to buy another just like it. But there's a TI 84 that's in color, and a CAS that's cheaper and says it does more. Now I'm doubting myself. Is there a calculator that just blows the others out of the water?

Thanks, I'll look into Khan, because outsourcing to something fairly independent sounds great tbh. I used quite a bit of icivics when I did a late elementary/middle school, 1 quarter long, government run through a few years ago. It was quality but a LOT of work on my end to put together.

My high school kids need a half credit in government/civics. I could phone it in, but honestly, I don't think it's a bad idea. My own civics knowledge is pretty lamentable 😬 Anyways, any recs? Online or textbook based would both work. Something balanced would be ideal, I realize anything political is going to lean one way or another, but I want to avoid complete bias.

What you are looking for is conceptual understanding, which any modern curriculum is going to provide as long as it's taught well. In my experience, there isn't one (or two, or three) best curriculums so much as a best fit for that child. Over the past decade, over 6 kids plus tutoring, I've used with success: Miquon Right Start Singapore Math Mammoth Beast Academy And that's just arithmetic. Don't get me started on how many different Algebra programs I've used. For what it's worth I've also used Saxon, Life of Fred, and Teaching Textbooks with less-than-sucess, while admitting maybe it would work for someone else. Questions you need to ask yourself are: How hands-on can I afford to be (do you need the student pretty independent)? How much prep time can I afford to do (do you need open and go)? Do you have a teaching style that needs to be supported (I can't stand scripts, tbh)? Does your child have a learning style that needs to be supported (hands on, visual, oral, ect)? How important is review and repetition to the childs success? How frustrated are they by leaps in logic, do they thrive or do they prefer explicit instruction? Every kid/parent will be different, so each will gain true math understanding with a different program.

This was our biggest highlight to DO grading. My son often doesn't show work at all, or skips steps and only shows some work. When I was grading I often didn't understand where he went wrong when he had an incorrect answer and I wasn't sure how to give partial credit. DO has never docked him for correct answers with no steps shown. And often even with just an incorrect answer he leaves a note saying how he got that number (with no partial credit). That being said, he's very generous with partial credit when steps ARE shown so it's taught my son to only skip showing work when he's VERY confident. 😂

I did the parent grading for Algebra and switched to them grading for Geometry, mostly because I didn't feel comfortable grading proofs. I honestly wish I would have gone with them grading earlier. The turn around is about 2 days, but tbh, that was better than mine at times 😳. I really like that they provide fully worked out solutions for parent grading, but I didn't always want to copy it all out. And when they graded they often knew where my sons thinking got side-railed, while I did not. We were also sent videos of the problem being worked out with commentary a few times when it seemed he was really confused. If you have the money, it's worth the money.

That would be great. You can email it to courtneyeliza1@gmail.com. my son did a lot of dissection in between 6th and 7th grade (worm, grasshopper, clam, crawdad, fish, frog, fetal pig). The other two are big no on dissection. So I'm not particularly wanting to repeat that. But other labs I want. I know I want to get a real microscope. Right now I just have a weak computer connected one.

I know there's a sticky but it's so much info and I'm really drowning in overwhelm. My co-op dropped me because we are Orthodox (they decided to become solely Protestant). Their right but it was where I was getting science so now I'm scrambling to make a plan. - My kids will be in 7th (advanced), 9th (average), and 9th (delayed) grades. - They are currently finishing up Apologia General Science, which has been ok but not great. - I do not have funds for a live online class this year. -Labs are important to me. Lab kits are almost equally important because prep time and collecting stuff is not my forte. -I need something that can be done in 2 blocks a week with a parent, and the rest assigned as "homework". They are all good readers. - I have no Christian/non Christian preference.

How did that go? I'm considering using it at a co-op as well and trying to figure out how much we could do all day and what I would assign as homework (if anything). Any insight?

My oldest son did Jacobs Algebra in 6th and half of 7th. He then spent the rest of 7th shoring things up in various ways and paying with Patty Paper Geometry. Then in 8th he did Jacobs Geometry. Now he's in 9th and I'm outsourcing an Alg. 2 class because he needed a teacher better at math than him 😂. She will continue with him for PreCal/Trig and then he will go to the community college. My daughter and next oldest do did Math Mammoth 7 in 8th grade, and AOPS in 6th last year. They are both doing Jacobs this year as 9th/7th graders.

My oldest son did Beast Academy, straight into Jacobs. He's an excellent math student, not prone to overwhelm...but that overwhelm him a bit. I learned that Pre-Algebra isn't so much about new learning new topics, but about learning to transition to high school style math. Granted, he was only in 6th grade, but I never skipped Pre-A again. My daughter did Math Mammoth 7 into Jacobs in 9th grade just fine. My next son went Beast to AOPS Pre-A to Jacobs in 7th.

Has anyone used the Shurley GRAMMAR program? I'm deciding between that and the full Shurley English. I feel like it might be a better fit, as I really don't like the look of the Shurley writing. Or would I be better off just using Shurley English and skipping the day 5 writing? This is for a 4th and 5th grader. We would likely jump into Shurley 5, skip a year, and then do 7. They've done Treasured Conversations for grammar in the past.