Thank you! This has been extremely helpful!! And yes, I did mean to say British Lit.. Not history...Sorry! I'll read through all this again and take notes and formulate a plan.. Thanks so much!!

Thanks for the feedback ladies. And no, the co-op teacher is not teaching writing. She's leaving the writing portion up to the parents to do or not do. Ok, so I'll add other readings (for a British Lit or Ancient history credit) and we'll do writing separately. I think I'll just do an entirely different writing program because she is a weak writer at this point. So I can give a full credit and call it British Lit if I add a few additional titles (Dickens, Austen.. what else?) and also add a writing program as well as have her do the writing assignments (or at least most of them) from LLfLofR? Or did I understand wrong?

My 14yr old daughter is taking a Lord of the Rings literature course at co-op this year. The teacher is using Literary Lessons from The Lord of the Rings. She says I can give my daughter a credit for Ancient Literature, or Literature with an emphasis on Tolkien, or even British Lit (if I add a few more books from Dickens and Austen). She also says that I can give her dual credit for both Lit and Composition if she also does the writing portion of the program. I'm fine with this, but my husband is not. He says you have to write anyway in any literature course and he thinks I'm shortchanging her by giving her two credits. Has anyone been through this course and can comment?

For anyone curious, here's the McGraw Hill LearnSmart digital Lab for A&P - http://learnsmartadvantage.com/course-books/learnsmart-labs-for-anatomy-physiology/

That text looks fabulous, Claire! Thank you! Is there a reason you linked me to the 4th edition? I see there is a newer edition, but more expensive. We are going to have to do digital labs using the McGraw Hill LearnSmart Lab for A&P. If she were going into a science field, then I would have her do real labs, but she is way too sensitive to that sort of thing. But I will definitely get the text and workbook.. Looks perfect! Thank you again!

I found this.. https://www.nala.ie/sites/default/files/publications/better_handwriting_for_adults.pdf

Same problem here. My daughter will be a senior next year and her handwriting is still just terrible. She wants to improve it, but has a hard time. It's always been her biggest struggle. I'll check out the Zaner Bloser books. Thanks for posting this.

Thank you so much for the feedback. I'm understanding more now. I will get in touch with this teacher and see what I can find out. I've actually never met her, but I'll try to find an email address or something (she's new at the co-op) So is it mostly pointless to do this since it's in her senior year and she will already have college applications sent out before taking the AP exam next May? What do you mean by "you might be able to present the rigor of the course as the next step"? Also, does "honors" look impressive on a homeschool transcript?

Thank you for clarifying.. Here are the credentials for her British Lit teacher for next year - Should I speak to the teacher about the goal to take an AP exam before the class starts or can I just find an AP exam location on my own without teacher involvement? I'm not sure what "Pre-AP/AP certification" means or why this may be important and if it can even apply to a British Lit course (I'm just completely clueless). "Nicole ******* is an experienced high school/middle school teacher and new resident of *******. Teaching has been her passion for the last twelve years. She is certified to teach English in grades 7-12, with a gifted/talented endorsement, and Pre-AP/AP certifications. In addition to eight years of experience in the public school system, Nicole spent three years teaching classes at the **** co-op in ******, Tx including Formal Writing 1-3, French 1-4, and several literature/literary criticism courses. She has been recognized as Teacher of the Year, as well as Most Inspirational Teacher."

Ok, I did some googling and clearly I am clueless on what AP entails. Apparently there are some exams to be taken throughout the year or maybe at the end of the year by The College Board. How does a homeschooler access these exams? Sorry for the rookie questions. I don't spend a lot of time researching this sort of thing (and I clearly should!).

My daughter will be 12th grade next year. She is extremely advanced in English, writing, literature. She is University bound for an English degree. I want to show on her transcript that she has completed AP courses in English (at least one). How can I do that? She has written plays that have been performed by drama groups and she has taught Creative Writing courses (she wrote the curriculum herself) to high schoolers. She writes novels in her spare time (her passion) and she writes a book review column for our local newspaper. She is also a librarian at our library. I'm thinking all this together can count toward "honors" at least. How does this differ from AP and what can I do next year to make sure she has AP on her transcript, if anything? She will be taking British Lit and English Essentials in an academic co-op next year although she already has all her English credits. These will be extra. She will no longer be teaching, but she will continue with library work, writing her novels, research in career field (publishing, etc), and writing for the newspaper. I'm thinking about asking the English teacher at the co-op to give her extra work to make it AP. Will that work? Thanks, Misty

I need an anatomy & physiology course WITH LAB for my 12th grader next year. I was looking at the McGraw Hill LearnSmart Lab (digital lab) which looks GREAT, but I can't figure out which text to use with it, if any.. Does anyone know? And any other suggestions for Anatomy & Physiology? This is my strong suit as I have a medical background. So it will be easy for me to teach, I just need proper text and lab. She Is NOT going into a science or technology field. She is University bound for an English degree with the goal of being a writer/editor. I'm also teaching her medical terminology along with it, but already have a book for that. Thanks! Misty

Thanks ladies! I just realized the reason I always used Startwrite is because my kids do Getty/Dubay Italics. Are there any programs that create worksheets using italic handwriting?

I haven't been on these boards in years so I'm a little out of the loop.. Are there any cheap programs for making copywork pages? I purchased StartWrite years ago, but I've lost my download code to download it onto my newer laptop. So before I go and purchase it again, is there anything else out there? Or better yet, is there a workbook to go along with FLL (the old edition where grades 1 & 2 are combined into one book). Thanks!

Any ideas for what my students can do for their end-of-year exhibit? I teach English From the Roots Up to 6-9th graders at our co-op. I have 16 students. They can either make something to display on a table or they can recite something on stage.. Ideas please! I'm drawing a blank. The end-of-year exhibit is for the students to showcase to family what they have learned in their classes.

Thanks everyone for your wonderful feedback! I have read through this a few times, trying to absorb it all and figure out which direction I want to go. Some very good recommendations in this thread and some of the stuff we have done in the past (like listing parts of speech and putting it in her binder).. I think diagramming will be a good move for her. Easy Grammar has its own way of diagramming, but I think she really needs to do the old fashioned way. As for dysgraphia, she does not have dysgraphia, but she does have poor penmanship. She writes fluently with her poor penmanship and she keeps up in her classes without supports in this area (she's in two full-day academic co-ops). She is still learning to type. As for her grammar when speaking.. Yes, she uses proper grammar when speaking.. But I don't think she could write her words down. So maybe she does have some level of dysgraphia.. My oldest daughter has motor dysgraphia and I always had her type everything. She was able to write with ease as long as she was typing. She can do copywork and even dictation (if I repeat it enough times). I guess her main problem is she can't remember the labels (parts of speech, etc).. I'm probably more concerend with this than I should be. Thanks for all the recommendations. I will read through this thread again and take notes and look at the recommended books. I think her learning style is just so different than mine and my other girls that I just didn't know how to teach her properly. My other girls just absorbed it without even trying.

Okay, so my daughter was diagnosed with high functioning autism, very highly gifted IQ, slow processing speed, and figure-ground auditory processing disorder when she was younger. She has come a long way over the years and really would just *barely* be considered on the spectrum today at age 14. She is a great student at co-op, a talented musician and artist, and totally gets math and science as if she were born with these subjects already implanted into her brain somehow. And then there's grammar and writing.. She is a decent reader and she reads daily without prompting, though she reads more slowly than her sisters do. She missed the vision therapy boat (I think her high IQ was overcompensating for her shortcomings and we just didn't notice.. she began reading at age 4 despite a mild speech delay). She absolutely despises any type of grammar or writing program. She cries and whines and complains that she doesn't understand it. I have to remind this child even what a pronoun is.. at age 14!! That's how much she just isn't absorbing it. She processes language slowly and she still has significant social issues because of this. She is 100% verbal and speaks fluently with great receptive and expressive language at home, but she still lacks social language. I think her social anxiety slows down her processing speed or something because she seems to do fine at home. Or maybe it's because she's more used to family interactions and so she processes us more quickly than she does other people? Anyhow, the other day she pleaded with me, "Mom, HOW am I going to learn grammar!?".. She is getting desperate to figure out how to learn this stuff, knowing she's high school age now. She is a great student who is eager to learn, but she just isn't getting it. And with me sucking at math and being a word brain (her sisters too).. I just don't know how to help her get this stuff into her brain. She is currently working on Writing With Ease level 4 and having a very hard time with it. One problem she has is she focuses too much on the little details and misses the big picture. For example, on the last lesson, she was to name three things (from the passage) that Leonardo DaVinci designed or wrote about in his journals.. well, because she knew there were more than three things, she couldn't complete the request because she was only to name three and she didn't see how it was possible to name only three when there were about 10 different things talked about in the passage. This just didn't make sense to her and she felt overwhelmed and started to have a mini meltdown over it because she didn't know which three to name (and she sort of acted like she couldn't think of any of them too.. like it was all jumbled in her brain). This entire lesson was like pulling teeth. She didn't know what to say so I had to do a lot of prompting and practically hand her the answers on a platter before she said it. I then dictated what she (really me) said back to her and she wrote it easily using proper punctuation. It's like all the information was jumbled in her brain and she couldn't make sense of it. Words make no sense to this child! It's a wonder she has any language at all! She was using Easy Grammar for a long time without much progress (she can progress through the book, she just needs help and she doesn't retain any of it).. I think she was doing grade 5 last year. Then I tried reading Grammarland to her and she hated it.. What else can I try? She is college bound and I can't let her go to college without writing skills!! (my worst homeschooling fail nightmare!). My 17yr old daughter is a fantastic writer with plans to get an English degree. She wants to be a writer and editor.. How can these two girls be sisters!? If there are any new and wonderful programs out there that I don't know about.. Please tell me! I have been off the homeschool boards for a few years so I don't know what people are using these days to help kids like this. I hate to go back to First Language Lessons for her since that's what her little brother uses.. But I will if I have to. I think she can do the WWE books with lots of help. Any other ideas? Thanks for any feedback!

Thanks ladies! Another homeschool mom had mentioned to me that it might count as a science credit so just thought I'd ask. Wishful thinking since she hates science. Computer science counts as a science credit, right? The teaching is somewhat volunteer. She is getting paid, but very little and that will be to cover materials mostly. It's at a homeschool co-op. She has already created the entire year's lesson plans. The library position is volunteer. She's been volunteering there for the past year. After high school she is planning on an English degree to be a writer and editor and possibly teacher (Although her dream is to have a cat cafe with oodles of books for customers to read at their leisure while they pet adoptable cats and sip hot drinks... lol) Laurel, what is TA? I'm drawing a blank. Teacher assistant?

My 16yr old daughter is working as a librarian, running circulation desk, etc. Can we count this as a science credit? And maybe even a lab science since she is in the library working (hands on).. Also, she will be teaching a creative writing course this fall. Is there any type of credit for teaching? She already has lots of creative writing credits (she writes novels and has studied this career field extensively) Thanks! Misty

This totally resonates with me as well. For years we have been so frustrated over poor math performance. I just couldn't see how she can learn something one day and totally forget it the next day. And to muddy it even further, she has a gifted IQ so we always expected her math performance to be at least at grade level. And the worst thing is, my husband is one brain cell short of being a math genius. He is REALLY good at advanced math so this situation is just baffling to him and he has had to learn to completely check out because he just doesn't get it at all. We have had way too many arguments about math in this house. I finally settled her into Teaching Textbooks a few years ago and she does okay with it.. But like I said, she is just starting 8th grade and I don't think she will be able to do Algebra at all. We plan to focus on consumer math, life skills, budgeting, etc. and maybe hold her hand through algebra 1 just so she can have that credit on paper. The degree program she is looking at only requires one semester of basic math so as long as we can help her through that she will be fine in college. I'm just worried about her high school transcript for now. I have really been helping her focus on her writing career in recent years. So we are mostly focusing on her strengths and trying to develop her career now. We do a lot of research on publishing and we are preparing her most recent novel for that. She is actually glad that her brain is lopsided. We have had several conversations about how someone with her level of genius (in language and creativity) would almost have to have some level of disability in other areas and this satisfies her. She also has synesthesia and was diagnosed with mild Asperger's years ago, but the Asperger's is really not noticeable these days. For science, she is a rock hound so we were thinking about putting her through a geology certification course that will certify her to work with rocks/gems if she wants to some day. That would take care of one science credit, I think. She will also be doing biology 1 & 2. She has already completed Rainbow physics and chemistry, which isn't high school rigor (more like 8th grade) and she didn't do bad in them (she was just terribly disinterested) so that may be enough for her since she most definitely will not be pursuing a career in science. Anyway, please keep in touch so we can share plans. I'm not on these boards very often so we should exchange emails through PM or something. I would love to know what you end up using for math and science throughout high school and what has worked for you so far.

Ok, wow, I have your daughter's twin here at my house. My daughter is 16, diagnosed with dyscalculia. She just started 8th grade math (finally).. We decided to do 7th grade twice because she just couldn't retain it. She is light years ahead in anything to do with language and wants to be an author and editor. She finds great satisfaction in correcting other people's grammar (and she even has a t-shirt that says "I'm silently correcting your grammar".. LOL).. She spends most of her time writing novels. Extremely creative and talented. I am stuck on what to do with math. She is ready to graduate except for math and science. She will be starting dual enrollment next year. She is a sophmore this year and they said she was too young (she has a Sept bday). So we're waiting until next year. She did well on ACT, but the math score brought her overall score down. She actually did decent on the science portion (21, I think) and she nearly aced the reading and English portions. So you and I should keep in touch and share notes! Oh, and we're in Oklahoma so we're neighbors!

Has The Colors still not been released? It's been years in the making! Are they just not updating their website or what? I can't imagine why it would take this long! Has anyone ordered this and actually received it? http://www.beginningspublishing.com

Thanks everyone for the feedback.. After doing some research and reading some blogs, I think we are considering self publishing now (through Amazon/Createspace).. This seems to be the way to go these days, I guess.. I appreciate the feedback about revisions and beta readers.. We will definitely do that..

Thank you for the feedback! I've been reading through those blogs and WOW! We just might be doing self-publishing after all. Thanks so much for sharing.

What a fabulous space! You might get some ideas from my thread from a few days ago.. http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/481076-money-is-no-object-what-would-your-homeschool-room-look-like/