I did this with ds when he was in 7th grade, and the only reason why i was able to make it work with ds was because I had the background (major in bio/chem). It did have errors, and so I found myself double checking to make sure. Some of the concepts could have been explained simpler, with more examples, or go slower so the kid can grasp the concepts better. Other than that, ds must have remembered enough of it, because he recognized the chemistry chap. in Shephers Biology. But for my girls this year, I'm using Hewitt's Phy Sci explorations instead. Actually find chemistry portion of this book easier to understand. But, in any textbook, you can make it work, supplement with other books, or look for other sources that will make the concepts easier to understand, or go slower until you think your kid gets it.

DD10 (soon to be 11 6th grader), used it first last semester. She had a hard time doing it, and this is my mathy kid. She finished Horizons K-6, and part of the Singapore series, I believe up to 5A, and yet she did not breeze through Horizons Prealg. It's deceptively simple, that's my first impression. It's the same format as the previous years, 2-page per lesson. But, it does jump into pre-algebra concepts right away without introducing and not giving reinforcements. I need to supplement and provide extra practice for some of the lessons. I went back to Russian Math 6 and she finished up to Chap.3, and this year, I had her go back Horizons Prealg starting from Lesson 1 (she managed to get through lesson 43 the first time she did). She's doing much, much better this time. I got impatient with her, and made the mistake of comparing her with older dd12, who finished her Glencoe Prealgebra without too much complaining except in the first 4 chapters. I guess dd10's maturity level needs to catch up so she can grasp the abstract concepts in her mind. I'm happy that dd10 is happy with her math. It's not by any means easy, and looking through it, will prepare her well for algebra when that time comes. I probably will use Dolciani's Alg. 1 Structure and Method with her, as this is the textbook dd12 is using this year, and I have all the ancillary materials:solution man., teacher's ed., practice problems, tests and etc.

I wanted to buy the dvds, but I changed my mind. It's a lot faster to sit down and read and discuss together, and get logic done in less than 20 minutes a day. I was disappointed with the Introductory Logic dvds when I did with my son since it was just a repeat of the book, that when I started doing AofArgument with the girls, I didn't want to buy the dvds if its anything like the Intro Logic dvds. anyhooo, dvds or not, we're doing logic, so that's a very good thing.

The funny thing is I'll go on and on how he doesn't apply himself that I don't notice that he's been giving me the right answers all along and I don't hear his answers. I ask, "what did you say"? Does it really take for me to get so worked up before he starts thinking harder that I do? Ahhhhh, I don't know how long I can carry on like this. Yet, every morning, come start of the our school time, I'm carrying on as usual. I don't like to be the grown up.:(((

Forgot to mention that dd12 (7th gr) is on her 4th year with home2teach.com, and I hired a writing tutor to work with my girls 45 min. weekly from April 2011 to the first two weeks of August, and she did individual writing tutorials with Laurel Tree Tutorials with Rebekah. She did not have any previous IEW experience, but I think because of the writing classes she took, she treats IEW-C(she's taking the Fall 2011 online IEW class with Pamela White ) as another writing formula to follow, and is doable, but she still works for it to finish the assignment. Otherwise, if IEW-C is her first writing class, I agree that it would have been too hard.

Vocabulary Workshop. I really think my girls started using big words ever since they started two years ago. I'm thinking of dropping Voc. Workshop since now that I am serious about my kids learning Latin, the Latin vocab is giving plenty of new words for them to think about.

I would go with IEW-C for the 8th grader. The article may be longer, but over time, your 8th grader will adjust to the work. If it gets too hard, you can always can slow down.

I so understand. My oldest, ds15, is 15 and 5'3 and 3/4. My dd12 is 5'4" and 3/4, and passed him up already. My dd10 is already 5'1". He's very conscious of his height, and always comparing himself with his sisters and friends. Dh and I are Asians but we're not on the low end of the height scale. I'm 5'5" and 1/2, and dh is 6" tall. My mil on the otherhand is 4'10", so maybe that's where my son took after. My hubby's brother is only 5'3", so my son already passed him up. I'll be so happy if he gets to be as tall as me. I feed my son eggs, chicken, meat, green veggies, vegetable, fruits, milk, and gave him a multi-vitamin for teens. I don't know if that is working for him, but it seemed to work for my girls. Need to remind myself that I should just be thankful that he's very healthy and well.

It's bad? Who says? I don't really follow the morning is the best time. whatever or whenever I can fit it in, I do it. I just can't exercise past 9 pm as my husband says it shakes the house. This is when I did jillian michael's dvds faithfully. I slacked off then, burnt out from all that jumping.

Thanks so much, BeckyR. You saved me a lot of time and effort. On another topic, do you make your child do all the problems? I do, but find that it takes her longer. I wonder if I'll make it easier for her just to do the first set. She use to get upset but as she keeps on moving, she finally got use to the amount of problems. Thank you again.

Just wondering if anyone ever get to work on the solutions/answer for chapter 4-6. If so, would you share it or i can pay for it. Otherwise, no choice but to work on it myself. I love this math text for it's simplicity in presentation. Elegant almost. Dd#2 is using this; at first, she hated it with a passion, but now she settled down nicely and is chugging along. THanks so much.

Did anyone started/finished/doing Insanity? I burned out doing Jillian Michael's dvds. Reached my size(26,2)/waist goal, but there still a lingering fat around my stomach that does not smooth out except when I tuck it in my pants by raising the waist. It's subtle as husband keeps telling me that I looked fine, but I'm not satisfied. I somewhat toned my arms, not muscular, but enough for me to accept since husband told me it looks like again when we were starting to date about 24 yrs ago. Jillian's dvds could not get rid of that residual stomach fat though. Where the best place to place order? Would I get everything from the 10 dvd set or is it worth it to get the deluxe set? Ahh, vanity, vanity. Thanks so much.

I have Zojirushi hot water dispenser, and tea diffuser for one mug (I use loose sencha green tea leaves). I use the tea leaves twice, and I drink about 6-8 mugs of green tea from the time I wake up to nighttime.

Patagonia sells undies with synthetic material which is similar if not the same material as their capilene line. check their website patagonia.com.

I loathe it, actually. It's bad enough that I have to deal with my own snots, how much more other people snots. I feel that the mom or moms are just dumping their kids onh me, so they can be free. The pretending to like the kids not my own is so exhausting. There, i've said it.