Are they looking into Lyme disease? If the rash is still clearly visible, have him take a picture of it. That might be useful later. I'm sorry your son has been sick!

Not the norm so far for my son's classes, but I think he was allowed either the book or a page of notes for one test last semester (not all the tests in that class). I did do some tests open book in high school for my kids, depending on the subject.

Sounds normal to me! My ds almost had a meltdown about writing a scholarship essay question on why he felt that school would be beneficial for him to attend. In the middle of our discussion, I seriously asked him if he thought he should go to school the next year or get a job instead and take a gap year, but he thought he should go to school. Turned out the trouble was the word "felt." He didn't "feel" excited about (more nervous actually!), and when I said, "Can you answer why you THINK it would be beneficial," his whole countenance changed and he said that would be easy to write about. He doesn't know what he wants to major in yet either, and I've been more interested in him figuring it out than he has! It's a tough balance between sitting back and letting him have time and pushing. I'll likely renew the "it's time to explore" push a bit more during summer break! As I told him, I don't expect him to necessarily DECIDE now...just show interest in RESEARCHING it! At any rate, I did push on the scholarship things because of the financial implications, and I was glad I did (between aid and scholarships, both tuition and books were covered this year). I really think at this stage, many kids just don't have enough life experience to have any idea what they think or feel about the future, and they have a lot of apprehensions. Some kids do need to be nudged into things, while others are excited to explore. (Honestly, I don't know which stresses me more--my oldest not showing interest in figuring out a major yet, or my youngest with a growing, thriving interest in being a coroner. It's so hard to imagine this sweet young girl as a coroner! I bite my tongue and pray a lot these days!)

MUS worked great here too. I'm glad you were able to talk with the counselor and get some answers!

I didn't get to read all of the answers, but is it possible to have your 8 yo do all of her independent and one on one work with you first, and then do morning meeting with your 12 yo at 11? (I think I would talk with dd 12 about having a set morning meeting time, and have her set an alarm for 10 am. At this age, kids do need more sleep, but if she's in bed by 10, she can get up to 12 hours, which should be enough. If she's staying up late in her room, you may need to address that--but come up with a workable solution together. I found that when I talked with my kids, they usually realized that it was reasonable to make concessions so the family could work together and function.)

I agree that I would use the tests instead of skipping a whole level. We usually did just the tests for the first several lessons, and then settled into the lessons. That way if we hit something harder or wanted to take days off for field trips, it was still easy to finish the level in a year. Jumping from Horizons 3 to 5 would be quite a jump! However, there are placement tests online--you could check those and see how he does. Also, while Horizons is spiral and does review, in the upper levels if a student doesn't remember how to do something, it may not be re-taught. In other words--the review doesn't reteach the concept. So, you will need to be confident in teaching those aspects if your student missed the teaching, because it will assume your student remembers from the previous year. The upper levels are a bit odd--the first lessons start out ridiculously easy sometimes (which is why we always tested out of those), but then would sometimes seem to take a jump and be hard. However I did like that the upper levels have much more instruction to the student.

This was us too (right down to needing an IG to begin with and eventually piecing things together myself! I liked their one-page guide that showed what week to start each book better than the daily guide, and then realized--I can make up a one-page guide! I've been eclectic ever since!) I think the IG's had the potential to be a powerful tool, but I agree they were hit or miss. The questions always frustrated me--they were mainly comprehension questions--sometimes about inane things like the name of a minor river mentioned once in a chapter but not brought up again--who cares? Let's talk about the characters, choices they made, what's exciting or interesting, did my kids agree with the choices or would they have done something different, what was unexpected, does the title have a special meaning, what's the conflict in the story, what's meaningful, what's beautiful or amazing about the writing style, etc... I felt there were so many great things they COULD have helped us talk about (and sometimes there were things I wanted tips or help with talking about)...in that regard, they were a "miss" for me.

Thankfully this wasn't an issue for us--scholarships did not affect need-based aid at all. I think I'd be frustrated by schools not willing to stack, honestly! How often does EFC + aid actually equal the costs of tuition, books, room & board?

Check the level 1 placement test--then you'll know if she's ready to start with AAR 1 or if she needs work at the Pre-reading level first. Some kids don't need pre-reading, but many really benefit from it if they are missing phonological awareness skills etc... I think you'll find the teacher's manuals pretty easy to use. You can see inside those and the readers and activity books on the samples page. HTH some!

With the first and third ones, yes. I can't even imagine kids trying to work around these learning disabilities while in a classroom situation. Kids with auditory processing struggles are very distracted by background noise and often have trouble distinguishing words and sounds correctly--both big issues in a classroom situation that can't be controlled very well. Kids with all types of learning struggles benefit from one on one instruction, coaching on understanding how to self-accommodate, multisensory learning methods to help hold their attention and strengthen weak pathways (like the auditory one for kids with CAPD), shorter lessons, lessons tailored to their needs--all things that are much easier to accomplish in a homeschool environment. Things I have found helpful: Help Your Child's Memory--I incorporated a lot of these ideas into my homeschool--they totally changed how we did some subjects and helped me to have more realistic expectations, as well as helping me to more quickly identify the problem when my kids were not retaining information. Auditory Processing: How Can I Help My Child? has some good tips. Workboxes--very helpful in keeping kids on task, breaking down tasks into doable parts (so they don't get as overwhelmed) keeping materials organized (fewer lost books), etc... Reading aloud--I think years of Sonlight read-alouds helped strengthen the auditory pathways for both of my kids--it's one of the best things we did here. Multi-sensory approaches--some I like are All About Spelling (and All About Reading--wasn't out yet when mine were learning to read but would have made my life easier), Math-U-See, things like base 10 blocks and Cuisenaire Rods (we used before we had MUS), all kinds of games for practicing math facts, Mystery of History (short lessons to start and simple hands-on ideas that reinforced the lessons), letting them play and act out things we learned (like going to the back yard to dig in the sand box when we studied about archaeology and Ancient Egypt, or a cardboard castle they could crawl in and out of for months when we read about the Middle Ages, or my daughter rolling herself up in a blanket to be like Cleopatra when she hid in a carpet roll)... There are lots of great resources online where you can find information. The Learning Challenges and Special Needs boards here on WTM are supportive and helpful places to ask questions. My kids are now a Junior in high school and a Freshman in college. We homeschooled all the way through, and I don't regret it at all (nor do they). You can absolutely find the resources to help your son and teach him the way he needs to learn. HTH some!

LOL, ah yes, well...we did get creative with a few :-).

How about some older ones--The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur, Cleopatra... The first two levels fit pretty easily in a year too, length-wise--Level 2 readings are a bit longer, but not much. 3 and 4 are better suited to a level per year for high school. How about some historical fiction? Here's a blog post on books I added in. We did MOH 1 when my oldest was in 8th, so you might want to sub in a few more challenging books, but for a student who doesn't have a lot of history interest, many of these could still work.

Our local Y offers homeschool PE for students. I use that and then log any physical activity (walking, biking, swimming, boating, games with friends, chores like raking leaves or shoveling snow etc...)

If you happen to have opportunity to list (for a college to see) all of the books, movies etc... that you used for a subject, I would probably just list it under World History--I don't think I'd list it for both. (If you are just submitting transcripts to a college, they would never even see the movie listed period--but if you are doing more indepth course descriptions or lists of books etc..., it might come up.) For counting time, I did sometimes divide things up--just don't double dip. So, let's say my student was working on a research paper for composition class, but the topic relates to our history. I might count the research time for history class, and the writing/typing time for English. So, if you want to divide up how you count the time for the movie, you could count half for each I suppose. I honestly didn't worry about being overly precise with this kind of thing though. (I didn't track so much that it would drive me crazy, in other words!) Unless your state requires you to keep time logs--and even then I'd probably use a broad brush-stroke--I wouldn't worry about it too much.

I will say that I dislike FB pages for conversations like this. It's hard to keep up with a conversation (and to find your place again when other conversations start coming up--and just about forget it if it gets to be a long conversation!) Blech! It's fun for quick things but not so much for serious questions. As for the regs--can you find what you need from HSLDA's site? Or go to some college sites and see what info they have on there for what they require from homeschoolers? That doesn't help with finding local classes/opportunities though, if you are also looking for that...

I don't think anyone is thinking that you aren't working on math. What we are trying to say is that you really can't truthfully say he did Algebra 2 or Geometry if the highest course he takes is Algebra 1. I would list the courses that he has *actually* done. I don't think you have to pretend that he did Algebra 2 to get him in the door to be able to take remedial math classes, at least not at a CC. Yes, this is also what I was trying to say above. Most CC's have open admission which means they accept all applicants. I can't speak to CCs in Kentucky, but here, if a student didn't have those math courses, that's what they would start with for math. Our CC requires them too--and then they use tests like Compass or ACT to verify the student's proficiency (because even some kids who take the courses don't retain it, or haven't mastered the material to a minimum acceptable level). Students who haven't taken the classes or who have but either didn't pass or didn't do well on the entrance tests will take those math classes at the CC. My state university (way back 30 years ago) worked the same way--they did entrance tests and made sure anyone who didn't have a certain score took those math classes. CCs usually admit anyone--you can get a GED at a CC. So, I'm saying that not being able to complete those classes in high school does not mean he can't go on to college, but it does mean he'll have to take them before he can complete his college degree. There may even be universities that would accept a student who was talented in one area but needed help in another. They won't waive the requirement completely (just for admission)--they'll make the student take it in college. Taking them at the CC is usually cheaper than at a university (and it may be easier to just start there and then transfer to a university later). Taking them at home is usually cheaper still, so that's why I would get as far as you can at home, but don't sweat it if he's just not getting it yet. This doesn't have to keep him out of college. I really would urge you to go talk with your local CC and see what they offer for kids who struggle with math. You might be pleasantly surprised. I'll be surprised if they DON'T accept all students (I've not heard of a CC that didn't have open admission....) If the CC is in your town, you could even have your son try the next math class at the CC during his senior year. Maybe a different approach and being another year older will be just what he needs to be successful and move on.

LOL!

Sometimes it IS hard to know without just trying something. You've still got time though--9th is a long way from 12th.

I always schedule 30 minutes of writing per day and 30 minutes for lit. Some lessons don't take long (the beginning lessons when they are working on clauses and sentences for example), while others might take a couple of weeks (working on an essay or a research project)--so every lesson isn't paced the same, if that makes sense. I just have my kids get as much done as they can in the time we have (I've never worried if they finished all of the lessons--we often have another writing project or two that I let take the place of the Essentials research paper or one of the other papers). I think it's a perfect fit for a lit and composition type of credit, because it's easy to adjust the time, add in more drafts as needed, etc...

Seconding Math-U-See. The DVD's do the teaching, and the TM has written explanations the student can read if they need to go over it again, and the answer keys show how the problem is worked.

If they don't love the tiles for AAR, you can also write on a white board or on paper, and use underlining to show when two or more letters are working together as one phonogram. You can also modify how you do the fluency pages to make them more palatable--here's an article with tips (and some good ideas in the comments too).

It can still be normal at this age, but here are some tips on how to address reversals with him and begin working through these.

A schwa is not just any vowel that says "uh," but specifically the vowel in an unstressed syllable. For a simple definition, check out the "full" definition on Merriam-Webster or (for an even clearer definition) the definition on Dictionary.com. A lot has been and can be written on this topic, but it does seem that CLE is over-generalizing the schwa to any "uh" sound.

Hopefully you get some good answers--here's a comparison thread from awhile back.

We didn't outsource either. I followed CM early on, but ended up more literature-based/eclectic in our approach, so I'm really not up on what CM would look like in high school. We occasionally made up our own courses though (for example, my son wanted to study Japanese history because Japanese was his foreign language, so I looked for a good "spine" type of book, some historical fiction to flesh it out, and had him do a research project.) Generally, 150-180 hours of work is worth a credit, and 75-90 hours of work is worth half a credit. People who don't use a textbook or prescribed course that claims it's worth a credit usually find other ways of tracking or measuring what they feel is a credit, and time can be one of those ways. I really think you can make it work--you're just taking what your students learn and deciding how to label it for a transcript. So one person's "World History" course could be very traditional, workbook/test based, and another person's could be an unschooled approach where the student pursues books, topics, and projects that interest them, and another's could be more like ours--generally a spine text with biographies and historical fiction thrown in with note-taking, a few papers, and lots of discussion/narration. All 3 courses could have the same title, but be very different approaches (and might even cover very different topics, given the scope of world history). Some approaches might involve doing bits of work on a course during more than one year too (and then the transcript might be organized by subject rather than by year if needed). I would look at your student's goals and work from there. If your student plans on going to college, then look at those requirements--what types of courses will you need, and then how can you meet those needs using the CM approach. Lee Binz has a free seminar on grades and transcripts that might help you get started.