Public school. I understood that drugs were around, but I never saw any and was never offered any, never tried any.

That's brilliant, Paula!

So far, we have planned AP and SAT IIs.

Math - Advanced Algebra (Algebra II) Life of Fred, Khan Academy Science - Physics, our own design History - AP US History through PA Homeschoolers Literature - US Literature, my own design Classical Writing Herodotus, plus extra work in SAT-style essay writing Latin IV - my own design German I - TBD, perhaps OSU, perhaps my husband will teach it We'll also do something for fine arts. I have some Teaching Company videos, some art history books, and Mapping the World With Art.

American History - not sure yet American Lit - will probably use Excellence in Literature plus extra books of my choosing Classical Writing Diogenes, maybe switching off with Killgallon Geometry - Life of Fred/Kahn Academy Physics - TBD Latin II - Lingua Latina Greek I - Lukeion He has also asked to learn a modern language - deciding which one Computer science/programming - self-directed

We live in Fairfax County. Pros: easy laws, tons to do, close to everything. Cons: high cost of living.

Dorothy Sayers :)

For my oldest, whose passion is history, math is our "Get it done!" subject. This is closely followed by science (with the exception of biology, which he loves). For my rising 9th grader, history will take a back seat. He plans to go to college for engineering, so math and science will be his priorities. OTOH, he's planning to do three languages next year. It will be interesting.

Hi Jen. We are using LoF as our main high school text. My oldest used Beginning Algebra. When he finished the book, I printed out an end-of-course exam from our public school system for algebra I, and had him take that, just to see. He passed it with no trouble. I feel comfortable that he learned algebra at a level comparable with the ps kids. We plan to stick with LoF, and find ways outside of Fred to check their knowledge, to make sure. I think some students will benefit from extra practice, but not all will need it. My kids also watch Kahn Academy lessons.

We use Lingua Latina.

And some are just plain evil. The hospital I was at for my first baby lied to me to get me to comply with their procedures. The OB lied to me. Flat out. I'm glad there are good hospitals. There are also really, really awful ones.

Just got the mail! We have a gold on Latin I, and a silver on Latin III - missed gold by one measly point!

My older son and I learn together. I managed to stay ahead of him in learning the grammar, although *I* need some work to shore up some concepts :) Now we read a section of our text, in Latin, and discuss it together. We see if we can answer questions about the text (in Latin). We practice translation. My younger son is about two years behind us. For him, I will be drilling him on grammar, assigning him sections of the text to read, and discussing the text with him in Latin as much as possible. We use Lingua Latina. Would an expert Latin teacher do a better job? Oh, my, yes. But we're doing all right. We're reading and understanding, and learning to communicate. Yes, I think you can still teach your child. It's optimal if you can stay ahead of your child :)

When did y'all take the exams? Early administration, or regular?

I would *love* to do this, but cannot commit the time right now.

In this case "class" = classes at a co-op, with other students, and a teacher, at a specified time and place. I don't have any issues with how to handle our work at home, varied and scattered though it may be.

I can see that, but it's mainly the core courses I'm concerned about. Colleges expect four years of English credits. Well, we did the work that one would expect to do to fullfil an English credit -but we did half of it in one class and half of it in another class.

I think you could call that Comparative Mythology. And I think it sounds fabulous! I don't know about The Writer's Journey so I will check that out. It sounds like something my 14 year old would enjoy.

Funny - I just discovered this last night!

This is sort of a s/o of the question about nontraditional high school ... Okay, so the advice I get is that if my child has offbeat courses for history and literature and English, then it's best for me to just pull those into a standard "English 9" and "World History" credit, so that the admissions people see what they expect to see. Okay, I can understand that. We've been looking at some colleges that request more of homeschoolers - detailed course descriptions and syllabi. Would we also draw up those course descriptions and syllabi to match the classes that are on the transcript? (My kids physically attended co-op classes that were part history, part literature, part philosophy, part art history. Two such classes, taken together in the same year, would equal a history credit and an English credit, by pulling half the material out of each class and combining it.) Some colleges like to see creativity on the part of homeschoolers. Some do not. We could tailor transcripts and applications depending on what the college wants to see ... but then what about the Common Application? It seems that once we do the Common App, everything must be the same for everyone. What do nontraditional homeschoolers do about dates? The Common Application, and the people who want detailed course descriptions, also want to see dates of courses. Well ... what if you did some here, and some there?

Those are great questions. My oldest has two classes of "Humanities," and two of "Great Books." Humanities covered history, some literature, philosophy, art appreciation, a little music appreciation, a little religious history. Great Books covered some history, literature, and some philosophy/government. They also read The Art of Argument and worked through half of Composition in the Classical Tradition. The advice I've been given is to put "English 9," "English 10," "World History I" and "World History II" on the transcript. I"m still not sure what I think about that.

My 16 year old still loves Playmobil. He and his brothers set up historical scenes, and have battles. Somewhere I have photos of a great tableau he made of Caesar being murdered in the Senate ...

I just bought this for us to use next year. In other words, I'm no help yet :)

Algebra II (at home) (prep for SATII math exam) AP US History (PA Homeschoolers) Physics or Chemistry (TBD) (probably at home, possibly at CC) either American Lit or Early Modern Great Books (TBD) (at home) Latin IV (at home) (prep for AP exam or SATII exam) German I (unsure - at home, OSU correspondence, or CC) Plus, he still needs work on composition. We'll probably also do half a credit of humanities/fine arts: I have some music appreciation lined up, Mapping the World With Art, and we may do a unit on Godel, Escher, Bach and count it as humanities. Extra curriculars will be Scouts, robotics, soccer, and hopefully an instrument.

BA in English Literature, with some master's credits in curriculum design. I look forward to getting a master's in classics in the sort-of-near future.