Apologia has a good one which I did with my daughter when she was in 3rd grade.

We play games A LOT!! In fact I wrote 2 webpages on geography games: Ways to make Geography Fun and States and Capitals Games. I am working on more pages to cover all the other subjects, so follow me on Twitter (merylvdm) if you want to know when I get done with those. Off the top of my head, here are some other favorites of ours: Set (Math) 24 (Math) Quiddler (vocab/spelling) The above are all card games, so work well to take on vacations! Some in bigger boxes: Art Shark (art appreciation) PayDay (economics) - I haven't played this but my kids have at friends Bible Blurt (Bible) Blurt / Taboo /Password (vocab, language, creative thinking)

A friend of mine uses Aiming Higher and she really really likes them. With their help her son got into many hard to get into colleges - and ended up at University of Chicago. So if you feel you need help and have the money ... they seem great. I did it alone and my dd did get into all the colleges she applied to (and 4 were ones with less than 25% acceptance rates) so it is possible to manage without help. She didn't win as many scholarships as we'd hoped though - and perhaps Aiming Higher could have helped with that.

My dd has just done LOF Fractions alongside Singapore 4 - and she loved it. I also let her work through it alone, but based on what my older boys have said about the high school level LOF books, I would assume he covers things step by step - but in a completely different way to anything you've ever seen before. My 11th grader has used a few math curriculums and he says no one explains as well as LOF! It is so cheap you can't really make a mistake with it. I would let my daughter have a break from Singapore for a week or so and let her do a few chapters of LOF and then she'd go back to Singapore.

Can anyone compare the Time Traveler one and the Harmony Arts one? Having read this thread I know I want to use one of the 2 when we do SL 6 and 7 starting in 2011. (Right now we are using Meet the Masters which we really like - but it is just art and not consecutive)

The KnowledgeQuest guide is really good. I have it and will use it over the next few years as we study world history as a supplement. If you click thru the link in my signature you will get to a web page I wrote which includes my families (and the kids I teach at co op's) favorite geography resources - board and card games, CD Rom games, online games, DVDs (most should be in your public library) and a few other ideas. I am about to publish a page on US Geography games - give me a day or two - I will link it to the other web page.

I heartily recommend Singapore. It has given my kids an excellent understanding of math and their emphasis on word problems means that kids get to apply the math they are learning all the time. I have supplemented with Miquon as it has quite a different approach - and also with Life of Fred which my kids LOVE!! In fact we now move to using LOF exclusively after Singpore 6B. Meryl

My son will have Lang and Stats next year - not great! Last year he took Macro and Micro Economics - and they have them one after the other on the same day. It was hard for him - but he had no choice. If you can plan high school courses so that they only take one in a day, it would be better. Meryl

We loved Sonlight 100 - my dd did it as an 11th grader and then took the AP US History exam and scored a 5. My dss did it at the same time but were only in middle school so I am using the Teaching Company US History DVD series for them supplemented by Critical Thinking through US History and a few readers (Up from Slavery etc). For Govt my dd did Sonlight's course and loved it - but it was more than my son wanted and so he has done Thinkwell's course and he loves loves loves that. In fact, he has decided to write the AP Govt exam. You can buy it cheaply through Homeschoolbuyersco-op. Meryl

In our State Health is a required subject and definitely not counted as a science. I doubt colleges would see it as a science either. Meryl in TN

I love Sonlight Science. It has provided an excellent base for middle school and high school science (3 of mine are 9th grade and higher). The books Sonlight uses are very engaging - especially the Usborne internet-linked ones. I like the worksheets - they show me if my kids really 'get' what is taught. I am just finishing SL3 with my 4th grader and am about to start on SL4. She has a very good grasp of the material. Meryl

I use the Singapore Challenge problem books and Miquon (it comes at it from a different angle) and Life of Fred. My dd whizzes through math so I am trying to make sure it is all cemented in her brain - but I also don't want to bore her so I flip around with different curriculum.

My teenage sons favorites are the God King and the Hittitte Warrior by Joanne Williamson. Both are historical fiction (set in Bible times) and extremely well written. If he is a good reader there is also the Henty series. My kids and I only read the Cat of Bubastes (it was GREAT) but a number of families I know with boys read many more.

I haven't used MOH but I did consider it at one point for my middle schooler but it was too lightweight for him - and I would think it would be far too lightweight for a highschooler unless you supplemented. You could add some biographies and documentaries at least. Or consider adding Teaching Company DVDs for a few of the periods. Another idea would be to do MOH in 2 years instead of 3 and then do US History and Govt in the 3rd year. Or stick to doing it over 3 years and add in US Govt in the last year and claim 2 years of World History and 1 year US and 1 year Govt by the end of high school. The one nice thing about using MOH is that you would have 2 kids using the same curriculum - and that is always a HUGE bonus. Meryl

My dd took 3 as she wasn't sure what colleges she wanted to apply to - it turned out that none of them (not even the 4 hard to get into ones) did require them. She took US History after Sonlight 100 Eng Language in 11th grade and Math (the harder one) after Thinkwell precalc. My 11th grade son is about to take Spanish Language - after 3 years of high school Spanish at our local co-op Math (doing Life of Fred Trig) either Physics or US History - he needs to decide which one he is likely to do better in (he is using Teaching Company US History course and Apologia Adv Physics) Meryl

I made up a course for my daughter and at the end she took the AP Art History exam and scored a 5. She used Walch Publishing's book on 35 famous artists (not sure of the exact title) and David Quine's Art Curriculum and Annotated Mona Lisa (her favorite - we took it out the public library but eventually bought it). She watched most of Sister Wendy's videos on European Art and the Teaching Company videos on the Louvre. And I found a test prep book on Amazon that she went through before writing the exam. Meryl

David Macaulay has ones on History / Technology - City, Cathedral, and I can't remember the other ones - those are history related but there are also ones about building bridges and something else technological. My kids have all enjoyed those. For geography Michael Palin's adventures traveling around the world are fabulous. Start with Round the World in 80 days where he tries to follow Phineas Fogg's trip around the world using only transportation that would have been available then. We have watched everything he has made so far and keep hoping for more! Meryl

My dd did hers by studying at home - and my son is preparing the same way. So far that has been very successful for us and I have not heard any kids be really enthusiastic about classes they have taken. Meryl

Hi I did this with an 11th, 8th and 6th grader a few years ago. Although SL designs it to match up with the readers etc, I know one of my kids friends always has had a hard time just reading the bit he was supposed to - and it seemed to work fine for him. THe other poster answered the LA question - SL does suggest Vocab for Classical Roots A, whatever Worldy Wise matches their grade and Winston Grammar. We do co op one day a week and still do the SL 5 day program - we do some before and after co op and we just squeeze it in - would hate to miss out on anything. LOL. Bible is mainly reading - when my kids got to high school I used SL Bible but added Starting Points by David Quine spread over 4 years so that they could do questions / answers. SL Bible is not slanted towards any one denomination. As I said, my 11th grade very academic dd did this course - and then she wrote the AP US History exam and scored a 5!!! So, no, I don't think it is 'light'. It is easy and enjoyable as opposed to big fat textbooks with few illustrations - but that just means the kids enjoy and remember. Literature ANalysis - I find SL to be grade appropriate. In SL 100 they read reasonably easy books - just a few classics and the questions are mainly contexual, butthey do ask for theme and things like that. In the higher cores there is plenty of analysis. My 11th grade dd did SL 400 US Lit with core 100 as the core 100 lit would have been too easy for her. She wrote the AP Lit in 12th grade after core 530 and also scored a 5 on that. The only thing she used other than SL was the Princeton review book - so I would definitely recommend Sonlight. Meryl

I would love to have the time to use them for myself - at best I sometimes watch with my kids. I use the high school US history and World History courses to supplement those histories in middle school. I am currently using the 84 lesson US History (the college version) as the spine for my son's US History course (high school). I also use Lies My Teacher Told Me and the Critical Thinking through US History books and I make him write at least one essay per week (from the essays suggested in the guide books). I used the Arthurian Legend course for my dd when she was in 9th grade as her literature for the year. And currently my son is using their Game Theory DVDs for a 1/2 credit - I emailed the lecturer and he suggested a few books for me to add to get it up to 65 hours of work. He loves the course. He is also using the Discrete Math ones as a supplement to the Art of Problem Solving math he is doing. (I may have the titles wrong - but you should be able to figure out which ones I am talking about) We used the Climate ones for Science Olympiad Meteorology event last year. And I think that is it - for now :001_smile:. Meryl

Try Life of Fred - I use it to supplement Singapore. There are 3 books out right now that can be used for elementary / middle school math. They are done in story format and are hilarious - but at the same time the math level is great! We used TT in high school - and then I realized it is far too easy and now use LOF for high school curriculum and I use it as a supplement for my 4th grader. Meryl

My son signed up to do the 10.30am test today - but the site won't load at all. Sad - he liked the incentive of the money - there are loads of free practice sites available - just click the link in my signature to find the ones we've been using - but that is the first I have seen which offers a 'prize'. Meryl

I focus on Worldview studies with my kids during high school - I want to be sure they know what they believe - and what the people around them believe So I use David Quine's Starting Points. It is excellent and goes through everything very thoroughly. I spread it over all 4 years and intersperse it with the books suggested by Sonlight (eg What if Jesus had never been born by James Kennedy). I also use David Noebel's Understanding the Times Dvd course when they are doing 20th century history as it is goes through all the 'isms' that affect our modern world. My kids have really enjoyed all this and I believe it has helped prepare them to engage in their world as they leave homeschooling and move on to college. Meryl

I will get my son to try it tomorrow and report back afterwards. Thanks Meryl

I remembered ... I left off Algebra 2! Meryl