Second the use of Princeton Review. Both my kids used it. My ds particularly liked the strategy approaches they suggested and the sort of "us-against-the-testmakers" attitude with a little humor sprinkled in. DD was NM commended and ds will be in the running for commended or semi-finalist. Both took the PSAT only once as juniors and didn't have any other outside prep.

My dh is from England and grew up doing this - painting historical figures and playing war games with his friends - and it is actually quite popular there amongst adults as well. They have whole magazines dedicated to war gaming and toy soldiers (Miniature Wargames, Wargames Illustrated, Toy Soldier & Model Figure) and I'm sure accompanying web sites, which are great sources of inspiration and ideas. These are more historical than fantasy figures, but I think there is a branch of that as well. My ds, who is 16, also enjoys this (and also used to play with his LOTR Risk guys!), so he added his comments below: This is actually a really major hobby both in the US and Europe. There are literally hundreds of companies that manufacture miniature figures in tons of different scales, some even as small as the guys from the LOTR RISK set. People use them for wargaming, diorama building, or simply collecting. And most of them are adults, actually. As well as the magazines listed above, model railroad websites are also good places to look at, as the process of making a diorama is basically the same no matter what you use it for. As far as what to call it, most people just call it "modeling" or, more specifically, diorama-building. And if you want more figures that are roughly the same size as the LOTR risk guys, just google "1:72 scale plastic miniatures" and see what you can see. My ds is particularly interested in ancient civilizations, so is currently working on one with the Romans and Germanic tribes. It has led to much historical research, as well as learning about which techniques work best for painting the figures as well as the diorama. Hope that helps and he has lots of fun with this!

My dd took AP Psychology with PA Homeschoolers using the Myers text and really enjoyed it. And did well on the exam (5).

My ds has taken 2 years of TPS Latin and said that it is about the same as most TPS classes, in that they start the class with prayer and then just cover the material. He said that there is a Christian character in the book and it references a few Bible verses, but it is not as overtly religious as something like BJU Spanish or something. Not sure if that would seem too much or not, but HTH.

My dd is a sophomore in college and may be applying there for grad school. She decided to go to a small college for undergrad, in which the dept. head is a USC film school grad, so that may help down the line. In general for film in high school, she ended up informally interning at a small production company nearby (and no, we don't live anywhere known for its film industry), going there about one afternoon a week for 2 1/2 years of high school. Through 4H, she did still and video projects, so ended up with 2-3 good examples of her work for her college scholarship competition, shooting those during the summers. Because of her internship, she pretty much knew everything that was covered in her intro to video production class at college, which was helpful. She also read several books about film production and did independent film study, beginning with the earliest films and working her way up through each decade (this was guided by her internship person). He would have her pay particular attention to various aspects of each film, like the lighting, etc., and sometimes write a short essay about them. Working with a real company was also helpful to see how the business end of things worked in the real world - it is not all Hollywood. :001_smile: HTH!

Our dd took AP Psychology through PA Homeschoolers and found it quite enjoyable. It didn't seem quite as time-consuming as other AP's, so wasn't too burdensome. They used the psychology textbook by David Myers, which seems to be the most common one I've seen for psych. Sonlight also has a package that is supposed to help you prep for the AP psych exam which uses this text as well along with some other study materials. Even if you weren't interested in pursuing the AP part, I would think you could still use this textbook.

We did a similar comparative chart with the various factual information as the other posters have mentioned, highlighting the ones that "won" in the various categories. However, we found that there were some things that didn't fit in categories and were more subjective and personal preferences, so we also made a sheet for each college that listed its pros and cons that was an easy way to see at a glance what our overall impression of the school was. We kept a file for each college with all the various mailings, info printed off their web sites, etc, in it and kept this paper at the front of each file. Periodically we (my dd and I) would independently "rank" the colleges in order of our current preferences (top 5 or 10), then discuss our rankings which we found to be a helpful exercise - and once the decision was made, it was interesting to look back and see how things had changed over time. It is an overwhelming bunch of information, but it does all seem to work out in the end!

Thanks for your input, Jann. I thought that was probably the case re: the older editions. I will keep looking and see what shows up.

It was for the One Stop Planners. Here is the ISBN: # 0030663776. It has a totally different cover, but wonder if it would work?

Yes, I've been running into the same problem :confused:. Would using the print TE work if I'm not able to find the One-Step Planner? Also, I've found some of them that are cheaper from 2003-2004 - would those work at all, or did the text change too much with the 2007 edition?

Yes, they have many AP classes. Here is the link: http://pahomeschoolers.com/ and then you click on the AP online classes link. The ones we have used have not been "live" - more done through email, message boards, and some live chat sessions, but have been very good. I'm sure the PHC ones would be well done, too.

When my dd took AP Lang and Comp (through PA Homeschoolers), we were doing TOG, so she did the lit part of that, but very pared down - did the reading and oral discussions with about one paper and test/semester. However, writing and lit were her areas of strength, so she doubled up LA credits most years of high school. If you only want one credit of English for the year, the AP class will provide more than enough work in writing and reading. My dd usually spent between 6-8 hours/week. Maybe you could incorporate some lit with your history studies if there are some books you/he would like to read, but not have another additional course.

Both here too. Some were in her future major area (English) to avoid having to take intro classes, another was in an area she preferred to not see again in college (math), and another was just a basic requirement (psych) that was interesting as well as fulfilling an elective and a college gen ed class.

My dd had quite a few TPS classes (and from other sources) so we got a really great transcript from Kareni on these boards (thanks!) that I used to show classes from different places. If you email or pm me, I can send you what we used - or Kareni may jump in as well. It also included a place to put your grading scale. I think most TPS classes will give your student a % grade, so you can assign the letter grade from that based on your own criteria. As far as printing out grades from TPS, if you go to the page for one of the classes on Studyplace and click on "grades" on the left-hand side, it will take you to a page that has the detailed grades for each assignment and the percentages for everything for that class. If you look at the top left, it will say "choose an action", and you can choose that view, which is called "user" report, or you can choose "overview" report, which shows you their total percentage for all their classes in a list. You can print both or either depending on your needs. HTH!

We have used both - Winston more in mid-late elementary, AG for middle school/early high school. For the ages of your kids, I would choose AG because it covers most all the grammar they need to know including comma rules and other cap/punct. rules, the diagramming really cements the concepts, and it is fairly straightforward. If your kids have had some grammar, you can also condense it by doing only part of the lesson - enough to review the concept and their method of labeling and one exer/test to make sure they have it, then go on to the next. We also used Rod and Staff which is also very good. You might be able to use one of their 9th or 10th grade books (skipping the writing parts if you are using something else) or some of their remedial workbooks, depending on how much grammar background they have. HTH!