Can you post a link please? Thanks!

My son has announced this is the direction he would like our science program to go in. I don't really know anything about forensic science, I've never even seen one episode of CSI or Law and Order or anything like that. I tried to google a bit, but really didn't find anything. I was hoping someone here has btdt. *SIGH* Help! Thanks in advance.

I just wanted to say my heart is breaking for you right now. I'm an animal lover and I cannot stand the thought of sick, suffering or incapacitated animals. It also saddens me to think of how sick, suffering and incapacitating it can be to be the loving grieving humans of those animals. :grouphug:

. . . it just sounds like you really need a hug this morning. Here you go :grouphug:. If I were you, I'd stay as far away from that lady and that group as humanly possible. With all the negativity in the world today, there's no use just reaching out and asking for more. Remember that you daughter will look back and remember how much you loved her and cared for her and how much you were willing to sacrifice for her . . . she will have outgrown any new clothes or shoes you have given her. They will be long gone and will not mean a thing. Only your love for her will. And it sounds like you are giving her plenty of that. ;)

I have a blog, I don't myspace or facebook or anything else. It's actually a challenge sometimes just to get onto the blog once a week. I enjoy reading other people's blogs because their lives always seem so much more interesting than mine, LOL. I guess human nature is to always be envious of what you don't have. I also like seeing pictures of people, it's so interesting to put a face with people's online personalities. I'm blogging more now because we're taking a break from school, but once we start up again, I'll probably be a little less frequent.

I LOVE the way you can set up a separate "profile" and queue for each person or group in your family. That way the movie comes with that person's name on it and you'll know what/who's movie it is without having to open it up. We have 4 separate "profiles," so everyone has one movie from their queue at home at all times. I get two "profiles" one for my personal movies and one for educational movies. Mom #2 gets her own "profile." Baby Boy gets his own "profile." The mail is super quick to Netflix from here. If I put it in the mail this afternoon, they'll get the movie in the morning and send out a new one tomorrow afternoon, which I will get the very next day. Yah, Netflix! :thumbup:

Wow! Thanks for sharing. You may want to cross-post this. I've always wanted to know what the "big deal" about those Teaching Company lectures is all about. Now I can try a couple, for free. My FAVORITE price. :001_smile:

Algebra I, then Geometry, then Algebra II? That's how we're doing it. There was a pretty fair amount of Algebra in the Geometry so there was no way he would have forgotten it. I've already got my Algebra 2 text we'll be using this fall and it has a fair amount of Algebra 1 review built in - so I guess I'm saying "no," I don't think the Algebra will be forgotten if you use this line-up. Others disagree, so do whatever you feel is best for your child. My son doesn't care for math and Algebra in particular was not his favorite so he really enjoyed the break from it and Geometry was a big hit. I think he's had a little time to mature and he's more grounded and ready for Algebra 2 at this stage in his little lifetime.

Oh, and since I only have just the beginner's one. . . I must say . . . they are BEEEEEUUUUUUTTTTIIIIIIIIFFFFFUUUUULLLLLLLL! I'm so jealous! ;)

We've used Pre-Algebra, Algebra 1 & Geometry. We'll be starting Algebra 2 soon. I wouldn't place my son or myself in the "Super Math Mind" category, so when people say that it's "too easy" or not "rigorous" enough, it doesn't bother me. Before we did TT, math wasn't really getting done at all. He wasn't very good at it, and I wasn't good enough to really help him . . . so we kind of just "limped" through it while frankly not learning anything. I think it's a good well rounded program, and I feel we are both learning a lot. We are not rich people and don't have the option to co-op or tutor or anything other than sit at home and learn together, so this is THE most expensive part of our homeschool program, but I feel it is 100% worth it. I feel like the fact that I'm still homeschooling and my son still loves me is a living breathing testimony to the miraculousness of the program. :D

:iagree: I have a friend who used this method and it worked effectively. Also what we did with our barker was just get a few spray bottles (like the kinds in the sample section at Wal Mart - they are about 50 cents apiece) and filled them with water. Distribute them around the house so you have access to one each and every time he barks. Every time he barked, I'd spray water at him right in the face a couple of times. Soon he would just see me pick up the spray bottle and he'd hush right up. Now he doesn't even bother with barking at small little things and when he just "has to" bark, he'll just give one little bark and then look around for the water spray and will usually just hush right up. So he's not totally cured, but definitely a MAJOR improvement. The whole process took about a week or two and he is VERY stubborn and dare I say, spoiled. :001_smile:

Yes, an ipod would probably be much easier. Get whatever size you can afford. I have a little ipod nano as well as a big video ipod. The little one holds I know at least 6 or 7 books at a time and a couple of them are really long Harry Potter books. When you "sync" your ipod with the books in your itunes, you can put the ones you want on your ipod and leave off the ones you don't need at the time, so it doesn't really matter what size hard drive your ipod has unless you are wanting to keep every single book you own on your ipod at all times. What would also be a good investment is the little ipod charger that has speakers on it so that if more than one person is listening, you don't need to have headphones for everyone and everyone doesn't have to gather around the computer. Something like an ihome. It just takes literally seconds to download the audio books into your itunes and then a minute or two to "sync" them to your ipod. There's a little bit of a learning curve, but once you get the hang of it . . . it'll take seconds and you'll be doing in your sleep. I hope that helps! :001_smile:

I'm pretty math stupid, so since we're too poor for co-ops, tutors, or classes, it's the next best thing. We've used 3 courses and going for the 4th this fall. I love it! My son "gets" the math and I don't really care if it's behind grade level, because before he didn't get it at all which would have been worse than being behind.

Well, there are three parts (book 1, 2 & 3 :)) and I would suggest starting with book one, even if you've previously had theory, just go faster until you get to where it becomes challenging for you. What I recommend for a high school student who you will want to work independently or with minimal parental guidance is the Complete Self Study Course. It is all three books combined into one with the two ear training cd's. It is written directly to the student and at the end of each unit has reviews/tests where the student listens to what they've learned on the cd's and answers questions regarding it. It is very thorough. They also have where you can buy each book individually or you can buy student books and teacher's books separately, but it is all essentially the same exact course and you get more bang for your buck just buying it all in one - much cheaper in my opinion and less of a chance for things to get missed. I like linear teaching . . . one thing after another, all in a row, :lol:. It's less confusing for me. It's also available a little cheaper at Rainbow Resource, but I gave you the Amazon link so you could take a peek inside. If you like software, you can get the exact same set-up (educator's versions, student versions, books one at a time, or all three combined into one) on a cd-rom. That's also available at Rainbow Resource. Some people like interactive lessons with immediate feedback. You can also get a demo cd for free. It has the first few complete units on it, so you can try it out. I have the software as well as the book (I know, overkill - there's no need to do this - I got it very cheap at a local thrift store). The educator's version is very expensive in my opinion, and you can do just as well with the student edition. I actually found the software to be much more challenging than the books, although you would think it would be the other way around, with music and all. The reason is you can freely look back and forth in the book when you need help with an answer, but on the cd-rom you only have the knowledge in your head at the time you are answering the question. It starts off easy, but you can quickly see whether you are actually learning or just memorizing enough to get by in a few lessons. The software and book follow the exact same pattern and lessons, so we ended up using a combination of the two for my forgetful son, LOL. We worked on it doing 3 or 4 lessons a week and easily finished all three books/sections in one school year. I showed it to my sister, who was a music teacher in her former life, and she did think it was challenging enough to consider as a high school music theory credit, so we did. :001_smile: Anyway, I hope I have been of some help to you.

I had "something" removed from my breast about 8 years ago. I know those are scary days and nights waiting to find out what it is and what to do about it. Big hugs to you! :grouphug: I hope all goes well.

I know when I post to Craigslist in the mornings, it seems to take longer for my add to post. I guess because it' so busy. Sometimes up to an hour or so. The best thing to do is wait until after lunch, or even better late in the evening. I usually just "mock up" my add on a Word document and then right before bed I'll copy and paste it to Craigslist right quick and when I get up the next morning I'll check and it's already there nice and neatly. It's a very busy/crowded posting sight, of course, because it's free. Hope that helps! :001_smile:

We're in Central Texas, safe and sound and hoping for some residual rain, but almost all of my in-laws live in The Valley and they're all boarded up for the storm, but hoping for the best. My 80-something year old grandfather-in-law simply will not be moved :confused:, but hopefully all will be safe. We're sending them lots of positive energy and hoping Mother Nature will cut them a break. They've been through lots of hurricanes in the past and I'm sure there will be more in the future. *SIGH*

It took my son between an hour to an hour and a half to do each lesson. That included viewing the cd lecture, going over all of the practice problems together, completing the problem set as well correcting any mistakes. I will say it occasionally took 2 hours if he missed a lot as I made a point of him redoing every problem even if he just found a little arithmetic error in it. I did this in the hopes that he would be more careful next time and not make the same silly mistakes. If I remember correctly, each problem set had about 24 problems. If we were short on time, I'd pick out 12 problems for him to do that were relevant to that particular lesson as opposed to letting him do all the evens or all he odds because there is a lot of review built into the problem sets. I would suggest that as opposed to skipping lessons since the nature of the curriculum is to "build on itself" and I was afraid if we skipped lessons, he'd miss something. Of course, do whatever works for you in your house :D, that was just our experience.

I like Alfred's Essentials of Music Theory. They have it as both a book and cd set as well as a cd-rom computer curriculum. It has levels 1 - 3. It looks simple enough, but when my son and I went through it, we found level 3 to be fairly tough and he's taken music lessons all of his life. It's not for any particular instrument, but if you get the computer software, you can set it up for any clef that you want (base, tenor, etc...). You can purchase it straight from Alfred, another of other music websites, and I actualy thhink they have it at CBD and Rainbow Resource as well. If you get the complete 3 in 1, it is self teaching for a junior high or high school student. Hope that helps!

I'm definitely going to skip it. The last one with Katie Holmes scared me and kept me up for weeks with nightmares, so I guess I'm easily frightened. :eek: Anyway after that I swore off the Batman series. They can have it . . . it's not for me. Even my son, who I guess was about 13 or so at the time, was scared and frankly, he's fearless. So we're done with the Batman movies. I guess I didn't realize how dark they were. I was expecting someone along the lines of "Holy Smokes, Batman." Nothing like that.

:iagree: We did Geometry last year and we used so much Algebra during the year, there was simply no way he could have forgotten it. I don't know if I'd do a whole Algebra textbook, if it were me (we aren't real big math nuts over here), but there are several internet sites where you could print out some free Algebra worksheets and have your student do them once or twice a week . . . just a thought.

Wow! What an awesome resource! I kept waiting or the site to ask for my credit card . . . but no! Not even shipping and handling. I can's wait to see what I get in the mail. :D

This year I have an 11th grader, but last year my 10th ds was the same way. He despises reading, no matter how much I read aloud to him or find high interest books for him to read, he just refuses to learn to love it. It's taken me some time, but now I realize that everyone doesn't like to read :confused: like I do. The thought of it used to blow my mind. At the same time, I had to inform him, that there would be some reading because no reading is just not an option. For 10th we did the Movies as Literature, which I think someone already recommended. It was so much fun and really does have some deep nitty gritty type questions for analyzing the movies. Probably more so than I would have had him analyze any book ;). This year we're going to do Lightning Literature's American Lit. He's not overly excited about it, but I think after realizing how much work he actually did last year, even without reading a lot of books, he has more confidence that he can do it and do it well. Good Luck on your decision! :001_smile:

Hurray for you! Mine was supposed to be delivered today, but my UPS man is an idiot, so hopefully I'll have it tomorrow. I can't wait. Every since I saw Matt Lauer hula hooping on the Today Show, I've been dying to try it myself! :lol: Maybe my abs will feel sorry for me and start to look like his (Yummy! :D)

I was expected to type 55 wpm in high school (many years ago). Around here the job market usually says 30 wpm minimum typing speed. So I've let me son stop formally using a typing instructor curriculum. He types about 40 wpm. He is required, however, to turn in only properly typed work for our homeschool at least weekly, so he still gets lots of practice even though he's not using the typing software anymore.