What did you chose to use instead, JHLWTM? Better Chinese is our top choice. The videos do show it having many aspects, and so it looks intimidating.

A mix of Singapore and Teaching Textbooks. We tried Beast Academy and everyone hated it, and we hated Life of Fred. My olders will be trying AoPS. I'm hoping it goes better than BA did.

For the few we've done, I count each 1/2hr lecture as one hour because they stop to take notes, backup to rehear important points, etc. Then, for some courses, they spend another 1/2hr researching the lecture's topic online or an hour reading about the topic in a textbook or writing about it.

Gone series - Michael Grant Paper Towns - John Green Peeled - Joan Bauer 13 reasons Why - Jay Asher He's into mysteries and crime fiction right now.

Benjamin Tate sounds good together.

Christopher Pop-In-Kins just arrived at our house a few days ago. Boy is he adorable! I have no experience with Elf on a Shelf though. Christopher looks like he'll hold up well and is completely poseable.

I used to, now we have a DVR (and DVD and Netflix, everything with rewind). I will replay a scene over and over until I catch everything that's said.

Thanks for the reminder! I wanted to do this with the kids, maybe participate myself. Our year has been so crazy thus far, I totally forgot. I've got to get going on introducing this today.

Oh my! That's so adorable! It's now in my Wish List. I bet your DS is well-behaved in the store because he has his own cart to push.

My kids all play sports. They've done football, soccer, gymnastics, and wrestling. The only kids I've ever seen taken off the field hurt were in soccer, girls 11-13yo soccer. I worry FAR more about dehydration and over-heating than about concussions...until wrestling season. Then I'm just paranoid every match. I can barely watch it...but you know what? They've never gotten hurt there either. Sprained fingers have been the only injuries we've had from football and ds still went to practice and games because he loves the sport more than the pain hurt.

I love this for the logic stage!

Math Language - writing, spelling, vocab., grammar, proper speech Critical Thinking/Logic Topics - any random content subject matter: history, science, geography, current events, etc. we come across to learn. I keep a rolling list of topics.

Sorry about that. I had no idea chemical weapons had been used more than once on the Syrian people. It does show the 9 Questions article as biased and misleading if this was previous knowledge and yet the writer still paints Assad as the only user of chemical weapons.

The 9 Questions article came out before this one: Syrian rebels used Sarin nerve gas, not Assad’s regime: U.N. officialIt's now coming out that it was the rebels who used chemical weapons...you know, those guys the US backs. So our reason to bomb Assad as punishment is void. Unfortunately, I bet we'll still do it. It's a civil war. No one butted their noses into our Civil War.

You all have brought up good points that I've been thinking but needed to hear from others. I gather that she wants to get more structured and I would love to help her get there. I know some of it is finances and I've already offered her use of everything I have. Maybe we can start once or twice a week and see how that progresses. I'll talk with her about structuring it like a co-op or tutoring times. For example, I can offer to do a phonics activity with the K and 1st graders on ___ day at _:__ time, a math game another specific time, I can tutor 3rd grade math two days a week, offer to go over high school writing another time, etc. I think that would work better.

A friend's family moved in next door to us. We both homeschool and would like to try cooperatively schooling all of our children together. My family has done this successfully in the past with far fewer children (a friend's 4 and 2 of mine), but this new family has mostly unschooled plus some workbooks. I think our some-what Classical method might be a bit overwhelming. There will be a total of 10 homeschoolers and 4-under-4 not schooling. 2 Kindergarteners 2 in 1st 3 in 3rd 1 in 6th 2 starting high school. How can we make this work?

We like Teaching Textbooks but supplement drilling operations.

It doesn't?! When I tried stuff online, it automatically checked answers. I did hear the quizzes or end tests didn't, but besides that, it seemed to automatically check and give second and third chances at answering that type of question.

Is it the Excitatory Topics in Physics course? If not, could you link it or give me the name?

Smart idea!! I might steal it. ;)

No one?

Is anyone planning on incorporating Adobe Creative Cloud into their homeschooling? How are you using it? I just signed up for the educator's version and it's a little overwhelming. I haven't used PS since 1999...and Adobe has so many new programs for so many things, I'm confused on where to start using it as a hsing tool. I've downloaded Muse, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Gaming SDK, so far. I also need to download Flash. :blink: These are taking up a bunch of GBs. I was thinking about also signing up for Lynda.com to have ds take some courses on Adobe products there and an app design course. I'm interested in free Adobe lessons first, if anyone knows where to find those.

Julie in MN, thanks for the info. I will definitely be skipping Impossible then. Dangermom, maybe you can post your opinion of that course on the High School board once you get more into it. It looks promising but is a big investment. Flyiguana, I saw that and considered it. It's shorter than I'm looking for though.

I'm planning for H.S. Algebra-based Physics next year and want to do a video course from TTC to go with Principles of Physics from KineticBooks. Which would you recommend: Physics in Your Life by Prof Wolfson (36 lectures) Impossible: Physics Beyond the Edge by Prof Schumacher (24 lectures) Physics and Our Universe by Prof Wolfson (60 lectures) I had been planning on using the last one, but with 60 lectures, that might be overkill added to Principles of Physics. I've heard good things about the first two, but wanted some more opinions before choosing. Does Physics and Our Universe get boring being 60 lectures long? Which is more entertaining with easy to understand content?

I school a 6th, 4th, two 2nd, and a K, plus have a ps freshman, a non-schooled pre-K, 2yo, and 1yo. We school for 4hrs with a 15-20min lunch, usually from 11am-3pm. I am stressed during those hours, but if I spread it out the little ones have more time of fending for themselves. I hate having the older kids share in taking care of them because we have a big family. I'm going to have to figure something out though. I am barely giving enough one-on-one tutoring time, and I should be doing more.