Have you heard of Kid's Campain? I recently received an email about it. It's a 9 week course to learn about this years elections. http://www.cafepress.com/kidscampaign PS: It's designed for middle schoolers +.

I check with quite a few places. This year it looks like I might buy from amazon, christian book distributers, homeschoolingsupply.com (good prices), eps, lulu, & sonlight. I find Rainbow Resource to have slightly higher prices then these.

maybe your library can get it for you thru Inter Library Loan?

Nmoria: Could you tell me more about this? Is it one book or two? How many lessons/sessions is there? [or how long does it take to complete the book(s)?] I've used SS with my dd before and she liked it but I was afraid that it would take too long to go thru the whole program since she was already in 7th grade. This might be faster. Laurie: Just so I'm not totally hijacking your thread... :D Let me offer another option: Apples Daily Spelling drills. I'm using it with my 7th grader. This along with an increase in writing and I am seeing improvement. She's still not great but I do like how this simple wkbk goes thru the rules and reviews them... starting with the basics.

Here's something to consider: How to Teach Spelling with the wkbks How to Spell This program is based on the same Orton Gillingham research but applies it a bit differently. It uses workbooks and lots of oral/written dictation. You could probably utilize the methods from SWR within this prgm too. sold at EPS, CBD, homeschooling supply co. http://www.epsbooks.com/dynamic/catalog/series.asp?seriesonly=1847M hth

Well it depends on what you want and what you've done so far. Most folks start with some logic puzzles: Mindbenders (we did these on CD rom) Lollipop logic Critical Thinking books Then some teach Informal Logic: Fallacy Detective Teaching Toolbox Art of Argument Debate classes At some point you switch to Formal Logic: Introductory Logic / Intermediate Logic Traditional Logic I and II Some folks even get into Socratic Logic Material Logic This is just a list of ideas, not a list of all things to do / use. hth

I've thought about this a bit. I do sometimes wish I could work our homeschool work into scouts! :D Last year was our first year in Boy Scouts. All my ds's scout work was done outside of school time... well most of it. Instead of doing history at one point, I worked with him on a lapbook for the law merit badge... which he didn't get yet :glare:. He had visited the local courts with the troop so we did some more research and put the info into a lap book (our first). It took way longer than I planned but it worked out okay. He then used it for his presentation at our Co-op.... so it did get double duty. Next year I'm going to leave some time in the schedule for him to work on his merit badges... it will be like an elective class. He has already made it to First Class so at this point he really needs to work on the merit badges... and these look like they will need some research and writing time. My dh keeps wanting me to consider the merit badge work as his school work for science or history etc. But the way I see it, he is already an 8th grader and needs to do his full school subjects in prep for high school... not just some scattered work in science from a variety of merit badges. Yet it can still count as an elective, I think.

Well my rising 8th gr dd and 7th grade ds will be looking at about a 7 hr day plus breaks. But this is estimating a high end time estimate for each subject. My dd's days also include a few outside classes (like Debate and Italian) and an estimate for their homework and my ds's days include time to work on his Boy Scouts merit badges, attend a weekly chess club, etc. In addition my dd will do soccer and my ds will do Boy Scouts. I've asked this on the high school board a got quite a few that said that they also went as high as a 7 hr day in Jr high. It really depends on what subjects you are including and what curriculum you choose. Some folks include music and art while others don't. I also choose Classical Writing for grammar/writing and it takes longer then other choices... I estimate about 1.5 hrs 4 days/wk eventhough it sometimes takes less time. One thing I really like to do is to ask here for estimates for each curriculum choice I make. Oh and homework is another option. I don't plan on homework... I try to plan for all their work to get done by 4:00pm. They should have 'homework' if they don't their work done <and I don't wimp out! ;) > hth

I'm hoping to send my oldest to a college summer camp next year when she is old enough; it is for ages 14+ thru high school. It has quite a few very interesting camps to offer. It's at Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Virginia. This is a classical education college mainly for homeschoolers. http://www.phc.edu/teencamps/ --just wanted to share -- hth

I agree with Renai; don't forget that you can imitate a part of something. This means you can take something right from your history or science studies... or even from your study of Latin and mythology. For India you may be able to use a shortened version or a part of Rikki Tikki Tavvi. hth

I'm looking at doing both :D I have a friend selling the core I want and most of the books. The rest I'm considering buying straight from SL since the amount will be enough to get me access to a year of the SL message boards. My savings will be around $140... worth it for me. I tend not to return items anyway.

My oldest dc is also a rising 8th grader. She makes ~$20 a day whenever she watches the neighbor's dogs for them. (What an easy way to make some money! ) Anyway we have her tithe about 10% of it to our church and then she can do with the rest as she pleases. For awhile she kept it in an envelope, but it got to be too much. A few hundred dollars lying around started to get scary. So I finally got her a savings account of her own. She has saved enough $$ to purchase an ipod but dh decided to help her and pay 1/2 of it for Christmas. That was 2 years ago. This past Christmas she paid 1/2 for a new Dell laptop computer. She still had money in the bank so she decided to get her dad an ipod nano for his birthday, all with her own money. Oh, and she just went and bought herself a digital camera.. pink of course! Now I just need to remain, um not jealous!

Ancients? Oh wait. I didn't mean for all the Drive Thru History videos. This is just for the DTH: America. It has 9 'sessions' or clips to learn from and each last about 10 min. The price I quoted is just for the Drive Thru History America. sorry for the confusion :(

I made one about 3 years ago but it didn't last too long. That organization method just didn't sit well with us I guess. At first I didn't like but then I re-read that portion of the WTM and decided it that it did sound like an interesting way to organize the work. It also sounded like it might be another method of helping my dd sort thru all the info. So I made the notebook for my dd and discussed with her how to use it. We got thru a few weeks but it just didn't feel right to us. When we reviewed, we couldn't just read thru her work chronologically. We read thru it by subject. Looking at the section of maps made less sense to us. And there were some sections that still didn't have any work in it yet. Anyway I like how it sounded when I read WTM but it just didn't work for my dd. It might have worked for my ds but we've switched focus since then. hth

Wow I've been thinking of writing a post to ask about this! I've been looking into this as well. From what I've read, it can be used as a supplement or as a main curriculum. Their website also has lesson plans for educators. There are 9 segments to the Am Hist. one. Each video segment is about 10 minutes long. The guide then has some questions to answer/guide discussion. There are probably plenty of ideas to add to it if you just wanted to use this. I'm considering it as a supplement for SL core 100: Am Hist in Depth. I think it might also go well with some of the Critical Thinking thru US History bks; although I haven't 'seen' either one yet. hth :) Oh, and thanks for letting me know about the 50% off path to this. I didn't know about this option. Although I don't know if I'll be ready to make the purchase by tomorrow! EDITED TO ADD: Note the discount at the HomeSchool Buyers co-op is actually 35% to 50% off, depending on how many people buy thru them by the deadline. The current pricing is: Retail Price: $49.95 Current Group Price: $32.50 Current Quantity Ordered: 60 Current Group Savings: 35% Plus $1 to the group for processing, plus shipping, etc.

Thanks everyone. I'm glad to hear that I'm not so far off. I've had others tell me that they don't go beyond 5 hrs/day. Guess it depends on what you use and how fast your kids work. I also tend to ramp up. Only problem is my kids will sometimes bark as I keep adding work. "Hey I thought we were done after this?" :D on the math: She already started Lial's BCM last year. She needs to finnish up either this summer or next year. hmm, not sure CalcuLadder is needed, but we have it already. She's been a bit slow at the basics so we were using it last year for awhile. The year B4 she didn't finnish her standardized math test because she was slow on her facts. She's a bit faster now. It's only 5 min a day but might be the first thing that's dropped. On the science: ooops, forgot to include that in this list. I'm thinking of Apologia's General Science. It would give her both science and study skill work, all in one. We'll probably do this with her 7th grade brother and possibly meeting with another family either weekly or 2x/month or something. So I'm guessing about 1hr 3 days/wk? I've put it all on a spreadsheet, spreading out the subjects that only get a few days and it does add up to about 7 hrs per day.... plus driving, lunch and breaks.

I posted this on the k-8 board but there are more folks here that have 8th grade or older kids to homeschool.... My dd is 13, going into 8th grade (her Bday is in Nov) I think I have everything covered but I wonder if my time estimate are too much or it I have too much on her plate. We are up to 7 hours of school work per day (but no planned homework except for what doesn't get done). SL core 100 (hist, lit, bible, & memory work) w/7th gr. brother [2 hrs/day] Lials BCM [~55min /day] ...or algebra 1 depends on how much she gets done this summer Calculadders? [5min /day] CW Older Beginners with Harveys / CW Poetry OB w/brother [1.5 hrs 4 days/wk] Apples Daily Spelling Drills (yep still needed) [~15min 2days/wk] VfCR A w/ brother [~15min 3 days/wk] Co-op class: Italian [1hr class day, ~15min 4 days/wk?] Co-op class: Debate [1hr class day, 1 hr 4 days/wk] Teaching Toolbox w/brother [30 min 3 days/wk] Draw Squad or V.M. Master Drawing (she loves art) [30 min, 2 days/wk] Plus she plays soccer on a team. I also try to get them out for Rock Climbing or ice skating when we can fit it in. Oh and she'd like to get a job ( :lol: ) etc. So, how's this look? Since she really wants to take the Debate class, I might drop Teaching Toolbox (although I'd love for her to go thru it.. it's just oral work with me). TIA :bigear:

Another option: Reading Detective. I got this on CD for my 12yo ds. He reads well.. just finnished the whole Lord of the Rings, Hobbit, etc. He can tell me so much about these books or anything else he reads. However he seems to have trouble on the standardized tests. There he needs to pick apart the work a bit more, be familiar with finding the idea, answer not only specific questions but also questions that require implied understanding. This computer prgm has helped. I like that it can highlight the sentence related to the question, tell him he's wrong without giving the answer. Since it's in a game format he's incouraged to do well and advance in rank! He didn't finnish it this year but I hope to get him to finnish it over the summer. I may even get the next level for him. hth

I think you'll get a more qualified response from the CW message boards. But I think most of CW IS based on imitative writing. However what you write then varies on what you are imitating. In the early levels you imitate fables, fairy tales, history, science, etc. As you move one you imitate longer and more difficult writing. The later levels do work on essay writing. I believe all that's needed for report writing gets covered within the levels. I'd check the CW website and re-read the descriptions of each level. Then check out the message boards. There is a ton of great info in there. Please post again if I didn't answer your question enough and you can't find it elsewhere.

My ds (well all my kids) have the same problem. I think part of it is that they get bored doing math problem after math problem. When I sit with my ds I can see that he knows his math. He can do more of it in his head then I can! But he'll still get enough wrong to get anywhere from a C to an F when he does know the material! We are still working on this but some things that sometimes work: Checking his own work and correcting it as he goes. Placing my hand on his back when he spaces does bring him back from Pluto without my harsh words. Sucking on a candy or chewing gum. Yep strange but it does help. Calling out 'done' after each problem so I can hear that he is focused. Sometimes we'll break up math and just do a few problems. Then do some spelling. Then a few more math problems. Then something else. We'd just keep swapping subjects till math is done. Oh and working on basic math facts orally. Math just goes faster when these are really memorized. hth

Interesting thoughts. I'm also looking at SL core 100 for next year. I like the notebooking idea above. Perhaps they could also write a short narration for each map explaining what is marked that week and why. Meaning they could narrate a piece of the story (from history or lit) of what happened there. Just a thought.

Thanks everyone. I think I'll stick to homework being whatever didn't get done during the day (due to spacing or by pure choice). Now some said that 7 hrs is a bit much for 7th and 8th graders. I've wondered about this too. I did ask this last year and got a quite a few here who said this is how much their kids tend to do also. I don't count in the soccer practice stuff but I do count in art and music (if we have any). It is also all time I expect each subject to take... ie teaching time and independant time... and even then I try to estimate on the high side a bit. Part of the reason it may be more then others is due to the curriculum I've picked... some just take longer than other choices. Another could be that I have more then needed for a given subject... like logic. I would like it if it only took 5 hours... hmm, choices. This thread is mainly about whether or not to plan for homework so I won't post my schedule here. Homework isn't necessary for it. I think I'll work on it and make a separate post... for a hive review. Thanks for asking... I'll see you in that post.

My dd is going into 8th grade and my ds is going into 7th. Up to now I've scheduled everything into our 'school day' and anything that doesn't get finnished is homework (well usually... sometimes it just gets push to the next day :glare:). So here I am planning for next year and realizing that I can squeeze all or most of what I'd like them to do into 7 hours of work which can be done during 'school hours' (I think)... and then anything not finnished is homework. But I just started to wonder about this plan. It seems most other kids their age typically have homework. I don't want to plan busy work but I wonder if maybe I'm not expecting enough for this level or allowing my kids to get used to completing homework (as additional work) would be a good practice for high school and/or college? So what do you think? Oh another question: If you think I should plan homework, then should I consider freeing up some of their day and planning some of that work for evenings? Meaning instead of scheduling the ... say literature reading during the day I tell them it's homework? Or instead of giving them time during the day to work on their writing paper I tell them to do it for homework? OR should I leave the day as I currently have it and add in something that I wanted to have them do but couldn't fit it into the school day? So what does the hive think? TIA

My dd is going into 8th grade and my ds is going into 7th. Up to now I've scheduled everything into our 'school day' and anything that doesn't get finnished is homework (well usually... sometimes it just gets push to the next day :glare:). So here I am planning for next year and realizing that I can squeeze all or most of what I'd like them to do into 7 hours of work which can be done during 'school hours' (I think)... and then anything not finnished is homework. But I just started to wonder about this plan. It seems most other kids their age typically have homework. I don't want to plan busy work but I wonder if maybe I'm not expecting enough for this level or allowing my kids to get used to completing homework (as additional work) would be a good practice for high school and/or college? So what do you think? Oh another question: If you think I should plan homework, then should I consider freeing up some of their day and planning some of that work for evenings? Meaning instead of scheduling the... literature reading during the day I tell them it's homework? Or instead of giving them time during the day to work on their writing paper I tell them to do it for homework? OR should I leave the day as I currently have it and add in something that I wanted to have them do but couldn't fit it into the school day? So what does the hive think? TIA :bigear: :lurk5:

I'd love to see the Socratic discussion. I did, however, purchase Teaching the Classics (last year) which goes over how to do these. Now if I can find the time and peace to actually view this, I might get a handle on this ahead of time! As far as showing something concrete... I've thought of this too. Part of me is glad I can skip the writing assignments so I'll have more time for Classical Writing. On the other hand I worry that we won't have anything to show for our year. Well I guess we will have the timeline and should be able to talk about each entry. I am considering the Hewlett tests for A History of US. I might also take some time to have them practice outlining, as we haven't gotten too far on that yet. All depends on time though. I've got about 7 hours per day for my rising 8th grade dd and that's just the school work without breaks or lunch. ... but then again it is without homework either... hmmm