Is the Walters as good as the Baltimore Museum of Art? We love BMA but have never been to the Walters. BMA has a fabulous collection of Matisse sprinkled with outstanding pieces by other post-Impressionists and modern artists (My very favorite Picasso is there.) The have a beautiful collection of Roman mosaics from Antioch, some spectacular Tiffany pieces, great samplings of African, mesoamerican, Indopacific and many other non-European art, and much more. They have a brand new contemporary wing ... Not my thing, but still fun to browse. There seems to be a sampling from almost all the major art periods. Who would imagine that you could visit an art museum for free and see all this plus a beautiful Botticelli, a Rembrandt, a Van Gogh, a Seurat, a bunch of English sporting art, early American furniture, and, and, and ....!!! Unfortunately, I'm never sure what will be on display these days as they are undergoing some significant renovations. But we love this museum ... And you can't beat the price.

Thank you! This will help us considerably.

I can't comment on most of this thread, but I can verify that all of the Somerville's (Tapestry of Grace) daughters have college educations. Marcia herself has a degree and is usually the headline speaker of the two. They are genuinely nice people with servant hearts. They have a clear statement of faith on their website. They don't try to hide the fact that they personally are Reformed. They have gone out of their way in their teacher notes to point out areas that will require their customers to evaluate from their own faith perspective. I haven't used nor do I plan to use the book on Mormonism previously mentioned in this thread. Their overall approach is typically to seek to understand other faiths and then help our older children analyze that information, compare it to biblical teaching, and then make up their own minds. If one specific resource is not appropriate in someone's family, there is no problem subbing it out and still using the overall plan. Of course, you don't even have to use any of the worldview resources and assignments at all if you aren't trying to work toward church history or worldview elective credits.

Sorry, I don't have an answer to your question, but where did you find the option to add subtitles to the Destinos videos?

When I read War and Peace, I skimmed most of the looooong battle scenes. I adored the rest of the story! I know, it has the word war in the title for a reason, but I kept getting bogged down and would have quit had I not sped through the fighting. It was so worth sticking with it.

Thanks. We have both of them, too. (I never had art history in high school or college and have discovered that I truly enjoy it -- so I have a smattering of resources I use.) We visit the Baltimore Art Museum a couple of time a year anyhow. I'm thinking about a family membership to the Philadelphia Art Museum for the year. That way my son can drool over the medieval armory and weaponry while the girls admire everything else. That museum is so large with beautiful, exhaustive collections that it will take us all year to do it justice anyhow.

I'd also rather do fewer good labs rather than trying to reach a specific number. My oldest dd is not a math/science kid at all. But she does appreciate the beauty of the individual sciences as she gets into the details. One example I have may not be the best science "lab" but actually did more for my dd than I would have thought. We did Apologia biology last year ... Dd loves the chatty style of the text and understands the way the author explains things. (It's usually a love or hate thing with most students, I gather.). I'd read how most high school biology courses weren't requiring dissections anymore because of a variety of reasons. Rather than skipping the dissections and looking to supplement other topics, I chose to have all my kids do the dissections together. They were the highlight of my oldest dd's year in bio. They sparked her interest and she spent considerable time completing them carefully, taking excellent lab notes, and writing her best lab reports. My goal was to not only provide a decent high school level class, but to help her see that even the subjects she is least interested in can be fascinating. I know this response isn't precisely on topic, but I did want to encourage the op that the actual number of labs can be less important than providing an exposure to a variety of labs.

I hadn't thought about assigning a P grade. That makes perfect sense for a subject we want to cover out of both appreciation for the subject matter and a desire to have as broad exposure as is reasonable during high school, but don't want to turn it into an intense, scholarly course. What spine text do you use, Regentrude, out of curiosity? Thanks.

My oldest dd has been doing the art history readings suggested in TOG yr 1 and yr 2 in context with her history studies. I've kept track of the minimal time spent to accumulate toward one art history credit. We tentatively plan on doing the same thing for yr 4 during her senior year but she really adores the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works and wants to do something a little more exciting for yr 3 next year (her junior year). BtW, her readings have come from: Art: A World History, http://www.amazon.com/Art-History-Elke-Linda-Buchholz/dp/0810994429/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1392502681&sr=1-1&keywords=art+a+world+history The Story of Architecture, http://www.amazon.com/Story-Architecture-Jonathan-Glancey/dp/0789493349/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1392502766&sr=1-1&keywords=story+of+architecture Do you think that if we added in multiple trips to a major art museum that we can legitimately call this a full credit of art history? In terms of scope/time periods covered as well as time spent on task reading and enjoying museum visits, there will be no problem meeting the requirements in PA for a high school credit. But we don't want to mislead anyone who will see it on her transcript -- so far, there have been no quizzes, tests, flash cards, memory lists, notebook pages, or papers. She will have another rigorous course load next year. Therefore, we want to keep this elective light, but still creditworthy. Many thanks,

Older thread .... Has anyone used this? What did you think?

http://debrabell.com/online-classes/classes/ Debra Bell was one of the best Pahomeschoolers English teachers. She has since earned her PhD and offers very high quality online classes. She doesn't personally teach each class but carefully chooses her instructors.

I cannot comment on MUS since we've never used it. We are almost finished with TT geometry, though. Geometry was my least favorite math in high school. I loved algebra, trig, and precalc, so maybe it wasn't geometry itself something else that just didn't click for me. TT does a great job with proofs. There is nothing wrong with providing a lot of help while your child is learning them. By help, I mean ask a lot of leading questions with the teacher manual in hand if the student hasn't understood the lecture explanation. Then, watch the complete video solution to see and hear how they have solved it. Geometry proofs can be a bit tricky since there may be more than one way to get to the proof step. My approach has been to ask my dd to solve them the way TT teaches them until she has mastered that approach. Then if she can prove with definitions and theorems and postulates her way, I'll accept that, too. Personally, the complete video explanations are very valuable. If that doesn't do the trick, their customer service dept is more than willing to have a tutor call and walk you through it.

I just downloaded it for free this morning, so I guess it is Monday, Jan. 13.

My family and I are looking at going to a different homeschool conference than we usually do this year due to scheduling conflicts. We were wondering if anyone has any feedback on the above-mentioned conference in VA...pluses, minuses, recommend, pass. Thanks!

Ohelizabeth, You and I have chatted about this type of thing before. :). I have it on my ipad now and it works beautifully. It is every bit as easy to navigate and search as DE is. I even put the new Poetics on it and I don't have to flip through my big bad binder or even boot up my laptop. Cheer! I do have an R student and I like discussing from my ipad instead of paper (or laptop). All around, it is a winner, IMHO.

Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose (Lewis & Clark)

I used the free version of HST for years and liked it a lot. When I upgraded to + several years ago! a whole new world opened up. I create lesson plans without dates attached and submit them to a dated schedule as I go. The best part about the lesson plans is that I reuse them for each kid. It does take a little noodling to think through what you want it to do, but it is very easy to switch gears when you change your mind. Setting up subjects or courses is simple. Entering resources doesn't take too long when you use the ISBN numbers to automatically import data. Rescheduling is very easy. Marking things complete can be done one at a time, or a whole huge list at a time with just a couple of clicks. I started by using just a few basic features and seem to discover more tools every year. They've been there all along, I just hadn't noticed or understood them. When my oldest started high school, I figured out weighted grading, so all my grade calculations are now automatic. What a bonus! We live in PA, so we are required to submit a number of logs and reports. I print off a few of the HST reports and I'm good to go. I would go insane doing these logs and reports for three kids every spring for portfolios if I had to compile them from notebooks ... But I am lazy. I know that people are Leary of the initial time investment, but if you start off knowing you won't use every whistle and bell at the beginning, it keeps your learning curve manageable. I've never regretted using it.

We, too, keep everything up until at least Epiphany. It's usually mid-January before we even think about un-Christmas-izing our home, our music, our pantry, etc.

I think they say on their website somewhere that they don't/can't respond to emails inquiring about order status. I always just call them and they are very helpful.

The link to the other post is very good. When we did this a couple of years ago, I used the suggestions in the teacher guide (I think) and added in more application, so it took more than 12 weeks. A typical unit without extras looked like this ... 1. Read the student pages and the teacher pages myself and make notes on what I'll assign. 2. Assign the student pages to be read before meeting with me. 3. Talk through the reading, require dd to take notes, do first exercise together (teacher book calls it modeling, but we tackled it together while I asked leading questions, offered ideas, etc.). 4. Assign additional exercise(s) as homework. 5. Dd did assignments independently, turned them in to me, and we discussed her work at the beginning of the next weekly meeting time. Do not skimp on step 1! It saves lots of time and frustration if you have merged what the author says in the student book and her suggestions in the teacher book. Her way of sequencing things in the teacher book was very difficult for me to grasp. But when I read each unit in both books, I could then understand where she was going and make my own notes to use during our together time. I also adapted some of the assignments to be more relevant to my dd. She had never heard about some of the issues used in the examples and exercises, so I substituted a few (not all) from dd's history or science readings. Once I did that, everything went much easier. Our together time was an hour or so a week. I did have to invest another hour or so myself in reading, assimilating, and organizing my thoughts prior to our together time, though. I have to admit the first half of the program I spent muttering, grumbling, and calling cures down on it. It was so NOT intuitive for me. Once I got the hang of what the author was after and I started customizing assignments, I was happy. Dd loved the whole program. It really was exactly what she needed in order to go from solid, basic writing skills to applying them to an essay. She declared that writing was fun again because she got to argue! It was time well spent to prepare her for high school level writing.

We did yr 1 again last year ... but that was before they updated the R lit. So take what I say with a grain if salt. We did: Gilgamesh Egyptian poetry Iliad Odyssey Agamemnon Libation Bearers Eumenides Oedipus Rex Antigone Aeneid You can see that we agreed with Candid and axed the Mesopotamian poetry. We had started the Words of Delight and loved it, but it was too much for my dd as a young 9th grader on top of everything else. One caveat though, we also completed IEW's Windows to the World last year, too, so it's no wonder we didn't do all of Tapestry lit. I have additional thoughts. First, I understand that the reorganizing they have done in lit has better balanced the work load. Second, my dd is in 10th grade this year and is easily handling (and loving) yr 2 R lit with only a very few of the works trimmed from the whole list. An additional year of maturity has made a significant difference. My opinion on the Greek plays is sort of washy washy. Dd really enjoyed reading the ones she did. She would have liked to have read a comedy and did read part of The Frogs for fun. I would absolutely keep Agamemnon and Oedipus Rex though. You could read a quick internet summary of The Trojan Women and The Frogs to help you choose. I would also take a look at the discussion notes for each to see which may appeal to you more. Enjoy! Monica

Yeah, did that. Still won't show up. According to the Annenberg people (quick responses, btw), it must be a problem with my flash player. I tested it and it works elsewhere. Oddly enough, I have the same problem on the same computer with Firefox and with IE. My dinosaur laptop can access the videos, though, so at least we are in business. I love technology when it works. But I hafta tell ya, this "guess which machine and which config work" game is annoying! (I won't even try my iPad because no flash videos play there for me.) Maybe it is I who is the dinosaur. :confused1:

I've never had a problem accessing these videos before. Today, I can't get any of the videos to come up. I can get practice exercises, but no videos. I've tried through both the series website (learner.org/series/destinos/watch) and through the course description page (learner.org/resources/series75.html). My flash player is fine. Nothing has changed on my computer since our last access. I guess we can't do Spanish until I can reach Annenberg tech support. :( Monica

It's still November! I've ordered Christmas stuff from them up until about Dec 10 and have no problem. But is something would be backordered, your whole order waits about a week before it ships unless you expedite for an additional fee. I think their customer service is spectacular, by the way. They've always treated me very, very well. Monica

I've compared the grammar topics for SYRWTLS 1 to a few other first year high school Spanish courses. It seems that it covers everything except preterite tense. We are doing about 3 exercises per day plus one additional worksheet from their assessment pack per day, vocabulary drill daily, weekly vocabulary quizzes, and daily conversation practice. I allow a couple of days at the end of each unit to do the deberes and have 3-4 Destinos episodes per unit. All things considered, I figure we will finish the text and all the extras by March or April, and I will give her an intro and practice in the preterite tense. With all of this, it is easily a solid high school credit. I haven't checked the other two levels with the same degree of detail, so I can't say how they measure up. I can say that after the first unit of book 1, I am impressed with the amount and kind of both grammar instruction, practice, and vocabulary. HTH, Monica