My dd stopped playing piano when she started harp, and now she wishes she had kept up with both instruments. At college she is required to study both, and she'd have an easier time with the piano if she hadn't set it aside for so many years. Lux Et Veritas, if your dd wants to study piano along with harp, I'd say to let her do it!

My dd plays pedal harp and is currently majoring in it at college. She has a L&H 23.

My dh says he woke up to reality and started becoming self-motivated in his junior year of high school. Our ds has almost reached that age. I hope it happens soon.

Apologia explains science in an easy-to-understand way. Try comparing some of the Apologia pages to a more traditional science textbook and you'll see what I mean.

The use of calculators is very important on some of the standardized tests. The tests have strict time limits, and a student who is very familiar and quick with the calculator has a real advantage. During my ds's precalculus year, one of his goals was to master the graphing calculator in preparation for these tests.

The TI-83 and TI-84 (and their "plus" versions) have the advantage of being allowed on the ACT test. We initially bought the more powerful TI-89 because we found a great deal on it when a local store was going out of business. However, we later purchased a TI-83 as well because the TI-89 is not permitted on the ACT.

My dd applied to 4 colleges and was accepted at all 4 with merit scholarships. Only one of them asked for anything extra from homeschoolers - a supplemental form similar to the homeschooling supplement on the current Common Application. My dd had taken several dual-enrollment community college classes, and the teachers of those classes wrote recommendations for her, so she did have some external validation of her work.

Using the community college's course names did cause some issues for the umbrella school that handled our transcripts - simply because some of the course names were so LONG! A title like "History of the American People Since 1877" takes up a lot more space than just "U.S. History," and they had trouble physically fitting it into their transcript template.

On my dd's transcript, we listed the course title as the community college listed it. If dd had taken two semesters of the same subject in one year, then this generated two credits. For example: English Composition I (1 credit) English Composition II (1 credit) or Principles of Macroeconomics (1 credit) Principles of Microeconomics (1 credit)

Some of the schools that ds is considering require the ACT essay. In 9th grade he took the ACT without the essay, but last month at the end of his 10th grade year he added the essay for the first time. I'll probably have him continue taking it from now forward. It would be a shame for him to get a great composite score on a particular day but not be able to use that score at the college of his choice because it didn't include an essay score.

We did not do Omnibus, but we read this - and loved it - as part of a Sonlight core. In fact, we've loved everything from C.S. Lewis.

We liked Apologia, but my nephew didn't, and he chose Saxon Physics after having done Apologia chemistry. He has also done several years of Saxon math, and apparently he likes the Saxon approach.

If he doesn't have to send his scores anywhere until March 2009 or later, he may be able to omit any scores that he doesn't want colleges to see. That's when the College Board's new "score choice" policy takes effect.

On the ACT that ds took in June, the writing prompt was not school-related. It took him by surprise because all of the practice prompts that he had seen, from the Real ACT book and his sister's previous tests, had been school-related.

My dd used Fastweb along with local sources, and she won several small scholarships. She was able to use these to eliminate the student loans from her financial aid package and to buy a laptop computer for college.

My ds took a granola bar for his snack during the ACT - and he brought it home uneaten. He said the break was so short that by the time he had returned from the restroom, there was no time left to eat the snack.

We did Apologia chemistry and liked it. My humanities-oriented daughter didn't do any further chemistry, but my science-oriented son is planning to follow it up with a semester of chemistry at the community college, where he can get experience with "real" lab equipment.

For us, the cc had advantages over home-studying for APs. My dd got classroom experience and developed relationships with teachers who could write academic letters of recommendation for her college applications.

My dd took the ACT several times during junior/senior years, and her composite score didn't change by more than 1 point. At the same time, however, the scores in some individual subject areas fluctuated by as many as 5 points. For example, on one test she might get a particularly low score in science, but a high one in reading. The next time, science might be much easier but reading or math was a killer. Somehow it always seemed to average out to the same composite score. It made me wonder whether ACT designs the tests this way intentionally.

My church recently started offering this. We haven't tried it yet, but I've heard a lot of positive feedback about it from those who have.

Some favorites of ours: * Einstein's Relativity and the Quantum Revolution: Modern Physics for Non-Scientists * Life and Writings of C. S. Lewis * How to Listen to and Understand Great Music

Have you looked at Sonlight Core 400?

My umbrella school grants 1 high school credit for a community college course. So, when my dc took a full school year (two semesters) of a single subject at the cc, they got 2 high school credits for that subject. So far, these courses have all been 3 semester hours at the cc. Next semester, ds is registered for a couple of courses that are worth 4 semester hours each, but I expect them to be treated the same -- 1 high school credit for a community college course.

My dd's composite went up about 4 points a year from eighth grade until 11th.

Does anyone have suggestions for a good twentieth-century world history textbook to use along with Sonlight Core 300?