Oh yeah, i forgot to mention my other thought. It sounds crazy, but you could just leave the experiments for high school. At ages 10 and 11 they should be able to scrounge and clean up themselves if experiments are something they really want to do.

RR has lab kits for sitb and science in the ancient world. I assume the next kit is in the works as well, but your kids are probably pushing the age limit on it at this point. Depending on your religious perspective, you could look at chc life science, which is inexpensive, has a textbook/workbook combo, and is quite affordable.

Rocket math, sushi monster, and math evolve are good apps. For games: addition/subtraction war, dice games, go to the dump, some went hiding.

The word problems and puzzle corners are my ds's fave part of mm too. I use apps and games for math facts and nix the drill in mm. That leaves us with the actual conceptual instruction, word problems/puzzle corner, and the review aspect.

My ds did well on the placement test after mm 2b. We tried the samples, which he found challenging, but I needed to be a lot more involved than I do in mm. I guess I'm not sure what the ideal level of support is, but it sounds like most people are providing some scaffolding if they use beast. We decided to stick with mm and Borac though. The story stuff (ba, mct, Fred) doesn't appeal to this kid.

Novare is old earth, probably better described as theistic evolution philosophically since there are some old earth theories that are not compatible with mainstream science. Novare is not based on a literal interpretation of Genesis, and there is no dogmatic declaration that one must interpret Genesis the same way as the author in order to be a follower of Christ. The newsletters were very helpful in clarifying this.

It might not be the most exciting curriculum, but the puzzle corners and word problems are good. It sounds like you have tried a lot of stuff in a short time. Doing the entire grade over the summer is major overkill IMHO. Doing all the problems as written over the course of 9 months is also a little on the heavy side. I would go through the chapters, having him do only the chapter reviews. When you get to a chapter he doesn't understand, start there (yay for mastery programs!). Skip the drill sections in favor of games. Don't skip puzzle corner or word problems, but feel free to pare down the incremental steps at the beginning of each lesson.

Math mammoth is similar in methodology and available as PDF download.

See, to me this seems like a reason in favor of graduating early. Maybe I am misunderstanding this statement somehow. It seems like a colossal waste of time and money. I guess if there is a full ride and you are using the time to focus on something of high interest it might be a plus?

Behold and see and novare, both of which were mentioned, are the only I'm aware of. Novare looks exciting, and I'm hoping to incorporate some of their things down the road as they release the other middle school texts. BJU is young earth, so even if a particular course leaves out ye specific stuff, it will not have the mainstream oe evidence either. This will leave you trying to figure out what exactly is missing and then fill it back in.

My cousin's wife is a ps teacher who thinks homeschooling is bogus because parents aren't properly trained to teach. Their oldest is the same grade as my oldest, which is k. She evidently thinks her kid is very advanced and is always going out of her way to brag about how he can read simple readers "all by himself" and recognize three digit numbers. I just smile and say that's great. Academically, my homeschooled kid is about 10 yrs ahead of hers in reading and about 2-3 in math, but I never mention it. I go home and tell dh what she said; we both have to peel ourselves off the floor when we are done laughing hysterically. So, I guess my advice is in line with others. Smile and nod. Discuss your child's achievements with a trusted friend or family member that isn't competitive, but supportive.

My 6yo ds asked me this morning if he could ever catch his shadow. I said "No, it moves as you move." He looked at me dubiously and asked, "Well, what if I was moving 8 googolplex miles per hour faster than light?" I had to concede that it might theoretically be possible, but I wasn't sure how moving at that speed might affect his perception of time.

The songs are a mix of children's classics, hymns, patriotic songs, and classical music. There is nothing I would call modern/pop. For example, "Greensleeves," "America the Beautiful," and "Pop Goes the Weasel" are a few from beta year. A few from gamma include "Holy, Holy, Holy," "Here we go looby loo," and "You're a Grand Old Flag." I like the music selections. Almost all have been familiar to me so far. I've been happy with the quality of the music too, but I'm definitely not a music person, so hopefully someone else can speak to the aspect of sound quality.

We are on our last lesson of volume 1 right now. We spread it over 2 years. My child is a very advanced and avid reader so he gets a lot of science via interest led reading. Dh and I have bio/chem degrees. Dh works in Chem r&d, as did I in my former life. So one could say there is a lot of science talk going on in our house during regular daily activities. Last year I planned about 30 min per week of science activities, letting the rest trickle in as teachable moments showed up. This year I planned 3 shorter days of about 10-15 min per week. This time includes at least one living book for each lesson. We did not make the books, but instead used the discussion questions, so that cut down the lesson time a bit. We took a week off to make the Ellen mchenry t-shirt with intestines during the relevant bfsu lesson. We're moving to volume 2 next year, which I plan to spread over 3 years and add some kids health lessons in. I think the first volume just took a little less time because we were kind of past the first handful of lessons before we started.

We love it. Pros: Secular, rigorous, inexpensive, good book recommendations, Socratic discussion is great. The logical sequential order is a rare find in elementary science curriculum. I also consider it a mastery curriculum, which is my preference for homeschool. I do not need to re-teach the basics each year to accommodate kids from other districts or kids that were sick that day, etc. It does review though, which is more efficient than re teaching. The demonstrations and experiments are elegant. They demonstrate the concept without a lot of showiness. As much as possible, bfsu brings the child to the science instead of trying to package the science into a bag and bring it to the student. Strong support from the author with website for discussion with other users. Cons: No kit. Easily remedied by going through the supply list ahead of time and creating your own kit. Not independent. You will need to be involved. You will need to read ahead and be mentally present for lessons. You can't read off a script and hand your kid a worksheet. Vocabulary/memorization- to be fair, the author clearly intends to focus on the conceptual, but I really think both are important. We get this from our memory program. You could easily put together science memory work from twtm or living memory. For example, I want my kids to be able to list the classes of vertebrates and the planets of the solar system in order at the k-2 level. Bfsu teaches these things, but they aren't memorized.

We don't need that level of intensity for spelling. Considering that, it is expensive and parent-intensive compared to other options.

My older two will have a week of vbs. We're all going on a weeklong camping trip. Most exciting is our coming move that will triple our living space. I'll be setting up a homeschool room and craft room over summer. Ods is super excited to learn Spencerian cursive-his choice, oddly. He'll do 2 days per week of math since we do only 4 days during the school year. I want to teach ods to swim too. I am a former competitive swimmer, certified lifeguard, Red Cross instructor, and former competitive coach. Yet, my kid can't swim. I really need to change that. Our new house is in another county where ymca homeschool gym class is offered, so I'm using that as the carrot for swimming. He's not going to want to be the only kid in class hanging onto the edge.

I'm in wi too, and I was also unimpressed with the state textbook. There is a set of books called "the New Badger History series" put out by the historical society. I think they might be the precursor to the textbook. Anyway, there are six books, each with a corresponding tg, organized around a theme, such as immigration, government, etc. I liked the look of these much better and plan to use them as a series of unit studies when we start state history, probably in another year or so. I might do 1 or 2 each summer over a few years. There is a biography series to accompany them as well. http://www.amazon.com/They-Came-Wisconsin-Badger-History/dp/0870203282 http://www.amazon.com/Long-Journey-Badger-Biographies-Series/dp/0870203657

I plan books for the whole year over summer too. I check to see which bfsu-recommended books are available. I try to choose 1 or 2 for each lesson. I use Amazon look inside to preview when possible. If there are a handful I can't choose between, I reserve them all, rifle through them, note which ones I want to use, then dump them back in the return. I use cwh for history so I note which are available at the library, which is most of the secular options. I purchase the religious books. Then I lay out everything by week for the whole year, so I can see all the library books I need for each week. During the year, I reserve about 3 weeks of books at a time. If it is something critical with only 1 copy, I might check it out earlier on my card, then place a reserve for it on my ds's card to make sure we will have it. My library holds reserves for 4 days, and I make library runs every Thursday. I fill out my online reserve form each Sunday evening because that gives the most time allowed for the transfers to come in. I also take a few extra minutes to reserve anything on a topic that ds has been interested in, or any other literature that might interest him. My books are in by my Thursday run about 95% of the time. I sometimes stop on the weekend if something didn't come in on time. My library is a short walk away though, so no biggie. Plus, I drive past it about 3 days a week in my normal errands.

You're in luck; we are related to cats and dolphins Our most recent common ancestor is further back than our mrca with apes, but all mammals share a mrca that is more recent than, for example our mrca with fish.

I agree with rebbe ribs, but I might even take it a step further. YOU take the book and present the concept with manipulatives before he even sees the book. AFTER he understands it concretely, go over the teaching box together. Then, do the first few problems together. At least give that a try before you pay for right start with international shipping, yikes!

Math mammoth, math in focus, right start.

I learned TONS of history along with my older son. That has been the big gaping hole in my education, slowly getting filled in. I'm picking up lots of asl vocab with my younger son. I also learned that trying to get any use of my tax money via summer programming in the local school district is way more frustration than it is worth. Last but not least, how to replace a sump pump (thank you YouTube!) so that our book storage doesn't end up underwater, talk about a nick of time.

No, they share a common ancestry. Many ye "science" set up all sorts of straw men about evolution. Another one is that evolution says that life came about by chance collision of molecules. Evolution doesn't address the origin of life, nor does it specify the reason (chance vs design). It is only about changes in allele frequency. The reason for those changes are many.

I am not sure spelling is a good use of ds's time or physical writing stamina. He will be 1st grade next year. We are using bible heroes this year, and he typically asks me how to spell any words he's unsure of. Next year we're using mbtp la 7-9. The spelling is lame, so I figured I'd just keep on with our current spell to read, but maybe I should just quit. He usually knows how to spell a word after being told once or twice. He is about halfway through the 5th grade list right now, and has already mastered the words on the mbtp list. He hasn't needed the phonics aspect for quite some time, so that is a non-issue. My only concern with dropping is that he could still use reinforcement on syllabication, but maybe that would come on its own in time. Dh thinks ds needs to go all the way through the 12th grade list before dropping it, but idk that a 1st grader is going to be using a lot of 12th grade words in his writing. What says the hive? Would I kick myself in a year. Has anyone just done spelling orally, correct the word once or twice and call it good, or is that crazy?