ACC has two locations in San Marcos - my son starts classes Monday at both locations. If you are "in district" the classes taken at high school campuses (even the evening ones) are free, otherwise at a campus the cost is $75. I don't live in San Marcos, but I use the library and it is worth the $50 a year.

We used RSO Earth and Space alongside Apologia Astronomy. It took us a year, but it was fun!

Right there with you, Martha. I am unimpressed and I found it frustrating. I prefer using Writing Aids from TOG. I also like WWE and will probably try WWS when my youngest is ready.

We have a friend who has chickens and she will take them. Thanks for the great suggestions. We have a local 4H so I am going to check with them first.

Thank you for the suggestions.

Thanks for sharing your template - I see the extracurricular section is small. How should I list this trip and do I indicate it is on scholarship? Ex: Costa Rica Sea Turtle Studies -Scholarship Summer 2013 ????

Okay. Do you automatically provide a course description document? I was planning to do one, but not planning on including it with applications unless one was asked for.

My son leaves Tuesday for an academic trip to Costa Rica - he received a $5000+ scholarship to go. How do I put this on his transcript. He will be there 20 days working with sea turtles, doing a service project, writing a research paper and also he will do things like tent camping in the rainforest, white water rafting, etc. How do I include this trip on his transcript? How would I list it, how much detail etc.?

Yes, I do have a D/R combo - I guess I am just a loner in that I would be willing to shell out the money for the LG program alone. We use it fully at the LG stage, but I understand others don't. My blog post about using it with youngers was inspired because I have seen so many people say that TOG isn't meant for youngers and I just wholeheartedly disagree. Anyone who wants to use it fully for LG will get a rich and awesome experience. I think TOG is often misunderstood and people don't realize all that is there. I recently met two people at a book sale that had no idea there was a glossary for the vocabulary words and the famous people.

I have *never* spent over $500 on a TOG year. Second, I have earned a grand total of $3.58 from being a TOG affiliate and it has ZERO to do with my love of TOG and my passion in sharing it.

I think you are assuming I buy everything, and at full price. First, I buy DE which is $180 for a year. I don't buy all the books on the year plan - I select a few and then I buy whatever I can used after checking to see if my library has it. Writing Aids is a one time $50 purchase. Map Aids is $25 for a year. I don't always buy Evaluations - sometimes I only buy it for a unit or two. LG isn't just Grade 1 and 2 - many of the LG assignments are appropriate for my third grader and I have been known to overlap levels. I forget who said it was a glorified reading list, but I couldn't disagree more. I don't see how a plan that includes writing assignments, map work, vocabulary, famous people lists, art projects and literature assignments can be considered anything close to just a reading list - glorified or not. That's my opinion anyway. Bottom line, I find the organization, menu of choices, teacher notes, extras like the vocab glossary and famous people glossary, writing assignments, map projects etc - to be a very high quality and it saves me the time of putting it together myself. Yes, I still need to plan some, but I have been using TOG long enough that it doesn't take me the time it took me the first couple of units. I have it down. It is worth the money I invest. That said, I do plan to use it for years to come, so that makes it even more of a value.

I disagree that using TOG for only LG that it would be too much - I assume you mean $$$ ?? There may be cheaper, but I use TOG for the quality, not the cost. I certainly understand budgeting though so it is a good thing there are so many options out there. I prefer TOG and don't mind paying for it - even if I was only going to use it in the LG stage.

You need to purchase Writing Aids to get the instruction portion - it is $50 for all 12 years. The WA assignments are in the year plan, but the info you need to teach the 'how' is in the WA book.

It is so much more than history. For my LG, TOG is history, geography, literature, fine arts and writing.

I started with an LG and a D. My routine with my LG wouldn't be any different if I didn't have a D/R.

That is how I feel about Jane Austen. Ugh.

I wrote a blog post about using TOG with LG students. http://www.winecupchristianacademy.com/2013/04/using-tapestry-of-grace-with-younger.html

Has anyone ever hatched chicken eggs for a science project? If so, where did you buy the eggs and equipment?

Who created the Well Planned Day Planner? Is there a website? When I google it all I get are cbd.com links and blog links with people writing about it.

We used Art of Poetry and it is fantastic. When I use it next time around with my youngest we will use the DVD's too.

What Spanish program do you like that would be a good precursor to high school Spanish?

I don't think TT is "behind" - whatever that means. I don't see anything missing. The only reason I can surmise why people say it is "behind" is that the problems when introducing new concepts, aren't "difficult" - aka they don't have big numbers. I think it brilliantly introduces hard concepts, but gently. For example, the word problems - a difficult word problem for 3rd grade has several steps, but it uses simple/smaller numbers. If the numbers were big and the concept hard, how is that confidence building? I think TT is great at building math confidence while still introducing concepts that prepare for upper level math. My .02

We switched from CLE to R&S - mainly because ds got tired of doing 4 written pages a day. We do R&S verbally most of the time and it works much better for us.

This kind of thing doesn't appeal to me at all. I don't want my 12 year old learning college material. That's just me though. To each his own.

Ours is up.... http://www.winecupchristianacademy.com/2013/05/homeschool-report-52413.html