We read the book and worked the problems. I didn't worry too much about labs at the grade 8 level, and I didn't have tests. (We don't assign grades.) Kid #2 learns well from videos, so I'll be looking for on-line and library resources to supplement the book. Hippocampus is one possibility.

With a well-motivated grade 7 student who writes by hand with some difficulty, we did the following: 1) He watched the DVD section for the chapter 2) He read the chapter 3) We asked him most of the questions from the book, and discussed any issues that came up. We skipped questions when he clearly knew the material. We covered all of the "required" chapters, but didn't get very far on the "optional" chapters. (I don't have the book in front of me, but what I'm remembering is the first 12 or so chapters cover the breadth of chemistry and the last chapters go into specific topics that might be of interest to a specific class or student. Obviously, I'd modify this for a different student, but for ds, it worked well. He'll be doing more advanced chemistry later, so I didn't worry about tests.

Knowing how many problems to assign is always my biggest challenge.

I'm an engineer and do lots of writing for work, but I'm not particularly interested in creative writing. A number of posters pointed out that there are some gate keeping essay requirements--but otherwise I think it would be absolutely fine to focus on the technical writing required of engineers. An engineer who can write well is at an advantage, so it's definitely worth working on. It's possible that he'll feel comfortable branching out once he competently writes technical things--but if he never does, there's probably no harm done. If his twin sister likes creative writing, great! Different kids can work on the same skills in different ways. She may eventually have a career that requires more creative writing, if that's something she enjoys.

That solves the "how much does it cost" issue. When I took a quick look at it, it didn't convince me to move away from Rosetta Stone, which we already own.

I think you could get away with teaching the required trig as you go. I haven't looked at the Giancoli book, but usually you need only a very small fraction of what you'll actually cover in a trig book.

I'd consider dd to be an above average student, but she will take 1 1/2 to 2 years to cover pre-calc. She started algebra very young (grade 6) and took a year and a half to complete that. She did Jacobs geometry comfortably in a year, and struggled to do Foerster's alg II in a year. (In hindsight, we should have slowed down at that point.) The beginning of Foerster's Pre-Calc really slowed her down--and I decided to let her take as much time as she needed. I'm still not sure what we'll do about credits--but I wanted to chime in that above average, but young, students may quite reasonably take more than a year to cover pre-calc. In a homeschool setting, one tends to do more of the problems, and cover all of the sections in the book. I know that material in a school setting would be skipped due to time. I also think it depends which text is used--some are more cut and dried, some require a lot of thought. The division of topics between algebra II and pre-calc varies too. I've also been pondering the best approach to young students. I'm sure dd would have done algebra 1 more quickly, and algebra II more easily, had she been older. On the other hand, she has learned a lot about how to work hard through math--something she hasn't had to do for all of courses. Having worked hard, she now feels quite a bit of satisfaction that she is able to work on the last bit of trig without much help from me. We held ds off a bit--he started algebra I in grade 7. He blasted through Jacobs algebra, only slowing down at the very end. He may well need to slow down for algebra II--but I don't think it would have been a good idea to delay algebra I any longer. We'll just slow down when he needs to. Obviously this would be more of an issue in school, where a teacher can't slow down just because a younger child needs more time to mature.

The comment about reading page numbers also made me wonder about OCD. OCD can really slow down the reading if one feels compelled to reread and reread. If you think this might be the problem, the book "Talking Back to OCD" is a great place to start. Some of the information available in books and on-line is old--look for the newer information that recognizes the success of cognitive-behavioral therapy in treating OCD.

If you haven't already watched all of the "Canada: A People's History" videos/dvds, I highly recommend them. I understand there's a book as well, but I haven't looked at it. Granted, it's not the same thing as a good text, but they are a good supplement to whatever else you use. (We used Canada, Our Story at the grade 7/8 level and then focused on world history for high school, using Speilvogel and Duiker's university-level World History book.)

My science-minded grade 7 ds and I just worked through Conceptual Chemistry. It was a great science year. Because he learns well by watching DVDs, the included DVD was a big hit. We did the questions orally to limit the writing--and so we could discuss the material together. Next up is Conceptual Physics, which I did 3 years ago with my dd. Even though she isn't terribly science-minded, she thoroughly enjoyed CP. We'll eventually circle back to do physics and chemistry at the AP level. You don't say where your dd is in math. A little bit of algebra helps for both of these books--but they certainly don't require a full year of algebra I.

when talking to the kids. DH is very skilled at this. Soon I need to have dd look at the SAT vocab review to see how well this plan has worked.

We are using Speilvogel & Duiker's university-level World History book as a spine. I wanted world history, not western civ. She answers the focus questions as she reads. We're adding in various library sources: The PBS "Empires" series is very good. We used the DVD version of "Guns, Germs and Steel" in grade 9 and dd surprised me by devouring the full book in grade 10. She usually identifies a topic of interest, does some research or reads a related book and writes a short paper for each chapter. This was a bit of a stretch for grade 9, but she's managing very nicely (and independently) for grade 10. She'll continue this way until grade 12 (unless she decides to take modern history at the local U in grade 10). Given that the public school kids are only required to have one history course--and that she reads widely, I'm not sweating this too much.

We used Conceptual Chemistry for grade 7, followed by AP Chem (Brown, Lemay, etc) in grades 10/11. Not sure that helps you, because one choice is probably not enough and the other is probably overkill for your kid.

I'm finding almost-15 to be a much easier age than 12-13-14. Something must have just clicked in dd's brain, because she is much more self-motivated than she has been. A mother of boys said her boys "clicked in" at about 20. I'm sure every kid is different--but I find it helpful to realize that things aren't always going to be difficult.

Interesting idea--thanks! We liked "Conceptual Chemistry" and "Conceptual Physics" for science (to be followed by more intense courses later). I hadn't thought of doing "conceptual calculus." I'm assuming that's what a "Calculus for Poets" book would be. My intent is to get her past the conceptual "hump" I encountered when I started calculus--so that would meet my intention. She could then do a full-blown calculus class in university. (She may need to take some physics, so I'm assuming calculus would at least be a co-requisite.) Too bad the versions are so hard to sort out. I'll see what I can find at the library and through interlibrary loan. Of course, we still have our calculus books, but I assume the new ones take advantage of the advances in calculators and computers.

DS, next in line, learns well from DVDs. DD doesn't--she tends to glaze over. Both DH and I are able to teach calculus--and have different explanatory styles, so there's more than one explanation. I think I'm just looking for a book and solution guide.

I had assumed I'd use Foerster's calculus book with dd, but I'm not so sure now. She's currently on the two-year plan for pre-calculus (with Foerster's book)--making steady progress but the problem solving comes slowly. I'm wondering if moving to some other author for calculus might be a welcome change. Her current career plans suggest she'll need university calculus, but it's unlikely she'll go into physics, chemistry or engineering. She's a word person--the more words the better. Recommendations? I'm assuming that she'll redo calculus in university, although I'm hoping she'll take the first calculus AP exam at the end of her grade 12 year to provide an outside mark.

thanks Jann. I had thought about only awarding one credit regardless of how long it takes. She'll have plenty of credits overall, and will have math credits from alg 1 to intro to calculus by the time we're done. However--I am realizing that we are covering trig in more detail than we might otherwise, and that "slowing down" will also allow us to cover all of the chapters that are sometimes omitted if time is short (intro to probability, intro to statistics, sequences, etc.) So I think it will be more than a standard pre-calculus class. We'll see--maybe I'll call it 1 credit of pre-calc and a half credit of advanced math. I'm assuming Texas is awarding 2 credits--and that their 4 semester class covers material in more depth than their 2 semester course.

I've finally decided that that's what we'll do with dd. She's young, so we should still be able to get some calculus in her senior year. Jann--do you know what schools are calling this 2-year sequence? Is it pre-calc 1 and pre-calc 2? I'm currently thinking that we'll have "Trig" (she's almost finished the trig chapters from Foerster's pre-calc) and then something else--maybe "Topics in Advance Math" or "Advance Algebra"? It will be the non-trig portion of Foerster's Pre-calc--which is more than just algebra.

Fellow students were a big help to me in doing well in some of my classes. Sometimes it took a while, but I usually managed to find people who were doing about as well as I was and with whom I worked well. We explained things to each other and checked our homework answers against each other. I remember being confused at the beginning of calculus--probably because I also didn't have the big picture. I couldn't figure out what the point was! Once I got that down, I did fine. I'm hoping to at least do an introductory calculus w/ dd before she leaves home so that she'll have the big picture before she starts a university calculus class.

We moved from MUS to Jacobs at the geometry level because all the words, the jokes and the comic strips made math more interesting to my word-loving kids. (MUS is pretty straight-foward math--which I'm sure is just right for some kids but was becoming less well-suited to mine.) I also took great pains to point out that one of the goals of proof-heavy geometry is to learn how to think clearly. This is important even if you aren't headed into a math-intense field. (I'm currently going on about how trig helps you work on problem solving skills--even if you aren't headed to a math-intense field . . . .) I think my campaign is working--I'm hearing less complaining.

DD takes piano, voice and music theory/history (and sings in a serious choir). She's not currently planning to major in music, but she will be a very capable and appreciated community musician. She is determined to get her RCM grade 10 (in piano) before the end of high school--and because she's determined, we're happy to pay. It's not just about music--it's about setting goals and achieving them, learning to work hard, learning to work as a team (for choir), learning to do things that are really scary (perform solo), learning to take grueling theory/history exams . . . All of these skills are important, regardless of what she later decides to do. On the other hand--if she didn't want to do all of this (and work hard), we'd encourage her to find some other passion.

As long as there were enough books in the house, dd's behaviour was fine. When she ran out of books to read, we had to make an emergency run to the library.

Conceptual Physics (by Hewitt) is not enough for Ds9th, but might be ok for DS10th. You could do CP with both this year and follow up with an AP level class for Ds9th later. Yes, CP is a high school course (actually, there are two versions--HS and university). But--both are not intended for kids who will go further with science. There's not much math. Our math/science capable kids have used conceptual level classes for grades 7 and 8, followed by higher level courses in high school.

The Jacobs/Foerster books provide about 10 review questions at the beginning of each problem set. This has been very helpful to my kids.