I've been married to my honey for 27+ years and we have have 2 dc: ER is a 17yob & is a high school senior; EK is a 13yog & is a 7th grader. All four of us were born in central Georgia & still call it home, although I did live in my dad's hometown of Adrian, Michigan, for a year when I was a toddler. I don't remember much about that, but we have pictures of me standing in the snow, crying because they made me stand there in a snowsuit (like the one Ralphie's little brother wore in A Christmas Story) so they could send pictures to the southern relatives. Anyway, the stint in Michigan only lasted a year, and then my mom couldn't take the cold weather anymore, so they packed us up and moved back to Georgia and I've been here ever since. :p I have a master's degree in education, and I've taught professionally in preschool, kindergarten, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, & 12th grades. I "retired" when ER was almost 2, and I've been a SAHM most of the time since. ER attended preschool & kindergarten at the lab school for the local college's teacher training program (while I was working on my master's), and we started homeschooling when he was in first grade. I am an eclectic homeschooler. I always read and research a LOT when I'm trying to decide what books & resources would best suit my dc, and I ask way more questions here on the boards than most people, I think! Some of my favorite "finds", thanks to people on the boards have been: Rod & Staff English & Bible, TruthQuest History, Apologia Science, Starting Points Worldview Primer, and various websites with great free printables, such as literature guides, outline maps, homeschool forms, etc. EK is a bubbly, social butterfly. She excels in all school subjects (except maybe math ;)), and she especially loves history, literature, and writing. She is very artsy; she likes to draw and do crafts, and also loves drama, singing, dancing, and taking photos & editing them. ER is a friendly but quiet "thinker". He also excels in all school subjects, but he especially likes Chemistry and Religion & Philosophy studies. He is very musical; he enjoys composing music and playing piano & guitar. He has been accepted to both of his top two college choices and is trying to decide which is the one for him. Dh is a pastor (Southern Baptist) and former prison chaplain. While working in the prison, dh wrote and taught a character development course for the inmates. They enjoyed it so much that they encouraged him to find a way to offer it to people "on the outside" because they believed it would help others avoid making the mistakes that landed them in prison. Dh rewrote the course and started a company offering the program as a professional development course for individuals and businesses. Its success in that arena led him to begin marketing franchises. It's still in the early phases (read: isn't making money yet!), but we are delighted that learning and applying the principles of the course is helping people make better choices and improve their lives. I'm happy to have you all as my support group!

I've used all of the tactics mentioned above: "Pick up the blocks...(later) pick up the Barbies..." "Bring me 4 blocks." (Then 3, then 1, etc.) "Put the yellow blocks in the bucket." (Then do the other colors one at a time.) But my all-time favorite was: "It's time for a 10-second tidy." I would actually set a timer & we would race around the room to pick up stuff. Later, when the dc were a bit older, I would set the timer for 10 minutes and make specific assignments for each dc, like "unload the dishwasher", or "tidy the bathroom", or "sweep the kitchen", or "vacuum the living room". You know, I still do that, and ER is 17yo & EK is 13yo!! :D

ER (ds17) & I are about to embark on a 3-week study of the U.S. Civil War, using the Ken Burns Civil War DVD series. Have any of you used this with your dc? Any tips you could give me? I know there are lesson plans and activity suggestions on the PBS website. Did you use any of these? Were there any that your dc particularly enjoyed or particularly did not enjoy? ER does not enjoy history at all; he is much more of a science & music guy. So any advice you can give me that I can use to make this tolerable, maybe even enjoyable, for him would be greatly appreciated. :)

Thanks for posting this. I was just about to ask about experiences with AP after taking both Apologia Chemistry & Advanced Chemistry.

Awwww, poor kitty! We have a very old kitty too. He will be 16yo later this year. He looks good for his age, and is pretty good health, but he sleeps a LOT and doesn't seem to tolerate the winter weather as well as he once did. He's always been an outdoor kitty, but lately I've been letting him in a lot. Right now he's lying in a chair near the heater, snoozing. Here is a link to a picture of him taken this past spring: http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r11/ecmom/Kitty0407.jpg Here is a link to a picture of him sleeping in our school room: http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r11/ecmom/DSCN4689.jpg Yes, he often sleeps on his back with one eye open! :p I hope your kitty feels better very soon!

Yep, free for me too, from our local library. I go there once a week or more anyway, so I'll give them a try. Thanks!

Thanks, Beth, for the link. My ds is a senior, and I was hesitant to use these with him, but the Schlessinger website suggests using them through 12th grade. Also, ds absolutely hates history (alas, my favorite subject!). He is in his final semester of high school, dealing with a full course load + college application process + extracurriculars including church & volunteer work & part time job. He's a bit overwhelmed -- and so am I -- so when I saw these DVDs at the library, I thought it might work to use these to help push him through to the end of this last bit of the 4-year history cycle.

I'm not sure about Apologia Physics & Advanced Physics in a year, but... doing two Apologia Advanced courses in a year wasn't doable for my very science-oriented ds, a high school senior. The plan was to double up and do a module per week in Advanced Chemistry & Advanced Physics, but with ds's other obligations -- part-time job + a very heavy music & band & choir schedule + college visits/scholarship applications/ACT testing + a full course load (Modern Literature, Modern History, College Algebra, Religion & Philosphy, American Government, plus the science courses) -- it just wasn't possible. Also, you didn't say what science courses your ds had for 9th & 10th grades, but if your ds has not already had a couple of Apologia courses and is not familiar with Dr. Wile's approach, there would be that learning curve to consider as well. My ds had already done Apologia General (6th), Apologia Physical (7th), a Space Science course in 8th (from FLVS ?), Apologia Biology (9th), Apologia Chemistry (10th), & Apologia Physics (11th). He earned an A in each of them, and in fact has maintained a 4.0 GPA throughout high school. In spite of all of this, though, doing both Apologia Advanced Chemistry and Apologia Advanced Physics in one year was not doable for him. He didn't need another science on his transcript, but he LOVES science, especially chemistry, so he chose to do the Advanced Chemistry this year, and so far, he has an A average. But your mileage may vary! ; ) If your ds is a good science (& math) student, is already familiar with Dr. Wile's style, and doesn't have all of the extra-curriculars to contend with, doing two courses in a year could work for him.

Anybody used these in a middle or high school history course? Specificaly, I'm wondering about the Origins to 2000 DVDs; I think there are 26 volumes in the series. Can anyone tell me how in-depth these are? Do they thoroughly cover the topics, and are they biased in any way? I was thinking of using these as sort of a "spine" this semester with ds so he can push on through to the end of his last high school history course!

Ds received notification that he is one of 30 recipients chosen by our denomination's state convention for its Student Achievement Award. Winners receive a scholarship of $1000 per year. Ds was nominated by our associate pastor and had to submit an application, a couple of essays, his high school transcript, and 3 letters of recommendation.

Mary M, I'm in complete agreement with you here: "I guess I am just in the phase where I am tired of planning and prepping for these tests when there are so many more interesting things to LEARN." And I feel so very much like Janice in NJ, who said in another thread: "Somehow it just wasn't what I envisioned ... I wanted to spend our time exploring philosophy, the sciences, and the wonder of real mathematics. I wanted to spend our days reading novels, and I wanted my son to pursue his passions before he heads out into the "real world" of college, work, and life in general. Now it looks like almost all we will be doing is studying for tests - and trying to cram in course work. ...I just want to teach. I just want to learn. I'm so tired or playing curriculum development manager and guidance counselor. Somehow I feel like I'm being tricked here into giving up my dreams." My poor ds -- oldest child -- has been my guinea pig through all of this homeschool journey. Yes, I feel that he has received an excellent education, the best I knew how to do it at the time. I know God has guided and protected! : ) But knowing now what I *wish* I had known before, I think my dd's educational career will look a whole lot different from her brother's. She's at least as intellectually gifted as ds, although her ways of learning are sometimes different. I think through my journey with ds, maybe I've learned to relax a bit. Just the familiarity aving done it one time already makes it a little less scary for me. With dd, I will give more attention to some academic areas (e.g. writing -- she'll write more) and less to others (e.g. vocabulary -- she'll just read more), and I will be a bit more relaxed and interest-driven than test-driven.

I really don't understand why the SAT or ACT score can't just be enough. My ds had planned to apply to GA Tech; we viewed it sort of as our benchmark of homeschooling success: if he could get into Tech, we would know we had achieved our goals. But when it came down to it and we saw that they require more "proof" from homeschoolers, ds chose, as a matter of principle, not to bother. They require 3 SAT IIs or AP tests or college coursework (???) plus this form, which requires parents to explain their reasons for choosing to homeschool, their relationship with the state DOE, whether the student met state DOE standards, how science labs & foreign language courses were conducted & evaluated, and a detailed bibliography of textbooks & resources for every high school course. I believe that this is a relatively new (this year) policy. When ds first expressed interest in GA Tech 3 or 4 years ago, we went to their website to find out what was required for homeschool admission, and I saw they required 3 specific SAT IIs or AP tests, but I did not see this form or anything like it. GA Tech did some pretty heavy recruiting to get ds to apply there and to enter their competitive scholarship program, so we looked again at their website this year. Ds was pretty hesitant about having to complete 3 additional tests (partially due to the expense, but mainly because we felt that the additional requirements for homeschoolers was unfair). Then when we saw all these (new this year?) requirements, ds refused to apply. I contacted the admissions office to protest the policies, and I received thise-mail from one of the admissions directors: "Thank you for your email. I am sorry that you and your son feel our Home School policies are unfair. It's interesting that you have that perspective, however, because we have recently done studies on Home School admissions policies with our peer institutions. We looked historically at our home school students entering Tech and made modifications this summer." The modifications they made were apparently this new form with its additional requirements! It really aggravates me that an obviously bright kid like my ds should be expected to jump through all these hoops to prove himself to people who should be able to recognize talent in the first place. Okay, I'm stepping down off my soapbox now. ;)

Thanks, Gwen. It helps me to know there are others who've BTDT. Ds applied to only two schools, and he is very torn between the two. Both of them are small (approx. 1000 students) private (read: expensive!) Christian colleges in our state. Both offered ds merit scholarships (based solely on SAT/ACT scores) that will cover about 1/3 of his tuition, room & board. Based on ds's GPA & test scores, one school has also offered him the opportunity to compete for a full-ride scholarship. We filled out more paperwork and submitted a letter of recommendation & an essay, and ds will go for an interview next weekend. The other school, though, has no competitive scholarship program; they base almost all of their scholarships on need rather than merit. From what I've seen so far, it seems that the merit scholarship programs are actually more straightforward and, well, fair (for lack of a better word) because the formulas for the need-based scholarships just seem to have no real rhyme nor reason. In spite of our low income, it appears from our EFC that ds would actually have a better chance of being awarded a merit scholarship than a needs-based scholarship. Of course, the school ds is leaning toward is the one that does NOT have a scholarship competition!

Congratulations! Feels great, doesn't it? When my ds got his acceptance letters, I felt somehow validated. I guess I viewed it as a pat on the back for all my hard work that sometimes nobody seemed to notice. : )

Yes, everything I've read says that the amount of aid for which the student is eligible is calculated by subtracting the EFC from the total cost: Total cost ($) minus EFC = financial need ($) So it would seem that the EFC *must* be a dollar amount, wouldn't it? We completed our FAFSA, and *if* our EFC really is the dollar amount we'll be expected to contribute towards ds's college, I'm worried, because it's WAY more than we could hope to afford! I think I read somewhere that the EFC can range from 0 to 99,999. Is that correct? I keep hearing/reading about people whose EFC is 0, and I had expected ours to be close to that, but it's not. Dh is a bi-vocational minister (IOW he's considered self-employed for tax purposes) and apparently that hurts us when it comes to the FAFSA & EFC because although he receives no salary from our church, he does receive a housing allowance, which is counted as income. I really haven't been concerned about this until now because I was so sure that scholarships and such would cover ds's college costs -- but now I'm starting to get scared.

Lately, all I've been reading are scholarship & financial aid application forms! :eek:

From the FAFSA website: "Your EFC is not the amount of money your family will have to pay for college nor is it the amount of federal student aid you will receive. It is a number used by your school to calculate the amount of federal student aid you are eligible to receive." But all over the web I'm reading that the EFC is the dollar amount parents are expected to contribute for their child's college education. What's the scoop here??

I agree with Jean. I need to do a better job with dd (now 7th grade) than I did with ds on preparing to do high school work, particularly in the area of essay-writing. I agree that it's important to take care of the basics so we can free up our high school schedule. I also plan to start Latin earlier -- and push through even when it's "hard" or "boring"!

Congrats! Ds applied to only two. It was gratifying to get those acceptance letters!

Basically, we did some picking & choosing from the writing assignments in TRISMS and just did them without using IEW's format, and also, I made up some of my own writing assignments (topics based on historical events or the related literature) and had ds write various kinds of essays about them. We used Format Writing instead of IEW to teach essay writing. Ds found IEW tedious, and I agreed to switch to something he liked better. Some examples of essays: Cause & Effect Essay -- French Revolution Compare & Contrast Essay -- American Revolution & French Revolution Example Essay -- Claudius's (Hamlet) Manipulation Tactics

12 years here. Ds is in 12th & dd is in 7th.

read Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde and Frankenstein. He liked both of those and has commented that The Deadliest Monster is really good. He is reading it as part of his apologetics course. He is reading Don't Check Your Brains at the Door on his own.