Thanks for all the detailed info!

Faith thanks for all the tips! :-) I'm finding that now that my eyes are looking for art connections, I see them :-0 I think those of us interested in an art education need to trust that opportunities will present themselves. The Artist's Way calls it synchronisity.

One of the ways I judge math readiness is by the students ability to apply math to every day situations, and to be able to do verbal word problems. My math gifted child certainly did struggle with housekeeping! It certainly slowed him down. If I had been more math gifted myself, I would have been able to supply more opportunities for him to be introduced to concepts that he wasn't yet ready to solve on paper. I did the best I could though with the resources I had, though...and that is all we can do :-0

How does the homeschool coop work? The price for 3 years for under $40.00 sounds awfully good!

Doesn't the handbook have some studies on common vegetables, household pets, rocks, sky, etc, that will apply to any climate? The book is still on my wish list to require for myself. Is there a table of contents available online?

Too cute! I'm a self-teaching adult, but just put the book on hold for myself as a review.

I just got this book last week http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Inside-Sierra-Clubs-Indoors/dp/0316034347/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_11 Wild Inside Sierra Club's Guide to the Great Indoors. A lot of nature study can be done indoors. What kind of rocks do you have? Geology is fascinating. Do you have a lot of light pollution or can you see the stars? I'm in a city, but do a lot of moon watching.

This thread made me google "art math". Fun stuff popped up. Science and art...well....there is just tons of stuff. Leonardo DiVinci was big into the mathematical proportions of the human body. Some of it is covered in my "structure of man" figure drawing videos. Also I've been knee deep in the science of color, botany and geometry. In "Writing Like Hemingway" there was a list of artists that influenced and were friends with Hemingway. In my "Masterpieces of Short Fiction" course I just read "The Real Thing" about an artist working with models. My art studies are CONSTANTLY overlapping with my other studies.

My younger child started Saxon Algebra 1 in the fifth grade. It was our first year homeschooling. We didn't finish the book, curriculum hopped a bit, and then returned to it. My favorite curriculums for math are Saxon and the Aufmann texts. The Aufmann texts are geared towards remedial adults and have a LOT of word problems. You can get older copies dirt cheap at amazon. I also scoured every website and math catalog I could find on algebra manipulatives. New York was starting a new integrated math program and had some free stuff online, that I liked. Some kids are ready early. I learned there was a LOT of high school maths to learn without rushing to calculus. Just tons and tons of stuff to keep them busy, that traditional students do not have time to cover. My child ended out in a 2 year CC due to our finances, and unless he wanted to travel to another campus was only offered algebra, which he took to fulfill his math requirement :-0 If i'd been able to see the future, I would have still put him in algebra 1 in the fifth grade, but we would have had more fun, and taken even more side trips and never have bothered to stress over trying to teach ourselves calculus. I would have stopped at trig and moved sideways, not up.

What an excellent list! Thanks!

I'm finding it easier to read short stories rather than novels. I'm able to read the story several times to really understand it well enough to discuss it and write about it. You will see some of the curricula that I am using right now in my signature.

Thanks so much. That looks good. I put it on my Amazon wish list.

What are the best resources to learn to write about art? I bought an older edition of the Sister Wendy book, but...think i'm missing something.

Starrbuck12, The automatic spell check on ipads is quirky :-0 what a weird choice it picked :-0 oh, well it gave us all a good laugh :-) Cakemom, it is so tough to feel confident about anything isn't it, especially when bucking tradition. All I used to remember though, was that making no choice was a choice. To follow tradition was a choice, a risky choice, more likely to fail long term, than the nontraditional choices I was making. All of life is a risk. We just move forward the best we can. And funny thing is when it's all done, the things you most beat yourself up over are the ones that your kids laugh at, and the ones they resent the most, are the ones that leave you scratching your head. And when it's all over, the only ones' opinion that really counts, is your kids, because they are the ones living with the results. What the school board, your inlaws, the neighbors think, and even your pride and reputation, don't really matter, when it's all over and done. And just remember character development is SO much more important than scholastics! When I was in my late thirties and ended out in a situation where my 18 year old was legally responsible for me while I was sedated for a procedure, it really hit home to me what was important, as I watched him interact with the medical staff and sign papers and all that he had to do. At 17, my illness had started and he was the one to rush me to the hospital the first time, and...I just remember a nurse being blown away by him. And I remember thinking most parents don't reach the stage of being cared for by one of their children till much later in life. I still had a 15 year old homeschooler at home at that time, and I can tell you my priorities changed with him instantly!

Just remember that your goals and those of the test makers are probably different. The goals of many tentmakers are not the goals of many homeschoolers. Standardized test scores are only ONE way to judge progress. There is just so much that you are probably covering that is not on the test, and therefore your children are not receiving credit for.

It really is a great spine, and can be used over again using different sources. The same author wrote a DVD series for the teaching company and uses a junior college text. I ended out preferring the cheap paperback, though, and fleshing it out with real stuff and having the time to do tons and tons of experiments, as I explained. Do you have access to the Bill Nye DVDs? They are a wonderfully efficient way to cover complex science, and printing out the list of the entire series again gives you another scope and sequence, meant to cover all the most important concepts.

I used "Science Matters" as my spine, and used lots of real books and videos. I included a huge emphasis on the scientific method and did lots and lots of kiddie labs. I had made up a worksheet where my son needed to read and quote(or summarize) 4 sources to come up with his hypothesis. And at the end of the lab, discuss what he would try next to make it a better lab, which usually stated that he would include controls, and how. I sometimes used paragraph writing lessons from "Real Writing" edition 2 (newer editions are NOT the same!). I mostly used middle school and remedial adult lab reports, but beefed them up a bit. High school lab reports didn't emphasize the scientific method, and seldom were generic enough. We used GED prep materials to cover reading about, and interpreting science. The GED tests the ability to understand a science article or book, more than accumulation of science facts, so their materials were very useful. After we finished that, we moved onto AP Environmental Science, not to take the test, but as a guide. We dropped traditional high school science texts when I became very frustrated with the amount of time spent on things that did not matter, while we were neglecting so much science that he needed to know to become scientifically literate. When he entered college he took nutrition for his only required science course and did very well in it, as did his older brother, who pretty much only completed American School's General Science course for formal science work, but had learned a lot of science at work and at play.

I think World Book Encyclopedia has a nice article and outline to follow, but it has been years since I've seen it. Alpha Omega has 5 workbooks that summarize American Lit. I think you can see samples at CBD.

Wow, thank you!

College literature courses are a lot more diverse than high school courses. I cannot believe a college wouldn't be impressed with any books, they themselves teach. If they are teaching Inuit mythology, then I think it is safe to put it on a high school reading list.

Nan, your children are being exposed to so much more pacifism and matriarchal worldview than the typical young American. I think when this happens it is an amazing opportunity for young people. I think they approach all their reading afterwards differently. They become more discriminating readers, and interesting conversationalists.

I attend a weekly short story reading group. The instructor is a big fan of Kate Chopin. Did I read that she wrote some children's stories as well as adult ones?

As I have looked at the writing programs at different colleges, I thought I might like to attend, I see a lot of literature courses being offered that are NOT Western Canon. I find it interesting to look at the courses offered by women's colleges. What do you all think are the best Women's Studies anthologies and textbooks? What about World Literature anthologies and textbooks that feature stories by matriarchal societies. Rather than just looking for books written by female authors, I am more interested in reading authors from matriarchal societies, where women are valued, and war is not promoted. For those of you who are conservative Great Books advocates, do you think colleges who are teaching more women,s studies and world lit courses are going to welcome these types of books being read during high school?

I agree.

Donna, I have only read chapter 1 of that book and am still waiting for it from the library. YA fiction is probably the genre I will end out focusing on, as a writer, so am trying to read widely from that genre lately. I can imagine it would be a very disturbing book to sensitive young people :-( When I was homeschooling my boys, I was a VERY conservative Christian and did not believe in setting aside much school time for stories. I expected my boys to entertain themselves with stories on their own time, or during free choice time, and they did. The KJV bible, biographies, letters, sermons, histories, etc, were what I taught for "literature". Knowing all I know now, I do now think stories are important, and WOULD include them in my lesson plans...but...my boys did just fine not finishing ANY type of literary canon in high school. We covered most of the things talked about in the Great Books through Bible study and nonfiction. They turned out to be well educated young men spouting all the patriarchal white man world views, that are so prized by the other patriarchal white men they have the need to impress :-0 Yes, I would include stories now, high quality stories, stories included in the Great Books canon, but also stories from around the world, with special emphasis to include literature from matriarchal societies too. Donna, there are alternative ways, many different alternative ways, to cover literature, without slavishly covering the western canon. I'm certainly no expert on this...but down the road looking back, you and your daughter may end out being very thankful that this book led you both to taking a different fork in the road.