I have the lego education set for Mindstorm and I just checked the material - it says Mac compatible but ds doesn't use a Mac.

DD will do: Am History - Notgrass (history portion only) w/ some living books thrown in Am Government - Nobel Exp and Am Gov Continuity and Change Pre-Calc/Trig - TT and Critical Thinking books/SAT/ACT Prep books Eng III - Am Lit - IEW Writing Intensive, Elegant Essay, SAT vocab practice and using lit analysis techniques she's learned in Teaching the classics/Windows. Honors Chem - Spectrum, biographies of Chemist, Queen's Further Investigations and Chem 101 Career Planning - SL's Program Spanish 2 - RS Art 2 - Lifepac Art 6-10, Atelier & Sister Wendy Painting Gymnastics

If you look on the logic stage/middle grade board - I did a quick search using "Rainbow" and there were several posts w/ some reviews of Rainbow. Here are a couple reviews I read on-line: http://www.homeschoolingfromtheheart.com/hsreviews/science/rainbowsci.html http://thehomeschoolmagazine.com/Homeschool_Reviews/reviews.php?rid=915 http://www.thehomeschoollibrary.com/forum/showthread.php?t=81 There is even a review on Amazon. I'm thinking of using it for ds in 8th next year but doing both Years 1 & 2 in one year. He loves science and likes the idea of lots of hands on. I'll probably add in books from Noeo on each topic. The reviews I've read seem to be either that people love it or hate it and no in-between.

Yes, please share! We have been planning to use it primarily for Am Lit.

If you are referring to the new updates that have been discussed recently they are not available until April 2. But, I had asked on SL about any major changes to the upper cores and was told that they had updated the upper cores last year and the new changes were for the lower cores up through "G".

Your post made me smile! A couple weekends ago my oldest ds was home and I was sitting around chatting w/ all my kiddos. Oldest asked each of the kids what they were doing in school, what did they learn new for the week, etc. Then he asked me - I said that his middle db was driving me nuts bec he was like the oldest and could solve the problems in his head - not a big deal bec it's only pre-alg, but my point with him is that it will get more difficult and if he doesn't get the answer correct then I don't know how to help him. Oldest laughed and said, "learn to write your problems out even though it's stupid and a pain, because if you don't when you go to college you'll get accused of cheating and then have to make the Calculus professor feel bad when they send you to the board, give you a complex problem, and you stand there for a minute and then write the answer on the board!" I only require a couple problems a lesson to be written out - just so I'm sure they understand and so I'm sure I understand how they arrive at the correct answer. When dd did Geometry in 8th I made her write out all proofs and then only a couple others a lesson.

I've received an e-mail about the program Learn Our History - they are offering a special through the Homeschool convention. Has anyone used the product? Seen it in person? etc.?

Ren Learn lists the books at 7.8-8.0 gl for George Washington's World and Lincoln - but I used the Augustus Caesar's World this year w/ dd's 10th grade World History as an additional resource. We did 3 chpts a week but we did them together for the discussion benefit. I plan to have her add in the others this next year when we do Am History. DS will use two in his 8th grade SL program (Core H) but he's more of a history buff and quicker reader than dd. DD is math/science.

I began having vertigo - it was worse than when I get motion sick in the car or on in ride - in Oct. After trips to the Dr., different meds, and very little help other than the meds making me a zombie - I went two weeks ago to a chiropractor. I have been twice now and I've been symptom free since the first appt. I even was able to bend over to pick things up, clean the bathtub, etc. w/out the world going round and round and my feeling like throwing up. I haven't been on the kids swings or taken any long trips so I can't attest to it helping w/ that aspect yet.

This has been enlightening. I had taken the stance w/ a couple moms that I felt that labs and in particular dissections were an integral part of bio. I felt that if a student wanted to go into a science field but were hesitant to do dissections it was better to get it under their belt in high school at home than when they went to college and took Bio 101 and had to complete their first dissection. I didn't realize until I began searching the internet today that dissections were not completed in all high school bio courses and that many schools were doing only virtual dissections. We are required by our accountability assoc to show a certain number of labs and dissections are to be part of that - more are needed for an honors v a gen bio of course. I was basing my decisions on my past schooling, my oldest ds's completion of honors and AP bio in ps and my accountability assoc. We completed two dissections for dd in 7th Life science - a frog and earthworm. For her honors bio this year we are doing a frog again, perch, fetal pig, cows eye and sheep heart. In talking to other hs moms in our area they are doing anywhere from 3-7 but our local ps has scaled back and is only doing the fetal pig in bio but the career center biomed courses are doing the cow eye and sheep heart. As always the Hive has given me something to ponder for my next dc coming up.

I'm curious after talking to some other hs mom's and to kids in our local high school Bio classes -- how many dissections do you consider necessary for General Biology?

There is a Psychologist in Columbia that will do psycho-ed evals at a reduced rate for hsing families -- they hs their dc. We have used him for our two middles for their initial and one follow-up 3 year eval. He will do the evals on weekends or I also believe evenings too. If this would work for you -let me know and I'll get his info and PM you.

Off the original topic - but I wonder if you've ever explored Vision Therapy (http://www.covd.org)? While VT won't "cure" all the issues - we found that it greatly improved ds's ability to copy material both from near and far point.

My ds - 7th grade - was allowed extended time for the ACT this past fall as well as the ability to circle his answers in the test booklet and then the test proctor filled in the scan-tron sheet at the end of testing. I'll have to go back and look but I think he was allowed up to 8 hours for the test - he didn't need it though. He was also given the ability to take breaks as needed. In our state we have to hs through an accountability group - so both the accountability group and I submitted paper-work documenting his disability (ADHD/LD(dyslexia/dysgraphia)). Each year I do my own accommodation list - similar to a 504 - documenting in my files and for my group what I will be providing for ds.

Does anyone have experience w/ the 3 week summer programs through the Duke Tip program? In particular we are wondering about the ones for 7th graders.

Are you wanting only direct grammar instruction? Or are you wanting to continue w/ grammar/LA in a format similar to ILL? We switched to QLL several years ago and my dc enjoy it. It covers grammar instruction in short lessons spread throughout w/ copywork, dictation, picture study, narration, creative writing - moving into essay writing instruction in high school.

I generally don't cover spelling as a separate course until 3rd or 4th as we consider spelling part of the copywork process. However, at Christmas ds asked for the Spelling through copywork program that Queen's produces so I purchased book A for him. We have been using it - it's again copywork but addresses spelling rules.

Have you looked at Queen's Lang Lsns? We moved to Queen's from PLL and ILL.

I am not using PLL for my 2nd grader - he was already using Queen's Lang Lsns and I didn't want to change. I used PLL and ILL with my middle dc before we found Queen's - they have all scored well on standardized testing. During their 7th grade years I did have them complete Winston bec I kept hearing that a CM format wasn't adequate for middle and high school. Keep in mind that CM didn't advocate formal grammar until later and CM advocates learning grammar through copy-work and dictation.

I am using the 2nd grade materials currently w/ my 8 yo 2nd grader. He really enjoys it - but he loves anything having to do with Ancient Egypt. The Pharaoh book I think is a little advanced and it did need some taking it slow and explaining a little. He is a wiggly, all boy type and there is no way he or his middle brother would have set through the books for 2nd grade as a K kiddo. However, my two oldest probably would have been fine. So it really depends upon the dc. If I had two that I was wanting to keep on the same level - with the exception of math/LA - I would probably combine in grade 1. I add in some materials for my 2nd grader by including a few more picture books on the topics bec he is always asking to "see" what is happening. I have some of the materials for grade 3 and I think there is a bit of a stretch from 2nd to 3rd.

DD has expressed an interested in doing Marine Bio her Sr. year instead of Physics. In searching for a text I know that Apologia has a Marine Bio course and hometrainingtools.com sells the lab supplies to accompany it. My concern w/ the course if that we try to keep high school courses - esp science - secular and we are not YE. I've also found that Prentice Hall and Glencoe/ McGraw-Hill carry Marine Bio texts - of course I would need to put the lab supplies together myself. Has anyone used any of these Marine Bio texts or found another program they liked?

I've wondered about this also. My accountability group - which is known for being particular about curriculum it considers worthy of high school credit regardless of the publishers claims - told me Spectrum was an accepted High School worthy credit for CP. They did explain that if we want honors credit we would need to add additional readings/labs - which I already knew. But, then I began to read a few reviews that felt it was light. I've been researching the question for about 2 weeks and it does appear from reading older posts that Spectrum is your basic high school Chem class but if you are expecting readiness for SATII or AP tests then there will be more that is needed. Since we are going into Spectrum w/ the expectation that dd will take a second class for Advanced Chem we've pretty much decided it will fit the bill. I do plan to have a ps Chem textbook on hand if further information is needed or desired.

We have played around w/ Lifeprint.com. We know of several families using it for high school ASL credit. I would encourage you to do some checking w/ colleges that you think your dd might want to attend and see what types of foreign language requirements she might have there. My dd would have fared far better w/ ASL as her Foreign Language for high school bec I sign and we have deaf family members -- but when we looked ahead to colleges that she was interested in we found that while they would accept ASL for entrance requirements, she would be required to take another foreign language for college graduation. Since we knew that learning Spanish would be difficult enough we also knew that it would go better for her if we could work on it all through high school and dump her into it in college. While it is true that some colleges are now willing to accept ASL for college foreign language the reality is that there are few colleges that actually offer it. We found a local CC that says they offer ASL and a Univ that said they would accept the two courses as transfer credit - but the reality ended up being that the CC hasn't actually held the class in 2 years. Needless to say my dd was less than thrilled with that info.

DD will be using SL's Psychology course for an elective credit. There are others - but so far I like SL's best bec it uses Myer's text.

It's been a year since using the first hs book - but I seem to remember that it did go through step by step and then there would be an assignment to put it all together and write a paper. We have the 2nd year book and it goes through the various types of essays - one lesson will give the details about the type of essay and demonstrate what it should include - then you'll have a lesson to write the intro paragraph, then one for the body, then a conclusion, etc. By the end of the book you're comparing all the types of essays and taking say a narrative essay and turning it into a persuasive essay. There is still copy-work, editing and dictation --but keep in mind a CM view would be that a child reviews and learns grammar and writing skills from the copy-work/dictation so it's not just copy-work or dictation for the sake of doing it but to work on skills. Does that make sense? I like the editing practice bec I often felt that college students I worked w/ were missing the skills to really proof-read their work and find their mistakes. Some of the editing practice in Queen's is a little challenging.