Don't forget to check your local library for The Great Courses. Our small community library in Oklahoma had many titles, but here in Arizona I have to go to the community college library to get them. Talk with your librarian about what you can get. The only drawback is that you can't keep them long enough so it might be inconvenient that way. I make the effort because it has saved me $ and I have learned some courses sound good but are not a good fit. Depending on the child these can be overwhelming. Many of these are college-level classes so keep that in mind.

This year we will finish History of the Ancient World and will move on to History of the Medieval World. There were 3 years between publication of these two books, so I'm hoping the 3rd book in the series will be out next winter/spring so we'll have it for the following year. If this estimation is correct, we can use these as our spine for history through the early modern period (1860). If the 4th book in the series is not published when we would need it, I'll need to choose something else for that period. Can anyone suggest something comparable?

Check with your library to see if these are in your system before oyu spend a lot of money. Also, they have sales all the time, so watch for deals if you want something. I highly recommend anything by Rufus Fears, PhD. We have heard him speak live in Oklahoma as he is a professor at OU. He is not only a brilliant scholar of history, government and literature, but he is also a gifted speaker.

My husband and son are working with Autodesk 3ds Max to learn some aspects of game programming. Our son is almost 14 to give you and idea of ability level - he's learning that material well from the books and DVD we bought.

I suggest we meet in the online classroom to discuss ideas. I suggest we meet at 4pm (Central - my time zone) next Friday, April 22. The link is http://www.virtualhomeschoolgroup.com/ At that link, look in the left-hand column under the calendar and you will see a "Welcome" statement that includes a link to the classroom. Simply click the link to launch Elluminate in a new dialogue box. If you have never used Elluminate it will take a few moments to download the software (free). Once that is done all you need to do is enter your name in the lob in panel and a new window will open to launch the virtual classroom. I suggest parents discuss ideas first, then if we want to purse the online co-op further we should bring the kids in on a planning discussion later. Anyone who is interested please join me. If youn have questions before then let me know.

Excellent! I am really hoping to build a sense of community for a small group of students who don't have the local support they want. Are you already familiar with distance learning software? It is very easy to learn, and Elluminate is a free download. Our online school is virtualhomeschoolgroup.com. My son will be so happy to know there is a guy his age who might join us.

I think this is an excellent idea. We are homeschooling so we can break out of the system and allow our student to develop in a progression that fits him right? My DS might shock me and transform into a very mature guy and be ready to go off to college at 17, but I'm not counting on it. His dad and I both are going to encourage him to spend an extra year at home doing distance learning, maybe taking some classes at the local junior college and doing CLEP tests as a transition from homeschool to university. Getting some practical leadership experience through church or something similar will be good as well. I remember far too many "chldren" at college and I was one my first year. Having a little extra time to grow up would have helped me.

If you want a very thorough resource for preparing high school transcripts I recommend "Setting the Record Straight" by Lee Binz. I've attended a few transcript seminars and she does a great job of covering everything in one easy-to-read book.

The courses will begin next September. I'm thinking of starting off with some foundation work like reviewing lit analysis and essay writing just to make sure everyone is on the same page with expectations. I'm hoping to attract some students over the summer so we can discuss book selection. Some we will definately do (Gilgamesh, Plato's Republic) and some we will choose as a group (Odyssey AND Iliad, or just one). I'm hoping that by giving the students some voice in what we cover they will be more motivated to stick with the course.

My son was in Key of Liberty as well, so if it was LEA they were in the same class. That was a lot of work on its own, and it sounds like your son is doing a lot on top of that. No problem if he can handle it, but it sounds like he is stressed. Also, consider it might be simply a puberty issue. We have known boys to go through similar behavior as puberty really gets going, so time might fix this. Maybe you need to sit down with him and discuss each step of goals so he can think in bites rather than one big chunk of high school. My son doesn't handle that well, but he does much better with smaller, more manageable goals. We like TJEd, but we're going to implement it more on our own pace so we can make the most of the process. LEA had a lot of good points, but at times it did feel a bit conveyer belt, but that was mostly because of my son's ability to keep up. We were taking 3 LEA classes and it took over a lot of time.

We're moving to a small town with very few homeschoolers and not much support, so I'm working on developing an online co-op for high school humanities courses based on TWTM. We would be using Elluminate (free software that gives users audio, video, chat and whiteboard features) and would cover the four-year rotation of history with the new SWB high school books as spines with relevant literature tied in. I'm also looking at some ways to do public speaking and debate (I know it is not a perfect solution, but there will be few options in our little town) and hopefully even some personal management and leadership skills studies. I'd really like to have a small cohort of students who would move through the four-year rotation together so they could have some consistency and build on what they have learned together. Anyone interested?

Next fall we wneter 9th grade history and will be doing Ancients to 400 AD using Ancient History of the World as our spine with selected literature from the period. My son is a strong reader, but this will be his first time doing serious literary analysis. I'm curious what others have done for this year - what is a reasonable booklist considering the difficulty of works from this period.

We've used Positive Action for Christ for a few years, but it is a bit "workbooky." You could contact a Bible college you respect and speak with a professor for suggestions - better yet have your daughter be part of the discussion so she can speak with the professor about her area of interest. We did this and the professor was very supportive. We spoke about prep for a career in ministry and he gave my son valuable advice. You might also talk with your church and ask someone on staff to mentor your daughter (we meet with the youth pastor biweekly for Biblical discussion, often leading to conversations with a number of pastors there about fine points in Bble study). This gives your daughter a chance to interact with adults in the field and consequently hone her interpersonal skills by spending time in a professional setting. If you just want something to do at home and want to try something new, I suggest visiting a Bible college website to look for downloadable studies (often free). You could also visit Bible.org and peruse the content for topics. Maybe just have here read some scholarly papers and write about what she has learned.

My DS begins 9th grade next fall and by then we will have moved to my husband's new job in a remote part of Arizona. We have done some courses online, but they tend to either be too expensive or they have similar issues to local co-ops (other moms want you to do all the work and they do very little to none at all). I was wondering if anyone here is doing anything online through Elluminate - primarily looking for history/lit discussion groups following SWB's new high school history series over 4 years with relevant lit selections. Thoughts?

My Son's favorite subject is Bible and he is interested in entering the ministry, so our family is considering enrolling him in Koine Greek classes at our local college to meet his foreign language high school requirement. Has anyone had experience with a student who wants to study an ancient language rather than a modern one? Does anyone know how colleges view such a program of study on a high school transcript?