The LEGO simple and motorized machines kit comes with instructions for all the models. So it is really all you need, but the system really shines when you add the teachers pack. For example, the instructions show you how to build a model of a street sweeper. The teachers pack adds a worksheet that has you switch out the gearing on the street sweeper for three different sets of gearing. For each set you are supposed to predict how well the sweeper will work then test it to see how well it actually worked. Then it has you test three different "sweeping head" configurations in the same way. Finally it asks an extension question, in this case about how switching out the gears for pulleys would affect the machine. The teachers pack includes about 25 "principal models" that explore 25 different simple machines, gears, pulleys, levers, inclined planes, screws etc. Then it has about 20 different projects that use the scientific method to apply and explore combinations of these ideas (like the example i gave above) These include both quantitative and qualitative analysis. Finally it includes about 6-8 "challenge projects" where the kids are asked to solve a problem using concepts they have learned and meeting specific design criteria and no model is given for those. The kit is fun to play with but the teachers materials really turns it into a learning experience. I used the kit and teaching materials with my son and now have taught it as a class at our co-op for the last 3 years.

I would agree with AmericanMaid. Focussing on one or two skills and really improving them would be better, especially for a high school student.

Mine sure seem to. There is hair everywhere right now, and ours are short-hair piggies!

My middle child was very good at math and didn't enjoy it in fact she claimed to hate it. She completed algebra 1 in the last half of 6th grade and he first half of 7th grade. She is now a math major in college. Somewhere along the way it occurred to her that she was GOOD at it and that she liked the "neatness" of it and that there was usually only 1 right answer and she began to really enjoy it. I would have him continue on, slow down when (and if) he needs it but not until then.

How old/what grade is he? A strong math background is important for engineering. Another possibility would be to finish algebra 2 then take pre-calculus with trig and calculus at a community college (they each take 1 semester).

If he is motivated, a good student and has the time it should work just fine. My kids have taken calculus 1 and 2 at the community college in the 6 week summer session and then gone on to get high grades in follow on classes so they obviously got the concepts. they did three hours of class and about 3 hours of study time each day so it was a full load. I would wonder why he was trying to rush through it so fast.

I think that the answer to that question lies with you. I have home schooled two children to college. Both have finished at least one full year away from home in full-time college classes. Both have high grades and professors have asked them to TA next year. So obviously the curriculum and methods I used work, and yet I come here and read the high school board and worry that I should be using something different, doing something more. I realized that I need to relax and let it be enough. Sometimes I think that I need to stop reading the high school board.

My daughter is an undergrad,she just finished her sophomore year. She attends a very small LAC and learned about several summer research opportunities from her advisor, who is the head of the math department. She applied for 2 different projects this year and chose this one. My other daughter attends a large state university and her school requires students to complete an internship or research project in order to graduate so they are quite helpful when it comes to finding opportunities.

This makes me jealous. We lived in Iceland, on the now closed Keflavik naval base for 2 years. I loved it. I still want to go back for a visit some day.

That is great. It is really cool to see our "kids" grow. My oldest daughter just finished her freshman year. She is taking Chemistry and Multivariable Calculus this summer while living at home. She changed majors from Art to Mechanical Engineering after first semester and by taking these she will actually be one class ahead of her peers in the fall. My younger daughter just finished her sophomore year and she is an a math research project in another state. She is doing math modeling in ecology on a project about Mammoth populations and what caused them to die out. She is really enjoying being with people who love math as much as she does and while she is living on campus she is responsible for all her own meals (there is no summer dining plan) so that has been a learning experience for her.

My daughters both began wearing contact lenses at 10 with no problems. My son got contacts at 10 but really didn't like them and only wore them for TKD until just last month. Now at 13.5 he is putting them in first thing every morning. I think a lot will depend on your son's motivation. My son also had no bridge to his nose and his glasses were always slipping down (drove my husband crazy). Last year he got big plastic frames with integrated nose pieces and they stay up much better.

When my daughter graduated last year there were several families that gave all the graduates a small gift (<$2). Most were a candy bar with an attached note of congratulations. I thought it was a cute idea and plan to do the same the next time we attend graduation for the group. I would only give larger gifts to graduates that we know personally and are good friends with and I would give them the same thing that I would give to a friend that was graduating from another brick & mortar school.

My oldest was the same way. She turned 18 two weeks before she graduated from high school. She was exactly in the right grade per county rules but did seem "young" for her grade compared to her peers. She has done very well in college. My son has a fall birthday and is exactly the right grade for his age per our county regulations but will turn 18 six and a half months before he graduates.

My daughter licked her hands, refused to turn on the shower herself until she was 10, couldn't stand any squeaking sounds at all and was never comfortable with any u drew ear we ever bought her, she spent her whole life adjusting it. Today at 16 she is well adjusted and a very normal behaving young lady. The quirks will pass and others will come along and your daughter will turn out just fine in the end.

I guess the way that I see it is that these same things could have happened to you if you started college at 18. My daughter was 14 when she began full-time residential college. Because we have shown her how to find scholarships and talked with her endlessly about degree options she will graduate with less that $12,000 (probably none) and a useful degree. She is well on track to graduate in 3 years with an Applied Mathematics major with double minors in Physics and Paino, knowing how hard it will be to get a job at 17 we have encouraged her to stay for the 4th year so that she will be 18 when she graduates. We have also encouraged her to participate in research projects and internships that will lead to job opportunities. We are not trying to give her a "head start"on life but rather to meet her where she was at developmentally. She was ready to start college and we are just glad the opportunity existed.

Check REI.com they sell camping and backpacking gear for use in the serious wilds.

How fun! I have a friend whose daughter started her show biz career at Busch Gardens, then she was Abbi Cadabbi in Sesame Street Live, then Elmo. Now she is a dancer in a Sesame Street show but isn't in a character costume.

yep, I have even had "friends" tell me that they love their daughters too much to let them go away.

THis is how we handle it too. I do like to be told when my daughter is bringing her boyfriend for a meal because he could eat a horse and so I like to plan ahead, but he is always welcome in our home. Right now the only thing that he would be excluded from would be, as i mentioned upthread, formal family portraits. He is in many, many family pictures now.

My daughter is currently a sophomore in the same program that Jenny's daughter attended and this was our experience too. My daughter is very goal oriented and wasn't enjoying being a kid. We didn't find out about PEG until my DD was 13 and it was in the middle of the year so she had to wait until spring to apply so she was 14 when she started. She would have capable and glad to have started a year earlier. It has been the best choice that we ever let her make.

Spouses only in family pictures. My brother had several girlfriends that are now gone who would have been in family pictures if it hadn't been for this rule and now they would have been just a little awkward to have hanging at Grandma's house. I can see preserving one weekend night for family activities but that rule would/should/could apply to all teen activities. The only "rule" that you have listed so far that would make me wary is the Christmas Rule. We shared this last Christmas with my daughter's boyfriend and I am very glad we did. It allowed him, and us, to see how he fit in our family. To see what is important to us. Just tonight she emailed to let me know that he told her after church that he would like to be married to her one day. Not an official proposal yet, but a promise for the future.

We hit that wall very unexpectedly and very suddenly. When our middle DD was 14 she applied to and was accepted to a residential college 2.5 hours away. It was literally less than 1 month from the day she decided to apply to the day that we paid her deposit and then I broke down. She left for school 3 months later. Our oldest was only a junior in high school and our family is/was very close. We ate dinner together 6-7 days a week. I never want anywhere without at least one person along and it was usually my middle daughter. The anticipation was horrible. I was so sad for me and yet happy for her. We spent a lot of time together in the few months before she left and I tried very hard to focus on the moment we were in. We planned some specific times that we would see each other in the fall. Dropping her off was very, very hard. I cried every time we prayed at dinner for the first month. I sound like I was a mess and in some ways I was. It was wonderful to see her loving school and flourishing there. We talked by skype video just about everyday for the first semester (more at her insistence than mine) Her first year passed so quickly, before I knew it she was home for the summer. Se did so well in school that it was had to be sad. It was the right place for her to be. This year, her older sister went off to college too, now I have just one child home. I talk to both girls weekly, often by video chat. When they are home it feels so right and yet when they are back at school and my house is quieter it feels so right too. Not much practical advice but the knowledge that happiness is possible after sending a child away to school.

Our daughter probably could have gone to college a year earlier than she did and she definitely could have graduated in three years. We encouraged her to pick up 2 minors to slow her down a little so that she wouldn't graduate before 18 for this very reason. I do not want to have to sign her lease for her apartment.

My daughter will graduate from college at 18. She is adamant that she does not want to go straight to grad school. A big factor in allowing her to move away to college was maturity and I have no doubt that she will be able to handle herself in a job atmosphere. Right now she wants to work for a three-letter agency in cryptography or cryptology and she is actively working toward that goal. I do not doubt that she will end up going to grad school but i suspect that she will take a few years to work and live in the real world first.

This is exactly what I was trying to say, but expressed much more succinctly.