Haha!! Bummer - I was so tempted to type that. :) A very kind lady from the high school called me this morning - she caught his mistake before sending in the tests, so she called me to get our school (home) address. That is very nice of her, and I'm very thankful -it's fixed! :) And hours later I received an email from the College Board people stating that they could fix the address once they had his scores ready in mid-December. It's all done now so I don't need them to fix anything, but it's a great relief to know that they would be willing and able to do it. (I typed all of that in case someone looks up this topic later down the road concerned about a similar situation...it can be fixed and you can get your student's scores! Hurray! And after this experience and reading other posts we shall be adding "pop quiz: what is my address?" and "what grade am I in?" to our PSAT prep from now on, lol.)

Thank you! I feel better knowing that my son is not the only one. And yes, hopefully that was the only stumper. Ha! Dear College Board, My son is usually very smart, but he doesn't know where he lives. Would you please help me to fix his mistake? (That is not the letter that I sent, but it's the letter that I wanted to send! :p)

Thank you! I will try that! I just looked and I see that there's an option to email them...hoping for the best! :)

My 10th grader took the PSAT today (Saturday - I'm still up). He said that the test was easy, he was allowed to use his scientific calculator, and all went well. But then I found out later that he didn't give them our full address. !!! When he was asked to give his information after the test was finished, he gave our street name, city, and zip code. No house number. I have no words. He did give an email address where it was requested, and he gave the school code (the homeschool code for our state). So now what happens? How do we receive the results? Or do we? Argh, argh, argh. 😖

That is ridiculous (I'm not saying that to you - I'm saying that to the UC Regents who won't bother to read this post). My brother-in-law has been a high school Algebra 2/Trig teacher for many years and whenever he worked with my oldest son this past year (my son was using TT Algebra 2), he said that ds had a far better grasp of algebra 2 and was further ahead in it than most of his public school students had been (and were at the time) throughout the years. He went through our TT often and he had no qualms about it being a solid, stand-alone algebra 2 program. The UC Regents can do whatever they want, obviously, and they continually do whatever they want. But I will continue to disagree with them on points such as these. :)

Prior use of of/familiarity with IEW isn't a prerequisite for the Essay Intensive. My oldest took (and loved) the Essay Intensive in person this past fall and while he was familiar with IEW, the Essay Intensive is definitely a stand-alone class. :)

I think it depends upon the person and his/her learning style and reading speed. I have always been a stickler for reading, and I turned my nose up at the notion of audio books. But my husband and younger son get so much more out of audio books than they do out of traditional print books. They follow and retain much more and far better when they listen to the audio versions. My hubby has gone through so many fantastic audio books and it's really made me see how great they are, and I happily use them for our one son because I'll never get him through literature otherwise. My husband and one son are audio/visual/hands-on learners. But I can't do audio books, because I have a tough time keeping my mind from wandering if I attempt to go through one. My other three kids and I much prefer reading, but we are fast readers and the audio books feel so slow sometimes - and I learn and retain things by reading.

Longest and hardest is so subjective - my son has had little trouble with some of the more-challenging books, but he didn't do well with some of my personal favorites. :) My son suggested getting Gulliver's Travels, Pride and Prejudice, and Little Women on audio. The last two are two of my favorite books ever, but my son found them to be long and tedious. Sigh. As a 9th grader I would have chosen A Tale of Two Cities, because Dickens made me sleepy. But my son thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

My 9th grade ds attended the High School Essay Intensive seminar last October. It was a very productive and useful class for him, and he LOVED it - it was worth every penny. He said that the 7-8 hours went by way too quickly, and he is my kid who usually gets tired/bored/done really quickly. He learned a ton from Mr. Pudewa in that one day and the instruction has been well-used all year. Also, a friend of mine whose kids are in honors classes in their local public school attended the seminar with one of her high schoolers, and she said that what was taught at the seminar is very applicable to what her kids are continually being assigned at school, as many of the schools (out here, at least) have transitioned to assigning many SAT-type of essays instead of the 5-20 page semester papers that we were assigned in high school. Will Mr. Pudewa be teaching it, or will someone else from IEW be running the seminar?

I've been so tempted to buy it! My oldest is in 9th grade and the LifePac Spanish 1 has been a gigantic flop. I'm having a tough time swallowing the cost of Fluenz, but I'd use it for all four of my children and that makes it seem very affordable. They're having a sale right now if you haven't already purchased the program! If you have already bought it, can you give an update, please? What do you think so far?

My oldest is in 9th grade, and at the moment he is giving me a written weekly report of his progress, and a less-detailed written daily report of his progress. I enter his written report into my own record-keeping. I asked my 7th grader for a written progress update yesterday - I might as well get him in the habit of doing this, too. :) I don't ask either of them to write down the amount of time they've spent on each subject. I'm in the house with them all day and if they've done the work, then I know that they've spent the right amount of time on each subject. Obviously, I check and grade their work anyway, but it's helpful to me and good practice and accountability for them to write those updates for me each week. :)

Oops - forgot: I spent the last half of last year and the entire summer trying to prepare and gear up my son for this increased workload. He was excited about his curriculum, but by last week he was very overwhelmed. I've simply continued to encourage him, and I've continued to paint the big picture for him so that he can see that this really will benefit him in the long run. This is a tough adjustment and I'm sensitive to him, but he just has to do it.

My son (my first 9th grader) was still moaning and groaning last week, acting like his life was over because he was sure that the workload was more than any human could possibly handle. I did not display the sympathy that he was seeking (lol), and miraculously he is still alive this week and finding his increased workload to be less oppressive than he thought it to be last week. This is his first year with Omnibus so I know that has added a good amount of time to his day, and I have been understanding about that adjustment. But he's generally one who wants to do the bare minimum in every area ("But Mom, I answered the biology questions in my head"), but because he's so smart and capable of so much, I refuse to let him skate by the way that he wishes to do. He really does desire to go to a good college, so he's starting to connect the dots and to have some internal motivation to do what he needs to do. But 9th grade has been a big adjustment for my son and all of his friends. Most of his friends are still being homeschooled, but his best friend is enrolled in almost all honors classes at the local public high school. They are all complaining about the suddenly-increased workload and the increased time that they must now spend on their schoolwork, and honestly the homeschooled kids are currently spending nearly the same amount of time each day on their school work as their public-school-honors-classes counterpart. I'm sure (hopeful?) that will change as the homeschooled kids become more efficient and better at time management.

IMHO, it isn't even worth it to jump through all of those hoops for a CSU. Currently the classes are so overloaded at most Cal States that they're projecting it will take at least 6 years to graduate from one. When I was a freshman at CSUN 21 years ago (yikes) they told us it would take at least 5 years to graduate simply due to the unavailability of the classes that we would need. Cal States are not worth that, IMO. After the '94 earthquake in my sophomore year I jumped ship and fulfilled as many requirements as possible at the local CC, and I found the quality of those classes to be superior to the classes I had taken at CSUN. We will consider a Cal State school, but we won't jump through those hoops for one. We have our sights set on The Master's College, but that's possible only if grants and scholarships cover everything. :) There are a few other private colleges that we love as well. College Plus is next in line, and then if all else fails we'll go the CC route.

This is what we're doing: Grammar: Our Mother Tongue Writing: IEW SWI-CC B, Norton Essential Literary Terms Literature/History/Bible: Omnibus IV with Spielvogel Math: TT Alg. 2, and LOF Advanced Algebra Science: Apologia Biology/lab Foreign Language: LifePac Spanish 1 Fine Art: Photography (Oak Meadow syllabus) P.E.: Parkour class and daily exercise He's also picking up the guitar again, so we'll use that as well if we must. :) We have Logic also - I forgot about that.

Thank you both so much - I so appreciate your responses and insight about Omnibus. I have my IEW materials ready, but our Omnibus materials haven't yet arrived so I've still felt very unsure if/how it would all work together - you have been a great help, Musicmom, in clearing up those muddy waters for me. :) OhElizabeth, thank you for that link - very helpful!

We had a very similar experience this past year with Saxon Algebra. I saw glimpses of trouble in 8/7, but I convinced myself that we were the problem, and not Saxon. My son worked very hard at it because he was determined to do well with Saxon, but ultimately we faced similar issues described above. My son is very bright and had never before experienced any trouble in math whatsoever, but suddenly I was losing him in algebra (until we switched to a different curriculum). He was not making the connections at all. Additionally, I enjoy algebra and I'm fairly competent in the subject, but I despised that book and I did not like the way that it was presented (pp's have explained it perfectly so there is no need for me to reiterate it)...I don't appreciate Saxonese. :) We dumped Saxon in January and finished the year with another algebra curriculum. After dumping Saxon Algebra, I was so aware of the pitfalls of the entire Saxon program that I dumped it for my three younger kids at the same time. I sold all of it very cheaply, including the expensive teacher cd's. Bye bye, Saxon! It's a great program for some, it looks decent from the outside, and it gets the job done, but for us it was a mistake.

That might be my least-favorite algebra text, but I have looked at only a handful of algebra texts so my experience is admittedly limited. We jumped off the Saxon train altogether at/because of their algebra text.

I think that I will place my order today and just buy the LifePacs. I've never before used LifePacs, but now is as good a time to try them as any! :D

Thank you both for the input, and thank you for the offer, Sue! I sent you a pm! :)

Thank you, Lori - that is so helpful! :) I'm so thankful for the links! I am on Lee Binz' email list, but there are so many other options that I've felt a little lost. This helps a ton - thank you!

I am getting ready to start 9th grade with my first-ever high-schooler, and while I have a solid idea of how to put together transcripts, I really don't know if I should use a program for my record-keeping and transcript-making, or if I should just use Excel. This will be my 10th year of homeschooling and I've never yet used a formal program for my record-keeping (I've kept detailed records, but Excel has been more than sufficient for my needs), but I want to buy/use whatever I need to produce transcripts that will look well-done. What do you all use, and why? Whatever I use needs to be compatible with a Mac, if that makes any difference. I have been very tempted to purchase Lee Binz's program, but I don't know enough about it to know if it's truly useful (though I really like Lee Binz). Thank you for any input.

Have any of you bought the Spanish I LifePac set, yet? I have it on my wish list and I'm about to take the plunge, but I am still so unsure about what I'm doing. My ds has such a rigorous year ahead of him (and *I* have a rigorous year ahead of me with all four of my kids), and he really wants to learn Japanese as well, so I just want a cheap and easy route with Spanish...in this one area, I just care about fulfilling the credit requirement!

I really can't thank you enough. One of my best friends was on the fence as well (Omnibus looks amazing and intimidating at first glance), and your detailed answer helped us both so much. I'm very sure about doing it now, and my son and I are both very excited about it! Another question for you or for anyone that doesn't mind me being such a bother (I'm so sorry): if they do the Omnibus writing assignments and (light) additional IEW, that rounds off a full English credit, in addition to the history and theology credits that they get by completing a level of Omnibus, right?

This helps a ton!! Thank you so, so much for going to so much trouble to give so much detail - I am so very thankful for your post! I have been reading the preview in Google books and I've felt a mixture of love and concern...as a student, I would have loved Omnibus so much! But I want to be careful not to overwhelm my son. I do think that we would have to cut some of the books in order to do the program well, and I'm really thankful to know that you and others have done that. But you gave me so much more useful information than what I was able to read in the preview - thank you!!