If it's any comfort, I know our local high school issues PE credits by the quarter, rather than semester, like all the other credits.

Today we spray painted these inexpensive IKEA chairs. I love the pop of color they add to our schoolroom. The spray paint is supposed to work for both metal and plastic, but I can tell it's going to scratch off easily. Would a clear coat of spray paint help? Can anyone with experience with spray painting furniture offer some advice?

TPS was too intense for her. I think it's a good program, but too rigorous for a kid who is totally oblivious to real world things like deadlines. It looks like the BYU high school classes are self-paced (or at least flexible) so maybe she'll have the time to absorb more vocabulary. Edited to remove personal info.

I feel like we only got half a year out of 9th grade. My dd14 has a birthday right on the cut-off date for our state, so I don't think it'll be devastating to take an extra semester. Or who knows, maybe some executive functioning skills will kick in and she will catch up on everything... 9th grade: -FLVS Biology (semester 1) Campell's Biology (semester 2)--this will continue into the fall. -American Lit & Composition (co-op)--these were 2 classes and she dropped out over Christmas. I'm calling it a credit for both. -Spanish 2--TPS -Drama -Art (watercolor and acrylics) -Math--some Jacob's Algebra, some Coconuts & Crocodiles--to be continued. -Model UN (one semester at co-op)--not totally sure if I can put this on a transcript, but she learned soo much. Some random creative writing and costume design classes. ETA: This summer she's doing a community theater program and FLVS Driver's ed 10th grade plans: -Algebra: Finish C&C and Chuckles begin Geometry: A Guided Inquiry (with Math Without Borders)? -English:Help for High School (BraveWriter) Literature List from EiL and Boomerang -Art of Argument -Spanish 3 (BYU Independent Study) -Maybe Rosetta Stone Japanese and/or Japanese 1 (BYU IS) -History: American Odyssey + supplements -Science: finish Campbell's Biology Conceptual Chemistry She also wants to do a science fiction literature class that BYU has, but there's already too much on her plate....

I'm jumping in with this, and I'm curious what sort of writing you guys added? I was making a syllabus with week divisions and realized I don't have any specific plans for history writing, other than written narrations.

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Just curious if it appears if you click on the button that allows you to edit code? (Top left corner of the edit toolbar). Maybe you could delete the code for it.

Thank you for coming back to report! I've been drooling over LToW for 2 or 3 years, but haven't made the leap. It's disappointing to hear your experience. I tend to drop difficult-to-use writing courses (well...pretty much all writing courses...) I should maybe put my efforts into using the programs I already have and just getting kids to write consistently. LToW using Coram Deo Tutorials is still on the table for me.

:bigear: We should start geometry in January. I'm looking at Math without Borders, which uses Geometry: A Guided Inquiry

I've realized that pre-made planners don't work for me. Right now I'm using Plan Your Year by Pam Barnhill. I'm printing pages as I go and adding them to a binder. She has some free printables, but the full program has been worth every penny this summer, as I set up the new system.

I'm not using Elemental Science anymore, but I bought all the encyclopedias/dictionary when we did biology. The Usborne dictionary is by far my favorite. I think adding that for reference is a good idea, but another encyclopedia is redundant.

I'm inclined to agree with LisaK. Bio has so much memorizing. Chemistry was more math and logical thinking for me, which was easier and more natural to me. FWIW, the honors science track at my high school was: Honors Integrated Science AP Chemistry AP Biology AP Physics

Are you seeing this on an old post? I have seen posts from members, who later deleted their account, so it shows up as a guest post.

I totally would. I was going to say conversational Spanish, but the other suggestions sound more accurate.

Getting Started with Spanish is exactly what its title suggests. It has short, easy lessons to get you started with the language. It would take about a year if you do a lesson everyday. Amazon had a Look Inside for the Kindle version. And there are free pronunciation files here. I haven't used CAPs language for children series. I had a friend who used LfC and the pages looked too busy for me, so I never tried.

At this age... It's fine. Science comes up on everyday life for us. I look for living books from CM lists like Ambleside, SCM, etc. I've also started asking my kids what they want to learn about and scanning the forums for living books on that topic. I just got done previewing tons of library books and put together a great book list for ds10 on astronomy, because that's what he wants to study. I've also started trying to get kids to pick out library books on science topics (mostly nature-type things). I love science, but I despise teaching elementary science curricula. I've finally realized that formal science can wait till high school. Do you honestly remember any science lessons from elementary school? I don't. But I do remember laying out in my front yard, identifying birds, counting starlings as they roosted on telephone wires, gazing at beautiful cloud formations for hours, watching the stars come out, and wishing I could find the constellations. I think elementary science needs to be less about lessons and more fostering joy and awe at the world around us.

Yes, it's legit. I took a couple years of high school Spanish, and DuoLingo has helped me brush up on those skills, and then continue to learn more Spanish. I've also learned it to start learning French and Russian. Learning a new language is obviously way harder, but it's possible to gain some basic fluency with DuoLingo if I put the time in. Here is a Ted Talk by the creator, which explains how it came to be and why it's free. This was the way I learned about DuoLingo and started using it: https://www.ted.com/talks/luis_von_ahn_massive_scale_online_collaboration?language=en

You can totally homeschool without a group. I've been with groups for subjects I don't want to teach at home or for field trips, but honestly, belonging to a group often seems more a burden than not for me. I'm currently with a secular group (hybrid school) that I love, but for the last 7 years, we'd bounce between groups without finding anyone who shared our philosophy or who we clicked with. Attending events where I don't know anybody is painful to me. With classes, I always get sucked into teaching, and then I wonder why I'm not at home just teaching my own kids... My high schooler is the only one who truly needs the social interactions she gets from groups. And she loves drama and art, which I can't do at home. My kids have friends mostly from church and Scouts. My social support comes from ladies that I'd be friends with anyways, my homeschool support comes online. I <3 WTM forums. :)

We used it with only the student book (and the CD in the back).

I'm really liking Plan Your Year by Pam Barnhill. It's helping me with the big-picture planning. It's flexible, and the templates are so pretty. I like that I can print as many pages as I need, and only the pages I need. Pre-printed planners never work for me. With this I can have exactly the right amount of space for each kid, I can add pages to the reading list for a dd who is trying to read every book in the house in one month, or I can tear out and re-print a page that needs to be totally re-worked. So far, I've calendared our year, created a long-term vision for our homeschool, set goals with each of the kids, and decided on most of my resources. I have broken the school year into six 6-week terms with a week between each term. Right now, I'm dividing up the resources between terms (for example, in term 1 we will cover ch 1-3 in math) I will be making detailed plans one week at a time (to allow for the fact that things never go as planned), but that will be easy once I've finished my big-picture plans. Also my plans for the terms have a little bit of wriggle-room. We can do only 3 lessons one week if ds need more time on a concept, without ruining everything for the whole year and feeling pressured to double up on lessons later.

I've been looking at the samples. I have Thinking in Threes already, which helps me analyze it. It looks fairly straightforward, "This is how to write a 5-paragraph essay. This is how you make it sound interesting." I'm interested to hear reviews too. I don't think ds12 will love it, but it does look like something we could get done and get him writing more.

Not that you need another program to look at but ... I used MEP 4 with my dd when she was that age (actually I think it was 6th grade for her). She has an intense dislike of math, although she's also gifted in language and understands the concepts easily. She makes so many careless errors and copies things wrong all the time. And she's never managed to memorize any math facts. Drives me bonkers. I've tried so many programs with her before finding any that work. Traditional math programs never worked for her. Anyway MEP had built in review at the beginning of each lesson (it was in the TM, not the workbook). I specifically remember factoring a few numbers every day for a semester. Also, the problems are challenging, but the problem sets are short. It helped my dd focus when she only had 5 problems. Multi-step, challenging problems, but still only 5. After MEP 4, we were able to skip to MEP 7, then jumped to another pre-A class. In hindsight, I wish we had moved straight to Jousting Armadillos after MEP. It's been a great fit for her quirky, language oriented, personality. The problem sets are longer, but they are meant to be spread out over a few days, so we don't get distractions and melt-downs over 30 problems in a row. I know you're not at pre-algebra yet, but it may be something to look at as she gets older.

Book Shark requires a lot of reading out loud (some of which is too heavy for that age). And Grade 5 uses a digital World Book encyclopedia for a lot of the history. I didn't make it very far into it with a 5th and 6th grader. I was strongly considering Oak Meadow 5 for my upcoming 6th grader. It's supposed to be independent. And if I had a charter school to pay for it... I'd have clicked purchase already ;) I think the one thing against it for us is that it seems to require a lot of writing without explicit instruction on how to write. It would be hard for my kid who hasn't had a lot of formal writing yet.

If you used PR, then you are probably pretty familiar with the phonograms. Here's what I did to help remediate my 6th grader (no dyslexia): I pulled out WRTR, found a good starting point for him in the word list in the back. I got a blank Spelling Journal from Spelling Power, and went through the Spalding List using Spelling Power techniques (trace it in the air with you finger, write it out, spell it with your eyes closed, check your spelling, etc) After a several months of this, he was getting bored and needed more challenge, so I started doing studied dictation using Spelling Wisdom, level 2. He's improved to the point where he can remember most words that he asks me about in his day-to-day writing. I'm dropping spelling for next year. I'd like have him keep a word bank of words he needs to learn. But honestly, adding another thing to the day is unlikely. ;)

I just listened to the sample of Sorcerer's Stone. :001_tt1: I may need to keep accruing credits after all to buy Harry Potter books. ;)