I just wanted to encourage the moms like 8FilltheHeart and Lang Syne Boardie to stay here. I need you. We need you. Sometimes I need to hear from someone that I can do this thing. I know we are pursuing a level of rigor here that most of the people I "know" in homeschooling are not. That's okay with me, as long as I have a community which I can come to and ask questions. I have used texts and pursued studies with my kids that I never would have known about without this forum. We have been blessed by it. I truly need your encouragement.

Yes. They don't have a great books based sequence and they also don't have American history. I am considering perhaps WTM Academy, Roman Roads OWC, etc. I found a grading service for papers so I might not need to worry so much about the comp instruction. I can get them writing if someone else can provide feedback and improvements. That is a huge load off to be honest. We could still consider the TPS Medieval history, lit and comp for next year. I need to sit down with DS14 and review options and see what he wants. 😃

I'm looking at the old thread. A couple of notes. I used a shoe lab from Forensic Science magazine (or something like that). It was supposed to involve multiples of the same exact shoe and you were supposed to identify which shoe made a print. I used multiples of old running shoes of the same brand, style and size. This was way too difficult. I would suggest different shoes, perhaps of the same size? The face recognition from different distances was not as hard as I thought it would be--we might have needed to try a farther distance. We didn't do any fingerprint labs that required a hood, but the ninhydrin was awful fume wise and had to be used outside. Again, I don't think I recommend it. It gave only so-so results. Watching a video about how to use ninhydrin might be better. The blood splatter labs did not work at all. We tried ketchup and also a fake stage blood. Neither really worked--I would look for someone who has done it successfully and use their mixture, whatever it is. I did use information/powerpoints, etc. from the Science Spot site.

Yes! We did do Forensic Science last year at co-op. This is the old thread We ended up using this https://www.amazon.com/Crime-Scene-Investigations-Real-Life-Science/dp/0787966304 but we didn't do all the labs. For fingerprinting, we used metallic and black powders. The metallic is more hazardous in that you should not get it in your eyes, but it is FAR easier to clean up. The black powder made a huge mess. It's very hard to get out of surfaces. We did some work trying to develop prints using silver nitrate and ninhydrin. Neither of these worked well. I would suggest skipping these. It was just not really worth it and the silver nitrate needs to be disposed as hazardous waste. I have a schedule that we followed at co-op if that would help you. I didn't use a spine text because my kids were actually doing chemistry at home.

This and don't forget to let it fully dry out before putting new batteries in.

We used the K12 books plus the Oxford University Press World in Ancient Times/ Medieval and Early Modern World texts.

Update: TPS (another person) is now saying it does count as high school US history but my son can't take the class because he will have finished English 2 and they consider them equivalent classes. I am looking at Roman Roads (Schola Tutorials) with a plan to address American history later or WTM Academy (they have separate history and lit classes but they do have American). Unfortunately WTM Academy is very expensive for us as we would have to add writing as well so it would be three classes.

That's what I thought. I was going to use it to supplement our earlier American History a few years ago (4th grade maybe?) and never used it.

I own the TC Early American History course. I have never used it.

They use a middle school American history text. I didn't realize this because it was not on the book list for the course. I had to ask about the book they used for a history spine. The teacher said normally kids take this in 8th and then take US history again later. That seems really strange to me. The course is listed as Grade 8 (honors) and Grade 9 (regular) with two high school credits. We use a middle school text because it still is an 8th grade / E2 level class. Typically students take middle school U.S. history in 7th or 8th and again in high school around 11th--either AP U.S. History (APUSH) or High School U.S. History. There's a big jump from the middle to high school texts. We have used an 11th grade text before, but students spent so much time reading that I had to scale back literature and composition. We're very careful about the hours per week--what families can expect in terms of reading, homework, writing, etc. The middle school text just doesn't take as long as the texts written for upper high school. It's not "dumbed down," but it doesn't cover the material with as much in-depth focus as a high school text.

The short story is that I thought we were going to do Integrated Humanities at TPS but I just learned their American history, lit and comp does not count for US history credit even though it's listed as two high school credits. ETA: Now they are saying it is for high school credit (American history) but my son can't take it since it is the same level as English 2. Anyway, my hope was to do American, Ancients, Medieval and Modern OR American, Ancients, Medieval, Govt/Econ (with the last year not being integrated humanities). I wanted more of a gap before ancients, especially for my youngest. I need help with comp. My kids do not respond well to my corrections. I am nervous about switching to another writing provider but we might need to. Options I know about: 1. Wilson Hill We did WHA GC1 last year and it was tough for my oldest. He kept up with the work but didn't truly understand the themes of the books, etc. My youngest would not have been able to handle it. I think GC3 would be easier text-wise but my general fears are : GC4, GC5 and GC6 LOL and that we really, really need composition. I noticed they are offering a comp class to take in tandem with GC3. Does anyone know about it? My concern would be if his writing would be "good enough" for that class. We are at TPS for composition for a reason. 2. Veritas Omnibus Other than WHA, I know we could do Veritas Omnibus which I was afraid of after our experience with GC1. Omnibus 1's booklist was longer than GC1's. I had not heard of people really using Veritas online as much after many of the teachers moved to WHA. We could potentially do this online or do the self-paced. I would need an outside grader for the papers if we did self-paced. Options for that? Can I use EIW even if I don't use their curriculum? 3. Classical Learning Resource Center I know CLRC has the Great Books program but I am afraid that my son does not meet their definition of "strong, critical reader." Is this for exceptional kids? I don't know that he would "test into" this class either--he might need Intro or Intermediate Lit and Comp first 4. Roman Roads Old Western Culture???? Does this count as history too, or just lit? I can't tell if there is an online class for these. I would need an outside grader for the papers. Other options: My other option is to pursue a provider that has a history class with an aligning time period lit class. I am not finding much here for 9th graders for American history. Perhaps I need to reconsider my order of classes? My least favorite option: outsourced lit plus writing course plus home history (e.g. Wasko Lit + Write at Home course + home history) I would prefer not to do history myself though. I am open to any other suggestions you can provide. TIA!!

bump for you

I'm not much help but I can tell you that my son (ds14) really struggled with the active to passive translation. So I just wanted to offer my sympathies. 😃

I've made the same mistake! I agree with Lecka. Unfortunately it is not a good forum for these things. The more we study informal logic the more I see those sort of appeals used. I am pretty sure if I called it out, that would not go well either. 😃

We didn't do CC but we did LTOW last year and found it very slow moving. If you have the ability to speed the pace, the ANI chart is useful, and I did find the outline useful. Otherwise, there is too little focus on various sentence structure/style elements. So you will have to add those in. Without that intervention it produces very simplistic sentences. I personally found it very hard to implement because it was tough to find stories that worked well with their model. That said, since then I have found the ANI very helpful for organizing ideas.