@Momto6inIN any updates from 2014? LOL.

I'd like to revive this old thread because I would like some input. Up to this point, I have had a schedule for each course, and my kids spend an hour per day (for most courses) on the material and they work through the schedule. Sometimes one "day's" worth of work on the schedule takes more than one day, and sometimes less. This has worked well with my oldest who is a diligent worker, a fast reader, and who overall cares about his academic progress. It has been less "successful" with my youngest, who has ADD-intattentive, anxiety, giftedness, and a processing issue and just generally finds school tedious. I find we are once again falling "behind." We are going to address the anxiety to a greater degree (we are already addressing the ADD), but I feel like perhaps this is a kid that needs set assignments rather than "spend one hour on X." It's easy for him on multiple levels to make a lesson stretch out. Without knowing exactly how much time is being "wasted", I do know that taking four days to do one day's math indicates a problem either of understanding or focus. Since I am seeing this across the board with multiple subjects, I think the focus is the issue. Clearly we will also be chasing down the anxiety and ADD reasons for the slowness. But in general, have you found that giving concrete assignments due each day helped your child stay on track better? @Lori D. just because I have missed your voice on here lately.

I have NEVER tried this, but a friend suggested this and it is all household stuff, so it might be worth a shot? Put 1/2 cup salt, 1/2 cup baking soda in drain. Pour 1 cup vinegar on top. Let sit over night, then pour boiling water down your drains. You might need to do this a couple of times with a day in between. If it works, please post back!

Wow, this is good to know, and it would be tough for the class my son is currently in. The assignments are in more than one place in Canvas.

it looks like you can stream the first one from the website peterpan linked.

This is just a note to anyone who might be reading this thread later. The new textbook associated with the Forensic Science course for Oak Meadow includes 6 years online access, however, the course does not utilize that, so it is not necessary to have the online access. I looked at the kit that Oak Meadow provides as well as the list of things that the homeschool parent is supposed to provide. There are several things on the parent list that are actually tricky to locate. I know this from experience because I taught a forensic science class years ago at co-op. One of them is finding five different fabrics (e.g. rayon, cotton, nylon, silk) that are all the same color, or at least close enough that the student can't tell they are different. I ended up having to order swatches from an online vendor for the silk. The list on OM's site does not say they need to be the same color, but in the lab I completed previously, the student was supposed to identify the type of fiber from the crime scene by comparing it with stock samples and they all had to be the same color so it wasn't obvious which one it came from. I noticed that The Home Scientist has a Forensic Science lab kit that includes fibers. I have not done a detailed comparison of the two kits yet, but I might post back here if I do.

Any suggestions on how I could make it into a full year course? That is where I am a bit perplexed. Without seeing what they are skipping (if anything) in the textbook, the only thing I can think of is to add a ton of labs.

We ended up using American Government: A Complete Coursebook (which I had to update at multiple points because it was out of date), a Supreme Court Case Studies book from Glencoe (found online), and now Modern States American Government course for CLEP prep. The plus side is that the text is short so we have plenty of time to add in the Modern States course, which ironically includes another textbook.

I'm not sure how to ask this exactly, but one thing I have noticed as I have been researching programs for my son is that they tend to fall into one of two categories: 1) mandatory co-op OR 2) optional internship. I personally feel co-ops can be very useful. I know that means you will graduate a year later, but for a kid like my ds who tends to be on the shy side, it might really help his job options post-college. If a college only suggests internships, what questions should I be asking? A friend's son was in a graphic design program at a university and they provided no assistance at all in finding internships (this particular school also required one summer internship). As someone with a STEM degree that only had one internship, I know it was harder for me to place for jobs, but that was the 90s. How much value should be placed on a strong co-op program? If the degree at a non-co-op school is more appealing, what would you ask to clarify what assistance they offer in placement?

I was wondering if someone had completed forensic science more recently. Some of the resources in the 2014/2015 threads are not available except via Wayback and/or the flash portion of the site does not work (e.g. GPB "text"). I saw Oak Meadow has a program and it looks good but $$$$$. I wondered if I could buy the guide and use a text I pick and add labs from the Illustrated Guide to Forensic Science (with the kit from Home Scientist) without it being a total mess. The text OM uses is $200 from them and not much cheaper on Amazon (still over $100). I am hoping for a yearlong course also, and the OM one is only a semester. I suppose I could just add labs but maybe it would be easier for me to just plan the whole thing than try to use OM as a spine?

We had a similar problem years ago. They did at one point put me in contact with the regional delivery manager. One of the problems we had was that our paper person kept changing, and they didn't know what they were doing, so we were frequently missed. Unfortunately, for that same reason, it would be fixed for awhile and then the deliveries would stop again. In the end, I did cancel because I was just so frustrated. I figured I could try to buy the paper if I needed it, but largely I just moved on. I wonder if your friend would like a bound compilation of comics like Calvin and Hobbes or Peanuts?

oops! Duplicate!

where is a good place for that? I have an old copy of IEW's speech boot camp, and I was going to take a look at that to see what is included.

@MurrayshireMy current sophomore might want to do forensic science next year and I was wondering if you could let me know how this pairing is going for you, and what text(s) you are using.

It looks some of the universities require some kind of "Introduction to Interpersonal Communication" course. Back in the stone ages when I was in college, that meant a kind of speech class. Is my assumption correct, or what should I expect from this? We really have not done home-based presentations, so I thought it might make sense to give my son an opportunity to practice that at home his senior year before college, especially since he tends to be shy and nervous. What says the Hive on this?

Ummm . . . I also did not know that there was a Well Trained Kitchen website. Off to peruse!

OP, you have my sympathies. My son is currently in a composition class which seems disinclined to actually teach composition. The teacher only had one rating which was positive, and I think we now know that is because she is an easy grader and gives 100% without any feedback on essays.

I'm so sorry for your loss. They really are family.

I have not seen anything but maybe Timeline of the Classics would work? https://iew.com/shop/products/timeline-classics There is a sample on the website you can look at

So this is interesting. Just for Ohio, where as you have noted, students get one free ACT test a year, during a school day, there have been consistent drops over the past nine years. So we have a state where we might argue "most" students are testing (82% by their statistics), and we have dropped scores consistently through all categories, for example, from 71% meeting the English proficiency score in 2013 to 48% in 2022.

There are a ton of articles on this. I just picked one. In one of the articles the ACT rep mentioned the scores were dropping pre-pandemic as well. Depending on which article you read, there is more emphasis on the pandemic influencing the slide. I know some of this has come up in some recent threads, but I thought maybe it would be interesting to discuss? One article quoted the ACT report as saying that kids need access to more rigorous curriculum. I don't have a kid in a B&M school, but my impression is that AP courses are much more widely utilized than when I was in high school 30 plus years ago, and yet the scores have dropped. I know there are some schools that don't offer the accelerated courses because of financial issues, but is that really what is going on here? I am curious to hear your thoughts. "The test scores, made public in a report Wednesday, show 42% of ACT-tested graduates in the class of 2022 met none of the subject benchmarks in English, reading, science and math, which are indicators of how well students are expected to perform in corresponding college courses." https://www.npr.org/2022/10/12/1128376442/act-test-scores-pandemic

Wow, I wonder if the schedules I have saved with individual assignments would suffice in this case (in addition to the course descriptions). I don't even have ISBNs on my course descriptions anymore because people said on here they aren't necessary.

I'm late to commenting, and I don't have experience with public school or grading, but I wanted to note that there are additional review problems in the back of the Dolciani Algebra I text (at least mine had them). Those are going to be slightly different than the in-section ones, perhaps just enough to make sure she isn't just "pattern matching" and does understand the concept.