@BakersDozen Would you be able to send me your syllabus as well? Thank you! I appreciate it!

We watched this episode this morning - very interesting!

I'll look for that documentary. Thank you for the input and for the examples of calculus applications.

Thank you!

I have AoPS and Saxon on my shelf, along with an ancient college calculus textbook of mine. As easy as CTC was to use from my perspective, I think I'm going to have to switch to a traditional paper and pencil textbook at this point. Thank you all for the help!

I have now shown him a proof, and gone through it with him. When I asked what, exactly, he is stuck on, he says that he still feels like he doesn't understand why anyone thought to do this in the first place. I'm not sure what he means by that. I can't decide if this is teen debating or a genuine question from him!

Thanks for posting that image! AoPS is certainly concise, you're right. What I was trying to say was that I was not looking for an entirely new curriculum to use, just looking for one source for a proof of derivatives, if that makes sense.

I assumed they did, but after you posted the question I asked him and also looked at the CTC lessons. It turns out that no, they don't, not at all. It's pretty plug and chug, which is why he was able to do the math but now he is frustrated that he doesn't understand it. I guess it's a good thing that he is questioning it now.

He wants to know why it works. He has taken a conceptual physics class (not calculus based), and he does seem to understand how calculus is used in practical applications, but he wants to understand why the math of calculus works.

That looks interesting! I haven't seen it before. Thanks!

Hello! My son is doing calculus through CTC math, and it is going well. He completed the differential part of the course in the spring and the plan was to cover integrals this fall. However, coming back to it after the summer, he feels like he wants to understand the "why" behind working the problems. He asked his older brother, who was a math major in college, and was told that he was asking about something that covered two semesters of college classes, lol. My question is what to do to give him some of the theory. Is there anything concise that could possibly provide that for him? I thought about the Art of Problem Solving Calculus book or Calculus Made Easy by Thompson and Gardner, but I'm actually looking for something more concise. Although my son is a strong math student, it is probably his least favorite subject. His quest to understand the theory is suprising me, actually! I would appreciate any input! Thank you!

I have not, but I have a friend who is currently using it for high school. Her oldest child is a sophomore this year. If you have a specific question or concern, I can ask her about it!

I listened to The Black Count this summer as an audiobook and it was fascinating! After reading it, it made me want to read The Count of Monte Cristo so I am doing it as a read aloud this year with my teen. We are calling it his junior year read, haha, as it is so long it may take us the entire year! I highly recommend The Black Count if you can find it!

Aside from the standard application essay requests, the only time any of my older kids were asked for anything like that was as part of honors college applications, which always seem to have their own set of requirements, anyway.

Lantern English offers 8-week writing and literature classes for a range of ages, including several Creative Writing courses. Here is a link to their Creative Writing courses for grades 6-12: https://www.lanternenglish.com/thecreativewriter. They are very affordable, and the quarterly class option is a nice choice. My son did several of their classes last spring as a 10th grader, and overall we were happy with the classes and the feedback he received.

We used Year 1 for ds in 9th grade and planned to use Year 2 in 10th, but its release kept getting delayed. It is finally out as of this August! Both my son and I were very happy with it in 9th grade, so he is going to work through Year 2 this year as an 11th grader. That said, I don't know that I would do two years back-to-back with an older teen. We are just starting it this week, so I don't have a feel for how much the content and/or rigor change from Year 1 to Year 2. I will say that while I don't think you could tweak the demands of the individual assignments very easily, you could scale up the course by doing all of the required reading. For instance, in Year 2, the student has the option to either read The Agony and the Ecstasy: A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo or watch the movie version. Hope that helps!

I have not done this, but I have used some of the resources for older kids from Music in Our Homeschool and they have been good. I don't know if anything like this is there, but it might be worth looking. I like the idea of bringing global music into morning time to add to your human geography studies!

I love the idea of having a list and letting them choose titles each year! Thanks for mentioning that. Also, you bring up a good point about finding the right age for kids to be able to process what they are reading.

Sure! Some generic projects: Making bookmarks (woven from felt and ribbon, Sharpie and colored pencil on wide wooden craft sticks to create scenes that coordinate with the book, paper corner bookmarks) Word games (one the kids especially enjoyed was Hink Pinks; here is one Hink Pinks example, but you can find them for a range of ages with a google search) Origami animals that coordinate with the books (wolves for Lone Wolf by Kathryn Lasky, elephants for The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate) Library scavenger hunts - maybe less accessible than when we did this in 2019, but a fun activity Ice Breaker games: This or That (everyone moves to the side of the area that matches their choice of two categories, i.e. cats or dogs, pencils or pens, summer or winter, etc.), Alphabet Soup (going around the group, people name a character, event, place, or object from the book where the first person starts with A, the next with B, etc.) For Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes we "silversmithed" by wrapping foil around cardboard and then etched in patterns with pencils. For Behind Rebel Lines by Seymour Reit we decoded messages using Polybius square ciphers. For The Year of Miss Agnes by Kirkpatrick Hill we worked on learning the ASL alphabet. I have found that googling "activity ideas for [Book Title]" or something along those lines is very helpful! I've also searched for discussion questions (specific to individual titles and also generic book talk starters). I hope that helps!

Thanks! Great list of shorter classics - that is very helpful! We read A Long Walk to Water in this group a few years ago and it was a great book for discussion! I considered Tuck Everlasting, but I worried that it would feel too young for them. It's been a few years since I read it. It's good to know that your 7th/8th grade group enjoyed it! That makes me think it could be a good choice. Thank you!

Thank you! I like the titles you mentioned and I like the idea of some of your themed groupings. I also like the idea of a group of short stories. Our past themes were an "around the world" year where we chose books from different countries/continents and a "genre" year where we had a brief discussion on key characteristics of the genre along with our book discussion. Our other years have been totally random titles, haha. Much to think about here! I hope you are able to start a book club! I have LOVED doing this with the kids. It is so enjoyable to interact with them over books and to hear their thoughts on the things we read, and also to see them take in the opinions and input of the other kids. Here's what our book club looks like: Meeting Place When our book club started, we met at the home of one of the members who happened to live on a farm with a lot of open outdoor space for us to meet. We would meet inside if the weather didn't cooperate, but usually we were outside. After 2 years, we shifted to meeting at a local park (that gives younger siblings a place to play) and/or a meeting room at the library, and that's what we have done ever since. Size I find that we need at least 4-5 kids in order to get discussion, but when we have had more than 10, that doesn't work well. If the group is too large, the quieter kids don't speak up and we also start to have disruptions because it is enough kids that some start to clown around or cause distractions. For me, it is ideal if we have 6-8 kids, but it can work with slightly different numbers. Fee I do not charge a fee. When I started, I wasn't even sure if we could get enough kids to participate, haha! At that time, I hoped that parents might take turns leading the discussion. It hasn't worked out that way, and I have considered having a nominal fee, in part because I think that would help some of the inconsistent members to be more reliable about attendance. But at this point it is still just something that I "do." Frequency We meet monthly and our meetings last 90 minutes. I send out all of the dates at the beginning of the academic year, and we try to stick to something people can remember (this year we will meet on the 3rd Tuesday of each month). Meeting Days The only thing the kids are required to do is to read the book before the meeting. I prep a few questions for discussion, and depending on the book, I will find some background information on the author or subject to tell the group about or an activity/game/craft that coordinates with the book for the group to work on after we finish our discussion. We start each meeting with the kids ranking the book on a scale of 1-10. They do this anonymously and I mark their votes on a number line on a clipboard so everyone can see how the group voted overall. Then we talk about the book, sometimes while eating a snack (if one of the other parents has brought something), then the kids either do an activity or just hang out until the end of the time. Our actual voting and discussion time lasts 45-60 minutes. Book Selection Usually, I offer the kids several titles to vote on for upcoming meetings. I print a brief summary for each of 3-4 books and have the kids vote on what they want to read. I usually pick the first title of the year and then I have them vote on the next two books so that they aren't getting the titles at the last minute (except for right now when we are meeting in a few weeks and I haven't sent out a title yet, lol). Let me know if you have any more questions! I hope you can get a group going!

Thanks! Great list of shorter classics - that is very helpful! We read A Long Walk to Water in this group a few years ago and it was a great book for discussion! I considered Tuck Everlasting, but I worried that it would feel too young for them. It's been a few years since I read it. It's good to know that your 7th/8th grade group enjoyed it! That makes me think it could be a good choice. Thank you!

Thanks! I am planning to have them read Dracula in October. I hadn't considered some of the other titles you mentioned - thank you!

Hello! For a book club that I facilitate for kids 8th grade and up, I am considering having a classics "theme" this year, but I don't want the group to be too heavy. I am looking for titles that will promote good discussion, but I want to avoid lengthy books because the kids are getting to an age where their academic reading requires a lot of time. Does anyone have any suggestions? I am thinking of titles like The Pearl (Steinbeck), Animal Farm (Orwell), and The Outsiders (Hinton). But I'm not sure... I want the group to continue to be fun and meaningful, but I don't want it to feel too academic. It is strictly a book club, not a literary class! We have been a part of this group for several years now, and I generally give the group several titles to vote on each month. Their favorite titles have included Framed! (Ponti), A Long Walk to Water (Parks), My Side of the Mountain (George), The Green Ember (Smith), Inkheart (Funke), and City Spies (Ponti). When they were younger, I had so many good titles to choose from! Now I am struggling with finding titles that don't feel too young but also aren't too challenging for the younger teens. Thanks!

Hello! For a book club that I facilitate for kids 8th grade and up, I am considering having a classics "theme" this year, but I don't want the group to be too heavy. I am looking for titles that will promote good discussion, but I want to avoid lengthy books because the kids are getting to an age where their academic reading requires a lot of time. Does anyone have any suggestions? I am thinking of titles like The Pearl (Steinbeck), Animal Farm (Orwell), and The Outsiders (Hinton). But I'm not sure... I want the group to continue to be fun and meaningful, but I don't want it to feel too academic. It is strictly a book club, not a literary class! We have been a part of this group for several years now, and I generally give the group several titles to vote on each month. Their favorite titles have included Framed! (Ponti), A Long Walk to Water (Parks), My Side of the Mountain (George), The Green Ember (Smith), Inkheart (Funke), and City Spies (Ponti). When they were younger, I had so many good titles to choose from! Now I am struggling with finding titles that don't feel too young but also aren't too challenging for the younger teens. Thanks!