thank you for the responses. I was wondering about he geography. I have the book and it looks rather thin for a whole year. I thought it was a semester course but I could not find that in Abeka's catalog. The description there makes it look like a yr?? If it is a semester - what do you do the other semester? I may stretch it out over the year and flesh it out with Trail guide to world Geography activities. I also was wondering about the literature I think we will just do the Lord of the Rings since he is rather excited about it. Swim team is part of PE credit - for older brother I marked it down as 1/4 credit each year.. but I am not sure how it will look on his final transcript. I have it being evaluated by Home Life Academy (our umbrella program) Piano - I will either mover to extra curricular or make it a 1/4 credit class depending on what home Life advises. We are actually doing Physical science this yr so I need to decide which science to do next yr. His brother did biology in 9th but this son HATES anything to do with biology and dissection. Maybe I will go the WTM route and use some of their suggestions with virtual dissections or I own the Abeka Dissection dvd - I got this at a used sale for $40. WELL worth it if you can afford it ( I think it is $150 new). #1 son just dissected along side th dvd. Worked great. I think WTM recommended Self teaching Guide to biology? I need to look at that again. Or perhaps do astronomy this year and put off biology another yr. Thank you again!

This is my middle son. SO different than first son. First son is a BIG history guy. Middle son is looking at engineering, computers and art. We are planning a more traditional social studies Geography, 1 yr world hist, one yr American Hist, and econ / Govt (senior yr) here is our plan at this minute for 9th grade; English 9 (1 Credit) Shurley Grammar 7 (Finish) Write at home Composition I (2nd Semester) Literary Lessons from the Lord of the Rings Vocabulary from the classical Roots Books C Math Geometry (Chalk Dust) (1 Credit) History Geography (Abeka) (1 Credit) Ancient Literature Stories of Creation Iliad and Odyssey epic of Gilgamesh (3 books) Aeneid Bible: Genesis – Book of Job , Corinthains I Science Physical Science (Abeka) (1 Credit) Boe bot program – robotics – summer or 2nd semester. Foreign Language Spanish I (1 Credit) Rosetta Stone or a tutorial Electives Art I (1 Credit) Health (1/2 credit) Bible – Old Testament(1/2 credit) Driver’s Ed(1/2 credit) PE – Swim team(1/2 credit) Music Piano (1/2 Credit)

My son is planning on taking several CLEP tests - more as a verification than credit. The colleges he will probably attend do accept CLEP credit. Some only accept it for certain courses while others limit the number of hours awarded. He is planning on taking American History I/II, Western Civ I/II, Chemistry, Biology (?- maybe), and College Algebra. He is going to take Comp I/II at our community college for English 12. I think that the more non "mommy" grades the better. But I have also known people whose children only had mommy grades and excellent ACT/SAT scores and have done well.

thank you ladies..

How many problems do you assign from each section? We started out doing the odds, then I read that most do every fourth. That still seem excessive - 50-60 problems a day? I feel like the boys (one in Alg I and the other in Alg II) are doing very well with Chalk dust but on average it takes almost 2-3 days per section. Day one Lecture and go over the examples in text book (with younger son - 8th grade), and older son does on own (11th grade). day 2-3 Problems form the book. I was talking to the kids piano teacher today - and he said he did not remember having more than 20-30 problems for home work. So I was wondering if perhaps assigning 5 or so problems randomly from each section would be okay. Then we can use the other problems for extra practice if needed. I think 5 problems might be okay in most cases for my boys. They do ALL the problems on the mid chapter quizzes and tests.. Thank you in advance for your advice...

Thank you those links were great. I went on and joined the yahoo group as well. Thank you! Chelsea

I am considering this for my daughter for 3rd grade.I searched for any other threads on this and mostly just found for sale ads.. Any way - we have used Growing with grammar but I feel it is not rigorous enough and is too repetitive. So what are the pros and the cons of Christian Light Language arts in your opinion? Thank you in Advance, Chelsea

Ohhh, Just wondering cause I did not see anything....

What was spam??

Sounds good... Lord I hope I do not get anymore 16 page history papers :) I am thinking he might actually stick to the 5-8 pages if he also has comp papers due in CC. but who know when he is gets going.. hopefully he will at least pick a topic his mother would like to read about :) - FYI to the rest of you gals - DS wrote a 16 page paper on the battle of Crete this year. It was a very well written paper - but I was so not interested... :)

I was wondering about that. 3 x 36=108 hrs + meets another 20-30 hrs+ 4-5 long backpacking /camping trips (40 hrs) + grand total of 168-178 hrs. I will change that on his transcript - thanks Mandy!

LOF Adv alg is supposed to be equal to alg II BUT there is still so much he does not understand from the LOF text. He watched one Chalkdust lecture on a topic he was having problems with in LOF - he not only understood the topic better but learned 4 things he had not learned from LOF. DS wants to be a vet and will have to do excellent in math to get into school especially since we really need an academic scholarship. So I feel it would be better to just give him the credit for geometry and give the ALg II credit next year. I did think about just going on to chalk dust precalc. but looking at the table of contents I think he would do better in the alg II. Thank you for your input! Chelsea

Okay you guys usually can make me make some good decisions so here is my plan for next year... Opinions please... The easiest 8th Grade son with engineering dreams English wordsmith Rod and Staff Grammar 7 Sequential spelling Vocab from the classical roots c/d Literature included in History math Chalk Dust Alg I (he has finished saxon 8/7, LOF fractions/ decimals and is working his way through LOF Beg Alg.) (1 hs Credit?) history A combo of biblio plan and Sonlight 100 for 1st half of american history to be finished through modern his ninth grade year. Science Physics - using conceptual physics by Hewitt Comp prog I - Using Teen coder part 1 (1 HS Credit?) PE Swim team - practice 3x /wk + meets and boyscouts Art artistic pursuits jr High bk 2 Piano lessons Now for older son 11 th grade English English comp I/II through dual enrollment (1 Credit) Literature included in history (American) math Chalk dust alg II anf ACT math prep by Chalk dust with daily ACT math problem practice (1 Credit) LOF Trig as a supplement Should I call this Pre calc or just Alg II and then do Chalk dust Pre-calc next year in 12 th??) (He has completed Alg I, Geometry and Advanced Alg LOF) history(1 Credit) Hipocampus AP American History - Take Clep exams I/II each semester Biblioplan and Sonlight for literature recommendations. Teaching co lectures History of United States Religion (1/2 Cr) World religion studies using Teching Company lectures as foundation PE swim team and meets boy scouts(1/2 Cr) Art Artistic pursuits highschool bk 1 - use through whole year. (1/2 Cr) Spanish II(1 Credit) Rosetta stone and Madrigals Key to spanish and other spanish supplements. Older son already has: Eng I/II 2 credits World Geography 1 credit Into to Latin (1 credit) Alg I (1 credit) Geometry (1 credit) Alg II (torn between awarding the credit this year or waiting and awarding it next year after chalk dust Alg II Worl History I/II 2 Credits PE 1 credit Spanish I - 1 credit Biology I with lab - 1 credit Chemistry with lab - 1 credit Survey of old and new testament 1 credit Art History 1/2 credit Keyboarding 1/2 Credit So how does all this look? Am I missing something for either boy? Thank you, Chelsea

that is why I ended up switching from biology matters to Spectrum Chem. I spent the whole year last year looking up the answers or doing my best to figure them out. to be honest we did not do half of the text questions unless I was able to find the answer in the text. We used the workbooks exclusively and I made study guides for the text. Let me tell you it was a lot of work... So even though I LOVE biology matters - I could not do all that work again. So we switched..

Mandy, Remember if you do not like a lecture series the Teaching co is very easy to deal with in terms of returns and exchanges. Just return for another lecture series you would like to try. I always contact them first - I have returned twice but not sure you HAVE to do that. just make sure to enclose a letter detailing the return and why and if you want a return or exchange. HTH Chelsea

Hmmm.. So I could give credit for Spanish I, II, and III using Rosetta Stone with the worksheets and tests?

I guess from what ya'll are saying the extra time we are spending on this chapter is well worth our time... thanks !!!!

the boys scout merit badge book on archaeology might interest him as an unit study..

That makes sense. It looked like algebra but when all the stuff about calculus I wondered. I had already printed out that exact same page for him to review for tomorrow. I think it will help a lot :) Thank you! Chelsea

I know this has been covered before but after searching 3+ pages of the results of a search I hope someone will not mind answering this YET AGAIN :) My DS has completed Lev I RS Spanish and has started Lev II. He has completed all the worksheets and tests. He has an average of both computer grading and written work of 97%. He is also doing Madrigal's magic Key to Spanish - very slowly 1 lesson per wk - we just started a few weeks ago (or shall I say restarted it - it got laid to the side for a while). So where does this equal Spanish I?? My plans were to have him complete Level 1-3 plus worksheets and Madrigal's magic Key to Spanish + a few advanced grammar bks - I have one called The Ultimate Spanish Review and Practice by Ronni L Gordon. Would this be enough for Spanish I/II or would I need to add something like the self teaching guides to Spanish Grammar or the practice makes perfect series? TIA, chelsea

Okay DS is having trouble with Chapter 8 - I googled the topic - Partial Functions and found that it comes up mostly as a calculus topic... Why is it in an adv. alg book then?? So I looked at what he was doing and picked up th Intermediate alg book from Chalk dust (we are using next year) and found the closest thing I could find - section 4.5 Dividing Monomials... Which is not the same as Partial functions but the problems in this section resemble those in Chapter 8 of LOF plus ds said that dividing monomials was something he really did not understand. So he watched the chalk dust video for sec. 4.5 and said that he learned a whole lot he did not know from LOF... Can you give me some insight on why Partial fuctions is included in adv alg? He still has 3 more chapters in LOF - matrices,and permutations... Matrices,and permutations ARE covered in the end of the Chalkdust Alg II but no where do I see Partial Functions... He actually told me I should not have his younger brother cont with LOF beg alg because he feels that his brother would be better served to perhaps do some more review and start Chalk dust alg I next year as we plan..He feels that LOF has been a waste of his time... Yes up to the point he understood everything in LOF but after watching Chalk dust he feels he has missed a lot by using LOF... So what would you do? I am leaning towards still having him complete the LOf book since he is almost done but it really makes me wonder if Chalkdust is not the better product. Or Would you say "merry Christmas" math for this year is over - concentrate on finishing you Chemistry and Spanish which he is behind in and pick up with Alg II by Chalk dust in the fall (he will be in 11th grade) TIA Chelsea

If you still want to try using Chalkdust - these ISBN's are supposed to be exactly the same author Etc - but different publisher. I compared the Chalk dust text for Alg I to this one on Amazon and they appear exactly the same. Here are the ISBN"S that someone posted here last week.Elementary Algebra the same as Algebra 1: ********************************************************** Student textbook put out by Chalkdust ISBN-13: 978-0618107742 Student textbook for less… ISBN 9780618753536 (doesn’t say Chalkdust) Solution Guide by CD ISBN-13: 978-0618107773 Solution Guide not by CD (cheaper) ISBN: 9780618388196 Videos ISBN-13: 9780618388233 (Make sure you get 6 videos). Algebra 2 DVD-ISBN: 9780618306763 Text ISBN: 9780618218783 Student Solutions ISBN 978-0618218806 Here is another response I got: I just bought the equivalent of Chalkdust Algebra II for under $50. The dvds are Dana Mosely teaching, but they are from Houghton Mifflin. I bought everything used from Amazon. Below are the ISBN's in case you are interested. Intermediate Algebra dvds (4), covering all 10 chapters of the text: 0618306765 Intermediate Algebra 3e (same edition Chalkdust uses): 0618218785 Intermediate Algebra 3e student solutions guide (odd problems worked out): 0618218807 Intermediate Algebra 3e Instructor's Annotated Edition (even problem answers, this one is optional, but I decided to get it, too): 0618218793 HTH, Chelsea

I accidentally threw my catalog away:( I wonder if I call them...

Thank you! Since mandy has the political thought on her shelf and lives a whole 12 minutes away I will wait for the US hist to go on sale by itself... hopefully it will go on sale soon .... I will get the econ but I may wait until next year and hope for the American classics in Lit to go on sale. The history and the lit course seem to go along very well with our studies for this year..

I am not sure. I did not know you bought any new ones. Let me know if it is sitting on your shelf before i order... So many things that look so good in the TC catalog.. so little time and money..:D