Has anyone used The Great Courses Learning Spanish: How to Understand and Speak a New Language? If so, any thoughts on it -- and there are 2 courses, part 1 and 2 -- Does the first series align with traditional Spanish 1 and the second with Spanish 2? Just trying to figure out foreign language for my youngest who will be starting high school. I'd like for him to make a start, but he will have enough going on that something super intense or extremely time-consuming will not be a good fit. Other ideas welcome too. Thanks.

Thanks all for the CLRC idea, and Roadrunner for the heads up about dual enrollment. Yikes I am definitely not looking for a 2 hours a day workload! I know our local CC has it in theory — not sure if it actually happens. When enrolling my daughter for DE for this semester (not for German) I noted the German class had only 2 kids registered. So that could have changed but …. I sent an email to the department head asking if it regularly goes forward, if there is a minimum enrollment, etc. but haven’t heard back yet. I’m hoping it is offered and is a good class.

Thanks! I really appreciate the feedback. I don't need accredited, but do need German 4 and hopefully 5. (My son will finish German 3 this spring.) CLRC tops out at German 3 it looks like. I believe WTMA offers it but the one review I got was mixed so I am trying to see if I have other options. My son has been doing OSU German online and really likes the asynchronous format. He's had short regular tutoring sessions through that for speaking which has worked, but I understand the benefits of a live instructor. He seems to enjoy German fine and does well with it but it is not a passion. He. is a very capable student so I'd like for him to have 4 years of foreign language to keep his options open (for college admissions) (and because I think a foreign language is valuable.)

Any recent experience with University of California's Scout courses https://www.ucscout.org/courses/ ? I am particularly interested in upper level German, but any general thoughts or experiences would be helpful (I am not in California and have only just heard of this.) Thank you!

My son is using EIL American Literature this year. I definitely think it is a solid program, but I have some mixed feelings about it. Week one is generally reading a lot of background references. I think this is an excellent idea but there are a ton of links to read/choose from -- so on the one hand that is good, on the other, son doesn't want to read all of them and feels like a week on it is overkill. I wish there were some short summaries of the info available for me to read so I could have a better idea of what he is learning (I don't have time to do the course along with him.) I like the book choices -- I did make a point of reading the books I hadn't read so I could more easily have a conversation about the books and know if his writing assignments were on point. Overall to me as a teacher/parent that is the main weakness -- there doesn't seem to be info on the content available to the instructor to know if what the student writes in their assignments is correct/on point/relevant etc. Having read the books and having some knowledge of literature I am not completely flying blind but it feels like I am a little bit. Thankfully my kid using this program is already a strong reader and writer so I feel like he is learning and getting the main ideas and it is working for him. So I am not sorry we are using it, but will most likely try another program next year.

Does anyone have experience/reviews/recommendations? I am particularly interested in German 4 and 5. My son will finish German 3 with OSU German online this spring and I am wondering where to enroll him next fall since that program is shutting down. So far WTM Academy is the only place I've seen for high schoolers (for German 4 and 5.) Our local community college has some upper level German potentially, but right now there are only 2 students registered for the spring semester so I don't know if those classes actually happen. (I will investigate this in the coming weeks.) Thanks for any ideas/reviews!

My son who is taking German 3 this year got an email saying all course work needs to be completed by mid-May and that the program is closing permanently at that time. I am sad -- the instruction has been great and he has done well and learned a lot, and I was planning on him continuing through German 5 and starting my youngest in the program next year. So just a heads-up to anyone planning on using this. It is a bit strange since they just redid their German 1 and 2 courses -- I believe this is the first full year of the new German 2. I am hoping that it may work for him to continue German at our community college but while upper level classes are offered, I don't know if there is enough enrollment interest that they actually happen. So if anyone can recommend any upper level online alternatives that would be good to know! Thanks.

For clarity the book we used and liked is https://www.amazon.com/Geometry-Student-PRENTICE-HALL/dp/0133500411/ref=sr_1_9?keywords=prentice+Hall+geometry+2011&qid=1638564560&sr=8-9 Note that there is a similar looking text which is part of the Foundations Series which is different -- I believe it is a lower level version of the text.

I bought the Jurgensen text and the solution guide new, but after looking through it pretty quickly decided it was not going to work well for my daughter. (Unfortunately I couldn't tell this by looking at the samples available online.) I ended up using Prentice Hall Geometry (2011) which is fantastic. (I'd describe it as fully rigorous but also very understandable and user friendly.) I highly recommend it. I believe it is out of print now but imagine that likely you can get it used online pretty easily. There is a two volume teacher edition which accompanies it which has additional info and solutions. (I'm happy to sell my Jurgensen text and solution book though if you want to go that way.) 🙂

I love Greek! There are a lot of good resources here that I’ve used: https://dailydoseofgreek.com/learn-biblical-greek/ Enjoy!

Does anyone have any experience with this? I'd like for my daughter to learn some programming, and am looking for something solid but gentle. Wondering if this would be a good fit?

I think Jacobs is lovely and gentle. I am using it with my youngest, and four chapters in it seems to be a great fit for him and I am happy with it. However, I tried it with my older two who pick up math a lot easier, and for them it was not a good fit. I believe Jacobs uses a little bit of a "guided discovery" approach. So my kids who could see what he was leading them to discover from the get-go soon found it tedious and boring. For them we landed on Prentice Hall Algebra 1 by Smith et al.

Just thought I would mention that if you have access to Kanopy streaming service (we have free access through our library), they have a lot of Great Courses including the History of the US. (No course book access for this particular course as far as I can determine though). I am planning on us using it next year.

Thank you!!

If you have used this, what did you think/how did it go? I am considering for my son for next year. Thanks for any info!

Hi -- I can comment on literature programs, but I believe none of these include explicit writing instruction or grammar. I know some people really like Lightning Lit 7 -- since you referenced a previous comment by me above, I'll add that for us it wasn't a great fit. It has been a few years since we used it, so my memory is not perfect, but I was hoping it would provide thoughtful discussion questions that could lead to good conversations, and if I recall correctly the questions for the works of lit were almost all simple fact recall about details of the readings. We didn't find the literary elements particularly interesting or enlightening but YMMV. (My kids did some CLE Reading for mid-elementary so already had exposure to some literary elements.) After doing Lightning Lit 7, we moved to Mosdos Gold. I really like this, and recommend it (I have a younger child who has done Coral and Pearl and those are great as well.) Mosdos in my view has really quality literature selections, good questions, and does a good job with literary elements. You can go to their website for samples, but pulling out my Gold book, each lit selection starts with a Blueprint for Reading that includes a little bit about the author and background info. Then a short lit element intro, the story itself with some vocab in footnotes, then questions which are categorized as Quick Review, In-Depth Thinking, and Drawing Conclusions. Then there is a short throwback to the lit element, and a Creating and Writing section with additional writing exercises if desired. So it is a really nice program, but of course does not cover whole books which are important too 🙂. After Mosdos Gold, one of my kids moved on to Illluminating Literature which has a lot of nice, whole book selections. I was pleased with this program, though frankly I was pretty hands-off with it. It has some literary elements, discussion questions, writing assignments/projects etc. My child who is a good reader used it as an 8th grader and enjoyed it (or at least didn't complain about it), but it is intended for high school. Best wishes and hope this helps!

Hi and welcome! I am happy to responds as well, but Lori is right that if you post this in one of the places she suggests you will get a much better response. Also is this for a 7th grader, or ...?

I was going to mention Jergen’s Ultra Healing as well.

We use Prentice Hall, and I don’t think there is an entire chapter on constructions, but of what is there, we do some, read through all, and move on. No love for it here and it is not worth the time or frustration in my view. 😀

https://germanonline.okstate.edu/

The OSU German online program for high schoolers is great and less than $400 per year. Last I looked they didn’t have an equivalent Spanish program, so maybe you were looking at the regular college classes? I would love it if they did offer something similar for Spanish!

First, yes, my 5-7 hours estimate was for the regular chemistry class. And I agree with SusanC that adding challenge problems to the regular class is not going to get you to honors. In my view, for that you would need to move at a faster pace and go more in depth with more complex problem solving. I think the regular class is on point for a regular chemistry class and am not suggesting it should be changed. But if Connie is asking if there is a place for a class at a level in between the current regular and honors class, I am just saying yes I think that would be fabulous.

Roadrunner, I believe the class is described as requiring 5-7 hours per week, and with the caveat that it varies depending on the week and that I don’t time the work, I think this is an accurate estimate. I agree that the clear teaching may make the class seem easier than it otherwise would be!

Sounds like there is a lot of love for your honors course which is awesome. I’ll come at the question from the other angle — having kids in the regular chemistry class (parent graded.) Thanks to these forums I know the time commitment alone would be a no-go for my kids for the honors class. We are enjoying the regular class but I think it is on the easy side / that they could easily handle a little more challenge. So something in between regular and honors sounds good to me. 🙂

If you call Pearson/Prentice Hall, they will sell you other pieces. I did this last year and bought a workbook and the teacher’s answer key for it. I had to fill out some sort of form saying I homeschooled or something like that but it was easy.