Thank you for providing this - it was very helpful!

I’m looking for a second opinion: An experienced mom at our co-op told me that the Apologia science books are so advanced that unless my child wants an honors course or to pursue a career in science, she suggests using the middle school book as High School Biology I and the High School book as Biology II. thoughts?

Schole Academy is hiring online teachers now in all grades for writing classes and for literature classes. https://scholeacademy.com/employment-opportunities/

You will find a great list for each grade at Ambleside Online and it’s free! And it’s very flexible if you wanted to group multiple grades and read together. Although it includes non-fiction, you can just focus on the fiction.

My son had good experiences with CLRC for Pre-Calculus and Classical Rhetoric. The teachers knew their stuff and he learned what he needed. Classical Learning Resource Center

My current 17 yo found the Rangers Apprentice series around age 12, fell in love with them, and still rereads them. They do have an occasional mild swear word, but are otherwise very appropriate. I recently heard a college professor say that “YA is great bc it is so RELEVANT.” Why? “Bc of all the sex & occult in YA,” he said. What???!!!! I think this is a major issue to try to avoid. All of the books I recommend avoid this twaddle. My children also love GA Henty historical fiction. There are dozens of them, if your child likes them. They almost all start with a 12 yo and follow him through to adulthood. Some of our favorites: In Freedoms Cause follows William Wallace and Scottish independence. Also The Dragon & the Raven follows Alfred the Great protecting England from Biking invasion. They are so good! And there’s a book for almost any time period you want. Tom Sawyer & Huck Finn are good, and they allow you to avoid the YA trap of having the child enter into stories without the whole family community sharing the experience. (I’m assuming most parents have read Tom & Huck). Good luck!

I second Rosemary Sutcliff’s books. Also, my kids love GA Henry books. They are historical action adventure novels. The Cat of Bubastes is great for ancient Egypt! It’s free or $.99 on kindle.

My 8th grader has LOVED the House of Humane Letters “Good Books” course this past year. The teacher, Angelina Stanford, gets her students so excited about what they are reading. My daughter would probably not have responded so well for me even though I’m a literature teacher.

I should have said it before, but the lemon juice dressing for pasta salad is particularly good with roasted veggies, marinated artichokes, diced tomatoes, etc., which you could buy canned.

We often cook for 60-80 people after church, so I am familiar with amounts. Sounds like you have plenty of meat and jambalaya :) If people are staying only for 1 hour, then you don't need as much. I would suggest these amounts for sides if you want to have more than enough: Fruit salad - If you are going to make it yourself, then 60 total pieces of fruit. If you are using bags of frozen fruit or cans, then about 4 people per pound. 10 bananas, 10 apples, 10 kiwi, 3-4 cans mandarin oranges, 3 lb strawberries and 3 lb bags of frozen blueberries Veggies with dip - 2 bunches celery, 4 lbs carrorts, 2 heads broccoli, maybe one other but that might be enough (unless you are serving a lot of health- conscious people :) Pasta salad - I agree to omit mayo. Here's a good dressing: 1 part lemon juice, 3 parts oil, salt & pepper & garlic powder to taste, with any other herbs you like. 6 pounds of dry pasta. If I were you, I'd cook it all (bc cooked pasta freezes fine) but only make up half of it into salad. Also, mix up dressing and chop veggies for the second half but don't mix it all together. Then, you need the rest you can mix it right before replenishing the serving bowl at your party. Hope that helps :)

For poetry MEANING analysis, (as opposed to rythym and structure) I would start with Aristotle's logos and pathos. Logos: logically, what is the poem claiming? If it is the cauliflower poem linked above, it says very explicitly that the narrator wants to "see and hear this world." Pathos: What words have strong connotations/emotional reactions? Circle them. I'd circle "divinity", "songs", "butterfly's wing." Ok, so what do those words make me think/feel - beauty in god's creation, nature, enjoying nature, noticing little details like butterflies wings. Those ideas are consistent with the logical claim of wanting to see and hear the world. I'd also circle "rough throat throbbing" and those make me think of swimming hard for some reason but they also make me think of having a sore throat after yelling really hard, so experiencing something really hard. But throbbing also makes me think of a heartbeat, so if I tie that to the logical claim, this narrator wants to REALLY experience everything there is to experience, with all his/her heart. The narrator wants to look outside of himself (as opposed to the inward cabbage) and totally experience everything around it. I realize that this part is subjective, which words I would circle might be different from which words you would circle, but as I circle words I am thinking in the back of my mind which words have emotional meaning for "people" and not just for me. It's worth a try. Also, it is often helpful to look for typical literary symbols (including color symbols) in poetry. Butterflies are symbols of change/renewal, which connects to the logical claim of wanting to change and be renewed by experiencing nature. Green often symbolized greed, so the inward-looking person(cabbage) is greedy for itself, maybe even blind in that greed, but in contrast the narrator wants to open outward and see outside of itself. To sum up - start with finding a logical claim, then break down the connotative diction and symbolism to see how they might support the claim. Hope that helps :)