I posted earlier today on how I make my kids do without calculators until algebra 1, so you folks are probably going to be VERY glad that I am not your mother, but -- I still make my kids do the rudimentary exercises with tables. My younger ds just met trig tables for the first time last week. I debated whether or not to have him do the exercises -- I mean, he has a calculator and he has used it all year! But I am SO glad we had him do the exercises! Reasons for introducing tables -- 1) He had problems reading the table! He had to ask me how to look up the tan 17degrees!!!!! I expected him to be able to figure it out on his own. He is now better at reading tables -- and I expect that skill to carry over into economics and other social sciences as well. 2) Really REALLY understanding how things work. He had already done several exercises that showed him that the sine and cosine functions are cyclical. He understood the unit circle......and I still had to explain to him over again how to extrapolate sines and cosines for angles greater than 90 or less than zero. If I had had him skip the exercise and merely use his calculator, he would not understand sine and cosine functions nearly so well! 3) Using the tables, if only for a week, breeds a healthy respect for the cumbersome process engineers and scientists had to deal with until quite recently. So have them learn to use and table -- and then at the end of a few days' worth of exercises, smile, drag out the calculator, and say that from now on you are allowing 21st century technology to help!

We found cards for printing announcements at Staples. It took us a few hours to get it all set up, but overall I was impressed with how easy it was. We bought our diploma through homeschooldiploma.com I thought they did a really nice job. Best wishes planning for the big day!

One other thought for those with students going into math/science -- On tests college profs don't always allow calculators. They do this to make sure that the student really knows how to DO the problem and not just set it up on the calculator. Obviously these problems are less math-intensive, but they will still involve the student being comfortable solving simple stuff with pencil and paper. Unless your child has some kind of diability, I would make sure that he is REALLY comfortable solving basic math problems (even three and four digit long division and compound interest problems) without a calculator. Make your child continues to do some math, especially riview problems, without a calculator. I absolutely agree that you should make ABSOLUTELY sure that your child is comfortable with a calculator before he uses it in a testing situation, but just using the calculator for math for a few months should do the trick.

We lived in a "very" good school district in Massachusetts, and we felt strongly that if we were going to send our kids to school we lived in the ideal place to do it. We decided not to, but these are some of the questions we wrestled with when my oldest two kids were in 7th and 6th.-- BTW, I would have sent them to school because I was so scared I would blow their educaitons! My husband and my kids talked me into continuing! 1) What will challenge the kids the most academically? What environment will cause them to think deeply about issues and develop their curiousity? 2) What environment will help them grow in their faith and see the world in light of their Christian faith? 3) What programs/opportunities will they miss out on if we homeschool them? (Choir was the big answer -- and we never did find a way for our kids to sing in high school!) 4) What programs/opportunities will they miss out on if we send them to school? (If they went to school, they would definitely need to cut back on extracurricular stuff) 5) Can Mom actually put together a challenging high school program? (That's where online classes come in!) 6) Will my relationship with my son survive 4 more years of homeschooling? (Online classes helped, and no, it hasn't been easy!) 7) What about social opportunities? (We moved to VA when my oldest entered 8th, so they never did find a close group of buddies down here. That was hard. but my younger ones do have some strong friendships that will hopefully last through high school.) 8) What about college? Will the colleges accept our "educational products"? (Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.....!!!!! But we didn't know that at the time -- it was an act of faith.) 9) What does God want for me (as the homeschooling mom) and my kids?

I second what Vicki of Maine said -- we also did no vocab program until we started Wordly Wise around 6th or 7th. We only do that for a few years and then drop it -- vocab is really all in context, so just keep your kids reading -- aloud, by themselves, fiction, nonfiction, whatever. I know I'm in a minority, but the Classical Roots vocab program did NOT work for us in a big kind of way. We have only had three programs that provoked a revolt in the kids, and that was one of them.

We let the kids start using a non-graphing calculator "full-time" starting with algebra 1. Before algebra 1 we just let the kids plug and chug. I have a 6th grader doing pre-algebra this year, and she is working through compound interest right now. Talk about painful! But it builds character and math ability. I keep assuring her that in less than 180 days she will have access to a calculator full-time!

Wow -- that's a tough one. I would bear in mind two things -- 1) A college wants to know to what levela student has studied a language. That could take the form of "Latin 2" and then a course description, and/or a test -- like AP German. If you are stopping studying any foreign languages before 9th grade, I would absolutely make certain that I had either outside grades that provided "proof" of the level studied, or an AP exam score. Could your child take a German language class at a nearby college? 2) I would be surprised if a junior high student could get a 5 on an AP exam -- even in a language they are fluent in! And even if your child can easily get a 5 in AP German Language, is AP German Literature offered? (I know that it is offered in French). If there is a German Literature exam, that should keep your child busy for an additional yer or two! 3) Would you consider having your child learn another language in high school -- Latin or French or whatever? If I were a college admissions counselor, I would be impressed by the drive of a kid who is bilingual but who is learning yet another language! And I would be wary of a student who had NO foreign language in high school and no test scores?

Thank you so much for all the suggestions. I have requested a bunch of these from the library -- I am going to have fun reading through many of them and deciding which one to give her!

like MaryM said, my son has HORRIBLE handwriting. I kept on telling him to work on it (I did provide him with sheets and copy pages), but handwriting was on the absolute BOTTOM of his list of priorities. Fast forward to 11th grade -- I don't know how the College Board trains its readers, but somehow ds took multiple AP exams (obviously with written portions) and the SAT and did really well on them all, despite the fact that even I, his loving mother, cannot read his handwriting at times. Either the CB readers can deal with illegible handwriting much better than I can, or they just give high scores to illegible exams. I don't know which! :) His handwriting is still pretty illegible, though it has improved VERY slightly over the past year. I think filling out all those college forms may have helped it! :rolleyes: Moral of the story -- by all means try to have your son improve his handwriting, but if it means nagging or fighting it isn't worth the struggle. Point out to your son WHY handwriting is important (it is a form of communication, after all) and trust that those CB readers can deal with it.

Hurrah -- UVA has 'found" all of the documents -- including the recommendations. Praise God! Talk about a hig-stress 24 hours! Thank you for all your support. BTW, I totally agree that you should call to verify that all your items have been received -- but NOT when the college specifically tells you not to! UVA very specifically said that they were absolutely inundated this year and that they are STILL logging materials in. UVA said that they would call you if there was a problem with your materials. :-/

The workbook for Western Civ up to 1715 is 0-534-60011-5

We have used Spielvogel for all my kids in 9th and 10th. This year my 8th is using it. We just use the text itself (the thought questions at the beginning of each chapter make great essay questions) and the study guide. The study guide has word lists, multiple choice questions, stuff to put in chronological order, fill-in-the-blanks, and more essay/paragraph questions, and answers to everything except the essay questions. I also have a test bank, though I have never used it. (See some post from a few months ago where I say that I don't test my kids much!)

We have copies of everything we sent to each and every college, though it will take an hour of printing and then a trip to the post office. That is pretty minor, though. More major -- Asking the teachers for the recommendations again is just frustrating. Some of the teachers have already written 6-8 recommendations. I hate to even think about asking them again. Most frustrating -- The most frustrating thing is that UVA gives a VERY few full-ride scholarships. Most of the slots for the interviews are given to recommended students in certain "qualified" schools, but about 10% of the interview slots are reserved for general applicants. Well, they are supposed to be making decisions about who is invited to the scholarship competition this week. I think my son's chances of being invited just went from very small to zero. :( I have been trying to contact the admissions person all afternoon to see if I should start the process of getting all new paperwork to them. She hasn't been answering her phone all afternoon. Tomorrow morning I send an email. :(

My son is applying to UVA. I guess it is absolutely swamped this year for whatever reason. We sent all of his supporting docs in one envelope -- transcript, recs from teachers, course descriptions, booklist, school profile, counselor's rec -- the whole nine yards. He got a very polite email this morning requesting that he send a transcript with all his courses on it, since UVA only has fragmented transcripts from a variety of schools. He called, and UVA has none of his supporting documents! His admissions counselor is going to search for them, but.......I will call tomorrow morning to find out if I should bother putting together another packet (which means asking the teachers for another rec -- hopefully they all xeroxed the old one!) I do have a slip from the Post Office documenting that I sent something to UVA at the end of Dec. and that UVA received it. Unhappy mom here -- I guess that if God shuts this door He has his reasons! I have heard of colleges losing applications -- you just don't expect it to happen to your own child!

You might call your son's college's financial aid office. They should be experts in this!

I had such a wonderful response when I asked for book recommendations for my 14-yo reluctant reader that I am back again, this time for Christian fiction for my college-age dd. We give Christian books to our kids each Easter -- sometimes fiction, sometimes biographies or non-fiction. This year we're giving my older son Idols for Destruction. I think that my dd would appreciate a more "fun" read than that, though we're going to give it to her later in the year. I would really appreciate any suggestions. When I say "Christian fiction," I do not mean necessarily something that is sold by CBD but rather something that is rooted in the Christian worldview. If it is not a classic, the chances are greater that she has not read it yet, but I would appreciate any suggestions. Thank you -- my bookshelves are slowly beginning to reflect some of the book titles you ladies have shared over the past!

I second the suggestion to have your child study on his own. The materials are readily available! 1) My kids worked through the Rocket Revolution study guide. while they didn't agree with all of the study suggestions and didn't follow all of them, the guide made my kids really think about the types of questions on the exam and how they approached them. 2) Do get the CB SAT exams and work through them. My kids did the last two in one day, but before that they just did one section per day. They did several exams that way. 3) Also, use the collegeboard.com's SAT question of the day. Over several months it does a great job of familliarizing students with the types of questions on the SAT in a non-threatening format. (Great for 9th and 10th graders).

They are both video lecture programs with online quizzes and tests available. After 15 minutes of poking around their websites, I cannot see a great deal of difference between the two programs. I would love to hear any feedback from folks who have used either one. I am looking specifically at biology, but hearing how pre-calculus or any other subject went for you would be very helpful to me! Thank you!

I am going to take a radical stand and say that labs are not the be-all-and-end-all of a high school science class! I know of one student who is now a bio major at Swarthmore who did NO science labs (other than looking at on-line ones) in high school. My dd did one year of labs in high school, and she is now a chem major! When we called around to the colleges she was interested in, they all (except the college I talk about below) were very laid back about labs and said that they bear in mind the difficulty of hs'ed doing "real" labs when they look at lab experience. Her lack of lab experience might have been why she didn't get into MIT ::confused: but otherwise was not an issue. (My 2nd son wants to go into engineering and we are going to have him do some lab classes at a cc). One college my dd was interested in said that it pretty much required that hs'ed students do a 'real" lab class at a local community college in order to be accepted. After much thought, my dd decided to take a chance and not to do the cc lab science, and she got in as an "honors" student (meaning at this particular college that she was in the top ~5% of accepted students). Labs are certainly a good thing to do, but don't sweat too much over them!

Two thoughts -- 1) It depends on the kid. How motivated is your son? Is this a subject that he cares about? 2) Does your local college have two different levels of course? My local cc offers "physics" and then "advanced physics". To enter into "advanced physics" you need to have finished certain levels in math, but you don't do both classes. One is more rigorous than the other, but they both count as 'physics". If your son has not had any physics and is not a super-strong student, he would probably sign up for the plain physics class. 3) Our experience -- my kids just jumped into college classes (calculus 1 & 2, microecomics). My kids have been the top one or two students in their classes (so far -- my ds does not seem to be enjoying calculus 2).

MaryM --Can you please tell me more about Thinkwell? It costs $239 for the whole thing, so I would love to hear some of the pro's and con's of it before I think about buying it!

Thank you, Trillium. I will definitely explore the Holt approach further.

Absolutely! Most colleges accept Latin with no problem. I have heard that there are a few that really want a modern language (someone has mentioned the Air Force Academy) but almost all schools accept Latin. My son has done three years of Greek and one year of Latin. There aren't really any standardized tests for Greek (I guess there is the National Greek Exam, but that isn't like an SAT-II), so he doesn't even have any standardized test scores for foreign language. Despite the lack of standardized test scores demonstrating his profiency in the language, he has still gotten accepted at all the schools we have heard from. Since there is no AP test in Greek, he will need to take a course or two at college to fulfill the college's graduation requirement, but the Greek is definitely being accepted as his high school foreign language.

I am weighing various options at this point. I know that I do not want an online course, but I am wondering if anyone has had any experience with -- 1) Holt Bio, workbooks, and SAT-II prep books. Is that rigorous enough to do "well" on the SAT-II? (Any thoughts, Trillium?) 2) Singapore A-level bio + Cyber-Ed biology. (MaryM, have you done this? How did it work out?) 3) Campbell's Biology + study guide. I know that it would provide the strongest background, but I am a bit concerned -- my current 8th grader is not a great reader, and it is a THICK book. Has anyone used it with a very bright but non-honors 9th grader? (I really do not think that is the road to go...)

Hurrah! Let us know when you hear back!