Update: by the second day, it was not running anymore. It kept saying the security certificates were not good. Their technical support could not help. I am going to look at other online programs, but I am honestly concerned I will pay for a class only for it to not work and thenI lose a bunch of money. I was looking at the sample classes, so perhaps it is just some of the sample classes that are expired, but I don't want to throw away money on something that does not work.

I am wondering about math sequence. I could do the entire Singapore Math series and then go in to Jacobs, that would be fine. But, I am intrigued by AoPs and was considering stopping at some point in Singapore Math and trying AoPs Pre-algebra. Not sure if I going to break what is working, or if it would be an interesting change of course. I already have Jacob's Algebra and already like it. I found no problem going straight from 6B in Singapore Math straight to Jacobs. So no issues there. But everyone talks about AoPs so much here, I am curious basically. Suggestions? And if I did fit in AoPs preAlgebra, where would I stop the Singapore Math?

I went with a loose schedule. We sort of keep to it and have rules. But right now, for example, they are carving pumpkins instead of school work. Basically, we have hours. 9-noon and 1-3. They are not supposed to goof off during that time. We can get off schedule for a day or two and we are fine, but after that, they go crazy and start fighting again. Last year, we got little done and needed to remedy it. They are not behind grade level. But one it teetering on average and the other was years ahead of grade level and now is on an average college prep track. We cannot really afford to continue to get behind. Setting the hours has helped, a lot. They "get" that the work needs to be done. And I have the freedom to insist they focus on school work during those hours and they don't argue about it. They are arguing less and getting along better. We still have a ways to go, but things have gotten better.

My husband "helped." LOL...count your blessings. If you had his help, you might find it to be more of "help." If you do get him to help, pick a subject on the side, where you do not need continuity. Like, art, or history topics, or even science labs, but nothing where what you do depends on what he does.

I think I would consider Keys to Algebra for tutoring. I assume he doesn't get it and needs the bare basics.

There are some serious disadvantages though. They make friends at the public kinder so they might want to stay for those friends. They might continue those relationships with those friends only for those friends to pressure them to go to public school. They might pick up bad habits. Sadly, since my child started kinder this year, I hear "moron" "jerk" and "I poofed you!" all the time out of him. I poofed you is referencing passing gas while his back side is point at me and he waves at it. Yuck!

No, I disagree with him. It isn't "good for her." If you are having trouble with her at home that you cannot get a grip on, or you simply do not have the desire to do kinder, then send her. I have sent all mine to kinder and likely will continue. I have a serious lack of energy and desire for kinder at this point.

Anyone try this or use it? What is your opinion?

What is this like? I am curious now. I feel like we have not settled on a good middle school science. Maybe this would be good for us?

So, to clarify, the older kids already have some fine arts they are interested in and completely invested in. The younger children are on the young side. I had actually hoped they would get in to an individual instrument. Oldest, who loves to paint, said he would like to learn to play the piano. I guess I could find a place in the dining room to put a real piano, but it would be squished when we have holiday meals there and such. I also do not know how to figure out a good quality piano on Craiglist.

It goes both ways. I have seen home schoolers flipped out because their child isn't reading fluently by 4 years old, or writing their name perfectly at 3.

You sound like you do Konmari!!! Do you?

I am unsure but, isn't Making Math Meaningful a program that is very hands on, with things from around your house? I saw samples when I was looking for something else.

We are seriously considering a digital weighted piano for Christmas for the kids. I added in drums to the end of the title because tonight, we went to the store to look and took our preschooler and she loved the drums and was so cute playing on them! LOL I took a video. But to the original question, I always felt a personal instrument was the best because then they could play in a group, with a band or orchestra. But so far, I have failed to inspire my older children to play anything. I had a handmedown cello that was quite nice, but no one was interested. Older child mentioned he might be willing to go for the piano. He is 14 now. Money and space are big issues. Oldest is in to art, big time. He is a great painter. Younger middle schooler is in to theater, musical theater, dance. Then I have children who are not grade school age yet. I did buy recorders and tried to teach the children how to play on that. I never could afford to pay an instrument when I was growing up, but got quite good at the recorder and enjoyed it. I had wanted to be a flute player. I know that having one instrument does not mean I cannot have another. But money is an issue. I plan to look for used too. I am trying to decide between buying a digital piano with weighted keys (Piano is impractical and not really in our budget) or holding off and seeing if I can inspire the interest in a string or wind instrument in the future. Of course, 4 yr old is suggesting a drum set, LOL (maybe I should consider it?)

Now that I think about it, I think they are even getting along better with the schedule. You see, before, they were going at it all day long. Some of it was goofing off, but some of it was arguing nitpicking at each other. Now, with the schedule, they both have to focus during their times. Then, when they get to break, it is like they appreciate each other more. I was pleasantly surprised last night when they just out of the blue offered to help each other with a chore.

We did not used to have a strict schedule, but being loose was just not working for us. I would love to be able to be loose again in the future. But for now, we got so little done in recent years, it was to the point that children should be flunked, only, I don't do that sort of thing. I tried a variety of things to change it around. Then I had to accept that my vision of our home school is not necessarily what my children needed. And my children need schedules it turns out. It came down to either having a schedule, or simply not educating them at all as they would not do anything without it. It became a hostile fight every day with us inkling through, getting nothing done. But now that I set a schedule, things are much better. On the not talking, they can talk. But, with only 5 hrs of school a day, they love to ham it up and talk about nothing but friends, movies, computer games, etc, while not glancing at their home work. The dedicated 5 hrs a day is really making a difference. It is interesting to hear how different everyone is. But, it is also a little sad to see judgement being passed over each other. It would be nice if we could just be different from each other without being catty. Remarks like "this is a home, we are a family" in reference to objections to schedules and keeping the kids on topic, and references to being horrified at my rules were not necessary. I get not wanting to be just like public school, but likewise, I don't have to be exactly like every other homeschooler or I am "doing it wrong."

State her grade as the lower one on the test runs. I actually checked this one with PSAT. I called them. They said students can jump forward a grade, but not back. So, she could say she is 8th, 9th, 11th grade, but she cannot say she is 9th, 10th, 10th, 11th grade. I even saw previously (you will have to look for it) that the test has to be taken for official reasons no later than 3rd year of high school. You can technically use the 10th grade scores for official scores, you just have to declare it ahead of time. But then it is final. You cannot change that the very next year. They don't get 2 official runs at the test.

Our school hours are 9 to noon and 1 to 3. This means 5 hours of dedicated school this. They must be doing their school work during this time. The only exception is for going outside and doing outside activities like PE or field trips. Right now, it is 1pm and 14 yr old did not eat during lunch time because he wanted to rearrange his room. Now I had to tell him to stop, it is class time again. In the "real world" he would not be able to just shirk his responsibilities because he just felt the desire to do something else. I do not allow chores to be given, visits to be taken, or otherwise, during this time. It is strictly school work time. Before I set the school hours, we had to cut back on academic expectations because they could not get them done. These children are 11 and 14. Also..bed times. 14 yr old does not need one as he goes to bed on his own by 11, but usually closer to 10pm. However, younger one seems to be trying to push the envelope on this. Then, he is exhausted and cannot drag themselves out of bed by 9am. Also..do you allow the kids to talk to each other much during school time? I get having an academic conversation. Maybe if they are watching a documentary. But another issue we had is constant goofing off during the day. These school hours and strict rules are in response to a lot of problems we have had. It is not how we started homeschooling. So, I won't reduce them. I am just wondering what everyone else does, what they allow, if their schedule gets more detailed, and so on. I do allow them to study where they want and how they want. One is spread out on the floor doing English and another is laying in bed reading a book for history. I am thinking of making my 11 yr old go to bed by 10pm. Would you say lights out? Or would you let him read a book during this time? Should it be earlier? I am not sure that earlier would be feasible for his ability to get to sleep.

Our state did not adopt the common core, but did update the TEKS. I was worried because I heard the new TEKS were so unreasonable and expected way too much. But when I read what was on the new TEKS, I realized the old TEKS (effective last year and before, I don't know how long) were very weak. Very little has been expected. There was even a chart comparing the new algebra one from the old. The "old" TEKS seem to make algebra 1 in Texas equal to what most people on this board would call preAlgebra. If the math is even indication, I am completely not worried about being behind the "new standards." The "new" standards seem to be taking us back in time to when something was actually taught in school. However, personally, I have my doubts about the ability of the average public school to stand up to this task.http://www.projectsharetexas.org/resource/revised-mathematics-teks-side-side-teks-comparison

I know the local public schools will give credit for geometry and algebra 1, even if they were taken at the middle age. Also, I know of one private school and one charter school locally that allow 9th grade biology to be taken in 8th grade, but only for those students who are taking geometry then. It has to do with keeping the math and science sequence not too out of line. In my case, I enrolled my 8th grader in a private school class for 9th grade in a classical school. So they are doing ancients now. He is doing lit and history and bible. The school even listed that it was worth two credits. I will be listing this on his transcript. Should he basically end up with a 5 yr transcript where I list the years he took things and be fine with there being 5 years worth of courses...6 if you include algebra (it is common to have algebra early though) or should I just adjust the dates to reflect that he took the 9th grade classes later. Maybe just list 2016? The classes this year would be 2015-2016. Should I just list them on the transcript with a date of 2016, or just list them as 2016-2017 school year, or just go ahead and list it as 2015-2016? Or perhaps I should just list "9th grade" next to it and not clarify the dates. Then everything will be listed by grade and then not dates.

Do you think Math-U-See would be good? He does not want to use a video at all. I tried him with the samples on Teaching Textbooks and he says no way. We did MUS in his earlier years of homeschooling. He did fine with it, he just felt it was boring. We switched to Horizons, which went great too. We did Foersters for Algebra 1. That went fine until he had trouble. He only had trouble a couple times. Now we are on geometry. I am considering ordering MUS.

We are using Jurgensons, which it turns out, I love! I am teaching it and it is very clear to understand. I just love this program. Problem is, my son has ASD. He is very smart, but he is melting down. I am trying to explain the lessons to him. I do a great job explaining. I have done tutoring in the past and used to be a math teacher. My son was always quite advanced and found school easy so he zipped through everything. He also prefers to self teach. We have spent more than a week on chapter two now. We are on 2-2. He won't make eye contact and is melting down. He is begging to do algebra 2 instead. My algebra 2 is Foersters so it needs geometry first. Please help!!! I might need to switch to something he can do more on his own. Should we keep plugging away?

To be honest, I think BJU is better than Saxon. I had a discussion with some other moms over the summer and some of the older home school people were there, including a couple home from college for the summer. We actually got in to it pretty deep about the algebra and I asked some of the teens to look over the book, both were in STEM. One had used Saxon, I do not know if the other used Saxon. Anyway, they both really helped, and they both felt BJU was better. I liked how BJU looked, a lot. But, the publisher insists you have to use the TM and I was worried about spending a lot of time teaching. I did not end up using Saxon either.

If you read directly from the textbook and skipped the teacher's guide, then he would get it all. I have not seen the HIG, but, I did teach SM before in private school and they did not have teacher's guides. I am good with math, but, really, the textbook does explain it all. I cannot even imagine what the HIG would add to it. I do "add" to it, but only a little bit. Like, in the lesson where it says to build something with blocks, I actually got blocks out. In the lesson on symmetry, I got a little mirror out to hold against things. But it was just simple stuff like that. Most lessons did not even need that much.

4A was fractions. 4B was decimals. I can see 5A is fractions again. The only parts we skipped where the review problems, not any of the lesson parts. So like review C problems and such. Then we have done the entire workbook. Or will have. Not completed yet.