CBD sells this. It looks like it might make a semester class of American Government be more interesting than, say, a typical textbook approach. Just wondering if anyone here has used this program and what your opinion is of it. Thanks, Susan

Interesting. I just went to the web site and saw that it says, under the description for Biology that combining Biology with Anatomy will earn two credits. Well, I have the 2008 print catalog and it just does not say that! But I will say that I don't think there is any way that even adding the two chapters of the Anatomy course and labs with the Biology course will be enough coverage to count as two credits. Nah. I wonder if PAC has some sort of plausible explanation for this, or if it is just a mistake? I'm sure if you email them about it they'll get back to you about it. I've emailed before and Mr. Johnson himself has been very good about answering my questions very promptly. Thanks for pointing that out. Susan

Hmm...previous poster mentioned that this PAC Biology course is suppose to count as two credits? I'm not sure where she got that information. I'm looking at the PAC catalog. Completing six chapter books will yield one credit. If you add the two additional chapter books of the Anatomy course, the credit total will be 1 1/2 credits (not two). You may, in fact, choose to insert one or two of the Anatomy chapter books, in place of one or two of the Biology chapter books, to complete a Biology course. However, the standard is this...six chapter books (mixed and matched to your choosing) yields one transcript credit. Eight chapter books yields one and half credits. We are currently using the PAC Biology course and my dd loves it!! Everyday she tells me something that she learned from it. I wish I would have known about it to use with my son as well. For those Christians who are concerned about how the course presents the evolution theory, PAC does just that: presents evolution as only a theory, and then makes some scientific challenges to that theory. I'd also recommend adding labs to the course. The Castle Heights books would be a big help for that. We were fortunate to be able to join a homeschool Biology lab group in our area. They were using the Apologia book, so we just adjusted our topics accordingly. The BJU Biology dissection video is also a great resource to use for labs. Rigor? Yeah, maybe on the lighter side. But for the purpose of completing a high school Biology credit in an engaging way, PAC gets a thumbs up from me. Susan

I think you can make this plan work. Glad to hear the BJU Algebra is going much better for her. I hope the BJU Geometry goes well, too. But if you end up in a squeeze, having difficulty and thinking that you may run out of time, keep MUS Geometry in the back of your mind...just in case. Many people consider it a lighter study of Geometry. We will also be using MUS Geometry concurrently with finishing up Algebra 1 this year, starting in just a couple of weeks, but after giving MUS a good look, I'm confident the plan is very doable. Susan

I would think that Olga knows what she is talking about. However, I would tend to go along with the majority of posters, since there are many families in my community who have last names of similar origin, and they don't stress the vowels as long. But, that's probably because over the years the pronunciation of their names has been 'Americanized'. So, I imagine both ways could be right. Just depends on how authentic you want to be. Susan

Interesting. Two people can have the opposite view of the same thing. While a previous poster said her dc thought the page layout was cluttered, one thing that jumped out to me about the BJU Alg. 1 book, as compared to the Chalkdust Alg. 1 book, was that the page layout seemed easier to read and uncluttered. The print is bigger with more white space. I'm not a math person and thought that the BJU Alg. 1 book provided good instruction that even I could navigate. If you are a math teacher, I can't see that you'd have any problems with it. No one program has it all, but with your skills, I'm sure you could compensate in any number of ways if you see something lacking here or there. Susan

Rod and Staff Math and CLE English and Reading. I found out less is more. Susan

Yes, I think our last read aloud was when our two dc were in ninth and twelfth grade, and we (Mom) read The Hiding Place. We read it first, and then we watched the movie. Both kiddos enjoyed it. I couldn't get through some parts without swallowing the lump in my throat, shedding some tears, and blowing my nose, though. So be forewarned to keep the kleenex handy, if you read The Hiding Place. Susan

The Saxon courses with the Teacher CDs may, indeed, be all your dc end up needing. (if they didn't inherit your math genes, anyway. hee hee. I'm saying that affectionately as I float in the same boat as you do in regard to math!) If you want to have some other material on hand just to give another explanation to a concept that they are having a bit of a problem with, a little book we have used is Painless Algebra, and a DVD program (inexpensive) we have greatly benefited from is Jason Gibson's Math Tutor DVDs. Susan

As I see it you will not need the Teacher's Manual...just the textbook and the Student Solutions Guide will suffice. Just make sure they are both the same edition, so they will match. Susan

That's sort of what we did, except instead of using MUS, we've used TT/BJU and had the Chalkdust material on hand to help out. (BTW, I bought all of my materials used for very good prices, so it's not like I've had to take out a bank loan to have access to everything!) Hope it works for you! Susan

So glad you've had such good and encouraging words from Dana Mosely. Is he just trying to sell his product? Welll...I hope not, but I would think that he is not going to suggest going with Lial's BCM! At any rate I wish you well with your decision. We have the PreAlgebra DVD instruction, and I will say that Dana Mosely is an excellent teacher! It is like having him in your home as your own private teacher. Did you check out that http://www.coolmathguy.com This is the site that sells Dana Mosely video instuction online, topic by topic, should you so choose. IOW, if you're going along just fine, but then get stuck on a topic, purchase just that video segment of teaching to get you through/over that bump in the road. You may want to go to the site and show your son examples of Mr. Mosely's teaching. Susan

I finally bought a Boston, wall-mount, hand crank model and it has been just great! Should last quite awhile. There is a very old one of these in the basement of my parent's house, and it still works perfectly. Susan

To clarify my own first post: I would not choose Chalkdust PreAlgebra as a primary text in this case. Reason being because it, too, is a big book chock full of so much information and problems (though about 100 pages less than Lial's BCM). There is a lot of print on each page and it, too, is written to an older audience, not 13 year olds. There are tons of problems in the exercises. You don't have to assign them all of course! However, I would use it as a resource book to help clarify explanations on a given topic if needed. And the fact that it does have lots of problems makes it a good resource to pull extra practice problems from. We have used it this way. Another comment about CD PreAlgebra: After using TT PreAlgebra, its coverage seemed a little short, so that's why I bought CD PreAlgebra to use to use before we started Algebra 1. I was astounded with the difference. CD PreAlgebra covered so much more and more in depth than TT. Really there is a lot of beginning Algebra coverage in the CD PreAlgebra. I'm sorry I don't have any familiarity with MUS PreAlgebra or Algebra 1 to give any input in that direction. Also, if you spent an hour talking on the phone with Dana Mosely, I'd think you'd certainly need to give his advice high regard! Can you share anything specifically he advised? Susan

What do you mean by 'just buying the CD book and supplementing'? Supplementing in what way? With what? Trying to understand your thoughts about this possible course of action. (the limitations of email correspondance at work here!) Susan