Does anyone have a favorite book - could be nonfiction or fiction - about or set during the American Revolution? I'm putting together a unit study on the AR and I don't have much so far. I plan to do this in March, so I have a lot of time to research. Everything I find seems to be elementary/middle school level. Also, everything seems to be a lap book for an 8 year-old. So far, I'm seeing: Jackdaws American Revolution packet - but, sheesh, that's $70!! I would buy it if it were half that. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin Smithsonian: The American Revolution: A Visual History - gets great reviews - it's 400 pages, so it sounds like it has a lot of info Drive-thru History - this gets mixed reviews, so I'm not sure.... Thanks for any ideas!

Lol! We read a book like that recently. At one point, I said, "we're done." Even the cats were leaving the room when I brought that book out.

I'm seeing an audiobook of The Count of Monte Cristo in the WTM store (Jim Weiss), but it looks like it's more for younger kids? I can't really tell. There's "A Novel Units" on Christianbook.com for Count of Monte Cristo, but I've never used those, either. Well, now I'm leaning towards Count of Monte Cristo, A Tale of Two Cities and then the movie Les Miserables. So many decisions!! Edited to say: I'm trying to plan this big unit study for March and I wanted to cover some French literature (or at least literature about France), but my plans are growing so much that I might need to break my unit study into 3 separate parts. Ugh! My unit study was going to be a comparison of the American Revolution, French Revolution and Russian Revolution. Just by brainstorming, my unit study plan is starting to look like a giant octopus. There's no way I can cover all 3 in one unit study. I'm going to have to break them up. Also, I am finding way too many interesting books for this.

Sounds like a plan! lol And I forgot about The Count of Monte Cristo or The Three Musketeers. I'm going to fit one of those in there somewhere this spring. The Count of Monte Cristo was one of my favorite books when I was a teenager.

I'm trying to decide which one to have the kids read this upcoming year. I know Les Miserables takes place a little later than the other... Which would be more of an interesting read for a 16 year-old boy and 14 year-old girl? Also, I was planning to use an abridged version for Les Miserables, because the full version would take us 6 months to read. It's like over a thousand pages. A Tale of Two Cities has a Progeny Press guide available, so I'm leaning towards that one, but if Les Miserables is much better.... Any opinions?

Just echoing what everyone else has said. We've used My Father's World (K, ECC and Ancients) and Sonlight (cores 100, 200 Lit, 300). Kids # 2, 3 and 4 are back to doing homemade unit studies together. That's another option. For us, these include literature, history, science, and art. I put them together myself. In January, we're doing a chemistry/robotics/Manhattan Project unit study. In March, we're going to do a unit study on the American Revolution, French Revolution and possibly Russian Revolution (trying to figure out how to tie in the last with the first two).

You would have to do some reading on this, but he might actually like the Charlotte Mason way of doing science. https://simplycharlottemason.com/blog/teaching-science-subject-by-subject-part-12/ https://simplycharlottemason.com/planning/curriculum-guide/individual-graded-subjects/living-science-books/ https://pennygardner.com https://charlottemasonhome.com Very old thread, but good suggestions on here:

I haven't had enough coffee yet to read all the other replies, but I can tell you how we homeschool. I probably am kind of a weirdo on this forum - that's why I go through periods of time where I don't post anymore. I understand this is a classical education forum and I don't want to mess up their space. Most of mine are teenagers now, but when my son was younger, he was just as you described. I basically let them pick everything out. They tell me what math they like....what literature they are interested in reading....what unit studies they want me to put together. It's not as daunting as it sounds when I type it out. And they pick interesting things, too. For example, ds16 was in the hospital last week waiting for his surgery to start and he and I were talking about our options for our next unit study (trying to keep his mind off everything). Together, we came up with a big study we're going to call Revolutions. We're going to study the American Revolution, the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution - and compare/contrast the three of them and how they affected Europe. There is some great literature we can tie in with that topic! Tale of Two Cities, for example. Our upcoming unit study (we're calendar year homeschoolers, so this starts in January) is like a Physical Science unit study. We're reading a biography of Albert Einstein and a book about the Manhattan Project. We're doing a lit study on Fahrenheit 451 (or whatever # it is). We're working through 2 chemistry kits and a VEX IQ robotics kit. I'm going to have them work in a group with the robotics kit and give them a task each week for a robot. They have to build a robot that can complete that task. I bought Happy Atoms - this is mostly for the 12 year-old, but I has having fun trying it out, too. I *want* to learn how to use a 3D printer - so we might spend a week on that at the end. Anyway, this unit study is going to take me out of my comfort zone (it's not just read this and narrate) and I think we're going to learn a lot. Anyway, yes, you can put together an endless number of unit studies that are fun. We did a Harry Potter semester one year (a loooong time ago). We even had the hat ceremony in the beginning and separated them into their "houses". They made shields with their house symbols on them. We had "potions" class (chemistry), etc. We did a unit study based on My Side of the Mountain one year - did survival skills, first aid skills, made first aid kits, went hiking, got a book on knot-tying and practiced tying different knots, learned fire safety and what to do in a fire, etc. Another thing you might be interested in- we did two Sonlight cores one year when we were having a rough time (ds4 was slowly killing our homeschool). Those are absolutely unit studies (IMO). We did core 100 - which is US History. Oldest two did core 300 (20th century history). My kids learned a ton. I don't think I ruined my kids' educations running our homeschool like this. My oldest starts college in January and she did just fine on the college placement tests. No remedial classes. She placed right into college level classes. (In fact, she tested out of a bunch of math.). She's very excited to start college (so she's not burned out).

Our school year ended at Thanksgiving (we're year-round homeschoolers). This was probably one of our most productive school years (last year was actually really productive, too). We took 10 field trips, which was awesome. Hits Intro to Chemistry kit (27 labs from Home Science Tools) - these were great, I'm using them again in January with a different kid Dimensions Math Real Science 4 Kids Astronomy & Biology (11 year-old loved this) The Great Chocolate Caper (logic) Using Grimm's fairy tales to teach German - also my new method for teaching German (which was a weird epiphany while I sat in a waiting room) Cartoon Guide to Genetics How They Croaked (even my husband wouldn't leave this book alone) Guinea Pig Scientists Max Axiom comics Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War II The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian The Night Wanderer National Geographic's The Indian Wars Life of Fred Statistics Radioactive (the book about Marie Curie and her family) Fasttranscripts.com - yes, it was fast and easy - lol - and for 5 bucks, it made transcripts that the college accepted Homeschooldiploma.com - gorgeous diploma Being done by lunch or early afternoon - we started doing PE and taking field trips again because of this - and it was a lot of fun Misses Memoria Press Latin - First Form and Latina Christiana (OK, we will never buy anything from MP again - apparently, this is the worst curriculum you could possibly use for right-brained, artistic learners - it was Mutiny on the Bounty in our schoolroom trying to use this) A Single Shard - yeah, we could not finish this book - it moved way too slowly - even the cats left the room when I started reading it out loud Medical Investigations 101 - the kids said this was awful - and it was awful expensive Bravewriter - I swear, this is the LAST time I try to use you, Bravewriter!! Crash Course Chemistry - I have a science degree and my first job offer was as a chemist....and even *I* couldn't understand what he was trying to say Things I Want to Change in January I want to move away from independent work - like the kids doing their schoolwork and checking the boxes. I'm going to try to run our homeschool more like I used to - like a one-room schoolhouse model. I want the kids to work more in a group than on their own. More discussions...more group projects...more active teaching instead of "here, read this". We are going to try....key word "try"...a loop schedule. Scheduling PE - we were doing PE once a week in the spring, but then it got hot....football started...ds16 broke his foot.... I want to get back to doing PE together once a week. We were meeting another family at the park and it was a lot of fun.

I've been shut down by other homeschoolers while trying to make conversation about curriculum with the "do whatever works best for your family" sing-a-long. You're right, it IS really sad. If they had a job teaching, they would want to chat about it sometimes with other teachers, right?? Also, when I ask a question or start a conversation, I am NOT looking for everyone to completely agree with me. I actually don't like that. I'm not seeing anyone excited about homeschooling, either - which is also sad. I usually look like a weirdo when I'm telling another homeschooling mom about this great visual history book I found...or how this chemistry lab kit was awesome - all the labs worked... Lol. No one else is excited to share what they're doing and they've usually never heard of what resource I'm talking about. It is lonely and isolating (you're right).

I agree with whoever wrote about the charter school money affecting the curriculum market. I think a lot of curricula has doubled in price and I'm thinking that's why. My sisters homeschooled in the early 90s and my mom says that there just wasn't anywhere to buy curriculum. She would go to Barnes and Nobles (lol) and buy my sisters' schoolbooks. They didn't have any homeschool groups where they lived or anything like that. The school superintendent told my mom not to let my sisters be seen outdoors during school hours or someone might call the police.

I basically have 4 teens + a 4 year-old. Oldest is starting college in January. So, I have one starting college and one starting Kindergarten at the same time. Yes, it IS like an episode of The Twilight Zone...... I will say that after trying to homeschool 4-5 kids at once all these years, I am actually very excited to only have 1 to homeschool. We're going to have so much time to do stuff together!!

Yeah, we learn a lot that's "unplanned". DD14 just spent two days telling me all about the Navajo Marines in WWII, the Japanese soldiers on the islands in the Pacific and Marine training, because of a book she read and a movie she watched. She was relentless, too. She just kept following me around, telling me about it. lol. Must've been an interesting book!

I guess I could be more detailed - I didn't think about it until someone mentioned -it probably does help other parents see a list. Our unit study will take us to the end of February, when I'll have to create the next one... ds4 (turning 5): My Father's World Kindergarten dd12's math + LA + unit study Dimensions Math (continuing) Where the Red Fern Grows + Progeny Press Guide Easy Grammar Plus (it takes our family 2 years to get through this) Sequential Spelling Case for Christ for Kids (Bible) Albert Einstein and the Theory of Relativity (Biography) Intro to Chemistry Kit (27 labs from Home Science Tools) Happy Atoms VEX IQ Robotics (they are all going to work as a team to perform tasks) Draw 50 Buildings and Other Structures Field Trip to a Flight Museum ds16 and dd14 math + LA + unit study Mathusee (one is in Algebra 2 and the other is in Geometry) Easy Grammar high school series Sequential Spelling 5 (yeah, the 14 ASKED for this...) Fahrenheit 451 + Progeny Press Literature Guide Genesis (Bible) Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb (History) MicroChem Kit (17 labs - from Home Science Tools) Electricity Kit (also from HST) Happy Atoms VEX IQ Robotics (like I said above, they'll work as a team to build robots to perform specific tasks) Art - stack of books on drawing different buildings and vehicles Field Trip to a Flight Museum After this unit study, ds16 and I have started talking about creating a unit study on 3 revolutions: the American Revolution, the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution. But, I haven't started planning that one, yet. Just starting to think about it.

Hello! And I have a junior, too.

We're year-round calendar schoolers. I don't like planning - stresses me out. I like the actual teaching part better. Also, I'm now only teaching 4 (Kid #1 graduated). We're still doing unit studies. I only have the first unit study planned. Ds16, dd14 and dd12 are doing a Chemistry/Robotics unit study + math + Progeny Press literature guides. Ds4 is going to start My Father's World Kindergarten.

We had to cut about a fourth of the books out, because there was no way we could read that fast. lol

There were a lot of posts about using W for 9th grade on the Sonlight forums (before they shut down). If you google it, I bet you will find some blog posts. I would use it, if you think he would enjoy it and it matches the level he's working at. We've used Cores 100 and 300. 300 could also be considered world history. My kids learned a TON in 300. The only thing we didn't like about SL was the writing and the pace of reading. I ended up using their comprehension questions as writing prompts. I also had to almost half the reading sometimes, because it moved too quickly.

I have/used almost all the LOF books from Apples to Statistics, so here's my opinion. At the Pre-algebra level and beyond, it is a complete curriculum for the type of learner that would use LOF. None of my kids were able to understand/master fractions and decimals from the two books (LOF Fractions and LOF Decimals and Percents). Out of all his books, I think the Fractions book is actually the worst. Key to Fractions is a gazillion times better at teaching fractions. The high school series is HARD. We were not able to finish the Statistics book and there were actually problems dd17 and I couldn't solve without looking at the answers. We didn't use LOF exclusively (just exclusively for Statistics, but used the other books as a supplement to Saxon Algebra 1 and 2 and MUS Geometry). When dd17 took her math placement test at the college, she tested into the highest math possible. She tested right into College Statistics. She said that she recognized a bunch of the questions on the test as the type of questions she'd worked through in the LOF book and the computer kept giving her a ton of statistics questions, so she must've been getting the statistics questions right (the college placement test was an adaptive test on a computer - if you answer a question right, the questions get harder until you can't answer them anymore). She only has to take one math class for her Bachelor's degree (statistics - Lol). Anyway, sorry for rambling...so the short version of my story is I don't regret using LOF - I think it actually helped dd17 a lot, but we weren't able to use it below the pre-algebra level on its own. I do think the high school series is fine on its own if you have a student who clicks with that kind of learning.

I didn't want to post, because I didn't want to be seen as hijacking the thread, but I can't ignore this. I hope you're able to find something. Is there a college campus nearby, by any chance? Sometimes, they have activities/workshops/classes for kids. I'm sorry you're having such a hard time! And it does get lonely at the high school level - even in the city. It seems like most people put their kids back in school around 8th grade. Anytime we look for classes or activities, I have to email them and ask specifically if there are older kids - otherwise, we show up and it's a bunch of 8 year-olds and my 16 year-old (Um, awkward....). I hope you're able to find a good group of friends!

I had to use boxed curriculum after having our 5th baby (like I mentioned above) - My Father's World and a year of Sonlight. Those ended up being a good couple of years! You do what you gotta do! lol

If I have to give ourselves a label, I think we are probably considered Unit Study homeschoolers, but I use a lot of CM principles (copywork, narration, dictation, living books, classical science, etc). I actually have not met anyone IRL who homeschools like we do (I'm sure they're out there somewhere). I generally put together our unit studies myself. This year (in fact, it was ALL year), we studied Native America. We covered Native American history, the different tribes that lived throughout North America, contemporary literature written by NA authors, geography of North America....etc. Anyway, this was just a huge unit study - we're actually almost done - two weeks left and then we stop school until January (we're calendar year homeschoolers). In January, our unit studies are going to be much shorter (about 8-9 weeks), because this one was very long. We started burning out in October. I'm planning a unit study centered around The Manhattan Project during World War II. We have a bio of Einstein, that graphic novel about the making of the atomic bomb (Trinity), two kids are working through the 17 MicroChem Labs and one kid is working through 27 Intro to Chemistry Labs, we are going to do VEX IQ Robotics projects together. For art, I'm adding in how to sketch machine/robot/vehicle books and a book on drawing architecture. They are also reading future-themed books along with the Progeny Press guides. The high schoolers are reading Fahrenheit 451 (or whatever that number is - lol) and the middle schooler is reading A Wrinkle in Time. Sorry that was so long-winded. That's what we do. And we've done some prepared unit studies, too. We've done some My Father's World....a year of Sonlight. My youngest starts My Father's World Kindergarten in January.

We live right down the highway from TCU and know someone who teaches there. Look at its tuition. It is very, very, very expensive. They have all kinds of camps and stuff for kids during the summer, but it seems like anything associated with that place is unaffordable to Regular Joes. I know fraternities/sororities are a big deal there. They have a nice, safe campus. My son does track club meets there in the summer. UT Dallas would be much more affordable.

History of Warfare Paleobiology with Labs Entrepeneurism Genetics

We live in TX and I can see 35 from my living room. I'm a couple of miles away from the #1 human trafficking location in the state. People in Texas are very aware of what's happening - it's just the rest of the country that isn't. And this stuff isn't just Texas along the border. We don't live along the border. The problems are all up and down the state. We have to be careful when our kids play outside. There are a lot of abduction attempts in this area. I always sit outside when they're out - even when the 12 year-old plays outside. The abduction attempts come in waves. When there's one in our area, I know there's going to be about 3-4, so we are extra careful. DD17 was even followed for several blocks by a car while she was walking the dog. It was the one time she didn't have a phone on her. She ended up just taking off running with the dog.