Homeschooling four kids, oldest is entering 9th grade, pretty advanced kiddo. I am looking at what biology class to take and I am not quite sure where to go. I am hoping to find something that is Biology Honors or PreAP. My husband suggests that we start to outsource the science so that it can free up time for me to work with our younger kids. Here are some places I have looked, though not indepth -- Thinkwell Honors Biology, Potterschool Honors Biology, MIT OCW Scholar Fundamentals of Bio, CTY Bio (EXPENSIVE!!) Any thoughts? Recommendations?

Thank you!

Thank you all SO much for your help! Another quick question...are the books, especially the digital books, able to be shared with other family members? I have looked all over the website and I haven't found any information about being able to share the book within a family. Meaning, if I get the digital copy of Intro to Algebra, can my son use it next year when it is his turn to use it? Or does he need his own copy purchased for him ($$$!!!!)

Thank you! We took the do you need this test for both algebra and geometry and the are you ready for geometry and seem to be in a great spot to press forward with Geometry. She’s soooooo excited! She’s been talking about it all day. Cake and Pi, thank you for your schedule suggestion! I didn’t see your post until this evening and it looks like a great solid schedule that we can swing. Do you think we could do geometry first and then the probability and then either algebra or number theory afterwards for 9th? Or is it better to hold off on geometry and do the probability class first? Thank you!

Thank you both so much for your insight and for sharing your children's experiences! I am going to have her take some of the placement tests today and run all the different options by DH. My DD is fairly intuitive with math, though with these being her first real exposure to AoPS maybe doing the Intro to Algebra would be a good choice or maybe that combined with C&P for the year. Thank you!

We have used Horizons math all the way up through Algebra 1, supplementing with CWP, and have had great success. Now we are looking for a Geometry curriculum and I can't believe I am just now finding AoPS. My daughter is going into 8th grade and as I am looking through the AoPS books, I can't see how she can get through the intermediate classes before she graduates. In my mind before seeing AoPS, she would do Geometry 8th, Alg 2 9th, Pre Cal 10, Cal 11 and then I wasn't sure. Now I am seeing AoPS and there are more classes then she can take. I am thinking we can do Intro to Geometry and skip Intro to number theory and intro to counting and probability, but is that a poor choice on my part? Should we not skip those? Is the number theory a full year course? Should we try and do both number theory and c&p this year, then geometry next year? Thank you for your advice and insight!

Thank you! Going to read other threads to see what we should do next.

My daughter has finished Horizons Y6 of math and is ready to move up to prealgebra type things. I looked at Horizons pre-algebra and am thinking that we might move to a different course of study because I don't expect Horizons to have the full highschool math program ready by the time she needs it. Where did you go after doing Horizons math? I thought about Saxon, but that is only because that is what I have heard of. Thoughts? Thanks!

OP here - Thank you all for your replies! We never celebrated grandparents day ever before, so it was totally out of the blue that my mom mentioned it. When we made bookmarks for my dad, we all made one, even my husband, so it was a gift from each one of us. Same with the cookies..we all pitched in and made cards, each of us, so really they were family gifts. I really couldn't figure out why or how including the kids was not a good idea, but it seems that there is quite the variety of approaches to the holidays, to include nothing with grandkids to full on family presents. To each his own, I guess! It caught me off guard..I wasn't mad or hurt, but just sort of wide eyed and curious as to how I missed something along the way, HAHAHA! I like the idea of next time, just a box of chocolates and a card from me. The goal is to make her feel loved and happy and if that is what she needs, then a box of chocolates just from me is what she shall get!! :) Thank you everyone!

So, this year for Mother's day, my kiddos and I baked some cookies and we all made homemade cards and mailed them to my mom. For Father's day, we all made book marks and I laminated them and we all made homemade cards and mailed them off too. I never thought twice about this, but when I had the chance to sit and chat with my mom (we don't live nearby, so this was the next time we saw each other) she was a bit snide and commented that there is such a thing as grandparents day and that on mother's day or father's day it wasn't appropriate (I made up that word..I forgot exactly what she said) for the grandkids to be sending gifts. Or something like that. I honestly can't quite remember, but the sentiment was that I shouldn't be sending gifts from the kids on mother's day or father's day. They should be just from me and or my husband. :huh: :huh: :huh: To be honest, I never thought about it too hard! But then again, maybe that is totally true and I am being off beat by making a homemade celebration from the whole family.... I don't think she was cranky or looking a gift horse in the mouth, but was more commenting on how strange I was thinking about the whole thing. What do you think? Strange? Not strange? Huh...

Sigh... So, my oldest is going into 5th grade and my youngest is turning 4 with two more kids in between. We have been homeschooling the entire time, doing school time in the morning, playing outside after lunch and then headed to extra curricular activities in the afternoon/evening. I feel like we are ALWAYS running around and never have time to settle in and just...be. I have been battling this idea for years, but in the end continue with the extra curricular activities because I think my kids benefit from making the friends and learning the sports or being involved in a group that is outside of our family (scouting, etc.) Then today I came across this blog post. This blog post is how I *wish* we spent our day. http://www.aholyexperience.com/2012/03/pros-cons-homeschooling-christian-educatio/ But we don't. First of all, I love that their Dad is home. Our dad isn't. He is always away at work. So we don't have involved Dad only because his job requires him to be away. I feel like I WANT to make a Little House on the Prairie life but I don't have the right tools. I am LIVING in modern society, because that is how it goes and there isn't much we can do to change it, yet trying to homeschool in a very centralized fully family oriented way seems like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Is it possible to have a Little House on the Prairie vision with suburbs, Daddy gone all the time with work, extended family far away... Or are you totally satisfied with living a suburban life, being a soccer mom, schooling in the morning and then running to and fro to "after school" activities. What do you do? How do you feel about it? I am like an 1800s woman born into the merging and now exploded technology age. HA!

Thank you all for the responses! I am actually in Florida :) Northwest Florida and there are SO many bugs here that I have never seen before. We moved here last summer and it is astounding the variety of critters that crawl and fly around here! :) From the side, it is very flat with legs sticking out...not a whole lot to him.

Found this sucker on my stairs hallway/wall far away from anything...like anything..bathrooms, windows, openings in walls, vents, etc. It's a mystery! Do you know what it is? Hoping hoping hoping it isn't a cockroach...we haven't had problems before but if it is one I guess we might need to look into it more..eek!

I was wondering the same thing! I have spent the past half hour trying to figure out how to stream it and I am having ZERO luck. So sad. :( We used to live where we could get antenna signals so it wasn't an issue, but our recent move has us without a tv signal and relying just on the internet. So far, no luck finding the parade online!

Anyone else use Homeschool Skedtrak? The website isn't working this morning and I don't know what we have on schedule today!! Guess I shouldn't have put my eggs all in one basket-I should have at least printed the schedule at the beginning of the year because now I don't know what we are going to do today! Oh golly....anyone else use the site and having luck today?