I also encourage including a selection from a different culture like: - A Long Walk to Water - Refugee - Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry

I use Canvas which is free. It is a full learning management system so you can keep it as simple as a course to do list with or without due dates or as complicated as turning in all assignments, giving online auto-graded quizzes, and grade tracking.

SciShow Kids Fun Science Bill Nye the Science Guy CoolPhysicsVideos TheBackyardScientist There is another series with a kid and his dad.

I took a comprehensive Strong Interest Inventory test and Myers-Briggs test in high school and it was spot on. It was administered by the military (meaning it is also what they use). But it is the same test you can get from their website. I took some free tests and they are just not as comprehensive (meaning they don't ask as many questions) and thus not as accurate or as complete (meaning the results were not as informative and they didn't completely capture 'me', some results were just wrong). If you want complete, valid results, go ahead and pay for the real test.

After I have decided what will be taught and what curriculum will be used, I: - take each curriculum and chose what each lesson will cover. Place each lesson into Canvas (used to use spreadsheets). Include any needed supply lists, youtube links, web links, supplemental material on the lesson page in Canvas. I do this for the entire curriculum over the summer. It takes me a couple hours per day for about a month to get everything done. But when the school year starts we are open and go and I know that each lesson is thought out and we aren't missing anything important. It also gives me a birds-eye view in that I can see overlaps that can be skipped or covered quicker the 2nd time around. I can also make different subjects coordinate (for specific topics, not all year). For example, we did a link between history, science, art, and reading last year that was awesome and allowed the kids to grasp the information on a deeper level. On school day, we open the lesson in Canvas, do what it says and then mark it as complete. They can also take quizzes in Canvas and turn in assignments there as well. Planning --takes time and effort --- but just makes these easier when it is show time.

Math - Glencoe Pre-Algebra History - MOH 4 Science - Holt Physical Science supplemented with lots of reading and experiments about physics (will skip chemistry chapters because we did Chemistry this year). Spanish - Spanish for Children B + RAZ Spanish book + Rosetta Level 3 + iTalki tutoring for conversation Reading - Read classical literature and discuss using Progeny Press Guides or similar + self-guided reading + Figurative Language Language Arts: Writing - Writeshop 1 + The Creative Writer Grammar - Fix It Level 3 & 4 Spelling - Megawrods 3 &4 Vocabulary - Ceasars English II using Mentor Network Bible - God's Great Covenant Old Testament Electives: Piano Sports - Basketball and Baseball (all in evenings with public school kids) Python Programming One hour free study period every day to work on assignments, projects, or self-directed learning. That seems like a lot but we get it done. We school 8-3 with breaks and some subjects alternate days; several only take 10-20 minutes.

My competitive boys like Quizlet. Another thing is to get him to internalize his competitiveness...compete with himself...his best. So, for example, let's see if this handwriting exercise can be better than your last where better means neater, not faster. ... You made a 90 on the last spelling test, now shoot for a 100. ... Can you get 2 in a row ... How long can this 100 streak last ... Let's see if you can finish this spelling test with a 100 and its neat and within 3 minutes. So just keep adding layers of him competing with his prior efforts.

What I am trying to wrap my mind around is this: even if that is what you were teaching, why would that have been the response? Given the nature of the course, is the expectation that you are going to agree with everything taught? I would think that - in signing up for a course like this - the goal is to learn how to evaluate and discuss different perspectives, respectfully, even when you strongly disagree. Thus, strongly disagreeing with what she thinks the message was, is the opportunity to learn and practice standing in your beliefs, arguing your side, and respectfully listening to the other side, while strongly disagreeing with it - and formulating arguments for your side and arguments against their side. If you are going to split and run as soon as you don't agree with a perspective, why sign up for such a course in the first place. Appropriately, sit with the daughter and discuss that this is the view of some and this is how I think about it and how we handle it and etc... and maybe return to class with a rebuttal. I don't see what you could have done differently because the nature of the course is to ruffle feathers. If you can't stand the heat (or aren't ready for it), stay out of the kitchen. My grandma always told me: a guilty conscious speaks. It may not be the message you sent, but it is the message that was heard and there is a reason for that, that is beyond your control.

"Mom, what state is Texas in?" "Texas is a state." "Then what is Dallas?" ...There is now a huge map in our homeschool room.

let him decide. ds10 still goes back and forth and we have realized that he is even-handed. He does everything with both hands except basketball where he can ONLY shoot with his left --- weird! My mom is a lefty and she said that I showed signs of being even-handed, but when I started school, the teachers forced me to be a right-handed writer. But it shows up in other areas like I can bat with both hands and I am left-footed (track and field thing). My husband writes right and does absolutely everything in sports as a lefty ... bats, shoots, throws. I can tell you that in sports a lot of dads train their sons to be left-handed batters. If you do it early enough, the sons have no preference and it is natural to them. So it makes me wonder if handedness has a strong link to nurture (or ability to be nutured). Maybe more of us are righties (or not even-handed) because our parents gave us things in our right hand --- so we used it more?

If I think back to when my kiddos were in public school, I would say that notebook paper was a vintage supply that I love. They had us buy spiral notebooks and they all came home unused at the end of the year. Imagine a year of no real written output. It was all click an answer or bubble in one. Now that we homeschool, that 'vintage' notebook paper is used daily 🙂

IMO, for the ages of your children, MOH is sufficient and the Levels will be appropriate. Remember you will go through history again. The second time through I would not use MOH because I don't consider it high school level. It is written so that younger students are in Level 1 - which is why it is easy - and those same kids are older once they hit Level 4 - so it gets more mature and lengthy. There are details that it glosses over, but I believe that is because it is considering the age of its target audience. The audio has two options in some cases --- one for youngers and one for olders, not sure if the book has this. The deeper details that are missing are not needed at this age, they will get that the 2nd time through history. There is a lot of church history, but I think that is great. My sons enjoyed learning all of that - we all know have a good understanding of why there are so many 'types' of Christians and church denominations. I didn't find nonchurch history lacking - they just didn't get into the weeds of some issues - which would be a little much for younger kids anyway. But again, I don't view it as high school level, when you teach history over from the beginning, you will choose another resource that was written for high schoolers which MOH was not -- it was written to span a wide age group.

Whatever you get, make sure he knows how to use it. You'd be surprised. But you don't want him using test time to figure out how to do a square root (for example).

Oh, well I think you should definitely look into doing MOH for history. You can buy the audio cds and just sit and listen to the lessons. The yahoo group has listening guides, timeline figures, and coloring pages. The older can fill in the listening guide as he listens and the youngers can color the appropriate page while they listen. Then you all can put the lesson on a timeline with a date and a one-sentence summary. I do not believe that the MOH gets into the age of the earth much. It starts with Creation and goes from there. It interweaves the history of the world with history as written in the bible. So one lesson may be about the Children of Isreal and then the next lesson about the Babylonian civilization. It is a time-ordered telling of history and shows (indirectly) how the writing in the Bible lines up with other historical writings ... same names and time periods. I will try to find and post one of those MCT schedules. We use MCT + Writing & Rhetoric together because W&R gives the practice and guidance that MCT doesn't. But MCT gives the structure, understanding, and relevance. I would use MCT or Well-Ordered Language, not both. The practice books are all the grammar practice that is needed.

Is MCT working? If so, I would stick with it and instead take some time to write out a structure for it. There were some day-by-day schedules posted here a while back. Let us know if MCT is working and if we should help you structure it or if you really want something other than MCT. If it's the latter, I would suggest looking at the following: Well-Ordered Language + Writing & Rhetoric by Classical Academic Press (Christian) Fix It Grammar For unstructured science (zoology), my boys watched all episodes of Wild Kratts (amazon prime) and are animal experts to the point where a Yellowstone guide 'offered' them a job. They did this in their free time and as I 'taught' them zoology from Apologia, I saw how much they already knew. We could have skipped it, but they enjoyed reviewing it all. You should also state if you want Christian or not because that makes a difference in History and Science. I can tell you Christian because that is what we used up until Middle School where I felt they needed exposure to the non-Christian point of view. For Science we used Apologia Young Explorer Series with the Notebooks. Very structured, open and go except for experiments. You can find videos on youtube to accompany each lesson. If you are non-Christian, it is very easy to not read the Christian parts as you read to your kids. I even skipped some because Christian texts can often try too hard if you know what I mean. For structured history, we used Mystery of History, but this is strictly for Christians because you cannot skip over the Christian parts. MOH has a free yahoo group that has all types of activities and tests to help you add some output to the course.

I am three years in but why not share: 1. What was the main deciding factor that led you to make this decision? The effect that standardized testing was having on education. The kids are taught what is on the test and nothing else; no science, no history, no grammar, no writing (unless it is the year it is tested). They are tested in reading and math and they spend most of the day there and too much of this teaching was focused on test strategies and not subject matter content. But I think what bothered me the most was that the schools are designed to teach to a mininum level. Students who reach that minimum level are sat to the side in front of a worksheet or computer while the teacher works with the other students. This is what they call differentiation. By the end of the year, my child had modest improvement, while those who were 3 ticks behind him had pulled within 1 tick. Fine, I am happy for them, but they have no resources to give every child quality instruction so that all children can improve from where they started. 2. Are your kids on board? Anybody have kids who are not excited about the idea? They were 100% on board. We had a family meeting where we talked about what wasn't working in school and how we wanted our homeschool to look. The boys decided that we would have 2 science classes each year and we do :). My oldest who was in 3rd grade when we decided stated many of the frustrations that I had (and had never told him). He didn't like that they never do science because that is his favorite. He didn't like that all he got to do was that boring computer stuff and worksheets. And he hated that all they talk about is the test, test, test. Both kids wanted more science and more project-based learning. 3. How is your family reacting? In the African American community, we have that extra guilt trip of ...but we fought so hard and people died so we could participate in equal education. We actually kept it a secret for a year. We told the kids not to lie, if someone asked about school tell them how it was going, but the fact that it was at home was a family secret. We finally told and my MIL actually screamed at the top of her lungs, 'NO! You did not take those kids out of school!' She even tried to talk the kids into wanting to go back but they don't and let her know it. Two years later she helps to check their work, is ok with it, impressed, supportive, but still has mixed emotions and still asks every now and then if they are ready to go back to school. I know her mixed emotions are from ... but I couldn't go to equal schools and they can.

There are a lot of end-of-year activities that your daughter may be looking forward to like field trips, parties, and field day. So discuss with her and see how she would feel about it; letting her know that she would miss those events. I don't think I would teach her to skirt the responsibility of homework. One day she may do that to one of your expectations of her and you kind of taught her that it was ok. But maybe she should do the best that she can for the 15 minutes expected and turn that in and let the teacher know that she worked hard for 15 minutes and this is what she was able to accomplish. Then you reward her with a piece of candy (or whatever) for her 15 minutes of effort. The teacher may be underestimating the time commitment needed and you may be able to get less homework assigned to her - after demonstrating what is realistic for your child - if she wants to stay in school.

My sons, while in PS, did the wide topics approach and once I brought them home, we did the one-subject in depth approach. They love science. Their retention was definitely better with the one-topic deeply approach. When we did Apologia Zoology, we did all three books in one-year - so we didn't stay on one animal / animal group for long. We watched lots of youtube videos and documentaries that year - it was a pretty fun experience. We especially loved the Titus the Gorilla documentary. We also did drawings, habitat models, and the world map of every animal we studied. We are sticking with the one-topic approach due to retention and depth of knowledge.

We used Christian Kids Explore Earth Science and did it at the same time as Apologia Zoology - but my kids love science. So two sciences a year is normal for us.

I think more people use algebra and algebraic thinking than they realize. Since they had to learn it, it became part of their intuition and in the areas that they have to use it, it is so intuitive at this point that they don't even think about it as such. Get math out of the -its a problem involving numbers and symbols that you work out on paper or mentally- box. I have entire math books that don't have a number in them or don't require one calculation to do a problem. The better a person is in Algebra, the better they would be able to handle such problems that require analytical/logical reasoning and critical thinking - without doing one calculation. Most adults use this type of thinking and reasoning every single day, especially when making a major decision. Arithmetic only requires a calculator, but Algebra requires coming up with the problem to solve - becoming a problem solver. Adults problem solve every day; no one is presented with a math problem. They are presented with known information and unknown information and they have to figure out how to organize the known information to figure out the unknown: algebra. BTW: none of this information has to involve numbers or symbols. Algebraic thinking is not just about numbers. When I went for my first jobs with my degree in Math, I could apply anywhere I wanted. I went on 3 interviews and was offered 3 jobs. Each person told me, if you can learn math, I can teach you anything. They understood that math wasn't just about numbers. I think a lot of the requirements to have a GED to sweep floors has to do with competition (they would lower the requirements if they had trouble filling those jobs or they would up the pay to get the people they want) or its because employers feel that the effort to get a GED or diploma shows something about your character that makes you an attractive employee. Perhaps they went through a period where they hired high school dropouts and it was a disaster because of employee quality. I say this from experience because I was involved with a decision to move a company because of the quality of the workforce available (read: high school dropouts) and all they had to do was factory work. They weren't very teachable and struggled with effort. But I am on the fence about Algebra being required. To me, you are actually asking should society conform to education or should education conform to society. If it is the latter than Algebra must be required. Our workforce needs to be able to think at that level or we will keep importing it. We stop requiring Algebra and we may end up importing more employees. If it is the former than the question is: should certain jobs require a diploma? I think the competition for those jobs have and will make that decision because there is no law saying that you must require a GED for this job. The companies decided to require it based on the workforce available to them. If you have a company and you get applicants with and without a GED/diplmoa, who would you hire - all other equal? Competition is making that decision and I think competition should continue to make that decision. A GED is not a death sentence. Many use the GED to go to community college to learn a trade or get an associates. So if someone stops at a GED, that was their circumstances or their choosing. Another angle to this question is: are students having trouble passing the Algebra course or a state Algebra end of course exam? In my state, it is the exam. Perhaps the exam needs to be looked at. The state exam has done more to ruin mathematics education than anything. Teaching to pass a math test and teaching math can be very different. So I say get rid of the exam and let colleges and society decide if they know enough math to succeed there. Then teachers can teach the students and not the test. At the very least the test should be much easier -like basic algebra not advanced topics like synthetic division. So passing an Algebra course really only requires that you know basic algebra well (the 1st half of the book) and you treaded water through the more advanced polynomial stuff (2nd half). The first part is mostly a review of middle school math. So yes, you should have to pass Algebra for the society we live in. No, you should not have to pass an Algebra exam that focuses mostly on the 2nd - more advanced part of Algebra. Sorry I rambled some.

Have you tried to approach new concepts as an extension of old concepts; making each new lesson an extension of the prior lesson instead of something new altogether? I haven't seen CLE but perhaps she needs lessons that are incremental - small increments. Often my students don't even know we are in a new lesson because I start every lesson as a review and then we natural extend the material into new concepts. Before they know what has happened, we've covered the next lesson. I use a discovery style of presenting though which lends itself to a gradual release of new concepts. Taking a break is a good idea, but if the delivery of the math instruction is a problem, then the stress will return once the break is over. Just an idea that may or may not help.

We did one and will not do another - ever. A lot of work for very little reward. After it was done, my kids asked; 'Couldn't we have just read all of this stuff somewhere?' I think if they were less than 7, the visual appeal would have delighted them, but at 9 they were over it. But mine are boys who don't enjoy crafts.

I had to read it 3 times because I thought I was missing the punch line. But -WOW- they really did think that!

We read an 'on your own' book and a class book. We discuss the class book in depth and do literature guide type stuff. The 'on your own' book is where they can read for fun - they choose - they orally summarize each chapter for me. This has worked for us and I like that they experience the -sometimes I have to read certain text because of a need-, but that doesn't stop me from reading for enjoyment on my own. They often enjoy our class books though - even with the literature guide activities.

For a standardized test that you could grade yourself, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) publishes several old STAAR exams and they are available on their website. You could give them one of those and grade it yourself. Your state may do the same. However, I don't know of any National Exam that you could grade yourself.