Free Republic Homeschool Forum 2008-2009

July 24, 2008 | Tired of Taxes

[Tired of Taxes]

Free Republic Homeschool Forum 2008-2009
A spot for homeschoolers on Free Republic to share information

Once again, we are reviving our Free Republic Homeschool Forum where homeschoolers can share tips and talk about curriculum for the upcoming year.

Below is a list of educational books, curricula, and other resources recommended by homeschoolers on Free Republic. This list was compiled, updated, and reformatted using the suggestions many of you gave on our last thread. (If any corrections are needed, please advise.)

Feel free to add more of your favorite books and products to the comments below. Which curriculum has worked well for your family? Share advice with other homeschoolers.

A big, hearty CONGRATULATIONS to all homeschoolers who graduated this year!

And, as always, many, many thanks to Jim Robinson and Free Republic for the continued support!

[Tired of Taxes]

Where can I find good information on making high school transcripts? My son starts freshman year this semester.

So does one of mine (I'm trying not to panic), and I hope to read lots of advice here. ;-) I think the Donna Young website under "Recordkeeping" has free transcript forms. Others here have recommended NARS (see "Diplomas & Transcripts") which gives official credit (fees involved).

[JenB]

Can’t help you there, we didn’t really spend much time looking for courtship materials. If you’re updating your site, make sure you have information about internet courtship! The hardest thing in our relationship was that we were very far from each other and our families so most of the traditional courtship strategies I’d heard of just didn’t work.

[TalonDJ]

although my homeschooled husband and I found each other on FreeRepublic,
***Well, that’s pretty freeping cool...

It was a thread about homeschooling too.

Since we are on the subject... someone should write a book 'How To Meet And Marry On The Internet Without Getting Axe Murdered'.

[TalonDJ]

If anyone is looking for lab science at home...

Castle Heights Press

[sitetest]

How about the Calvert curriculum?

Although we no longer use the entire package, it’s a great, rigorous boxed curriculum, especially for early elementary school years.

http://www.calvertschool.org

[JenB]

someone should write a book 'How To Meet And Marry On The Internet Without Getting Axe Murdered'.

Hmm. Chapter 3: "Have Your First Date be a Group Outing with Lots of Friends. With Guns."

I seem to recall that strategy worked well.

[cyclotic]

Here’s my best advice, get your kids involved in one or two activities and excel at them. Don’t get so “socialized” that the kids just touch on 50 different groups and things. As you’ll see from my tagline, I’m involved in Boy Scouts. Find a home school friendly Pack or Troop for cub and Boy Scouts and get involved. It teaches young men the correct things of life.

On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.

My daughters were in Girl Scouts for a while, but it wasn’t the same. However, a new Christian centered organization is coming on strong. If you have young girls, find or start an American Heritage Girls troop.

[SuziQ]

Our kids attended a local Community College for their Math and Science courses. They got their high school credits, and got some college credits which were transferred to the four year colleges to which they were admitted!

The only requirement from the Community College for them to take classes was that they take a placement test. This gave the school a benchmark by which to determine at which level they should start. For example, our daughter didn't do well on the writing part, but extremely well on the Math. Our son was just the opposite. They both enjoyed their classes, and because some of theirs were at night, they had quite a mix of students; some closer to their age, some older, and going back to school to finally get their degrees. It was quite enlightening for our kids.

[SuziQ]

Loretta Heuer wrote an excellent book, The Homeschooler's Guide to Portfolios and Transcripts.

I'm a procrastinator, and knew I needed some oversight, so I registered our 2 homeschoolers with NARHS (North Atlantic Regional High School), so they'd have an accredited diploma at the end of it all. It's not that expensive, and it was great for my peace of mind. I still had to prepare a portfolio and transcript at the end of each year, and submit the evidence of their having done the work required for each course. This meant that at the end of four years, all that work was there, and credentialed, and the school submitted the information to the Admissions offices of the colleges to which our kids applied. I didn't have to do a portfolio for EACH college application.

Our daughter graduated in 2006, and our youngest son will be graduating this month, and will head off to college in August!
WHEW!

[SuziQ]

"Have Your First Date be a Group Outing with Lots of Friends. With Guns."

*snort*

[HungarianGypsy]

do they need any kind of transcript before enrolling? many of the online schools required a transcript ahead of time.

[SuziQ]

Nope, you just contact the school and send in the registration form. You will need to provide them with a Curriculum Worksheet, which shows the work your student will be doing, and give them the information about textbook publishers, etc. That's so the school can be sure that the materials you intend to use are actually high school level material. You can click on the NARHS website ,and it will give you all the info you need. You can download their Student Manual, and from there, can print out the Registration form, Curriculum worksheet, etc.

If your student has already attended high school, you can have the school send NARHS the transcript, and NARHS will blend that information into their own records, showing the credits your student has already earned.

I liked NARHS because our kids were able to create their own courses, and get credit for their work! Our daughter taught herself Japanese, and Digital Video Editing and we just provided proof in the form of translations of Japanese works and grammar instruction books, and sent them DVDs of some Anime Music Videos that she created for the Video Editing course. You can be very creative in how the subjects are studied, and the kids will stay interested and learn SO much!

[metmom]

Another resource homeschoolers might want to take advantage of, or look into.

*Better Late than Early* is a book by Drs. Moore and Moore and is excellent for understanding how kids learn and early childhood education. I read it some years ago and would strongly recommend it to anyone with small children. The book can be found through Amazon. I didn’t know if posting the link was permitted since it’s selling something.

http://www.moorefoundation.com/
http://www.moorefoundation.com/article.php?id=3

[Tired of Taxes]

LearnsFromMistakes sent the list below from his wife. (Thank you again!)

Buy/Sell curriculum:
http://www.homeschoolclassifieds.com/
http://market.hslda.org/Auction/xcAuction.asp
http://www.thecurriculumcoop.com/

Naturally Simple Homeschooling: http://www.naturallysimple.org/FreeorlowpriceOnlineHomeschoolResources.htm
http://www.homeschoolplanet.com/

Lapbooking:
http://www.dinah.com/
http://www.tobinslab.com/
http://www.geocities.com/gibsevengang/lapbooks.html

Letterboxing in North America:
http://www.letterboxing.org/

Math Worksheets:
http://donnayoung.org/math/
http://www.edhelper.com/math.htm
http://www.smartalecbooks.com/
http://www.superkids.com/aweb/tools/math/
http://themathworksheetsite.com/

rent calculators: http://www.rentcalculators.org/

Unit studies:
http://www.waldsfe.org/Study%20Topics.htm

Music Forms:
http://highland.hitcho.com.au/musicforms.htm

Spanish: http://www.jvlnet.com/~liliana/Spanish_Numbers.html

to keep portfolio’s of student portfolio…
http://www.osportfolio.org/
http://donnayoung.org/forms/planners/

Educational board games: http://edweb.sdsu.edu/courses/edtec670/cardboard/CardboardCognition.html

Trivia games: http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/web_games_menu.htm
http://www.funbrain.com/

Science:
http://www.bartleby.com/107/indexillus.html

Maps:
http://www.netstate.com/states/symb/seals/ia_seal.htm
http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/namerica/namera.htm

History:
http://historylink101.com/

presidents:
http://www.presidentsusa.net/

[latina4dubya]

can't wait to hit the Area 127 booth at our homeschool convention this weekend...

i also like: Memoria Press, Veritas Press (as you do), Pennywise Learning, Peace Hill Press and Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers (for Latin and Greek material)...

[SuziQ]

One of our favorite books for Latin and Greek roots was "English From the Roots Up" The kids enjoyed learning the roots of common, and not so common, English words, and it was terrific for learning vocabulary.

[Tired of Taxes]

I’m glad you asked that question. I just spent months searching for a high school biology book for our eldest child. Every book I found either was too expensive, didn’t include enough information, and/or included controversial topics that had nothing to do with biology. So, I’ll be checking into the biology curricula recommended here, too.

[Tired of Taxes]

Ping to RightWingTeen. (I think I was pinged by mistake.)

[Tired of Taxes]

Thanks for all of your input. The next Homeschool Resources list will be updated with the resources and links you recommended.

[latina4dubya]

One of our favorite books for Latin and Greek roots was "English From the Roots Up"

that's one of my favorites! we've gone through all 200 roots... and i still have my son hit them once a week.... i do not want him to forget them... it helps that we do Latin... the roots come up all of the time...