Yep, that's what I thought Tina, just lounging while the rest of us were slaving away! :lol: I am looking VERY seriously at CLEP for my kids! I was dreading the thought of trying to pay for college (since my kids would go to Christian Colleges)! To CLEP seems like such a good idea to me, though I haven't yet put it into practice, since I just started looking at that option. I am finishing up reading "College Without Compromise" by Scott and Kris Wightman (ISBN 0-9773519-0-4). It talks about many different options and paths for getting a degree or just taking what will help you in a home business, etc. It's from a Christian perspective, and what a great book it is, imho! It's helped me a LOT! I think that we will start the boys studying for the US History test (the one with the highest pass rate! More likely to succeed in that) and see when they can take the test. That'll be a trial run to see how it goes. I'm kind of excited about it, and so are the boys. I have to finalize it all with dh, though he's pretty much on board already. Anyway, good to talk with you Tina! WELCOME HOME!
I looked, and the library doesn't have that book . Maybe I can find it on Inter Library Loan...... But it sure sounds interesting!
For the CLEP tests you pay a certain amount, the test is 90 minutes, and is pass/fail. You find out right then whether you pass or not. If you do, you get college credit for it. They store the pass or fail score, and you can call them to send it out whenever you're ready. They'll store it, or the score counts for 20 years! So, starting the kids young, if they can do that, is fine, and counts as college credit! In this way, also, it saves a TON of college costs! In fact, some kids get a two year college degree at the same time they graduate from highschool! Interesting.
Vol I covers "Earliest times to the discovery of the New World." (Roughly from the Beginning to about 1600.)Vol II covers "The Modern World to the Nuclear Age," starting with the age of expansion. These books, also, are from a disctinctly Christian viewpoint. IMHO, the major difference between Streams and MOH is that Streams covers each civilization more in its entirety & in more detail through more years of history. MOH, as you already know, takes world history as a wholeand keeps revolving from civilization to civilization down through the centuries. So, if we want the bigger picture for a certain culture, we get out our Streams book. It's more the standard way of studying history, and it, too, moves through the ages, but it studies each civilzation a little more seperately. Our fam was ready for the bigger picture for each historical age, for a change. MOH puts all the cultures together; so we get to see what everyone is doing all at once! This has been so helpful to me! Non-the-less, this does fracture the continuity of studying each culture; so that's why we refer to more standard texts from time-to-time, like Streams. They're both good! And they're easy to use together.
I knew that Streams was Christian, because it was used in my DSS's Christian school. I decided then that I was going to use it in my homeschool, but lost the book in the move. So you think the two, working together, would be a good base for an OLDER student? This year, we're doing Middle Ages in MOH, then next year we're doing American history. (I'm still looking for a good American history curriculum that I can use across ages, OR one for older kids. I have something for my younger ones if I want to use it!) By then, I'm hoping MOH III will be done for my younger ones, and that's when I'm thinking of Streams for Rachael. She'll be 9th grade by then.
Did you get to study from the book before you lost it? We've just studied Islam in MOH & are now studying the Vikings & their spread throughout Europe. Streams covers these topics toward the end of Vol I; so I could send you an extra Vol I we have, & you could experiment with them now & would have a better idea how to plan for Rachael's 9th grade. (I was so impressed with Streams that I wanted another copy so my students who are readers wouldn't argue over who gets it someday, but it's not going to be an issue; so you are welcome to it. Just pm me your address.) Look at The Light and the Glory and From Sea to Shining Sea, by Peter Marshall & David Manuel for American History. They are not textbooks, per se, but read more like novels. They show God's providence in history. There are other great resources for American History, too: we use a lot of biographies & historical novels. And I must mention George Washington, the Christian, by William J. Johnson, which includes some of the prayers Washington wrote out, & there's a little red pocket book of prayers, called Lincoln's Devotional, Channel Press, pub. in 1957, which we treasure. Well, Jackie, I'm getting carried away here, but I'd like to give you just a partial selection from one of President's Washington's prayers, quoted from the above book: "...I have called on thee for pardon & forgiveness of sins, but so coldly & carelessly, that my prayers are become my sin and stand in need of pardon. I have heard thy holy word, but with such deadness of spirit that I have been an unprofitable and forgetful hearer, so that, O Lord, tho I have done thy work, yet it hath been so negligently that I may rather expect a curse than a blessing from thee. But O God, who art rich in mercy and plenteous in redemption, mark not, I beseech thee, what I have done amiss; remember that I am but dust, and remit my transgressions, negligences & ignorances, and cover them all with the absolute obedience of they dear Son, that those sacrifices which I have offered may be accepted by thee, in and for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ offered upon the cross for me; for his sake ease me of the burden of my sins, and give me grace that by the call of the Gospel I may rise from the slumber of sin into the newness of life..." pp25-26 I will restrain myself & quit here.
Yes and no. I helped Michael study for a test a few times from Streams, but I've not sat down and read it. That's how I knew enough to know I wanted to use it! I did use "The Light and the Glory" for Rachael way back when, but I really didn't care for it. It goes into depth about some things, and totally skims over others. For example, I don't think they even mention the French and Indian War. It goes straight from the Pilgrims to the Revolution. I still have it and "From Sea to Shining Sea" and will probably read some of it to supplement.
You're right. The resources I mentioned work best as supplements for American History--things you won't find in ordinary texts. For our older two, we used a ps textbook & filled in with these & many others. For inspiration, I recommend Peter Marshall. For a systematic American history course, it lacks. Another good world history book we have is God's World--His Story, by Roger. L. Berry, a Christian Light Publication. And then, one of our very favorite resources is "The Wall Chart of World History From Earliest Times to the Present." I believe it is sold by the Weaver curriculum. The fact that it places the Jewish & Biblical timeline parallel to other civilizations is very helpful. You can see, for example, that Ruth was cultivating in Boaz' fields at the same time the Trojan horse was being smuggled into Troy! It is quite comprehensive in listing things, including the industrial age, space age, & computer age. Of course, like any time-line, it can't go into depth--only lists things. Never-the-less, after we found this, we dispensed with trying to make our own cumbersome timelines, except to reinforce a limited segment of history.
Another impression I just remembered about Peter Marshall's books, (and this is not to denigrate their worth as uniquely inspirational): He & his co-author told events from their view-point & put their intrepretation on almost everything, contrary to Linda Hobar, who says, things like, "This seems sad to me," or "This excites me." They tended to say things more as a fact that this WAS great or terrible or whatever--left little room for the reader to come to his or her own conclusion. They rarely just reported facts. Never-the-less, the books do reveal over-looked events, and we did feel that they had a lot of worth as supplements--so much so that we bought extra copies just to loan out.
I know EXACTLY what you mean, Prairie! That's another reason why I wouldn't use it for my primary source! Has anyone used "America's Providential History"?
I just ordered Mystery of History, Volumes 1 and 2! I hope they're worth it! I got a pretty good deal, I think, on Timberdoodle.
I just might have some ninth grade life paks to sell after this year because I have to take stock of what I have already taught my dd. She is in 9th and 8th remember... I am also going to use a history book we have and planning to give her a real teaching with lectures and such like what I have heard from some of you from the book I have. It is a History of the United States, and we have one about History of the Church too I think or something.. my hubby busy these things when he sees them just incase but I never had the bravery to try them untill I read that learning styles thing then I started thinking why not! I know how to teach, I can teach from a teacher book or make up my own for BIBLE studies why not work with the book and create lessons myself for it? I could find this to be totally fun! And since I need to do something to jump start my own homeschooling I think I will go with that! A history of Christianity is one, and Liberty by Flemming is the other one that I was talking about with he history book I am going to use to make my own , well, I was sorta close?
Teresa, The one thing I don't like about the LifePacs is that they are not very hands-on oriented, especially if you don't do all the experiements. If she's rushing through too much, then she may not be learning as much as you'd like her to??? Maybe she's doing fine, though. What time does she start her schoolwork in the morning? I guess that if I took the music part away from my 8th grader, that would be a little over an hour a day less that he'd be spending on schoolwork. There are a lot of variables to consider. So maybe she is fine and right on track. If you wonder about it, you could do some kind of kind of formal test and see what levels she scores on. She'd probably do well on those, huh? My kids do. But the different maths, like Saxon, etc., have tests you can print out and figure out what level they would be on. I did that one time, just to see what they would score. Then I did it for real the end of last school year so I could figure out what level of Saxon to get each of them. Anyway, just some thoughts...
That could be good , I knwo she is in 8th grade math and is only 12, still, but in sciecne she does SOS, and it has a lot of the experiment stuff on computer so we have nto done too many of them this year at least. Same with ds9 ... The ones he had were ones we have done so many times, ( at least three) so we discussed the outcome etc, on the celery experiments lol , they sure do a lot of them! Is there a web site I could print up a test from teh Saxon Math? She is doing pretty good with SOS math but I want to be sure she is covering everything... We did the variables and such this week and at first she was not sure what to do but then once she got the idea to look at the models the lesson had and see what one to follow for each problem it made it easier for her to "get it". I had fun because I had just taught this lesson last month at the Christian School so I just went over the same information with her! I love teaching!
Here's the site: http://saxonhomeschool.harcourtachieve.com/en-US/saxonhomeschool.htm There's a link on the left for Placement Tests.
