My husband, J, and I have five children - four boys and a red-headed girl right in the middle.
My husband just returned home from serving in Afghanistan with the military (Go Army!) - he is my friend and strength and I wouldn't want to do this without him
We are getting ready to start our eighth year of homeschooling, and the kids are all very active in sports and our church programs. Our homeschooling style is more traditional, but the text books and curriculum are chosen specifically to suit our educational goals and our family's style.
I am blessed beyond what I deserve.
Thanks to those who responded to my question about 7th grade math. I really appreciated the suggestions and it gave me some places to start researching.
It sounds like a couple of you have been really impressed with Teaching Textbooks and I went through all of their material. I really liked it and thought the material was well done.
In researching, I also came across Chalkdust Company. It is also a video math curriculum, but there is a real person teaching in this program. Does anyone use Chalkdust or have an opinion on that curriculum vs. Teaching Textbooks?
At this point, I think I'm going to go with Teaching Textbooks because it comes recommended by you guys who are actually using it AND it's about half the price of Chalkdust. But I just wanted to know if someone had tried Chalkdust and what they thought. It's the part of my personality that "can leave no stone unturned".
I too compared TeachingTextbook and Chalkdust. I went with Chalkdust for these reasons:
1. I was buying PreCalculus and Teaching Textbooks PreCalc version was brand new and therefore untested.
2. Dana Mosley (the Chalkdust presenter) is AWESOME! Man, is he good! I have an enginering dergree and so does my husband (Purdue U)and we both agreed that he's the best math teacher we've seen- and we've seen A LOT of math teachers!!!
3. My dd was bothered by not seeing the human talking in TT
4. Chalkdust uses a traditional textbook. I liked that.
5. Chalkdust shows the Precalc student how to use a graphing calculator. Not your issue with a 7th grader, but important to me.
Also, CD replaced for free two scratched DVDs. I think CD will have good resale value.
I'm buying CD for my younger dd starting Geometry soon. HTH!
Carol
I have been homeschooling my two children for 10 years. I purchased CDC Algebra I last year. My 9th grader joined a homeschool tutorial. They used Jacobs Elementary Algebra. She was not able to do the homework and I couldn't remember my Algebra from 23 years ago. I would watch CDC on DVD everyday as I walked on my treadmill. I did not do any bookwork and was still able to help my daughter with her homework much better. She didn't even watch the videos. She has always struggled with math although she is very bright. She finished the class with an A.
This year, she is again using Jacob's for Geometry. I still watch CDC's DVDs while walking. I still help her with her homework everyday. She is getting A's and B's.
I absolutely love CDC. I am going to buy the Basic Math for my son next year. He will do the curriculum the way it was intended to be used. I am confident that it will go very well. I will also purchase the Algebra II program to help my daughter get through her homework next year. (And no, I am not wealthy-it's just that valuable and it's cheaper than a tutor.)
If you haven't noticed, I am not fond of Jacob's and I haven't met anyone who is except the directors of my tutorial.
Posted by 
Posted by Michele -MD