Just realize that you will be very busy even though hands on teaching will not be that important. As someone else said, your schedule is much more likely to be less flexible because of things like outside classes, online classes, sports leagues, extracurricular activities and later, college classes. Also, I found that in high school, much more of the day is spent on structured activities whether it is school subjects, athletics, extras like speech or debate or other competition preparation, and outside jobs. We no longer can take vacations in off season because of high school issues.

Actually I have met legalistic people who claimed that their rules made them holier or closer to God and implied that those who aren't following the rules are placing their salvation in jeopardy. Now this does not mean that everyone I have met who came from a stricter denomination from mine believed these things- not at all. I have had friends from a denomination that has no musical instruments and they haven't been judgemental at all. But I have met people who claimed that various rules (no use of psychotropic medications, only King James version, only YE, etc. are some sort of salvation issues or at least that they have a better chance of it that non followers of those rules who are endangering their chances). These encounters haven't been frequent and like I said, most people who are YE, or King James only or whatever other rules they have are perfectly gracious people who don't feel compelled to harangue others with differing beliefs just like I don't try to badger them into using the NASB or the ESV or any other version.

More for the younger one, much less for the older one. Right now, they are both doing an Earth science class with the first part is watching How the Earth Works from Teaching Company. We all three watch that together and I stop the DVD and ask questions or make comments or take their questions. We normally spend about 45 minutes to 50 minutes on the 30 minute lecture so it really counts as an hour class. But I am not doing that to add up time but rather to make sure they understand. On the other hand, older dd is finishing another lecture course in history and I don't watch that with her since she needs no extra help from me on that. I often go over both girls' math problems or give help as needed. I also teach a class in co-op for which my one daughter is a member so she gets that teaching too. Otherwise for my older, she mostly works alone and the younger has gotten much more independent too.

I would never use homeopathic medicines since I believe they are completely quackery. Now I guess if I thought someone had a condition that could be easily treating with a panacea, I could use one of these but I don't really see a need to buy anything else to get a panacea. The whole idea of homeopathy is like Mergath said that molecules have memories which makes no sense whatsoever. To make the medicines they dilute the poison which would cause a similar symptom to a level smaller than a drop in a large swimming pool. That is supposed to have our bodies react in much the same way vaccines work. Except that vaccines have actual dead (usually) virus in them for your body to make defenses against. The homeopathic medicine doesn't actually have anything for the body to make a defense. It comes from the same body of thinking where you take a plant that looks like a body part and use it to help cure any ailments of that part. That used to be a popular cure too. Neither that way nor homeopathy makes any sense in the way we understand biology to work now. My antipathy to homeopathic medicines has nothing to do with any opinion I might hold towards herbal, vitamins, and other such things. Those may or may not work but at least have the potential for working since there is an active ingredient (they also have the potential for being harmful for the same reason.) In terms of coffee and ADHD, I find that it is the same issue I have with ADHD medications. A little coffee or a too small dose of ADHD medication not only doesn't help but often makes the behavior a lot worse. I use coffee to help with my ADHD. It does help me enough on days when my ADHD is mild. It isn't good enough when my ADHD is more moderate like right before my time each month but I am on enough medications so I am not adding anything right now. I may change my mind soon since my ADHD seems to be getting worse as my hormones get all messed up with getting closer to menopause.

Wow, people, thanks so much. As I said before, this is all a new world for me and for my husband since when we were in college, we only knew one kid with a PC and it was a radio shack very early kind. We were still using typewriters to write papers. I think that my dh might have taken a programming class but probably in a language that isn't used anymore since this was over 25 years ago.

In our area, which is always rated as one of the best, if not the best school districts, the problem is that they are educated the two groups of kids. Group one does fine, takes lots of AP courses and ends up not needing remedial education in college. Group 2, which is a smaller group, and includes lots of kids from certain ethnicities- Central American immigrants, certain groups from Vietnam and Cambodia, and many others, gets ignored and passed ahead. I was sitting in the waiting room of the local community college as one of the students who graduated locallly was contesting why he was in the lowest remedial reading group. He had apparently been in the USA for at least 9 years and had graduated high school. He couldn't read and comprehend barely anything in English. He kept asking why he got A's in English in high school if the CC thought he couldn't read. I wondered that too. I don't doubt that he really does have major problems with reading comprehension. I don't know which high school he attended or how they graduated him but it is a travesty. Now I graduated from this same school district over 25 years ago. We had plenty of immigrants then too. At least the ones in my classes and activities knew how to read. Back then, the kids who entered elementary school not speaking English or reading it were virtually undistinguishable from the rest of us by the time they graduated from high school. I know that this poor student's story isn't simply a strange anomaly I encountered because I have seen the breakdown of test scores in my area. But the school system is able to hide the problem since they group all Asians together. SOme of the other groups are doing so well it hides how poorly other groups are doing. The Central American problem is easier to see because there isn't an overwhelming amount of very successful other hispanics to hide the issue. There was in Florida where the Cubans scored very well and the migrant workers scored very poorly. I am not at all implying that all the remedial students are certain ethnicities. I am just saying that I know some of the tricks the schools use to hide their failures. Another is that now instead of tests the school can use a portfolio to assess the child's learning. I wouldn't have a problem with that for children who really aren't on the same schedule for learning- children with down's syndrome, autism, and other significant learning issues. But even for LD children, I think the tests, with necessary accomodations, should be given. What is happening is that some of these schools have taken 30% or more of the children and said they need to be evaluated by a portfolio. Okay, a child who is brand new to the US may not be ready to do a hard test in their first year. But in their fifth or ninth like the student above? Like President George W. Bush said, it is the bigotry of low expectations.

I have to say that the original five fundamentals listed were ones I could agree with when I was a Catholic and I can still agree with as a Protestant. It seems to me that definition only distinguishes most Christians from a group of people who call themselves Christians but often don't believe in one of those (sometimes they are not trinitarians, sometimes they don't believe that Jesus is God, sometimes it has to do with what they believe about the Bible). I may be wrong but Unitarians, Jehovah's Witnesses, and LDS are a few groups that would not adhere to those five principles. It may be that in the early 1900's there were big disputes about these things. As many have pointed out, now the disputes center less on fundamentals but on peripherals like what type of music to have at worship or which version of the Bible to use, not whether the Bible is true or not, or whether Jesus was really the Son of God or not.

My daughters go into the dentist alone but they don't care. On the other hand, they refuse to go to most doctors alone. They don't want any talk. SInce we aren't seeing the military doctors anymore, we aren't getting stupid talks and stupid questions anymore. ALl of my girls's doctors understand their positions and don't intrude on that.

I just saw this and came right over here to WTM forum because I knew someone would have already commented on this. I agree with the mother that the teacher is bullying her daughter. He didn't just do this once. I would be petitioning the school board over this and certainly wouldn't send her back to school. Hopefully there is a private school in the area, if the mother works and needs to have the child in the school, that could find it in their hearts to enroll this child immediately and reach out to the family. Probably the only private school in this area is a Christian school that is a ministry of a church and if so, I think this child needs that ministry desperately. How tremendously sad.

You need to check with a doctor. Are you taking any medicines for anything. I had this happen and it turned out to be a not all that rare complication of a medicine. They will need to do a hormone test. I ended up having a CAT scan to check my pituitary before they realized it was the medication I was on.

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My middle daughter had the convergence problem. She finally got diagnosed at about age 8 after many years of going to ophtalmologists who said nothing was wrong. I knew something was wrong since she could read long words in big print but not simpler words in small print close together on a page. I finally found an opthalmologist who specialized in eye/muscle disorders and he saw her and gave us prisms to use in eye exercises at home and also prescribed low prescription glasses with prism in them. She went from hardly reading to being a non-stop reader. Before she had been seeing double when reading which was why she couldn't read a regular chapter book. Her therapy always consisted of trying to get both eyes to work together. In the article, it says that the one condition they do have proof the therapy works is the one she had. But she is still very ADHD and that had nothing to do with her vision.

So my 13 yo went on the Women in Engineering site and found what courses are needed to be taken in high school. Most were already things I was planning and had done with the other two, non science major kids. But neither one of them did computer programming in high school. She will need this and my question is what kind of background does she need to do this and any recommendations of what I should use? None of us are programmers here although my son does do a little on his own and I think dh took some class maybe 20 some years ago. She has done programming in robotics this year. I am not sure what kind of programming is right for engineering but do understand that some type is useful. Any advice?

My daughter, after studying US history for 1 and 3/4 years, is going to take the AP test in May. She is ready to start studying for it. What are some materials you have found to be good for studying for it?

I like to eat English Muffins and I like them crispy. I think this was not toasted correctly. I wouldn't eat it. WHat I found is the perfect way to do it with my toaster is to toast it twice at a certain level. Always right, never charred.

I use yahoo and have used the 15 or so dollar a year version. I get various enhancements which I like including no ads. I do get some spam but it goes right into my spam folder.

Continuing to pray here.

Praying.

I don't think this disparity is anything new. One of the main reasons that banks and mortgages were reluctant to lend to certain minorities had nothing to do with race. It had everything to do with financial habits. Then when the federal government pushed them to lend to people without regard to their ability to repay, we ended up with the housing crisis. We were out of the country from 2003-2006. We came back to a crazy world. MOrtgages for 120% of value, all interest mortgages, mortgages with no credit checks, etc. We sold our house ( which we had rented while we were overseas and now we had moved back 2000 miles away from it) and rented a house from a stable landlord. Then we moved in late 2008. Here we saw incredibly insane house deals. Two low income people having bought a 500,000 home were having troubles paying the mortgage. THere were stories galore like that. People who together earned less than my husband buying homes we couldn't afford. We are still renting here. ( We are military and don't know when we will be moving next).

I always consider my kids in the summer to be the next grade even if we are still finishing up some work. THat is the way most summer programs work.

Before my daughters were older, I thought I would be one of those moms that don't allow make-up until they were older ( I didn't have a specific age but maybe 15 or so). My older daughter wasn't very interested until she was 15 so no problem. But my younger daughter wanted to wear it at age 11 1/2. Why? Because she is super fair skinned and ends up with bright red cheeks and chin all the time. Anything can get her turning bright red- slight heat, cold, something she ate, etc. WHen she wanted to wear some very fair foundation to stop looking so odd, I let her. She doesn't look made up. She just ends up not looking strange. If she lived in another country- maybe Ireland or Scotland, she wouldn't have looked so strange with the red cheeks. But here she does. On the other hand, my older daughter wears make-up for debate tournaments among some other events. I think it makes her look much more professional. She knows how to apply it well and she doesn't look like trashy at all. It just helps her look more put together. Now neither of my girls like many of the clothes marketed to them nowadays. They tend to get dresses that are sold around the holidays and look quite nice. My older one has already been buying clothes from better shops outlets and now my younger one will soon be doing that too since she is now 5'2''. They just have never been into that whole Disney thing and now are completely against it. They have many other ways that they are into popular culture but just don't get into this whole teeny bopper thing and never have.

I just got a brand new book I plan to use in homeschooling next year and yes it was 1 penny plus shipping. It was still a bargain for me since it is an recently published book, still in print, and normally costs about $14.

I have lived in three houses with glass walls. (Very popular style in the 60's and I seem to keep living in '60's houses). All of the houses had very sturdy glass walls. Nothing went through them and we did have people and animals bump into them. One was a base house where I wouldn't think they would have the world's best construction and it still was safe. The next was a enormous glass wall over two stories high and probably 50 feet wide. Now we have a glass room (3 walls) and a large glass wall in the living room. Again no problems. I would inquire about the wall from your parents.

I have used Iowa, CAT-E, and had Stanford administered. I think I will do CAT-E again this year for my one daughter. Why? It is quick and cheap. I know what she knows and doesn't know without the test. The only thing the tests are good for is practicing taking those kind of tests and also if the state requires it. Mine does so I am doing it.