[How to use an odd room]

I'd definitely see how you live in the house.  It could be used as a place for quiet conversation of the main living room has a TV or it's an open floorplan house.  It could be an exercise room, especially if your family does easily stored things like yoga or kettle bell work (you might not want to look at bulky exercise equipment, or you might...).  You could put a table and storage and use it for games and puzzles.  The person that my kid takes music lessons from has a music room -  a couch, a piano, a few shelves and several music stands.  

[Deleted]

It's kind of funny...we have 2 pastors.  The young guy, fresh out of seminary, loves traditional worship.  The older guy, with kids in college, loves the contemporary service.  They bring different people into the church, but it doesn't divide along age lines the way that people talk about.  Funny enough, the most enthusiastic group in our church is the choir.  There are many people who have been in it for 40 years, but there are also people who are 40, and younger.  When we had some church consultants come to advise, one thing that they said was that our choir was too big.  My thinking is that if it keeps growing, the director would sit the choir in the transcepts before she would tell people not to sing.  I mean, if everybody wants to join the choir and come to extra practice, then it would make more sense to put the choir in the pews and put the remaining non-choir congregation in the choir loft than to tell people to get less involved in a ministry that they are excited about!  

And, when they first arrived our senior pastor implemented several changes.  The congregation was willing to try, but several of us cautioned that the schedule change would likely wreak havoc on the youth ministry, potentially costing us those families, and possibly disrupt the Sunday school small groups that were re-establishing post-covid closures, without bringing in many more people.  They acknowledged the problem but pushed ahead.  We did it for more than a year.  With groups disrupted, visitors struggled to figure out how to fit in.  After a painful, frustrating year they switched back.  The schedule works for some churches, but with our particular church it was highly disruptive to groups that were previously strong, and it's hard to welcome visitors into a setting where there is nothing established to welcome them to.  The point is that pastors, like other people, can look at something and say 'We should do that here' without realizing that every group has a culture, and while change can lead to growth, change may also disrupt the very strength that you could build on.  It takes a lot of discernment to figure it out.  

[I think I made a mistake]

People are wired differently.  I once heard a talk that described the kind of people who become CEOs as people who, if dropped in a forest with an ax, would cut down all the trees just because it was there to do.  I think that spouse is wired somewhat like this.  I, on the other hand, if dropped in a forest, would weave myself a hammock and enjoy reading my books in peace.  If you are into enneagram descriptions, he is a 3 and I am a 9.  But, as much as I am generally content to chill in the hammock, I also see tasks that need doing, that I enjoy doing, and that I have the skills to do,  I have found that what works for me is to make commitments for things that I think are important when I am motivated, knowing that I'll follow through even if I don't feel like it, and I'll be glad that I saved myself from turning into a couch potato.  I don't do anything that I don't actually believe in - I don't volunteer for things that I'll resent.  But, they can count on me to show up at place X to do task Y every Monday.  I know myself well enough to know that if I just leave things in an 'I'll do it if I feel like it' state, then I won't do it.  At some stages of life, I'm good at setting up a routine and sticking to it.  At other stages, things are too unpredictable and I don't want the stress of tying myself to a schedule, so I just figure out what needs doing and do that without feeling bad that the extras aren't being done.  

In a situation with intermittent travel, I'd make a series of short-term plans.  Or, make a longer-term commitment while telling the organizer that you'll be gone for 6 weeks, but expect you back on date X.  I also wonder about travel.  I have a friend who is happiest traveling.  She goes all the time, squeezing in trips during times when she doesn't have local commitments.  I'm the opposite - I like my life and routine and am happy to only get away for the occasional week.  Both are fine, but they lead to making different sorts of commitments.  What do you want your life to look like?  Has that changed?  Do you need to decompress from other stresses for a month or year to figure that out?  Do you need to try different things to see what brings joy at this stage of your life?  

[I hate feeling like a Karen. Carrie is close enough.]

When we were out of state doing job interviews we cruised several neighborhoods to get a feel for the area.  When we've gone back to visit places that we used to live, we've driven slowly past our former houses to show the kids.  My parents worry about getting lost and sometimes scope out a place that they need to go the day before so that they know how long it takes to get there.  I understand people being concerned, but if somebody had tailed us while we were driving I would have been a bit worried about that and might have tried to get away from them lest they be unstable.  But, I wouldn't have gone back after that.  

[S/O What things are neccessary?]

We live in a state where most people use an umbrella program, and ours mostly aligns with the state requirements.  So, we've done health and PE and personal finance.  But, they don't necessarily look like a traditional class.  We have a former maternity nurse who teaches health at co-op every few years, so I had older take that because it's a good class.  But, if not available, we'd probably do something at home and then do a CPR class.  For PE, I don't want to double count their extracurriculasr and PE, but I'm happy to record hours for anything that isn't a mandatory practice.  We just got back from a vacation where younger spent a couple of hours each day swimming in the ocean and walking on the beach.  So, i recorded 2 hrs a day of physical activity for PE.  Family bike rides or hikes, ski trips, a daily family walk, rock climbing...I've known people to get their PE all sorts of ways.  

I don't know that colleges would care, but I figured it doesn't hurt to give them what they ware used to seeing when it's something that we'll do anyway.  But, as with anything homeschool, there's no reason to do it the same way that it would be done in a public school.  Knowing the personalities of my kids, we often try to knock out these easy credits early - 9th grade, over the summer, etc.  They tend to like feeling like they've accomplished checking something off the to-do list, so starting fall of 9th grade with 'you've already earned 1/2 credit in PE/personal finance' is a little bit motivating.  Your mileage may definitely vary on that one, though!  

[Which would you be ok giving up?]

I would give up anything that could be added or repurposed.  So, keep the 2 acres and no HOA.  I second the fact that taking care of 2 acres is a lot of work - we live  on 3.5 acres and love it, but it's definitely a lifestyle choice.  I'd imagine that you'd get used to lower ceilings, but it's also something that would be hard to change later so you'll have to make a decision about that.  But the other things are just room usage choices that could be changed.  You could buy a very small house if the acerage and location is right and then add on the desired rooms.  There are a couple of houses near us that have major additions on previously tiny houses and involved adding a second story or an entire wing.  We don't have both a living room and den, but there is an open area upstairs that could be used to hang out.  A bonus room could be added.  If you find a location that you like at a good price, an architect can imagine all sorts of things that are hard to see for people who don't remodel on a regular basis.  

I'll also add that we've seen several people decide to 'downsize' and then find that nothing is big enough.  They don't seem ready to downsize.  I'm watching my parents do this now - they want to downsize, but also still have a large basement, separate dining room, etc...basically they're willing to give up the formal living room.  It's not worth moving just to give up one room.  

[.]

I'll add that for gen ed requirements, many colleges now have a lot of categories that students need to choose from.  Even when it's simple, the requirements change.  A college might require a certain number of upper level humanities or social science, so that students take intro to psych and then 2 further courses like developmental psych.  Or a college could prefer breadth, so that students choose 2-3 classes in different disciplines.  A college can switch from requiring a certain number of humanities/social sciences to specfically requiring 2 of one and 1 of the other.  Some now require that one class fulfill a multicultural requirement and another fulfill an ethics requirement, or other combinations of specific requirements.  If the goal is to free up college time, you have to be looking at a limited number of schools so that you can see if your choices fit those requirements.  Just taking classes across disciplines may or may not fulfill any requirements at a specific college even if all of the credits transfer.  

One of kiddo's likely schools has started offering the option of taking the first 2 freshman engineering classes online the summer before you start college.  Apparently they are getting enough students who have taken the freshman year requirements (English, 2 semesters of calculus, physics with calc, etc) that there were frustrations with students being held up by those 2 classes.  If kid goes there, kid may choose to do those classes.  Graduating early could be an option, but students might also use the freed-up time to take other classes, earn a masters, spend more time on research, or do a co-op year.  But, very early kid set some guidelines around potential colleges so we've been able to look at specific requirements at just a handful of schools.  And, we keep in mind  that the goal of high school is to educate a high schooler.  If a course counts for something else great!  But, we only take classes that otherwise fit into our high school plan.  

[What Are The Drawbacks of Graduating Early?]

One concern would is about the age at which you can legally do things.  It's not necessarily prohibitive, but it can make things a bit more complicated.  It's probably not a big deal on college campuses, but depending on how old somebody is when they graduate they could have been promoted at a post-college job and still not be able to rent a car on a business trip.  

My kid who could have graduated early decided that life was not likely to ever have this much potential free time again.  It's not 'free time' in the sense that kid sits around doing nothing, but since I only ask that my kids are doing productive things that leaves a lot of flexibility.  Kid is reading a lot that may go towards some DIY senior year credits (in addition to doing some DE that will count towards a college degree).  Kid can continue extracurriculars for one more year.  Some kids in our orbit are putting a lot of time into jobs. 

 

[Cross Post -- If you homeschool your high schooler while working full time outside the home . . .]

Would your teen need to be home alone to do this?  My dad interacted with a mom who took her kids to work.  She had a large office with kid desks in the corner.  That would have never worked for my kids - one would have been OK but for the other it would have been a disaster.  I agree that classes that met in person at least once weekly would probably be good.  I know that you have an involved family - could kid work at somebody's house some?  Does your schedule and location allow flexibility, or for you to be able to swing home for lunch?  Can kid walk to the library or something similar? 

What people have access to is so different that it's hard to say what might work.  In our situation, when spouse and I are out of the house and the kids are unable to drive, they are stuck and can't go anywhere.  Older being able to drive was a huge gamechanger, but until a kid can drive somebody has to be available or they are home alone.  But, I could also imagine a situation where they go to classes one day a week, work at a grandparent's house one day, and kid walks to the library one or more days to work around other people for a few hours, or mom comes home for lunch and drops kid at the library to work in the afternoon, or...  It's not a weekly thing, but my kids love it when a grandparent is out and takes a kid to lunch.  Both kids participate in activities that meet during the day (homeschool academic teams, martial arts, some of other kid's sports lessons, music lessons) - some instructors love homeschool kids because they can fit in extra lessons before the usual aftereschool rush hits.  For us this requires driving, but for some people it's walkable or available by public transport and would be a way to not be alone all day.  Or, if as 8 said, there's a 2-3 day school then that would likely be reasonable on its own.  

The gist of all of this rambling is that loneliness is definitely a consideration, and in our case it would likely be insurmountable.  But, if a person had our activity availability plus the ability to get places, a kid could have plenty of opportunity to interact with other people.  There is also the academic component, and that would be very kid-dependent.  One of my kids is pretty content working alone as long as they can check in and talk about what they learned every day at some point.  They are very motivated and will learn with any format - taught by me, a book, online class, live class - and will hunt down alternate explanations until they understand what they are supposed to learn.  The other tends to struggle without more involvement.  I'd likely make different decisions for each kid.  

[Creating relationships with DE profs for recommendation purposes]

In a class with just 25 students, most instructors get to know them at least a little bit.  I'd wait and see how the class is formatted before figuring out how to get to know the instructor.  If the class is lecture, then getting there early and lingering after class can give students a chance to make small talk.  When I taught at a CC and now at co-op, those students are usually the ones that I get to know best.  And, participate in class.  None of these interactions need to be forced - just be willing to answer questions (Does anybody know...?) or, if you can't answer, then you probably have questions to ask.  Before and after class, the instructor won't necessarily talk every time since sometimes they may be rushed, but other times they may speak, or it's a time to ask a question, or they may ask for help moving a table and that breaks the ice.  

If the class has time to work during class, then often the instructor will circulate and answer questions.  In classes where this model is common, it's usually easy to get to know the students.  It was one of the perks of taking/teaching labs.  In those situations. always work on a problem.  That sounds like dumb advice to need to give, but often when I give students time to work on problems (genetics in a high school bio co-op class, and at a CC) students who need help are embarrassed and so won't work, saying they prefer to do it at home. Never do that!  It's a chance to work side-by-side with the instructor, which is useful on its own and can spur more conversation.  If a student has completed the work, have it out to show the instructor.  Ask if it's formatted correctly, ask about the one that was tricky, make a note of an unclear concept to ask about, etc.  Or take advantage of the time for conversation - I've had students say that they worked ahead to get done before their tournament that weekend, and I've learned that I've had kids with some interesting hobbies from those talks.  

[Teen dd friend issue]

I think I'd go at this 2 ways at the same time and hope that something works.  In situations where it's easy to do, you/DD could ask the leaders to not always put the girls together.  The probably have no idea it's an issue.  One of my kids mostly saw a particular friend at one common activity, so they always wanted to be paired together.  The leaders don't know that this isn't the case for these 2 girls, but may be happy to mix it up once they know.  

Then, I'd think about how to approach interacting with the family.  Maybe 'We need space' would work, but I might try something more offhand but still direct.  Like, when she complains that you didn't ask first say that you are trying to give DD more autonomy to manage her schedule, so you encourage her to sign up for things she's interested in.  Sometimes friend is there and that's great, but DD is mostly there for the activity so doesn't check on which kids will be there.  Or a more blunt 'DD isn't going to check in every time she makes a decision - she knows that she'll always see friend at Common Activity A, but she makes her plans around her/our family's schedule/interests.'  Or 'DD has several friends/friend groups and she tries to spend time with all of them'.  

The barrage of questions thing is weird.  It's not necessarily a shocking for the girls to do (not all girls are this way, but some are), but it would be over the top from a mom.  Maybe asking about sunscreen or 'are they stopping for dinner' might be a mom question, but not a stream of them and not the social stuff.  It really does look like an anxiety problem.  The problem is that it's not rational, so you can't really manage it easily with reasonable conversation.  You may need to be unavailable more, or make it clear that you don't phone while driving, or that your phone isn't always on your person so you don't always see/respond instantly.  Say you need some digital detox so you aren't checking in as often.  

[.]

One thing to consider is what your goals are for calc and stats.  If you are wanting your student to take them just to learn the material, then the suggested plans offer great options.  If you are wanting college credit, look to see what will transfer.  For my student, AP Stats and the DE Stats class available at the CC do not fulfill the required stats course that kid will need in an engineering major.  Because kid doesn't want to take stats twice, kid is choosing to continue in the calculus series at the CC during senior year - both the AP score from junior year and the DE credits will transfer.  Kid is fine with taking math that won't transfer - kid is currently working through a probability text at home - but doesn't think that stats sounds like something kid is interested in doing twice.  This will vary - some students like doing an intro version in high school and to prepare for a harder college version, and that's a good plan, too!  

[.]

2 minutes ago, Petrova Fossil said:

 

@Clemsondana Mechanical drawing, maybe?

 

That would work.  We just bought a couple of books with titles like 'Learning how to draw' or 'Drawing with perspective' or that sort of thing.  Kid drew all sorts of things using the techniques.  Then kid started making an autobiographical cartoon.  It had simple stick people but the scenery was from different parts of kid's life - a move, a ball team, winning an competition, etc.  Unexpectedly, it was one of my favorite projects from kid's school years.  But, kid is now much better at making a sketch of something seen under a microscope, or the dimensions of a simple building project, or an easily interpreted rough map.

And, psychology is usually a social science, lumped with social studies, not science.    

[.]

We've seen a couple of colleges (State Us, not SLACs) that list a credit of fine arts as part of the 'students who attend usually have taken' course list.  Most likely this is because many states require a credit to graduate.  For one of my kids, this will be easy since kid takes instrument lessons.  I was dreading it for my STEM kid, but it turned out to be pretty cool.  We did it by hours (our umbrella says 130 hours/credit).  Kid did a music theory class at co-op for 1/2 credit. This class was a hidden gem for this kid, who learned about all sorts of genres.  For the other 1/2 credit, kid did a hodgepodge of things.  Kid tried out the youth handbell choir at church and used a couple of books to learn the basics of drawing.  It turns out that kid is far better at drawing than music (funny since kid 2 and I both play instruments and perform in church a couple of times a year).  Kid also used a co-op ballroom class to finish out the credit hours.  It turns out that kid liked ballroom enough that, despite having mostly outgrown the academic classes at co-op, kid will go back to take ballroom for fun as a senior (and will volunteer for an hour and then eat lunch with friends).  This may remain a fun activity or kid is debating doing some more drawing and turning it into another 1/2 credit.  Never did I imagine that kid would contemplate doing extra fine arts!  So, I'd consider looking around for some things that are useful to know.  Drawing is useful for some science and engineering fields.  Ballroom dance can be used socially.  A cooking class would be practical.  The 'appreciation' classes can open your eyes to things that you never noticed before (and it mighbe be possible to take this DE and knock out a college requirements).  

[.]

AP classes at many public schools have always looked to me like work for the sake of saying they did lots of work.  My kid (and some others over the years) who took bio or history at co-op and then did well on APs just did the same work for the class that everybody else did.  Obviously these are the kids who did the work and learned the material (usually these are the kids with good grades), but they are in co-op or online class with other people who just consider it a normal/honors class.  

But, my kid has also taken 1 DE class and is taking another over the summer.  The classes - psych and ethics (intro level philosophy) - are both online and kid hasn't found them to be overly challenging or time consuming, either.  Kid will take calc and phyics with calc and English in the fall and I imagine that the combo will be more challenging, but for a kid used to managing a rigorous schedule I don't know know that these will seem particularly more time consuming.  

[.]

I have one heading into senior year and another starting 9th grade.  I'm expecting to have different answers for each kid, despite comparable academic ability, because they are just different kids.  For my older, we decided to do chemistry in 9th grade to help the Science Olympiad team, which was in need of kids who knew chemistry.  The co-op class didn't look challenging enough, so I asked if kid wanted to try AP.  We loosely followed an AP syllabus that we found to help with pacing and I did some labs with kid.  The next year, kid chose to loosely follow my bio class, but self-paced at home, and also took a co-op US History class with friends.  Both of those naturally align with the AP exam, so kid used the prep videos to review and took those 2.  This year, kid decided to take AP Engl Lang and Calc BC.  Kid self-studied some but mostly just did the work (co-op English class, self-directed calc at home using several resources).  Still waiting on scores for this year, but those will determine kid's placement for DE.  We've looked at the course of study at the colleges that kid is applying to, looked at what APs will do, and looked for courses that will transfer from DE.  Kid will take whatever English and math is appropriate based on AP scores (second semester comp or 200 English, either calc 2 or 3), and physics with calc.  Kid is currently taking an ethics class DE, which transfers, and took one DE class jr year.  Kid is doing at-home classes to - a second probability, and interest-led coding and possibly another history class.  Our philosophy for high school has been something like...if it's interest-led, let's explore what you are interested in.  If you are just taking a class because you need it, let's see if it aligns with AP.  If it does, take the test.  If it doesn't, that's fine.  For some classes, like chem and physics, kid has said that they aren't interesting enough to want to take twice so making them go away is great.  Even with engineering sequencing, with one summer of classes kid should be able to graduate in 3 years, or double major, or co-op, or work towards a masters, based on the credits that will transfer.  We didn't load up on APs and only took ones that were an easy fit with content that we planned to cover or would specifically help kid skip a college class.  We focused on 'dead end' classes - kid's major required 1 semester of chem, so skipping it is great.  If kid wanted to be a biochem major, I'd say to take it again at college.  I'll also add that tests aren't a big deal for this kid - we joke that science olympiad kids take tests for fun.  So, APs didn't add the stress that they sometimes do. 

For younger, I don't know if we'll do any APs at all.  Even though kid is taking my bio class and I know that it would prep kid for the AP, I don't know that kid will be ready to take that kind of test this year since the class doesn't have any test prep - it's just a solid regular class that covers the content so a motivated student could do well with some review.  I do imagine that this kid will do some DE.  Kid doesn't like school but most jobs that kid is interested in require a a degree.  Kid could choose something that just needs an associates (OT assistant) or may continue with thoughts of teaching and earn credits that will transfer.  Time will tell, but at this point I'm seeing a different pathway.  

[If you are a mass every Sunday kind of Catholic]

With issues that petty I don't think that it will help, but maybe 'Will be provided opportunity and encouraged to attend Catholic mass as expected  by the Church'.  I wouldn't commit to a number, or to ensuring that they go because life is unpredictable.  I don't think your custody agreement should be less flexible than the Church itself.  I understand wanting to limit church participation requirement to mass, since most people that I know of all denominations think of youth group and other extras as great when it works (schedule and socially) but not actual requirements.  But, by the time that he's trying to manage how you word things, I think that it indicates that he'll just keep looking for things to complain about.  My parents have been married for 50+ years and my mom sometimes refers to my dad as 'your dad'.  I can't remember the last time that I referred to spouse as 'my husband' to real people - I either say his name or, if in reference to something with the kids, may say 'Their dad will do...'.  The only time I say 'my spouse' is online in forums where I don't want to use a name.  

[If you are a mass every Sunday kind of Catholic]

22 minutes ago, chiguirre said:

This strikes me as a recipe for disaster. He'll accuse you of lying, whether or not it's true. If one of your kids refuses to go, you'll be the snitch reporting them to their father. I don't think this is a problem you can fix. 

My concern is that she'd have to justify a decision.  Kid stayed home with an injury?  They could have gone on crutches...but they were up all night in the ER in pain and needed to sleep...but they could sleep in the afternoon.  Miss to watch kids for neighbor who had and emergency and needed to take spouse to the ER?  The kids could have gone too...but I couldn't manage 3 random kids in church...but our kids went to church...but our kids were used to it, and I didn't have car seats...but you could have planned better...   It just feels like it opens everything for debate, but life decisions have to be made in the moment and no decision is perfect.  It seems like it could just as easily wind them up in court because he doesn't feel like the reasons are valid.  

[9th Grade Science]

A couple of thoughts...some colleges want to see bio, chem, and physics but don't really care what the other class is, so Earth Science would be fine for just being a 4th science.  If you think that your student might be interested in a STEM field, you might choose to start on one of the 3 'main' sciences so that they can take AP or DE or a more advanced science in their senior year.  But, if your student isn't trying to track for more advanced science later and is looking for 4 science classes in high school, Earth Science is a reasonable choice for one of them.  

If you want to save bio for a time when you can be more creative, you could also consider physical science, which is often an 8th or 9th grade class.  Or you could switch the order of the other classes - maybe conceptual physics, or chemistry if your student has the math background.  

[What are your educational priorities?]

56 minutes ago, 8filltheheart said:

Yes, but this phenomenon is not only 3 yrs old.  It was the larger trend in general even before covid.  

I know that we're at least 5 years into the 'new family contact' people at co-op saying that they'll do a tour and have families ask 'So if we do this once/week we're good for school?' and they  have to explain that an elementary schooler coming to a class where they learn about animals, a PE class, an art class, and a 'read a book and do a craft' class once/week is fun enrichment, not a week's worth of school.  Or they know that we offer enrichment for younger kids but ask where they go to get their curriculum for 7th grade (not asking about resources - asking about going to pick it up, like maybe the county hands it out in a bag).  There's nothing wrong with people who want 'school in a box' - it's not my preference, but it can be OK - but I can't imagine having done so little research that I thought I could just swing by the county school office and pick it up, rather than understanding that I needed to look for a resource to buy it from.  

Our long-time people at co-op have talked about different shifts over time.  In the beginning (before my time) it was mostly people homeschooling because schools were a bad fit, or religious homeschoolers, or philosophical homeschoolers.  As I was starting they got a wave of academic homeschoolers, which changed the co-op offerings a bit because they were fine with fun classes for youngers, but if they were going to have their older kid take an outsourced class they wanted it to be rigorous.  At this point, I would say that most of our middle/high academic classes are at or well above the level of local schools, and several of the private school umbrellas automatically grant honors credit to them. But, now we are having a different group.  Some of our new families are still wanting solid academics, but a lot are just looking for easy classes.  We're having a bit of a struggle, because having worked hard to get good teachers and having gotten positive feedback from our college kids who say that they felt very well prepared, we don't want to back off.  Many of us already grade differently - I know which kids are struggling 'C for graduation' kids and which are looking for honors/AP level, and I interact with their work accordingly to give them what they need.  But, we don't know what to do with 'we just don't want to work' families.  

[If you are a mass every Sunday kind of Catholic]

I completely understand wanting to be specific to avoid future conflict.  One caution that I have is that things can get wacky during the teen years, in unforseeable ways.  Our church is Methodist, not Catholic, although we have Catholic friends and I know that there are differences.  But, we are also people who have traditionally been our church more than 45 Sundays, probably more like 48, most years.  But, both kids play sports (in different seasons).  Some years we seem to have mostly afternoon games on Sunday, but occasionally we hit a stretch where our team seems to have every 9 am game.  Twice over the years we have been at national science competitions, with the team traveling back on Sunday or Monday.  I just saw one of the youth at church have to miss several Sundays over the course of her senior year for college visits/admitted student weekends.  Spouse has missed some Sundays doing caregiving for parents, and it's unpredictable when caregiving will be needed for anybody in a family or community (I once missed due to having been up all night because a weird situation caused CPS involvement for a friend, and I agreed to take her kids for the short term until it could get worked out, and another Sunday my kids went with my parents to a different church while spouse and I drove 3 hours to be at the funeral for a long-time friend's father - as important as worship is, I think we did the right thing in both cases). 

However much you may intend to be at the service every week, and even if you don't participate in extracurriculars that cause you to miss, I would be very hesitant to be legally tied in to attending a certain percentage of Sundays.  Maybe 'raise children in accordance with guidelines/expectations of the Catholic Church' or something like that?  Would that be enough?  Since the expectation is that you will attend but use your good judgement about when to miss, that would give you some space.  You can't plan for everything - nobody would expect you to step over your neighbor having a heart attack to get to church, but you can't list that or any of the other hundreds of things that could happen as reasonable exceptions even though they would be understood by most people.  

[What are your educational priorities?]

Some of my goals for my kids are directly academic.  I wanted them to be fluent in the things that they know, not just have enough surface understanding to 'pass the class', whatever that looks like (do well on an assessment, write a paper, etc), and then forget the material.  I wanted learning to be enjoyable.  I don't feel obligated to make it entertaining - they aren't passive recipients - but pleasant, using interesting materials, providing a nice environment in which to work, working with their preferences as I learned them (one would happily read about anything, the other liked hands-on in K-2), planning interesting field trips, etc.  I wanted to respect their time, which didn't mean looking for quick material but did mean that we didn't do busywork.  Once they could do something, we moved on.  It was my job to figure out when practice was needed and when practice was just filling in pages.  I want them to have the opportunity to progress as far as their abilities and interests took them.  I wanted them to have a solid foundation in basic academics.  In my volunteer work, I had seen so many kids who couldn't do something because they lacked foundational skills, so I wanted to make sure those were strong.

I also had non-academic goals that weren't necessarily about homeschooling, but because the kids were at home they were heavily influenced by our family.  It was important that we be involved in a church and that we not just be 'consumers'.  The kids have seen me volunteer, and at times have worked with me or volunteered on their own.  We have more schedule flexibility to do this than most people.  I've taught them bits of cultural knowledge that are useful in our context.  For us, that includes the rules to common sports, bits about genres of music and various instruments, etc.  I've also encouraged them to choose activities that they love and talked some about how to make them lifelong if they want to continue once they age out of the youth level (coaching or umping, adult leagues, scout leader, church performer, etc).  We also explicitly talk about code switching and how you can be yourself while interacting with people in all sorts of different contexts.  My older often talks in Shakespearean English with the academic competition friends, but you can't talk that way at the ball field.  It's not about snobbery, it's about it being hard to interpret words that you aren't expecting to hear (just like I'd have to stop an process the different phrasings from my Scottish and Indian colleagues when I worked).  Since communication is important, we teach this explicitly, especially to my kid who is less likely to naturally mirror others.  One of our homeschooling goals was that our kids be able to interact with a  variety of people, and while it isn't necessarily their natures to be huge extroverts, the nature of activities for homeschoolers, where you have occasionally overlapping but different groups for everything that you do, has helped with this.  

[online schooling options]

I think that the pros and cons of various formats will be highly individualized to each student's preferences.  I know several students who struggle with fully online classes - they do better with more interaction.  On the other hand, my older likes online asynchronous classes.  This kid isn't an extrovert, but does have several extracurriculars that occur throughout the week that involve a lot of interaction with long-time friends and teammates.  While happy to meet new people, kid isn't particularly looking for new friends.  Kid doesn't want the stress of dealing with potential schedule conflicts.  With asynchronous, kid's scholar's bowl, sport, scout project work, science olympiad practice, etc, can all be accommodated. Taking a synchronous class would potentially cause kid to need to miss part of an activity that kid likes.  It also freed up kid's schedule so that, despite having moved past the level of classes offered at co-op, kid is planning to swing by every week to do a ballroom dance class, be a teacher's helper for an hour, and then eat lunch with friends.  But, this also works because kid is very good at managing a schedule...which is great since kid graduates in a year and will need to be able to do that!  Both of my kids have done a mix of home-done, asynchronous, and co-op classes, and they interact with them differently.  

[If you could live anywhere in the United States, where would you live?]

19 hours ago, wintermom said:

Where in the world are there no "natural disasters?"  Stuff happens everywhere. I'd be more afraid of the humans and wildlife I would potentially encounter on a daily basis than focusing on avoiding weather events. I mean, daily rain would bum me out, so the PNW is gorgeous but it would make me long for sunny, freezing cold days from Alberta. 😉 

I wouldn't choose a location based on severe weather, but, having grown up in the southeast where there are hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, and ice storms - I was shocked during our decade in Albuquerque.  There really isn't severe weather.  They do have drought, but there isn't anything that causes extended power outages or requires you to stock up on flashlights and batteries.  During the entire 10 years that we were there, there was one 2-3 day stint where ice didn't melt so the roads weren't great and things were canceled because parking lots were icy.  But, any other events were over in 1/2 of a day - a snowy morning, an afternoon thunderstorm that overwhelmed the roads temporarily.  They get 300+ days of sun.  

[Spiral vs Mastery]

8 hours ago, Nm. said:

What’s interesting is that his spiral approach resembles Singapore and other programs like it.  Children in the first year or 2 are being introduced to fractions, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, algebra, etc. it’s revisited each year. It doesn’t seem to advocate for topics to be dispersed throughout the year like “spiral curriculum”. 

Abeka cites two studies for their spiral curriculum and they seem to be more about the need to review and use what you learn (forgetting curve).

Also not saying it doesn’t work to disperse the topics, but there really isn’t any evidence I can find to say it works better.  It seems a disaster for at least my DS9 and DD6.  Can you imagine dispersing phonics like that?  It might work for a few who are naturally inclined..

Why is this important?  It’s not 😂 just helpful for me not to worry I’m missing out on some approach that has been “proven to work.”  Especially when I hear from others it’s evidence based.

To alleviate the forgetting curve- review helps- which I wasn’t doing regularly.

What I found interesting about Singapore is that it came back to topics while teaching new information.  It did multiplication every year, for instance, but the first year was just 2s, 3s, and 5s (I think, it's been a while).  The next year added 4s and 6s, etc.  So, it avoided having kids memorize everything from the zeros to the 12s at once, keeping the memorization small.  And it was consistent - you learn to multiply by 2, 3, and 5, then divide by 2, 3, and 5, then tell time (needing to count by 5s to do the minute hand), convert yards to feet, and maybe fractions of halves and thirds, too,   When students do multiplying by 10s and 100s, they then learn metric conversions.  This seems far better than what I see with the kids that I volunteer with, where they just do some multiplication that they never learn every year.  With this, done well, kids master a small set of facts and a few concepts and then use them.   The next year they revisit the concepts and learn new facts.  I hadn't realized how systematic it was at first.