We also stopped spelling somewhere in middle school. with one kid who didn"t need much spelling practice at any grade we used the vocabulary words as spelling and sorry for the weird puncutation and capitalization _ my keyboard has lost its mind and isn"t working properly at all

I think there's a big difference between occasional babysitting and frequent childcare. if I watch somebody's kid for a few hours every few months, I could follow pretty much any rule. But, in a recurring situation, I think it's fine to say that you aren't going to monitor something. I fix gluten free food for one kid friend, but I won't police sugar intake. I have a big punch bowl in the dining room where any candy that makes its way into the house goes. It's always available so not a big deal to my kids - I think there's still valentine's candy there and we just finished the second Easter bunny a few weeks ago. When friends come over some go nuts. I'll say something if I see them grab something every time they walk past, but most parents know that it's there and I'm not going to try to make sure that kids follow the sugar preferences of their parents when they are here for a few hours. And I don't think that anybody expects me to. I know that my parents let the kids watch things and eat things that I don't, but as long as it wasn't dramatically inappropriate I'm not going to worry about it.

My senior took 3 years of Latin in high school, but having taken Latin 1 and 2 in middle school kid got pretty far into it. The last 2 years were spent translating poetry and prose. Kid enjoyed the work that was translated, but then kid read a translation of the writings of Marcus Aurelius for fun at the suggestion of the Latin teacher so that probably isn't typical. This kid enjoyed the grammar and found the roots to be useful. But, taking the class was a choice, starting when, as a late elementary schooler, kid asked if it would be OK to join the middle school Latin class at co-op. My younger student will be taking French at co-op - this kid took a few years in middle school, will be starting high school French 1 in 9th grade, and will probably only take the required 2 years. My choices weren't philosophical, but about letting my kids know what was available and maybe exploring a little and then letting them make some choices, within boundaries. I could see a kid being bummed if they needed a language and Latin didn't transfer, but this is something that can be checked ahead of time. And, ultimately, there are always going to be things that get left out and things that you do that are going to be less useful than you had hoped...and there will be surprise favorites. My kid took a music theory/appreciation class at co-op just to check a fine arts box but it turns out to be a favorite that exposed kid to new kinds of music and new ways of thinking about music. On the other hand, a horticulture class that I put together because kid likes helping with the garden and fruit trees and bushes and likes science turned out to be perfectly fine but not a favorite. There's just no way to know what will click or what path they'll take in the future.

Now that we have a kid who drives, I've come to realize how differently kid, spouse, and I remember directions. One remembers directions (go north on road X for 2 miles), one visualizes a map, and one remembers landmarks (drive until you see a blue house, then go left and keep going until you pass the pizza place that has green shutters). I think that probably is related to how we remember other things. Some in my family remember anything that they find interesting, even if they only read it once or twice. I usually find that I need to do something with the information. I can't just read it and write it down. I need to work with it in some way -draw a pathway, flowchart, or timeline, put things into categories, etc. I used to study for my grad science classes by rewriting and annotating my notes until I understood, and then give a lecture from memory over the the content using a whiteboard. I would do this until I could explain everything. I also use silly devices for things that are easy to slip up on - rhymes, etc. Speed drills can help force the brain to learn things, too. Check out Barbara Oakley's Learning How to Learn - it explains the neurobiology behind how we learn and then gives tips to increase learning. It's written to middle schoolers, so it's a quick read. And, Hirsh's books were very influential in how I planned school for my elementary kiddos.

It was on my parents' bookshelf. That's where most of my reading came from in middle/high school. I think it was fairly popular at the time, but I don't know. Back in the days of 1 TV per house and only a handful of channels, I read all sorts of things over breaks from school.

It seems straightforward to us, too, but I'm hearing things acting like it's a bigger deal. It does add some steps to the process - it used to be that we just turned in the paperwork, but now we turn it in to the school, get signatures, and then have to send it to somebody else.

The rule changed so that you can use an umbrella, too, a year or 2 ago. Then it changed again last year but nobody seems to know what it means. Even before, we just registered with both. The county registration was basically nothing other than a standardized test in the spring, and then the umbrella managed our transcript.

Good job, @Michelle in IL2! That's exciting for your family. My guess is that, over time, they will mellow on the requirements. Like, they don't check the high school kids' grades every week and they'll get tired of dealing with yours, too. But, it's a start. Our state has changed the rules in some way that isn't transparent, but we got all of our paperwork turned in to the school athletic director so we've done our part. We should probably follow up and make sure that there is nothing else that we need to do. Our biggest issue may be making sure that kid has enough real classes in spring of senior year to stand up to review if needed. So many of the public school seniors have almost nothing that last semester (they have block schedules, so only 4 classes, and they are all done with the graduation requirements). They have schedules like 'teacher's aide, yearbook, advanced PE, history of rock music' and there is no homeschool equivalent. Not that my kid wants to take nothing, but kid was thinking that DE physics with calc and then finishing up a few other credits will be enough and I'm keeping an eye on it in case we need to add something else. eyeroll. But, good for you!

With my own kids, they haven't been interested in reading things that I would have a problem with. My older did struggle with books where people were cruel and wouldn't read them, I used to pick up classics and books from the Sonlight/Bookshark lists used at curriculum sales, and since kid was an advanced reader kid would read ones that matched things that we were studying. But, I realized that I had to watch for the type of content because 8 year old kid really had a problem with books that were on the list for older kids because they were just too much. On one hand, it's appropriate for kids to learn that the world isn't always a kind place, but on the other hand, everybody will experience that unkindness first hand in some way and i'm not sure there's benefit in having them experience all kinds of meanness and cruelty through people's first person accounts when they are young,. I think that for some kids it leads to some amount of learned helplessness, espcially if the kid is the type to read and not want to talk about it. It's one thing for a kid to know that there are bad people who kidnap and hurt kids and another for them to read a first-person account from a survivor when the reader is 7, and I think parents have to make judgements about how many horrors they expose a kid to. There is also a difference between what we let kids read, which they can walk away from, and what is assigned, as somebody mentioned above. I was a typical gen X kid, given free rein of the library and my parents' bookshelves. Some of what I read when I moved to adult books in late elementary school was great - Sherlock Holmes, etc. Others were fine - Louis Lamour westerns, Tom Clancey books. Others had a lot of graphic sexual content that I'm sure my parents had forgotten about. We may think that it doesn't have much impact, but the fact that my brain can still recall specific scenes from books I read at age 12 while I can't recall the plot of a book that i read last summer implies that our brains may work a little differently. My parents were more restrictive with movies, interestingly enough. I check to see why a movie has a particular rating but am fairly lenient, and my kids aren't big movie people anyway. So, with books and movies I'm not quite the 'anything goes' sort, but I'm also not particularly sheltering. My bigger 'censorship' was with my tween - at some point I had to severely restrict the teen/tween TV that was on Disney and Nickelodian because the kids were so rude and my kid was coming to mimic that because it was 'normal' unlike kid's reasonably polite friends.

We have a hard time getting away since the kids play sports in alternating seasons. We've done several short trips over the years, though. We used to live in Albuquerque and have done some return visits - there are great museums and local hikes that are really different (Bandelier has cliff dwellings, El Malpais is on lava, the Sandias have mountaintop trails, and El Morro is just cool). We did several days in Chicago one time - a riverboat tour, several great museums and the aquarium. The boys went to a cubs game while the girls did the American Girl doll thing...both liked the giant lego store. We did a road trip in TN - in Memphis we saw Mud Island and went on a riverboat ride and saw the Civil Rights Museum, some music museums, and Beale Street, and Graceland, then we stopped and walked the trails at Pinson Mounds state park, and then on to Nashville where was saw the Acropolis and played at the water park at the Gaylord. Another year we did a KY trip - we kayaked in a flooded cave at The Gorge, then drove to Lexington and Louisville (Churchill Downs, the Louisville Slugger factory, we walked across a bridge into Indiana) then we went to the Shaker Village (I loved this!) and Mammoth Caves with a detour to see Lincoln's birthplace. Chattanooga is a cool town - the aquarium is fantastic, and the touristy incline railroad and Rock City sites are fun. I'm not a city person, but we've done a few fun things in Atlanta while there for a ball game - Stone Mountain, aquarium, etc. We also did a great trip to DC at the end of Christmas break on year. We've had a couple of fun trips to TX, but since that's local you know about Fredericksburg and other places that we've been to visit friends. 🙂 Southern New Mexico is interesting - we did Carlsbad, White Sands, and the kitschy Roswell when we lived close enough for that to be a weekend trip. We keep hoping to do one southwestern trip that takes the kids to the Grand Canyon - we were waiting until the Hoover Dam tours were restarted, but at this point I'm not sure we'll get it done while the kids are still 'kids'. 🙂 My husband says that if you pick anywhere, or need to be somewhere for a reason, I can plan a 3-7 day fun educational outing with local restaurants - we love trying local 'homestyle' places, diners, and whatever specialty restaurants an area has (Cajun was a favorite in Lexington, , Jamaican in Louisville, and Afghan in DC). We never did the long road trips of his childhood that he had hoped to do, but I've pointed out that our trips are much less 'drive-by' - we see a lot when we go somewhere and I try to find unique things to do. My kids like different things - one is a 'read every sign at the museum' while the other is more 'Look - the giant sloth is cool...what's next?' so we try to find a balance of activities. My on-the-go kid likes museums with IMAX movies and loved the music that you could get on headphones and the live music in Memphis, so that kept both kids happy.

The AP scope and sequence, which is mostly the same content that is usually taught in high school, doesn't have any dissections or content that would align with dissections. The content is mostly molecular biology, genetics, and ecology. There are labs and hands-on activities that can be done with this content. Testing food for various macromolecules and an osmosis lab are common, as is microscope work. Ecology is a good place for students to design their own lab - anything with growing plants or varying something and then observing birds or squirrels or something can work. Students often struggle to design an experiment since they are used to following directions for labs, but it's a useful exercise.

The Critical Thinking Company has some good puzzle books - Mind Benders and Balance Benders come to mind but there are probably others.

The scope and sequence of high school biology for many states does not use all of the Miller-Levine book. I aligned my co-op class with the TN standards, and when I started teaching online I checked with a couple of other states, including NY and CA. I may not be completely current since the standards change, but as of a few years ago none of the states had much of the systems content that is found later in the book as part of their standard high school class. My guess is that in some places anatomy is an elective option. At our co-op, much of that content is covered in the middle school life science with dissection class. The teacher and I worked together to minimize overlap so that students had time to go more in depth. I would look at an AP bio syllabus. You don't have to follow it, but it would give you an idea of what is in the AP class. I've had kids take the test after doing my class, which isn't an AP course but aligns closely. You can absolutely choose to use a syllabus that covers the whole book, but if you want a less stressful plan that would still leave her in good shape for a nursing program if interested, you can definitely find a plan that doesn't cover the whole book but is still rigorous. In biology, high school and college texts are often written such that more than one class could be taught using the same book and many classes do not use the whole thing. Good luck finding a plan that fits your needs!

I took it in middle school in one state and high school in another, so it was in some schools back in the 80s and 90s. My older took it at co-op where it was taught by a nurse, but I'd also think it was an easy 1/2 credit to do at home. I'd have my student look into different ideas of a good diet and maybe keep a food journal for a week, talk about exercise and types that are life-long, and look at mental and reproductive health issues. I'd also loot at drug use, addiction, and sleep. Some classes have an overview of body systems and others don't - it would depend on what my student had done in biology class. I might also add a CPR class. Some areas offer classes like how to administer Narcan and if that was available I might consider including it.

I can't imagine that I would chase somebody unless it was to rescue a kidnapping victim or something similar. But, I think it's foolish to do something and expect the recipient or the prank to be the 'bigger person'. You have no way of knowing what is going on with somebody. There's always a risk that somebody in the victim household is not sober, mentally stable, afraid because your prank comes on the back of a creepy phone call, or a host of other issues. When I was growing up my family would have rolled their eyes at teen behavior. But, one time an ex came home on leave from the military and kept showing up at places where I was. Another time a parent was getting death threats over a problem at work. Another time our house was burglarized. These were stressful incidents scattered over my 18 years at home, so it's not as if we normally had a lot of drama. When those things were current issues, my whole family was on edge, even though people who were just acquaintances wouldn't have known about it. If there was somebody doing anything weird at our house during those times, 'teen prank' wouldn't have been the first thought on any of our minds.

It's a legal thing. I remember when I taught at a CC I had the mom of a DE student contacting me saying that she needed to know how her student was doing for reasons (graduation? I don't remember) and her student said that they had no idea whether they were passing or not. I told her that I couldn't discuss grades with anybody but the student, but that I could talk about my general classroom policy, which was that every time I returned a test I left a little time at the end and encouraged students to stop by and see what their average was so that if I had mis-entered anything we could sort it out then. This was pre-online platform and my grades were maintained in an excel spreadsheet. So, it's been a while since this information could be released. When I switched from lab work at the U to teaching at the CC, I had one year where I had to do OSHA, HIPAA, and and FERPA training all within a few months. Ugh.

When we moved in to our house, the previous owner had turned off the water at the street. When we turned it back on, the sudden change in pressure messed up the water pressurizer and we had to have some plumbing work done. Most people don't have these, but people do have other things that might be sensitive - a filtration system, maybe? I think it's kind of like the water version of a power surge - often no problems, but can result in damage. If I did turn it off, I'd also want to turn off things like the water heater lest it destroy the element if something happened that caused it to run dry.

I'm mostly home all day, often in the same room with kid(s) for hours each day. If not, it's far more likely to be because the kids are at their chosen activity/friend gathering (that I spend 1-2 hours most days driving to) than because I need to be somewhere. Even with that, I have one who gets upset if my attention isn't available when kid gets the urge to talk (which is most of the day). If I'm sending an email, say that I need to finish reading something first, etc...then kid is upset that other things 'are more important'. Kid doesn't consider time when I'm snapping green beans or doing dishes while conversing as 'paying attention' either. This isn't to complain about my kid, but more to say that it may be a teen/tween thing, it may just be a kid's personality, but there is no guarantee that if you had everything the way that you would like that you wouldn't still run into this problem. Even if you are home all day, there are times when you are in the middle of something and it isn't reasonable for a kid to think that you can drop what you are doing. Even if it's purely social, it's not ideal to stop mid-text with a friend or family member just because a child has started talking. I make sure that I set aside some time to spend 1:1 with each family member each day but I'm not always going to be available the minute that it crosses my child's mind to start a monologue. This isn't to say that I only have conversations at the allotted time, but to point out that it's a good thing to help kids learn that other people are autonomous beings with things that they need and want to do and that the wants of one person can't always dictate what other people are doing.

I can't imagine myself ever being in a situation where I"m performing for a crowd like that, but, thinking about how I handle annoying things when I teach, I think I'd probably have gone with something more like 'OK, y'all, there seem to be some people trying to get selfies. I get it - if you don't have a pic it didn't happen - but the flash is really distracting. So, how about this...I pretend to sing and everybody get their pictures now. In 2 minutes everybody should have their selfies and groupies and then I can get back to singing and you can get back to enjoying yourselves without the flashes bugging everybody...all right, is everybody done? Let's get back to the music!'. I've done similar things with my class - 'Y'all are unusually chatty today...let's take a 3 minute break so that you can stretch and get your words out while I'm not trying to teach' or 'Y'all seem to have a lot of words today, so let's try a bit of review...who can tell me what X is?'. It's not a common thing, but every now and then the class comes in and a few people or everybody is acting like a squirrel on uppers and I just need to manage the weirdness. It's not always possible, but it's easier to work with rather than against the group when you can.

This probably depends on where you are, but our 'violin recital in the retirement home' has been back for a year or more. I don't think there's one right answer for this issue. Both of my kids have extracurriculars in the summer with down time. One tries to spend it all socially. The other likes to do low-key school and do time-intensive but not difficult credits. Drawing for fine arts, a computing elective with a lot of coding, meandering through part of a probability 1/2 credit, reading books for a 'many books' history class, and this summer, heading into senior year, choosing to knock out a DE credit...would getting a jump start on school for part of that time appeal? If you are just trying to reduce the game time, maybe kid would like spending part of that time coding for credit?

We lived in Albuquerque for a decade. Our time to do bigger road trips was limited - we were working and then had little kids - but we had some nearby favorites. In town, the natural history museum, biopark (zoo and botanic garden), explora (hands-on kid science museum that can keep adults busy, too), atomic museum, and hot air balloon museum (this one is small and fairly quick) were all entertaining to my kids even when we went back to visit (they were in their early teens). The petroglyphs offers several short, quick hikes. There is a tram ride to the top of Sandia peak. Old town, which is near several of the museums, is touristy but interesting (we were able top pop in to an old Catholic church to look around). Favorite nearby hikes - Sandia Peak (you can drive to the back side and just hike up there, or do a long hike to the top and back, or only go one direction and ride the tram the other way), Bandelier, El Morro, and El Malpais. We did a pre-kid road trip to AZ and explored the painted desert and grand canyon, which were both fun. Other nearby things to see are the ruins at Jemez and there was someplace nearby where you could go down into a kiva, but I don't remember what it was called. Some of these things are longer treks and some are short - we usually stopped at Jemez on the way to Bandelier, for instance. When we would go back to visit, we had no problem filling a week with stuff to do near Albuquerque so you'll have to pick and choose, but this gives you some indoor and outdoor options.

A day bed? The only options that I know of are sleeper sofas or futons that have to be folded out or day beds that are just a twin mattress in a different kind of frame. Some sectionals seem to be wide enough that they can function as beds if the back cushions are taken off, or a couch with one end as a chaise lounge-style part that can be a sleeping surface.

Change with a purpose can be good. Sometimes there is change just to make a change, and there's no reason to think that the new way will be better than the old way. The line for check-in moves from right to left - let's reverse that! Group meets at 6:30 - let's change it to 5:30...or 7:30. Either of those changes could be for the purpose of making something more efficient, or to accommodate a specific group (people needing to be home to put kids to bed, or people who can't get there on time due to work). But, the original plan was made for a reason so if the new plan isn't made to adapt to some change in the behavior of the people doing the thing, there's no reason to think it will work better. And sometimes there are downstream effects that aren't predicted. I posted on another thread about changes made to the church schedule by a new pastor. Things were already rocky after a prolonged covid closure. The schedule he wanted to do has worked at other churches. I've seen it a previous church, and had a good idea of the pros and cons and thought that in our particular church it would be more disruptive than helpful. We did it for over a year, and it was highly disruptive to the small groups, particularly the under-50 crowd. There were people who came a couple of times and couldn't figure out where to settle, since with the disrupted groups there wasn't any base to welcome them to. Eventually they switched back, but some people were permanently lost. The issue in this situation wasn't that the plan was terrible, it was that it wasn't a good fit with the strengths of the people, and the leadership didn't yet know the people and were making decisions based on demographic charts. Like, the younger demographic doesn't like Sunday School - they prefer midweek small groups! That may be true in some areas, but in our area many families are heavily invested in kid activities - band, dance, sports, drama, choir. There is no way for them to commit to other nights. So, it's fine to add more groups on other days of the week, but if you have a group of people who regularly meet on Sundays it may be because that is the day that is most often available, and the fact that their demographic loves meeting at Panera for dinner doesn't mean that these particular people are free on Tuesday night. So...well-thought-out change can be good. Arbitrary change probably isn't.

I have a cousin who did the same thing. I think the injury break gave him a chance to see what else he could be doing with his time. Different kids have different trajectories. My kid isn't that elite of a player, but loves the game more now than when he was younger. We've known other people who quit their senior years because they wanted to do other things. There was one senior last year, a 4-year starter, who looked like he was just going through the motions. But, life is too short to do optional activities that you don't enjoy. I'd say support him. But, it's fine to be sad, too. I can't really imagine what life without my kids' sports families will look like.

My teen has been like this for years. Some nights are less sleep by necessity, but kid prefers 9-10 or more hours. Kid does a lot of physical work - sports, workouts, running, helping in the garden - and is always working on something academic (by choice in the summer) or reading. The brain uses a ton of energy to work, and the sleep really helps with memory. Kid has protein smoothies (a cup of fruit, a pint of milk, and 3 scoops of whey powder) many days. Or 3 bananas, 1-2 cups of milk, and 3 scoops of peanut powder. The other night kid came home from scouts and ate after the rest of us were done. We had meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and several veggies. Kid ate a pound of meatloaf in addition to copious quantities of the veggies. Kid loves beans or peas and rice, and tends to eat them out of a serving bowl to accommodate the amount that kid eats. Kid had major growth spurts over the years (kid is now 6'2 and maybe done?) but is still filling out. We live in an area where it is easy to buy bulk meat (1/2 cow or pig) from area farmers, and we grow beans, peas, squash, okra, peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes in the summer. I can't imagine what our food bill would look like if we bought everything at a grocery store, but I'm sure I'd have sticker shock.