Tom Hilpert has a series that's interesting - the main character is a Lutheran pastor. Chris Grabenstein's Ceepak series is a fun beachy read.

Based on the suggestions above, I'll add Margaret Maron, Laurie King, Faye or Jonathan Kellerman, and Beverly Connor. I also liked the 'Southern Sisters' and the 'Miss Julia' mysteries, but I don't remember their authors. The Lydia Chin mysteries by Rozan? were interesting - I don't think there's been anything new in a long time.

Like KungFuPanda, we have often worked efficiently through the subjects that the kids need to learn but may not love. We can make things more enjoyable (let's spell out loud while jumping on the trampoline!) or accommodating (when one of my kids had writing difficulty, we chose a grammar specifically because the workbook was set up for underlining or matching rather than rewriting sentences). By avoiding busy work, we free up hours that the kids spend building with legos, reading for fun, wandering in the yard, and doing extracurriculars like sports, scouts, music, and karate. I want for them to learn 'the necessities', develop some discipline and goals through activities, and still have time to enjoy creative play. Having met scientists who continue to advance their fields because they have a sense of wonder and whimsy, I want to make sure that that sense of 'playing with ideas' isn't lost (even while wanting to cover my ears when hearing the 50th description of how, based on a lego re-enactment, various military battles could have been won by the other side). One thing that I think that we do better than the schools my husband and I attended is that the kids are exposed to a lot more subjects. We've used the Core Knowledge sequence to get ideas for things to learn about, and they've read from SOTW, children's versions of classic literature, and a lot of kid-friendly science and history books that I strew around the house. Some days we watch documentaries while we eat lunch. We also try to travel some - nothing exotic, but we try to take at least a weekend trip to someplace with a cool cave or museum every year (last year was a bigger trip to DC). I think that by reading about or seeing lots of different ideas, they have more things that might pique their interest and more information to use to make connections between disparate concepts.

My at-the-time-10 year old developed something that sounds exactly like that, on his face, while we were on vacation. Because it was on his face and seemed to be spreading, we took him to an urgent care. The dr diagnosed some sort of skin infection that goes away on its own after months. But, the rash in the diagnosis didn't ooze (which kid's hadn't done at the time that we took him, but started the next day). This kid has had staph on his face before due to atypical excema, and that required an antibiotic ointment to clear up. This stuff, though, went away on its own. We had planned to go to our ped when we got home, but by the time that the week of vacation was over, the rash, whatever it was, was clearly on the mend. Good luck figuring out what it is - I hope it goes away quickly. I'm guessing ours was some weird combo of chlorine in the pool, salty ocean water, sunscreen, and kiddo's sensitive skin. We are currently fighting poison ivy with some prescription ointment leftover from a previous problem - the dr ordered us a big tube and said to use when we needed it.

I've homeschooled since my older was in K, but that's still only 7 years. Because I teach high schoolers, though, I get to talk to a lot of moms who have been doing this a much longer time. One thing that some of the moms were talking about is that people seem to be homeschooling for different reasons. When they started, people were more philosophical homeschoolers or wanted something more developmentally appropriate. They say that more of the newbies are homeschooling for the purpose of academic rigor - not that the older folks weren't rigorous, but rigor or acceleration wasn't their primary purpose. The sweet ladies on our co-op board see part of their job as balancing the different goals by offering different options. Of course, by having a co-op, that's 'new homeschooling' to some. But, this group has been around for 20 years, so it's not new. For the littles, it's all enrichment, and for the olders, there's a mix of academic and enrichment, with folks taking what they want. We meet once/week, so most work is done at home, and from what I can tell most students are home-taught in almost everything until middle or high school, and still home-taught for at least some subjects in high school. But, I think another issue, which is people expecting everything to already be organized and available, is a symptom of something broader than just homeschool changes. We recently saw a discussion in a small group at church, where people were complaining that there weren't enough social events for people in a particular age bracket. I kept thinking that everybody in the group was over 30 and connected online...surely a social gathering could be arranged without it needing to be a ministry of the church! I visited a museum that had a display about the 'secret cities' of WWII, and they talked about how everything was self-organized because nobody could go in or out. Folks arranged book clubs, Bible studies, sports activity groups, dances for the teens...but they had the mentality that if they wanted something then they needed to organize it. I sometimes wonder if the problem is that people my age grew up in an era of organized extracurriculars, so they never needed to put their own pickup games together.

If you have a World Market, they have silicone ones. They don't have as many compartments, but they collapse for when you store them. We'll sometimes use one with 2 compartments and then take a small thermos for hot or really cold food. We have a couple of different sized ones. I've also got a laptop lunch (which seems to have renamed itself 'bentology'), that looks similar to what you have. I had to order it, though, so it doesn't fit the 'go see it in person' part. One nice thing about that style is that you can buy a couple of sets of the small containers to put in your bigger box.

I only have 2, but my older (6th grade) likes order and my younger likes chaos and being the center of attention. I've got a pocket chart with index cards listing the day's subjects, and they move the cards from 'to do' to 'done' pockets every day. My older loves this method because he knows exactly what to do - every Monday, he does the same subjects, so it's predictable. Older also struggles to work with noise, and at times has chosen to work in my husband's home office or on the porch. For most subjects, I've chosen books where it's obvious what to do next, so my help isn't needed to get started. There are a few subjects that we do together, and older is usually good about grabbing me at a time when younger is occupied to do that work. If we get to the school room before younger, or younger takes a snack break, older will quickly say 'Let's do MCT' to take advantage of the quiet.

We've got a couple of different rules that we've used at different times. With their kindles, they only get them on road trips, waiting rooms, and sometimes if they're stuck waiting for a sibling at a practice. That rule was instituted because one of mine couldn't stop asking - now I don't have to deal with it at home. With TV, they never get any time until school work is done. Sometimes we have a routine, like watching a show with lunch, or having a TV/rest break at 2 pm. Right now our schedule doesn't work with having a set time every day. They know they only get a certain amount of time outside of school-related documentaries, so they tend to look for a good block of time to do it based on whether they want to watch something together or separately. We also have days with no TV - not set days, but if I find that kids are being too cranky, or asking for screen time when they wouldn't expect to get it, or if I feel like it's becoming too much of an 'obsession' rather than just an optional bit of entertainment, we take a screen break for a day or 2. We also have certain days that I'll declare a 'family movie night' or 'family favorite show afternoon' and they know that they won't be watching anything else except what we do as a family.

We have traveled a good bit with kids in car seats and booster seats. On the plane, the lap belt is fine. Boosters from the rental place can be iffy - sometimes they're OK, and sometimes they are dirty. They are also expensive - we have had trips where it was cheaper to buy an inexpensive booster for $25 than to rent one for $5/day for 10+ days. When we did that, we searched for the closest store that would sell one, often less than a mile from the airport, and drove straight there (not ideal, I know...) - if it were farther, we'd send my husband out to get one and then come back and get us. My kids are very tall and exceed the height requirements (and, for younger, the weight requirements) long before they meet the age requirements for boosters. We actually had to buy a seat on one trip because the one provided by the rental company was too small - maybe they only had car seats and not boosters, but my kid was too broad through the shoulders to fit in what they had. ETA - after reading the post above this, if the bubblebum had been available years ago, it would have saved us a lot of trouble! I'd go with that!

Years ago, I sent a big stack of our college T-shirts to the folks at Keepsake Quilts, which is a group that sells quilts made by hearing-impaired people. It turned out beautifully, and I'm saving some of my kids' things to have quilts made for them as high school graduation presents. But, it was expensive - I think it wound up being a combo birthday/Christmas present for my husband. He's impossible to buy for, though, and we often don't do much for gifts so it was a rare treat to find something that he loved. I guess that is to say that your question is either 1) will you ever make one, or 2) can/will you spend the money to pay for somebody else to do it? If the answer to both is no, then go ahead and get rid of them. Also, look and see how many shirts would be needed to make a quilt. We had a full/queen quilt made, and it only used maybe 30? shirts. You could go ahead and cut the plain side off of the shirt and use those for rags, since they only need the side with the big logo. That would cut your stack in half.

Has your son gotten to know anybody in the class that he could get notes from? When I was in school this was complicated and involved going to a library to make copies or using a carbon paper to make duplicates. When I have asked my high school students if they could help somebody who was absent or had a broken arm, they pull out a phone and take pictures of their notes and then send them. They are surprisingly legible. I have graded tests that were cell phone pictures of handwritten work and it was fine. I have found that classmate notes are often more useful than what a prof would provide since (speaking from experience) often an entire lecture could be based around a handful of phrases, while students write pages of notes. From what you describe, there are other issues, but this one might have an solution that doesn't require help from the faculty.

I comparison shop between Home Science Tools and Amazon. If you are just buying for one student, HST is usually better because, even if it is more expensive per unit volume, you only need a small amount. I think Amazon's prices fluctuate more, and at times I've found media and petri plates fairly inexpensively. And, sometimes it's less expensive to buy a kit than to buy the individual reagents - it depends on what you need. I think that for Gram staining I bought the kit, for instance, but for macromolecule testing, I bought the individual reagents that I needed instead of the food testing kit. But, students doing it at home who didn't have tubes, droppers, etc, might be better off buying the kit.

I'd see if she's used any new products (laundry detergent, soap, shampoo, etc). Has she been swimming in a pool or been in a hot tub? One time we went to a friend's pool, and I sat on the side with my legs in the water. The next day I had an awful rash up to my knees, and it took 2 weeks to go away. I still don't know what, specifically, was in that pool since I've been in others since then without problem.

I would try an antihistamine. They can make a cold feel better, and depending on where you are, it's ragweed season. My allergist has said that this is a perfect storm of allergens this year (mold and ragweed at the same time, and lasting longer than usual), and a lot of people are experiencing severe symptoms.

You mentioned that sometimes your son has no notes on a particular topic - is it because students are expected to extrapolate from something that has been taught, or is your son having a hard time taking notes? If it's the former, you might need to switch to something that gives more step-by-step procedures. I'm sure that you can get good recommendations for a book or class that has that format. If it's the latter and your son is otherwise enjoying the class, I would use a 2-pronged approach. In the short term, to keep from getting behind in math, could you ask a classmate for a copy of the notes? To help students get over a note-taking hump in my co-op class or deal with an absence, I have occasionally asked for a volunteer (or asked particular students who take good notes) if they would be willing to share. Students who type the notes are often willing to send a file, and now that so many students have cell phones with cameras, it's easy to snap a picture of notes and send it. They are surprisingly legible - before I had a good online platform, I sometimes graded tests that were cell phone pictures! At the same time, I would work on note-taking skills since these are an important skill across all subjects. Maybe sit with your student for a couple of class sessions to point out what he should be writing down? Sometimes it takes students a while to get the hang of taking notes from a lecture. I have had to explicitly tell students 'If I am writing something on the board, you need to be writing it down.' I think that, because everything makes sense when the instructor is doing the work and talking about it, students think that they'll remember all of the details when they try to do their work. Also, have you contacted the teacher? Parents and students are often reluctant to ask for help or talk about a problem with the class, but most teachers understand that some formats may be a problem for a particular student. He might be able to offer some tips to deal with a particular problem, suggest a supplemental resource, or, if all else fails, suggest a curriculum that would be a better fit.

When my kids were K-2, it didn't take much more time than raising them would. I chose books and crafts that fit with what we were learning in history or science, but I would have been spending time with them anyway. I spent time looking for curriculum, but if I found something that worked and we liked it, I usually stuck with the same series the next year. Around 3rd grade, school starts to take more time and when my oldest got to 5th grade it started to feel more like a job than a hobby, if that makes sense. For other people, the 'feels like a job' time was probably different, but for us it was when school started taking longer, it was the first time that I had to scramble to find a 'we need a different explanation and more practice' supplement to our math curriculum, and required writing output increased in preparation for what I wanted in middle school. It was a hard year, and I joked about 'crashing across the finish line in an ugly heap' at the end. This year I've got kids in 6th and 3rd, and while I would still equate it to having a part-time job, last year's work seems to be paying off - it's an easier 5ish hours a day.

Vocab with Classical Roots books cover 2-4 roots each unit, with maybe 10-20 words using those roots. A unit has around 4 exercises, so you can do it over a week. There are 16 units/book, so you can finish one in a semester. We also have used the MCT books - we're currently on Caesar's English 1. My history-loving kid has really enjoyed those - he actually does both Classical Roots and MCT at the same time, although I'd be fine with either.

I'm a big fan of not fixing what isn't broken, so we have some things (math, handwriting) that we've used for all of elementary school. If there was a problem, then I'd switch or supplement. Actually, my older kid got really frustrated with an Algebra curriculum, so we took a break and used something different for a while. There's also no reason to stick with something between independent topics - using a different geometry book than what you used in Algebra should be fine. We have other subjects where I think it's good to do something every year (like vocabulary) but there's no reason to stick with a particular program, so we switch based on how it fits with the student each year. We have also switched because we want to try a different approach. We had used 2 different grammar/writing programs over several years, but when I thought that my kids were becoming too rote with the work, I tried a radically different style and it worked. To minimize gaps in history/science topics, we picked a scope and sequence (we chose core knowledge, but there are many others). The HOW changes depending on the student (reading books, workbooks, hands-on projects, etc) but the topics don't.

The whole 'no notes' thing sounds weird, but to answer the original question, I'm not a fan of pop quizzes but I am a fan of regularly schedule small-stakes quizzes. Without some incentive to study, many students will put it off. If they know that there is a quiz every week, they will usually do a better job staying on top of their work. Unscheduled rare quizzes seem like they may not be representative of what students are actually learning. If they are unscheduled but frequent, that could help motivate students to stay current with their studying and probably serve the same purpose as my preferred 'there's a short quiz every Monday' model.

We've always done a co-op one day/week (Th), and the subjects that my kids take there vary each year. Our regular curriculum goes into the other 4 days. I have always alternated history and science for elementary in 4-8 week units so that there are fewer transitions in the day. This year we do either the history or science unit 3x/week and do SCM's Visits to...geography on the other day. Math is daily, and back when we were doing phonics that was daily - these days, phonics is replaced by spelling. Most other subjects - grammar, vocab, handwriting, etc, are done 3 days/week. I give my kids a choice of which days to do them. One child liked to cram everything on M/T/W so that Fridays were short, and the other spreads things out more. We do Bible M, T, and F since we go to church on W. For my older student, who is now in middle school, we do some math, language arts, science, and history all 4 days. But, we don't do all parts of every subject every day. So, language arts may be grammar and vocab one day, and writing and literature on a different day. Because we have 'car school' one day and other days are stay at home days, we assigned different subjects to the days based on spreading out the writing-intensive work, and also so that the car day has things like reading literature instead of trying to write a report. When I can, I've always doubled up. If they need to write a sentence or essay (depending on age-appropriateness), I have them write it about their history or science work. This kid also has Latin from co-op and typing, and there are specific days with time set aside for that work.

In biology, I do weekly 10 point quizzes that usually have 5 questions. I will give partial credit in the sense that you can get 1 of the 2 points for a question, but I don't deal with half points. Over the course of the year, there are between 800-1000 points, so even if a student fails a particular quiz with a 5/10, it doesn't matter much to their overall grade. I also give credit for homework, also worth 10 points/week. If they do it all, then they get full credit. I make corrections on the homework and give feedback, but I admit that I'm generally not willing to restate a definition for a term that is defined in the lecture, the text, and the glossary so I will sometimes just note that they need to recheck certain questions. Tests usually have around 15 questions, sometimes as many as 20, and are worth 100 points. Again, there is partial credit. There are also projects, but those work better for science than for math. Weighting is important. In my class, you work towards a total number of points so 900/1000 is an A. In other classes, quizzes may be weighted to be 10% or 50% of the grade. In some classes, the quizzes are more to give feedback and are worth so little that they don't matter much, and in other classes they are a major component of the grade. I'd check the syllabus and see how grades are calculated.

How you handle this may depend on what the book tests are actually testing. Sometimes the tests in the book seem to focus on details that are easy to formulate into a multiple choice question, but aren't really that important. I have the same complaint about some of the end of course exams that I see. If you only have 50 questions to assess all that a student was supposed to have learned in freshman biology, I would not choose 'If Biuret reagent turns purple, it indicates that your sample contains a)protein' as one of the most important. :-) But, it's easier to test than 'Explain the process of protein synthesis' or 'What roles do proteins have in a cell?'. The last 2 are the questions that I ask on tests that I write, and I'm fine with asking them as homework questions because if students know those answers, they've learned what I want for them to know. For my students to correctly answer the one about Biuret months after we'd done the experiment, I'd have to tell them to learn that detail specifically. Since I don't think it's the most important thing to study for a cumulative final, I don't ask the question. :-) But, if I thought it was important, I'd have no problem with asking them to fill out a chart about molecules, testing solutions, and results as homework, and telling them to know it for the final.

I used it for several years. For my kid who likes to learn and generally retains things, it was great. It was relatively painless and quick but got the job done. This kid also struggled with having to write a lot, so a format where he could mostly circle or underline was perfect. For my kid who is smart but tries to get through school with as little thought as possible, they were able to do a good bit of pattern recognition and didn't retain as much as I would have preferred. When we switched, we went in the complete opposite direction and are using the MCT program. My happy learner has flown through the beginning years and can do the sentence analysis about as fast as he can read the words. As good as MCT is, I'm thinking that his earlier practice with GWG helped. For my more reluctant learner, we've had to start at the beginning and go slowly. But, as we complete the Grammar Island book, there are still days when this kid will insist that they don't know what a verb is, so I'm not quite willing to blame it on GWG. :-) One thing that I do appreciate is that GWG did a painless good job with the basics of punctuation.

My girl moved to the big kids section when she was 5. So many of the girls' stuff is skinny, which is also a problem. Danskin at Walmart, lands end knit stuff, hanna anderson, occasionally target or old navy or belk (their store brand j khaki used to be pretty good). Recently we found a few things at justice, and she can now wear a womens XS for things like umbro shorts. I've also found long shorts at JC Penny. I have the reverse problem with my boy, who is tall and very skinny...all of the girl clothes are skinny and much of the boy active wear is boxy (for anybody who's interested, Wes and Willy shorts from amazon, lands end slims, and gap skinny, which has jeans and sweats are good). Both kids could sometimes find things at gymboree/crazy eight.

I need good arch support more than cushioning, and had great luck with vionic (I wore their flip-flops to Disney, and just got a pair of tennis shoes that I haven't worn yet). For cushioning, I've enjoyed oofos. I got a pair of flip-flops that I wear as house shoes, and I'm looking at some of their other styles on Amazon. One thing with oofos - I wear a EU 39 Birks, but my oofos are a 41.