Thank you for your encouragement, everyone. Your comments encourage me to look at pulling her out next year when (I hope!) we are once again employed and some of the family illnesses are stabilized. Holly, I'm looking forward to your remarks. So sorry to hear about your grandmother. Remember when I said I make not-great decisions on the fly? Tossing DD in school was a non-reflective decision. A HUGE amount happened in a short period of time and I became aware I was not actually schooling her because I was simply overwhelmed with personal issues. She wasn't doing school on her own in the fall - now, with 20/20 hindsight, I can see that she, too, was overwhelmed and simply needed more time to react and more direction than normal. Which I couldn't provide. At the time, I knew we weren't really schooling. Looking at school happened because our non-schooling was one of the issues I needed to face. The original plan was look into it, then make a decision mid-January when (we hoped) things would be more stable. Then the school councilors made us the offer of full credit with the proviso that we put her in immediately so they could use the mid-terms and her work in December to generate grades for the first half of the year. A good friend who tutors her in writing is a lawyer-turned-high school English teacher. She thinks K should be in public school (just one of the many who don't understand homeschooling) but has always put her own prejudice aside to support us because we're the parents and she loves K. She's been a great resource to help me evaluate curriculum and a sounding board for how much I can expect from a teen (she expects and gets a lot!). When she realized what was being offered, she urged us to take it because it was (in her opinion) best for K. I listened because she's been so much help. As I said, we were overwhelmed by life and made what looked like a good decision. Now, I could think straight enough to homeschool but she's there and both DH & I are still unemployed. I won't yank her back out before the year ends. She may not like school but it does provide her with stability in one area the rest of our lives is missing and right now lets us deal with everything else. We'll just enrich this year with Latin & German and go from there. So I'll continue to collect ideas, keep the curriculum we have already chosen, and once I/we get employed will work hard figuring out how we can, in fact, homeschool her for her junior and senior years. Again, thank you all for your comments. Please feel free to offer information, advice, and anything else you think of. I really need the encouragement to let me know that if I'm crazy enough to think of returning to homeschooling, at least I'm not the only one to think of it as a choice! Seems like there are a number of people here who think having her there must be a great relief to me. I've heard from more people who congratulate me on how "happy" I must be to finally have gotten her off to school... Sara

Confession time - I put my DD in public school in December. We had a really horrible fall (multiple family illnesses with three diagnosed with cancer and one heart attack), my DH was laid off (both of us still out of work) and has major back issues (goes back to a 60 mph motorcycle accident in his youth), worry about SIL who has MS & depends on our financial support... I wasn't able to focus on her school & didn't/don't want her to have to be alone all day while the two of us worked, so we talked to the local high school and net upshot is that she started mid-December. (Of course, I assumed that by now we'd both be working, not both still unemployed.) The school has been great. They have worked with us to place her appropriately (almost all honors classes), have given us credit for all we did at home (MOST unusual in our county), and all the teachers as well as her councilor have worked with her to make sure she's caught up. Net result: mid-terms came and she's almost a straight A student (B+ in Algebra). I'm incredibly proud of my daughter and extremely grateful to the wonderful and caring staff at the school. But... She's miserable. She feels like the classes are almost a waste of time due to the students who keep talking instead of paying attention. She isn't feeling challenged (the child who griped endlessly about the amount of writing I made her do is now griping about the lack of writing in her classes!); she feels like they make her do busywork instead of real work. She comes home exhausted and frustrated. She wants to move faster than they can/will move and points out that she's getting credit for being stellar for work I would have considered only acceptable. She wants to be homeschooled again. I told her she had to stick it out this year. We're still in flux, job wise (and soon housewise if we don't get work!), it's winter, she hasn't gotten into the rhythm of school (she came in shortly before Christmas and went back in January to mid-term prep), and I will not yank her out when I still am not sure I can handle homeschooling her in addition to everything else, ALL of which is still ongoing. She's prepping for the National Latin Exam in March outside of school and her German I teacher has agreed that she can work her way through German II independently so she could come into German III in the fall. And finally, it would be a slap in the face to the wonderful staff at the school who have worked so hard to help us. That said, I'm up for reconsidering in the fall. I'm not seriously looking at it now, I need to find a job! But I know I need to let it swirl around in my brain before I make any decision. I don't do so well with snap decisions. So I'm asking for early comments and will probably ask again in a few months if/when things settle enough I can see the shape of the fall. Any thoughts? We were fortunate when we first started homeschooling that we could use my husband's income as primary and I've just done on-call work for the last few years. I have a feeling that won't be true now - we'll both be working set hours. So is it doable? If some of you do this now, how do you manage? Help me, Obi-Wan(s). I really need some wise (wo)men right now. Sara

That sounds great! Thanks! (toddling off to LibraryThing)

I really want a list of the books I have in my house. I keep buying duplicate (or very similar) material in large part because I don't know what's here. And when I decide to get rid of books, I need to keep track of what books I'm posting where (many to Paperbackswap, but some I want to sell). Is there a site or (inexpensive) program anyone knows about that would let me input ISBNs and get a list? Do I really have to create my on spreadsheet and put in everything myself? I keep thinking someone has to have made this already... Sara

We are currently running a block schedule. Think summer school, year round. In about six weeks, we complete a year's worth of school, then take a week to do a special project which ties the subject to RL. For geometry, for instance, my daughter will completely finish Jacobs' Geometry this week then use next week to design, with materials & costs, the bedroom she wants us to build in the basement when (if) we finish it. I took this idea from Colorado College which does it at a college level, in about four week blocks. She hates it for the block but loves it afterwards. It's complicated by RL committments, but what isn't? Recently, she worked while I was gone for a week with a family emergency, has worked around PT for a broken ankle, worked around outside rather time-consuming theatre committments, etc. But for that six weeks, it is intense and even after, we choose to use the SAT books to review (a couple of math problems/day, for instance, & vocab word-of-the-day) to make sure it all doesn't fall out afterwards. We aren't trying to finish more classes in less time. She expressed frustration that everything constantly ran together while learning and she was never finished - "never a weekend off" was her complaint (welcome to RL101, kid!). We'll see how it does by the end of our school year (March or so), but so far, for the three classes we've done, the cycle has been "this will be easy!" "I can do this! I can!" "AARGH!!! THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE!!! WHY ARE WE DOING THIS!!!" "I quit!! I never want to do this again!!!" "It's done! Hallelujah!" "OK! I'm ready! What's next?" Every. Single. Time. We're currently on "I quit!" But she sees that if she keeps it up she'll be done with geometry by Saturday so she says it & then goes back to it. I will say that for each class, her self-pacing ability seems to improve so I have hope that one thing this is teaching her is how SHE needs to schedule things to get them done. So if DS wants to try blocks, try them. Be forewarned, supporting the child during this kind of intense schooling can be... challenging. And I do agree with the concensus, it really isn't a way to finish school earlier. Not unless the child is motivated to do so. After those intense six weeks, DD needs a few days downtime so you can't just run them together or you'll get burnout. Sara

for the slap upside the head. I don't know where my brain was when I decided it had to be the exact same book (late night/short of sleep? Let's at least call it that.:tongue_smilie:). I went back through the website and, of course, you're right. I've already found some more problems for problem areas she's hitting. What can I say? Bless the forum for being frank! Sara

All those wonderful books and nothing by Foerster or Jacobs! We're working our way through Jacobs' Geometry now (which we'll finish soon) and have tried Foerster for Algebra II, since recommended by Jacobs. We may have to switch. DD is not mathy and did not follow. We had to drop and plan to return later this year. Bummer more so because we tried LoF and she loved it, but admitted that she needed lots more practice than he gave. She mentally understood the concepts and did fine on the initial pass problems, but couldn't work the problems when they returned for review. Now I may get to tell her she gets to start Alg II for the THIRD time, with yet another book! Sara

Before you have him take the GED, check the boards out carefully. There have been a good number of posts about why that may not be a good idea. Dual enrollment is by far the more common/popular option. And on another topic altogether (maybe I should start a new thread, but it came up in here so I'd like to sound you out before doing so), how do those of you who started college early feel about finishing early AFTER 10 years or so out? I have a friend who started at 16 (a lawyer, FWIW) who is urging us to be cautious about starting our daughter at the same age. True, she went away to school as opposed to CC at 16, but she feels she missed out on a great deal because she was always out of step, age-wise, with her cohort at college. I say after 10 years out because she said it really didn't solidify in her brain until she was mid-late 20's. Sara

They truly do read like a story. DD doesn't especially like history, but enjoyed reading SWB books enough that she didn't mind them being, you know, history.:tongue_smilie: Having said that, I think they're light on the cultural side of things. They talk in sweeps of history. I wound up using Spielvogel as well. He has more cultural information (belief systems, photo examples of pottery/ clothing/ etc.) and uses excerpts of source documents. DD found him heavy reading (I was using a CC version with a 9th grader) but adding judicious sections gave a depth to the stories.

Since I'm also interested...:bigear:

Yes, I did have to tweak it. But copy & paste set it up so the explanations were clearly with the appropriate part of the form, and the line breaks to set it up were clear. Once that happened, it was easy to reproduce all three forms. Sara

I just copied Melissa's message with her form on it and pasted it in text format directly into Word so I could try reformatting it, and it came out perfectly! Try it if you're interested in seeing her form. Melissa, ignore the PM - I got the form already! Sara

My favorite great aunt told me never to say never because God has a strange sense of humor. She said when you say "I would never do that" God looks down and says "Never?" :tongue_smilie: This was the same great aunt who once told me "Common sense ain't." And on that note...:leaving: Sara

I will let those more articulate than I respond more fully. However, I will mention two reasons to study math: 1. Through Algebra and into Geometry, I have used mathematics a great deal. You may not even realize you are using it but when you try to figure out a whether the extra widget at Target makes it a good deal (let's see, if 2 widgets cost X and 3 cost Y, which is the better price? Is it better to pay $6 for 64oz or $3 for 29 oz?) you are using Algebra to solve for the unknown. But since it's "just everyday math," you don't think of it as Algebra. The quadratic equation? probably not. But you are using Algebra. When you measure the furniture in a room to see if it will work to rearrange things, when you plan to add a wall/see if a 64 sq. ft. bedroom can be changed into an office/plan an addition to the house, you are using Geometry to see if it will work first. If you go sailing, you are using Trigonometry every time you tack into the wind (as a matter of fact, realizing that enabled my husband to understand Trig). It is all angles and direction. 2. Math requires the learner to figure out how to complete one step at a time. For my daughter, this is one of the most invaluable skills math has taught / is in the process of teaching. She thinks conceptually. Great for understanding concepts. Lousy for working through things stepwise. The realization that some things require one step at a time is, in fact, translating into other areas. She will stop herself as she gets frustrated, blow out a breath, and say out loud "One step at a time." She is learning that shortcuts sometimes just make it longer to finish. In my opinion, or maybe just in my house, math is one of the really useful subjects, clear on up. Now if we want to start another thread with which subjects we consider useless and why, I have a whole LIST of Things We've Studied Which Were a Waste of Time. But as I said, that's a list for another thread.:tongue_smilie: In the meantime, if nothing else, consider it one minor step toward Proof You Really Can Stick To It. From learning to write neatly to finishing a Bachelor's, there are things we do just to demonstrate we can push through to success. As a teen, your daughter really can't be sure where her life will lead. She might never need it. But then again, she might. Depends on what career or life path she ultimately decides to follow. So, not as short a response as I had initially thought I'd give. Sorry that I grew a bit verbose, but hope it helps, at least a bit. And if not, hope that just venting helps a bit. Sara

is http://www.thehomescientist.com/kits/CK01/ck01-main.html There was a recent thread discussing it, which lead me to the kit. We compared prices on some of it with purchasing on eBay and the kit came out ahead, especially with shipping. I purchased it for this year. The package arrived yesterday and I like the looks of it. He's up front that you'll need to get a few standard household items (can't remember what they are, but they are truly common enough if you don't have them it'll only take a trip to the grocery). I'll let you know in a year how I like it! Sara

and a free membership next county over at an even better system. But even more I will add the chorus to check out interlibrary loans. For $3 a pop, I have been able to check out curriculum I am interested in purchasing including textbooks, get almost any book my library doesn't have but I need on a short term basis (very useful as we read literature and great for those supplemental topical books), compare versions of books to be sure which edition I want (again, very useful to find the version of The Inferno we ultimately bought),... I consider it an inexpensive rental fee. Less than the cost of shipping if I were to buy through Alibris or Amazon. Sara

How do you work with a kid who likes to stay on one page long enough for the automatic timeout to kick in? My daughter loves fanfiction (one of her big time suckers on line) and if a story is long, she may be able to sit on the story page for an hour or more without changing pages. At that point, Net Nanny has timed her out of her monitored internet usage due to "inactivity." She can, in effect, read fan fiction on line for far more than her allotted time. We've had several arguments this summer, especially since she had grand and glorious plans of what to do with her summer and NONE of them are moving forward. She's just sitting on the computer! Our agreement was that I would unrestrict the specific times she could be on for summer (she's not allowed on the computer during school unless she has a specific assignment) and limit the total amount of time instead. But unless I watch and time her myself, which I got Net Nanny so I WOULDN"T have to do, she can and does spend hours on end reading! She's not really aware of the amount of time she spends on-line. It just flies by and the day is over. So what do I do???? Renege and strongly limit her time? Or is there a way to set up parental controls not to time out?:confused: And oh, by the way, in just the length of time it took me to compose this response, Net Nanny timed ME out! When I went to add a smiley, I had to log back in to recording my internet time! Sara

like next year's Cambridge Latin. But when I went looking for the literature selections we will be reading this year, I found *ahem* more than one in duplicate. That just means I was thinking ahead so each of us could have our own copy, right?:tongue_smilie: Sara

Susan, If you've already been looking on-line, you may have the answers you need, but I figured I might as well send you this link: http://visioncareforyou.com/ It's the link to the website of the developmental optometrist who treated Kitty. He put quite a bit of information on there, in terms that are easy to understand. He discusses the different types of visual problems and whether or not vision therapy can help. He also has some pretty helpful links, if you're just trying to gather more information to know what your next step should be. Good luck! It must be incredibly frustrating for both you and your daughter to keep dealing with this. Sara

since this is the reason we started homeschooling in the first place (but not the reason we continue). My own dd loved school up until about 4th grade. In 4th grade we started hearing that she didn't want to go. She refused to do some work, could do wonderfully in math in an oral group but had multiple "careless" mistakes on paper, hated to do "busy work" (any homework at all), etc. We stood over her and forced her to complete her homework. She hated school, the problems were stupid... Shall I go on? And this was with a teacher whom she adored! The only reason she continued to do any work at all was that she loved Mrs. Bari and didn't want to let her down. Finally, my husband's older sister reminded him that he hadn't even learned to read until 4th grade (he's now an engineer), and only then because of eye therapy. We took her to a developmental optometrist and found that, although she could see 20/20, her eyes didn't want to focus in the same place on the page. She could force herself to focus but it tired her out no end. So why problems in 4th grade quite suddenly? Books have smaller type, less white space. The math problems have decimal points (that she either didn't see or saw in the wrong place in the number). Math problems started having steps - not just add / subtract, but add then multiply. Is it a divided by sign or a minus sign? Depends on if she managed to focus enough to see the little "spots" above and below the line. God bless the teacher who worked with her orally when she couldn't / wouldn't work on paper, who believed that there was something we weren't seeing and not just carelessness in her work, who continued to encourage her throughout the year. If all teachers were like Mrs. Bari, my daughter would still be in school. A year of eye therapy later, she could complete easily her work. She still wears reading glasses, especially for math, although her eyes test as 20/20. So yes, if you're having similar problems, by all means get your child seen by a developmental optometrist or at least someone who has some experience with these types of vision problems. But I will warn you, our insurance didn't cover any of the therapy. It's considered "unproven" and not covered under eye or medical. Sara

mainly because foreign languages are <ahem> not my best subject.:D She has finished Units 1&2; took the Nat'l Latin Exam four stages before finishing Unit 2 and passed Level I magna cum laude (not the top rank but not the bottom one either). Next year we plan for her to finish Unit 3 (anyone have it for sale?) before taking the Level II exam. The teacher's manual had interested extensions on the cultural stuff which she enjoyed but wasn't otherwise really of use to two people who didn't know Latin to start. She uses the student text, the workbook, and the on-line subscription (as said before, it's only about $15 and she has enjoyed using it). We tried working with me as the "teacher" but concluded before ending Unit 1 that all I was doing was slowing her down because she grasped things much better than I did. One thing I think has helped her a good deal is that she completed Analytical Grammar so has a firm grammar foundation. I use the English language well (thanks, Mom!) but Florida in the '70's was not rigorous in grammar eduation and I never even saw sentance diagramming until we started homeschooling. She can make connections with Latin grammar that totally elude me. She likes the stories and continues to be interested in finding out what happens to the characters so I think it is really a good curriculum for self-teaching. The only thing I will say is have another Latin grammar of some sort. We have "The Idiot's Guide to Learning Latin," but I don't think it matters so much what it is as that you have another way to explain specific grammar points that you have difficulty with. Let's face it, one of the great things about a teacher is getting things explained more than one way. There are simply times with any curriculum that it helps to have something explained another way. Sara

I'm on a couple of local email loops and have had reasonably good success with posting on them. With regard to the inexpensive stuff, I've also had good luck with using PaperbackSwap.com. There are a couple of similar sites, I understand. You post the book and promise to mail them without charge to others, and in return you can get books from others the same way. It's been very useful with literature/reading books through the last couple of years and has also netted me a couple of textbooks I've used, including a relatively recent (one edition back) Spielvogel's World History. Although it doesn't get rid of more books than I get, it lets me exchange books I no longer need for those I now do. And really, even before homeschooling I was not good at getting rid of more books than I got!:tongue_smilie: Sara

I've read threads about Caveman Chemistry and checked the book out. I think it looks like a great book for my daughter, and one we could have a lot of fun working through. However, I didn't find any discussion of those actually using CC, just of those who thought this looked like a great book to use. Did I miss the threads or has anyone out there actually used the book as a Chemistry course? When I go to the CC website, the syllabus emphasizes that it is considered a non-lab course at the college. When I read the projects, they do use a fair amount of equipment and chemicals. So, my next question is, would you consider this a lab course for high school? I should say that my daughter is aiming at Humanities, not a science career. OTOH, she is still only 14 so the sudden changes are giving me whiplash.:willy_nilly: Any thoughts? Sara

I'd love to hear from you about what you have discovered once you've changed your style of writing. I'd be most interested in even just an anecdotal experience with it. So, if you have nothing better to do in a couple of months:tongue_smilie:drop me a PM and let me know what you find. Sara

You know the things that influence you. You know that doing something smooth and rhythmatic affects your brain waves from personal experience. Give it a try and pay attention to how you feel when you do it. Frankly, if it is something that takes only a few minutes a day, and you're truly curious, this at least counts as a rabbit trail to follow. Even if crossing your T's up high doesn't do anything, I'd bet learning a new skill (writing in a font you love, rather than settling on what you've been taught) will. One other thought - as you're looking into this, what do you feel when you look at the writing samples in these books? Does one style of writing call to you? If so, look at what the authors say about the personality that uses such a font. After all, might as well choose characteristics you want to live with! (and you can see if the graphologists agree on the traits that are produced / indicated!:tongue_smilie:) Sara