I know our co-op's science teacher is looking to do an honors Bio next year. She is thinking of adding in some extra books one being Darwin's Black Box https://www.amazon.com/Darwins-Black-Box-Biochemical-Challenge/dp/0743290313 Her son had to read it in one of his college classes and is having her read it now. She said it is fascinating.

The Jungle and The Chosen are two must reads in my opinion. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave is also an excellent book.

I really like Mystery of History. I found the writing to be a little bit more engaging than SotW (which we were using along side MoH). As with SotW, MoH can be used across grades. If you do the program I would look at the younger kid activities and those will probably appeal to both of your kids. You do not need to do an activity every day. Many folks look at MoH and find it overwhelming because she provides so many choices but it is really more of a buffet. You can start off with any of the books but I would say that book 1 and 2 are better geared towards the younger elementary (shorter lessons). I would not worry about covering everything in History at this point, you really get that in high school. Right now especially for your youngest you just want to get them an overview and enjoy the story of History. Oh and a great visual supplement for World History at those ages is Horrible Histories. You can find some of the videos on YouTube or buy them off of Amazon. They only have the first 3 seasons, the others are only available on the British dvd format.

There are a group of ladies on my Aunt's floor that do this. They just love folding the towels.

I can say with my Aunt either a UTI or dehydration can cause her to be more confused. Luckily she still recognizes us but I am not always sure she knows my name versus my sister. The other thing is it could be progressing rapidly too. My Aunt's dementia first really started showing symptoms only in July of 2015. Up to that time she drove (slowly) and would travel to visit friends. We did not even really know about it but friends started to notice then she was having a hard time finding words sometimes. By the time she moved up here in Jan. she really had no sense of time and did extremely poor on a memory test at the doctor. It was May/June when she needed the nursing home. Mind you she is better than a lot of the folks on her floor but you really would not want her by herself at this point. She is happy for the most part especially since they have ice cream for a dessert choice every day :laugh: You really want to work on getting a POA and a health care proxy done as soon as possible for both her and fil. I was going to mention looking into daycare programs that she could go to so he can have some time off but after reading your last couple of posts I would say it is probably too late for that. I would research Memory Care facilities. Many of those are place they could move into together but she could get the care she needs. When you all sit down together have a list of some options you could look at, either for them as a couple or her alone. oops edited that to July 2015. It really has been only a year for her with it but I notice that her decline is in spurts.

Dh would love to find some place that still sells the cookies. Around here only one county still does. He says they are the best! Dd belongs to a 4-h group that is a very loose group. The focus is on horses and the kids compete in both horse bowl and hippology contests. This past year was dd's 2nd year and she qualified for both the state horse bowl and hippology contests in the junior division. Her team actually came in 3rd at the state horse bowl event. This year we also have branched out to showing a cavy (guinea pig) so she is learning how to do that. She also submitted a couple of projects she did on her own to the county fair. Her poem was actually selected to be shown at the state fair which was pretty cool (not sure if it got judged at the state fair, as of Sunday it had not). The key to 4-H is pretty much like any extra-curricular, just find a group that fits your child. Oh and if you are close to a county border you can register for 4-H in a different county than you reside in. We are part of a group to the east of our county because our leader really likes their fair better.

We are dealing with my Aunt and dementia (possibly Alzheimer). We convinced her to move to my area (she lived in another state) and ended up getting her in a senior living home (she wanted a regular apartment but my sister and I knew she needed more help). The nice thing about that facility is that there were aide services we could hire that were in the building. They would come in and help her with medications, showering and getting dressed. You might talk to your fil about moving into one of these types of places. There were lots of very active seniors there, some who drove and couple who even went to work. Meals were available but there was still a small kitchen in the apartments. Something like that might be a good first step for them so she is around more folks who can keep an eye out on her and he will still be able to do all of his activities. The fact that he will be there at night and the aides are on call could really help him. With my Aunt she is now in a nursing home. She fell in the apartment in May and the hospital would not release her to love on her own because her walking was unstable. She then came down with pneumonia and is not back to walking. We know she can because one day she went missing and it turns out she wheeled herself into the bathroom, got out of her wheelchair and on the toilet by herself. The only thing was she could not get off and did not pull the cord for help. In therapy they would struggle to get her out of the chair, if she was out she could walk but it is like she cannot remember how to get up. She also does not always remember to use her silverware. Having a conversation is sometimes difficult because she looses the words. The nursing home is not ideal but at least we know she is safe.

I know exactly how you feel. I have been there and done that in am doing some of it again. Just know you are doing enough for his future career plans. You are teaching him the skills of how to learn, he will get everything else he needs in college. Focus on making sure his SAT/ACT scores are good, that is often the key for getting into a good engineering school. As for knowing if he is reading the literature you assigned have you seen the book 150 Great Books by Bonnie A. Helms? It has quizzes for 150 different books. Choose your books from there and have him complete the quiz when he is done. You can often find short quizzes on line too.

You might just want to take both of them at least once and see how the student does. Then you can decide if you want to retest to improve the score.

I really love Mystery of History. You can often find copies of it used or new the first edition is usually around $35-36 which is well worth it.

Here is what my 8th grader is doing: Science: Apologia Physical Science Math: Saxon Advanced Mathematics History: BJU American Republic, Maps Charts and Graphs by MCP Literature: 4 lit guides (Midsummer's Night Dream, Tom Sawyer, Little Women and The Chosen) plus about 15-20 books to read Writing: IEW The Elegant Essay and then part of their research paper book Vocabulary: Jensen's Vocabulary Grammar: Sections from Easy Grammar 9 and Editor in Cheif Logic: The Discovery of Deduction Bible : Explorer's Bible Study God's Perfect Plan French: Breaking the Barrier French 1

I liked the DVDs especially if you are just doing them at home and not in a group. The videos are a group of kids with the teacher discussing the lessons. They bring out some good examples and it is sometimes nice to get their views. You have to watch the extra videos though when you are done, they are hysterical.

We used Sonlight for our reading. Even though I am not currently using Sonlight's program I do use a lot of the literature that they do. I started letting dd do the reading on her own in 2nd grade. We started out the year having her doing a little reading out loud but then gradually she started reading on her own.

Check out Bookshark http://www.bookshark.com/level-4/reading-with-history They are the secular branch of Sonlight. We did the Sonlight American History and it was awesome

My doctor suggested drink lots of water, cut back the salt and the caffeine. I tend to retain some water no mater what. I can say thought that drinking lots of water especially when it is warm helps a bunch. When I was a kid my hands and feet uses to get itchy and swell up. it was not until I was in my 40's and my blood pressure was going up did I find out that was not normal. My dr put me on blood pressure meds that include a diuretic. I still occasionally get swollen feet and ankles. It is usually when the weather is very hot (dr said it is normal for feet to swell a bit when it is hot) or I have had too much salt. Sometimes if I am on my feet too much they swell or if I sit too much they might too. It is a balance I guess. Last year I had a really bad scare with my legs and feet swelling. It was one of the really hot days and I was at my in laws (who do not have ac). By the time we got home I was so swollen I almost went to the hospital. Putting my feet up helped and by morning it was way down but it took a day or two in order to get back to normal. I had corn on the cob which I had put salt on plus I think we ate fast food that day. When I went in for my check up the dr. did not worry about it and said everything looked fine (that is when they said, drink water and cut back the salt and caffeine. ) and to try the circulation socks they sell at Wal-Mart. I wear those around the house a lot (they are soft and comfy). Not sure if they help but they do not seem to be hurting me and I do not want to go the full compression sock route because they can be expensive if you have to get plus sized ones.

We used Abeka and it was not too bad. I thought it covered all the topics fairly well.

We co-op. Our co-op is fairly large (last year around 70 or so families). I like it because it is an a la cart co-op so you can take one class or five classes whatever meets your families needs. I usually teach at least one class and I am on our co-op board. Teachers get first registration so if you want to get into specific classes you are better off teaching. We also require parents to help out during the day (amount of helping depends on how long you are in the building) Families also have a certain number of set up and clean ups that they have to do through out the session. We have done a couple of different co-ops in addition to our main one on and off for a few years. This year because dd is going into 8th and I am not sure how she will adapt to the heavier schedule we are just doing the one.

The older I get the more the heat bothers me. I just keep some ice water with me at all times and that helps. I tend to retain water in the heat too. My dr. said to avoid caffeine when it is hot and to limit the salt. So when it is extremely hot and I have to be outside for awhile I do that and it helps too.

As others have said that does not sound right. We are in a drought here but our CSA boxes have been full. We get a full share and split it with our neighbor but I still get at least a crate full of product. Our CSA does not sell their produce it all goes to the CSA which is nice. They also have a bunch of u pick which is great too. I would bring the matter up with the CSA and ask what is going on. You can do better at a local farm market. I would not wait long to talk to them either. When you get this week's share if it is still light you should talk to them at that point.

Be aware that right now most of the SUNY schools are giving homeschoolers a hard time with admission and TAP aid. There is legislation that they tried to get through last year to officially recognize homeschool diplomas but that is currently in the Assembly Committee on Higher Education. I would say the best way to get that information is to ask the school. Contact their admissions office and have them send that information to you or contact the department chairs directly.

Check out the Bluestocking Press material. The reading is fairly easy and promotes some great discussion http://www.bluestockingpress.com/nature-government-civics-course-high-school.htm

Unit is 108 hours (nobody does the minutes). That ends up being 3 hrs a week for 36 weeks which in reality you are probably doing already. Most folks just put on their IHIP they are doing 1 unit of the subject and then on their quarterlies they still just put 247.5+ It is easy.

We did General Last year. I think they way I broke it up was she had to read at most 7-10 pages a day and sometimes those pages are taken up with the lab which she just had to skim until they did it at the co-op. The answering of the questions would take her 15-30 minutes depending on how many there were. I never had her do the added Bible questions in the journal, just really the on your own and any added charts/graphs that might be helpful for studying. We just did the study guide question not the addition help questions in the back since she did not seem to need them. I know I am very blessed with our co-op and that she is in the correct cycle for the labs. The person who has traditionally taught the sciences in the past has a son in the same grade as dd so our sciences always line up. If not dh would have to do them (which he would enjoy, but the scheduling is hard). If you are not a house with lots of weird science supplies around I highly suggest getting a supply kit for this and then gathering up the missing supplies all at once. It just makes it easier for you in the long run if you can just grab the supplies from one spot. We would do this with our older child since she did not want to do group labs.

The labs are necessary. You probably would not have to do them all but you want to do most of them. I have not seen the physical science cd yet (dd is doing it this year) but normally they just have the more difficult labs on there. I would plan one day a week to do the labs and you should be able to do 1-2 labs each week. That is how our co-op does it and the class is only 55 minutes.

We did it over a full year as part of our co-op. It only took a couple hours a week max. I guess you could do it orally but I think it helps the kids process it to write it down. We used the dvd's in class and if I was doing it at home I would definitely want them. It is good to hear discussion on the different fallacies. One thing I did for my class was to challenge them each week to find examples of the previous weeks fallacies in the real world. By the end of the year they were able to pick out fallacies everywhere.