Wow, thanks for your replies! I thought they did something extra for some reason... We have a million good digital scales as dh uses them for work (baking), y'all just saved me a few hundred dollars, thanks!

We are stay at home as much as possible. We have 20 acres, plenty of work and adventure around here! Last weekend the kids were painting and woodworking, dh took a couple of kids grocery shopping and I was just pottering.

Is this necessary? Do other scales not do the same things? Sorry, I'm not a sciency person so I'm trying to get my head around what this does without having access to one! We're doing bfsu vol 2 and it's listed in the A stream as part of measuring density/volume. My oldest is in 6th, we have many years of middle/high school science ahead, will I use it again?

We also had a similar situation in our family. The perpetrator put on a big show of repentance and baptism. Some people, dh included, wanted to believe that he had changed. I was skeptical. He did it again and worse and we were done. We avoid them wherever possible and when not possible, cooly cordial. They knew where we stood before hand, we warned them and gave a lot to help and encourage. In return we were lied to. As far as we are concerned, they are not the same person and I have nothing to say to this new person. We were pressured to not make waves, to forgive and move on. We regretted it. It is sad but I am done with sweeping stuff under the carpet for comfort. If they came to us in genuine understanding of their behaviour and made restitution to the injured parties then we could slowly build a relationship again.

Awesome!

I would be burnt toast with that outside schedule. I would drop the cc for a start. Liking it is not enough, it has to earn it's spot on your schedule. The reasons you listed for liking it aren't compelling enough for me. They can get all of those things in other ways more efficiently. I would keep piano but, yes use that time! I think the meeting dh for lunch is valuable so I'd just be strict about waiting for lessons = school hours. Just make sure that they can actually do the work independently - I'd consider bringing the laptop and doing the veritas & Latin then. I wouldn't worry too much about after piano school, maybe just reading... Tennis on it's own would not be enough for me to get out of the house and I'd be tempted to look at a tues afternoon option - even just getting to the court yourselves for a play after meeting dh? The bible study would be tempting, but for me would depend on what other faith community activities they do, and what the people in this group are like. I wouldn't worry about formal writing, I do SWB'S writing across the curriculum from the complete writer.

I'd tell her to take some time to focus on the culture that she wants in the family. I'd work on implementing a good routine, chores, and at the beginning I'd do math and any school (minimal) all together in a fun way. This will set the tone of her homeschool - working together, fun. I'd give the kids a quiet reading time - or drawing /picture books /documentaries if they arent reading yet - lots of unstructured time (no screen) so they can get comfortable with themselves. I'd do puzzles and boardgames and long walks. Then after a month at least, in which she'll be able to get her head around what she wants, I'd add one or two subjects. Go slow. Her kids are young enough. If she jumps in full throttle they will all burn out, guaranteed.

I don't like to read aloud. I do read one chapter book aloud in morning time, and bits and pieces as they come up during the day. I still read picture books to the littles and I do enjoy that. We do a lot of audio books. This is one reason why AO did not work for me, even though I love the idea.

Dd11 did tuck everlasting and bridge to terabithia this year and liked them. She just pulled little women off the shelf - of her own accord - because I was talking about it. I'm rereading it on audio and forgot how beautiful it is.

Mum needs to play along! Take the wind out of his individual expression sails. "Oh honey, you would look adorable with fangs (bonus points if you can find a childhood pic of him in vamp costume), I'm actually partial to them myself, we could go together! I'm sure that any employer will see your maturity through your need to play permanent dress ups..."

I regularly do 5-7 hours, I wouldn't say I'm performing at optimum performance though! Any less than 5, for a few nights in a row and I start to really struggle.

I wouldn't give it to my current 6th grader, and she's had plenty of scary/semi mature books. There's some disturbing violence, ODing, burning people alive in their homes, trying to hit people in cars. The themes apart from the violence are a little mature for that age, imo, that I think it would be better saved for 8-9th minimum. Eta- circe just did a podcast about this book that you may find interesting https://www.circeinstitute.org/podcast/commons-9-fahrenheit-451-and-benedict-option-featuring-matt-bianco

This is me too. We keep our evenings free and our weekends free as much as possible too. With dh's work schedule, family/down time is sacred. We have one day a week for music lessons (each child does the same) and excursions/friends. We have homeschool group once a fortnight. I just can't come at paying for a sport, we much prefer unstructured time for them to run around our large property. Eta- I didn't mean to sound so judgey! My kids are just not the sporty type so organised sport just never became a priority.

Dd11 likes and does pretty well with math. We mix it up with life of fred and human endeavour. I get similar attitude over history and writing though!

We go from about 9.30 til 3 ish. We do hour blocks - morning time, maths, la, reading/violin, history or science and a language which is about 20min. We don't schedule every minute, we take natural breaks. It really helps to have a consistent start time. But yes, commiserations, most of the day day for 3 elementary/middle students sounds right to me.

What about ivanhoe? The once and future king is pretty long.

Hehe! Why don't noses grow 12 inches long? Because then they'd be feet.

I think the longest ones I've read are Anna karenina and atlas shrugged. Loved them both.

Thanks J&j and melli, they both look fabulous!

I started in about 2-3rd when they are reading well. We have an assigned reading time as part of their school day where they must read a chapter (or decent amount). I have a yearly list for each old enough kid. Taken from places like WTM, AO, sonlight, mensa, honey for a childs heart/read aloud handbook whatever I run across and take note of. It's generally a mix of classics and modern, some history or science themes. I add to the list as I find things through the year. It's also a mix of easy to read and a bit of a stretch. They read a fair bit on their own and listen to audio books as well. I generally let ds gr3 choose for himself from the list, he's just about finished with Redwall, his last book was Peter Pan, he'll probably choose The Time Cat next. Dd gr5 and I take turns to choose her books. She chose Gulliver's Travels last and I chose her current read - The Sword in the Stone.

I think I use the same getty dubay book lol. After we started with cursive, I had them do a sentence or two in calligraphy. Turning a small amount of handwriting practice into a fine art allowed me to be nitpicky for a finite amount of time and it was something fun/different so it got their full focus.

I think that less writing is fine, I'd just make sure that what he does write is correct/neat. I do pretty much the same with my immature but fine 6y/o. I had to remediate with one child after being too lax on quality - not quantity.

I would trust my adult child, respect their boundaries and do whatever I could to maintain a good relationship. I think any attempt to intervene will be seen as interfering and drive her further away.

I just use the complete writer for the most part. And I found that outlines got much better when they had to write a short paper using them! Dd, 6th, does a 2 level outline and rewrites from that - from her history or science readings, one a week of about 3-4 paragraphs. We also talk through the process a lot, because she can't do an effective main point if she doesn't have the ideas straight in her head. That's where logic comes in too.

What are your and her priorities for school? The bad math teacher and lack of subjects - especially with that price tag - would be a deal breaker for me. I'd rather let her distance ed from home and pour the cash into extras. The biggest cons about the public school can be moderated with a good group of friends - either through the clubs or church/extras. Sounds like it's worth a try.