I do agree with this. It's a big question that changes everything. I don't think any amount of homeschooling regulations will stop the kind of abuse that has sparked this conversation. People like that are already breaking many laws, what's one more? They'll just go unregistered. I think it is about 1. creating (not necessarily lifting, they should be progress based not x at y time) academic standards. 2. providing legal clarification of what needs done so we can legally prove we have done it if questioned. 3. to help identify those who aren't doing what they need to but are well intentioned so they can get help.

I live in a "letter of intent" only state. I was once very anti-regulation of any sort and considered going off-the-books even here with such simple requirements. We're only in gr4 now but I've come to change my views on this. For my own protection I would be okay with more regulation. Right now if someone wants to point at me and say I'm not doing a good enough job homeschooling, how do I *legally* prove that I am? If there are no regulations, I have nothing to meet. If we had some standards in place, I would have that to point back at and say "see, I'm doing x, y, and z, just as is required". As it turns out I am doing that because we have opted to go through a charter that provides us funds in return for very simple reporting. I'm doing it for the funds, but honestly it's also a little reassuring to know that I will have a year's worth of back and forth between myself and their "teacher" praising their work and effort. I don't need the validation that I'm doing fine, but it's there if anyone else wants to cause a problem for us. I think letter of intent/registering as homeschoolers and something year-end to show progress whether that be a test result, a portfolio, or an evaluator. Preferably with a choice between which method would fit your style and child best. ETA: I would like to add that I don't see any of this as a way to prevent abuse. Those that want to hide will simply not comply. I see it as more of a CYA for those who ARE doing right by their kids and as a way to find and help those who may be struggling.

I almost looked into getting her evaluated for dysgraphia, she is similar in that she messes up math problems due to illegibility. She also had SO MANY reversals even through last year. Her letters were always all over the place in size as well. But over the last year she has improved in all of those things. I just got her an app for her kindle fire that has her trace letters in cursive. I added a bunch of words like her name and family member's names to it and now she's happily tracing full words in cursive because the app makes it fun. I'm thinking that might be enough to make me content with her not losing ground if she plays on that a couple times a week. It's not at all the same as writing it, of course, but it will keep up familiarity with the letter shapes and will provide practice reading in it. She's figuring out the words I added for her.

Thank you for your input. I hadn't considered regression. I will definitely keep up the writing sentences for spelling, so I don't think her handwriting in general would regress, but cursive could. I'm not sure how much I'm worried about that. On the one hand I do think it's important to have a basic knowledge of, to be able to read it and sign things. But I also don't see her as wanting to write much on paper ever, so being fully comfortable writing in it is not necessarily a goal. At this point she is still copying individual letters and words. She can't just write in it on her own. So there honestly wouldn't be very far to regress. I wonder if it could be caught right back up in a few years when she is more confident with writing in general.

My DD9 has SPD and has always been slightly behind with all things writing due to fine motor control. She has improved SO MUCH this year, but writing is still hard for her. I dictate sentences every day for spelling and she can now do 3 sentences, 4 on a really good day if I've let her do the rest of the lesson orally (she started the year struggling with 1). For her writing program she's been asking to do it on the computer instead and that results in much less resistance. She has had some cursive instruction. We did a little bit in 2nd grade and they did it last year for 3rd in PS. This year we have cursive on our schedule, but we rarely get to it. At this point, do I continue pushing that or let it go? How necessary is continued handwriting instruction at this age for a child who struggles and will likely turn to mostly electronic writing? Is there any benefit to having her do just a single side of a page once a week just to keep *something* going or does it really need regular practice to be effective? I don't want to be skipping something important, but I also don't want to be stressing out over one more thing to make her write if it's unnecessary.

Maybe it is just the 5th and up then that need to know the minor gods. DD is 4th so she'll only be doing the base test. I was just concerned since past threads on the topic seemed to indicate the minor gods were part of the base exam for everyone.

Are there different versions of the D'Aulaires book? It says we need to study pages 1-69. But when I was going through past threads here, many said they needed to be familiar with the minor gods as well and that the test covered the first half of the D'Aulaires book. Page 69 in our copy is the last page of the first section, the minor gods are in the second section and the two together make up about half of the book. I'm just wondering if it's different this year or if we need to include the second section in our studies.

I've always kept them because I figured that's what you're supposed to do for some reason. But I find that kind of thing pretty gross so I pay as little attention as possible to them. I do not examine them or handle them or anything. They are left under pillows in a ziplock, I retrieve the ziplock and drop it straight into a pencil case that's kept in my closet. The last time I added one I wondered why I'm still doing it. It's just a collection of random teeth in baggies now. I don't even know which belong to which kid. Also in that case is a letter DD9 once wrote to the tooth fairy and an ornament she made for Santa Clause last year. I guess it's my "keep out of sight of the kids until the santa/tooth fairy/easter bunny gig is up" case.

Sorry, I had to vote "other". We do not have a junk drawer but it is decidedly NOT because I would never dream of it. It's because we only have a few drawers in our kitchen and they have to be used for kitchen things. We have had junk drawers in the past. Right now most of those misc. items are in a shoe organizer hanging in our front closet. It's much more organized this way than a junk drawer, but it's due to the nature of the many small pockets, not because we are amazingly organized.

Oh yes, I love this movie!

Oh wow, DD9 might actually wear those! Clothing has gotten so much easier since Cat & Jack. They actually fit her AND they're comfortable. But we have yet to find anything resembling regular pants (as in not leggings) that she'll wear. :::crossing fingers::::

I drink one mug of hot tea in the morning. My mug sizes vary a bit but probably around 16 oz. I sometimes have a second mug but I didn't add that to my vote since I usually do not. What I drink the rest of the day varies by season. In warm months, iced tea is my go-to and I usually have 32 oz over the course of the day. In the winter, iced tea doesn't appeal to me as much so I have either soda or another mug of hot tea at lunch and dinner, 12-16 oz each. After dinner I switch to decaffeinated tea.

Our uniform seems to be undies. :001_rolleyes: SPD plus clothes. The struggle is real. :cool:

What curriculum are you using? Is it things that engage him and interest him? My DD9 has SPD, ADHD, and GAD. It's been a journey finding things that work well for her. If it doesn't click, she doesn't seem able to just tell me she doesn't like it. It instead results in dragging feet, lack of focus, frustration, sometimes meltdowns. As I've found topics that engage her and curriculum that meets her needs, it has gone smoother. Very clear expectations has also helped. I use homeschool planet to plan our weeks and print off her schedule every morning. How well does he write? SPD can cause difficulty with writing due to coordination issues. DD9 has always struggled to keep up with the output typically required at her age. This year she has made a lot of improvement, but at the beginning of 4th grade her writing ability was closer to that of an early 1st grader. So if I find ways to require less pencil to paper, it's not as daunting. Sometimes that means just sitting next to her and she does something orally. Sometimes it means just abbreviating things (seriously, she will even just write N instead of NO or the first letter of a word if she's filling in blanks from a word box). If she is supposed to rewrite a sentence, I may let her edit the sentence and write only the adjustments. Every little bit of writing requirement lifted helps her to focus on the actual subject. And then we work on advancing her writing ability and stamina separately. Every day she writes sentences. At the beginning of the year we did one. Now she is up to three. At that time writing the sentences is the only focus. She still needs me right. there. through everything. She needs a lot of reminders and help staying on track. When I give her short breaks I like to be specific about what she should do. If I just let her break for 5 minutes she will sit and play with a toy or get involved in something. So then besides not getting the sensory input she needs, she also becomes reluctant to come back to work. I tell her to go jump on the trampoline or to do cartwheels on the tumble mat or to wrestle with the dog. Things like that get some energy out, give her some input, and they're easy to come back from. I'm also pretty clear that school work is a priority and if we can't do that, we can't do other things, either. So if behavior made us not finish work, then no electronics or special outings. Work first and you can play. Drag your feet and you use up your play time. I'm not mean about it and I don't present it in a way that makes school work like a chore that we must slog through. It's just a simple fact that if daddy gets home at x time and you want to be able to go with him to grandma's, we have to be done with our work. Friday is our fun day when we do only math and writing and then we do art, cooking, field trip..... the fun stuff. If we're not getting through much work during the week then I might mention that "we'll just add that lesson to friday". And sometimes we do end up doing more work on Friday when we play more throughout the week. I don't make a big deal of it. But she's come to realize she would rather do the work when it's time for it than have it carry into her play time or our fun day. These are just some things that have helped us navigate homeschooling a kiddo with SN. It's far from perfect around here and we still have a lot of things to improve on. But I do feel we have made a LOT of progress over the last year. Oh, one thing that probably helped DD a lot isn't a realistic thing to try just for this result....She went to PS for most of 3rd grade last year. This taught her the lesson that mommy wasn't being mean when I made her do school. She had always kind of viewed it as having to do school instead of play. By going to PS for several months, she realized the alternative to doing school at home was not play at home, it was doing school at school. One way or another, she needed to be educated. She has been much more willing to work since we pulled her out in March.

I wonder why it's not working well for you guys. We're also using it on a Kindle Fire and both of my kids loved it. There was a bit of a learning curve for DD9 to figure out just how to swipe the tiles so they went to the end of the word, but otherwise she's done well. They're a little bit too small for my fingers so I have a harder time, but 9yo did her whole lesson on the app yesterday. Any extra seconds it took to get a tile where we wanted was more than saved with one quick swipe to put the whole board away!

Haha. Yes, DD also draws around her words. And when she's writing the letters she likes to make them either minuscule or reach from top to bottom of the board! Then she draws the heart of te-fiti symbol in the middle of her 'o's. Most of the time I do just laugh with her and enjoy her creativity and silliness. But sometimes when we're getting a late start or on a time crunch to go somewhere.....then I would love to just get through it! We'll still use the board and tiles most of the time, but this is an amazing option to have! She loved using it for her lesson today. And it's just in time for DD5 to start AAR!

:hurray: My 9yo uses the tiles but she can make spelling a simple word take sooooo long by dragging the tile alllll over the board and making them stop and talk to one another. Spelling time will be cut in half with this!! ETA: I've already downloaded it and played with it on my DDs kindle. Amazing! And now we can take spelling on the road with us if we want to. That's one subject we can never do anywhere except the school room for the tiles and board. Now it can go upstairs, outside, or even to a waiting room. YAY!

I got a fitbit Alta HR for Christmas. I asked for that one because of how narrow it is. I have sensory issues and wasn't sure about wearing something full time. I'm loving it! I like being able to track my sleep as that's an area that's always been a bit iffy for me. I can't get to sleep then I can't wake up. It's interesting to compare my sleep cycles with how I feel the next day. I think it's getting me moving more, too. It provides just that extra bit of motivation to move so you hit your step goal. I like the hourly vibration reminder to move, as well. This keeps me from zoning out in front of the tv or computer for too long. My friend and I friended each other on the app so now we can cheer each other on or join a challenge together.

Absolutely! I see nothing wrong with any of that, it's actually quite creative.

Do you all usually do this at home or is it proctored somewhere? There is a group doing this test here, but it's an hour away on a Saturday morning. Maybe we should wait until next year and bring it up with our local co-op to do as a group.

Both of my girls do this. They think it is absolutely hilarious to send dad a text of dozens of emojis. They carefully pick out the right ones and to them it means something. They'll ask later if he noticed the monkey doing something or other. But of course he just glances at it and doesn't notice each individual emoji. The natural use of emojis must come from growing up in the tech generation. I do try to use emojis here and there in texting, I think it can help to convey your tone. But I have to think about it and sometimes I'm not sure if it's saying what I want it to.

I'd say don't do it. I absolutely love Usborne books and almost fell prey to signing up. Thankfully I realized that it doesn't matter that I love them, I'd still be marketing to friends and family who may not. Most people involved in an MLM probably love what they sell. But that doesn't mean everyone who knows them will or wants to hear about it. Just say no to MLM!

In this scenario, yes, I would. It's something he really wants and has thought about. If he can't afford one right now, I would rather pay for it and gift it than to have him end up going to a less than reputable place to be able to afford it sooner. I wouldn't if it was just a "hey this would be cool for my 18th" with no thought given.

I have no idea. I tried it for the first time and immediately thought "Where have you been all my life?" I don't like the herbal stuff, I like English Breakfast Tea and Earl Grey. I have also learned over the years that there is an art to preparing it. I use an electric kettle and much prefer this over microwaving the water or putting on the stovetop. The water must be boiling for the leaves to fully open and release their wonderfulness. Pre-warming the mug by filling with hot water while the kettle is on is preferred. Steep time should be at least 2 minutes and no more than 6. I do 4. Never swish/dunk the bag or squeeze it out. Twinings is my favorite brand, but I will also do Tetley or Bigelow if needed. My gateway to tea was with Hobbit Tea. The Bilbo Baggins Breakfast Blend is nice as is the Gandalf the Gray Tea. I put 1-2tsp sugar and a dash of milk in my large mug of English Breakfast Tea. I like Earl Grey with a spoonful of honey.

Okay then here is what I would do: 2 days in MK. DH take just the older/interested in HP ones to Universal the next day. You have a chill/pool day with the rest. (Unless you are a HP fan then you could swap places with DH or everybody go) Then the beach house. Beach house after for sure because you will need the down time after DW. The hardest parts about our disney trips for me is that I need a vacation from our vacation when we get back. If you want more than 2/3 days in parks, I would add either a 3rd MK day, or 1 day in Animal Kingdom or Epcot depending on what would interest your kids most. Mine would want AK, I would want Epcot.