What does (or did) your 8th grader use? My child was using SOS (for 2.5 years now) and we've decided to do something else this school year. The main subject I'm not able to decide on at this point is History. I think I've pretty much decided on what I want to get for the other cores. Any advice would be great. Please share what you use! :D (No abbreviations please, because I don't know all of them)

:rolleyes: It's not something that children should be told to be ashamed of - but at the same time it's a very private thing and should be kept that way....and worrying about a 5 year old knowing about anything in regards to sexual activity is insane in the first place.

I'm not sure what we'll do. The local CC does offer dual enrollment as well as early college and middle college. I'd like him to start next year in 9th as a middle college student at CC but we will see. He has to apply and take entrance exams first. It all depends on that. But I'd love to see him go to the local CC. No way he's going to public school and we can't afford private.

aren't they all? :confused: I would do what is best for your child and not try to keep up with other people, JMHO. It's hard, I know. I go through it just about this time every year. ;)

I like www.enchantedlearning.com :)

I don't know. I like to have a good amount of clothing so we don't have to do laundry quite as often. Plus my youngest still gets dirty easily and may need to change during the middle of the day if we go out somewhere. I also tend to buy more clothing the younger the child is (ex. newborn/infant has a ton!) and as they get older, especially once they are potty trained, I start to cut back. But I love to shop at consignment sales in the spring/fall of each year and I will rack up on stuff then so I tend to overbuy probably. My youngest has at least 7-9 pairs of shorts in the summer, a few skirts/skorts and 15-20 summer tops/tank tops. She also has about 5-7 soft summer dresses. Socks and underwear we have a lot more of. My oldest child tends to wear the same things over and over. He currently has 3 pairs of jeans, 1 pair of darker, nicer jeans, 4 pairs of favorite shorts and a closet full of t-shirts even though he only wears 2-3 of most fave shirts during each week. He washes his own clothes so he wears the same things over and over. :)

Since they are male and female then I wouldn't bring anything up about it. They may not realize that it was rude on their part and meant nothing by it.

I need help with my oldest child. My child has always been very shy, since he was very little. The problem is that people in our family are now starting to ask if it's because he is not in school that he is so shy. :( We know he is this way because he was born this way. Anyone who has known him his whole life should know this as well. :confused: But of course since we HS that means that our family want to blame it on that. Our son will start high school in another year and we don't intend on putting him in a PS, especially to get him socialized. He actually attended a school for 19 months before we pulled him back out again to resume homeschooling and during that time it was the same, he was very shy. If someone in our family or friends talk to him he will reply but he never goes any farther than that and won't keep the conversation going and definitely won't start up a convo on his own. We give our son plenty of opportunities to socialize in HS groups, our co-op, sports, etc. and other things that we do. He even does volunteer work each month. Anyone else with a child who is very shy and you figured out a way to get them out and socializing more? Any books or school related programs we can get to help him? It is starting to worry DH and I a little because we want him to be able to talk to people and not be so nervous about it.

Does anyone else watch this show and use it as educational t.v.? We have always watched it but I've never really considered using it towards actual school credit. We watched a couple of really good ones recently about super highways and really enjoyed it. Would you put this down as history credit?

sounds great!! We went to the beach for my 40th and I loved it. I'm glad we went too because I got pregnant within the next four months after that. We can't afford it nowadays, nor do we have the time.

I couldn't imagine doing any type of afterschooling with the exceptoin of music lessons, girl/boy scouts, that kind of stuff. When my oldest was in school for a couple of years they had tons of homework at night and there's no way we could have fit in anything else. :confused:

I agree. Plus, trying to remember to take a pill at her young age might be tough and she may end up not taking them properly thus not getting the benefits you are wanting to achieve. And, fwiw, I was on BC pills from the age of 15 to the age of 37. I went off when pregnant each time but usually went back on within a month or so. I wish I had never taken them. They are not good for our bodies and no telling what I did to myself long term. I also have suffered from depression off and on over the years and I feel certain the pill contributed to that.

exactly. My youngest is in 2nd grade and it's bad enough that people find out we HS and look at us like we're weird so I'd much rather my child state their grade when they are asked about it. :closedeyes: We're already weird enough to most people. :001_smile:

I tend to use grade levels because I want to be on track if any of my children ever need to go to a school outside the home. I want them to be ready. At this point they stay above grade level so it's not an issue anyway, but grade levels keep things more simple for me.

I agree. I don't see a need to have more than one man in my life nor would my DH want another woman other than me to be his wife. We take care of one another in various ways and we are very happy. I'm thinking sex is the real reason a lot of people want this type of lifestyle. The woman can't give it as much as the man wants it so he has the right to several wives for that reason. DH and I have sex in our marriage but it's definitely not a big deal compared to the other real life situations going on for us. We get more enjoyment out of just sitting and talking together than we do sex. But maybe that's because we've been together for so long. He knows me better than anyone, even my own parents, and I couldn't imagine sharing my biggest fears, joys and secrets with another man. Life has it's obstacles and sure one or both of us is unhappy at times but that's life. My parents couldn't meet all my needs growing up either, but I lived with them until I moved out and started to do things for myself. I would never need several men just to get all my needs satisfied. Just doesn't make sense to me at all. I don't think every single need can be met at one time anyway. My life is full with my children, family, hobbies, work, etc.

I think 4-5 hours is too much for sit-down work but that's JMHO. I do about 90 min-2 hours max per day of actual sit-down/book work with my 2nd grader this year. Even my teenager is done with school within 3-4 hours usually. I count other things we do throughout each day as learning such as cooking, drawing/coloring, writing practice happens in many different forms, outdoor activities, errands, museums, co-op/homeschool group, etc. The reading usually happens in the evenings while snuggling on the couch or right before bed. But actual "sit-down" school work definitely isn't very long for my youngest. That would wear us both down very quickly. I wouldn't make it all year.

Wow. I'm trying to figure out how to go for a month without having to buy over 150 dollars (at least) in groceries per week. You have to share your secrets!! Where did your meat and other dishes for each meal come from?

I was doing that at 21. :D

I didn't mind it. I look very young for my age so I was glad to hit an age where I could blow people away when I told them I was 40 :D especially since I get told I look around 25-30 all the time. I'm sure once I get closer to 50 I won't be so thrilled though.

I disagree. I find Singapore, Rod & Staff and many other curriculums with a lot of B&W to be very expensive. In fact, I've wasted some money on books over the last 13 years of homeschooling that we never used. Rod & Staff would have sent me in to a state of depression had we kept using that and we were using K level at the time time I first tried it. ick. I couldn't stand it. But to each his own. Plus, it depends on my child. My oldest could have cared less if something was B&W or in color, but my youngest child right now gets bored with B&W a lot faster than with something that has colorful pictures. So I base it on each child. If I wanted my children to be bored with their studies I'd send them to a school. ;) But then again, I don't follow the strict school schedule with my children at home like a lot of parents do. I'm not that hard on my children. The books we use are very minimal in comparison to real life learning that happens.

I bought Apologia for my oldest a couple of years ago in 6th grade and we both thought it was boring so I sent it back. If you have never seen one of the Apologia books you may want to look over someone else's before buying. Apologia is very expensive. For Science with my 2nd grader this year we are using Steck-Vaughn Focus on Science and Mc-Graw Hill Science for 2nd grader (hardcover). The Steck-Vaughn book is very thin and she will likely finish that by December. It's also kind of boring, black & white pictures. But the book includes units on Life Science, Earth Science and Physical Science. The Mc-Graw Hill book is very similar to Apologia but it is not religious based of course. It does include tons of colorful pictures, big lettering for young children and lots of experiments that are age-appropriate.

I have never made up the lessons beforehand. I have an 8th grader and a 2nd grader and we do fine. My 8th grader uses 'mostly' SOS at this point and it keeps up with everything, even though I also get his grades off each week and enter them in to a database I have for HS records. My youngest I go weekly with. I plan out what we will do each week on Sunday and sometimes I don't plan it until the night before each new day. :D Just depends on the time I have and my mood. I always know in my mind what I want to accomplish with my children every single day of the week (math, reading, writing/lang arts) and what can be done once or twice weekly (science, history, health, etc) so that helps. I'm just not much of a scheduler. I tried that way back when my oldest was in K-1st and it overwhelmed me and stressed me out too much. I felt I had too much to live up to.

My oldest didn't do well with MUS. My youngest tried Singapore math and Saxon last year in 1st and didn't do well. I thought Singapore was boring the way it is presented. I'm like my DD, I like a lot of color on the pages of any book we use. This year we are using a combination of Horizon's Math and Evan-Moor Daily Math workbooks. She loves both of these. I switch her back and forth between the two so she doesn't get bored. She is like her big brother and isn't too fond of math. ;)