Some of our favorites for this age group: Summer of the Monkeys My Side of the Mountain The Hobbit (and LOTR actually) The Chronicles of Narnia The first three Harry Potter books (we have just allowed HP in our family recently, but they all enjoyed the read alouds) Dd10 is currently enjoying Redwall. I also read aloud some history/historical fiction/nonfiction books during school. She is not a big reader. She can decode fine, but we think she may have tracking issues because my husband has tracking issues and she is slow and gets tired easily. So, I read more of her school books to her than I did the others. She prefers our novels from family read alouds.

Dd17 will hopefully be doing some DE classes this fall. If that happens, she'll so relatively little at home for me. I've spent a lot of time thinking about it, and I think the most effective way to feel like I am working with each child enough and have a cohesive feel to our homeschool is to actually split the kids up. I am going to be doing a separate read aloud/morning time for the little girls first thing in the morning. Then I will work with them for the things they need me for. After I am done working with them, I will read aloud to the boys and work with them on their individual subjects. If they are split, I won't have 4-5 kids wanting me to prioritize working with them at the same time. I'm looking forward to reading the little girls books that they are a great age for instead of an okay age for. Same with the boys.

A high school classmate of mine has been a police officer all his adult life. He is a good man and, I believe, a good officer but that is only a guess because I knew him growing up. He spoke out in condemnation of this officer and urged other police officers to speak out against him, too.

I thought it might be in the news. I know when they were first testing about 96% of positive cases were asymptomatic. It would mean pretty different things if 90% went on to develop symptoms as opposed to 20%.

Ohio people, did you ever hear how many of the asymptomatic prisoners went on to develop symptoms? I was going to try to look it up but haven't yet.

I watch the numbers. I was much more relaxed at my parents' home (we quarantined before traveling), because they hadn't had a positive test in weeks, and only had a few overall. A couple of surrounding counties hadn't had any cases. Our county spiked while I was gone, coming home we have been more careful. Cases are trending down here, but it isn't the same as my parents' rural county with no new cases at all.

Our academy is open now, but only for private lessons. And only noncontact private lessons, so basically for forms technique. Two of my people are teaching private lessons; three of them will be taking them starting next week. All staff will be masked and everything will be wiped down between classes. It isn't zero risk, but it is a risk we are comfortable with at this time in our location.

What would people expect to happen when most businesses are closed?

My 10 year old takes care of her room, which she shares with her younger sister. She also cleans the kids' bathroom regularly. She helps with dishes, laundry, and other household chores as asked.

It isn't accessible for the vast majority of Americans. There are no opportunities like that in my community ( city of 100,000+) and there certainly aren't any anywhere near my sister's family (town of <2000). There is a Montessori school an hour and a half from me, but it certainly isn't public funded.

This makes me feel so old. I taught high school briefly before kids. I taught during 9/11. My former students could be on this board, which is logical but still weird to me.

For me, it would depend on what the area is like. Our home county is has many open cases right now. My parents' county had its last (of 6) cases weeks ago. We quarantined at home before visiting to make sure we wouldn't make anyone sick, but we've been down here for weeks visiting freely between my parents and sister. It is just a totally different situation here.

Dh is less optimistic about pork than he was. The new rules for packing plants decrease production an additional 20%. That has pushed more farmers to euthanize their hogs. Since the vast majority of the pork available in the grocery stores was butchered in the past 3-4 days, it would have turned around fast as soon as production increased again. But if the farmers don't have confidence that they will be able to send the hogs to the plant, they won't feed them out. So, it looks like there will be rolling availability for the next nine months even if plants got up and running quickly. Although quicker would obviously be better of course.

14 for my older two. Ds13 will be 14, too, at the earliest.

I don't know. I could ask Dh. His company sends a lot of product to China. Me: Are you still doing business with China? Dh: Yeah. We just sold some (his product, I don't want to get too specific since I already pretty much drew a map of where I live) to China this week. Me: Will it increase with the new trade deal? Dh: Yes. Me: What about pork? Dh: Yes, it will increase demand on pork. There is a lot of agricultural stuff in it. Me: Will there be enough? If we send more to China, will that create a shortage here? Dh, with a short laugh and shake of his head: We have plenty of pork. It was obviously not a deep conversation. LOL But just today he heard that farmers in our area are changing the formula back to a growth formula (rather than trying to slow rate of growth), so there is more optimism that they'll be butchered. If we have a longer, more detailed conversation, I'll be happy to pass along any actual information. Plenty of pork (and other meat) does not mean that there won't be shortages at the store at times. It is like tp in a number of ways. There was actually plenty of tp, but between hoarding, different supply chains (tp in large rolls for public/office buildings, for example), and no good way to markedly increase production and shipping quickly, there were shortages at the store. Dh was telling me about a chicken plant that is somewhere around here. I think. I wasn't paying attention to the location. It processes chickens for Costco rotisserie chickens. There are plenty of chickens, but the plant isn't set up to section and package the chickens for retail sale. That is one of the confounding issues I mentioned earlier. The plant is very efficient for what it does. It would be difficult and expensive to change the process. We don't have a Costco here, so I don't know if they are selling rotisserie chickens now? Sams didn't the two times I've been in the past 7 weeks. When Costco is selling rotisserie chickens again, those chickens will be back on the market.