I'm with you!

I think, because history makes the most sense when presented chronologically, it would be weird to have a spiral. Also, most people don't focus on memorization much with history since it runs much deeper than simply knowing a date or reciting "two causes for the civil war". Maybe some things are more conducive to memorization - countries and capitols, presidents, kings and queens? But even that isn't necessary for understanding and "doing" history.

Kenny and the dragon was a favorite read-aloud chapter book of one of my 6 yr olds.

In your shoes... I would move to the district with the nicest and friendliest public high school I could find and not stress about the specifics of classes. In my high school and college experience, I had a few great classes and a few dreadful ones and a few I was way too advanced for and a few that I was terribly underprepared and it was really all okay.

We tried AOPS pre-algebra and found it just too much (too intimidating?) for my daughter who had thrived on the simple, straightforward colorful lessons of Singapore. We switched to Galore Park SYRWL Maths 2&3 and she did fine. Jousting armadillos would probably also have worked well and looks more kid friendly. My current sixth grader is happily using these books in public school and they also look easy to implement and non-threatening: http://www.corefocusonmath.com

When she's ready to tackle spelling, I'd give Apples and Pears book A a try.

I got the injections of rocephin in the same spot too! Also, I remember terrible night sweats and weight loss. I just couldn't eat anything... Blah... Take it easy!!

I had pneumonia about 10 years ago. Here's my advice: Be prepared for it to knock you out longer than you expect. The pneumonia itself was over in 2 or 3 weeks, but the pleuritic pain, and the feeling of being out of breath, and the lack of energy and inability to get back to the gym stayed on for about 3 MONTHS. So take it easy...

We did two years of middle school math too because there seemed to be no need to start Algebra so young. We had finished SM 6 and moved on to Galore Park 2 & 3, with a heavy dose of Keys to Algebra and Zacarro and Singapore CWP 5 & 6. Galore Park 3 had a lot of algebra in it, but I'm glad she had an opportunity to see the trickier topics like factoring polynomials several times and from several perspectives. Even now, in geometry, I'm having her go through Saxon Algebra 1 as weekly algebra review. I can't imagine only hitting those topics once!

I did have a 6 yr old foster child who had basically been expelled from school and was waiting for an opening in a day treatment program. For those months, I did "force" school during the same hours the public school kindergarten would run: 8:30-12. But, what I considered "school" was not just seatwork. I had only two workbooks for him: Explode the code 1 and a Star Wars math workbook. We did those for 15 minutes a piece. Everything else was his choice from a written list of activities: doing puzzles, watching Between the Lions, Word Girl, Cyberchase, Wild Kratts, or Sid the Science Kid, playing Starfall or Times Attack on the computer, building with legos or tinker toys, coloring or drawing, looking at books, or making things (he loved taping together stuff from our recycle bin). Just like kindergarten, we had a 10:30 snack/recess and 12:00 lunch. He spent afternoons playing outside. This schedule worked for us and he really thrived on it. Even though his schoolwork was only about a half-hour, he still had structure in his day. Given his situation, I felt it was necessary that he didn't "run the show" and wasn't making decisions about whether he would work or not, but instead had boundaries and a rhythm to his day. He made plenty of choices of what to do, but they were choices that I gave to him. Having a schedule helped things not be a power struggle. It's 10:30? That means it's time for our snack. It's 8:30? That's when we do our reading work. If he had been a 4 year old, I wouldn't have done any of the written work unless he chose it... but a 6 year old who needs to start learning to read? absolutely!

No - I'm homeschooling because I know I can do it well and I like teaching. I have one daughter who happily attends public school and my homeschooled daughter will go to public high school next year. In my opinion, schools are great and homeschooling is great. I don't support the fear-mongering I hear about public schools in some homeschool communities.

Does our lack of mental health care *cause* mass shootings? No, it's a way politicians deflect attention from the real problem of gun control. Do we need to address and improve and fund mental health care in the country? Absolutely!

My daughter has been to French immersion camp for two summers and will go again this next summer.

Whenever I feel like that, I remind myself that I wouldn't *really* want them to stay young forever. I mean... the most interesting bits of life happen when you're older. I wouldn't want to deny them that, just because I think they're so cute as babies.

My first thought of red itchy blistering patches on ankles is poison oak or poison ivy.

We used it as a consumable.

Seconding the Night Fairy Also, I remember my fairy lover enjoyed Rodda's Fairy Realm series. It's definitely a step above the rainbow magic fairy books in terms of quality.

My favorite series is OUP English File (and the newer American English file) because the teachers manual is amazing and I could walk in to a class with 10 minutes prep and pull off an awesome lesson. Also useful are the spiral bound games books by Peter Watcyn-Jones - pair games, vocabulary games, grammar games. They can provide nice activities to practice a certain construction or vocabulary.

Since you have Singapore 6, I'd just do it. It has some good stuff in it and they're short books. You could probably finish both a and b in a semester and then move on to pre-algebra.

That's a nutty schedule for anyone. I heartily recommend scaling back a lot. My daughter recently went from a too-busy schedule (homeschool 8-3 plus ballet from 4-8pm, 5 days/week plus 3 hrs on Saturday, plus rehearsals) to a lighter schedule (homeschool 8-3, 1 hour recreational ballet classes 3 days/week). It has made such a positive difference in all aspects of her life. She is so much happier and less stressed, she focuses better on work, she is nicer to her sister and procrastinates less and is a much less moody person than she was a few months ago. She has time to do stuff she wants to do, time to do chores or take the dog for a walk, time to have friends over.... She claimed to love that tough schedule at the time, but now wonders why she was torturing herself.

It's noble to work towards perfection, but mistakes are part of learning. Right now, you say she getting between an 83% (5 out of 6 -- or a B) and 60% (2 out of 5 -- or a D) on her work, but she's able to fix her mistakes? If so, it doesn't seem hopeless and like she's in way over her head and needs to return to pre-algebra. I'd just keep at it, perhaps give her an extra review day before the chapter test with all the problems she missed from the chapter.

We just got a foster child last week who came to us with a head full of lice. I sat him in the tub with toys and began the shampoo and combing treatment. When I let out the water, the tub was teeming with dead lice. It was pretty gross... I know your pain. If you go the chemical route, at least in our area, lice respond well to Rid (piperonyl/pyrethrin), but not to Nix (permethrin). I did some experiments. 😳

My younger started in book B, no problem!

My younger daughter used Investigations math and I found it pretty appalling. Have you looked at http://www.mathmammoth.com? Math mammoth is good because you can print off the sections they need and there isn't any stigma about it being a 2nd grade level or whatever. Beast academy is pretty challenging, but if it motivates, why not? I'm a not a LOF fan.

We went through SM 6a and b (standards ed) fairly quickly and I felt it had good, important material that shouldn't be missed. Afterwards my daughter used Galore Park 2&3 and was well-prepared for Foerster Algebra. I'm sure other textbooks would have brought her to the same point, but I liked the format of SYRWL Maths - integrated arithmetic, geometry, algebra, data analysis, trigonometry etc... a not intimidating book, clear lessons, mastery oriented. We also did some Zaccarro and Keys to Algebra in there too.