Unfortunately, no. I talked to the post office. My mail carrier doesn't remember one way or the other. With Mother's Day she delivered any number of packages this past week. :001_rolleyes: The post office basically told me to contact the seller and have them file a missing/misdirected package claim. So that is what I'm about to do.

I think I will go down and talk to the post office. I can't get anyone on the phone. We only have two streets in our subdivision and none of the numbers are the same so it isn't likely it was delivered to the wrong house. I know everyone on my street. I'm nearly positive none of them would take a package. It seems more likely it was taken from the mailbox, as cars drive up to the string of them regularly. It wouldn't be difficult to do. I suppose the post office should be aware, even if I don't get my package back. I purchased from an individual and not a company, so there is no way to get another set. The seller paid for delivery confirmation and the post office says it was delivered - so the seller can't be faulted. It is frustrating, and I'll file a notice with the post office but I can't imagine there is anything else to be done.

Just a RANT: According to delivery confirmation - the Teaching Company DVDs I ordered on Ebay have been delivered. The only problem is - I don't have them!! :confused: No one was home when they were delivered, so I don't know what happened to them. I'm trying to reach the mail carrier to find out if they were placed in the mailbox or left at the door. (It has now been several days - but the post office was too busy last week to take calls.) I can only think that they were stolen. I doubt anyone would steal them from my home - but maybe from the mailbox. We have all the mailboxes for the community at the entrance to the subdivision. I'm afraid it might be time to purchase a post office box. The price of a post office box for a year is less money than I just lost on my purchase.:ack2:

I register straight with the county. All we do is stop in once a year to turn in standardized test scores or a signed paper stating we've had a portfolio review. I've homeschooled in three counties of Florida and the county administrators have all been kind and easy to deal with.

We have found that morning routine is the key to a successful school day. :) Dds 10 and 12 get up on their own usually between 5 and 5:30. They like to read before school. I get up at 5:30 to exercise. (If I don't, the girls keep popping their heads in reminding me that I am supposed to be up and exercising. :D) Before school starts the girls need to make sure their rooms are picked up, their beds made and the bathrooms are cleaned. School starts for them at 6:30. Dd6 and ds5 are generally up by 7:00. If they aren't up yet, I will wake them around 8:00. They must make their beds, pick up their room and help straighten the kitchen after breakfast. Dd6 usually starts school around 8 - but it varies. At 12:30 we spend 15-20 minutes picking up the house - sweeping, mopping, vacuuming, etc. and then the kids have a two hour lunch break.

Are you sure the class was offered at that school? When I took AP Biology I had to drive each day to the next high school over. The schools would rotate which AP classes were taught and if you wanted to take an AP that wasn't at your school that year you had to transport yourself to the school offering the class. I still had the option to 'test' at my school even though I took the actual class all year at a different school. Otherwise, I could test at the other school but enter my own school code.

I did some research a few months ago as my dd10 asked for a rock tumbler for her birthday. I narrowed my choices down to two - the one you have linked and the one linked below. http://www.amazon.com/Model-T-Kit-Rock-Tumbler/dp/B000066CMM/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=toys-and-games&qid=1273501189&sr=8-4 I decided to go with the Model T (simply because of the price and the fact that I have never had any issue ordering from Amazon - including purchases from dealers using Amazon as a store front.) We have been very happy with it so far. But the one you linked is often recommended as well. :)

My son has a late April birthday. We are holding him back. He just turned 5 and will be in PreK again this year. For me, it would depend on what state I was in and how long I planned to homeschool. For our family there were no penalties and several benefits to holding our son back.

Thanks Jennifer! I think this was the one I had seen before. :)

Last year I thought I saw a planning sheet where the student could document hours by shading something in (a circle maybe?) It was divided into fours to shade the quarter hour. I was thinking it was a Donna Young sheet, but I do not see anything like that on her site. Does this ring a bell with anyone? Or could you recommend a free planning sheet I can print off to document hours in such a way? A sheet that allows the student to simply shade in hours (or minutes) as she goes and maybe total the shaded area each week or so? I'm sure I could make one, but would rather just print one ready-made if possible. Thanks!

A foreign language?

I dictate each of the 100 practice sentences to my dds. We have the teacher's book only - no student workbook. They write each sentence on a white board. We go over spelling, capitalization and punctuation before they analyze the sentence.

Kingfisher Illustrated History of the World - 1992 (white cover)

pg. 759 is headed Exploration and Discovery If that is the list - it is all places catagorized by continent. The place, who explored/discovered it, the date

Thanks for the responses! It looks like a winter month would be best. I checked our closest planetarium and they do free SkyWatch evenings - so we will definitely take a trip there. http://www.mosi.org/what-to-do/the-saunders-planetarium/skywatch-events.aspx Jean, Thanks so much for suggesting binoculars. Despite the fact that we use them all the time bird watching and out on the boat, I've never once thought of using them at night to look at the stars. That will be perfect. Binocular viewings at home and one trip to the planetarium to use their telescopes (under the direction of someone that actually knows how to use them) should work just fine. I wish we lived closer, as I would be taking you up on your offer!! :)

For those who have already done Astronomy in the Florida area - when is the best time of year to star gaze? We would like to do a one-month study of Astronomy this upcoming school year. None of my kids are overly interested - but I feel it is important to cover. And our focus this year is basically earth sciences so it seems a good time. We would like to spend many/most evenings of that month actually looking at the stars (hopefully with a borrowed telescope as I don't think purchasing one would be a prudent investment at this time.) The winter months seem good simply because it gets dark earlier. Have you found certain months to be especially good for star gazing? Thanks!

If you scroll down to the response by Lori D. all of the programs are explained well. They all follow Primary Math (so approximately 7th-10th grade.) http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=173887

Troy here. I read The Firebrand around 5th grade. It was one of my favorite books ever (up to that point.) I loved the character of Kassandra. I was so disappointed to later read the Iliad and Odyssey and realize they were from the Greek viewpoint. :001_huh:

George and Ursula (Yes, we watched George of the Jungle last night.:D)

I agree and found it very helpful - especially for my eldest who is an advanced reader. But, I did need to research several books and preread a few. Some of the suggested books had content too mature for my dd at her age. But, every family is different so that will happen with any book list and I did not find the GP lists to be any better/worse than other lists. They are actually rather interesting lists as they list both fiction/non-fiction that match the theme of the chapter and in a very broad range as to reading level. :)

Really, every chapter is just like the first one. I have my kids working through the first three sections of each chapter. The readings followed by the questions. I don't consider the books part of our curriculum, as we just fit them in here and there and only do the beginning sections. I just want the kids to do some work in analyzing paragraphs as that is a portion of most standardized tests. Each chapter covers one fiction, one non-fiction and one poetry selection. We generally skip the rest of the chapter - things to note: the grammar and spelling are British not American, the grammar is 'light' in my mind - but fine for a supplement and the suggested readings are all over the place as far as reading level and content. I have all six books, if you have any specific questions. HTH!

I think these two books are the ones that fit that Algebra book sequence. I believe they are used by K-12 for 6th and 7th grade. http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Structure-Method-Course-1/dp/0395480981/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272844470&sr=1-1 http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Structure-Method-Course-2/dp/0395570131/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272844528&sr=1-1

For Sea - Marine Science program http://www.forsea.org/fsguide.HTML

Art of Problem Solving math curriculum http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/

Thank you! After looking through the program, my thoughts were similar. The lack of practice problems even with the one workbook per level does concern me. I think doing only AoPS would be too much for dd. It would move too fast. But, I'm afraid DM might not be enough. I was wondering whether doing Algebra I after DM 1 might be too early. In that case, perhaps this would be better: 7th - DM 1 8th - DM 2 and then online AoPS Algebra I class over the summer 9th - DM 3 and then online AoPS Algebra II class over the summer (2nd half of book) 10th - DM 4 and then online AoPS Geometry class over the summer and into the fall 11th - Comm. college and maybe online AoPS Algebra III class through the year 12th - Comm. college and maybe online AoPS PreCalculus class through the year