What happened? I routinely overloaded it and filled the water higher like the bloggers say and needed a service call before warranty was up. Makes a noise now and then but works. We have had it about 3.5y.

Check the park district website. There is a water park and great playground beside it. Water park is pretty cheap. We have been snorkeling at St. Andrews. Do you stay at laguna there? That's CHEAP for homeschoolers.

Every 5th lesson is review, so what I would do to find the correct place to start is do just the worksheets that are multiples of 5 until you find the sweet spot then begin the full program there. You can do several worksheets each day until you get there. (So start a grade or two behind and do pages 5, 10, 15, etc.

Also dys helps us to see that eg/pg kids don't all look like high achievers. Birth order certainly plays a part and just because they are amazing at one thing, they are not amazing at all things. Seeing the big picture gives us some confidence about educational trajectory, strengths/weaknesses etc. also when I first met dys ppl irl I heaved an internal sigh of relief--SO MANY share our story. And so many homeschool, not out of religious beliefs or educational ideology, but simply because traditional school was disastrous for their family. That is so validating, bc somewhere deep inside it can feel like a sort of failure that your kid doesn't fit in a school--and in dys it's easier to see that the school didn't fit the child. And getting together with dys can feel like a family reunion of sorts. I think who could my sibs and I have become if we had had this support as kids.

Yes. My 6th grader would never have taken the ACT so young otherwise, and it has caused a domino effect at school. I think the school takes her/us more seriously with those in hand and they are actually having us meet with middle and high school tomorrow to discuss further math acceleration, to take algebra over the summer and geometry in the fall--7th. We are actually not pushing, dd is the one driving the ship and we are more open to letting her with the background knowledge/experience of dys families guiding us. Like I said, powerful. We are not tiger parents. We quietly let the kids and teachers do their thing unless there is an issue.

Our middle was the first to apply bc we had the scores. He has always been so difficult so we got a psych evaluation. Dx: pg. Oldest felt really left out. Did not have scores for oldest and didn't want to shell out $$$$ for testing. She expressed desire so we let her take the ACT as a 6th grader despite only being in pre-a at school (ACT is cheapest option). She did fantastic so she got in. Youngest is 8 and again we don't want to shell out $$$. Maybe that will motivate him to do act in a few years. So far he doesn't seem bothered but that may change. Not sure youngest would get in--probably lucky to be borderline .

2 of my 3 are DYS and being part of it has been pretty powerful for us. Connecting with other parents who understand is one thing. Also the sorts of educational decisions you make are out of the norm in the the real world, but all the talk on the DYS forums and IRL normalizes things and has made us feel more confident jumping out on a limb to make things happen. We moved to the LA area too and the DYS scene has been very helpful for our transition.

We are in a very HCOL area and even with our zip code put in there, it said we only need $1800 for housing. You can't get a 1br apartment for that where we live.

Yes to the kids den. Make a half wall if need to be separate the space. Maintain the view and have windows with window treatments. We had one with a sofa, bookshelves, and a space for board games.

Just moved from a house with a gas cooktop and double oven (whirlpool) to a house where we have remodeled to have a gas Viking range with griddle and a wall oven. It is AMAZING!! The Viking has higher power gas than our old cooktop so it heats so quickly. We are loving the griddle even more than expected (and we had grand expectations). Grilled cheese tastes way better on it than in a pan--not sure why but wow. And cleanup is a breeze. Nothing sticks so just scrape crumbs off and it's good to go for the next run. We like having a wall oven because it is higher than leaning down for the one on the range. In our old house the lower oven was most often used as an art drying rack but it was great when we needed 2 for a big dinner or party. We all cook though, kids included. We got all of our appliances for a steal at New Years time at Best Buy--"open box" price plus an additional 20% off. They had been displays or returned or something. Including tax and 5 year extended warranties we only spent about $6k for all--including fancy 36" wide Samsung French door fridge, high end kitchenaid pro dishwasher, wall oven, AND 36" Viking range. They are all stainless but brands vary so not matchy matchy. If you time the appliance purchases right they can be within reach. Only thing, the Viking required a bigger gas line from the meter so that was an additional cost. Be sure to look into those details.

My kids really enjoyed Pearson's reading Street. All you need is the student textbooks (2 per grade) and the readers & writers notebook. Covers a TON. We also did some writing from their reading and writing to sources books. All pretty cheap.

Wonderful!!!

Beast

Lone dissenter here, but why switch? Why not back it up to an easier level, cut down the number of problems and length of lesson. Give him control over how much he does. Counterintuitive-- but that may increase his engagement and make him more productive all around. The problem may not be the curriculum but the pace and the quantity of work.

Just transitioned 2 of mine in the last year and it has gone very smoothly. Expect them to land on both feet and they will! Just be positive and talk about some of the things they might face beforehand. I was nervous of course but it has gone well.

My 12yo 6th grade daughter took the ACT last month. She has a need to go into things knowing what to expect so we bought a prep book that talked through what each section was like. She ended up getting pretty sick in the month before testing so she didn't do as much prep as she would have liked. She ended up reading bits and pieces about strategies, and I printed out a list of formulas it said were covered. She went on Kahn academy 4-5 times to go over some of those. I'm not sure exactly what she did on there but she felt like she was studying. We approached the whole thing saying there is no way you'll know a good part of it and it's unlikely you'll finish, just grab as many points as you can. She ended up doing really really, better than we expected and overall it was a great experience.

I think Davidson is probably a better option.

Murfreesboro TN

Get the Nextdoor app and ask local neighbors on there. You first have to verify you live where you say you do by getting a postcard in the mail and inputting the code on it.

I have had this happen twice and in both instances it turned out to be a pattern for the friend--get close, pull back--I was one in a string of failed friendships. Both were passive aggressive type people and one I now realize is a full fledged narcissist. I have had enough strong loyal friendships to know these 2 situations were not about me. I'd give her a chance to talk if she wants, and then move on.

Ds has been on methylphenidate for 2.5 years and it makes a huge difference. Improved my relationship with him bc I nag less when he's on it. When we were homeschooling we usually just did 1 pill for the morning (not extended release) so it was in his system for schoolwork and he was off it the rest of the day. Now that he is in school we do the extended release. His appetite is affected for lunch mainly. He is a husky boy (not fat but he weighs at least 10 pounds more than his older sister who is significantly taller). Big breakfast helps. I was very reluctant to medicate but we decided on a "trial." That's the thing-it doesn't need to build up in the system so you can try it for a week and then never do it again. It took us a couple of weeks to get the right dose and besides the small lunch issue we don't notice other side effects--except perhaps sometimes he gets chattier in an intense sort of way.

Sounds exactly like my aunt, who doles out unsolicited parenting advice while forgetting she had a full time nanny to parent hers years ago... I think it comes from some sort of needy lack of fulfillment.

Yes to the above and go to the city building departments to pull permits on previous work that has been done.

We packed up everything but the bare minimum and that made it much easier to keep clean. We even packed up everything but the most basic kitchen things--and what was left was unpacked first in the new place.

It'll sel faster if it's nice. If your dh knows how to fix but doesn't have the time, go pick up some hourly workers outside Home Depot.