Who has control. Do the parents pick out the curriculum, set up the schedule, decide the pace, and make the plans? Homeschooling. Does the school pick the curriculum, say when it needs to be done? School at Home.

Home from my open house. We had 11 or 12 families come by, which was a lot. It was crazy at times but overall good. A couple inquiries about masks, a few people who wore them coming in but then took them off and I didn't notice. <<sigh>> They are required here in all indoor spaces.

Morning, Today's my first open house. In past years, I could get anywhere from none to 5 people at an open house. I have a feeling this year may be different but we'll see.

I don't think it's a "No Ed-Po Rule", more of a "Heads-Up on Ed-Po" rule. Yes, I do that. I'll type things like y'all and darlin' but I live in NJ. I don't have that kind of accent. Homeschool planning? Yes, they definitely would from what I've seen around here. Especially right now. It's something I've thought about doing but I don't have the time with the science center. Around here, homeschool and mom's groups on Facebook would be the way to advertise if you are doing it for homeschooling. Mom groups for general household stuff.

Wasn't that the Pandia Press free Pandemic unit? I learned age of earth and change over time/evolution in Elementary School and so did my oldest daughter. Looking at NJ Science Standards, inherited traits and change over time in response to the environment are in the Grade 3 standards which includes dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures changing through time, History of Planet Earth is in the Grade 6 standards, Evolution is explicitly mentioned in the Grade 6 standards.

Actually that's true, it did come up with the younger kids. But the only class I have an actual unit on Evolution is my Middle/High School Biology. It does come up occasionally in other classes, just in the course of discussion.

Neutral science isn't just about evolution though. It avoids any discussion of change in species over time, any discussion of processes that may take more than a few thousand years whether that's in geology or astronomy or biology. I've had age of earth/evolution discussions come up in Elementary levels of Oceanography, Chemistry, Geology (obviously), Biology (obviously), and Physics but MS/HS Biology is the only class i have that explicitly teaches evolution.

Hello, I missed my usual Good Morning post. Met dd for working out this morning and didn't have my usual breakfast so didn't spend my time here. Tomorrow I have the first of my open houses. I'm getting quite a few registrations already, which is very unusual. If things stay under control around here, it could be a really good year.

What product were you asking about?

A HUGE library. Just Huge. Like Beauty and the Beast huge. Fully equipped science lab including vented hoods, Bunsen burners, flameproof lab tables, all the equipment. I like Slache's sunroom idea. A full equipped gym including mats, kickboxing bags, yoga equipment, treadmills, bikes, weights, ellipticals, etc.

I keep going back and checking on SEA because I'm just not seeing the removal of posts or the extreme restrictions that are being talked about here. Yes, they will lock a post if it's talking about non-secular resources. They will mention if they don't know if something is secular or not and limit discussion. They are definitely more extreme in their definition of secular and their restriction of discussing not secular materials. And I've often rolled my eyes at it. But the extreme stuff being talked about here? I'm not seeing it. And I am on Facebook multiple times daily since I have my business page there and admin a local homeschool group, plus a variety of other groups I belong to. I just did a search on SEA and found three posts in the last few months talking about the Rainbow Resources catalog. One about how it was a good resources, but watch their designations because they sometimes label things secular that aren't. Home Science Tools comes up all the time and they sell kits for non-secular science programs. I also found a recent post recommending different science curriculums that weren't "theirs" - MEL, Mystery Science, Inquiry in Action and a couple others. This is in addition to the stuff in my original post here. I used to be pretty active on a different secular homeschool group, long before SEA was founded (or at least long before I knew about it). They started having more discussions about neutral or religious programs than secular ones. So it was one more place where you couldn't count on getting secular recommendations.

We actually ordered seeds that came in packages looking exactly like the ones in all these articles. Most of ours didn't even sprout but they looked exactly like what they were supposed to be - tomatoes, squash, and peppers.

I"m on multiple SEA groups and haven't seen some of the things you are talking about. Build Your Library is recommended all the time. SOTW 3 & 4 are discussed. I've seen Mr. Q discussed (although I rarely see that one come up anywhere for some reason). They also won't discuss things that they haven't seen and can't confirm are secular. That's mentioned in the About post. I think some secular people in religious areas feel a little PTSD from their interactions with religious homeschoolers and they are looking for groups where they don't have to worry about that sneaking in at all. I do feel like there are a lot of people in the groups that were raised with some of the most restrictive types of Christianity and are often reacting to that. There are other Secular groups that aren't so restrictive for those who want that, Inclusive groups for those who want that. Theirs happens to be fairly narrowly defined.

We don't want to go anywhere that's far enough away we would have to use public restrooms or eat out on the way, which really limits things. We decided not to go anywhere that involved leaving the state and ultimately just decided to save the money for when things are looking better. We tent camp so we'd also be using the public facilities at campgrounds.

Are you setting up a Facebook page for the business? In which case, you aren't that limited. You would need a banner/header for the page, a logo for the page, you can do a description which is text only, then you can make a pinned/announcement post that stays at the top for an extended period of time. I'm going to send you a PM with the Facebook page for my business so you can kind of see what I mean.

The Most Dangerous Game. I actually really like that story but I also liked Lord of the Flies and Island of Dr. Moreau. My son is doing a lit program right now that includes The Most Dangerous Game.

I missed camping this year. It would have been nice to get away from home for a little while. I missed working the 4-H Fair. Although I didn't miss all the club meetings. I started a new club this year in addition to my old club and it was too much having both clubs meeting twice a month. We were already planning to switch to each one meeting once a month or splitting the very large group so it met twice but with half the group. I kind of miss the gym but I've been spending a lot more time with my oldest dd working out. We did every day until she went back to work, now we're doing every other day. It's way more than I've seen her in the past 6 or so years. It's been very nice having that time with her and we are planning to continue it. We don't have space to workout at home so we meet at the science center. If I have to close down, I'm not sure what we'll do. I never wore makeup so that's not a big switch. Sweats and yoga pants were my wardrobe before the shut down.

Many of the ones mentioned I read in Middle or High School but I didn't read Frankenstein or Pride and Prejudice until I was an adult. I really enjoyed both. I also didn't read The Secret Garden until my kids did.

This is my idea of a dream class! I did take a SciFi Literature class in high school. It was only one semester but it sounds like it was similar, since we all read different books other than a few short stories. A lot of what people hate, I liked. Others I don't remember if I read them or not. Some of the worst assigned reading I went through as quickly as possible while also reading other things so I don't remember much about them. I do remember that Pilgrim's Progress was the most boring book ever, IMO. Death Comes for the Archbishop was way too long. I took 3 years of Honors Lit and one year of multi-course (which included that SciFi, Creative Writing and two required composition quarters), so did a ton of reading for school. I just don't remember that much of it, especially not the stuff I hated. Oh and Ralph Waldo Emerson - "transparent eyeball" - from the Norton Anthology was pretty boring.

Morning, today is dh's birthday so we're going to my moms for dinner. He's actually cooking his own birthday dinner but a special occasion is not the time for me to cook for once. I'm going to run by the science center, I have more work to do since my first Open House is Tuesday, then I'm going to the grocery store to pick up what dh needs to cook.

I have swim leggings and a long sleeve rash guard that I wear when kayaking. I burn within 15 minutes even with sunscreen and being out in the kayak there's no shade and the tops of my thighs are just sitting there.

Our power is back on! Now hoping it stays on. Kids are back home from my moms. I guess we'll try the whole -go to bed at a decent time - exercise every day - back into a good routine - stuff next week.

I'm trying to feel a little bit hopeful because it's been so hot and humid with crazy air quality warnings that a lot of people I know are already huddling inside with air conditioning the majority of the time. I wonder if heating systems are better or worse than air conditioning. Or the same.

We have 750 but we do have outdoor space, although we probably don't take advantage of it enough.

NJ schools are requiring masks when inside for all students. Our general law is currently for masks AND social distancing inside, masks when unable to distance outside. There is also a virtual option available to anyone who wants it. Our Rt was recently rising due to parties. Our schools mostly don't open until after Labor Day.