Frozen strawberries (and peaches) make really good smoothies, too!

I am forever checking the WTB posts. In fact, I emailed two different people this morning. Still waiting for a response....

You mentioned that your ds likes reasoning, puzzles, logic and the like. You might check into the Critical Thinking Co. That's their specialty and they have standards-based books related to most subjects. http://www.criticalthinking.com/index.jsp

Check this one out: http://www.bigbrainz.com/ It's set up like a computer game, but all it is, is multiplication drill up to x12. My ds had a lot of fun with it.

Khan Academy is free. Also, if you do a forum search, there was a thread not too long ago with bunches of free online (printing not necessarily needed) resources. I'll see if I can find it. Found it: Not sure how to link to it, but if you go to the forum search type in "Free Curriculum List". There's bunches of stuff there for your perusal!

Maybe you could bring it up in casual conversation with the teacher and get her take on the conversation with dc without being confrontational. Something like, "dc told me the other day you were asking about homeschooling. Did you have questions about it?" KWIM? That way maybe you can get a better idea of what was going on in their conversation so you can better decide whether or not a confrontation needs to take place. Hopefully that made sense. :tongue_smilie:

This sounds so familiar! :tongue_smilie: Ds finally learned to tie his shoes with some proficiency about a year ago (he's 10.5) and he has been "washing" his hair on his own for quite some time. Even so, he often comes out of the bath with the top of his head wet but not the back or sides! "Hey, I thought you were going to wash your hair." "I did" "How come it's still dry?" "It is?" :001_huh: What's a mom to do? :lol:

I'm terrified of a gas range! :tongue_smilie: I'm trying to get used to the idea of having gas (we hope to move into a place of our own this year) because it's so much more economical and efficient. At age 10.5 my ds can make toast, nachos (in the micro) and can proudly bake his own Sculpey creations. We have a ways to go, but it's a start! :lol:

budgeting/financial responsibility cooking basic household cleaning laundry proper social interaction skills (in various settings) I'm sure there will be others, but these are the big ones at the moment. Ds is finishing up 5th grade and we're already putting these things in place in hopes that as he approaches high school age he'll be moving toward adult independence.

Wow. Allow me to stop complaining. :001_unsure:

3.92 - 4.05 in the Seattle area. ugh!

I'll second Caroline Elizabeth. I really like how that flows!

What she said! :D Except we don't have to write anything weekly - just have contact (face-to-face, email, phone call). And I'm not sure about the buying of a second copy for school board review. I've never heard of them doing that, but I could be wrong.

I am somewhat offended by your remarks. First of all, reimbursement is not given for items that are not approved by the district. For instance, I would not be reimbursed for purchases of a "religious" nature (Apologia, A Reason For...). Secondly, being a part of an ALE/PPP does not mean I don't homeschool my child. He has the option of taking workshops, but it is not required. I am responsible for his education. I simply choose to use district resources that are made available to me. As a full time enrolled student, yes he is required to do testing (which I am happy to do because this gives me a benchmark and a visual of his progress). If he was not full time the testing would not be required. As a PPP member, yes I am required to submit SLPs and monthly reviews. But, again, I welcome this as a way to make sure we stay on track. And, btw, I interact with my child plenty to know his progress. I understand that participating in these programs is not "pure" homeschooling, but please don't tell me I'm not homeschooling my child. The shelves of books and curricula in my house speak otherwise.

Our director is trying to figure out how he can best help us (the families) with all the changes. As far as we understand, money is still allocated to the families but purchases need to be made through the ALE/PPP. That's going to leave some people out in the cold as far as preferred music teachers, etc. but ordering materials should still be okay - as long as it's through an approved vendor. So no more shopping for the best deal and getting reimbursed. My job description is certainly changing. I work in the school office while ds is in classes. My job up to this point has been the processing of purchase reimbursement requests. :tongue_smilie:

As part of an Alternative Ed program, the state requires 25 hrs per week for 4th grade on up. We probably do a little more than that, but 25 is what we report.

There's also something called Time4Learning. I've never used it, but I think it covers all the core subjects. http://www.time4learning.com/homeschool-curriculum.htm

You could also do something like have a roasted chicken for dinner one night. Save the carcass and use it the next night to make chicken n dumplings or chicken soup. Have a beef roast one night. The next night you can shred the leftovers and pour on some bbq sauce and slap it on a hamburger bun or season it for tacos or something. Plan your menu by figuring leftovers into it (assuming there are leftovers). There are only three of us so leftovers are fairly common here. For casseroles: Tater tot casserole (hamburger, cream of mushroom, onion, s&p, tatertots) enchiladas - i make it layered like a casserole (hamburger, onion, s&p, corn tortillas, cheese, mix together for the sauce: enchilada sauce -we like old el paso- cream of chicken, just a little tomato sauce)

So I'll throw in my two cents here. I've used both and much prefer the Mac. That said, it can depend on what you want a computer for. PCs are good for spread-sheets and the like, but Macs are way better for the creative stuff. My experience is that PCs are way more prone to viruses and are just not as versatile as Macs. As I sit here typing this post, the fact is not lost on me that my PC is in a corner gathering dust and not allowing me to access my files while I sit here with an old Mac laptop which is working fairly well even after a two-year drying out period after having a coke spilled into it.

This probably doesn't answer your question, but I thought I'd throw it out there for your consideration. When we started history, we started with History Pockets Ancient Civilizations (K). It was a great lead-in to SOTW 1 (1st grade). Then after reading the SOTW 1 (we only did a few of the activity pages), I purchased the audio book for ds (to save my voice from all the reading we were doing :tongue_smilie:) so he reviewed it that way. He loves the audio books btw. We have all 4 volumes. You could easily do HP for first and SOTW for 2nd. That would make dc older for SOTW 4, which many recommend due to content. As far as American History goes, we're just now getting to that. I decided to do history chronologically and not worry about cycling thru more than once -although we may make it through twice. (I'm an eclectic hs'r). We started with ancients/world history, spent two years in the Middle Ages because ds was fascinated by it, and just kept following the timeline on up. We are now moving toward American history. We just finished studying explorers from "first Americans" through Hudson, are currently working on pirates and will begin next year with Incans, Mayans & Aztecs, moving into other North American people groups. From there we'll go back to Plymouth and begin learning the nation's history from that point. More info than you wanted, right? Sorry, got to rambling. I guess I'm just saying not to stress about it. My son is in 5th grade and already knows more history than I ever did. There's no one right way to tackle it. Do what works for your family. :001_smile:

Where in Orygun are you? ;) I grew up in Cottage Grove (just south of Eugene). It's not exactly Oregon Trail, but there are lots of covered bridges in CG and there's a small mining museum as well that's got some interesting history things to look at. I haven't used it yet, but HOAC has an Oregon Trail lapbook study and I've found a free one for youngers here: http://www.lapbooklessons.com/OregonTrailLapbook.html

I haven't read the other responses, but when we did 100EZ I think we only made to about lesson 38 before ds tired of it. But at that point we had the jump start we were looking for and I didn't want to make him hate reading, so we dumped 100EZ and just went to reading books. I had him read to me everyday, but let him take the lead in how much. At first it was just a couple of words, then a couple of sentences. Pretty soon he was reading me pages. We used mostly books like Dr. Seuss and other beginner books. We also had a set of SL readers that we used. He is now reading at or above grade level.

They do have an HOAC lapbook for free right now (Butterflies). It came in my e-newsletter today.

Singapore is good for word problems. Some websites to check out: http://www.khanacademy.org/ http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/math.htm http://www.thatquiz.org/ http://www.bigbrainz.com/

Not sure about adult books, but another one for the kids (if they're younger, like prek-3rd or so) is Jungle Jam and Friends, The Radio Show. Fun characters with good lessons. http://fancymonkey.com/