Agreeing with this, but I also included an AoPS designation on the transcript as they are an accredited school and of known high quality.

Oh Lauren, that is horrible! Press conference from NZ government has stated that if there is an outbreak during the the Christmas travelling time, we will be required to stay put at our holiday location, including camp grounds. So you need to bring enough supplies and be prepared to camp out where ever you are and not return home for 3+ weeks. Sounds like they will close the roads. It is summer here and currently no Covid, so there are a LOT of people travelling.

I love reading, but read textbooks and very technical nonfiction books which is why I have never joined this thread in the past. Right now I'm reading Piketty's Capital, and at 800 pages of technical writing, its not happening in a week. Neither is my 1200 page Chemistry textbook. How do you guys recommend setting realistic yet challenging goals?

X-post. How we prepared for him to write his essay: We studied National Geographic and New Zealand Geographic articles for an hour a day for a month. After studying about 10, we picked the one he liked the best and focused on it. We scanned it, enlarged it, printed it, and cut up all the paragraphs. Then we studied the purpose, tone, style of each paragraph. We used multicoloured pens for the different things we were looking for. How was it cohesive? That was purple. What was the purpose of each bit of dialogue? That was red. How was description used from the point of rhetoric? That was green. How do you keep to a thesis when you never clearly state it? How does each paragraph build your point in a subtle way? That was blue We worked and worked and worked to learn the form. Then we traveled to the Mackenzie Basin and visited all sorts of out of the way places, took photos, hypothesized, observed, talked, and just had a ton of fun. When we came home, he wrote it.

Thanks Lori! I can hardly believe that it has been 8 years since reading all these books! And a bit of follow up on my kids. My older boy has been named a Humanities scholar at MIT for his writing in philosophy and my younger has just won the National teen writing competition for his essay on the MacKenzie Basin in NZ, to be published this month. I might be a math and science gal, but all my reading about writing really paid off in my ability to teach writing! Good luck to all of you in the middle of the journey. Ruth in NZ

Just heard that NZ has purchased a portfolio of 4 vaccines. Around 15 million doses for 5 million NZ citizens/residents, which allows for one or two of the vaccines to not get through approval, and allows for 2 shots for the 3 vaccines that require it, and allows NZ to provide vaccines to 1.5 million of our Pacific Island neighbors.

My younger boy's dysgraphia was a huge problem. At the age of 12, he could physically write at a maximum speed of 8 words a minutes and his typing was no faster. He could not spell half of the top 100 words, and still couldn't figure out where to put a period or how language was structured. He couldn't get his ideas sorted enough in his head to even write with something like Dragonbox. I was looking at a year until highschool, thinking that there was no way he could do highschool level work or even get close to approximating the speed he would need to learn. He was just soooooo slow. His executive function skills were nonexistent and his motivation was only good when I was sitting there right next to him. It was not looking good even though I had worked so diligently with him for his first 7 years of schooling. We had a long talk about the plan, and decided to abandon all handwriting except for math. We started with typing dictation for 30 minutes each day, and then did 2 hours a day focused effort on trying to organize his thoughts enough to write. We did this for 5 years (he is 17 now). Every day we just got up and tackled what needed to be tackled and decided not to worry about his level or his pace. So where we are at now. Writing Mechanics: he can type at 40 words a minute. This was no small feat to accomplish as nothing was automated so even spelling a word like cat had to be sounded out. It took us 30 minutes a day for 3 years to go from 8 to 40wpm. This made him functional for highschool. Writing content: he is a beautiful writer for his style (a result of all his reading), but even now must be constantly reminded to put in an introductory sentence and to organize his thinking. Writing Speed: he is still too slow, and next year we will put a whole year to increasing his writing speed. Motivation: I still must sit next to him at the table most of the time for him to do any work with any speed or drive. Executive function: poor. We have quite a way to go with this still. But even my older boy at MIT called me every day for the first year to get help organizing his daily study plan. So my boys are just slow to master these skills. So, I believe that we are on track for him to go to university in one year (we have a February start here in the Southern Hemisphere). We will spend next year increasing speed, working independently, and improving executive function skills. I never officially held him back, we never even discussed it. All I said to him was that if he didn't feel ready for college at 18, he could take another year and go at 19. I didn't care. This reduced his stress, and allowed him to learn for the sake of learning. But the key in his progress was my full involvement for many many years. Ruth in NZ

Carnegie Mellon has good aid for low income. But stink aid for middle income.

So good to 'see' you! I'm really pleased that she is so happy at UAH. Isn't it wonderful when you find the right fit!?!?

Hate to say it, but modern middle and high school is way worse socially than in the past. Social media is very destructive. As I said, about 20% of my students have MAJOR issues associated with school. 3 have been institutionalized or hospitalized for mental health, 1 is into cutting, 2 have eating disorders, 1 cried every day at school in his first year, 1 lived on the street and ate out of dumpsters, and 1 turned to knives to protect himself from bullies. These are rich kids, from good families, attending good schools, and living in a socially cohesive society. I don't have a random sample, but I only take kids who have asked for a tutor and are willing to work academically. School has not been good to them even though they are willing to work academically. The social scene at school is tough these days.

Backlog here is 2 months, and likely due to people wanting to spend christmas and summer with their families. The facilities were keeping up with demand from July to November and no one was stuck overseas. So I think if we book far enough ahead for June-August break, we should be able to get a spot.

Does my ds need a covid test to fly United LA to Boston? He is flying Air NZ to LA and won't need a covid test for the international part of the flight. The United leg is connected to the international ticket in one ticket booking.

I'm curious because the managed facilities in both Australia and NZ are full, so citizens are stranded overseas. Much more in Australia because they have 4 times the population we do and the same number of beds in the facilities.

School socialization gets vicious in middle school and high school. I would homeschool my kids just to get them out of that environment even if I was not a great teacher. I tutor a lot of teenagers and it is not pretty what they go through. The peer pressure and bulling can be both overt and subtle, but it is never good for kids. And I would say that many, perhaps around 20%, are actually badly damaged by the experience. So when people ask me about socialization, I often just keep my mouth shut because I have no desire to try to match socialization of school, I am running from it. People are so indoctrinated into the benefits of school socialization, they can't step out of their box to see that there is another way. Not an equal way, but a better way.

It depends on how long you have been homeschooling for. It is the most common question people ask when they first meet you, and after a number of years it gets pretty tiring. People have been indoctrinated to believe that schools socialize kids and that socialization is the top priority. No one ever asks about how I educate, or how much my kids learn.

We worked hard to minimize it going back to the USA. No one will have it on the 12 hour Air New Zealand flight to LA. Then he has to sit outside for 9 hours for his very long layover. Then he flies in the middle of the night to Boston -- midnight to 7am, direct. So really only 5 hours of exposure. He has is N95 + goggles and won't be eating. Crossing fingers for a healthy start to the term in Feb. How many countries have required stay in managed quarantined facilities - is it just NZ and Australia? What about Taiwan and South Korea?

My ds got home to NZ 2 hours ago. He completed a 14 day stay in a military run quarantine facility in a different city. The biggest problem NZ citizens are having flying home is that they have to book to get a spot in quarantine, and the facilities are full up for months in advance. We just got in early back when the booking system was first set up, so got him a space. I'm not sure at this point he will be able to return here again once he goes back to university mid February.

He got his second negative covid test yesterday (day 12) which means the will release him tomorrow!

These are projects my younger boy did when he was 2-3 years older than your boys, but at the same level Half courses (4.5 months): Organic Chemistry Development Economics Demography of NZ Impact of colonialism in Africa He has also done 4 week long projects on: City planning Leadership Hydroelectric power Economic and environmental impact of dairying in NZ Economics of hotel occupancy Resource consent process for large projects Fuel efficiency in cars Chemistry of soaps and detergents Chemistry of microplastics Spectroscopy Fracking Hope that gives you some ideas! Quite a different list than Lori's 🙂

I wash my hands every time I come back home. I wash my phone with soap a couple times a week. I scan the covid tracer app at every store even though we have no covid here because Ashley Bloomfield asked us to and he is my hero. My older boy is currently sitting in a military run quarantine facility for 14 days before being released.

Not really in response to you NaN, more to help OP.....The key for us was to find a social activity that met each week that had a similar set of kids, and to make sure that they were generally just for play and not an organized activity (art class, museum visit, swimming class, etc). This allowed my ds to make friends within about 3 months, as long as the weekly activity was for about 3 hours. Problem is that not all localities have these kinds of activities, so sometimes you have to make them yourselves, and not all homeschool mums have the time nor the energy to do it. In my experience, about 10% of homeschoolers that have posted on this board over the years *really* struggle to find social outlets for their kids, and another 20% find it to be a chore and somewhat difficult. The remaining 70% are like me, too many options available, so we have to forgo things that look fun because we actually have to get some work done.

Three sleeps left until my older ds is allowed to leave quarantine in an Auckland hotel! I can't wait to see him! Way back in the beginning of this thread I was trying so desperately to get him back before all the airports closed in March. This time will take 15 days rather than 24 hours for him to travel here.

When we went into a 7 week super strict lockdown and during that time both of my boys kept up with their friend groups via zoom. My younger boy's D&D night and drama club were also done online. But because we are in New Zealand, we have not had covid here since May, so all of his activities have been back to normal for many months. Something I think you are missing is that social interaction gained through school is not the same as social interaction typical to homeschoolers. School kids are age segregated and homeschoolers are not. My younger boy's swimming has a 30 minute lesson and then 1.5 hours playing in the pool. One of his favorite friends is 6 (he is 17) and he also has quite a few 10-12 year old friends there. My older boy was in a community martial arts class where he was the only child. He socialized with people age 18 to 80. What is great about socializing with multiple ages is that kids learn from the older kids/adults but also act as role models for the younger kids. In general, homeschoolers who choose to find social outlet for their kids (which is most homeschoolers) have kids who are better socialized than school kids because their children don't face strong peer pressure because same aged peers are not their focus. This is a more nuanced question for your academic research. What is the impact of multi aged peer groups on homeschoolers vs same aged peer groups of school children? Socialization is different for homeschoolers, not lesser.

I thought the same. But gave an honest answer. I guess we wait and see the OP's response.

primary school: No standardized tests or competitive tests. Grade 1 - 8 secondary school: standardized tests: older boy SAT, SAT2 math and physics. Competitive tests: 20 math olympiads over 4 years (BMO, BMO2, AMO, APMO, IMO). Younger boy, none. We have high school national exams here. So each of my boys have done 20 national assessments/exams in their high school career that earn them a diploma. Older boy did this over 3 years, younger boy got it done in 1 year.