OP, is the inheriting sister also the one who will have to care for them as they become unable to care for themselves? The arrangement seems more fair if she's the one who will have to take them to appointments, move in when they can't be alone and deal with the unpleasant details of toileting and bathing. That's a lot of in-kind labor (both physical and emotional). In any case, your parents have picked their caregiver and they'll have to live with that choice. The other siblings shouldn't feel obligated to care for them if they've been cut out of the will. If it turns out that your parents need nursing home care, they'll have to sell the house to a third party to fund it, especially if they end up needing to use Medicaid to pay for a nursing home. I know that it stings when parents play favorites, but you (and your other disinherited siblings) don't have to play along. Families involve mutual care, but that's a two way street. Your parents have chosen their level of mutual care and you don't need to feel guilty if you accept that and act accordingly. Not having the burden of caring for your aged parents day to day is a gift too. It may or may not be worth your share of the house, that is yet to be seen.

What's your weather like? I'm VERY glad I didn't reserve a hotel in Austin and brave the traffic because it's going to be so cloudy that we're not going to get much of an eclipse experience in Texas. It's really a shame because nephew's school and the CC are doing big eclipse events, but it's raining with low cloud cover.

Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin might be a good choice. I read it when it came out and really enjoyed it. It's written for a general adult audience, so not as complex as a college textbook, but not meant for kids either. Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body: Shubin, Neil: 9780375424472: Amazon.com: Books PBS made a series that contains the same material as the book: Your Inner Fish | PBS If you're ever in Houston, the Museum of Natural Science's paleontology hall is organized in a similar way to Your Inner Fish and features many of the species it mentions.

I've also BTDT but with the military instead of the trades. It turned out that having an AA done through dual enrollment made my dd's career path in the Navy and beyond much easier. You enlist at a higher rank if you have a certain number of college credits. They give you points on your advancement exams. You have a better shot at finishing a degree while you're in the service which makes getting a good job afterwards easier. If you decide to try to become an officer, you're further toward that goal. Many people think that their kid will enlist so they don't have to push academics as much, but in dd's experience that is just setting them up for more frustration in the military. Do your kid a favor and help them to get as much education done while they are at home as possible.

I couldn't find a 4th grade thread, so I've started one. I'm afterschooling my nephew who is an English language learner who has caught up to his peers in reading comprehension and is improving his writing and grammar quickly. Unfortunately, his written Spanish is horrendous so we're going to have to add that in. He's a mathy kid so we're just chugging along with that at his pace. We're going to start our 4th grade materials as soon as he takes the STAAR competency tests this month. We'll both be glad to move on from test prep to something more interesting again. This summer he's going to do YMCA Tae Kwon Do and sports skills classes instead of going to summer camps so we'll be able to work for 2 or 3 hours a day. I'm planning to use: Mosdos Ruby and K12's reading program plus some novel studies using Memoria Press and Teachers Pay Teachers guides. We'll mix and match and pick the stories that are most interesting to us. I dug up the K12 from storage and liked some of the stories from other countries. They have some fun writing assignments too. Mosdos is easy to assign as solo work for him during the school year. I'll write out some discussion questions in his composition book and use the workbook for writing practice. For grammar I'll use Climbing to Good English. The Amish really do an excellent job of teaching English grammar to kids who speak another language at home. They're probably overkill for a native speaker, but they are awesome for us. Weirdly, Astroboy doesn't mind them at all even though they were written on a typewriter and are about as ugly as you can get. I also have the K12 grammar, we'll pull it out if we need reinforcement. We might do a bit of their writing for a change, too. I also have WWE 2 and 3 from back in the day. I think we'll add that in during the summer when we have more time. We don't have to follow along carefully because we cover grammar, usage and mechanics with CTGE so we can pick the passages Astroboy will like the best. I'm planning to branch out into reading for information using A Child's History of the World. I have the Calvert workbook and teacher's guide so it will effectively be reading/writing instruction but history based. I've also got MP's guide to D'Aulaire's Greek Myths and their Christian Studies stuff. I'd like to do these in rotation with the Child's History as an Intro to Western Civ. It will take a couple of years, but that's okay. We'll just cycle through them when we have time. I've got some science kits I found in a closet. I think we'll do those over the summer with some True Books or similar easy non-fiction reads. For Spanish language arts, I got Maravillas (McGraw Hill's Wonders Reading program in translation). I downloaded the Mexican and Colombian textbooks but most of their writing activities are class based and very hard to adapt to a solo learner. So, Maravillas it is. I've used Wonders already and it's fine. It's open and go and there are lots of extras available. I found multiple choice vocabulary and comprehension quizzes for Maravillas on Quizzizz. There are also downloadable spelling resources, although I don't think we'll need that. I'll just correct his spelling in his written responses and address any recurring issues. I think this will keep him on grade level for Spanish reading and writing and make sure he's exposed to a wide written vocabulary. I don't want him to get to high school and have to take Spanish classes because he's writing hacer as aser and can't speak in an adult register. For Math we're using Singapore Math US Edition with an assist from Keys to Fractions, Decimals and Percents. We ended up having to stop SM and switch to Keys to Fractions at the exact same place I had to do this with my dd 10 years ago. If you need fractions help, Keys To is a great resource. It's thorough but not overwhelming. I plan to keep going with SM/Keys to as needed through 6B and then switch to AoPS prealgebra and up. This combination worked very well to prepare dd for calculus at the community college where they didn't allow calculators, didn't curve and a third of the class had to withdraw. I'm older and wiser now and it's easier to pick and choose materials and not feel I have to do every lesson in every course. We can switch things up when we're bored or need to work on another skill more urgently. I like having an assortment of stuff on hand so I can mix up our lessons when we need to.

The Atlantic had an article about the effects of the FAFSA snafu a couple of days ago. It's looking pretty dire: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/fafsa-fiasco-college-enrollment/677929/?gift=r2MxgRZsFI80CskTMvE9soVPcok5ib04iDxVQrviqO0&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share I've gifted the article so everyone should be able to read it (hopefully, this is the first Atlantic article I've gifted.) The lowlights: Now most students can at least fill out the application, but the overall situation remains disastrous. The department has processed more than 4 million forms, but 2 million remain in bureaucratic purgatory. And although colleges have at last begun receiving the information that allows them to calculate student-aid awards, issues keep cropping up. Many schools are reporting dramatically higher error rates than usual in submitted FAFSAs, and the Department of Education says that students won’t be able to fix their forms until early April. Last week, the department announced that its processing system had incorrectly calculated aid for about 200,000 applicants. Each mix-up delays when students find out how much aid they’ll get—which, for many applicants, determines where they will enroll or whether they can afford to go to college at all. Many colleges require that students enroll by May 1, potentially giving applicants just weeks or even days to decide where to attend. Even more worrying are the students who might not enroll anywhere. According to Bill DeBaun, the senior director of data and strategic initiatives at the National College Attainment Network, 31 percent fewer high-school seniors have submitted the FAFSA compared with this time last year—a potentially missing cohort of 600,000 students. That’s a larger decline than occurred in any year during the pandemic, and it’s disproportionately clustered among schools with high shares of low-income students, the exact people who are least likely to go to college without financial aid. Another 2 million adults, mostly current college and graduate students, have yet to apply for the upcoming academic year. “Every time you establish any kind of a barrier to college access, it leads to a permanent drop-off in the number of applications,” Mark Kantrowitz, a financial-aid expert, told me. With declining enrollment, small colleges with high rates of low-income or minority students could fall into financial peril, Fitch Ratings warned earlier this month. “We’re absolutely going to see a decline in students going to college,” Laitinen said. “The question is how catastrophic it will be.”

Here you go: Unraveling Havana Syndrome: New evidence links the GRU's assassination Unit 29155 to mysterious attacks on U.S. officials and their families (theins.press)

If he's starting from scratch, his best bet is to look for an online class from an instate school. If they're cost prohibitive or just plain don't exist, he could try to study on his own using Youtube courses (the BBC has classes for a bunch of languages), Duolingo and prep books. If you're willing to spend more, there are private tutors available at Italki and similar services. This will only work if his university accepts CLEP exams for credit or if they offer placement tests for their own language classes and he does well enough to pass. Good luck to him!

I'll give you an example. My dd needed to place out of three semesters of a foreign language as a gen ed requirement for the U of Florida. They accept CLEP exams for credit. If you score high enough you get 6 credits and have fulfilled the language requirement. She took the Spanish CLEP and scored high enough to receive credit, so she's done. She didn't really prep much for the exam because she had studied Spanish throughout school and is pretty fluent. But, if she had needed review, she would have used the Spanish version of the prep book and Spanish language classes on Youtube to review and prepare for the CLEP.

Check his university's catalog to see if they give credit for the CLEP exam. If they do, he can take the CLEP instead of a class. Alternatively, if the CC accepts the CLEP and he's taken classes there, they may give him credit for their language class if he takes the CLEP. He could then transfer that credit to his university. If he wants an in person or online class, you could try other universities and CCs in your state to see if they'll offer the class over the summer.

If he has already taken some French, I'd get a review book like this: Amazon.com: Practice Makes Perfect: Complete French All-in-One, Premium Third Edition: 9781264285617: Heminway, Annie: Books and look for French video lessons like the BBC's French Experience: If he's further along, there's a more advanced BBC course called Ma France. When he's ready, he can get lessons with a live teacher at Italki or similar services. If you live near a big city, you might be able to find Alliance Francaise courses near you. Home - AFUSA

What a nightmare for the ship's master and the Baltimore pilots. They lost power at the worst possible moment and just couldn't stop in time. They dropped at least one anchor, tried to back up when the power blinked back on and just couldn't regain rudder control. Here's a video that explains the accident in detail hosted by an experienced merchant mariner:

Does your local CC give credit for language CLEPs? Modern States and FreeClepPrep have study resources and you can get a voucher to take the test for free from Modern States. This would only work for Spanish, French and German. Home - Modern States Clep Exams - Free CLEP Study Guides at Free-Clep-Prep.com If you don't know the language at all, you can start with Duolingo. Post here for language specific learning material recommendations.

If you chew up an ER tablet, they release the entire dose. That's why they have the "Don't chew or crush" warning on the labels. I'd get narcan just in case.

That's awesome that you could save his life. You're a hero, Wathe!

I really like using copywork and dictation to practice spelling. I've used Dictation Day by Day by Kate Van Wagenen. There are volumes for grades 3 through 8. It's available on Google Books.

Dd's first semester at the University of Florida is going well. She has another 6 weeks of class this semester. They just opened summer registration. She plans to do the second semester in the intro to programming sequence and Discrete Math over the summer. She's managed to finish up her language requirement, technical writing and one humanities/international studies flag with CLEPs and DSSTs. She needs to take the Art History CLEP for a very specific humanities requirement and another flag and then she'll be completely done with required gen ed courses. She's managed to keep on top on her classwork through two wisdom tooth extractions (they couldn't do the tops and bottoms on the same day), a big move into her own apartment and a step up in responsibilities at work that came with her promotion. It's been a busy semester for her but she seems happy and not overly stressed out about it all.

I've been here for more than 20 years. My dd graduated in 2021 and I really just checked the Chat Board for a couple of years. Now I'm afterschooling my nephew and I'm back to the curriculum boards. They're still an excellent resource.

Dating your son would seem to be the least of this girl's issues with her parents. I can see why she had to get out ASAP. All you can do is smile and pass the bean dip with her parents. If I was in your shoes, I would try to develop a warm relationship with the girl not just as her bf's mom but as a trusted adult who she can turn to when she needs help adulting.

See if your dds can CLEP out of any classes. That can save a lot of time and money. Modern States has free prep materials and will give you a voucher to cover the cost of the test. Home - Modern States

I agree that you don't need to spend a lot of time on literary analysis in elementary school. What I have found very useful in literature guides is the comprehension questions that can be used as writing practice. They're an excellent way to practice writing more complex sentences than you would get from writing prompts that are based on a child's own experiences. They're less intimidating than coming up with something to say on your own if you have a reluctant writer. They can fall back on rephrasing the text, sort of like the progym, but in smaller doses. I've been using MP's lit guides and comprehension questions I got on Teachers Pay Teachers and both have been very helpful in improving my nephew's English writing skills. Every learner is different and some kids would much rather use creative writing prompts, but for some kids comprehension questions are an excellent way to practice written responses.

It helps because I'm paying them half as much for effectively the same product. I know that the store brands are mostly made by big companies, but so far they haven't increased the prices nearly as much as their name brands. Probably because Walmart, Kroger, HEB, etc. have more bargaining power to curb the greedflation increases than individual consumers.

Yes!!! I won't buy your overpriced soda and cereal. Put it on sale BOGO or I'll buy the store brand. Often enough, it turns out the store brand is better and I won't switch back. So next quarter you can explain to shareholders why your year on year sales are down. The short sightedness is breathtaking. They'll tick off their customers to the point where people will find an acceptable substitute and never come back.

One of my brothers-in-law is a leap baby. He always has a huge party when he gets a real birthday.

MPOA's online classes don't strictly follow their materials, particularly for literature. My dd did their whole high school program and liked some classes, hated some classes and found some classes just okay. Much like any other high school. I wouldn't recommend using the whole curriculum from PK to 12 without any other materials. It would get so monotonous, but there are pieces that are very good depending on your student's tastes and your teaching style. I personally think Henle is the best Latin program for high school. Dd took some classes that used Wheelock and Latin Alive and was very happy to go back to Henle. The Caesar and Cicero years include a lot of reading with supporting grammar instruction which is an excellent blend. I thought the Classical Composition materials were a bit weird, but dd liked them and is a strong writer. She got high As in both her required college comp classes and passed the Technical Writing DSST test for college credit with minimal prep, so they did work for her. I'm currently using the literature guides to afterschool my nephew. They serve their purpose admirably since I need them to introduce vocabulary and give me a list of reading comprehension questions so he can practice writing response sentences. They're much better than regular readers and workbooks. OTOH, I didn't even try their grammar memorization because both dn and I prefer written work. Instead, I use the even drier Climbing to Good English. They're black and white and look like they were written on a typewriter circa 1950, but they are hands down the best English grammar I've found. They're sort of like Warriner's Grammar and Composition for elementary students in a workbook format. I'm not averse to dry materials, but there is a limit to how much dryness anyone can tolerate. It's important to balance out the workbooks with interesting content in other subjects, especially history and science. Those aren't areas where MP shines.