http://www.ck12.org/ for math and science, or Khan Academy. Both are free and have worked well for my older kids. My daughter in nursing school still relies on reviewing material in math and science through Khan Academy and CK12. Choose CK12's Flexbooks and Life Science for Middle School, Physical Science for Middle School, or Earth Science for Middle School. For math, choose Khan Academy Arithmetic and PreAlgebra. I personally like Hake Grammar (under $60 used) but there are so many choices in that subject area it is hard to recommend something without knowing more about the student. Hake covers grammar, spelling, composition, and some vocabulary. It isn't a bad starting choice. You might think about using the booklist from the Sonlight Core ( http://www.sonlight.com/ ) of your choice to come up with a literature program (collect the books from the library, half.com or Amazon, just use the booklist from Sonlight to choose the books). Mango languages is free at home through the website of many libraries with a library card from a participating library. Khan Academy has an amazing collection of Art History videos, and Pandora is free and you can use it to explore various musical genre. Hmm......under $100 for math, science, LA including literature, foreign language, art history, music. Works for me :D

Our VA doesn't have any scheduled times for my kids to be online during the day, and we haven't ever even heard of any 'events' that exist within driving distance that involve any kind of special eligiblity to enter. I'm sure that if such things were a concern in my area my own group would simply schedule the darn trip and if your family could make it (whatever you had on your schedule), great. If not, great, and maybe we'll see you next time. No big deal. If there were such an event coming up that only allowed a certain kind of homechooler and we wanted to put together a team, we would simply just state the darn eligibility requirements when we announced it. I just do not get refusing to allow people to join your group in the first place because it 'might' be a problem down the road. The existing homeschool groups in my area have absolutely no reason to exclude families who use cyber charters, but those families are pointedly excluded. The same groups that exclude cyberschool families also insist on only permitting Christian families who have beliefs that are congruent with their own to join. This isn't about homeschooling support, this is about creating a little world of like-minded people to socialize with. We would never fit in to a group like that no matter what curriculum we used or who we did or did not report to. And we wouldn't want to.

We've downsized. It's been a good experience. It was difficult for me at first to get rid of things. I kept thinking that 'oh, I might need that' and not want to part with something, like kitchen things. Like extra serving bowls and pots and pans I normally didn't use, even odd appliances like an ice crusher I think I used one summer years ago but never got rid of. I had a lot of little decorative items that had to go. It was difficult to be as ruthless as I needed to be, and at first when we moved in we still had too much 'stuff'. Over the first year I was finally able to part with most of that and it has made all the difference. If it doesn't have a place, then it doesn't belong. Think of the first year as a 'learning year' to figure out your new space and get used to it. I like being able to clean quickly. I like being able to do laundry without using stairs. Our space is well laid out, although I do think our bedroom is too large. We don't feel the need to be in different rooms from the other people in our family so it hasn't been difficult to share the main living areas as our main 'hangout'. The kids share bedrooms and it hasn't been an issue. We've never had large bedrooms with lots of furniture for the kids so they are content to have a bed to lie on and a couple of shelves. They don't expect to have to spend a great deal of time in there, nor do we expect them to. They just sleep and dress there, we are all comfortable doing our quiet reading or studying in the living room. This may not work for everyone, especially if you allow the tv or the wii to be turned on a lot. Noise will make your space seem a lot smaller. We are really serious about limiting movies and wii games on the tv so most of the day is quiet time. It makes for a planned family wii time or a planned family movie time, which is more of a treat and a lot more fun than just playing games or watching movies whenever anyone wants to. We do have earphones for the laptops if someone wants to watch a video or play a game with sound on one. We buy less. You have to really think about whether you really need something. The kids have fewer clothes and toys. We have fewer clothes and 'toys'. Whether this works depends on whether it makes you feel deprived or not. I feel a certain comfort from simplifying and knowing that I have what I need, but not everyone feels like that. I think it helps to have some little luxuries in your new space that you didn't allow yourself before. I enjoy nice soap and bubble bath, and then I don't mind having only a few tops to choose from when I get dressed, for example. Make sure your furniture 'fits' your space. When we moved in, we did get new furniture but it was still too big for the space. I finally figured that out and got different furniture last year and it works much better. My kitchen table is still too big, so it is a work in progress. The first one was too small. I have a better idea of what I want now, the problem is convincing dh to buy yet another one! I have curtains, and I have them hung so that it looks like the window is much bigger than it is by having more curtain on either side that is really just covering the wall and not a window. From inside it feels like we have huge windows, which gives the illusion of more space. Our computers are laptops (except one, which lives next to the tv so we can turn the tv into a giant monitor). We don't have computer desks taking up space or a dedicated computer area. We use wireless internet and a wireless connection to the printer that can be used from anywhere in the house. We have endtables with shelves in the living room, and a laptop or two can be stored safely on the endtable shelf when not in use. We use the laptops in different rooms or at the table as the mood strikes. Same with kindles. The printer lives on a bookshelf. As you actually live in your new space you'll find you get ideas about how to make it work better for you. I'm also always finding new organization and storage ideas online too. Just give yourself some time to let things settle and see what works for you.

You can take a look at http://www.ck12.org/ for some free high quality math and science courses, and at http://www.khanacademy.org/ for free math, science, humanities, finance, and computer science courses. Maybe you'll find something you like there. There are some fascinating free college level courses offered by major universities online as well.

The question was 'exclude cyber school families from park days, ect'. Yes. When I started my local homeschooling group I made it a point to state very very clearly that cyberschool families were included in our definition of homeschoolers, because in my area the existing homeschool groups are very explicit in excluding cyberschoolers. I do consider cyberschool families to be homeschoolers. I've had my own kids in and out of them. Right now my dd8 is enrolled in one, but we do not use their math and LA materials as we prefer Saxon and Hake. We used our own choices for everything over the summer as we school year round. Now dd8 merely fills out and turns in their tests while we use our own materials for math and LA, and we are also using Latin Prep. For ds5 his cyber enrollment is augmented by AAR, ETC, and MCP K math. Don't make the mistake of thinking that cyberschool families merely turn on the computer and plug in the child. It really is more similar to homeschooling than not, especially when homeschooling with open-and-go materials. I've done both.

Most of those are just from growing up, not necessarily college. I did my growing up in the Army. College for me in my late twenties and early thirties really was just about jumping through the hoops and getting that piece of paper. Good thing I found a job in my major, because I was also pretty far in debt with student loans to pay for that piece of paper. You know what I really learned? That people who have that piece of paper are no better and no smarter than anyone else. I learned that I read better books on my own than I was assigned to read in college, and that I already had friends who also read interesting books and were more capable of discussing them intelligently than the kids in my classes on campus. I also learned that a good number of the students who came in right out of high school and had parents who picked up the tab seemed to think that going to college really did make them smarter and better than every one else.

I have older gifted kids and I have never been impressed with the gifted programs or enrichment offered by our public schools. Unfortunately the private school we tried didn't know what to do with them either. Later on we learned about homeschooling and decided to give that a try, though mostly for social reasons once my two oldest reached high school age. Right now I have an eight year old and five year old at home and they are my only two kids without an 'official' diagnosis of giftedness. Last year we homeschooled and it didn't matter what grade level anyone was, we just worked at whatever level seemed best for each child. I spent a lot of money on books last year. Partly because I wanted to and partly because I felt I needed to try some different things to see what was going to work with this set of kids. This year I got the brilliant idea of signing my youngers up for a cyber charter school. The idea was that they would send us books and computers and give my kids access to stuff like Brainpop. Despite ample documentation using the exact same standardized testing the school uses, they will not place my kids in any other grade other than their age-grade. Initally they told me that it would be okay and that my kids could just 'accelerate' through the material to their level. Well, I have the materials now and I can say with authority the level to which my kiddoes are going to accelerate isn't within the scope and sequence of the grade they are assigned. Now, the school tells me that they will not offer my kids the next grade level in any subject, unless they have a gifted IEP that states that they have to, and that even if we agreed to gifted testing that not every giep has it written that the child is to be offered the next level in any completed courses. :glare: So, here we are. I told dd to simply complete the assessments and tests in the material, and that once the school year officially started I would turn them in. At present I have the first eighteen weeks worth of material to work with. I'm curious if the school will send me the next eighteen weeks or make us wait until January, and if they do send us the next eighteen weeks of material and she finishes it before, say, Thanksgiving, exactly what do they think she is going to do for school for the rest of the year? Log in for attendance and watch tv all day? I'm wondering if it is worth bringing this up to our state rep, considering that my kids are of compulsory school age and I think a reasonable person would take that to mean that they ought to be engaged in some kind of learning program on a daily basis and if I've enrolled them in a cyber charter isn't that cyber charter then obligated somehow to at least offer them some kind of educational materials during the weeks that the school is supposed to be in session? I know as a homeschooler if we completed a year's worth of stuff we were expected to simply do other stuff or more stuff or something worthwhile..... I'm not overwhelmed by the idea of homeschooling. I'm still using curriculum I've purchased since what was sent to us by the charter school was inadequate. I like the laptops they sent. I like having some good books that I didn't have to purchase with my own money. I'm not sure what I want to do at this point. I just don't get why it is such a big deal to send the next grade level once the kids complete the one they were sent in the first place. I know I'll probably get frustrated at some point and yank the kids out and go back to homeschooling......I just wish it could work. It would be great if it could work. I really want it to work. But the system just doesn't know what to do with kids that are a learning a grade level or two ahead, let alone three or four (like dd who is particularly strong in LA) and the darn kids just won't stop learning........ I feel your pain. I'm going to hate having to return those two laptops.

Well, if it would help you feel any better....... I homeschool and I have eleven grandchildren ages newborn to eight with two more on the way. One of my stepdaughters recently announced that this year my (homeschooled since K) granddaughter age seven was going to have to go to public school this year due to the need for mom to pick up some more hours at work........I tried to 'help', of course, by offering some ideas to keep her homeschooling because of course she is just going to ruin my grandchild with this public education scheme! :lol: Oh, and of course I'm convinced her sister, a SAHM, really ought to be homeschooling her two school-age kids instead of sending them to private school........ Another daughter with a four year old is currently being inundated with information regarding the positive benefits of homeschooling. The tide is turning, and more interfering grannies are recommending homeschool. Yeah, I should stay out of it, but hey they keep coming here and asking me to babysit for free so I guess that means they get to hear my 'ideas', right? I know this doesn't really help you, but I hoped that maybe you'd find it a little humorous. :D

I use (this year) a hybrid mix of homeschooling and a cyber charter school for two children and I have two other children in a brick and mortar public school. Last year I homeschooled two and had two in public school. I also have two homeschool 'graduates' who attended both public and private school before homeschooling high school. I'm open to finding the best options for the particular child and the particular family situation. I'm also much too critical to just passively accept the curriculum that our cyber charter handed out to us. I do not use the math or LA we were given at all. I teach using math and LA curriculum I have chosen and purchased out of pocket. I think I'll just have the kids fill out the tests and assessments for the charter school once every few weeks, and be done with the year's worth by Thanksgiving. The charter school also refuses to permit my kids to take courses beyond their age-grade without a gifted IEP, and I'm not sure if I want them tested. My brick and mortar kids are gifted and sick and tired of non-credit 'enrichment' and the unrealistic expectations that go with having a gifted IEP. And I'm rather curious what exactly the charter school will do if we finish up all of their tests and assessments before Christmas. Just tell my kids to 'hang out' until the following August? What about compulsory schooling laws? If the charter school really doesn't work out for us we'll go back to homeschooling and it won't matter what kind of number they have assigned to their IQ. I'd rather they think of themselves as hardworking instead of gifted anyway. I also add in and enrich as I see fit for each child.

I've learned to be open to alternatives to higher education, but your son is very young. At his age I would still continue to insist that he follow the most rigorous course of study he is capable of, so that when the time comes to actually make that decision he is academically prepared for college whether or not he chooses to attend. In fact, not attending college makes his high school education even more critical to his future.

In previous fashion threads I noticed a lot of women mentioned wearing yoga pants and fitted t-shirts on a regular basis. "Mom jeans" with elastic waistbands are out, but jeans without an exaggerated low rise appear to be acceptable to most of the previous respondents. I do believe Lands End and LL Bean were cited as examples of comfortable and acceptably-classic-but-not-overly-trendy styles of clothing for the homeschooling mom....... (Personally, I do wear dresses with leggings in cooler weather but I seriously doubt the hive will condone that :D )

:thumbup:

I would have very much enjoyed being homeschooled, except that my mom was Evil Incarnate (a very malignant narcissist).

For those of us who have an interest in Hake Grammar 4, I received the following email from Stephen Hake yesterday: "Thank you for your interest in Grammar and Writing 4. We are able to offer the school version for homeschool use only for a few months until Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is able to publish the homeschool version. We offer the program for $75 postpaid. The package includes a hardcover student edition, a softcover workbook, and a loose-leaf teacher packet that contains tests, supplemental practice, and answers to all the student activities. There are two methods for payment. You may mail a check for $75 to "Hake Publishing" at the address below, or you may direct a PayPal payment to payments@grammar.cc. As soon as we receive you payment, we will ship your books by UPS, so we need a street address for delivery. Please let us know if you have any questions. Best wishes, Stephen Hake" I ordered today :party:

I had my youngest (also #6) at 42. He is 5 now and I'm 47. I was more tired with him, I think, but I also had high blood pressure going into the pregnancy and I was overweight and inactive and a bit stressed over family stuff. Overall things went well, but I did have some problems with my blood sugar toward the end of the pregnancy and ended up induced because they felt his head was getting too big. It was, and he ended up being a c-section with a head that was a little over fifteen inches in circumference (he never fit into the pelvis) and weighed in at a whopping ten pounds at 37 weeks. Everything was fine afterward, the recovery was uneventful. I'd do it again in a minute.

I have a slew of grandbabies here that are more than I can handle. You are welcome to share!

Hi Staysee!

I was an RN for years and for me it depended on where I worked and what I did, but I will say that most of the time I did not want my kids or anyone touching my scrubs when I got home, just in case. Why take a chance? Even if I personally didn't get something gross on my clothes there is every chance in a hospital that someone else did and spread some of those germs around somewhere I touched or sat. Another FYI, don't touch her pens either! You wouldn't believe the nurses who would grab their pen with their gloved hands and write with it, then later take off their gloves, wash their hands, and pick up the SAME pen. Some of these nurses would even stick their gloved hands into their scrub pockets to get the stupid pen too! And do NOT get me started about those id cards worn around the neck on lanyards.....you do NOT want to know where those things tend to land when one bends over something........

My step-daughter's half sister took my grandson to stay with her for a few days. She told dh that she would bring him back in Friday, since she has an appointment that day. I wasn't there at the time. She did have prior permission from my grandson's mom (who is in jail for another week). Dh did not comprehend what she meant by the comment "I'll bring him back on Friday, because I have an appointment that day". I think I do. THIS is the adult kid who likes to drop off her kids filthy with their nighttime diapers still on ("oh, it was dh's turn to change her this morning and he left for work without doing it, hee hee" :glare: ), wearing crusty clothes, who brings no formula or bottle for the newborns, no diapers or wipes for anyone, who has actually brought an empty diaper bag, who stands outside staring in my windows when I starting locking my doors to keep her from just coming in with her kids while I'm doing school. I've driven up my street to find this woman and her kids checking all my doors and windows under the assumption that I was really home and pretending not to be when she pulled up. This is the woman who has had about a million 'job interviews' and appointments that seem to last all day and were scheduled unexpectedly so she just absolutely needed a sitter.....And you just know that she isn't going to answer her cell phone when you call if ask if she is ever coming back. She called me a week ago about how she had no sitter for her pt appointment last week and I was somehow the only one who could possibly do it. She caught me at a point when I was ready to just run off screaming myself and I told her in no uncertain terms I just could NOT watch her three kids on top of the four I have at home now. She is the one who then started to go over her other options and mentioned 'oh, so-and-so would do it, but she lives in xyztown and that is just not convenient for me"....... I had been feeling guilty when she was begging me, but the whole comment about driving out to someone else's house being 'just not convenient' really liberated me from that. I'm afraid that she planned to drop of my grandson today because she has planned to leave her three kids here for the appointment, which really means leave them here until suppertime or later...... So, we are headed to the park. My other grandson has a speech therapist scheduled to come to the house at 10 am, so we have to go home for that. Then we are leaving again. I have to find somewhere to hide because I am too much of a push-over to scream at her and she is the kind of person who would just laugh at me anyway and walk away leaving her kids standing in the driveway. In fact, one time she did that to me. She has done it to other people in the family also. I called CPS and they did nothing because the kids were safe with me. :confused: Send me some positive thoughts! This woman makes me totally crazy. Dh and I think her four year old has RAD, and she has been a SAHM since before he was born.....

I'd look over at who was sleeping next to me.........did dh and I swap or is he going to be very, very surprised when the alarm goes off?

Heck no, I have enough to do! We are also in the 'all the socks are exactly the same so we don't have to match them' camp.

Hah! My grammar and spelling are what you end up with when you graduate from public school. :D I suppose I could do better when posting, but since it's only you guys......:001_tt2:

I just couldn't stand my countertops and I lost my mind one day about three years ago and just painted them with regular paint that said it was good to use in damp areas. I don't remember the brand. It wasn't marine paint, wish I'd thought of that. I put several coats of polyurethane on top. It has held up well, except in one part by the sink that gets really wet when the kids do dishes (the pots hang over the edge of the drainer in that spot and drip) where it is starting to look like it is wearing thin or something. I also painted my vinyl plank floor. This is a fairly new flooring product and just put in last year in my living room. Unfortunately my kids were too much for it. The color had worn off in tiny spots all over the floor. Tiny white spots on my basically brown floor made me nuts, so I tried all kinds of things to get rid of them. At one point I painted a couple of the planks as an experiment (not like it was going to look worse, after all). The paint wore off very quickly (think minutes....I let the kids walk in the living room and poof!). Maybe I should have put on a top coat or some polyurethane......Anyway, the paperbag floor is slowly advancing through the house and will hit the living room eventually.

We tried several programs, but Latin Prep clicked the best for us. We do take it pretty slowly, though. We haven't tried Visual Latin.

:lol: My neighbors are entirely too nice and normal <sigh>. Now if only my family were the same........