First, throw away the donut shop blend. Donut shop coffee isn't meant to taste like donuts or even anything good; it is meant to taste like the burned, bitter, watery brew that is served in donut shops. It could have just as easily been called skuzzy gas station blend. Buy a breakfast blend or anything that says light roast. If you are worried about getting the measurements right, start by using k-cups until you know you have a brand that you like and then you can use a drip coffee maker. The brand matters, as well - unless you live in Texas and can buy the HEB brand coffee, stay away from store brands and from Aldi coffee. Starbucks coffee usually tastes burnt, so get another well-known brand - San Francisco Bay, Peet's, Caribou Coffee, Community Coffee, etc. Also stay away from folgers and maxwell house - they use low-quality beans and don't taste nearly as good as most other brands. Don't buy flavored coffee, use flavored creamer instead. Coffee bean quality and flavor is sacrificed when they add flavor to the beans in my experience (unless, again, you are buying HEB brand coffee beans, lol, or beans from a gourmet store).

The school report is just the section of the common app that you are on that covers info about the school. It is not a separate thing that you have to write up yourself like the transcript and school profile. You are verifying that you understand that you have to upload a transcript for the student as well, that you aren't just going to send info about the school and call it good.

No ideas for managing it, but I want to thank you for putting a name to the disorder. My husband has had it for as long as we have been married, but I didn't know it was anything more than extreme sleepwalking. It has increased this year from several times a month to several times a week, so I am off to the store to buy some melatonin to see if that helps him. He and I could both use a good night's sleep, lol.

I am also in Texas, and my local high school is refusing to allow homeschoolers to take AP tests at their school this year. Which, according to the same education code, they can't legally do. But they are. So I would recommend people double-check that the school they thought their kid was taking an AP test at will still let them. Any homeschoolers with plans to take an AP test in my district will have a fight on their hands this fall; thankfully no one in my family has any plans to take one.

The 2-layer cotton masks at Swaddle Designs have an elastic that goes around the head (the 3-layer do not). I have a couple, and the ear loops are not tight on the ears; the elastic that goes around the head is what holds it in place.

Google says no. Cuban oregano is supposed to have a menthol flavor (it is also called Mexican mint), while Mexican oregano is in the verbena family. I think it is funny that they are both called oregano when neither is in the oregano family, lol.

We have not used it, but GPB has a free chemistry course that is video-based.

The oregano in a Mexican seasoning recipe is not regular oregano but Mexican oregano. It has a completely different flavor than the regular stuff since it belongs to a different plant family. You can use the regular oregano in place of the Mexican oregano, but it will not have the intended flavor.

No, I have not used it.

I have used both. Grammar Revolution includes short instructional videos and Analytical Grammar has DVD's available (though I did not get them when I used it). Both have very similar instructional notes at the beginning of each week's topic for the student to read. Grammar Revolution then follows it with one sentence each day to diagram and parse; Analytical Grammar has 10 sentences each day to diagram and parse. Unless your student hasn't had any grammar instruction or exposure whatsoever beforehand, 10 sentences/day is very much overkill. My daughter had used R&S for years, so we tossed Analytical Grammar partway through the year - it was not a good fit for our situation. Honestly, I would recommend any grammar program over it. It is endlessly repetitive and boring, and it takes just as long to correct each day as it does to do the exercises. Both of my daughters used Grammar Revolution as a final grammar study in middle school and we really liked it. It is complete, and at the end of the course both of my daughters showed excellent proficiency in grammar.

Definitely the Nora Gaydos books. They can be found on Amazon, but here is a good description of the series and what each level covers.

We used to have that one. First, clear the lines by putting a mug under the spout and holding the brew button down for as long as it takes to completely empty the water line. Then you can brew as much coffee as you would like by only filling the top to the marker of the size you want (6, 8, or 10 oz.).

It is just a high school level course, so colleges won't award any college credit for it.

I would not recommend them. My daughter just finished French 2 there and will be redoing it elsewhere. The teacher gave up partway through the school year and left the majority of the second semester's work ungraded (along with some items from the first semester). The teacher has some pretty serious executive function issues, and it impeded her ability to run her classes this year. She is trying to take on additional classes this upcoming school year, so I expect she will have even more trouble keeping up with grading, posting assignments, etc.

My daughter heard from the last two schools this week - she was waitlisted at Whitman (not a big deal, it wasn't high on her list) and she was accepted at St. Olaf and awarded the Dean's scholarship, which was a nice surprise. St. Olaf was at the top of her list, but she has recently narrowed down her desired major to one they don't have, so I am not sure it is at the top of her list any more. She is still waiting on the financial aid package from Texas State and one major scholarship (Terry Foundation) before she makes her decision. If she doesn't get the (highly competitive) Terry Foundation scholarship (which would mean a full-ride at either Texas State or University of Houston), she may end up at the local CC and transferring to a nearby branch of A&M and living at home during college. All of her financial aid packages so far have been short 9-13k, and unless I can get a full-time job ASAP, we won't have that (and I have been applying for jobs). Our EFC is way, way below those numbers. My daughter applied for every major scholarship she could find, and every small scholarship (which so far haven't stacked, of course, just reduced the institutional aid), but so far has struck out with the major scholarships. And as far as I can see, that is the only way to get room & board covered at college. My daughter's ACT score was only a little above average (mid 20's), so she doesn't qualify for the full-ride merit scholarships at any schools. And she is not willing to take out loans knowing she will have to pay them off on a teacher's salary. So despite her dreams of moving out and attending a college with a choir that tours internationally, she may end up staying at home in the middle-of-nowhere Texas to attend a school that doesn't even have a choir program, much less one that tours. Sigh.

I'm a bit late to the conversation, but yes, my middle child is in her second year of French with Global Goose. I would definitely recommend it; both high school courses that my daughter has taken have been solid courses. There is plenty of homework each week - enough to keep the student busy until the next class. The assignments are all varied, and if the student has any trouble the teacher is willing to help out in any way. Pros - the instructor is willing to work with students who have learning disorders or executive function issues (accepts late work with no penalty, allows a student to scan and email work if typing it into the software to be automatically graded will result in typing errors, etc.), there is usually opportunity each week during the live class for students who are willing to practice speaking in French, the cost is quite a bit lower than other comparable online courses, the materials cost is low because the class uses textbooks that can be purchased for just a few dollars and worksheets provided by the instructor, and the courses are very thorough. Cons - the instructor sometimes posts homework assignments late so that the student has to rush to get it all done before the next class, she occasionally loses emails from students with their homework (my daughter learned not to delete her sent emails so she could resend any lost emails), and grading is not done regularly so the student might not know for weeks how they did on a test or project or if the teacher lost the homework email. Also, the instructor is supposed to send out a grade report to the parent at the end of each semester, but this is my daughter's fourth semester and I have never received one. I have emailed her about it (more than once), and she responded that she was waiting until my daughter has all of her work submitted. So after not receiving one for French 1, I just started keeping record of the semester grade myself. I know when my daughter thinks she has submitted all the assignments, and when it looks like everything is graded I just mark down that semester's grade in my own gradebook.

The videos were designed to go with the original book and solutions guide. If you go down to the bottom of the page that you linked, there is a free pdf teacher's guide download that has the schedule for the videos, the assigned problem sets from the book, and the tests (and answer keys). Masterbooks split up the problem sets so that you would have to spend more money to buy the whole package; that is the only difference.

Two more acceptances this past month...University of Houston and Lawrence University (including a More light! scholarship and a small amount of merit aid). She is only waiting to hear from two more colleges.

My oldest was accepted at Texas State University a couple of days ago. It is her top choice, but we are still waiting to hear from several other schools and see what each offers in the way of financial aid. She is still working on voice auditions, because singing in a choir is very important to her. Beyond having her major available, a high-quality audition-only choir was the top factor in selecting the schools she applied to.

My daughter got her ACT score for the October test date today, and it was two points lower than her April test. I get that scores can drop, but she did some serious studying between the two test dates. Her composite scores for the last couple practice tests in the weeks leading up to the October test were seven points higher than she actually scored. Question: would you have your student's test hand-scored in this situation? I am considering it because not only is that a huge drop from what she was getting on practice tests, but the areas that she took the biggest dives in were her best areas! She went from mid-30's on practice tests to mid-20's in both reading and English. It is like I am looking at someone else's scores, honestly. She left the test center confident that she had done pretty well, so her score today was very unexpected. Is it worth the money to have the test hand-scored? Or would you just have your student test again in December? FWIW, my daughter is a senior and needs to raise her score one point to qualify for the honors college at her top choice school.

The Common App will allow you to submit one optional report, which is the spot for a corrected transcript. They will ask for your reason for changing or correcting the transcript. I know this because I had to do this a couple of weeks ago. I had a mistake on the transcript and my daughter added another class a month into the school year.

The school profile gets uploaded under the profile section - when you are looking at the four tabs it is the one farthest to the left that says profile. This is the information section for school stuff that would pertain to all students in a school. The counselor recommendation letter gets uploaded in the workspace for your specific student under counselor recommendation. Clear as mud?

I would not worry about him not listing his senior year courses if they are on the transcript. You can also let him put the courses in and leave the grades blank. I would think either way would be okay since both lead to them having the course list. You will be uploading an updated transcript with mid-year grades in a couple months anyway. According to the common app FAQ's, once the student submits to that school, the entirety of what has been filled out and uploaded will be sent to the institution, so a missing LOR will not hold things up.

I assumed since it was the high school board, she was referring to the high school book 😄 Thankfully we got that cleared up 😁

My youngest just started using it this week. He didn't use CLE math at the lower levels, but he has used CLE for other subjects. The biggest benefit is definitely the ability to go back to the lesson where a forgotten concept was introduced earlier in the book. Another benefit is that the textbook can be reused by a sibling or resold. My son said the instructions in the book are really clear, and I like that the answer key has each problem fully solved.