In TOTAL agreement.

This here.

Good luck :)

Firstly I want to reiterate - if it works for you, it's fine. Don't change things if your kids aren't complaining. If *you* need a break, take one. Tell them you'll get back to the schedule tomorrow. Secondly I heartily disagree that accelerated kids need to work for longer. Reread boscopup's excellent post a few times.

Kiss Me Kate is quite approachable as a musical spin off from Taming of the Shrew.

Ha, same for us except it was gastro. Eldest woke up vomiting on the morning of the 2cnd & ended up in hospital yesterday. We'll start when she's better.

My daughter was similar at 2. By 2.5 it was getting a little easier, but just as the other posters described - she was frustrated that her age peers couldn't communicate in the same highly verbal fashion and that they didn't have the same interests. I kept her social stuff to mainly older children and avoided situations where she would be expected to play with other two year olds unless I knew they were similar.

Not an app but it you read music, even basically, you could get a music notation program. You would set the bpm you want and then "play" (in most you can do this with a keyboard so you could use say, the space bar) into it. It will show by the notation that comes up how accurate you are or aren't. Notation programs can be expensive but still much cheaper than $1,800!

My 6.5 year old has a workbox style "basket" of things to do. When I'm filling it I note down the absolute longest I think it should take her to do each thing and make sure I stop when it adds up to 2 hours. Usually it's done within 1 hr - 1hr 45 mins but "school" goes on for much longer as there are always rabbit trails. I can't really comment on the other things as I usually don't include reading in that time & the amount of writing & spelling I include varies greatly. I usually allow around 40 minutes for maths which is often three or four worksheets or one or two and a game.

Infected here too. Six year old with gastro. Baaaaad gastro. Worse is that the three year old literally *just* got over a bad cough, as in today is the first day with no coughing. I hate gastro.

Not Tuesday, but it's nearly 2am Wednesday here & I just filled my littles' baskets (work box). So yep, we'll be starting tomorrow.

I haven't read any of those yet, so I'd love to participate regardless of which one it ends up being :)

Sixth grade would seem about right to me.

My 6.5 year old is similar. Tests way in high school or higher in terms of decoding etc but has hated to read...until I gave in to Harry Potter. We tandem read aloud (a page each) and have just started the third one after a few weeks. I'm reluctant to continue since I know they get darker, but I'm also reluctant to bypass her willingness to actually read for once. She hated Magic Treehouse, she outgrew Rainbow Fairy kind of twaddle a few years ago. It's been so hard to find something she actually wants to read. ETA one reason for the tandem reading is so I can monitor her reaction to the scarier parts.

Oh yes! I've never heard of it before but I definitely have it. All summer I fantasise about moving to Siberia. I live in the coldest place it is vaguely practical for our family to live, which isn't very cold considering our country is usually pretty warm. At 1000 m above sea level on a ridge between two large valleys we get plenty of cold foggy days right through summer which helps me deal with those loud one. Yes, too loud is how I find it. My mother on the other hand lives in an area where they are lucky to get ten days below 40 degrees C all summer. We only visit in winter.

Please educate this allergy novice. What is wrong with seeded grapes (for a nut allergic person)?

Hmm, I've seen plenty of kids in pj's (usually at night, out for dinner etc past their bedtime). I've also seen adults (admittedly near fine art colleges ;) ). It wouldn't say lazy mother to me. I could vote pjs, dressed or underwear lol. Depends on the day. Neither of my kids would want to go out in pjs though (underwear is a different matter *sigh*).

We only have raspberries and far less than you, but my six year old has been walking around saying ; "I never want to see another raspberry!". It's been a bumper year. My husband made raspberry muffins with raspberry and mint cream (our mint is also going crazy). That's all I've got. I think I'm with Ms 6 lol.

Not yet. One of DD's good friends has been tinkering along with her dad. http://quietly-insane.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/turning-on-raspberry-pi-for-first-time.html?m=1 It looks fun.

I agree with this but I do appreciate it if people at least put those bowls of sweets/candy up a little higher and move their precious things out of reach. I stay close to my little people when visiting but toddlers can be super fast and I can't be everywhere at once. One area completely safe would allow the parents a moment or two to actually interact politely with their hosts.

No duplicates. Only vague similarities. My late grandmother, my aunt and my daughter all have names that come from the root Mary, but each of them came through a different branch of the Indo-European language tree so none of them are similar enough to confuse (& none of them are actually Mary).

Is there a homeschooling advocacy organisation that might be able to give you some help or advice? Here we have the Home Education Association which provides PL insurance to members but also carries out advocacy with government legislation etc. In a situation like this they would be able to contact the Olympiad on your behalf to clarify the process.

Just past Summer Solstice here. My littles open their presents on solstice morning. I'm happy the days are getting shorter! My six year old has trouble getting to sleep any less than two hours after sunset so I'm looking forward to her sleeping at a more reasonable hour.

Australia is most definitely NOT a republic.

Yes, I meant to say that I wondered if there would be something similar actually in Nelson. I hope it was clear by the way that I didn't mean I thought a school like that would meet his academic needs - just that you said you couldn't homeschool because you needed to work. So a more pleasant day time environment for him & after schooling his interests with you would be one possible solution. One day at a time is always good :)