*DISCLAIMER* I am not wanting discussion about the nature of the student club, but rather I want comments or links to the legalities of school funding. An acquaintance of mine has a question that I'm not sure of the answer so I thought I'd ask the largest base of knowledge I know: The HIve. A new student club is starting up in her school district for LBTQ students. Two teachers have already volunteered to sponsor the club and they are asking the school board to fund the club for its activities, field trips, etc. My acquaintance's question is if this is legal or not. Can the school provide funding to student clubs without providing funding to all student clubs? (I'm thinking the Equal Access decision here which I know applied to allowing all student led clubs to have the ability to meet on campus, but I don't think it addressed funds.) This is causing division among the school district not over the nature of the club (as far as I know), but that other clubs are not funded and must pay out of pocket or have fundraisers to earn money. People are crying foul and demanding that their student clubs be funded as well. I remember having to raise money for NHS and Beta Club in school. As far as I know the school didn't pay for anything, but maybe schools do fund certain student clubs that I'm not aware. Any insight?

Thanks so much for this!!! Not shocking in any way, but I've been using rifled incorrectly. I thought it just meant to rummage through something quickly. I didn't realize that nefarious intent was needed. As for riffle, I'd never even heard of the word so I learned two new things today! Yay me! :hurray:

Jumping in a little late here, but I wanted to comment since we are still continuing to enjoy the W&R series. This answer is going to sound really lazy, but I honestly didn't make my dd do that much work with her stories in Fable. hen she had a rewrite or an amplification I'd talk over the elements she needed to make sure and include, but I didn't make her map it out or anything. We would brainstorm ideas together and talk it through. For example the rewrite of the Mice Council we brainstormed a bit about what animals/situations would work well together. Usually she'd pick random animal that she liked because she wanted to write about that animal, so then I'd start asking her questions. "What would your other animal be?" "How could you make those two animals fit the formula of the fable?" "Would that really work or should you choose another animal?" If her choice was a go, then she'd go off and write it. If her choice wouldn't really work, I would slowly lead her to that realization through questioning and she'd pick another animal that was a better choice as her jumping off point. For amplifications it was much more simple. I'd help her brainstorm where she could add in extra details. Some of that is in the book anyway, but I'd have her start talking to me about what additional details she would add just to make sure she was on the right track, and then send her off to write. So I guess ours was more of a questioning method of instruction, but I really let her lead the direction even if sometimes I was inwardly rolling my eyes thinking, "There are so many better choices for that rewrite," or "It would have been so much better to amplify it this way," but ultimately this method has worked with her. By the time we finished Fable she had really found her voice and her writing became very descriptive, tight, and imaginative. It was night and day between the beginning of the book and the end. We started Narrative II this summer and are about to finish it up. I've seen Grace's writing continue to grow by leaps and bounds. My mom even took one of her stories from Narrative II back to her school district to show the language arts teachers how W & R was teaching writing. She was really impressed with Grace's work.

We were listening to Gregor the Overlander in the car the other day when the narrator pronounced this word. It took me just a second to realize what word he meant because he pronounced it in a way I'd never heard. I'm curious if the way I've always said it is the norm or if the narrator flubbed up and said it incorrectly. In the context of the book the main character was going through some papers and the sentence said that he rifled through them. TIA

The university model school for homeschoolers that my oldest is enrolled in is MUCH cheaper than CC was with quality teachers (all have degrees in the subject they are teaching) that actually teach instead of review memory work.

I've never forgotten my kids anywhere, but I'm kind of paranoid about it like other pps have mentioned. Probably because my mom left me at school more than once and had to come back and get me so I didn't want to do that to my kids if at all possible. However, I don't judge others who have done it because I totally understand how it could happen.

You've got to have some Dutch pancakes while you are there. I dream about how good they are. My preference is ham, onion, mushroom, but there are tons of options.

I'm reading it to my 11 year old right now. She loves it and I catch dd8 listening in as well. As for version, we have the Heidi Illustrated Junior Library edition. I wanted illustrated because I'm trying to get illustrated version of all the children's classics. This one has some beautiful color illustrations in it.

My favorite chili recipe uses beef broth, Coke, and refried beans in it! I have other recipes that don't use beef broth.

We block history and science and cultural geography in 10 week blocks each. Right now we are halfway through our 10 week block of science, next we will do 10 weeks of history, then 10 weeks of geography, and finish up with 10 weeks of history. We are learning tons more this way.

My kids are 11, 8, and 5. I know all of their shoe sizes.

I ordered the hard copy today. I've been waiting for three months for it to come out since Grace told me she wanted to learn French.

I am using Getting Started with Latin this year with my 6th and 3rd graders. It's perfect.

I created read aloud lists from The Read Aloud Handbook. I believe the Kindergarten list is the first list with chapter books on it, so I would say 5ish.

Nim's Island and Raven's Mountain both by Wendy Orr

I answered your questions above to the best of my ability about the Christians I know within my own Christian circle that believe this. I'm sure there are differing answers to all of them depending on who you ask.

The call to convert comes from Jesus' own words in Matthew 28:16-20 which is commonly called the Great Commission. Christians are not converting people in other countries as a back up country, but because they generally believe those people are lost and need to be taught the commands of Jesus like it says in the verses above. Some people are much more in your face and antagonistic about it. While there are others, like myself, that just live our lives, and if someone asks about our faith, then I share.

The general argument that I hear falls into the category of being a stop gap against God's wrath. There are Bible verses that tell of God letting nations exist until their sin/iniquity has become too much and then God allows those nations to be destroyed. The Christians I know who are against gay marriage believe that gay marriage, abortion, no prayer in schools, perceived attacks on Christianity, etc. are filling up the vat of sin/iniquity for the United States at an alarming rate. They feel it is their Christian duty to do their best to stop this from happening by speaking out vocally against sins, by actively trying to thwart laws/court decisions that would force the US to continue down this path of being destroyed. Usually when Christians talk about the slippery slope that gay marriage leads to is the slippery slope of more sinful behaviors being seen by the culture and the government as acceptable, thus filling up our nations allowance of sin before we are destroyed even faster. The other common complaint I hear about gay marriage is that it will force ministers and churches to marry homosexual couples or risk being sued, so Christians are trying to prevent this from happening.

We are wrapping up our chemistry study right now. My 11 year old read the above book as her free reading and really enjoyed it. I read Itch as a read aloud to my kids and they all loved it and begged for more. I highly recommend both Exploring the World of Chemistry and Itch. It just depends on if you want a non-fiction or fiction living book for him to read.

Oreos with milk is the only way I will indulge It is worth it, even if I must battle the bulge.

There was the thread where someone had seen a famous person at the airport scrolling through the forums on their phone or tablet, but the person who started the thread wouldn't tell who it was in case the famous person wanted to keep their anonymity here. People were guessing like crazy and begging for hints, but as far as I know, she never caved and told.

Alley, I'm sorry we derailed your thread, but I'm not sure I ever knew 100% what it was you wanted in our replies. Sorry if my comments about the Smiths were out of line with your OP.

We're in the Houston area too, and since the ps has started back, I'm running into homeschoolers everywhere. Just yesterday we stumbled onto a homeschool Minecraft group (they get together twice a month and play in a protected server) at one of the libraries in Sugar Land. I talked to a dad at length last week about homeschooling his daughter. I met three new homeschool moms and we exchanged numbers. And my oldest is taking outside classes through a homeschool co-op in Sugar Land for the first time this year. I'm thinking in Houston, at least, the odd ducks are becoming more normal.

My high school math was: 8th: Algebra I (We were the first class to ever take Algebra as 8th graders in my school district. It caused a big brouhaha.) 9th: Geometry 10th: Algebra II 11th: Trigonometry 12th: AP Calculus

I thought the Smith kids were radically unschooled as well, but I'm not sure where I got that impression. I know they are generally viewed as kooky because of the weird Scientology stuff they spout on social media and in interviews. Ryan Gosling (of homeschool meme fame among other things!) was homeschooled for one year by his mom. He attributes that one year of homeschooling to changing the course of his future.