This sounds similar to my parents' reasons for homeschooling. They started out by pulling their third child out when the local middle school, which had been okay for myself and one brother, went downhill academically. They originally intended to put him back in for high school, since after all, my other brother and I did very well at the high school. Then they ended up pulling our little sister out in elementary school, and what started out as an academic decision acquired a philosophical component. I don't think you're alone in that thought evolution. I think academics are often the most obvious reason to question the public school model -- kid is making low grades, kid is obviously unhappy or bored, kid has obvious special needs that the school can't meet (and sometimes all of those at once!), etc. So parents look for something different to address the academics and then find other reasons why they're glad to continue hs'ing. Among my local friends, philosophical (and often closely-related religious) reasons are probably pretty high on the list, especially among those who hs from the very beginning.

LOL, if I lived near the library, that would be easy. As it is, I live on the border of two counties, at least 20 minutes from anything, including a grocery store. So I pick and choose which direction we go in based on which direction has the most stuff I need. If it's a week when I need to get to BJ's, for instance, that's a completely different direction from one library system, but if it's a week when we're going to park day, that's a totally different direction from BJ's and the library system up there. So while I go out about once a week, it's not always the same day, and it's not always near the same library system. (If something's due or ready to be picked up when we're not going to be nearby, DH stops on his way home for me.) But in my parents' hometown, where they live five minutes from the library and grocery store, it would make sense to have a regular outing day which included a regular stop at the library. I do realize that I'm not the usual, though. :)

That's one of my reasons. There are many, and which is the biggest reason depends on the day. But yes, in general, I do have philosophical reasons for homeschooling. Even if I felt that the local school could meet our needs in other ways, I still feel that the home education model is the right one for us.

I've been reasonably happy with the cheap ones from amazon. At $3 for ten, I can keep them stashed everywhere and not worry about the occasional dud or if my toddler destroys a couple. They work just fine, and I use them very often on Notability. That being said, a bit more fine control would be nice, for things like proofreading, so I may put a couple of the nicer ones on my wishlist. But for general use, including filling in worksheets, the cheapies have been sufficient.

Yes to this -- me too! That, and my bluetooth keyboard broke, so I'm using the on-screen keyboard to type. It is both destroying my typing skills because autocorrect lets me be lazy and make mistakes that it corrects and making me look illiterate when autocorrect interprets badly.

Lol, that's a huge advantage to homeschooling in the days of computers and internet! I get email notices from the libraries a couple of days in advance, but I also have my google calendar set up to send me an email one day a week to check one system's list and an email a different day of the week to check the other system's list. This has really cut down on my overdue books. If we pick up a hold on an unusual day, I just renew it the next time I renew books from that system, to keep them all on the same rotation, even if it means losing a few days of use with an item. It's a good half an hour to one of the systems, the one with the bigger selection, but DH is up there about every week or two, so I try to coordinate due dates with his trips up there.

We took one child in at seven, because some of the later sounds just hadn't come in the way they should have. The SLP was great and really helped him get those sounds solid. Because we liked her so much, we took another child in at four, and she worked with him for a while too. Both have graduated now, but there is a chance that the younger child may need to go back in a couple of years. The SLP explained that certain sounds really don't come in fully until about age seven. In our older child's case, he needed help to train his tongue to make the sounds correctly, but in our younger child's case, he needed help to train his brain -- he could make all of the sounds but would put them in the wrong places, like saying "tar" for "car." He could make the hard "c" perfectly fine but needed some reminders on how to put it in the right place. At any rate, I'm really glad I took them in, and I think an evaluation is good if you're concerned.

Light sabers. That's what mine do together. Or how about some big Lego sets, maybe from one of their favorite move realms? My kids also like games like Sleeping Queens, Zeus on the Loose, and Ticket to Ride. And poker; we got them real chips a few years ago, and it's been a lot of fun, plus educational too.

Wow, no, our family doc (whom we see instead of a ped) doesn't ask those kinds of questions at all! She's young and has only been practicing for a couple of years, but she asks open-ended questions like "how's the breastfeeding going?" (for the baby) and "what are your favorite foods?" to the two and four year olds. (And then she smiled when one of them, the 2yo, IIRC, told her broccoli and cookies were his favorites. Some of that stuff I think she asks just to get the child to feel comfortable and to assess the speech. My favorite was when she asked my then 3yo, at the first visit, "So, what did you do today?" His answer: "Um, we drive." "Oh, where did you go?" she asked. He gave her his very best "duh" look and said, "Here." She cracked up.) She gives out some little informational brochures that talk about things like starting solids or firearm safety (big thing around here), but she doesn't ask a lot of questions. I would not be offended if she asked if we gave juice or if we used a carseat, or even if she asked if we had the littles rear-facing in the car, because I know that not everyone is an experienced parent, but I would not like the leading questions like the OP is getting -- that seems like it would set up too much of an "us vs. you" thing, and that's not the kind of relationship I want with a doctor. I want my doctor to do exactly what mine does -- let me be the parent but be the expert when I need one.

We're having a good year so far. So much is getting done! Big hits: -WWE3 and Singapore 3 with my third grader -- neither is earth-shattering, but they're hitting him at just the right levels. -A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court with my sixth grader -- she chose it from a list of options and is loving it. Who knew? -The Google Earth puzzle book plus notebooking sheets for each country -- again, who knew it would be such a hit? -We are actually getting to art this year, with Artistic Pursuits, and they love it. -Picture study -- all four children, including the 2yo, LOVE this. Even my small guys love pointing out what they see, and then we hang the prints next to the dining table so we can enjoy and observe them, for a while longer. Right now, we're studying Van Gogh. -Mr. Q Chemistry -- the projects, in particular, have been really big hits for everyone (although their reactions to the disposable diapers in the one experiment was hilarious -- we have only used cloth, so they were just incredulous that people put paper diapers on babies, LOL!). -MEP Reception level with my almost 5yo -- just right for him, and he begs to do more of it. -GSWL (third grader), Latin's Not So Tough (sixth grader), and Mango (Italian for third grader, Spanish for sixth grader -- their choices). -Sixth grader is liking the math supplements I found for her -- free worksheets I found on the internet, including from the Franklin Institute. She enjoys alternating them with Saxon. -History Odyssey Early Modern -- third grader is doing very well with level 1. Level 2 is a step up in brainwork for the sixth grader, but she's rising to the challenge well. -HWOT cursive for third grader. -Learning the books of the Bible. Even the 2yo gets into this. It helps that our baby's name is in the list, so everyone wants to be the one to say it. :) Not really anything that has been a dud. Sixth grader doesn't love WWS 1 because it requires a fair amount of writing and effort, but she does seem to like it better than she liked WWE 4. We have some issues because she doesn't always understand what SWB wants -- turns out that the student book didn't translate to Kindle format very well, and sometimes bolding ad such are lost. But she's getting there. Oh, she isnt really thrilled with Figuratively Speaking. The factual stuff is no problem; she just doesn't really like the creative stuff like "make a metaphor for X." But it is doing the job. Overall, I'm really pleased with the balance of fun and challenge, and I'm pleased with how much ground we are covering.

That's what I would do as well. We did ancients last year, using SOTW 1 with 2nd and 5th, and I just added supplements for the 5th grader as needed. It worked fine, and since it was all new info to her, it was okay that it maybe was a little on the easy side.

For those ages, I'd do SOTW, maybe with the activity guide if you have time, and with lots of readalouds and picture books to supplement. Either ancients or Middle Ages would probably appeal to that age range. My 3rd grader is working through SOTW Volume 3: Early Modern, using History Odyssey as a guide, and that seems to be a good fit for him too, although we're only a few weeks into it. I like that it's a little more spelled-out for me than the SOTW AGs, and I like that it's teaching some note-taking and starting to dig deeper into the "why" aspect of history, but I manly wanted that for my oldest. For just K and 3rd grade, I'd go just SOTW and its AG. I've really enjoyed the years we've used something like SOTW plus picture books to include the little guys.

We've really liked HWOT for cursive, but as with anything, ymmv. We like that the directions are very clear.

I found my MW for babies three and four by asking on mothering.com. Since you want a VBAC, you may need a CPM instead of a CNM, and sometimes they practice somewhat underground, depending on your state. Word of mouth via mothering.com will probably get you some. There's also MANA.org, I think it is -- Midwife Alliance of North America, and that might help. I found my MW for baby number five by googling and then googling specific names once I had a list. Aso, I belong to two local Facebook groups, one for babywearing support and the other for LLL/breastfeeding support, and we often have people asking for MW recommendations, so you might try those types of groups too. Good luck; I've used a MW for each of my pregnancies and have been nothing but pleased!

Awwww! So happy for your family, Nance!

I wouldn't go for induction until at least 42 weeks unless there was an indication of something going wrong. Four of mine have come on their own at 4, 5, 6, and 8 days after 40 weeks (the outlier is the one who decided that 38w3d was a good time to arrive), so it seems that my body just needs to cook them longer. Your body could be all closed up with nothing happening, and your baby could come tonight! My first four were like that -- I went to bed all four times with nary a twinge, and four times, I woke up in active labor and had a baby between four and eleven hours later. (I think that probably would have happened with the fifth also, had he been in a better position; I think my body was trying to get him to adjust his position, because I had several days of intermittent contractions and then a few hours of harder contractions that went nowhere until I got up and moved around some -- and went from 1-2 cm. to holding my baby in 1 1/4 hours. So you really never know what might happen!)

Depends on your area and health insurance. In my state, the public school can provide services such as speech therapy, but I opted not to go through them, for several reasons. Our insurance covers speech therapy, so I asked our family doctor, who my children see I stead of a pediatrician, for a referral, and she happily wrote one. Her office took care of finding one that took our I durance, and then after we met with the therapist, she wrote a request for services. As long as she submitted periodic requests for more services (I think she requested three months of services at a time), and our doctor signed off on them, the insurance gave us no grief at all. I think you first need to talk to your insurance, then your doctor if the insurance covers speech. I have heard that you may also be able to go through places like Easter Seals, so you could contact them too.

Ah! I see. I don't think it does say in the book, and it could have easily said Hawaii instead, but that is a logical step.

Okay, I have been wracking my brain -- it's been a while since I read Charlotte's Web, and I'm not remembering a reference to Pennsylvania. Google isn't helping me either. Since we're from PA, I thought I'd remember a reference, but I'm coming up blank. Can you help me?

That is so awful; I am so sorry. Hugs, and prayers for a speedy recovery!

I say that I homeschool or that I'm a SAHM, but it is usually fairly obvious because I generally have most, if not all, of my children with me, and it is usually in the middle of the day. They've been to more midwife appointments than DH has, and my regular PCP is my children's doctor as well. I live in a very friendly hs'ing area, though, but if a doctor blamed something on hs'ing, I'd find a new doctor.

I want to know what SDs are so wealthy that they can pay their superintendent for the time to interview the homeschoolers! I have heard that there are about ninety hs'ers in my district, which isn't a huge district. At an hour per interview, that would be two weeks of interviews for the super (er, the assistant super in our district). My district complains that it doesn't have enough money as it is, so maybe that's why they don't really bother us -- they don't want to have to justify to the taxpayers why they took the hs'ers to court or whatever!

We use Miquon along with Singapore. We allegedly alternate - three days of Singapore, two of Miquon, per week, but in reality, it depends. My son is very heavily into Singapore right now; he's in 3A, doing the multiplication and division, so it's not any new concepts, just new number facts. He is highly motivated to finish the book soon and wants to keep doing it. A few week ago, he was really into the concepts that Miquon was doing and wanted to keep doing Miquon for several days. That's all fine with me. He likes both approaches a lot.

As far as keeping a log for the school, *I* have detailed accounts of what they do, more or less, in my Homeschool Helper app. Well, it'll say "Latin," for instance, or "Saxon math lesson," and if they write anything, they put the date on it. Then I just check it off in the app as they do it, and if it doesn't get done, it either gets bumped to another day, or I delete it (which means it'll just take us longer to finish that particular book, no big deal). If they do anything that counts as a portfolio subject (including summer days when they play tennis), I click "present" in the calendar section, and at the end of the year, I'll either print the list of days attended (cumbersome but easy for me) or transfer them to a one-page calendar with boxes (more work for me but tidier), which I downloaded from askpauline.com. For the book list, I list anything we've ever even cracked open. I keep chapter books that the kids read or listen to in their "reading list" section of the app, and I list all curricula as well -- WWE, Saxon Algebra 1/2, whatever. I don't bother recording when we use each book for the school; I just throw it all in one list. It ends up roughly organized by curricula/spines, chapter books they read/listened to (I guess that's "literature"), books for history, books for science, books for arts. (I do not list picture books, except for things we specifically used for history, science, art, etc.) I just jot down books as we go and then put it all into one list for the school. Really very easy, and I really do enjoy having the keepsake to enjoy years down the line. It's mostly just silly. I'm glad for the vague law, but it does beg the question: why bother? Why ask for objectives at all if they can be vague, and if they can't even hold us to them? My objectives are the same every year, and this year, I turned in the same objectives for both kids (3rd and 6th). The only difference is that I put "practice handwriting" for my 3rd grader and "practice typing" (or something like that) for my 6th grader.

This does make a huge difference, when it's just what everyone does, so that you're not the only one.