We are finished early too! My kids only had scantron tests this week for the charter school but they were done last week. We still have to log school time. Fortunately, the oldest has algebra to finish because he doubled up his math this year and isn't quite done, but the younger one is reading a lot, writing some stories, and driving me up a tree by trying to work his way through an entire "assorted science experiments" book in a month. And EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM IS MESSY!!!! Those are the home school aspects I don't love...the messy experiments that almost always have food coloring involved! My magic eraser has been getting a good workout! What curriculum do you use? We are using K12 through a charter academy and it is a great program...we just push really hard in the fall so we have more flexibility in the spring.

I guess I don't understand these people that would post about a death in the family and make it up! On another board I am on there is was a woman who posted about her husband being dead. She even went so far as to have a fake obituary done up for him. Then tried to get people to donate money so she could have a memorial service for him. Unfortunately for her, the news did a story about a family that had something tragic happen to them and they interviewed her "dead" husband and someone from the board saw it....she was banned and that was that.... But seriously, isn't that like tempting fate or something? Taking a chance that it might come true. Maybe I am too superstitious, but that gives me the willies! I have kids with health problems and I don't even like to talk about that because it makes me self conscious when people offer all the support!

Faith: He has had a little over 2 solid years of prealgebra, A&B, plus starting prealgebra in 6th grade at the accelerated school he went to. So he has a good foundation, it is just motivation at this point! He wants me to make exceptions, only assign 5 problems instead of 20 etc. But I want the repetition in there to be sure he learns the concept so I won't allow him to do that. The online program we go through has 4 years of high school math, the senior year being a calculus class. It is a concurrent enrollment situation where at the end of 5 years they have an associate, so his last 2 years he will need to be doing calculus I&II.

Yeah! And the really annoying thing, I am convinced he knew how to do it all the time and was just yanking my chain! Twit!

LOL! I love kid stories!

Thanks. One of the things that I love about this board over others is if I come in here and read for long enough, I find another parent who is having a very similar struggle with their kid! Helps a LOT!

I have been suckered in a couple times, but now I am very careful and reserved. To the point of not even posting, just reading most of the time. I always feel like other people know more about things than I do so it is better to just stay quiet! But that article is very interesting.

Because training little monkeys to wear suits and ride bicycles has to be easier and more fun than teaching algebra to my 13 year old right now! At least I could use treats to motivate the monkeys! I really do believe in home schooling...but this one is driving me up a tree lately! We use a virtual academy and he started in 7th grade, so he doubled up his math so he could get through prealegbra 1 and 2 and then algebra 1. He tackled the algebra I class around February 15. He wants to be through Algebra I before starting high school because there are 4 years of high school math that he needs and he doesn't want to double up and take 2 math classes in one year. So...he has do 2-3 lessons a day to get through this. Well, he hasn't. At this point he is almost 40% through it and he has to finish it and take the placement exam by June 30. He is DONE with all of his other classes except for science, which dad is helping with and they have one more weekend of a few experiments for that. So he ONLY has math. He is very smart, totally GETS math...could be done with 3-4 lessons a day in a couple hours....but he is DRIVING ME CRAZY! Today, 3 lessons stretched out until 7:30 PM! The first lesson, he sat through the whole lecture with the teacher, listened to my explanation, worked 4 sample problems. Then I sent him to do the problems and it took him over an hour to work 15 problems (not hard or time consuming stuff, just slope intercept and point intercept!) and he came back to have them graded and had done it ALL wrong. Then he acts like he just doesn't get it. So after 2 more hours of working with him on it, all the sudden he starts working them right and then acts like I am the moron...he knew how to do this, I just "confused" him. Then the next 2 lessons went about the same. I finally told him I was done with forcing it on him. He had 2 choices, either change the attitude and decide to LEARN the math so he can be done with this class before he is a freshman...or he can have this "when will this be done" attitude and I stop teaching and he repeats it next year. After thinking about it he decided he wants to stick it out...but I am not arguing with him or fighting him to get this done! Anyway, just a vent! AGGHHHHHH....I know home schooling is the best thing for my kids, but it is the hardest, most exhausting thing I have ever done. I am never off duty! EVER. I am SOOOOO ready for summer break!

The Plunkett family is in the top 2 for the NASA song. They are the only entry where the kids actually did the singing and worked on the composition. The others are adults. Please, continue to vote for them. https://songcontest.nasa.gov/voteOrigResult.aspx Thanks so much!

She is an amazing girl. She is from my home town. Her dad is a doctor in Scottsbluff NE. NO ONE ever hears of Western NE so it is nice to get some notice! There is a western half of that state and there are lots of great things happening there!

I will work on that angle with him.

I have a very black/white thinker, and he refuses to see any value in writing a propaganda essay! We have read some and he just gets upset that they are dishonest (lying) and to his black/white aspie brain that is just not okay!!! So how do I help him see a value in writing this essay. When I have explained that he needs to be able to recognize it when he is reading information he insists that he can tell if it is a lie and he doesn't tell lies. To him, this is not a fictional story, which is okay, this is a lie and he doesn't tell lies. I am having a hard time refuting that logic! Help me here! Thanks

The staples thread got me thinking about this. When I listed my staples, I listed the things I always wear...and it isn't a very long list. Now I am wondering why my closet is packed to the gills! And it is mostly stuff I never wear. I think it is time to do some culling and streamlining! :tongue_smilie:

Cuddle duds! What I wear under my skirts all winter. They are silk long underwear and not bulky at all. I mostly wear: Skirts paired with hoodies, sweaters, nice stretchy tops or blouses depending on the circumstances and my gym clothes!

I was going to suggest this. I have a 13 y/o reluctant reader, only loves to read Calvin and Hobbs, but he does read Geronimo Stilton (enough like comic books to sneak in I guess) and for him the secret has been that even though he doesn't like fiction and especially not fantasy, he likes things that are realistic. He has read and enjoyed: Agatha Christie, especially "And then there were none" Sherlock Holmes And he loves nonfiction, so we just let him read it! We got him the DVD set of all of the National Geographic magazines from 1889 or something like that. He reads them avidly...as long as he is reading, I don't really care what genre it is, so if articles about the U-boat fascinate him, he will read that...oh, and airplanes, he knows more about airplanes than I even imagined it was possible to know (this is where the aspie part of his brain comes into play though!) My 11 year old loves the Gordon Korman books.