Hmm. I just ordered the bike and was sent an automated reply to schedule delivery. The first date said Nov. 17 so I took it, but I am skeptical it really will come that day. Regardless my husband will be home that day so if they don't deliver it won't be a problem. Perhaps because I ordered the older model it will be delivered sooner? Maybe it really will get delivered but I am not counting on it. As long as it it comes by the beginning of January I will be happy.

Thanks for the warning. I researched and found that there is a long backlog. I just purchased the bike and before purchasing there is a huge warning that the original bikes are taking 5 to 10 weeks or more for delivery while the new version is backlogged 12 weeks or more. I am not planning for it arrive until January but it will be motivation for the new year. I will try to remember to update this post when I get the bike to post how long it took for delivery.

Thanks for the feedback. I think we are going to go ahead and buy the Peloton bike. We have all gained weight during Covid and are now out of shape. We started off walking everyday in March and April and were walking several miles every day. Then somehow that slowed down and stopped and really need something to get us all motivated. We are saving so much money by not paying for any sports or activities for our kids or gym membership for the family.

I am thinking of buying the peloton bike. My husband and I both interested in buying it. My 11 and 13 year old boys say they would like to try it as well. If all of us end up using it then it will be worth the price. Anyone here have one that the whole family uses? Do you think it is worth it? Anyone with kids who also use the bike?

I agree the scores won't be meaningful. As an example, for second grade for Math Kangaroo in 2019 when students took the exam proctored at centers there were 4362 students who took the exam and only 1 student had a perfect score and only 2 students missed only 1 question. This year slightly more students took the exam, 4836, and there were 187 students with perfect scores. Some people might be thinking perhaps the second grade cohort from 2019 wasn't very strong and if you were to look at the third grade 2020 cohort (so same group of kids from group that had only 1 perfect score) you might find very few perfect scores from 3rd grade. Well, for the 2020 test that cohort had 131 perfect scores.

It is interesting they are going ahead and offering online administration with parents as proctors. Math Kangaroo was administered online this year and this is what they had to say about the very large increase in perfect scores: This year, quite unexpectedly, Math Kangaroo took place online for the first time. The testing ended only in June. Families accepted the change and most of them appreciated it. However, the number of the perfect scores indicates the possibility of some unfair play... The switch to online testing encountered few challenges and obstacles. The number of winners at elementary grade levels has skyrocketed. Our mission is for every child to excel at the test and while the large number of winners may reflect that we want to stress that it is in our ethos to have each child be able to participate in the competition independently. The problem we faced was how we at Math Kangaroo reward all the first rank laureates. Invalidating the results would harm those students who did take the test independently and it was our decision to award all winners. This unfortunately left the question on what lies behind the grandness of the prize if something has been gained dishonestly unanswered. It is within our philosophy that the values we convey as parents are the values our children will carry into the world. I am not saying anyone on this forum is going to cheat, but without a doubt without robust test security, there will be families who cheat. I am sure the AMC leaders debated what to do and found this to be the best option. I just won't be fair for honest students who love math.

I just started doing this. Even though we live relatively close to Disneyland and California Adventure, my kids haven't ever been interested in going (they keep thinking it is about Disney princesses). So we went a couple of weeks ago. They had good time and it was fantastic that it wasn't so crowded because it was a Wed. and Thursday.

Yes! You really just described what is going on. My oldest was constantly told that he was smart, a good student, etc. and he was a starter on the basketball team, so he really misses that feedback from teachers and peers. They both loved recess and PE and the silly stuff. They just really do miss that school culture.

There were a few reasons. I wanted them to learn Spanish, so we concentrate on spending several hours a day doing that. Also one child wasn't being challenged at school and the younger one tended to do the least amount of work possible in school. Academically homeschooling is better. This schedule is fantastic! I was going to enroll them in a 3 1/2 hour wilderness class but they raised the price and then not enough kids enrolled in their age group. I got them memberships at an indoor trampoline and we would usually go 2 hours a week on Fridays. I signed them up for homeschool pre-swim team class but they were the only 2 kids enrolled. The oldest did 4 1/2 hours a week of soccer on a team. Now he is starting baseball. The youngest did 4 1/2 hours on a soccer team, 2 1/2 hours of tumbling, and 3 hours of basketball on a team. He just started baseball too. They also go outside and play basketball, ride scooters, walk the dog, etc. I work part-time so during those hours a Spanish teacher comes and I don't want them to enroll in activities when she comes over because the point is for them to learn Spanish with her.

I pulled my 5th and 7th grade boys out of school to homeschool them in August. While they like being homeschooled and are really making progress learning Spanish (that has been our focus), they really miss their friends and physical activities at school. They liked going early to school and playing a pick-up game of basketball, playing football at recess, playing kickball, running around, doing PE, etc. My older one was on sports teams at the school so misses competing for his school. They also miss the social aspect of school. While they can go outside and play basketball, or go to a skate park, or we can go to the beach and they can go for a run it isn't the same thing. They are on sports teams after school but it doesn't make up for missing all the physical activity during the day. I realized they would probably miss the social aspect but I didn't count on them missing all the physical activities they did. I am torn whether to put them back into school. They both now want to go back. We live in California so most days they spent a lot of time outdoors at school. Anyone else have kids that crave physical activities?

My fifth grader build a pond in our backyard with a pump, waterfall, and fish. I was surprised how well it turned out. The downside is that we have a beagle that stands at the edge of the pond and watches the fish. If one ventures into the shallow end of the pond, she pounces and has managed to catch and kill at least one fish that we know of. I think she might have gotten a couple of other fish as well. If she doesn't catch a fish she ends up getting wet and sometimes muddy then will try and come into the house. I didn't know that beagles would be interested in fish. We have a swimming pool and she has never been interested in getting into the pool, so I assumed she didn't like water. My son just emptied the pond, and is digging so the pond will be deeper, but we aren't sure if this is going to solve the problem. One positive thing is that the pond has been keeping her very entertained. We joke that it is like she has her own entertainment channel now. Anyone else whose dog likes watching fish in a pond?

I just wanted to come back and update this post two years later to say that what regentrude bolded above is really true. I moved my son to a private school last year for 4th grade and it had its ups and downs. I started homeschooling my son at the beginning of this school year for 5th grade and he really is a different kid schooling at home than at school. I really thought he wouldn't be willing to do much academically and would continually try to get out of doing work. Instead, I make a checklist every morning and he enjoys doing his work, crossing off each task, then is excited to be free to explore. He knows if it isn't done correctly he will need to re-do it. He sometimes asks what is due the next day so he can get a head start on finishing assignments so he has even more free time the next day to work on projects. While he still isn't into academics and still is a jack of all trades kid, it has been interesting to see how his attitude toward schoolwork has changed.

Hopefully, it is something like PANDAS that antibiotics can cure. If, not I would consider how stressful it is to think about transitioning from a small K-8 school into a large public high high school. It might be the stress of the transition is leading to anxiety and her being obsessive about being able to control what she can. Add to that being young for her grade. I would really re-consider starting her in a large public high school at age 13. I would have her repeat 8th grade at the public school that feeds into the high school or homeschool her at let her have one relaxing year repeating 8th-almost like a gap year. I pulled my 7th grader out of a private school that was really demanding and have focused on him learning Spanish for a semester or two. I think he has been chronically sleep deprived with all of the homework he had, studying for quizzes and tests along with all of his sports practices. I am glad he has had one stress free semester year before going back to a demanding school then the pressure of high school. This is the most he has slept in years.

Yes, this is what I meant. I spent the morning reminding my 5th grader who was writing about a snake, a mouse, and a "snale" that "snale" is in fact spelled "snail". I told him that maybe snails have shells to protect them from the rain, then wrote out rain and snail, and pointed to the "ai". There isn't any rule he can memorize to help him know snail is spelled with an "ai". I told him to either remember it is with an "ai" or to write about a slug instead. I use Apples and Pears with him as it is the only spelling program that has worked. Lori D- We will have to agree to disagree. I think you had some fantastic suggestions and it clearly paid off for your son to spend all the time you did on spelling. The original post came from someone whose child is spending hours studying language arts in English and French, as well as learning German. There are only so many hours in a school day. I just don't think it is worth the daily, one-on-one time for someone in that situation to spend countless hours learning to spell words like "tobacco", "persecution", or Anglican" correctly. I would really concentrate on making sure all high frequency words such as "where", "were", "off", and "more" are spelled correctly, "-ed" endings are correct, and capitalizations are fixed by having him immediately correct them. The longer he makes those errors, the harder they become to correct. They start to look right. Additionally, it really affects the readability of a passage when basic words are misspelled. I just started bilingually English/Spanish homeschooling my kids by doing 4 hours a day of Spanish. It is really hard to fit in everything, but one thing I am really trying to make sure gets done is Apples and Pears spelling for my fifth grader because he is such a poor speller. My 7th grader who reads above grade level and writes well, but is at best an average speller, could benefit from continued spelling lessons. However, I realize once he picks up more Spanish, he will eventually improve his spelling in English. For example, if he can't remember if "incredible" ends with "-able" or "-ible" he can say the word in Spanish - "increible" - and realize it ends with "-ible". There are so many French origin words in English, Monica's son will have an advantage when writing around 1/3 of all English words.

The good news: Many schools in the US no longer formally teach spelling. Most writing is done on chromebooks/computers/ iPads in schools, so all those errors will be automatically corrected. My husband teaches 7th grade English and I sometimes look at what students write when he brings home a pile of work to grade. Your son's spelling mistakes are no different than many students in his honors English class. I wouldn't worry that he isn't spelling words like Anglican, tobacco, cotton, or even persecution correctly. Bad news: I don't mean it really as bad news, but just pointing out that some kids have a difficult time visually imprinting correct spelling of words into long-term memory. Many people can just look at a word and figure out it doesn't look right and fix it. While structured phonics works incredibly well for reading, you can't "phonics rule" your way through spelling. If he can phonetically spell words, but can't remember these sight words, he needs to concentrate on the most important words. So I would not spend anytime on spelling words like "tobacco" and work on correctly spelling common words such as: which, were, where, off/of, follow, arrive, etc. More good news: The only spelling program that has worked for my 5th grade who makes similar mistakes - he can spell using phonics rules, but not sight words- is Apples and Pears. They really concentrate on the words that are most often misspelled because you can't just use phonics rules to figure out how to spell them. I love that they have a lot of dictation and repetition. Looking at how well overall your son writes, I am not sure he even needs such a structured program. Maybe just Level C or even just level D?

Good question! I had another SOTW Book 4 from the library, so the younger brother was using that copy.

Anyone else want to post a "parent fail" moment? Mine a couple of weeks ago was yelling at my 7th grader: We are doing Story of the World 4- Modern History and are really behind because the Charter School we are enrolled in is overwhelmed with orders, so it took almost two months to get the book and activity book. It is really easy for him, but he likes Modern History and I can group him with his younger brother. Me: Are you done with the Chapter 3 outline of Story of World [the activity sheet has blanks to complete the outline]? My son: No, the last part doesn't make sense? Me: Seriously? It is really easy. This is just a quick review. My son: Well, I can't find the answer for the last ones. Me: So, re-read it, and keep re-reading it until you can. It is NOT hard, your younger brother already finished. I have a youtube clip of the famous, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume" meeting. My son: I have no idea what you are talking about. It is NOT in this book So this goes on and on and I am getting cranky because I know it is really easy for him. My son: Well, if it is so easy come over and find the answers because it isn't in the book. Me: Fine, I am going to show your how easy it is to find the answer. So I go and read, then re-read, and ......... I can't find the stinkin' answer! I look down at the page numbers and realize PAGES 33-80 are MISSING! Ugh! There was a printing mix-up so I had to call to have them re-send a new book (which they immediately did and said they thought they caught all of the misprints). The answer wasn't in his book after all. So, of course, I apologize to my son, but still feel guilty how annoyed I got. Lesson learned- next time I will be more patient.

This is across-post with K-8 because I just realized the people who can best answer this question most likely have kids who have finished Algebra and might be in high school. My 7th grader is using Foerster Algebra. When I looked around online to see the sequence people were using with the book, I came across Kolbe Honors Algebra syllabus, which lists the order as: Chapter 1 Expressions and Equation: Chapter 2 Operations with Negative Numbers; Chapter 3 Distributing: Axioms and Other Properties Chapter 4 Harder Equations ; Chapter 7 Expressions and Equations Containing Two Variables Chapter 8 Linear Functions, Scattered Data, and Probability Chapter 13 Inequalities Chapter 5 Some Operations with Polynomials and Radicals Chapter 6 Quadratic Equations Chapter 9 Properties of Exponents Chapter 10 More Operations with Polynomials He is finishing up Chapter 4 so I am debating whether to move to Chapter 5 and then 6 or skip to 7, then 8, then 9, and maybe 13 and then back to 5 and 6. Anyone have any pros/cons with this idea? The reason I think this might be better is that I am not sure how long he really wants to homeschool. This is his first year homeschooling and he misses his friends at school. If I put him back into school in February or March he would go back to a small private school where all 7th graders are doing pre-algebra and then half of 8th grade does Alg, while the other half continues in pre-alg. When I look at what they do in Pre-Alg this year, they briefly touch on two variables, slope, functions, and exponents. It might be better he is solid in these areas then I can do chapters 5 and 6 over the summer with him. I just looked at the Table of Contents for his Algebra book next year and it has Linear Relations first (functions, equations, inequalities) in the first half of the book then exponential and quadratic equations.

My 7th grader is using Foerster Algebra. When I looked around online to see the sequence people were using with the book, I came across Kolbe Honors Algebra syllabus, which lists the order as: Chapter 1 Expressions and Equation: Chapter 2 Operations with Negative Numbers; Chapter 3 Distributing: Axioms and Other Properties Chapter 4 Harder Equations ; Chapter 7 Expressions and Equations Containing Two Variables Chapter 8 Linear Functions, Scattered Data, and Probability Chapter 13 Inequalities Chapter 5 Some Operations with Polynomials and Radicals Chapter 6 Quadratic Equations Chapter 9 Properties of Exponents Chapter 10 More Operations with Polynomials He is finishing up Chapter 4 so I am debating whether to move to Chapter 5 and then 6 or skip to 7, then 8, then 9, and maybe 13 and then back to 5 and 6. Anyone have any pros/cons with this idea? The reason I think this might be better is that I am not sure how long he really wants to homeschool. This is his first year homeschooling and he misses his friends at school. If I put him back into school in February or March he would go back to a small private school where all 7th graders are doing pre-algebra and then half of 8th grade does Alg, while the other half continues in pre-alg. When I look at what they do in Pre-Alg this year, they briefly touch on two variables, slope, functions, and exponents. It might be better he is solid in these areas then I can do chapters 5 and 6 over the summer with him. I just looked at the Table of Contents for his Algebra book next year and it has Linear Relations first (functions, equations, inequalities) in the first half of the book then exponential and quadratic equations.

My 12-year old son just Peak, and the two follow up books in the series. It is about a 14 year old boy who loves to climb buildings whose dad takes him to Nepal to try and climb Mt. Everest. My son stayed up until 1:00 in the morning a couple of days ago when the final book - Ascent came in the mail that day. https://www.amazon.com/Peak-Marcello-Adventure-Roland-Smith/dp/0152062688 He also loves anything by Alan Gratz. Entertaining historical fiction. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=alan+gratz&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

I have been using W&R for a couple of weeks, and these posts are spot on. Yesterday my 12-year old was doing an assignment on labeling paragraphs as parables, myths, ballads, history, or fairy tales. He read a paragraph that he realized was a parable from the Bible and asked me if the book was Christian. I asked him what he thought and he gave a couple of other examples where the book talks about sermons or has other examples from the Bible. He attended public school from K-5 and a Christian school for 6th grade. He then asked if I ordered the book through the Charter School because he knows only secular items. can be ordered (one of his brother's math books is not secular and I had previously explained to him I ordered it separately). He thought it made sense not to order through the school and then asked me to buy the next book. He really is enjoying W &R.

I decided to purchase Level 1 and Level 5 on my own. If I like the program I may try ordering the next levels through the school.

I decided to wait until he turned 11. His older brother who is 12 and will be turning 13 this winter decided he would rather join Boy Scouts with his younger brother. But then a friend of the 10 year-old's mom just called us this weekend and is trying to convince us to have our son try Cub Scouts because her son won't be 11 until the summer. What do kids do that have sports on the weekend? How do they manage to find time to go on the campouts. Soccer season is ending soon, then the 10 year old plays rec basketball, and little league baseball in the spring. He also just started going to a tumbling class twice a week.

I am homeschooling through a public charter school that pays for secular curriculum. When I looked at samples W&R looked secular, but when I was comparing prices it is listed as not secular on one website. Anyone know if it is approved for use for public charter schools? Regardless, I plan on buying it. I am just figuring out if I purchase it through the charter school or not.

This was really helpful! Thank you!