Respectfully, to an atheist there is little difference between a G-d that turns a woman into a pillar of salt and one who is able to fly using little wings on his feet or wields an enormous hammer or even an enormous man and his ox or a girl who must spin straw into gold before sunup or a djinn that gives the camel his "humph" . All stories have cultural importance. All should be read by anyone wishing to have a complete education. None certainly has any credibility over another and when they are presented are done so with equal preface.

Upon rereading the OP I'm not sure why getting divorced after the youngest leaves for college is 'okay' but there is a question of whether it's 'okay' to do it now.

I make no claims at maturity, but if someone gives me a last minute invitation I will mention that when giving my reason for not attending. Perhaps the next time they will give me some more notice if they really want me to be able to attend. That sounds really confrontational but I don't have an issue with saying, "I wish I could come. If I'd known about it sooner I could have rescheduled (this or that)."

My body is my own and nobody has a "right" to do anything with it without my full consent. Nobody. With that said, it's not my place to decide what is a "good enough" reason for another couple to divorce.

You aren't the only one.

I can honestly say that I have no issues with my dh looking at porn, nor does he have an issue with me looking at porn. Further, we have no issues watching porn together. Not that we get a chance to do any of the above often, with four kiddos including a nursling, lol.

I agree completely with St. Clare.

We sure do. We run a small organic dairy and we deliver milk several times a week. One of my boys has therapy one morning and dd has dance class every afternoon but one. We just take our schoolwork with us and do it around our other activities,

I think it's normal. With my 6 year old I keep lessons short and we have a lot of breaks. He has sensory issues so I just stay mindful of what is fair to expect of him, not what I'd like for us to get done. May I also, very gently, suggest that your signature lists quite a bit for that age, IMO. In my state my son, who turned six in October, would be entering K. Now, he's doing more than a K curriculum but he's not ready, maturity wise, for a full-on first grade schedule either. I'm not necessarily saying that your expecttions are too high but perhaps the curricula you have chosen is a bit...dry and she is unable to focus on it at this point? Again, ymmv and I mean no judgement. When I started the school year I had a full first grade plan laid out for him (actually very similar to yours) and I quickly had to adjust because we could either butt heads as I tried to force him to do what I wanted or I could loosen up a bit and make adjustments.

I'm really just more WTM than LCC (I like the book but it's just not for me, if that makes sense) but I have a son with a seizure disorder that we're having trouble controlling so I just wanted to offer you some support. It's so frustrating, isn't it? :hug: You don't need to get married to a curriculum to use it. If you're spinning your wheels (we did that all last school year and, even though they learned regardless, it seems like it was just a really 'blah' year) why not just try it out for now? If things aren't working you can switch back to a more structured curriculum when you feel like things are more stable. Several months or even a school year isn't going to make that big of a difference in the grand scheme of an education and it might be exactly what you need right now. If not, no harm. It'll work itself out. There's certainly nothing that must be learned at, say, six years seven months that can't be learned at seven years two months. :)

I noticed this as well. As an atheist, I kind of throw in an extra "The so and sos believed this..." on those chapters.

I am doing Aesop A with my 8 year old ds and Homer A with my 10 year old dd. I'm by no means an expert but I'll try to help. :) 1. Since she is so new to copywork should she start with a level of WWE or start with Aesop? I didn't find WWE to be meaty enough for me. Not knocking it as a writing program, it just didn't seem like enough for our needs. I think that Aesop is more comprehensive. That means that we might cover the same concept (for example, right now the four types of sentences) several times per day by the time we do CW, Latin, and FLL, but that kind of review is OK by me. You might also check out the Aesop for Older Beginner's book--I haven't looked at it but I think that Aesop A would be a bit on the simple side for my 10 year old (but then Homer is a huge jump in difficulty, IMO). 2. I know there is grammar included in CW. Does it start in Aesop and is it complete or do you need to additionally use a core grammar curriculum? I am currently using EG and she does not particularly want to switch. There is basic grammar wrapped into the program. In Aesop A we have flashcards that cover grammatical concepts like the parts of sentences, indirect/direct quotes, capitalization rules, and whatnot. As he writes and rewrites his papers he's picking up proofreading marks and reinforcing how to put a sentence together. Still, I don't think it's complete or stand-alone in the grammar area. Once you get to Homer they recommend using Harvey's grammar, which I bought to make sure that dd was covering the same concepts in FLL, and I've had to teach her some things here and there but for the most part FLL, which we've used throughout, has given her a solid basis. 3. Can you use your own spelling programs or do you need to use STRW? (I read somewhere that there was some component or aspect of STRW in the lessons...I could be wrong.) We use SWR (a sister to STRW, if I'm not mistaken). For Aesop the idea is to analyze spelling words--break the word up by syllables, underline phonograms, etc. It's up to the teacher how this is done, however, and if you choose to tweak this it won't matter in the scheme of the program. 4. Do you use a separate vocab. curric. No. We do--and have always--just read a lot for vocabulary. 5. If you purchase the instruction manual and the student book do you need the core book? I think so. You won't really use the Core book much for actual teaching (I don't, anyway) but I think it's important to understand the theory behind CW. 6. This is regarding my dd1st for next year. Do you recommend starting a 2nd with WWE or CW Primer?

I am with Violet completely. As someone who has had to deal with the government over false allegations (bigotted neighbors, long story) and family members who were unwilling to learn about homeschooling but quick to judge it ("I just don't understand how you can provide adequate socialization at home") I have to say that I can't imagine a situation in which I would call authorities because of educational choices.

I don't like literature guides either; they always strike me as feeling contrived. Also, I was a voracious reader and always "lost" myself in a good book so I hated the "Read to chapter three but NO READING AHEAD" instructions when I had already read the book the year before so I'm not doing that to them. After Christmas I plan on reading "The Diary of Anne Frank" with dd (as in, she has a copy and I have a copy, we read independently and then discuss) because we saw her diary and an exhibit at the Indianapolis Children's Museum.

I'm using it with my fifth grader, as she is doing CW Homer. Do I like it? It's okay. Rigorous. It will give her an excellent grasp of grammar.

We cross-posted. Seeing your new reply I do sympathize--I'm not a fan of unschooling either. I've read the books and in theory I understand the concept. Unfortunately the models I've seen IRL have appeared to be less than ideal (but, again, perhaps I look like a mean, overbearing mother because some nights we work on Classical Writing or SWR relatively late in the evening or because I insist that they learn Latin--things that some might not deem necessary). You obviously know them better than we do and I don't know if you spend an hour a month with them or three hours a day or something in between. I do have to say a couple of things, though--I would take her confessions to you with a bit of a grain of salt. I called my dh the other day crying because I was convinced that my six year old would never get through the Ordinary Parent's Guide. Sometimes when we're stressed out or are just in vent mode we don't present things completely accurately. My son WILL get through OPG, I was just frustrated and tired. If her kids do have learning disabilities (and it's not always perfectly obvious to outsiders--my six year old has a seizure disorder that affects him in ways that aren't apparent to many) she might feel an extra set of anxiety when she vents to you. Also, if they have LD they might *not* be able to handle a rigid curriculum and something like TJE might work better for them--that's the beauty of homeschooling, not having to fit a square peg into a round hole.

This. I'm sure that any of us could look suspicious about something or other. Maybe your family goes to bed later and sleeps until ten. Maybe you do lessons in your pajamas. Maybe your kid is reading above grade level but is a bit behind in math. Such is the life of homeschooling--many of us don't *have* to live by a public school (socially acceptable) schedule so we don't. If you ask my six year old what he's done on any given day he's liable to say, "Nothing." Nothing. He might have had a very productive day, homeschooling wise, but he doesn't think to say that. I'll admit to having little patience with people questioning my life decisions (now, I don't mean people who ask questions because they are interested in why we milk cows instead of buying milk from the store or why we raise our own pigs but people who actually feel entitled to explanations as if they had some level of control over the answers). I also know that the snippet a person sees of a day isn't necessarily indicative of the entire day (right now we're all huddled on the couch getting ready to watch "America's Funniest Home Videos, a morning ritual before schoolwork and not a representation of the day as a whole). Because of this I try to give other people the same benefit of the doubt. I understand that you are a concerned aunt and I'm not trying to belittle honest concern--I'm really not. I've just been on the other side and react from that mindset.

I was looking through the TMs last night trying to figure out scheduling (I do my schedule for the following week on Sunday) and I know it says at the end of each activity a time estimate but some of their estimates looked off. Do you just aim to follow their guidelines at the top corner (where it says week 1, week 2, etc) or do you go at your own pace? How long do you schedule daily for MEP? What is your actual nut and bolts application?

My eight year old enjoyed reading it (like your child, he is reading at a fifth grade level). I don't think it looked as easy as, say, some of those leveled step-into-reading type books but it looked, judging by type font and thickness, to be about 3rd grade level or so. I just had him read it quickly. You might look at "Door in the Wall" by D'Angeli. He's reading it right now and it's listed at 6th grade reading level.

In the local public schools Columbus is presented as a hero and they still imply that Native Americans (in Indiana) lived in teepees. YMMV, of course.

This is what we use (DD has the children's version).

How fun! My 8 year old was Paul Revere this year (was, I say, although he is wearing his costume again today). I haven't had such success with my 6 year old, however. He's a Star Wars Clone Trooper. :P

I'm doing both FLL3 and FLL4 this year (with different children, of course). It seems like I'm often reading the exact same script. I agree with the PP, if there is a basic grasp of grammar I would just start with level 4.

It's actually not that daunting. We used "Hey Andrew, Teach Me Some Greek!" to get the alphabet. We did drop Greek, however, because we speak Russian and they were really getting overwhelmed trying to keep the Cyrillic and Greek alphabets seperate (to make things more confusing, there are some letters in Russian that look like English letters but make completely different sounds). As for science, my interpretation of LCC is that you don't *not* do science, you just don't schedule a bunch of arbitrary science stuff during science 'hour'. I'm thinking about the part where it's talking about how one curriculum had a bunch of books scheduled for one year and that, with LCC, a child still had time to read those books but they just weren't *scheduled*. I took that to mean that you can still certainly fill up your days with living science books, expirements, and other science-y goodness but those are during your free time, not scheduled into school. That might seem like semantics, and I might be reading LCC wrong, but that's how I read it. I remember when I was a kid in school and we really wanted to learn about dinosaurs. Our teacher wouldn't teach us about dinosaurs because we just had to get through the life cycle of a bug (or something). There was no flexibility. Not quite delight-driven, but not overly scheduled either. But then I've had a *lot* of coffee this morning and might not be making any sense at all. :P

I didn't feel like it was enough *for us*. I'm very pleased with FLL but WWE just hasn't clicked for us and SWO is...well, a miss. They weren't retaining the spelling words very well at all. We've switched around and are using FLL, CW, and SWR and I'm much happier. It is more intense but I think they're learning a lot more.