FWIW, my dh took both geometry and alg 2 in the same year (in TX) to get back onto the accelerated track, so that's an option. WRT disadvantages of skipping geometry: I'm assuming the Math 1/2/3 sequence is integrated algebra and geometry. Wouldn't you have had 1/2-2/3 of geometry from taking Math 1&2? If so, then you might as well go into alg 2. Although if you feel shaky in Math 2, it's not a bad thing to move to the normal track and start wtih geometry. It's definitely better to master through Pre-Calc than to be shaky through Calc. Also, geometry would be on SAT/ACT, so that's a factor. What textbooks are you using in Math 1 and 2? ETA: I found these links for CA integrated math - do they match what your classes are doing? Math 1: http://www.mrmathblog.com/integrated-math-1.html Math 2: http://www.mrmathblog.com/integrated-math-2.html Math 3: http://www.mrmathblog.com/integrated-math-3.html

Looking at his mistakes, they both involve choosing the wrong vowel spelling for sounds which have a *lot* of options. (Plus he forgot to apply the phonics rule associated with hard 'c'/soft 'c' that would have narrowed down his options for the /er/ sound to "er" or "ir".) Is that his usual issue? I mean, he successfully hears all the sounds and picks a phonetically legit spelling for each of them, only he often picks the *wrong* spelling, especially for vowels with a lot of choices for the spelling? And does he tend to misspell words the same way in the same document, or does he have several different spellings for the same word in the same assignment? So he's done a workbook program and a studied dictation program. Both are pretty visual-centric, and he did fine with the programs, yet it sounds like he still has problems visualizing the words when he goes to write them "in the wild". I do see dictation recommended a lot for getting spelling skills to transfer to "in the wild" spelling - Spelling Wisdom didn't seem to help at all, though? IEW's program is more auditory-centric, so it would be a different thing to try. I know I read on here recently about someone who had spelling success with having their dc do spelling orally. Before you start another spelling program, perhaps you could try making a list of the words he misspells in the wild and have him spell them orally with you several times over the course of a week or something? Or does he misspell too many words? It might also help to have him do the Spell to Write and Read technique of "think to spell", where you don't schwa unaccented vowels when spelling, to help you remember the spelling. Like with "certain", think /ser-tAYn/ to remember the "ai" spelling. It might also help to have a chart with the most common spellings for a given sound listed in order, so when in doubt, he can go with the most common spelling; e.g. for /er/, "er" is the most common spelling, more common than "ur", and it would have helped him with "certain". ~*~ In terms of high school bootcamp spelling, most programs I know of take a morphographic approach (spelling by units of meaning, like "real + ize + ing"), which is also different from what you have tried. I've done Spelling through Morphographs, a year-long course, with my older two in middle school, and I do really like it; unfortunately it suffers from educational pricing and the price of used copies fluctuates a lot - sometimes it's about $40-50 for each of the two presentation books, and sometimes it is way more; right now it is $40 for book 2, but nearly $200 for book 1 <yikes>. Megawords is one I've seen people use for high schoolers and is supposed to be good, and it's in print. Apples and Pears is another program good for remedial spellers, that uses a *lot* of repetition to help cement spelling.

In the engineering college at my school (Texas A&M), every engineering major had to take two semesters of chemistry (also two semesters of physics). I was glad I wasn't seeing it for the first time in those classes. Might want to check the major requirements at the schools she's interested in.

This is kind of where we are, although in the grand scheme of things we are actually fairly similar. We are both serious about masking, and neither of us are terribly social people in the first place. We are more on the same page than it sometimes feels. Eta: We've had some sharp disagreements as we've come to our current near-consensus. Hugs. FWIW, for my own sanity I've decided that I can't let people's approach to Covid become a litmus test. People are complex - a failure in one area, even a huge failure, doesn't negate what is good about them (and likewise, what is good doesn't negate what is bad). I can love people who are wrong about things that matter - I can even like people who are wrong about things that matter. I can strongly disagree with them, be disappointed or even disillusioned about them in one area, even one that *matters*, without writing them off entirely. And I hope they can return the favor. (Why this is for my sanity is because the area I am in is, by and large, not taking things very seriously. I'm an outlier, and I thank God that both my dh and our immediate families are largely in agreement. Our church (where dh is pastor) is an outlier for insisting on masking and social distancing. Poor dh has been the second-most concerned person at our church (with me as most concerned) since the beginning, and feels caught between a rock and a hard place. I'm also thanking God that our state has a mask mandate, because most people are masking only where required and nowhere else. (And honestly, I respect that they are following the law even though they don't want to.) I don't want to write off the majority of people that I know, and I don't want them to write me off either. We can (and probably do) think each other is mutually insane over this, but we don't have to reject each other over it.)

Welcome to the board! I use Singapore Primary Math (aka elementary math; it covers grade 1 through grade 6) with my kids; my older two have finished it (my middle just recently). I think it is a strong conceptual program, and is especially good at developing mental math and problem solving skills; I've been pleased with the results. WRT potential mismatch issues between a Singaporean program and American exams, I have two thoughts. One is that it's mostly only an issue if you intend to test every year in elementary - it's possible that some US tests might cover some things a bit earlier than Singapore, and if you test a lot in the middle of the elementary math sequence you could get caught in a few of those. (As well, there are a few things that US schools tend to cover in elementary, such as introducing negative numbers, that Primary Math doesn't cover.) If that is a strong concern, then the solution would be to do the Common Core edition of Primary Math - it has added to and rearranged the original sequence to mesh with Common Core standards. But my other thought is that, for the most part, elementary math is elementary math. In the end, both US math and Singapore math cover all the standard elementary math topics - any little differences in sequence doesn't matter once you've finished. As well, one of the benefits of homeschooling is that we aren't tied to American school testing schedules, especially not in elementary. It doesn't *matter* that we do something ahead or behind of "the school norm" - we can fly through what our particular children find easy and spend extended time on what our particular children find hard. Singapore Math, while fairly low cost as far as it goes for math programs, isn't free (you can find it on singaporemath.com (the American distributer) and rainbowresource.com (a large online homeschooling bookstore)). If free is needed, two well-regarded free programs are MEP math and Ray's Arithmetic. MEP (Mathematics Enhancement Programme) is a UK program, and takes a very conceptual, puzzle-math kind of approach. (As an fyi, Reception is K4 and Year 1 is K.) Ray's Arithmetic, otoh, is a popular program from the 1800s that is in the public domain.

I used to be hardcore "there's no such thing as too many books, only insufficient bookshelves," but between moving and using up all the good and semi-good bookshelf placements - and realizing it might actually be nice to be able to put things *other* than bookshelves on a wall, such as large maps - I too have realized there is indeed such a thing as too many books <sigh>. Haven't done too much with that realization, yet, though <shifty>.

I like the reading experience of both physical books and e-readers. I do find it hard to pay real money for ebooks, though - when it comes to *owning* books, I strongly prefer physical (unless there is a really huge price difference). (There are several beloved series where we own *both* physical and e-copies, though, which is very convenient.) Mostly I use the kindle for reading library books and free online stuff (of which I have tons and tons - what's on my kindle is actually only a fraction of I have, scarily enough). Eta: My oldest says that she likes to read on the kindle, but that she likes having a lot of physical books, too. I think we just like having lots of books, in whatever form we can get them ;). I can say that both girls do really like the instant gratification part of library ebooks, lol.

I have quite a few that I put on over USB, so those aren't in my Amazon account. And I don't have wi-fi access when I'm out and about (no smartphone). On my old Kindle 3, though, I was really good about using collections - kept things organized and accessible. But I don't like how they do collections on my new kindle and the kindle app on my tablet - I mostly use the search function to find what I want. It's like keeping your email organized - once you give up on it (lol), it doesn't really matter if you have 50 or 5000 unread emails - it all looks and functions the same <shifty>. (My unread email count is currently 3,639, lol.) In theory I prefer a clutter-less life, but in practice I like having lots of available reading material, so I just aim for "comfortable clutter" ;).

Yes, exactly! 🤣 ETA: It's also making sure that, no matter what I'm in the mood for, I have it available ;). Somehow, Dh gets by with just his current book, maybe with one backup if he's nearly done <weird>.

I've paid for a few kindle books at full price during the pandemic (and paid full price for Harry Potter a few years ago), but mostly I'm similar to you. My library is full of free books and public domain books (and lots and lots of fanfiction).

Lol. It's not that I'm more of a tech person, and not even that dh is less of a reader, but that, unlike me, dh is not a book horder <shifty>.

Dh and I both got new kindles recently (paperwhites). Dh got his two months ago and has 28 items on it; I got mine three days ago and have 411 items on it, lol.

True, they aren't the same thing. All of us (me, my dds, my sis) have thin individual strands, but we all have quite a lot of them, my oldest and my sister having a *whole* lot of them. (My sis and I have straight hair, my girls' hair used to be curly but length/age has caused it to become straight (or at least to appear straight.)

They're pricey, but Ficcare clips are really excellent for long, thick hair - they are extremely strong and very pretty. Maximas are my favorites - I have nearly a dozen, mostly in large and medium, but one small. My sister isn't a hair person, but even she has made really good use of the one medium I got her a decade ago - it clips right to her bag when she travels, so whenever she wants her hair off her neck, it's available. Medium is a good all-around size for thick hair: it is good for both clipping back the top part of your hair and also for clipping up all your hair in styles where it just needs to hold one circumference of hair (as opposed to several twists of hair folded on themselves), such as bun styles where you don't need to hold the entire thing, but just a few of the outer coils; or making a ponytail by doing the first coil of a bun and letting the rest hang down; or just using it as a ponytail holder for a low ponytail. It's also good for twisting it up and clipping in on the back of your head, letting the rest hang down over it like a ponytail, though with a medium on long, thick hair it has to be redone every few hours, but since it's a casual 'do that is so amazingly simple to do, it hasn't been a problem for us. Large is good for when your hair is too thick to be held even in a ponytail by a medium and you want to use it to hold all your hair up, or if you want to use it to hold something like a French twist, where the hair is folded back on itself and the clip is doing almost all the work of holding it (unlike buns, where the style itself is holding up a lot of the weight). Although fyi, it takes me *two* larges to hold my thigh length medium thick hair in a French twist, but I'm not that good at French twists either. ~*~ The other clips I use (which are less expensive) are Lilla Rose hair clips. Most of mine are XLs, and I usually use them to hold up buns. I've successfully used a large and even a small (that I got accidentally) to hold buns, but XL is my preferred size. ~*~ ETA: Been experimenting on my girls. My oldest has thick hair that's past her waist, and the medium Ficcare Maximas was slipping out from the twist-up-and-clip-and-let-hang-down because it was a bit too *big* (and that style puts a *huge* amount of weight on the clip, too - gravity is really not in your favor). Trying again with a casual fake French twist (twist the hair, fold the twist over about a third down, put a finger at the fold and twist a few times, clip up on the head, with the remaining ends hanging down) - the medium clip is holding two coils of hair now, and seems happier for it; oldest dd says it feels much better. My middle wanted in one the fun (her hair is a little less thick and little shorter than oldest's), so I took out my XL Lilla Rose and tried to see what I could do there. The XL was too big for a fake French twist (with just two coils of hair to hold) so I tried a real French twist (added in another two coils of hair); it was still a bit too big, but seeing how long it will hold; 15min later, so far, so good. The XL holds my thigh length hair in a bun on top of my head very well, going through all the bun. For my oldest, whose hair is thicker than mine, an XL alone will hold a bun in general, but to hold a bun for dance it takes an XL plus two smallish claw clips keep it up. An XL doesn't hold her entire bun across the middle like it does for me; I have to clip just the top third, and dance is pretty hard on it.

"Many" is the simple subject => "Many are small."

Writing With Ease, maybe? I've had reluctant writers and doing WWE a year or two behind has worked great for us. It works on reading comprehension, working up to the ability to summarize; and uses copywork and dictation to work on physical writing and writing mechanics. For us, WWE1 in 3rd, WWE2 in 4th, and WWE3 in 5th has done wonders with getting reluctant writers comfortable with both written and oral communication.

Hands On Equations, maybe? I've just paused Alg 1 to do a quick run-through of HoE, to help oldest dd better wrap her brain around how equations work. I wish I'd done it over the summer, or even before Pre-Alg (which is what I'm doing with my middle). Dd has great intuition, but her ability to break things into explicit steps, and explicitly name what's going on in each step, is weak. Two days of HoE has already done more to bridge the gap between her intuitive approach (which makes sense to her) and explicitly going through the problem step-by-step than 3mo of the Alg text. She was excited about "having math that made sense". I have her tell me explicitly what she is doing each step and tell me which property justifies each step (the latter is not in HoE but was something covered in our Pre-Alg (also Dolciani) and in our Alg), to help her bridge her intuitive understanding of using the pawns to the thinking called for in alg that hasn't yet made sense to her. We're moving very fast at the moment - did level 1 (of 3) in two days; but I think the verbal problems book - where you apply the basic algebra taught to word problems - will slow us down some, especially as it adds the challenge of figuring out how to set up the problem, translating the word problem into an equation. Dd can solve the problems in her head, but figuring out how to model them in an alg eq is much harder for her.

My family has a tradition of retelling family history whenever we go to the cemetery, finding all the family graves and tracing family connections and telling family stories, and the two main reasons for going to the cemetery has generally been to tend the graves (water flowers, pull weeds, etc) or for a funeral. Since we (immediate family) don't live nearby to the "family cemeteries", we've also gone specifically *to* see the graves and retell family history while we are in the area. As kids, we always really liked going to the cemetery with Grandma, to tend the graves and find the oldest ones we could; it was kind of an family in-thing, to find cemeteries interesting places to be. When Grandma died, after the burial my mom took the grandkids to all the family graves and told the family history, just like Grandma had, and it was really meaningful - felt really appropriate.

Never cooked a turkey frozen, but we have defrosted in the sink in water the morning of cooking day. Usually takes 4 hours or so - makes a big difference to pull out the innards as soon as its defrosted enough to pry them loose, goes a lot faster at that point; we also switch out the water occasionally. Many years we do a combination of fridge defrosting and sink defrosting, if we don't get it into the fridge in time for it to defrost fully - just finish up defrosting in the sink in the morning before cooking. So if you take 2-3 days to clear space, you can still get it partly defrosted in the fridge and then finish it up in the sink - every little bit of fridge defrosting helps.

Ideas: *Libby app (library ebook app) *Any sort of online journal archive (I use my dh's alumni access to a theology journal archive a lot for research) *NYT or other newspaper website Might work better to list out all the apps/websites she *does* use (regardless of the reason), list why she uses them, and think about what connection those activities have to either learning ("scholar") or accomplishing things with people ("leadership"). If there's any app/website she's particularly passionate about, it might be worthwhile thinking about how to connect whatever that app/site contributes to her life to learning/accomplishing, instead of trying to shoehorn some semi-random conventional app/site into more conventional scholar/leader things. My best guess re: the essay topic is that they are trying to see how she uses technology/internet to do real, useful things - kind of an integration of tech and (productive) life.

Is that the order she did it in: drew the new Paul/Dad bars *and then* added three years to each? If so, that may be where she is getting into trouble. (Also, if she's doing it on graph paper or is otherwise a real stickler for drawing the bars perfectly to scale, she could be having problems, too, because to draw it accurately on graph paper requires you to already have solved the problem (I've spent 15min attempting it in Excel and still haven't solved it yet), but to do a rough not-to-scale sketch is the work of a minute and illustrates what's going on perfectly.) Here's what I did. I first drew the Now Paul/Dad bars: NOW Paul's Dad Paul Then I added on the 3 years: +3 YEARS Paul's Dad 3 Paul 3 Then I re-partitioned the new diagram into fourths (fudging the spacing a bit): +3 YEARS Paul's Dad 3 Paul 3 The key thing to notice is that the new units are equal to the old units plus 3: +3 YEARS Paul's Dad 3 3 3 3 Paul 3 This might help show it better: Paul's Dad now Paul's Dad +3 3 3 3 3 Paul + 3 3 Paul now So 4 units + 9 = 5 units => Therefore 1 unit = 9 years. Paul is 9 years old, and his dad is 45 years old. ETA: If she re-partitions the bars *before* adding on three to both ages, she might be missing how the new unit relates to the old unit. Especially if she re-partitioned Paul's Dad's *current* age into fourths and appends the +3 years to the end, so that the +3 years *isn't* part of the new fourths.

What kind of problems are you having?

Take a year off? Don't start reading lessons at age 5, but wait till age 6? Or at least give yourself permission to? I mean, next school year's a long way away - maybe you'll feel up to all the sounding out next year, but there's nothing wrong with planning to wait till the year after, when she's six.

Yes and no. It is doable for us to quarantine if we needed to (exposure, etc), in that we keep enough food in the house and dh wouldn't lose his job over it. But it isn't something we could just do easily. DH is the sole pastor at our church, and I'm effectively the sole tech person - our being quarantined for 14 days would be a big disruption. Doable if truly needed, but not for something optional. Eta: in general we are pretty careful, in part because church can't run well without us - if any of us get sick, dh can't pastor effectively. So we cant be taking unnecessary chances. Also, we cant be getting vulnerable church members sick.

See, I thought the opposite - that while small churches can source 50-100 masks plus a few containers/month of hand sanitizer and wipes and such, larger churches would find it very hard to source masks, etc., for 1,000s. We're small, and we've had no problems keeping the church in hand sanitizer and wipes and masks, even during the shortages (to be fair, we didn't aim for masking till May/Jun). Between one woman sewing masks and me and a few elders buying disposable masks, we have more than enough; after the first week, when half the people needed one, we've barely gone through one mask/week. And it was important to us, both practically and symbolically, to be able to enforce mask-wearing with a cheerful "and here's a mask if you don't have one", instead of turning people away.