A couple more things-- I agree with cutting the lawn the proper length. Many people cut their grass too short which harms the grass and promotes the weeds. Also water during the dry spells in summer. This is critical to keep the grass alive and inhibit the weeds from taking over. Water is organic, right?

Here is some advice for mid-Atlantic grass. By far the best time to work on your yard is the fall. At that time you can aerate, add a top-dressing of soil (or compost I suppose), and reseed. You should also fertilize in the fall. "SOD" is the way you can remember when to fertilize--September, October, and December. As far as weeds, you can hand-dig them out if you have a smallish yard. To get a smaller yard, you could turn more of it into mulched flower beds, which we have done. My dh often thanks me for putting in so many flower beds so he has less grass to take care of. We have too much grass to control the weeds by hand, so unfortunately we have to rely on chemicals, especially because our HOA doesn't allow our yard to have many weeds.

What worked for my in-laws-- Moving them to a small apartment in an assisted living facility, and then starting the clean up of the old house. They could still hoard in their apartment, but it wasn't as much of a problem since the apartment was small and could only hold so much. Once (before they had moved out of their house) we cleaned out their garage so that it looked beautiful, although there were plenty of hard feelings over old newspapers we had put in the recycling. A couple of years later, the garage was almost as full from reaccumulation. So I think you must wait until the person moves out permanently to truly begin the cleanup or else you may just be wasting your time.

I also will give a shout out to the Critical Thinking Company's US History Detective workbooks. They are excellent!

This year we used Notgrass fir middle school history, and I have been extremely impressed. You could use their 3-year middle school program to cover all that you mentioned before you get to high school: America the beautiful (US history) From Adam to Us (overview of world history) Uncle Sam and You (US Civics)

I check everything and have the kids correct everything the same day. We are not finished with school until all work is graded and corrected. On the next day we start fresh with new assignments. The only exception is compositions/essays. I help them edit these during the following school day.

What type of books are you interested in? I use a bunch of OOP books for various subjects and can list them if you like. They are generally not to be found at used book sales, though.

I have used both the old and the new Fix It programs, and honestly I don't know if the current Fix It is "enough." The new program was written rather recently, so I doubt there is enough evidence to be able to judge its worth objectively. I have been using R&S English from 2nd grade through 8th grade, and that is certainly enough (or maybe too much!). I had been using Fix It as a supplement to help my kids practice editing and apply their grammar knowledge. I ended up dropping Fix It for something else that was less time consuming to practice editing. Perhaps Fix It would give adequate results if you teach it as the program is written, but I think the jury is still out..

My rising 7th grade STEM kid needs a science class. Do you have any recommendations? She recently took a very extensive life science/biology course, so she doesn't want to take that again. She is leaning toward the middle school physical science class. For 8th grade, she may take chemistry, but maybe that would be too hard for her...?

My daughter is in 4th grade, and she does the worksheets each week. They are short answer questions mostly. I also have my daughter do a journal each week. I printed out journal paper with the blank top half and the lined bottom half of the page. After each lesson, she writes about what scientific principles she learned, and then she draws a picture to illustrate it. That is a great way to solidify the science concepts and a way to document what we have done in science. It is a lovely keepsake, too.

My daughter took the test today to see if she is eligible to take courses through Johns Hopkins CTY. We have no experience (other than the test), but I post this just so you know that you must go through the testing before you can sign up.

A cold sore shouldn't remain for three months. Impetigo is extremely common in kids. It causes lesions around the mouth, and it is treated very easily with antibiotics. I have a feeling that may be it, though derm diagnoses are tough without a photo!

I went to a speech tournament recently, and I found two new, extremely easy recipes that taste delicious. Slow Cooker Ravioli Spaghetti sauce, 2 large jars Frozen Ravioli (meat or other variety), two 25-ounce bags 2 cups Mozarella cheese, shredded Pour 1 cup sauce in bottom of slow cooker. Place 1 bag of ravioli on top. Spread 1 cup cheese over ravioli. Place 1 bag of ravioli on top. Spread 1 cup of cheese over. Pour rest of sauce over the top to cover. Cook on Low for 5-7 hours. (This was very good and very popular. Even my dh liked it.) Costco Macaroni and Cheese Buy two trays of the prepared macaroni and cheese at Costco. Place in slow cooker. Heat on low for 5-7 hours. (EASY!)

My favorite map workbooks are: The Complete Book of Maps and Geography (For early elementary) Maps, Charts,and Graphs (after the above through 8th grade) My favorite map drawing program is this: http://map-of-the-whole-world.weebly.com/

Yes, for your situation I agree you should make the book list and award prizes for books read off that list. For our summer reading, we give prizes based on number of pages read rather than number of books. Otherwisey kids would choose only the shorter boooks from the list and never pick something like Lord of the Rings. I like your prizes. We give cash prizes to our kids. When they were little, we paid them in ones and it looked like a big pile of money. LOL Do whatever motivates your kids!

IEW? This would be a good time to start SWI-A

Charlottesville-- One of the most popular hikes in Charlottesville is the trail that leads up to Monticello. There is a parking lot at the bottom of the hill, and you hike all the way up to the Monticello entrance. The trail is about 2-3 miles long. Richmond-- Tour the state capitol building that Thomas Jefferson designed. The church where Patrick Henry gave his famous "Give me liberty or give me death" speech is a notable landmark to visit. There is a lot of Civil War history to check out. I think you can visit the old building that was the office of Jefferson Davis. I think there is a Civil War Museum. There is a wonderful trail over to Belle Isle. Don't miss that. There is a parking lot next to the James River. You walk over a walkway suspended under a bridge to Belle isle. Then the trail around Belle Isle is one mile. The James River scenery is very nice there. There is also tubing available around Richmond and Charlottesville if you are interested in that.

Of course visit UVA if you are in Charlottesville since TJ founded it. You can either take a campus tour or do a DIY tour. Especially go to the Lawn and learn the history of that part of grounds.

A great thanks to everyone! And thanks for reminding me about chicken and [fill in the blank] sauce. I need to do that about once a week. Then I am going to start with the spinach lasagna and work my way down! (This thread made me very hungry, by the way.)

Please help. I need easy slow cooker recipes that kids will eat. Do you have one you could share? Here is my best one: Mongolian Beef: 4-5 lb boneless chuck roast 2 Tbsp olive oil 2 Tbsp minced garlic 1 cup soy sauce 1 cup water 1 cup brown sugar 1 tsp minced ginger or 1/2 tsp ground ginger 1 cup hoisin sauce Place roast in slow cooker. Mix all other ingredients together, and then pour over roast. Cook on high 5 to 5.5 hours or until adequately cooked. Shred the beef. +/- Thicken the sauce (Mix 1-2 Tbsp flour in 1-2 Tbsp water, and then mix into sauce.) Serve with rice, potatoes, bread, or whatever you like.

I had heard that someone liked the new teacher, but my kids haven't used it. I would like to hear reviews.

Ditto what the others said. I was a BFSU fan, but I couldn't make volume 2 work. Plus my kids hated BFSU because it ended up being so boring for them. I think I read that Mystery Science is based on BFSU, at least somewhat. The program seems very similar to BFSU (which is a big reason i like it) except that it is fun and engaing for the kids. We have been using one Mystery per week for a year and a half of school, and there are still plenty of new mysteries my daughter hasn't done yet. They keep adding new ones. Just sign up for the free membership and try it out.

Willingham's book is called Why Don't Students Like School? IMO everyone should read that one! I agree with many of the comments above. About a year or two ago I decided to get rid of everything that was redundant, busywork, or just didn't accomplish the purposes I was aiming at. This simplified our school quite a bit. I have my kids do some workbook-type of things for certain subjects, mainly because it forces them to pay attention to the reading. For history, we did three lapbooks per year which included a multi-paragraph report. After some time the kids were sick of lapbooks, so now I have them doing different programs. One of my kids does notebooking instead of lapbooks, and that is working out well. One of my kids writes a "journal" every week after her Mystery Science lesson. She draws a picture about the science lesson in the blank top-half of the journal page and writes a summary of what she learned on the lined bottom half. That has made a nice keepsake, but more importantly it has helped her to remember science principles and be able to explain them to me each week. Output can be in various forms, whatever is successful. I learned somewhere about highest retention occurring when students do all three of these: read it, hear it, and write it. I have found this to be true in general, and so I try to plan our school that way.

I think it was 8filltheheart who said she expected about an hour of work per grade level. So a first grader would work for an hour total per school day, and a fourth grader would work about four hours total. I have found that to be a useful guide.

Yes, I agree. I am sure a lot of you are good at leading those kinds of discussions. However, my kids often tune out when we do discussion, so I am not convinced that it works very well in our house. :)