I think a stricter no-show/cancellation policy with virtual lessons for sick kids would be a great option if you were able to offer that. Every now and then a kid might be so sick they can't even do their lesson virtually, but I feel like a lot of the time when I've had to skip a lesson for a sick kid it was more for a runny nose or a low-grade fever that was mostly under control (i.e. the kid could still do stuff, it just hadn't been 24 hrs since it was higher) or even a kid who threw up a couple hours ago but is feeling better now. It is easier though, I have to say, to feel like I can send my guitar student to a lesson mildly sick b/c he can wear a mask. Not so much for my flute student. 😄 Make-up lessons are great but at least for my family they are so hard to schedule...we are packed with different things on different days, and I would much rather just get it over with virtually. But I'd even be fine skipping a lesson and still paying for it every now and then, which maybe most families wouldn't be ok with. I have a certain amount budgeted per month for lessons, and if I have a sick kid and we miss a lesson...the money is already allocated, it's just to me "one of those things" that happens. But I am probably in the minority - the teachers seem to usually encourage finding a make up time.

We don't have a large age gap, but I sometimes have wished we had one more kid, because DS12 has virtually nothing in common with DS15 - they have the worst time finding anything to do together. DS15 would be so happy to spend all his free time alone, reading, drawing, or doing other individual pursuits. DS12 wants to be with other people all the time! He and DS17 are really close (it's a 4.5 year gap), and DS12 will be so sad when DS17 leaves for college. As it is, DS17 is super busy and doesn't have much time to hang out with DS12 any more. 😞 DS12 really treasures the time they do have together. DS15 would have been happy to be an only, or a younger kid with a large age gap to older siblings... So I think you really never know how the sibling relationships will play out or how well a particular kid will do without close siblings. The way it has worked out is that DS12 and I end up doing more things together - playing board games, going places. He is also my only one homeschooled right now, which makes a difference. But I think even if he weren't homeschool or the others were still at home, he and I would still on the weekends be doing things together while older siblings and DH are busy.

Another thing the tile can do is tell you the last known location. So, if my keys fall out of my pocket on the side of the soccer field, and I don't notice and DH drives home, when I go to look for my keys, in the tile app it will show that they were last "seen" there (when my phone was there) even if everyone else went home so there are no other devices to "ping".

My youngest is dyslexic (currently 6th grade) and I am definitely using mostly audiobooks/read-alouds for content subjects. We always have one book going that we buddy read (or that he just reads aloud to me), and I am trying to gradually increase the reading level of those books as his skill level improves. Even in high school, I think audiobooks would be a very reasonable accommodation. I think the thing I might worry about with a very literature heavy curriculum is if it would leave you time to work on the skills you probably want to work on with your DS to improve his reading and spelling. I'm spending about 1 hr/day with my DS on skils that a non-dyslexic kid would already be done with by 6th grade (multi-syllabic word reading, spelling, basic writing skills). I put together my own DIY reading lists for literature, history and science. I think it would be stressful to have to keep up with a heavy list of read alouds in addition to the remediation we do during the school day. I should also say though that my DS12 spends probably 2-3 hrs or more a day listening to audiobooks he chooses in addition to our school books, so he has no lack of "input" in terms of hearing books read to him. Maybe I would feel differently about it if he wasn't so often choosing audiobooks in his free time.

I feel like sometime when people ask for donations, there is a bit of an attitude from some people of "you should be thankful and take what you can get" - even in a situation like yours where it doesn't make sense. If the lady with the falling apart suitcase took a minute to think about it, maybe she would realize that it doesn't make sense to attempt to check a bag that is likely to break the first time a worker tosses it. But since you asked for "charity", they want you to be thankful for anything and everything. That and people just don't read closely on the internet. It's like in a book group when people ask for non-fiction suggestions and everyone suggests fiction, or when people ask for vegan restaurant suggestions and people just suggest random options that may not even have anything vegan on the menu. I wouldn't worry too much about it (you aren't responsible for them being upset), but I do like PrairieWind's suggestion of putting out an amazon wish list!

I've mainly had kids in public school for high school (plus one year where my oldest was in public school for middle school). It's definitely cheaper in our situation to be in public school: Public school - The only cost is transportation, because we live just inside the busing zone (1.9 miles). This was not a cost when my DD was in public middle school - she got to ride a free school bus. I have estimated it's about 180/yr on gas. Lunch is free for all students. School supply costs are about the same as homeschool (basic supplies only - notebooks, pencils, folders, pens). My high schoolers have needed graphing calculators, but even if they were homeschooled they would have needed them anyway, so it's not a different cost. There aren't any other required fees. Homeschool - There is the cost of lunch at home each day, but the big cost is buying books each year (I'd say at least $150, some years much more - I'm reusing more stuff now, but I would be buying new books for high school if we were homeschooling). Plus in our state we are required to do a standardized test each year, and that's going to be $40 or more. Some years we have done co-ops or classes that cost money, but this year my last homeschooler is doing part time music/gym at the public middle school he can walk to. I think if I had high schoolers I was homeschooling, we would want to use at least some outsourced classes for rigor, which would definitely add to our costs. This doesn't include extra curricular activities, but that varies kid to kid and some activities are the same, homeschooled or not. - My kids do a sport that is run by a community organization for 6th-12th grade, so that is the same price no matter what the schooling options. Music lessons are from private teachers, so that's the same for both homeschool or public school. My oldest did not do any school clubs that had a fee (some clubs are free). My DS17 does 3 school teams (academic competition rather than sports) that each have a fee of $125, but my youngest who is homeschooled does Chess competitions and those cost money for entry fees and for classes he takes to improve his skills. If my DS17 did debate/speech with homeschool groups rather than school, the fees+gas to get to tournaments would be higher than we pay for the school team. My DS15 took paid art classes as a homeschooler, but now can do art classes and clubs at school for free, though he also joined a science team that has the $125 fee. So I feel like for extra curriculars, it is a wash, and one or the other might be cheaper depending on the kid and their interests and level of involvement.

OP, I know you said you don't think this is the case, but I just wanted to chime in that what kbutton is saying was exactly the problem with RS math with my dyslexic DS - there is such a big emphasis in right start in being able to say the names of the numbers out loud (looking at the beads on the abacus or pattern of sticks, saying the number names). It was so frustrating to him. When I stopped requiring this, it turned out he knew which number (symbol) matched which numerical concept, and could do 4 digit addition and subtraction well before he could consistently say all number names out loud when looking at the corresponding symbols. I think the idea of kids being able to say number names is so ingrained in most math curricula that the idea that a kid could possibly conceptually understand math without being able to do this is very out of the box to most people.

Definitely - my 6th grader stays home 2-3 hrs by himself fairly regularly just due to family schedules. Once or twice it has been longer than that. Every other week I have a morning meeting and everyone else is often gone too - he has a checklist to do a couple of chores, and start a few school things he can do on his own, and we continue the rest of schoolwork when I get home.

Oh, I thought of another one - we insist that all of our kids know how to jump start a car by the time they are driving. It's not taught in drivers' ed! I think I would insist a kid learn this at age 16 even if they weren't driving, because you never know when you might be with a friend who has a car that needs jumped, and a lot of people (even adults we know) seem not to know how to do this).

Great list! I'd say we have/will aim for all these things. I've also tried to make sure by 13 my kids could know how (perhaps with a reminder or two) to do all types of regular/basic household cleaning - clean all parts of bathroom, clean stove/microwave/kitchen sink, mop kitchen floor. All my kids by 12-13 could manage the daily/weekly needs of our three pets if needed (cat, fish, snake). My kids at age 13 are usually still sticking to places close by in the neighborhood, but by 14 are taking longer bike rides or walks across town to the library, etc (so, navigation skills on foot or bike). Sometime in early-mid teen years my kids take public transit independently. Around age 15-16 my older kids have learned how to order things online and manage a bank account with a debit card (as opposed to just having a savings account with no debit card access). Around age 16-17 learning how to manage alone overnight at home - what should be checked at night before going to bed, etc. Knowing how to go and get a hair cut by yourself (how to make an appointment, ask for what you want, tip the stylist), How to eat out at a sit down restaurant (aka, knowing how to tip the server). Skills for age 18 - making appointments for medical/dental, how to renew passport and driver's license alone. I think I'd consider all of those basic skills?

At the school where my high schoolers attend, having a locker is optional. My kids have all had one, but it's mainly for putting their heavy winter coats in, or occasionally for storing a book that gets used rarely. They carry around back packs with all their books (which really isn't too many - often times just English class novels), notebooks, their Chromebook, and school supplies. I had to teach my oldest DD how to open a locker when she started public school, and since then it has been tradition that as each kid has started school, their older sibling still at the school taught them how to open their locker. But I'm sure they wouldn't have figured out without help how to do it - it's the only place they ever see a lock like that, since bike locks nowadays are all key operated. We have a combination lock on a storage shed in our yard, but it's a very different style. I always kind of assumed this was "homeschooler problem" - that probably whatever was the first year that students had lockers, everyone was taught how to do it...but since my kids have all started school older, they missed the memo on learning it. But maybe it's just becoming an outmoded skill?

Do you have any resale shops in your area that specialize in collectables? We had one in our old neighborhood when we lived in a larger city, and they would frequently be posting on their facebook page about vintage toys, comics, etc they bought and then would be reselling in their shop. The CDs are probably not worth as much, but a record store (aka a store that may mainly market that they sell used vinyl records) may sell CDs as well. We have gotten back into buying physical media, and we found a local shop that does that. They are selling CDs though for about $2-$3/ea so I can't imagine they are paying very much for any that people are getting rid of for them to sell. But even if they gave you 50 cents each per CD, that would add up I guess with that many!

I'm glad you got something set up! I'm having a mini version of this as my son is trying to set up an appointment with someone from the Honors College at a campus we are visiting in about three weeks. There is a form on the Honors College website to set up a visit... he filled it out and heard nothing for a week. Then he called - they told him to send the office an email. It's been over a week (we checked, it's not spring break) and he still hasn't heard back. The only thing I can figure out is that they are waiting until closer to the visit to get back to him? But ultimately this is pretty low priority for us on this visit. We just figured since we are taking a road trip and visiting a campus 8 hrs away, we might as well schedule additional appointments that might be interesting.

I was glad I went to orientation with my DD - it was recommended for a parent to attend at her school - not sure that's always the case. Probably one of the best things about it was they had a whole checklist for parents of what the student needs to complete. If your kids' school offers anything like that, pay attention to details. There were several online trainings new students were supposed to complete before classes started (alcohol awareness training, sexual assault awareness, etc.). There were also multiple forms for student health. I'm sure all these vary tremendously from place to place, but knowing what is needed can be helpful - My DD ended up needing assistance with the health forms and uploading insurance cards. We walked through it together as she had just turned 18 and had never had to do health forms before, didn't know there was info on both front and back of insurance cards, that there are 3 separate cards (dental, health, prescriptions), etc. I could also give a couple gentle reminders about the required trainings.

We've had really good luck (both when my DD was doing visits and now with DS16) with doing this an emailing professors directly. Some we did this after trying another method of contact with the department first - and often it was hard to find a general department contact. We've also done it where the first person we tried was someone on a department webpage listed as an academic advisor. But we've never had a professor ignore us - some referred us on to someone else, which was just fine! But we've always gotten some kind of meeting this way. My kids have had specific department questions they wanted to ask about the major (or between different options offered for the major at that school). I really like the idea of asking about a student ambassador! One school DD visited did that for us without us asking, and it was super helpful actually in figuring out that particular school was not a good fit for my DD.

When we lived in Minneapolis we had friends (with kids!) who went car free for several years to save money. They were avid bikers so that helped, and public transit is pretty good. We did about 4 months car free in Minneapolis (not really by choice - we had car issues and were in a tough spot financially so couldn't replace immediately). It was harder but not impossible to make work with a baby and a preschooler at the time This was before Uber and instacart but some grocery delivery was available from a local service. My DH did bike to work 2-3x per week for many years, and they had showers/locker room at work where he could change.

Another route to pursue for information is to see if your local high schools have a math team of any sort (we have a statewide team type competition specific to our state that schools put together teams for), and if they do find out from the coach/advisor what the students coming in to that team have done to prepare at a younger age. We have a local math club that organizes participation in competitions at the K-8 level as well as running their own competition, but I think we are in an unusual situation of having more math opportunities locally than us typical.

We are most likely going to take an international trip with our family this summer - something we've never done before as a whole family. I worry too about "what will people think" - most people in our circle (friends, not family) probably could not afford this kind of trip. I really can't imagine any of our friends being outwardly judgy about it, but I also think I might also worry about the appearance of it if we had chosen to spend on different "extras" like a fancier house or nicer cars. Sometimes "life choices" go all the way back to what career people chose - many of our friends are in careers that top out much lower than DH's career tops out. I am thankful for people making the sacrifice to be in education, social work, ministry, etc...but I do sometimes feel like I need to be careful what I discuss. We are still really frugal in some areas, but on the other hand I know I probably shouldn't go on about the great new restaurant I tried because they can barely afford to eat out.

Uncovering the Logic of English by Denise Eide - to be better prepared for teaching reading and spelling

I agree with Farrar that there are so many variables, it's hard to say. My DD's experience in a lighter STEM major (a sub-discipline of Food Science) at a large non-selective public university is that she won't be required to do any classes that would involve creative writing or literary analysis, but she does do a fair amount of writing in the classes she has had so far, and many group presentations that require public speaking (as well as being required to take a speech class). Her one English class was more professional-communication focused (she was exempted from 1 semester of "freshman composition" due to her ACT score - but didn't have to have a sky-high score to get this exemption, which makes me think the content in that class is more focused on struggling students). But she's written a fair number of short research reports and some persuasive/argumentative essays. I've asked her a lot of questions about this subject because I too am curious what it might look like for my younger kids as they reach college. DS16 is a great writer but writing is not a strong suit for my younger boys.

When I pick up my public school kids, I definitely always see a handful of kids masking, even among the small sample size I see at our pick up spot. I definitely get the vibe from my kids that it is considered polite at their school to mask if you are feeling sick, but not sick enough to stay home. It's hard for my kids to stay home more than a day or so (they just miss so much work they have to make up), so except for COVID kids are only staying home the bare minimum of when they have a fever or are vomiting. Not ideal, but no one wants to get behind. I was thankful that when DS14 had COVID, he wasn't really all that sick except one day, so he was able to generally keep up and work from home. One class the teacher was terrible about putting anything in google classroom, and it was a pain when he came back to "missing assignments" but no record of it in Google Classroom, and the the teacher wasn't very helpful about giving him something to make it up. (he unfortunately got a couple of zeros on small assignments because the teacher was kind of like "sorry, you weren't here! It was an in-class activity!"). He still got an A in the class first semester, so I didn't think it was worth complaining about. That class is kind of an outlier, and it seems like work is easier to see online for the other classes. So, all that to say...I know kids are going to school sick and hence I am glad that there is a culture of masking when sick.

I might be an outlier, but I don't find it all that unusual for parents to still be arranging some social things for 13 year olds. My 14 (almost 15 year old) hasn't really connected with any friends in public school yet (first year in school) so his two closest friends are homeschooled kids from church who are a year younger - 13 going on 14 later in the year. Neither friend has a cell phone, none of the kids can get to each other's houses without a parent driving them (15-20 minutes by car, no realistic public transit options). So, realistically, it makes so much more sense for the parents to set this up. If the boys tried to figure out a time to get together on their own, it would still end up with the parents texting each other back and forth about schedules anyway. It might be different because the kids are all close friends already. There's no doubt they want to spend time together, it's mostly busy family/school/church/activity schedules that prevent it from happening more often. As far as the friend that your DS doesn't really want to be spending more time with, I agree that when it is not framed as you being helpful (the "Hey, can my kid hang out at your house for 30 minutes until practice"), then I think just a "sorry, I don't think that works" is fine a few times to see if she gets the hint. I think if there were a kid my kid truly didn't enjoy hanging out with and the parent kept asking, I would eventually try and as nicely as possible say something like, "my kid isn't really finding a lot of common ground with your kid", or "my kid isn't really connecting with your kid. Sorry!" I think the parent might be hurt/offended, but there might be no avoiding it if she doesn't take subtle hints.

When I saw the title I wondered how Artificial Intelligence was somehow giving people diseases already....🤦‍♀️ (Sorry if that's too much levity for a serious topic!)

No...😥. I had looked over the sample and was going to buy it at the fall TPT sale, and then while I was waiting they nearly doubled the price. I just couldn't justify it for my budget at the new price point. I bought both levels 1 & 2 of LitHouse Learning Ancient History writing, and also Easy Writing (same author as Easy Grammar). Using a mix from those things plus sometimes throwing in an assignment I create has been working ok so far, and it fit my budget. 🤷‍♀️. Not sure what's next.

I definitely heard it growing up in Minnesota... But this is my fruit salad anthem (from my older two kids' childhood...somehow the younger two missed out on it until we recently reminded everyone about it):