Cell phone has been tied to need at our house too. Oldest had a very basic pre-paid phone at age 11, because at that point she was staying home alone at times and had no house phone. Next oldest got one at 12 after it was needed for a trip we were taking to an event (he and I were going to be in different places at a competition event, and he needed to be able to contact me), and he would have needed one soon after anyway because older DD was gone at work more often and he was starting to be home alone/babysitting younger brothers. We now have an old cell phone w/only wifi that DS13 could use when he is home alone by himself or with DS10, but he has very little interest in it (I try hard to keep it charged for the possibility of 911 calls), but he would tend to send me a chat message on the computer if he has a non-emergency question while I'm gone. As far as babysitting, I would definitely see that as by maturity (and following laws in your state of course - it is allowed at age 11 where I live). DD took a babysitting course at age 11 and was in demand as a mother's helper in our neighborhood we lived in at the time. I think she started watching her brothers for short periods of time around age 12 and then for babysitting for neighbors, when they were comfortable with it (but at first I was always home and she was within walking distance if anything went wrong). None of my DS's have had any interest in babysitting for anyone outside the family, so older boys watching younger boy(s) has again been by maturity. Oldest DS has always been able to command the respect of his brothers, and they listen to him. DS10 and DS13 tend to squabble more, so honestly it is harder to leave the two of them alone for very long, and DS13 is TBH less responsible. So I rarely leave the two of them home alone together very long if I can help it. Make-up and Dating...well DD was just very uninterested in either, and was probably over 16 before she asked to wear make-up and still has never dated anyone...none of my boys are the make-up types and none of them seem to be thinking about dating either, so we really haven't had to deal with that. I think if I had a bunch of girls who were interested in makeup, I would set an arbitrary line of 12 or 13 for that, and find someone to teach them about tasteful makeup (I don't like wearing make-up so I wouldn't be able to teach that skill!). Dating (at least, exclusive romantic dating) is not something we would really encourage as a part of our family culture, so TBH we would probably discourage that "going steady"/exclusive type of dating relationship until at least age 16 even if any of them were interested.

I think some of your answer about what makes sense to do depends on your future plans with the hybrid school - do you want her to continue there in future years? If you pull her out and use other materials for writing this year, it will be just as hard most likely to jump to W&R the following year. Unless you are prepared to always do writing separately. W&R follows such a different trajectory to many other writing programs that it is surprising more students don't struggle with jumping in to a random point in the sequence. I've used the first 3 books in the series with more than one kid. Then at one point I needed a 1 semester writing option for a 7th grader to finish out the year after a class he signed up for was cancelled, and I tried him on one of the W&R books that could be suggested for that age (book 7 or 8 maybe?). It was a bit tricky despite having had experience with a couple other writing programs, including IEW. I feel like starting in book 4, the difficulty ramped up quite a bit - my kids weren't ready for what book 4 asked of them, so my kids that used W&R 1-3 did IEW after that. If you are committed to sticking with the school and making W&R work, buying book 4 and taking a look at that might be an option? They start to teach the essay format more in that book, and it probably lays a lot of the foundations for what you are seeing in book 5.

I just checked some of mine in the Walmart app. Walmart isn't my usual go-to for all my shopping (Aldi is my usual spot for most things), but I do shop there sometimes. I know a lot of items have increased at Aldi, but I don't have any records of that. This is in the upper Midwest: Sept 2020/Now: Mini Wheats cereal: 3.64/4.28 Puffs Facial Tissue 3pk: 4.68/9.90 Cliff Bars 12 pk: 9.67/13.72 Frozen Raspberries 12oz: 1.98/3.98 Frozen Blueberries: 2.47/2.58 8oz shredded cheddar: 2.22/2.22 Smuckers Creamy Natural PB 26 oz: 4.86/5.84 12 oz honey: 3.42/3.92 Can of seasoned black beans: .50/.78 32 oz frozen meatballs: 4.52/6.24 12 oz frozen broccoli: 1/0.98 Feb 2021/Now: 4 pk frozen breakfast sandwich: 3.28/5.78 Pecan Ice cream 2.97/2.24 Olive Oil: 4.76/5.50 Plain Yogurt 3.42/3.42 Sour cream 2.46/2.66 Flour 1.18/2.12 Eggs .75/2.02 (And I've often paid 2.99 in the past few months... 2.02 sounds good!) Butter 1lb 2.98/4.48

One of my kids did it (NME) in mid-elementary school. He read or listened to the books that were suggested as source material. The only other studying he did was a bit of practice with Greek gods and their Roman equivalents. I can't remember if this ended up being helpful on the test or not, but he thought it was something he should have more practice with. I think we set up or found a quizlet on those names and he spend a little while practicing with it. He didn't end up with a super high score, but he thought it was fun and had a decent score for the amount of time he put into it. This kid is now super interested in academic competitions of all kinds, and enjoys them whether he is among the best competing or not.

I feel bad for people who were playing hard mode today. I picked what turned out to be an amazing elimination word in row 4 (I chose it for three other letters in that word I thought might go in the middle position, and was so lucky to discover the correct one in the process). Wordle 454 5/6 🟨🟨⬜⬜🟨 🟩⬜🟨⬜⬜ 🟩🟩⬜🟩🟩 ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 I saw a bit earlier that NYT said as of sometime midday, only 41% of players were getting it correct in six or fewer. Typically 99% solve by the end of row six. I think this word is definitely the problem. I've read some people on Twitter saying that this may be a word used more often outside the USA, and we have another word we would use for the same thing. But not sure if that's accurate. I feel like maybe I saw some British people complain about this word too. 🤷‍♀️

Ooh, I would like that! 😄 I think I would have a harder time with a street name that was a person or concept I found morally objectionable than something that was just annoying or gross. Maybe it would depend on how gross. I really hate mold, so if there is a "mold street" somewhere, I would maybe be too grossed out...I don't know!

As far as finding another way to contact the professor, I would look and see if there is a way to find it on the university website (I know at the uni where my DD attends, there is a staff directory that can be searched to find email address and campus office address, if they have one). I would also say it seems like a fair question to ask someone from the department - for your DS to call or email the department office and say they are a student trying to reach professor so-and-so and would like their contact information. I think they would give out that info or explain how to get it.

I have the funnier stories about a kid who misplaced things, in the kitchen especially. One kid is more of a "sub" on the dishes job. One time he put a clear travel mug lid inside the blender, because he thought it was part of the blender lid. DD was so annoyed that her expensive travel mug lid was missing. I found it days later. Worse was when he put the meat carving fork in with our grilling utensils in another part of the house entirety because "the meat fork was the same shape as a grilling fork". Ok, but the size was way different, and it wasn't even grilling season. 😁😁😁. It was found months later, and said kid remembered putting it there, but of course he didn't know it was the carving fork. Now if he has done dishes, I ask him first if I can't find anything. 🤣

My ten year old got bored of 20,000 leagues half way through (We were listening to the audiobook as a family, and he asked to not finish it). He loved Mysterious Island though, even not having finished 20,000 leagues.

Yes, I have cut spines in the past to bind small booklets. I just used a sturdy scissors. Another option for a clear cover that I don't think anyone mentioned is overhead projector sheets. We had a pack sitting around that we had saved from years ago (finally, our clutter came in handy!), but I bet they are cheap to buy. The proclick can punch them just fine, and of course they are reusable and hold up pretty well.

When DD was 12 we lived in an urban area with a lot of things close by. It also had more potential safety "issues" due to the size of the city and the crime levels in nearby neighborhoods. At 12 she was always expected to tell me where she was going. She had three best friends within a two block radius, and she had standing permission to go to their houses anytime, but was supposed to tell me which one. Sometimes she failed to tell me when they "party shifted" to a different house (all these girls were good friends) but generally I didn't make a big deal because we all knew each other and I could track her down pretty quickly if need be. Going to the nearby park, three nearby convenience type stores, or the neighborhood ice cream shop were allowed, but needed permission first. No switching destinations w/o letting me know (i.e. if you get to one shop and they are out of what you planned to buy, call before you go to the other one). I allowed a few further away trips by bike to library or other slightly-beyond-immediate-neighborhood destinations at that age, but always with at least one other friend present for safety. I didn't allow any public transit trips alone or with friends at 12, because I didn't think it was safe enough where we lived. I would have allowed it age 14, but that was about the age DD was we moved away to city with little public transit. By the time my two older boys were 12, we lived in a smaller city with fewer destinations nearby. At 12 they were allowed to bike within a known boundary or visit the neighborhood park, but other than a convenience store (which they didn't really have a lot of interest in visiting) there isn't really anything super close by so they didn't have as many independent experiences at that age. They were expected to return within a set period of time or check in with me if wanting to stay longer at park. Neither have had any close friends within independent travel distance, so going in houses was not an issue. I allowed DS15 to start doing independent trips further away on his bike around age 13.5. DS13 is a little less mature for his age, so we will probably wait for him to have the permission for longer bike trips away from home until next summer. He is very distractable and also doesn't have a cell phone with service yet (he has a wifi only phone, but we are dragging our feet to have to add another phone to our plan), so I have nervousness about him getting lost or otherwise having trouble and not yet having a way to contact us. ETA : Bike boundary for the boys at 12 is about 2 miles (not exactly a circle), part of which includes trails in a nature area. It's essentially our immediate obvious "neighborhood" area + the trails on one side of the nature preserve. ETA2: Since DS13 doesn't/didn't have a cell phone w/service he essentially has a tighter restriction than DS15 did at the same age, since he can't call or text to ask for additional time. He honestly rarely goes out alone except for a regular bike ride that he knows how much time it should take, so it hasn't been too much of an issue.

Two of my kids tend in this direction as well, and for both of them, adding tools to their toolboxes that helped them recognize the impending explosion before it took place was really helpful. A therapist that one DC saw for just a few sessions gave the image of a pot of water on the stove. Various circumstances were turning the heat up higher and higher, and this DC needed to learn to recognize the "heat rising" before the metaphorical pot got to a raging boil. This was a really helpful mental image for this child, and the therapist helped the child put together a list of options (along with a box of physical items like squishy balls, etc) for what to do when the heat is rising to try and turn the heat back down. Honestly, for both DC that have struggled with big emotions/meltdowns, even a few sessions with a therapist was super helpful for both, because both kids took suggestions for better coping strategies way better from someone else than from me or DH (maybe because most of the anger/meltdowns were directed at us in some way - anger related to house rules, homeschool work, etc).

$30/month sounds amazing to run! When we moved into our house 4 years ago (southern Minnesota) it came with an outdoor hot tub. We ran it the first three months we lived there and just our electric bill was $100/mo lower without it...and that was summer! At the end of the summer it needed a number of repairs to jets, etc (I think it was about 12 years old so not sure if this was because of age or if it's a common occurrence). We drained it and ended up getting rid of it. Ours just was not affordable. ETA: the $100/month figure was also looking at what we spent for the same months the following summer when we were using a/c. We assume it would have cost more to run in the winter.

We use Google Fi and have been happy with it. I feel like the price is good and generally I have better coverage than I did with TMobile a number of years ago. One thing I like about it is built in Wi-Fi calling/texting. My MIL lives in what is basically a cell phone dead zone, but has pretty good internet now. I used to not be able to do any calls or texts at her house, but with Google Fi I can due to the wifi calling/texting ability.

It's hard. We are in the process of having a new eval done for DS13. He has an ADHD diagnosis but I think it is likely he is on the spectrum also (It was a serious consideration at his first eval - but they were most confident in just saying ADHD when he was 7). When we had a 1 hr pre-eval intake appointment, the psych seemed to have "eyebrows raised" a bit in asking if DS13 ever did anything or went anywhere independently when I said that he really didn't. Between my nervousness that he would get distracted along the way and not make it to his destination and the fact that almost all of his activities are done with a sibling involved as well so there is little motivation for him to need to ride a bike or walk to an activity himself...it just hasn't happened. But I know we need to start trying him out on things like this! Next year he will be walking to the neighborhood middle school a few blocks away for a daily class. It will be good, but yeah, I am still worried about him getting distracted and being late for class.

I think you are spot-on in focusing on reading and spelling first. I also don't think kids are "behind" if they don't do grammar every year - so much can be picked up quickly once they are really ready to absorb it. I did find for my youngest (4th grade last year, dyslexic) that not knowing parts of speech was starting to slow down some of his understanding of reading/spelling, so we added in the level 1 of Fix-it grammar for the second semester. The new edition level 1 is very gentle. For writing with my youngest. we did Writing and Rhetoric books 1 and 2 orally in 4th grade, but it was really just "for fun" - I feel like we could have skipped that. I also had him compose his own sentences and very short stories from silly writing prompts every now and then. But this year in 5th grade will be the first year that DS10 does much of anything with writing. We are doing an IEW book, and we'll see how it goes. It may end up being another year of mostly me scribing as spelling is still quite the struggle, as is handwriting (he is dysgraphic as well as dyslexic). When my oldest was a struggling speller (possible mild dyslexia - we never had her tested) we did absolutely no writing or grammar at all in 3rd grade while we remediated spelling, then in 4th grade we did only a minimal amount as we were still really remediating spelling. We did some compositions from the book "Write On!" that I scribed for her, plus we did Treasured Conversations (again, mostly with me scribing). She didn't really start a writing program until 5th grade - She did Writing and Rhetoric books 1 and 2 in 5th, a year of Writing with Skill in 6th, and a year of IEW in 7th, before entering public school in 8th grade. Honestly, despite the "late start" and never becoming a very awesome speller, she was able to get A's in Honors/AP public school English classes. She is thankful to live in a era of computer spell check, and knows that having a friend look over her paper for silly errors that spell check doesn't spot.

If there's a race I'm especially interested in, I try and watch a video of local candidate forums. Here there are local organizations that often have a public q and a forum or sometimes a debate for local races like mayor, city council, school board. I'll also try to read newspaper articles profiling candidates or talking about the main issues in the race. The one thing that is harder to find info about is judges. I usually vote for the incumbent unless there seems to be a lot of buzz about a certain race, in which case I might Google it or ask around.

I think the grid style like you are looking for is less popular than it used to be. I used to sometimes find them in store at Target and the last couple years I have had to order them for my kids that prefer that style. I never have a problem finding enough stuff to order from Target to get free shipping, so I have gotten this brand before: https://www.target.com/p/2022-23-academic-planner-feature-rich-weekly-monthly-5-5-34-x8-5-34-coral-five-star/-/A-84146992 Maybe some stores would have some colors of that style in stock? These ones are prime eligible on Amazon (lots of cover designs, this is just one): https://www.amazon.com/Global-Datebooks-Student-Academic-2022-2023/dp/B09S2VJ8FF/

We haven't been in many situations where one of my kids would want to ride with a teen driver friend, so we haven't had to worry about that. I would probably be fairly cautious about allowing one of my kids to do that (maybe only if it was the only way for them to get somewhere important, because DH and I were both busy in other ways). DD18 drove DS15 to and from school every day this past year, and occasionally my DD has given a friend a ride to or from some school events (friend has transportation challenges and had no other way to get there). We would definitely let our kids ride with a responsible 20-something, and have often had them ride with friends' parents. We often carpool rides to events, or a friend's parent brings one of my kids home after a playdate or event.

I'm helping DD18 shop for dorm room bedding, towels, etc. She has bought nothing really to bring other than an electric tea kettle, so I figure today is a good day to get things checked off her list!

My 13 and 15 year olds really like the "Escape room in a box" - like "Exit the Game" (there are quite a few titles). For my 13 year old's birthday this year we kept it pretty simple and just had party foods and the kids did the escape room (took them several hours, partly because they kept getting distracted). But you could do it up with food or decorations themed to go along with which ever game you pick. You could also GO to an escape room if there are any near you, but I feel like that is less satisfying in some ways because you have to solve it in an hour and then its over either way. With an "At home" escape room you can just ignore the time suggestion and enjoy it for as long as the party goers find it enjoyable. ETA: "EXIT" games: https://store.thamesandkosmos.com/collections/exit-the-game

Just wanted to add my DD18's good experience to the list...she is attending a large state university (30,000ish students) and had a great advising experience so far. We attended orientation in June. During orientation students had a 1 hr meeting on the first afternoon as a group with an advisor or other staff member (not necessarily each student's actual advisor) from the department. My daughter's group included others with her major and a few other majors from the same department. The advisor walked them through the registration process, gave them the 4 year plan for their major (we had seen this before -- it was handed out at both the prospective student visits we did), and had them fill out a worksheet with their personal choices for first semester classes. Then they had individual 30 minute meetings (the next morning) to go over class choices, answer questions, etc. My daughter found this super helpful, and the advisor had some good suggestions for her (what to take for her minor, an easier Chem class that still met the requirements, confirmed that she qualified to skip the first freshman English class, etc). Then the advisor helped her get started with the actual registration process on the computer. Amazingly, after we left, she even helped DD switch from a 7:50am Chem section to a 9am section that opened up for registration the next day. The advisor was able to just go in the system and switch it. (New "Seats" open up each day for students registering...probably the students to attend orientation last are stuck with the worst sections...lol).

This! I had a friend who was constantly sending dumb stuff in messenger -- little pictures, quotes, etc. For no apparent reason. You can "mute notifications" (in the desktop version there is three dots that you can click to get a drop down menu, and that's one of the choices), then they don't get notification that they are blocked by you, but you can just go on your merry way and never be notified that they sent you any messages. Eventually friend stopped sending them to me...maybe because she noticed that her little "messages" were never being seen? I'm not sure I really care. I know I could unfriend the person but I am the type to not necessarily do that, especially if it is someone I may run into in person from time to time.

We are keeping things mostly digital here. I started using a digital camera right around the time DD18 was born, and this year I finally uploaded everything that I had stored locally (we have a home server with redundant storage drives) to Google Photos. Everything we took in 2017-present was already there. One thing I really like about google photos is that it can auto-identify people in the photos, so I could very quickly make an album of just the photos of DD18. Then she and I worked together to create a huge 100 page photo book of the highlights of her childhood. It was part of her graduation gift as it cost maybe $80 have printed, even with a really good sale/coupon. This will be her photo book to take with her, plus she has access to the photos in Google photos. I would probably not want to rely on just ONE cloud storage service if we didn't also have a home server. Any one cloud storage service could theoretically experience some kind of failure, stop offering a service, etc. So if I weren't storing with redundancy at home as well, I would probably do two different cloud storage servers for photos. We have our Google Home displays set up to show highlights from various photos albums, so we get to see our pictures pretty often that way -- way more often that we would look through a physical photo album.

When we've done food on the road I try and plan something like bagels and cream cheese for breakfast, or make muffins and just deal with the inevitable crumbs. Then my crew will usually do sandwiches or "snacky" foods for one meal, but if we wanted a second meal of the day that wasn't sandwich based (or when we are on a longer trip and don't want sandwiches every day), we have actually brought along a camping stove or single camping burner, and re-heated taco meat to make walking tacos, or re-heated soup or some other meal that can be precooked and heated in one pan. Usually when we do this we pull of the road at a park to set up at a picnic table. It makes for a longer stop (maybe 20 minutes to set-up/heat up/serve, but then you could return to the car to eat), but usually everyone appreciates a leg stretch if you are driving all day. ETA: Another thing we've done that is not very much $$ is order ahead from a pizza place in a town we'll be driving through for cheap pizza -- like Dominoes coupon deals. Then we will try and have "side" items like veggies already in the car along with drinks so it is really just the cheap pizza we are getting. Just don't forget to get the paper plates to go with it!