I use bookfinder.com and used.addall.com - those search multiple sites at once, including lesser known ones.

Yeah, that's kind of weird, oddly specific situation to be asking anyone in any forum about...like, how would anyone BUT the school and maybe the specific administrators involved in allowing that know? I don't think that online/distance public schoolers are totally out of line in asking questions in a homeschool forum (like topics others have mentioned above -- entertaining younger siblings, socialization, setting up schedules or a good learning environment), and some of us have both homeschool and public school kids and can give suggestions related to both. But so much varies from school to school that asking things beyond general questions seems weird to begin with.

Duffle bags for car travel and especially for car camping - you can smoosh them into weird spaces if you are short on space (under back seat in minivan, etc). We bought cheap ones at ikea for this purpose, and have nice rolling suitcases for air travel.

Yes, this is causing so much division in so many churches. I know people who have left or are considering leaving churches on both sides of the issue (they want a church that is more open, not following rules...or they think their church is being too open/reckless). I can see how it could feel like the right thing to do to try and walk the middle ground and make everyone happy -- but ultimately people will probably still be unhappy. I lean more toward thinking avoiding division is a bigger motivator than money. In our circles, what I hear (about a few different churches) is that giving has either remained steady/increased (thanks to online giving, people being concerned for the church during the pandemic) or if it has decreased, the decrease was no more than what could be offset by changes in expenses due to not meeting in person or offering fewer services (not buying coffee and refreshments, not needing VBS or Sunday school supplies, not needing to pay for as many hours of building cleaning if most of the building isn't in use, etc).

It really depends on the insurance coverage and price of lenses. My contact lenses are twice as expensive from the eye doctor BUT if I order them online myself my insurance won't reimburse them. I have to order directly from the eye doctor to get the benefit, so getting 75% of my yearly supply covered by my insurance company is better than 0% covered if I order directly. Same thing with glasses. If I order online the insurance doesn't reimburse but if I visit the eye doctor and order from them, it covered all but maybe $100 on a fairly expensive pair of glasses. I figure the eye insurance is probably in cahoots with the "preferred providers" somehow - but since several of us in the family use the eye doctor every year, we come out ahead on exams and glasses/contacts even with the premium factored in. I'm sure many people opt in for the eye insurance and then never use it or only get a basic exam...which is how the insurance company still makes money .

Do you recommend any in particular?

Ditto. My 13 year old would absolutely love some of these topics. He watched this week's 3Blue1Brown video where Grant talks about Group Theory and DS was just saying, "Oh, I wish I could study group theory now...this is so interesting!". 😁

We ordered a large supply of frozen feeder mice for our snake last year and I had been wondering what the delivery driver thought of the box that said something like "Rodent Pro - Frozen Meat, Rush Delivery" on the side... he was probably glad it didn't say "LIVE RODENTS RUSH DELIVERY." 😁

Here starting as a 9th grader is a piece of cake - no tests or anything generally required. But starting any time after 9th grade, it is very school district dependent, as the state doesn't require districts to accept homeschool credits for high school. Definitely check state laws and check with local homeschoolers to find out their experience. My 8th grader will probably enter public school in a year, and one thing I did find out is that if we want placement for anything above what is "typical" for 9th grade, he would need to test to show competency. A Geometry placement is considered "normal" so they wouldn't require an algebra test for an incoming 9th grader, but since we would be looking at a pre-calc placement, he will need to show competency, most likely by taking an exam.

Yes, this! Our church could not get any kind of liability insurance without strict guidelines about always having 2 volunteers at a time in a room.

MercyA, in terms of being worried about leaving them in a lurch if you quit - Honestly if they don't have some "back up plans" for how to cover people who can't show up, that is a HUGE problem! Not just in terms of infectious disease safety (even in non-covid times, do you want a teacher with a stomach bug or strep throat showing up to teach because they have no one to cover them?), but just in terms of just good planning in general. I've been both a Sunday school coordinator and a VBS director. Besides the normal thing of people "calling in" even on the day-of because they or their kid is puking or has a fever, I've had to cover volunteer slots for people getting in car accidents, missing flights home, getting stuck at work or called in to work, cars that won't start...and so on. Life stuff preventing people from showing up to teach or volunteer. I always have back ups, and back ups to my back ups (even if that is just me and my husband being ready to jump in if absolutely necessary). They may not think your reason for quitting is fair, but if in your conscience you think this is best for your/your family's health, then it is a fair reason before God.

Garbage is all incinerated where she lives, so it is probably pretty safe. We hope. 😁

I have a friend who planted some before she knew about the warning. She actually had ordered some seeds from overseas (not China) and thought the supplier had just drop shipped it from China. I was slightly disappointed when she said she trashed it after she found out, before anything sprouted. 😂😂😂

I'd say about 50% of the pages in the workbook wouldn't even make a lot of sense as a stand alone - they are activities that require the directions from the teacher's manual - a prompt of some sort, or game instructions...etc. The remaining pages aren't really that amazing - they are things like sentences to read and match with pictures, copywork, a few basic grammar exercises, maybe some fluency pages. (Not a knock on LOE for the right kid -- I loved foundations with my two middle kids who are typically developing readers. But I got really tired of it with my youngest who turned out to be dyslexic - he didn't retain very much beyond the first half of B despite multiple tries). Maybe SPIRE workbooks would give you more bang for your buck in terms of workbook pages that are similar in philosophy? (Some of the workbook pages you would need to have the "reader" to pair with it to make the worksheet make sense, but their books are pretty cheap). I am just occasionally pulling in SPIRE resources in working with my youngest as my library has copies of all the books. It's kind of a nice lazy supplement when I don't have time for what I am usually doing. I find I don't need the teacher manual to make sense of SPIRE's other books.

My rising 8th grader wants to follow in his older sister's footsteps and start public school in 9th grade. We're still making our choices for this year assuming that will happen. But honestly the only thing I would do differently if I knew he were not going to school in 9th would be science. And that would just be I would let him try to get 9th grade biology done early in 8th if he were going to homeschool for high school. As it is,his science this year is more of a "prep" year for high school (using a textbook/taking tests, rather than just reading and watching videos and having fun with it), though most of the material will not be super new for him in the physical science class I have him signed up for w/ a local co-op. So we can cross the bridge when we get to it, I guess. Our area is just average, not a huge hot-spot right now, so I don't think we are going to spiral out of control like it feels like some places might . DD is staying with public school at this point...even if it is distance learning this year. She got her best semester ever grade-wise during distance learning last spring (Our school district said they could keep same grade or improve during distance learning, but couldn't go lower). She improved her grades in a couple classes compared to in-school classes. If it were still distance learning a year from now she would probably just do dual enrollment with the local CC instead of high school classes for her senior year.

Could you just read her the Beast Academy 2 comics "for fun" while doing the program you feel is the best fit? I often had my youngest "listening in" on his older brother's BA comics when he was too young for them (before he was doing BA or in harder books than he was doing), and he really liked listening even when the math was above his level. Life of Fred is also super fun (just not colorful) and starts out even more basic than Beast Academy 2 would.

I'm still seeing books from US sellers? Maybe something wonky happened with your settings or preferences?

I didn't read all the replies, but the 3-in-1 creator sets are pretty cool, especially for a kid who maybe doesn't have tons of legos. My boys have found the minecraft sets to be more "breakable" and to have more pieces that aren't great for rebuilds into other types of sets. But my boys also love Star Wars and Ninjago sets as well.

I need to come up with a list of activities for teens to vote on for choosing activities for a Christmas party. I feel like my ideas so far are more weighted toward the interests of girls rather than boys...so I am especially looking for ideas boys will like, but any ideas are fine. We probably don't have the set-up to do video games or movies at the party location, so that's out. Here's what I have so far: Christmas caroling or sing along Active games (dodge-ball or the like) Board games Party games (holiday themed pictionary, minute-to-win-it, etc) Decorate cookies White elephant gift exchange Pinterest worthy Christmas craft (not a little kid craft!) Photo booth with props Any other ideas? (Obviously we can't do everything -- so we are going to have the kids vote on top 3 activities and see what is most popular.)

Minnesota is cold in the winter, but most of us here think that the absolutely beautiful weather in the summer/fall (and sometimes the spring too) makes up for it! :-) We live in Minneapolis itself, and know a lot of other homeschoolers. It's rare for us to get a negative reaction from anyone about homeschooling. We know a lot of 1 income/stay-home-parent families even outside of homeschooling circles, but obviously in some neighborhoods or suburbs the immediate local culture can be different. Most commutes aren't too bad, at least compared to stories I hear from friends who live in Chicago or other large metro areas.

My 4th grader who does not love to read really likes these books. He likes that they are a fast read for him (maybe an hour or less of reading time), very adventure-filled, and often have boys as main characters.

Someone at our co-op last year put a half-used Math-U-See workbook on a "giveaway" table with mostly the review pages left empty. I grabbed it, just to check it out. It has turned out to be the perfect independent work/math warm-up for my easily distracted second grader (I have him work on it for 10 minutes before his regular math -- usually about 1 side of 1 page). It would be a poor fit for a full curriculum for him, but as a warm up, the simple pages with lots of white space are perfect for him to begin learning how to work on math alone. I hope to snag another partially workbook of the next level somewhere...I don't think I like it enough to pay $40 for a new one just to use as a warm-up, but free was the perfect price. So, I guess half-filled math books in particular might be of use to someone else. But if I didn't have an easy opportunity to give away something half used, I would just recycle it. I have saved some other half-filled math workbooks from my older two kids in case they might work as review/warm-ups for my younger two. They don't take up a lot of space so I don't mind saving them.

"Create your own superhero" (This is what my daughter is doing...not for lack of shopping, but because it is what she wanted to do): solid color outfit, with "cape" in matching color - aka a long scarf she is tying around her neck. She already had a mask that covers her eyes only, but you could cut a mask out of colored paper. Then she is taping a logo she created onto her shirt. She is "green planet girl" or something like that, since her super hero wears all green. :-)

I can see how it would be annoying if people were often not really being moderate in want they were saying. I see it more often as a hedge against the obnoxious people who have a bit of a "holier than thou" attitude about the things they or their family abstain from. And it is just an expression....so yeah, not "literally" everything...but I think in the context of food it does kind of make sense, if that is the kind of diet you eat (not forbidding anything in particular). When someone says "everything in moderation" in the context of food, I don't think anyone is going to start thinking about smoking or violence or illegal activities in moderation. ;-)

I hear it and use it mostly in relation to food...I don't really see it as being "selfish"? I mean, I guess it is a way of justifying some of the philosophy of how we eat, in contrast to some other philosophies. But if the subject of "does your family eat____" (insert some "unhealthy" food in the blank) comes up then it seems like a reasonable thing to say. Kid: Can I just eat a bunch of bananas for lunch? Bananas are healthy food! Me: Sure, they are a great food to eat, but you'll be missing out on other things your body needs if you only eat banana today. Everything in moderation! Friend: I don't let my kids eat _______, because it is just so unhealthy. Me: We focus on having a balanced diet overall, and not viewing certain foods as "forbidden". We say, "Everything in moderation" and allow a small amount of ____ for dessert or an occasional treat.