Has anyone told their public school that your home is a "homework-free home"? I'm seriously considering sending a note to my daughters teacher declaring us a homework-free home. Her homework is just busy work for her. She is already 2 grade levels ahead of everyone in her class and has yet to bring home a math assignment that she couldn't ace. She is in 2nd grade and I put her in school because I have to work. Academically the school is awful. I think our state ranks 46th in the country where schools are concerned. The homework cuts into our limited family time and I'm really starting to resent her having to it.

My daughter is in 2nd grade and they use this awful math program called Everyday Math. I do not like it one bit and I'd prefer her just stick to the math that we have been using when we homeschooled and use now to afterschool. I'm thinking of sending a note to the teacher declaring us a "homework-free home". This is a public school and I am sure it will not go over well. In the beginning of the year I asked if she could not do the Everyday Math and do math work I sent in for her and the teacher said no. I didn't push it. I put her in school because I have to work. Although it sounds horrible, the public school is basically free daycare for me. She is a straight A, 100 % on all subjects student. Now that I'm working I am resenting the time that must be spent on homework she already knows how to do. It's just busy work for her, and for me, and it takes away the limited family time we have during the week. I don't mind doing projects that are given 2 weeks out, we turn it into a unit study and I feel she learns alot from it. It's just the daily homework that I don't like. I think I will make a separate thread on this subject, I don't want to derail this thread.

I started to work full time over this past summer. I really had no choice, we need a second income for the time being so for the first time in my 47 yrs I got a full time job instead of part time working from home. My oldest daughter is in 12th grade and does all of her work independently. My job is 10 mins from home and I work a split shift so I start work at 6am, then I come home and have lunch with her from 11am til 1pm. I go back to work from 1pm til 4pm. This schedule works well with my oldest daughter. She does all of her work and gives me no problems. She loves being home alone (although my elderly MIL lives right behind us) and having the house to herself. I gave her the choice of going to public school for 12th grade (where all her friends go) and she decided against it. My youngest daughter is 7 and I put her in the public school. I know if I left her home with my older daughter she would not get enough work done. She gets side tracked easily and I was afraid she would be sitting in front of the computer or tv all day. So the public school is my babysitter. I work in a daycare center so they pick her up at school and bring her to me at 2:40pm. She is in 2nd grade but is leaps and bounds ahead of everyone in her class/grade. When she gets to the daycare she does her school work and her homeschool work. She absolutely LOVES going to school, but knows that if we run into any problems with the school, she will be back homeschooling full time. So far this is working out really well for us.

Broccoli is not on the original hCG protocol so if you are eating that you are already having a "cheat". I have eaten green beans, which is also not on the original protocol and I do just fine with them. I have lost 60 lbs so far. I too have a hard time wrapping my head around this diet and have started/stopped at least three times in the last few months trying to get the last 40 lbs off. I was not able to get past day 2! I took a few months off and now I am on day 4 of P2 and have lost 8 lbs. I am hopeful that I will be successful with this round because I finally have my head in the game (and I have not had a cheat yet!). My main cheat is Crystal Light and Diet soda. I drink both just about every day and neither have caused me to stall. Once I got onto P3 my favorite snack was melted/browned cheese. I take shredded cheddar and put a thin layer on parchment paper and pop it under the broiler in the toaster oven til browned. It tastes just like Cheez-its!

I too have lost weight with hCG. I am down 60 lbs, still have 40 more to go. It's not a fad diet and if you READ AND UNDERSTAND the protocol you could lose those 25 lbs in less than 40 days. Don't buy the hCG at Walmart or GNC, get it from a doctor or look into well known and proven homeopathic pellets. I have used both and they honestly WORK. There is a ton of info on a low-carb forum (not sure if I can post it here so PM me for the website) that has an hCG sub-forum. It's not an easy diet to start, it's very limiting, but it works. Once you are past the first phase of the diet you start a modified Atkins/South Beach diet. I can eat up to 2200 calories a day and not gain any weight.

Sounds like Everyday Math. This is also used in my daughters school. PROS: I like that my daughter gets out and with other kids every day. We moved to a very rural area and went from having lots of homeschool networks to virtually zero. I used to be able to drive 10 mins to find just about everything, but here it's a 45 min drive just to get to ballet class. We put her in school mainly because I need to work. She does very well (all 100's on her report card) but a lot of it is stuff she already did at home. Her teacher is very nice and has taken steps to make sure she has access to reading books on her level. This was my daughters only complaint, she didn't like the "baby books" in her classroom. I also like that they have a very organized drop off/pick up routine. CONS: Because of where we live she was on the bus at 6am when school didn't start until 7:30. School gets out at 2:40 and she wasn't getting home until 4:20 on the bus. I was able to change jobs and now I work in a daycare right around the corner from her school. They pick up at her school and bring her to me where she spends an hour doing her homework and also starts her homeschool work.

We are also in SC and chose Third Option. It costs me $40 a yr for both of my kids. I keep a planner with attendance and a little snippet of what we do each day. Once a year I have to sign an online form that states I followed the rules of the State and taught subjects comparable to what is taught in public school.The planner is kept at home, I don't have to submit it to anyone and there is no mandatory testing.

I have lost 60 lbs (still have another 40 to go) and I have also shopped Goodwill for clothes on the way down. I also make sure to donate my larger size clothing, I don't keep anything in the larger sizes.

That is the same attitude I found when I pulled my daughter out of a Burlington Co school. Followed by.. "well, you know she will have to be tested to get back IN the school". We are no longer in NJ, but we had no issues with anyone while HS'ing in NJ.

I think my state must have this type of funding too. I put my youngest daughter in school in the middle of last year and I was threatened with truancy court after she had been out 4 days (not in a row) because she was getting close to being near the acceptable unexcusable days out. This year her first day of school is on Monday. Next month we are leaving for vacation on Sept 28th and will be gone almost 2 weeks. I'm UN-ENROLLING her, this way those days will not count against her. I will (might) re-enroll her when we get back. I'm still not sure if she will be going back to PS, trying to work out a different schedule with my job to see if I can bring her with me instead of using the PS as daycare. I work in a daycare center and she was able to come with me all summer because they have a summer camp program. But during the school year they don't have anything for her age group. I work in the infants room and kids her age are not allowed in that room due to germ/infection control around the babies.

I was just reading the hand out that I got when I went to "meet the teacher" night. It says homework counts towards grades. How do you not do homework but still pass the class? I have already written an email to the teacher declaring us a homework free home, but I haven't clicked SEND yet lol.. I'm thinking the teacher is going to freak, especially since I already sent her one telling her that I don't want my daughter learning math with EM. I asked if I could send in my own math (CLE) for her to do.

I can see this not going well for me lol.. Last year the teacher and I butted heads on reading and writing, this year I'm going to be protesting the math program. I don't want her learning the Everyday Math method and getting confused between this garbage and what she is already learning. Pulling her out of school at this point really isn't an option. I need to work right now and I can't bring her to work with me once school is in session, which starts Monday.

We fully intend on keeping up with the CLE math (and all her other subjects listed in my siggy) that she has been doing. We are just finishing up our last Light Unit for 1st grade and then will start 2nd grade math at home. We homeschool year round. Fraidy Cat, how did that go over with the school that you wouldn't allow any homework to be done? I would LOVE to be PS homework free! The work was so easy for my daughter she would do it on the bus on the way home from school. It truly was a waste of time for her.

My kids have been homeschooled but my youngest is going to PS because I need to work. I started to work in a daycare center that has an afterschool program and they will bus her to the daycare right from the PS. I put her in PS in the middle of last year and it has worked out well. She is still able to get all her homeschool work done as well as the PS work. She has come to work with me all summer and was able to sit and do her homeschool work while the rest of the daycare had nap time. She was a bit bored with the PS work because she already knew everything they did for 1st grade. I just had a "meet the teacher" night at PS, and she has the same teacher for 2nd grade as she had for 1st. The teacher looped up to 2nd grade and we had the option of having her again which is ok with me. Hopefully we butted heads enough last year that I won't have too much trouble with her this year. The math program is "Everyday Math". I'm not familiar with it but the name rings a bell as I believe I read some awful things about it, but can't remember WHAT I read, or WHERE I read it because PS wasn't on our radar at that time. So I'd like to know what to expect with this math program.

I started my daughter last year for 1st grade with cursive. It comes very easily to her and her writing is beautiful. She also turned 7 in May and will be starting 2nd grade. We use A Reason For Handwriting and she is now on book D. I put her in PS in the middle of 1st grade due to me having to work full time. Her teacher was shocked that she could write in cursive and refused to let her do any of her work in cursive. This year she will have the same teacher for 2nd grade (she looped up to 2nd) and this year I will be requesting that she be allowed to write in cursive since it's easier for her. I really don't want to hear that she can't because the other kids don't know cursive. They never will, since the school here has done away with it.

We use the public school as daycare for our youngest. She started in the middle of 1st grade last year and will go to 2nd grade this year at the PS. I have to work full time for now. But, I work in a daycare center around the corner from the PS. My work buses her from my job to the PS, and from PS to the daycare center and she gets her homework, and a lot of her homeschool work done there. Our PS is very behind too. She started in the middle of the 1st grade year and everything she brought home was stuff she already knew. I had a few clashes with her teacher at PS because she had my daughter reading what my daughter called "baby books". After sending her with her own reading materials the teacher had the librarian test her on the computer. She tested out of the baby books and into the "fluent" readers. At that point she was allowed to check out fluent readers from the school library. The other thing that we clash on is handwriting. My daughter can write beautifully in cursive, and her teacher refused to let her write any of her work in cursive. She will have the same teacher again for 2nd grade (she is looping up to 2nd grade) and this year I'm not going to back down. I want my daughter to be able to write in cursive since it comes much easier to her then manuscript. All in all, I have been happy with her PS experience. We continue with our homeschool work as a condition of her going. She loves going to school, she gets to be with her friends every day and so far there have been no issues with bullies or violence. If there is, she will be pulled immediately. My older daughter is still homeschooled, but i would prefer to not leave the two of them home all day while I need to work.

1. Low cost living 2. In the country, but 2.5 hrs from either Mountains to the West of Ocean to the EAst. 3. Gun friendly state

My 7 yr old will start 2nd grade at PS this year. I need to work so we put her in at the end of 1st grade. She absolutely loved it and begged to be able to go back this year. She still does the main homeschool work that we did because honestly, our PS is not a very good one. Our older daughter will continue to homeschool. For us, the PS experience with my younger daughter so far has been a positive one.

My daughter just turned 7. She puts her own laundry away, is supposed to keep her room neat, collects the chicken eggs and makes sure the feeders are full, walks the dog out to the dog pen/brings him back in. I'm starting a full time job this week so I am pretty sure I will be adding to her list.

Our day doesn't begin until noon. In the AM we do our chores, run our errands and then have lunch. Then we begin our school work. My girls know the routine. I have two at home with a big age difference between them. My older daughter (11th grade) does her work on the computer and her curriculum sets a calendar for her. She knows everything that needs to be done just by opening up her program. I check her work every other day and if she needs help (rarely) she will come to me for assistance. With my younger daughter (1st grade) I use a modified workbox system. I have a schedule on the wall that goes Day1-Day5. We don't use M-F, we are flexible about the days we do school work. One of those days is specifically set aside for just History or Science. The rest of the days she can get her work out of the workboxes. Her desk butts up against mine, so I sit at my desk while she is doing her work in case she needs assistance.

My desk is mine, and no one is allowed to sit at it lol. I run our home business, conduct school, have all our household bills organized etc on my desk (it's a big area and my youngest daughters desk butts up against it). If someone touches my paperwork or takes things off my desk I will freak. No one is allowed to even think about sitting at my desk lol. Everyone in this house has their own desk, so there really isn't any need for anyone to be in mine.

I would not buy a house that does not have a fireplace. We weathered a cold snap during a power outage and the fireplace was an absolute lifesaver.

Let me clarify because that does sound a little militant the way I wrote it. We just completed our move and we only have two recliners in the living room at the moment. The kids each have a chair (don't remember what they are called but they are a big fuzzy round chairs on a metal frame) and there is also a bean bag chair. When the kids are in there by themselves they can sit in the recliners. When my husband and I are home and want to sit down the kids are told to move. They can sit in their chairs, they can lounge on the floor, but the two recliners are for my husband and myself. It's not up for debate. I'm not putting my big butt in a bean bag chair on the floor so my 7 yr old can sprawl out on the recliner lol. We don't ever have company, so that isn't an issue lol.

Same in our house. Adults get the chairs before children do. I see it as a sign of respect. If I walk into a room and a child is where I want to sit (chair, sofa or where ever), they will be told to move. If they don't, that would be seen as a sign of disrespect and dealt with accordingly. In the kitchen we all sit in the same chairs each night for dinner. The one chair is kind of tight up against the wall so my smallest child sits there. I like to be in the chair where I can easily reach things from the stove or counters. These chairs were never really assigned, except for the one for the smallest child. This has nothing to do with religious beliefs or means of controlling, its simply out of respect.

Totally explains what I was thinking when I saw her picture! She is beautiful!