Here we don't turn in anything - unless we are asked to by a prosecuting attorney. We don't report here, but we must keep records in case we need to prove we are indeed educating our children within the regulations set by the state. It doesn't sound like your state has the same type of set up - you do 900, you record it, you report it. Have you looked at the summary for your state with HSLDA?

No. We have a total minimum of 1000 hours a year. CORE 600 hours minimum must be in the core subjects of math, language arts, reading, science and social studies. Of that 600 hours for the core subjects, at minimum, 400 must be completed in the homeschool location. The additional 200 hours that are mandatory for the core subjects may be outside the normal homeschool location. ELECTIVES 400 additional hours of instruction may be elective subjects OR additional time doing core subjects. These additional 400 hours can be done anywhere - in the homeschool location or outside the homeschool location. ---------------- So the reality is, that of the 1000 mandatory minimum hours we need to log, at least 400 in the core subjects needs to be at home......200 core hours can be outside or at home......the other 400 can be core or elective and can be anywhere - so really, up to 600 can be done outside the homeschool location, as long as a minimum of 400 are done at home from the total 1000 a year we need to do. Does that make sense?

They do count that, and your trips to museums, the zoo, etc. also count. I'm not sure what state you're in, but in MO, the core subjects are defined by "in the homeschool location" and "outside the homeschool location" to specifically allow for the time we spend going places and doing things that are not done at our normal location (home). Out of the 600 hours we must do for the core subjects, 400 (or more) must occur at the homeschool location, the additional required 200 hours (or more) can be at the homeschool location OR outside the homeschool location, so anywhere...like listening to story of the world in the car (history), going to a presentation about MO Indians given the next town over (social studies/history), going to the library (LA/reading), visiting a science center in St. Louis (science). What I don't count is the time to get to or from an activity, unless the activity is in the car (like story of the world or doing mental math verbally).

So many great ideas! My son would love a pointer, so I think I'm going to get him one. I've really mixed things up the last week or so, and he's doing much better. I think maybe I was just keep the lessons so dry and not moving forward since he wasn't yet fluent. What I'm finding is that it's okay to move forward, I just have to keep going over what we did a few days ago and include the old and the new. Today we'll play go fish with cards I made that have all the blends we've gone through and some words with the long vowel sound. I think this week we'll continue reviewing the blends and short and long vowels using a lot of games, the white board and do a couple of the all about spelling lessons since we haven't done any in the last week or so. I'm slowly feeling more confident with this.

It's totally situational for my 7 year old. If we're in town (small) and the place is not crowded, he can go in on his own. If we're in a city, busy rest stop or other place with a high traffic rest room, he'll go into the ladies room or family rest room with me (or my husband will go in the men's room with him if he's with us).

Not sure what state you're in, but in MO we log hours and religion falls under electives (400 hours a year). In the hours you count toward electives you can count formal classes children take outside your homeschool location, religion you do in your homeschool and other activities related, so going to church. The thing is that it's not a core subject, so most around here go way over on the electives hours anyway.

1/8 teaspoon is usually a good pinch - just toss some in, you should be fine!

Read your lease, there should be a section about the sale of the property while you're renting. It should define the expectations/responsibilities you have/need to meet to show the property, what happens during the sale process and how the lease will be handled after the sale. Usually a lease has clear terms about what will happen if the landlord wants to sell while being contractually bound by your lease with you.

It may be that some hear lower frequency noise than others, so the low rumbling of the earthquake isn't just felt, but heard by those able to hear the low frequencies.

I recently pulled out all the stops for my just turned seven year old who was stuck on CVC words. Lots of great advice on a post I made from ElizabethB, Ellie and others, plus I read, read, read like crazy online about teaching phonics, because honestly, it felt like I had no idea what the heck I was doing and none of the programs really lays it out (at least not to me) how to do it. I set aside everything we were doing and stepped back and looked at all of it. After reading this (Reading Made Easy), the replies to my post here and the links in replies, and reading the book Rescue Reading 1-2-3, and going through all the phonics books and notes I have, here's what I did: I realized I wasn't teaching my son to blend and was allowing him to continue sounding out each letter, which was making things go painfully slow for him, so I started my new approach with lessons with beginning and ending blends. We worked on those exclusively for seven days in a row, thirty minutes a day, only doing those with the short vowels sounds (like shed, lift, mask, etc.). I used the All About Spelling tiles on the white board, lots of colorful dry erase markers too, created flash cards by hand, and on the flash cards used two different colors; one color for the blend and one for the rest of the word (shed, mask, lift, etc.). All we did for those seven days was blend, blend, blend. No reading (other than the flash cards and tiles on the white board), no worksheets, nothing else. Since all the words we were doing had short vowels, I totally avoided any more CVC words in the phonics we did each day because he knows his short vowel sounds, he needed to blend. That was basically Units 6-13 in the Reading Made Easy link above. Our seventh day was yesterday. Today we introduced long vowels, Unit 14, and reviewed all the units we cover last week through yesterday. Then we read three controlled readers that were focused on short vowels with beginning and ending blends. This was the first day I added back actual reading. For this, I did something I never heard of before: To, With, By. Basically, to help your child read and gain fluency, the book Rescue Reading suggests that you read the book TO your child first, running your finger under each word, so that he can see and hear fluency. Then you read the book WITH your child, running your finger under the words and having him say it aloud with you. Then you have your child read the book TO you. This approach is supposed to reduce frustration and help your child see the words and hear them blended without making them struggle to read what they've just learned. Oh my gosh! I was doing the happy dance today! My son read the books so well and when he got stuck, he self-corrected before I could tell him the word he got wrong! That has never happened before. He read with a good speed and when he wasn't sure, then he sounded out the word, but he wasn't sounding out every last word. Best though was later today, long after we were done, when a friend came over and he asked if he could read the books to her! He was so excited he could read the books and after hours had passed, he read them again, to her, and read them even better than he did earlier today! I am so glad I found this forum and really feel like the support I got definitely helped me figure out something with the phonics. I just hope it continues along as well as it has for the last week or so because I am really happy about how things are going now!

My son asks too, so I give him a grade (by percent) on his work as he finishes each day. He loves it! I also mark what he got wrong and have him correct mistakes so he knows what he got wrong; often the next day I'll include the mistake in the day's work to be sure he understands, and if not, then we review more before moving along.

I hadn't looked at the regulations for private schools in Missouri, but did after reading your reply. It looks like private schools, like homeschools, are exempt from testing. The regs also have in them that curriculum choice is up to school (or parent in homeschooling) and that neither can be compelled to follow a particular "sect". Each are expected to provide instruction in the core subjects (homeschoolers have a number of hours to meet each school year) and include, starting by 7th grade, MO constitution, US constitution and American history. Textbooks aren't provided to either, but students from either may enroll in the MO Virtual Instruction Program and may also utilize special ed services at the public schools.

Not that I know of...Apple doesn't "do" flash.

One of the reasons I found this forum is because I do feel our local homeschool community is fairly lax compared to the standards I've set for my son. However, I wouldn't say the homeschoolers I know in real life are neglecting to educate their children...they're doing things differently than a classical approach, so I have much less in common with them than if they were also doing something a'la WTM. Do I see some problems? Sometimes. But then lax is sometimes in the eye of the beholder. If one looks at our state SOL, what I see isn't all that lax, but my expectations are higher. Do I think there is a huge problem in the homeschool community? Nope. I think just like you'll find in any educational environment, there are parents who are very over-involved, and others at the other end of the spectrum and much too laid back. I don't think the outliers represent the majority.

One doesn't need heavy regulation, complete with a list of standards to meet, to show progress. That's not progress, that's a checklist that may or may not reflect real learning. We see that in our public schools, they teach to the test to get performance on tested areas and neglect other things that are as educationally important for the sake of test scores. What's needed is a method of being able to track and how progress for an individual child. A child who starts first grade, for example, and knows their basic sounds and can read CVC words and ends the year still just reading CVC words has not made progress. Yet, if you look at our state's SOL, and used that as your standard, this child would be just fine, without making any real progress because the standards are not designed to measure progress, but measure a line item. Yet, same child, different scenario...the state laws require a homeschool family to maintain records which show academic progress, hours of instruction and what was taught throughout the year. Now, unless the parent fudges that said child started the year with much less skills than they did, that parent will need to show progress from CVC to something a lot more over the year if they want to prove progress, or be able to show why the child did not progress beyond the level near where they started (LD?). So, to me at least, it isn't so much necessary to set up a list of standards as it is to set up a method to measure progress over each year.

Atherotech VAP Test

I'm pretty new here myself and actually found my way here because my seven year old is (I thought) struggling with reading and I'm concerned. Heck, I was panicked. It was here that I found some great advice and we totally revamped how we're doing phonics and reading. I've relaxed and taken a deep breath and realize my son is actually doing much better than I was giving him credit for. I was the problem! My expectations were much higher than should be for an emerging first grade reader and I had absolutely no clue what to use as a measure of his progress. He is making progress, I just didn't recognize it! Anyway, I do agree that parents should be held accountable for their child's progress. However, I do not think that regulations which impose specific standards are in the best interest of homeschooled kids. As many of us know well, often homeschool kids are all over the place with academics, my own doing first grade work for reading and writing and third grade work for math. One of the best things about homeschooling is that we can tailor our lessons to our child's abilities and work with them where they're struggling and challenge them where they're excelling.

A couple of things. First, the cholesterol levels are calculated, not specifically measured in the standard tests. What happens when HDL is high and triglycerides are low is that the LDL is calculated and can appear very high, even if it's not really a problem. Second, LDL size matters. Without a specific measure of its density, you're looking not only at a calculated number (which would be lower if her HDL was lower and her triglycerides were higher), but you have no idea what the pattern is. If the majority are large fluffy LDL, it's no problem. Given her HDL and triglycerides, I'm pretty sure her LDL is not the small dense type. But, you can ask they test her specific cholesterol levels by type. It's a more expensive test, but often worth knowing exactly what you've got there.

The following faiths or denominations have religious awards for Tiger Cubs, Cub Scouts, and/or Webelos Scouts: * African Methodist Episcopal Church * African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church * Anglican Catholic Church * Armenian Church of America (Eastern Diocese) * Baha'i * Baptist * Buddhist * Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) * Christian Methodist Episcopal Church * Church of Christ, Scientist (Christian Scientist) * Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) * Churches of Christ * Community of Christ * Eastern Catholic * Eastern Orthodox * Episcopal * General Church of the New Jerusalem (The New Church) * Hindu * Islamic * Jewish * Lutheran * Meher Baba * National Association of Anglican and Traditional Catholic Scouters * Polish National Catholic * Presbyterian Church in America * Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) * Protestant and Independent Christian Churches -- (Available to any Christian denomination) * Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) * Roman Catholic * The Salvation Army * Unitarian-Universalist Scouters Association * United Church of Christ * United Methodist * United Pentecostal Church International * Unity Churches

Considering the vast majority of people in the world don't use toothpaste, I'd say it's not necessary...most don't have toothbrushes either, but use other things for oral hygiene.

Learning to read is our challenge. Math he's doing super well with and enjoys a lot. He also is having a good time with his science and really getting into history.

It sells a car... to a buyer who may not have been looking at a Honda ut now will because of the attractive interest rate; a buyer who may not have been in the market for a car as expensive as they'll now finance with a lower interest rate; or a buyer who may have been thinking they'd wait a while, but will buy now since the interest rate is attractive now. Basically it sells a car, but more importantly it might also have a new brand-loyal future customer when they need another in the future. The low interest rate is a marketing ploy to not only sell the car today, but also build brand loyalty for tomorrow.

If he's using his fingers, he understands HOW to get the answer; what he doesn't know cold are the math facts. practice his math facts with him using games, flash cards, etc.

I voted other....We have a world map and US map...not on our wall, but as the table top of our dining room table where we homeschool. I laid the two maps out on the table (white tablecloth underneath on top of the table) then covered it with a clear tablecloth. Now the table is protected from spills, paints, etc. AND we can see the maps anytime we want or need to!

One thing that helped my son 'get with the program' and do his work was to explain to him that every time he was dawdling, it was HIS time he was wasting, not mine....each minute he wasted doing everything but his lesson, was a minute of HIS time he was taking from his play time, so he was free to dawdle all he wanted, I had all day! Within a couple of days, he started to focus more and do the lesson because he realized that if he just did it, he'd be done and then he could go and play!