If things do end up going through a judge, many judges (at least in my state) go with two things...historically which parent has been the primary one in terms of making decisions (even if you have joint decision making) and what is working best for the child. If you can demonstrate that homeschooling is working best for your child and can document this, you would have a strong case to continuing to homeschool even if your ex disagrees. It might also be helpful to have documentation from your child's public school teacher regarding the struggles he had last year. Ideally, you and your ex will agree, but it might be helpful to gather documentation now in the event that things do not turn out that way.

Ultimately, I think it is your call as the parent. My son has always been in public school. He has an August birthday as well. I called the principal the summer before he (chronologically) should have been entering kindergarten to check if I had to do anything since I was delaying his start by one year. The principal said I did not. The way he explained it is that I was giving him the gift of time. It has made a huge difference for him, and it is one of the best parenting decisions I have ever made. I would just tell your contact person that you are giving your child the gift of time and you feel as though it is the right decision based on their current developmental stage.

I love the name Bourne...close to Boone. I think both are strong names.

Lots of great ideas here! I really try to follow the lead of the classroom teacher when planning my afterschooling lessons and activities. My oldest finished kindergarten this year, so we have incorporated sight words into spelling and writing practice. I think it is very beneficial to "go deeper" rather than "go broader" when it comes to the material covered in the classroom. For example, the science theme in first grade is life cycles. We're planning to reinforce the life cycles covered in the classroom using read alouds, hands-on activities, and nature walks. We will start with the organisms they are covering in class and then pull in additional (similar) organisms as time permits. As a public school teacher, I definitely see the positive outcome children experience when their parents work with them outside of school. The time you spend and the vested interest you have in your child's education are huge factors in promoting success in school.

We had a standard poodle. He was tall, but only weighed about 55 pounds. We adopted him when he was three. He was a "retired" show dog, so he was very well behaved. He was a great dog and was wonderful with my children! He didn't shed, but he did get his hair cut more often than I did. :001_smile:

All of the textbooks I have used/read do not subdivide Protista into Protozoa and Chromista, but do place the two groups of bacteria into different Kingdoms (Archaebacteria and Eubacteria). There's definitely more than one way to group organisms. I just think some classification systems are more widely accepted in the scientific community than others. I do a really neat hardware classification with my students that demonstrates this concept. I give each group an identical jar of nuts, screws, bolts, nails, etc. and ask them to create a flow chart to organize the hardware into groups. It is interesting to see the different ways they organize the hardware and we're then able to make a great analogy with how scientists classify (or classified) organisms in different ways.

Organisms are classified into three Domains and six Kingdoms. The three Domains are Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya. The six kingdoms are Archaebacteria, Eubacteria, Fungi, Protista, Plantae, and Animalia. Members of Kingdom Archaeabacteria are in the Domain Archaea. Members of the Kingdom Eubacteria are in the Domain Bacteria, and members of the Kingdoms Fungi, Protista, Plantae, and Animalia are all in the Domain Eukarya. When I first started teaching high school biology a number of years ago, all bacteria were classified in the Kingdom Monera. Scientists have since transition from five Kingdoms to six Kingdoms. The Six-Kingdom System of Classification makes more sense due to the significant differences between archaebacteria and eubacteria. The Kingdom Monera was too broad of a classification.

In my state, biological parents have joint legal custody (medical, education, religion, etc.) unless a specific other arrangement is made. He and the child's mom should have an equal say in the child's education and all of the decision making surrounding those issues. His best bet might be to work it out through a neutral third party. A mediator might be a good, less expensive alternative if he thinks he can come to some sort of educational compromise with the child's mom.

One thing that I find works well is to encourage my DS to move "as fast as he can". He loves it because it is like a mini-race each time.

I am brand new to this board and to afterschooling! DS1 is in public K (half days) and DS2 is homeschooled for nursery school. My mom is homeschooling DS2 (while DS1 is in public K). We plan using many of the resources on various pre-K homeschooling blogs. My mom does a variety of homeschool/afterschool lessons in the afternoons with both DS1 and DS2, and I afterschool both boys. We are working with reading and phonics (BFIAR, FIAR, Hooked on Phonics), math (Right Start Math), science (various sources for activities and labs) and history (Story of the World). I am a public high school science teacher.