I think that's a great way to help pay for the boards and to give people an incentive to sign in.

This is for what its worth but as scary and exhausting as it is I personally wouldn't put him in high school. They can be ruthless to those who are different--even back when I was in school. My thoughts were to give him plenty of opportunities to meet and be around those his age but at home if he is meeting his other obligations not turn his one passion into a battleground. Are there youth groups at any other churches in town? They usually welcome visitors to come and stay if they are happy there. Maybe a church that has a large number of homeschoolers who are members? Just some ideas. This is definitely difficult but I agree with Mara that homeschooling has probably saved a lot of heartache for him and you.

I like the PASS and I liked that you are compared to homeschoolers as well as public schoolers. I felt like the results were easier to understand. We have also done the SAT and the ITBS and I like those too. It depends on whether I am going to administer it myself or not---I do think the kids did well in the home situation. HTH!

I change all sorts of other things except my Sonlight core. :D

Sending prayers up for you. I hope that today is better. :grouphug:

Were you using sauce tomatoes? I have plants that are sauce tomatoes and slicing tomatoes but my slicing/salad tomatoes are doing the best by far. So I thought I might try your idea with them but I would need to be able to use my salad ones since the sauce are only doing so-so. Thanks for the great plan. I wasn't going to make sauce because I didn't want to peel them. So Thanks!!

I agree and they are especially helpful because you can bring them to other places and use them when it could otherwise be tougher to have a happy baby. Like when you are helping someone cook or unpack or doing volunteer work or something. YKWIM? The portable ones are great!

The first we heard of it here in OK was when my dh's brother txt him with a message that said there was an earthquake and I'm okay. It reminds me of when we were in Japan and had a 7.4 quake which broke lots of stuff in our house and when we called the states to let them know we were alive they hadn't heard of it yet. It did hit the papers eventually. I am glad that it wasn't large in the sense of lives/damage.

We make up breakfast burritos (I love the high protein tortillas) You can make them up at the beg. of the week and then eat them throughout the week. We put eggs/sausage/cheese or eggs/fried peppers/onions or one with just the vegetables. These are great warmed up quickly with a little salsa added. Also you could make granola bars. The fiber one bars are pretty filling. What about a big glass of milk to go with the other stuff? Milk is filling and has protein.

It just said this year-- does anyone know when? Thx?

In Alaska we paid $15/half hour (although the lesson usually ran to 45 min) and $50 family reg. It is expensive but we really liked it. There isn't anyone within a 2 hour drive where we are now so we are with a standard piano teacher. (we pay her $12/half hour without any family reg. fee). I understand your frustration though. I think that they require so much training and continuing education that it gets expensive to stay a teacher. Not to make excuses but I have a friend who teaches suzuki and I know it would get expensive for her.

:iagree: I have tried to communicate this to my ds. He has an overall sweet and caring nature and he would've defended the tortured frog as well. It is something that I have found hard to communicate because I just feel like boys/girls are different. I only had sisters. So whenever I can I get my dh to have these conversations with him. I would also look into finding a new troop if your ds is miserable. If he is still enjoying the troop and okay after all then maybe some coping strategies would help? I don't know what they would be though. Learning to stand up for yourself is an important skill especially for boys. I feel for you all- these things can really consume you.

I will put in a vote for Sonlight. We have used Cores 1-5 so far and it has made for enjoyable, successful homeschooling for us. I feel like my kids have a strong Christian worldview, a love for God's world and a strong grasp of history. If expense is an issue then you can look on the used boards. Just my 2 cents. :)

We also do extra reading and the activities. We did Sonlight with our SOTW so we did the Sonlight reading but I also checked out a few of SWB's recommendations from in the AG. We read a lot and the kids do a lot of assigned reading during the school year--not a ton of free reading. It really depended on whether I could find the book or not whether we read it or not. Sometimes I could only find one or two of her recommendations so that would be all we did.

I used a the TWSS/SWI combination. You would want SWI B. I watched the first two tapes in the TWSS and then had the kids do the SWI portion. You can download 15 assignments from their website that breaks up the SWI portion. I didn't want to do it as intensively as it is initially taught. Then to keep us organized in practicing it I bought Writing Trails of Men of Science and we used that initially. Last year I used our history topics. Next year I will do IEW with classical conversations (they teach it in the afternoons) so my oldes (7th) will be doing their bible based writing lessons. You will need to watch the first video to get a handle on it and I would watch the SWI with your children as well. Also, if you get on the yahoo group (mentioned above) then you can also register with an IEW sale list and then you can probably find them used. HTH!

I think it looks good and my dd was interested in it but it just seems so expensive. That's really what it comes down to for me--a huge outlay of money and I am just not sure its better than Singapore and MUS that we have been using.

I often shortened the writing. Like if it had space for 5 F's then I would say 2 great F's is all you need. Does that make sense? It would look so overwhelming to my ds (4) that he would dread that part so I shortened it. He got a lot out of the rest of it. HTH!

With WJ you can really follow your ds's lead on what to write about and I would go with a rough schedule of M-Th-- idea/brainstorming talking about things on M, write T, edit W, write th and I usually only take a few papers through a full correction. Also we always did the Friday Freewrites that Julie talks about. You can get them on her website every Friday. I would encourage the papers to rotate between things they are interested in (legos, video games or something) and a topical one based on what you are reading. It has been awhile since I have looked through my WJ but I agree with you that a lot of her ideas are great. Like the above poster- my son was in 4th when he did Wordsmith Apprentice-- and while I liked certain aspects of it --I went with IEW the next year. HTH! Terrill

and it is the one subject that we don't completely drop during the summer. We don't do it daily in the summer but we keep at it.

:iagree: If we had been stationed in DC- this was a possibility a year and a half ago then we would've gone right into American History because of the access to the sources there. With all of the museums, congress etc there I would've had to do American History. So like you said--if you are near an area that is rich in history I would definitely take the effort to study that history. Another poster mentioned that the main goal is to actually study the history and I agree with that-- for us we are trying to keep it in order but if we had moved to DC we would've done it out of order so that we could study it in such a great location. This has been a great discussion!

Do you plan to have people who want to borrow someones books do it between the two of them? Will you bring books to a coop day? I have wanted to start something like this as well but I just can't wrap my mind around the logistics. Even through something like librarything? how do they contact each other to get the books and what about returns? Are you planning on due dates? Sorry, I am very curious if this has been worked out already with your group. I will be watching all of the posters. The readerware sounds cool but for our group I would have to pay for it. Thanks! Watching for more replies.

I agree. I know that for myself my American history was pretty solid but I don't recall ever studying ancient or middle history. It all seemed new when I have read it with the kids. I see no reason not to start at the beginning and just keep going through it until its solid. Going through it repeated times like SWB says. Besides, some of the stuff that is different about the ancients is what made it so interesting to my little ones.

except that you may need to make sure to drill math facts more separately. There is not a ton of drill so I used flashcards and online drill (there is one at the MUS site) to make sure that they knew them and could get faster. I like the idea of using the CWP book though.

I have found that the CWP books are quite a bit harder. Also, her skills will improve and get faster if she isn't using one that is too hard.

I agree. Also, for my first my ds decided to be born on the day of his shower so it was postponed for a couple of weeks and he attended. It was really nice and gave an opportunity for everyone to see the baby. I think that doing a diaper/casserole/gift card type shower and inviting the baby is a great idea. and like the other posters said: Good Food!! :D