I read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead in high school, and plan for my kids to do the same, if they're interested.

I do feel fulfilled by homeschooling. It seems to me that many people assume that when I say that, I must mean that homeschooling consumes my life, and I have no other interests/activities. Not so. I find homeschooling to be incredibly meaningful. It is also the best job fit for me - I love teaching and education in general, but I hate routine and being bound to someone else's schedule/expectations. Once my kids are grown, I will probably build up a tutoring business or become certified to teach in nontraditional arenas.

No. No flowers or chocolate for apologies. That's just not something we do.

Bump!

Thanks!

we are moving away from our Greek teacher. He'd have to self-study through the rest of the book, because this is out of my ken :P Thanks, thought - I hadn't thought of designating them as Koine and Attic. I didn't want it to look like he had done two years of Greek I, because that's really not the case.

Last year my son completed EG 3 and then his teacher did extra work with him on grammar and translation. I don't know what resource she used for this. This year he began Athenaze. Athenaze is 16 chapters, and he will complete through chapter 10 by the end of the year. How much high school credit would you assign for these?

I'm in the same boat, Jean. Ancient Great Books, Medieval Great Books ... ? I've been advised to just put something like "English 9" and "World History - Ancients" on the transcript. For 9th and 10th grades my son took a Great Books class, which covered both history and literature; he also took a Humanities class, which covered history, philosophy, and art appreciation. So how on earth do I put those on a transcript? To add to that, most of the assessments *are* oral. I know that in high school we're supposed to test and grade papers, but no, we're not really doing that. Does that mean that what we're doing is not rigorous? No way. But it does mean that we don't have much of a paper trail. Still, he took the SAT II exam for World History and got a score equivalent to an A - so I feel that the history portion of Great Books and Humanities is validated. He takes the National Latin Exam to validate the Latin grade. And I suppose one SAT II literature exam will somehow validate the Great Books reading and analysis.

My oldest read the Iliad, yes, the whole thing, in either 6th or 7th grade. I forget which. He read the Odyssey the next year. We did a full run of ancients in 9th grade, and he had no trouble. My second son, newly 14, will do ancients next year, and I feel that he is well prepared and able to read the texts. I think the most important thing that helped us get to this point was that I did give them difficult things to read, as soon as they were reading fluently. I let them read easy things too, but I expected them to read hard things, as best they could. It gets easier, with practice.

How fast do they fill up? Is this for fall classes?

Oh, fun! My oldest will have 3 or 4 years of Latin, and ... well, he's studied Greek for two years, but I think he's only covered the material for a Greek I credit. He'll have two years of German on top of that. Hopefully that will look interesting to the colleges ;-) My 2nd oldest will likely end up with two or more Greek credits.

Ester Maria - sorry I misspelled your name!

I can appreciate Esther Maria's answer - check with the schools, better safe than sorry. However, many schools accept Latin - I don't know why that would not apply to Koine Greek, as well.

So it sounds like the moral of the story is ... I can safely wait until 4 weeks before the move to do any packing. Or even less. Theoretically, I have two strong teen boys to help me, and two other fairly capable kids. In some ways, I wish the move date wasn't so far out. I don't want to move from this area, but having a date 8 or so weeks from now is kind of like pulling off a bandage slowly. :glare:

I'm curious - when you move, how much time do you allot for packing? Do you do it all in a week? Two weeks? Leisurely over a month?

As far as we know, we're doing it on our own. That might change, but it's unlikely. We are moving 7 hours away and no, we do not have new housing yet. What would you put in your transition kit? Okay, so focus on school and getting rid of stuff, but not packing. I can do that.

Is there someone higher up you can appeal to? I had a similar charge - the in-network doc used an out-of-network lab. I appealed, and we got it covered. They really should do the same for you. Can you appeal again, or appeal the appeal?

Okay, not my life, no. It's fine. But I"m having a great deal of trouble managing my priorities. I've been in this situation before, and managed things badly. I'd like to not manage them badly this time, but I'm not starting off well. We're moving in about 2.5 months. I am a single parent until the move. We are part of a co-op that meets all day on Friday. It is a very academic co-op and requires a great deal of time in homework outside of class. Cutting out the co-op before we move is not an option. We want to spend time with friends, and sightseeing, before we move. And of course, we have to pack and clean the house. It's easy to keep slipping into our normal schedule of days spent on schoolwork, and activities or family time in the evenings. I keep thinking I should drop all schoolwork except for the co-op work, and spend the time packing. But then I wonder if it's too early for that, if we have time, and maybe we should just focus on getting in as much school as possible before the disruption. But then, sightseeing and social activities are going to bite into our time, too. How would you manage your time, in such a situation? Also, I teach at the co-op and so have some prep time involved with that. I can rearrange the classes so that there is less prep time for me, though. Left to my own devices, I tend to run in circles until it's time for crisis last-minute packing and sightseeing, all at once. Then comes moving day and nothing is done. Help?

It's not a question of me being okay with it or not. It's just how DH's jobs work. Right now he works in another state. He has for a month and a half, and will continue to for another two months. When the kids were young it was easy to pack up and go with him - but now they're involved in too many activities that we don't want to disrupt. They're important and worthwhile activities. I'm not thrilled with it, no. My Dad was military, though, so I was raised with him gone often. It's just how it is.

It's a lovely house. It's certainly one I would consider, if we were buying in this area! Hopefully the right buyer will come along soon.

I think it's unlikely to be something you need to go to urgent care for, unless you just feel *awful.* Can you make an appt. with your doc first thing Monday? I, too, had a kidney infection with absolutely no urinary tract symptoms. For a month I suffered flu-like symptoms, until docs finally figured out what it was. I had fatigue, aches, back pain, fever in the evenings, and vomiting. I'd say that if you feel bad, and have back pain, you should have your kidney checked out - but it's probably not an urgent situation.

I can help you with the other four silent e's: 1. e at the end lets the vowel say its name 2. e at the end keeps the word from ending in j, u, or v 3. e at the end makes c or g soft 4. e and the end provides a vowel for a syllable that otherwise would not have one (such as in the final syllable of "candle") 5. e at the end serves no real purpose A vowel can say its name when it's at the end of an open syllable, so that's two. I'm not sure what they mean for the last way - it's late :) "Fly" has a y that is by itself, a single vowel. "Play" has a y at the end, but it's part of the ay vowel team. I don't like the wording "a sound alone." I prefer to say that it's either a single-vowel y, or a double-vowel y. You do not change the y to i in a double-vowel y.

Kathy, thank you! That sounds like a good option. I hadn't thought of having him take the courses back to back, but you're right, that must do wonders for comprehension. I'm sure we'll have lots of questions along the way. Thanks so much! :)

I thought it was known that this would be the last year. I was pretty sure I read that Hugh Laurie didn't want to continue after this year.

He's had more algebra than his older brother, actually. Thanks!