I'm near you too, then. I live 5 minutes or less from AngieW (we still haven't met in person -- I moved here recently, but have known Angie for 6-7 years online). Sharon in Austin's dh was one of my ds's math coaches last year (her dd was one of his teammates).

My kindergartener has a little table from IKEA with a couple of little chairs (her stuffed hippo sits in the other one). My 9 year old has an elementary-sized school desk and chair. The middle school aged dc have a picnic table (the old redwood kind with benches). Though HAVING and USING can be a bit deceptive. The kindergartener probably uses her table/chair the most. The middles are usually under the desk and table, and the oldest on top of the table. :confused: I don't understand, but also have more pressing battles to fight than to get them to sit where I'd prefer.

Our school years vary a lot. We finished last year on June 18. We started this year on July 12. then after a week, we were off a week for VBS. We took Tuesday of the next week off to go to Six Flags for one child's birthday (and we had free tickets). And so on. We'll be off from Thanksgiving to New Year's and Easter to Memorial Day. They go to summer camp in the middle of July, so that's when I'm hoping to have things wrapped up to submit my high schooler's portfolio.

July 12. Then we had last week and this Tuesday off. We're pretty much year-rounders with a week off here, a day off there. Oh, and all of December off for a wedding and a family reunion, and between Easter and Memorial Day, each set of grandparents has a vacation with the kids planned. Last year, my high schooler frittered the year away and got 1/4 of his work done between September and March. Which made a March-June experience he's not keen on repeating.

Sometimes this is the case, but not always. A friend's ds has the same rare genetic disorder my ds has. They're in Ontario, and there is only one specialist who has the knowledge to treat this. Not only can they not get approval to go to this specialist in Vancouver, but they've been told that if they opt for surgery at Shriner's in Erie, PA (all children with this disorder are generally automaticall accepted at Shriners, which covers all care at their facilities), none of his followup care will be covered in Canada. They're in a tight spot, and while the appeals go on for years, their little boy has lost his ability to walk and is confined to a wheelchair until it's all settled.

Sorry, not yet. It's on our agenda for 2011-2012, so if you go with it this year, be sure to come back and tell us how it goes!

Definitely developmentally inappropriate. I'm another one with a first grader who could read those, but probably not spell them. He did a good job picking sounds that fit.

Discount School Supply -- I'm on the mailing list and shop their clearance and fre shipping sales. Sometimes Oriental Trading. Hobby Lobby if I need it quickly.

We consider it all pretty arbitrary. Ds wanted to get high school credit for some of the high school work he did when he was 6th grade age, so we called him 9th grade for a few purposed (6th for outside activities). So he would have been 3 years accelerated. This year, I saw no reason to call him 10th grade, since it's unlikely that we'll graduate him before he's 16, and he barely turned 12, so I called him 9th grade again, even though he earned enough credits last year to advance (4 1/2 of a necessary 17 1/2 for graduation). SO this year, on the record books, he's only 2 years accelerated. Now I didn't REALLY hold him back, he's doing more advanced stuff this year than he did last ... we just find 'grade level' a pretty arbitrary concept. No outside academic activities have ever fit his needs anyway, so all of those are social, and age-grade suits fine.

When my oldest came home from ps, we just did the Reviews in the textbooks, and then I'd add a little on any topics that he needed to actually learn. I didn't even purchase workbooks or any other resources ... textbooks only. 5A-6B took us 2-3 mo, and then we moved on to LOF because he was a bit younger and NEM just LOOKED overwhelming to him. (He came out of school March/April of his 4th grade year, so he was still only 9 ... I think we'd started the Singapore review in February, seeing that things weren't working out.)

I have friends who cover, because it speaks to them the same way it speaks to you. As long as it's a personal preference thing and not some legalistic requirement, it can be wonderful for some people. I actually tried it. For me, it was more awkward and in the way than anything meaningful.

My dc clean the whole bathrooms -- tub, sinks, toilet, floors. They load and unload the dishwasher, put away dishes, sweep the kitchen floor, wipe down counters. The 10 and 12 year olds run laundry through the washer and dryer and do some folding (everyone puts away laundry). They vacuum -- including the stairs. The older 3 (9, 10, 12) all cook meals -- usually simple things, but sometimes more elaborate. They gather and take out the trash (the 5 year old gathers, but the bag is too big when full). They wash windows. The older 2 mop. The older ones mow and edge the lawn. We do pay them some for 'extra' jobs (lawn care, cooking), and they're expected to pay for things like scout camp with money saved from odd jobs.

We took this continuous approach, too. I sat down with older dd this winter (she was 10 1/2) and reviewed things and went over puberty stuff since I'm not sure when it will hit (my period came with no other warning signs, so I wanted her to be prepared, just in case).

I keep it ... I have a 6 1/2 year span (with 2 in the middle). I don't always use all of the same thing with everyone, but so far, I've been able to re-use things with at least 2 dc. My 9 year old did all of his curriculum selection for next year off of my shelves, mostly things that I'd used with his older siblings.

Central Texas (Austin area) would probably meet all of your criteria. I grew up in OLD cities, mostly on the east coast ... New Orleans, Charleston, Norfolk, Newport. Things were definitely MUCH more formal there. Dh grew up in and has kept us in the west (Denver, Salt Lake, Seattle) ... Austin is a nice blend for both of us.

We've liked anything read by kayray

I guess it all boils down to reasons for homeschooling. For us, one of the major reasons is the custom fit. I don't have any illusions that there's some 'perfect curriculum' for any of my children (much less all of them). I try to find what is going to work best for each of them each year, and then I hope that what I buy for the older one(s) might fit at least one of the younger ones at some point. Now, they have a bigger say in selection. My older dd learned a lesson this year, though. She thought textbooks (regular, ps type) would be easy -- and they were, to a point. They also bored her almost to death before we got out of the first semester. I count that lesson that she learned about herself and how she learns as much more valuable than anything the textbooks could have taught her. It doesn't always work out to pick something and go with it. We were 0 for 4 with 100 Easy Lessons. They all hated it. A couple of them hurried up and learned to read so they wouldn't have to do that book. They all read at to much above grade level. On the other hand, Singapore Primary Math has fit all of them fairly well. It got monotonous and I wanted to go wider, rather than doing NEM at age 9 with them, so we have a couple of other programs, but I COULD have stuck with just Singapore all the way through with all of my dc. For supplements, some like MEP; some liked Miquon, but one hated it; two are taking a Singapore break and going to school textbooks next year (Miss Textbooks don't work hasn't entirely learned her lesson yet, though I think that math will go better than science or social studies.)

Reading Reflex is designed as a remedial program and puts phonics in terms of puzzles, which seems like it might be a good way for a PG child to assimilate some of the concepts, since that's something that usually appeals to them. I used it with my children when they were pretty young, just because the kinesthetic aspect of it seemed to be pretty age-appropriate.

I did this, too, except with buttons. I later got real base 10 blocks, but the button bars are still preferred.

We'll probably be doing this next year (2011-12). My older ds will be doing 10th grade work. My older dd will be 7th grade age, probably 8th -ish in schoolwork, and is planning on going back to brick and mortar school for high school. Biology is her special area of interest. She'll probably have to take it again when she's actually in high school, given her plans, but it will at least be good preparation for doing AP level later on, and she can also be a lab partner for ds. Working with a lab partner is a skill I remember needing to learn in high school. (I loved my partner -- we did Bio and Chemistry the next year together, we're still Facebook friends, but we had some adjustments getting going.)

I really like the letter. My parents did tell me that I was to be guardian of my youngest brother when they did a new will (my other brother had just turned 18). They emphasized that it did not mean that I'd be responsible for the day to day stuff (unless I chose to), but rather, it would be up to me to choose where he would live (who would care for him). My aunt and uncle had three young boys (2-7 years younger than db), his godparents had a recently empty nest, but were facing some financial issues. There were other close family friends who weren't available when the will was made, but might have been if it had needed to be used. He's 30 now, and my parents are still fine, so it never came to anything, but the whole idea that I only had the BIG decisions and not the little day to day ones was actually reassuring for me.

My boys still don't have the hygiene level my dd had at the age we let her get her ears pierced (we tried to make reasonably sure that she'd be able to care for them, and she did -- she also did well with contacts at 10 and has never had any problems with them). We also have a 6 month 'cool down' period from first request before we'll let any child pierce their ears. Other than that, if either of them had a desire to get pierced (I've actually asked them -- they don't), I'd let them go ahead. I'd also let them know that there might be times when it might be against a dress code (if they want to be altar servers at church, they can't wear them to church, some jobs don't allow men's earrings, the Boy Scout troop doesn't allow earrings with class A uniform, etc.), and that they'd have to come up with a plan to get around those things during the healing phase.

I've got to go over to the Round Rock outlet mall today. I'll stop in and see if they have it.

My not quite 12 year old's current plan is to go to culinary school. He'll be completing his first 5 high school credits, hopefully before his birthday (the day he leaves for camp), and only needs 17.5 credits to graduate. He could have those by the time he's 15, easily. When I look back to what he was like at 9, I realize that there's no way to predict what he's going to be ready for at 15, so we're not making concrete plans just yet. I'm fine with him continuing to rack up high school credits if he's not ready to go on to college. Many (most) high school students around here do dual enrollment at the community college at 16 and 17. I'd be willing to let him start at 14 or 15 if he wants to. There's a major university downtown if he's really ready then. There's also a program at a university in a city about 4 hours away that's designed specifically for 16-17 year olds who are ready to move on to college work where they're in a dorm together with specialized services based on their age. Right now, his plan is to graduate at 16 or 17 and go to culinary school in town. He's interested in cooking, and is thinking that having a trade will allow better paying jobs when he actually starts working toward a 4 year degree. But then he has those days when he wavers and decides that he would rather just stay home and do high school work. I just try to remind him that he has a few years before any decisions need to be made, and everything we're doing now is just to keep his options open for when he gets to that point.

The guidelines are set by the cover school. WW3000 = 1/2 credit per book. He really only spent 3 mo, less than 1/2 hour a day on it, so 1/2 credit seems fair. He's not quite 12, so we have plenty of time to accumulate high school credits, I just wanted to make sure that he was starting to get credit for his Geometry, etc.