Grade 5 at age 8 is very exceptional. Your ds is very talented.

This close to the exam I would hesitate to fire him because of the impact it could have on you ds and his performance on the exam. But because of the poor attitude of the teacher you need to make sure all the needed elements are there for the exam. Need to make sure your son has been prepared. Not sure how to do that without getting another teacher onboard unless you have the expertise yourself. I am just not sure that you have time to switch and do the exam. After the exam formally stop for a break and locate a new teacher if you still need to. Also read your contract with this tutor now so you know how to handle the break without needing to pay for months. Friends have discovered some surprises in their contracts. ETA. I think the exam in question is ABRSMhttp://gb.abrsm.org/en/exam-booking/exam-dates-and-fees/

I think she used to write for Love Inspired but haven't investigated yet. The O'Malley series is what keeps getting referred to. I could have easily read the first book first! There is sort of an unusual wrap up to it in this book, a bit of an unusual twist, that would have been fun to read after those. If you haven't read Full Disclosure you would like it. The part with the O'Malleys is different. Interesting.....

Praying that his bilirubin count decreases. Continuing to pray.

I missed this. Congratulations to your ds! :)

I read I am Pilgrim last summer and enjoyed it. I don't remember it as well as I should but remember the timing as being paced really well. i had to laugh at Kareni's What's on your book shelf? link, I saw that and all I could think is NOT what is supposed to be. When the new bookshelves arrived last winter I was sick in bed. Dh and Dd reorganized all the school books for me, overall a great job--aesthetically much nicer than ever before. Now dd has a German exam in two weeks and wants a series of German books that we own and expects me to find them. Dh has tried to be fair. Ordered a couple others in the series to start on, Prime is my friend. :lol: Searching the boxed books in the garage tomorrow. I have been reading a romatic suspense novel by Dee Henderson called Full Disclosure. Overall an enjoyable read. My one complaint is I have serveral books by this author to chose from and picked this one because it was not part of a series. Well that isn't quite true, not dependant on a seies but populated by characters from other books by this author. I love series books but really don't like to be out of order. I was curious about the suspense aspect by the time the series issue raised it's head. Next time I just need to stop reading.

Continuing to pray! :grouphug:

You are a wonderful mother!!!!!!

Glad to see the latest update. Continuing to pray.

Thanks for this list. Several sound interesting and they are actually at my libraries. My holds list is growing. ;) ETA....One of the books that intrigued me was The Revolutions by Felix Gilman, to be honest my library had a far more captivating description then NPR which made me go looking for reviews. This http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/2014/07/the_revolutions.shtml is fascinating. I don't have the skill to do any more than link but along with a great description compares this book to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I just keep coming back to that book this week. Both covers are really good imo. I am getting the one without the newspaper article apparently.

I managed to finish an interesting cozy today. Frozen Stiff https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12071692-frozen-stiffwas the third in a series starring a forensic investigator. It was a good combination of light humour and amateur sleuthing which is what makes cozy's popular. I will admit that no more in the series seem to be available to me and I am fine with that. If I run into one in the future I would probably read it.

Continuing to pray. So glad for the update. Thank you. :grouphug:

Double post.....I really don't have anything else to say. Busy day, I didn't read a single page of my book. Not sure that I have ever said that before. ;)

Robin, You haven't missed Jonathan Strange, the BBC is airing it in England first. According to thishttp://www.bbcamerica.com/jonathan-strange-and-mr-norrell/thefirst episode will air June 13. Happy watching. :)

Such a cutie!

Before I get in trouble with someone out there my recent attention has been on the French gcse(so the 16 yo exam) because most of dc's friends have taken it and have been very kind about showing me their grades and materials. So in a sense comparing apples to oranges. The gcse definitely asks several questions in English but level not as high. Dd will get A level credit off her FL subject exams. No one has finished the A level and that does appear to require more vocabulary than the SAT II did, same for the German. Also has a large written component. My somewhat cursory glance has pegged things at roughly AS (17 yo, 1 year of study) level but the one hour time limit on the SAT with the number of questions all in French or Germam definitely ups the challenge level imo. To be honest I am just glad that something exists where dd can demonstrate that she does have foreign language ability. GCSE's are more accessible then in the past but not sure if someone not living here could access them unless through a private school setting like the igcse. The HE kids I know are all getting them in some manner through our councils. I haven't tried so really don't know the path. For English and Maths some colleges are starting to run weekly evening courses for HE students.

In and out with dc's activities but yes portfolios are pretty much other work. For instance the French GCSE has several in class components yet the level isn't honestly that high. This is observation with dd's friends who have done an acceptable job. One friend with A level French plans was shocked that dd was taking an exam all in French. No English. Which is what the French Subject exam was. FYI, the IGCSE track grades on a much higher level than the gcse. Dd's friend had a C on the IGCSE maths, she would have had a very solid A on the gcse. So not equal.

Until the last couple of years most uni bound HE students that I know (or of) did their basic GCSE for maths and english through some method of community type education and went on to College (high school) for their A levels. So there are many who went on just not many who went on directly, if that makes sense. Quite a bit of funding seems to have been made available recently that the 15 and 16 year olds in our larger home ed group are taking advantage of. Some for certificate courses; plumbing, cooking, cosmetology. There are some exams that don't require portfolios. I know some home ed families who are just doing those. For example, some of our big name University's are apparently perfectly satisfied with an A or A* in Latin as opposed to English (pretty sure that is a no portfolio for Latin and I know of two admissions with this). I know of several recent success stories but these involve tons of work finding testing locations and long drives. That being said I have to say most of my home ed friends kids (or at least one of their kids) are Uni bound and several will go the whole way at home.

Wow! I love the door!

Tennis Shoes are pretty popular in the store windows here, wear what is comfortable for you. After one of the WTM no white tennis shoes in Europe threads I went to the mall (we do have a nice big mall) and counted what people were wearing on their feet. It wasn't the busiest of days and I do not live in a popular tourist destination.....can't remember my numbers but almost everyone had tennis shoes on in some form and wait for it....white was one of the more popular colours.

I didn't have time to post my middle of the night read earlier and want to before I forget. I read the second book in the Gideon Crew series by Preston/Childs called Gideon's Corpsehttp://www.prestonchild.com/books/gideonscorpse/I thought it was a real page turner in turns of action packed escapism, rather like the Rollins series many of ud were reading last year. I have never read anything by either of the authors individually but may have to try them. Waiting for the last in the series... Since several of us here are veteran home ed mom's I thought I would mention the really lovely morning I had. I took Ds to a brand new social group that has started in a nearby village mainly because the location sounded nice and a friend wanted to meet there. Over the years we have belonged to many such groups and they always seem to go poof within a year or so. This morning most of my close home ed buddies showed up unexpectedly. We had a great gossip and ds had a great time too. Dd wishes she had come. I really hope this one lasts awhile.

We aren't doing the SAT (doing SAT subject exams) but I would locate a good prep book used or better yet from the libray for both. The SAT is June 6 so prep that first. Especially since he did well the previous time. Pretest for a base line, some books might have a diagnostic pretest which seem to generate a lower score than an actual test for us but knowing the target areas is worth the panic with my kids. I think much of the SAT prep will help for the ACT, grammar, vocabulary, and maths are centainly basic components for both. My plan would be as soon as the SAT is over he gets the afternoon off then starts on the ACT prep materials. Same pattern, full pretest then individual sections based on weak points. Make sure you dgo over the science section well. My kids had problems on the actual even though on practice exams they had booeen near perfect. Rap up with a full test. The Barron's ACT prep book was really good imo. It really helped us to get ready. I think one of the exams has a couple of trigonometry questions and the other doesn't. Someplace I saw a breakdown. So the math is very similar.

Academically I am glad we spent many hours playing with maths when they were little. We also did most of our school via living books. Very hands on art and messy science in the back yard. Great fun and what the dc's talk about from their lives when they were little. For the older years we have travelled quite a bit. Some of it is just an afternoon trip to a nearby place but lots of family outings that dh was able to go on. Yes, I am glad we did the academics because they will hopefully be able to live the lives they want to thanks to the hard work they have done but everything else is what the memories are.....

Praying

Shukriyya, I am so happy to see your post! :) You have been hugely missed. :grouphug: Trying to get a sleepy son out the door to meet his friends or I would say more. I was up most of the night ......the long days here really get aren't good for my sleep patterns.