Maybe I'm lucky that my oldest is in company dance and many of the other girls are homeschooled. Last year the dance company paired all the littles with an older "sister" in company. She was paired with Sarah (Sarah and Zara lol) who was also homeschooled. Sarah liked all the same activities, books and movies that my daughter liked. It was fantastic. Z spends several nights at the studio a week and the girls do get to chat and visit. It meets a need that wasn't filled by our time at co-op. We attended two classes in co-op and both times my daughter frequently ended up working alone when her partner didn't show up. That didn't meet the need for community at all. I'm in the south, so maybe church communities are different here, but I can't imagine a situation where that wouldn't meet your husband's criteria for community. Why does it have to "homeschoolers"? Kids are kids. They have diverse interests and nothing guarantees that your child will find a compatible friend there just because they are both homeschooled. Same goes for you. I have a number of close friends and not one of them homeschools. I probably wouldn't talk to them much about it if they did. I tend to depend on the hive for homeschool support and advice and wouldn't want anyone I know personally offering me input on my decisions (I'm kind of defensive that way).

Mmmmmm. Coffee. Today I will have the house to myself to clean clean clean. I'm so excited!

I could have written your post myself, except for the husband part. :) My husband is also an introvert so he gets me. My kids have neighborhood friends they play with (at my house all the time lately and it's making me crazy), dance friends and soccer friends. That's enough for me. I didn't like giving up a whole school day to co-op because I felt rushed the rest of the week to cram all the other stuff in. You can't make an introvert into an extrovert just by forcing them out of the house. Good luck to you.

Sequential Spelling or Apples and Pears. My oldest improved with both. She's 10 now and still has a ways to go, but last year she finished up the first Sequential Spelling and asked to switch to Apples and Pears which her sister was using. Dramatic improvement over the course of the year. Previously we had tried AAS, and Logic of English Essentials with no improvement.

That's fantastic! Congrats to her. It looks great!

This is us. 30 per child at bedtime. Occasionally longer or occasionally at some other time of day, but my 10 year old reads avidly on her own. My seven year old has no desire to be read to during the day. S he is a very active little person and has no patience for sitting around hearing books until bedtime. At that point, you have her full attention.

I was going to suggest this too!

At our dance studio, we only had one male (he graduated this year). He got all of his classes for free because they really needed him to fill a male role in performances. Lucky guy. It's costing me a fortune to send my two girls.

From their page: Can I get credit for books I’ve already read? For each list, you may count no more than ten books previously read. The program is designed to encourage youth to read, and if a significant portion of a list has been read previously, you may either re-read the books or choose another list.

Already entered! Enjoyed your review too.

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I'll have a fifth grader this fall too! I can't believe I've been homeschooling for four years already, and soon five! I'm outsourcing history/science which are the two things I feel we don't get to enough. I'm free to focus on the things I really enjoy while making sure the other still gets done.

This was exactly our experience! Looks like we both ended up with Apples and Pears.

Ok, I'll be the weird one. We only use BA. My daughter doesn't need a lot of review and appreciates challenging work. I have a zaccaro book, but we only used it briefly when we outpaced the BA publishing schedule.

I'm so over this whole homeschool thing. I'm calling it quits tomorrow (for the term, not forever). Now I can hang out here full time. ;)

Dance two kids, $4500 Soccer: free, dad coaches Music lessons: $2000 Ugh. Just seeing it spelled out makes me a little queasy.

Good Morning! It's the day before dance recitals and I have SO much to do! So what am I doing? Sitting here with a cup of coffee passing the time.

I'm here because insomnia. Just saying.

Unfortunately, my youngest has inherited my anxiety and my allergies. She is headed down the same road and is only six. I wonder sometimes what my life would have looked like if my parents had gotten help for me when I was young. They had their own overwhelming issues and my anxiety was just a drop in the bucket, but early treatment might have made all the difference in my case. I don't blame them. They were suffering through a lot and you can only do the best you can do.

Yes, I totally had irritability and anger outbursts and standard antidepressants made it much worse. I failed with Wellbutrin, Zoloft, Lexapro, Pristique and some other antidepressant that I can't name at the moment. I was a mess for a long time. I've been a happy healthy adult thanks to Lamictal. It saved my life and my marriage.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE teaching math, but I do forsee a time when I will need my husband's help. He's the chemical engineer at our house and the king of all things mathy.

And now I'm doubled. Jeez. I'm going to bed.

If I quote on my phone, it posts the quote and then later my response. Alice in wonderland style I say..."Curiouser and curiouser."

If I quote on my phone, or posts the quote and then later my response. Alice in wonderland style I say..."Curiouser and curiouser."

Bipolar 2 with anxiety. Combination of high dose Lamictal (best thing that ever happened to me) and low dose Abilify. I'm a loveable easy going individual now.