This year our schedule is: Daily, M-F: PE, Root Words, Spanish, Math The rest is block scheduled in 2-3 hour blocks with homework and reading done on his own time. I think it's ok to have a lower number of in-class and homework hours if you are having your kids do real work, not sit in class while someone drones on or completing busywork nonsense. Your time is just usually more efficiently spent in homeschooling. Mondays: Chemistry, Drama Tuesdays: History, Geography Wednesdays: Literature, Park Thursdays: Horseback riding, IEW, Art Fridays: Park He will decide as the year goes if he wants his weekdays basically full of work into the late evenings or if he wants to finish up stuff on the weekends.

We like A People's History of the United States and America: The Story of Us.

For some great insight into some possible results of abstinence only education, watch "The Education of Shelby Knox" on netflix.

This is what rational gun ownership looks like.

Heck at that point you could build a polyamorous family and everybody could be happy! <3

Maureen, thanks! I have been looking for readers like the Rowan books and not finding much. These look just right! :) Did you see this Kindle one? It looks even easier than the one you mentioned. http://www.amazon.com/secreto-Isabela-aventuras-Spanish-ebook/dp/B00D8RX2SO/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=107IGGIK8K339&coliid=I2MBP7JWW5NEIL

We go shooting for fun. We take shooting classes. I know the difference between people who are rational and safe about guns and people who are a little bit crazy with their weapons. Context is key, and in this case the threat is cleary implied by the context. I'm not interested in interfacing with families where gun ownership is used to intimidate or even be funny.

You might be misunderstanding me. I think what my kid does with his body when I am not there is well out of my control, so I tell him my ideas about best practices and give him suggestions for how to mitigate problems if he is choosing less than best practices. It's not a question of "let". It's a question of doing my best to prepare him for all the things he will face in the world, arming him with information, and giving him the best shot at a good life that I can.

It might be because 16 is the legal age of consent in a lot of places. I don't really know how you can put an age on it. People are so different.

I would tell the boy that if it were me I'd meet the date at the mall or someplace else in the future, never again in a place where someone could easily pull a gun, and to be aware that he might be getting involved with a person with a kind of scary family member.

It is not permissive to permit something. If you allow your children to read books I wouldn't allow my kid to read, that doesn't make you permissive, it makes us different kinds of parents. I don't provide alcohol but my son knows that if he were to make a poor decision and be stuck someplace, he and any of his friends can call me for a ride, no lecture included. Most of them think drinking is stupid and as far as he and I know, none of his friends are having sex yet. So I am not worried that this encouragement of good decision making paired with a safety net is creating drunken sex crazed teens.

It is not permissive if it's not a devastating problem in your home if your teen is sexually active.

Thanks! We are officially starting the week of August 5th, so I guess I will start a week ahead and just do the work so I have some idea of how to help him. Wish me luck! LOL!

We did a health unit in junior high that covered everything I could think of, both in a straight up facts kind of way and in a this is what our family believes about ethics and good choices kind of way. Topics included: how your body changes, masturbation, sex mechanics, sex and how it affects relationships, consent, disease, babies, contraception, abortion, adoption, sex with different genders, different family structures, dating violence, drug use, alcohol use, self harm, medical care responsibilities for both partners once you start having sex, etc etc etc etc. Basically every hard thing I could think of about being a teenager that would be hard to talk about. We didn't usually make eye contact during these lessons but we got through them. The last thing I want for my child is for him to flounder, figuring this stuff out alone in the dark on a steady diet of sexism and violence in the media and in our culture at large. Probably the topic I think is most important, especially for young men, is consent. For years he said he would wait for marriage. Currently he says he would like to have sex, but not yet, but definitely before marriage. I'm thrilled he is talking to me about it. I make sure he knows that whatever choices me makes along the way that he can come to me for help, and so can his partner or his friends if they are afraid to ask their parents. And I think it's time to stock his bathroom with condoms. Maybe I'll put them in his stocking in December!

Thank you! Do you speak Spanish? If not, did you find it difficult to help your kids with this curriculum?

I bought Breaking the Barrier Spanish, level 1, and it looks great, except it's not really broken into something easy for a homeschooler to use. Can anyone who has used it give an example of how you decide what constitutes a daily lesson and what that looks like for you? French would be fine, too, as the materials are similarly structured. Thanks!

I just have to share that after years of "I dunno" my son has a goal. An actual realistic achievable goal. Not only is it realistic and achievable, but it's challenging and difficult and he will have to work so hard to do it and he knows that and he wants to do it anyway! This is not a child who normally responds to challenge very well. He normally would just rather quit. And right now he is struggling mightily with his physics and he still wants to do it! So yay! WOO HOO! And if anyone has any ideas about what sort of things we should pay close attention to for a kid who wants to be a nuclear engineer, please share. ;)

The person who told me it is possible basically said her child is going through Sequoia Choice online charter to do it. She said to talk to the principal about the options. I am just now investigating the possibilities. I hope your guidance appointment goes well! :)

Arizona is very liberal about school choice. You could probably enroll her part time at high school, keep your affidavit, and still be considered a homeschooler. So you would give her a diploma, all your credits would count, and you could count what she did at the school on your transcripts. I've also heard that part time homeschoolers can get community college courses paid for by the state through dual enrollment. That is an option we are looking at.

We use LoF as our main math with very little supplementation. My son is not at all mathy. He did pretty well with both pre-algebra LoF books and is really struggling with LoF Physics. The physics is THERE in a way the biology and economics was jut sort of a flavor for the math. I am glad we are doing it but I am also glad it happened to be released after the pre-algebra books. I suspect that this book would have killed his interest in physics if he had tried it any earlier.

Thank you! I have used IEW with him but not really in an intense way. I find grading writing to be difficult so I really appreciate the feedback. :)

Thanks for the ideas and the encouragement to try the verse. :) I'll try to find a few of these at the local library and see what resonates with us.

I'd like us to read the Iliad and the Odyssey, but I don't think we are going to want to read several hundred pages of poetry. Any suggestions for a condensed prose version of Homer?

Definitely would not restrict bathroom visits in any average circumstance. I would bang on the door and request a bit of hurry if the length of the visits is a problem. I have to pee somewhere between every 3 or 4 hours and every 15 minutes. Depends on the day. I would just wet my pants if I had to wait more than 15 minutes or so on a bad day. I just can't imagine asking anyone else to wait without a really, really good reason.

I have a 9th grader and we still read aloud, and discuss a lot. You could make discussion part of the grade for some subjects. Or maybe you could find shorter things to read aloud, like poetry or short stories once a week instead of every day? Our read aloud time comes when at least one person is doing chores. Whoever is not currently doing a chore reads aloud. We trade off, generally at my discretion (which is really when I am sick of washing dishes or sick of watching him wash dishes and not get them clean). We used to have a lot more read aloud time and I do miss it. One way I have stayed really involved is I flip open the science or math or whatever and pull out some topics to discuss. This helps cement the learning and keeps me in the loop and interacting with him. This is kind of a sad time, isn't it? Homeschooling the youngest in high school, I mean. I'll miss it very much when it's done. :/