We used Wee Folk Art's State Studies unit for my two younger kids this year. It's gentle and crafty and still in rough draft form. lol Stack the States was also a hit here, and my daughter and I love the Trekking the National Parks board game.

We're fine with outdoor activities unmasked. We haven't done a lot of indoor activities, but when we start up with coop and activities in the fall they will be masked and I'm okay with that.

Huh, I haven't seen this in my homeschool group, and I kind of feel the opposite way. Maybe I'm not a fun mom with the littles. lol. It's been fascinating to see my young teen's academic interests develop and I find it much more interesting to talk with him about his paper about say, the Iranian Revolution, than to talk to my 8 y/o about her polar bear report. Do you live in an area where there is peer pressure from churches or families to homeschool? I can see that being a factor. Mom isn't really into it, but feels pressured. Teaching little kids is easy, but then she doesn't have an intrinsic reason to keep homeschooling into the later grades, and the peer pressure among moms of older kids is less than among moms of littles? I don't know, I just like to brainstorm I guess. 🙂

Anyone who can rock purple hair can rock one of these.

ARGGHH, my middle kid is like this. I don't know how many conversations we've had about the fact that nobody is born knowing things and that everybody has to learn and practice. Anyway, Miquon is perfect for this kind of kid. 🙂 He's a little better now--he started by accepting instruction from the little monsters in Beast Academy, and he had to grudgingly accept that maybe I knew what I was talking about when I showed him the standard algorithms for multiplication and long division. lol Ah, binge-learning. Not quite as relaxing as binge-watching.

Was that Classical Writing? Each level was named after an ancient whose writing the student was to emulate—Aesop, Homer, Diogenes, etc?

Great for the two or three lessons I managed. There’s a reason we left the stone age. 😄

I love how Miquon looks. I can almost smell the mimeograph ink. 😄 Very nostalgia-inducing, and great for my kid who always wanted to figure everything out himself. Miquon to BA was a good trajectory for him. I love MEP too. Printing doesn’t bother me, and I like the scripted lessons, even if I usually end up explaining things differently to my kiddo who has dyscalculia. In the middle grades it takes a bit of work to provide enough review, but they have extra problem sets and it’s not hard to come up with some extra practice on topics that need it. I was enticed by some of the instagram-worthy programs, but wasn’t able to implement them well. I’m just not organized enough for that sort of thing. And yes, doing math with rocks by the creek was one that I tried. Lol Next year everyone is using BYL and supplementing with their special interests. All of my kids like to read and be read to, so lit-based is our best bet.

I live in the native range of evergreen huckleberries, and while the plants are lovely, I think it would take an awfully long time to grow a hedge. The bushes I planted three years ago are still only about a foot high, and while being in full sun has probably slowed them down a bit, my neighbor's bush in dappled shade took over ten years to reach 6 feet. Yep, slugs in the PNW are enormous. I still grow hostas, but they are near some other plants that I think the slugs prefer so they do fine. I have a picture somewhere of a slug that was as long as the blade of a shovel. I only see those monsters at night. lol

I think a state park would be reasonably safe. Around here at least, the state parks are relatively small and the trails are heavily traveled. In my area, I'd carry bear spray in the more remote state parks, but that may not be a consideration where you live. People do go missing fairly regularly in my area, but mostly in the national parks and forests. I would not hike alone in a remote area. We do not have cell service in many of the places where we hike, which are not especially remote, but I always find it surprising how quickly I can drive from an urban area to the middle of nowhere.

I feel silly now that I never considered that your username meant you played harp. I thought maybe you were a step past mama bear.... I played piano and clarinet through college, but stopped after my schooling was done. I dabbled here and there with various instruments, until I found the hammered dulcimer and fell in love. Like harp, it is easy to get a nice sound from, but once you get the basics down there are lots of directions you can go.

Welcome back! I'm happy to see you here again. Yours is a voice I have missed.

I don't think that I would recognize people by writing style, but by backstory and pet topics. I have recognized posters across platforms, though, and that was a little weird. I guess I don't expect an overlap between WTM and reddit?

But coffee is basically bean soup!

Your meal was great. If a parent has strict rules for what their children eat, they can be responsible for enforcing those rules. My kids haven’t ever had trouble understanding that different parents have different rules, and my kids aren’t neurotypical. Your family has been through a lot, and I wonder if your BIL is micromanaging food because it’s one of the few things that can be controlled at this point? It’s not fair of him to put that on you, though.

I've been making Froebel stars. After watching the video about ten times I can usually make them on my own. lol

I’m with you. Turkey is boring. We’re having steaks and shrimp. 🙂

My ds13, who has many of the same difficulties as your kiddo, made a huge leap between 11 and 13. At 11 we still buddy-read, paragraph by paragraph, and it was difficult and slow going. This year he has devoured the Hunger Games books, Percy Jackson, some random Sci-Fi...I'm kind of amazed. Assigned reading is still another story. lol. His ability to process nonfiction about WW2? Excellent, it's his special interest. His ability to process info from assigned readings? Eh. I find that if I ask him to complete a short outline while he reads it's much better.

No Moxy Fruvous? 😄

How did she sterilize it? When I pierced my college boyfriend's ear, I soaked the (sewing) needle in alcohol, then burned it with a lighter. I thought I was being responsible. lol.

This is true. My parents have two giant oak china cabinets that nobody wants, and a friend of mind recently hauled one to the dump because even the thrift stores don’t want them.

I have my grandparents’ midcentury modern china hutch. I don’t have china, but it’s full of knickknacks, doodads, fossils, rocks that the kids collected, etc. I’m just about ready to switch out the random stuff for Christmas decorations. 🙂

I haven't read The Story of Mankind, but my son started it at the beginning of the year, got a few chapters in, and hated it. We're subbing in readings from the series The World in Ancient Times from Oxford University Press. I found most of the volumes used on eBay at a substantial discount. It does require a little extra work from me, but I've found it pretty simple to look at the HO guide and correlate appropriate readings.

I thought so when I was a teen. I'm really a wimp though. lol. My parents were happy that piercing my ears was the extent of my "rebellion."

First set of holes, in lobes, with a gun at a jewelry shop at age 9: still open, despite not wearing earrings regularly since having kids. Second set of holes, in lobes, with a needle in my bathroom at 15: also still open, despite wearing earrings in these holes even less often. Random holes in lobes done at random times with a needle in the bathroom: all closed up. Cartilage piercings done with a gun at age 18 or so: closed up. Cartilage (tragus) piercing done with a needle at around 20 or so: still open, because it's the only piercing I wear a ring in all the time. Navel piercing closed almost immediately after removing ring. I don't remember when I removed it--maybe when I got pregnant with my first? Anyway, despite wearing a ring in it constantly for probably 8-10 years, it closed quickly.