I know a handful of families with the same policy for the same reason. I know if I had more than one kid, I would go there too. I HATE hosting sleepovers and I would rather cover my bases in as few nights as possible. I also know of families that encourage their second, third, etc... kid to invite a friend as well because it decreases the conflict between siblings during the sleepover (pesky little brother trying to bother the others type thing). And I know still others that just enjoy a full and high-energy house and welcome as many friends as their kids want at any time. I really don't see anything wrong with any of it.

Just curious. Why? About half of the engineering students at my university come to school having only completed pre-calc, or less. Is it just to make that first calc class less of a shock? Or another reason I have not thought of?

That's your opinion. Some people do think it "works well" for trips out of the country. My personal line is somewhere between "short local trips" and "trips out of the country," but that is for each to make their own call. There is no right or wrong here. Some families have a different definition of "family." Some expand that definition generously.

I'm with you on your second point. No one wants their kid to be used as an example of "less privileged." I don't think , anyway. But your first point, why not? We don't bring other kids on vacations with us because we cannot afford to do so and it is not something I would want to do. But we do vacation WITH other families for a variety of reasons, one of which is so the kids have each other to entertain (sometimes) while the adults do something they want to do. It may be as simple as the adults playing a complicated card game together while the kids play a less complicated game. I have also suggested dd invite a friend over when I know I am going the spend a few hours organizing the pantry or working on a project or whatever. Bonus points if I actually like the kid she wants to invite over. Dd is happy. The kid she invites over is happy. I get something done. Wins all around. I'm not seeing the downside here. We don't know that that is the reason the OP's child was invited on the vacation or other outings. It may very well be that their child likes the OP's child and they are happy to extend the invitation for no other reason than they can. I fully support the OP's decision to decline for any reason she wants. But I do not get being miffed that they asked.

I am looking for Christmas gifts for several under 5yos. It has been a looooong time since I have done shopping in that age range so I'm struggling to wade through the Google options. I'm looking for free shipping and natural-ish toys. I know play good is at least one item on my list. I am not a fan of Melissa and Doug unless their quality has improved significantly in the the last few years.

I have bookmarked the page as we are looking for a chemistry class next year. I see on your website that "Regular Chemistry" is recommended for students who do not plan to pursue a STEM path. Is it different than what would be covered in a regular non-honors chemistry class? Would a student who took that class be unprepared for college level chemistry later on? My dd is considering a STEM path but is probably not a good candidate for the honors class at this time.

I have been mulling this over for the last few days and I think this is the direction for us. Dd likes AoPS and is progressing, even if slowly. I have been too fixated on what I see as the "normal progression" of her getting to calculus for senior year. When I step back, I would MUCH rather she enjoy and fully understand math than get to a certain point at a certain time. There are plenty of STEM kids who wait until college to take calculus, I know because I teach them! And many of those students who did power through calculus while still in high school have weak math skills. I am going to take some deep breaths and let go of the "plan." I can count her 8th grade algebra as a high school credit so therefore she will still have four full credits even if I only assign one credit to geometry that takes 1.5 years. (I know there are other ways to assign credits and I will explore those, but the short answer in my head is that she will still have four full high school credits no matter what). This also takes the time pressure off should she indeed attend the semester school she is considering.

Gifting is not my immediate family's love language and we are generally frugal so there has never been an impressive spread under the tree when we are home. Dd, who is now a teen, only receives one joint gift from Dh and I and one from "santa" each year. If we are having a good year and dd has requested something substantial, we will consider that as a gift option but other years when things are a bit slim, the gifts may be pretty inexpensive or things she needs anyway. Plus a stocking that is mostly filled with fruit and nuts. The whole gift part takes about 20 minutes. Contrast that to every other year that we spend with our extended family where the gift opening takes hours and hours and hours....sometimes days. Dd always got so overwhelmed by those gift opening days. She never knew or remembered who gave her what and the mess and noise drained her by noon. There were a couple of years at ages 5 and 7 when she started crying partway through gift opening and I had to take her somewhere quiet and calm while the rest of the family protested. It was not fun for her:( In those early years, we (her parents) didn't even bother getting her gifts because we knew she would be buried and not even notice. So, we have always focussed on other traditions and did plan ahead to make those traditions transfer well as dd gets older or to include others, even perhaps grandchildren one day. I know I personally look far more forward to our annual traditions, be it watching the same dumb movies or trimming the tree, or delivering Christmas day meals through our local senior services than I ever have to the gift opening frenzy. I cannot say what dd's opinion on it all is but I can say she eagerly checks the calendar every year to know when we will make treats for the birds or cookies for our neighbors. And we have had to wake HER up every Christmas morning.

The university I work for also has a popular Scientific and Technical Communication degree program. Several of my friends have this degree and have done very well for themselves. I don't think it is a rare program.

This is the boat we are in and this is now my plan. There is pretty much no way I am going to tangle with my local district again anytime soon unless I absolutely have to.

I don't live in Texas and it is currently snowing heavily outside my window but I can say that I grow tomatoes and our entire growing season is in the temperature range you describe. Typically 40s, maybe 50s, at night, 60s-70s during the day. So depending on variety, it seems they should continue growing. We pick at the first threat of frost.

It seems like practice at home with SAT practice tests might be the easiest and least-impactful choice? I don't think dd will be a NM contender so if that is the only reason aside from practice to take the PSAT, I'd rather skip the hassle.

I didn't realize that finding a PSAT site can be as difficult as finding an AP site. Having just been through the AP site process, I now know that I will have to travel a greta distance to find a school that will help us with anything they are not legally required to do. Given that, I'm wondering if taking the PSAT is worth it. Someone in the zombie thread mentioned just taking the SAT early if practice is the goal. I know there are scholarships attached to the PSAT, but aside from that is there any reason to take that rather than just practice with the real thing?

There are several squash types that work well. Acorn is the traditional stuffing squash. The related carnival squash works as well as any acorn-shaped squash. Delicata is our favorite in taste and its boat shape allows for easier stuffing. Spaghetti is also great for stuffing. I am sure there are many others that will work well as long as they have a shell that hardens with cooking rather than wilts. The wilters are my soup squashes. I am terrible at using actual recipes. I will put just about anything in a squash at least once. Prep is the same for all. Cut the squash in half, remove the seeds (I put these in the freezer for soup stock), and place face down on a cookie sheet in a 375 oven for 30-40 minutes. Once a fork goes easily into the thickest part, it is ready. I am often working with several different sizes at once so I might have to take the smallest out earlier. Once all done, flip them all bowl side up and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Then stuff and put back in oven for another 20-30 minutes. You can also stuff and put in fridge until you are ready to do the final cooking. There are a few stuffing favorites that I come back to. My family's favorite is a ricotta based stuffing. I sauté up an onion and a few cloves of garlic then add 3 chopped apples or pears for the last 3 minutes. Toss in a bowl with a pint of ricotta, a cup or so of finely shredded cheese (cheddar, parmesan, or jack all work well), the grated zest of one lemon, a half cup of chopped nuts (any will do), salt, pepper, a dash of nutmeg, and a handful of dried fruit (I usually substitute in fresh or frozen cranberries if I have them). Mix and stuff into 6-8 squash halves, mounding as necessary to use it all up. Another favorite is a stuffed pepper knock off. Fry up some onions, peppers, jalapeño or chipotle (if you like spice), and some garlic. Add salt, pepper, and chili powder to taste. Add a can of tomatoes, a can of whatever beans (meat would probably also work), and 2-3 cups of rice or quinoa until hot. Take off heat and add whatever combo of chopped avocado, cream cheese, or shredded cheese you have on hand and stuff into squashes. A little cheese on top is usually appreciated. Extra bonus points if I flip the squashes bowl side up for the last 10 minutes of pre-cooking, poke with a fork, and pour a little adobo sauce from canned chipotle into the bowls to caramelize before stuffing. Serve with salsa, sour cream, and corn chips. My garden produces huge spaghetti squash so they are usually too big for stuffing. But when I get a few smaller ones, I pre-cook as usual but when I flip them up, I add salt and pepper then bring up all of the strings with a fork and dump into a bowl, preserving the shells for stuffing. I then make an almost baked ziti type filling by adding tomato sauce, parmesean/mozz/ricotta cheese, Italian herbs, finely chopped greens, and a cup or two of leftover cooked pasta elbows. Mix, restuff shells, and heat in oven. Aside form my standards, I have no problem putting just about any leftover in a squash and calling it dinner. I grow enough squash for us to have it at least twice a week in the winter and I have always been a "one pot" cook so if I can make a side dish into dinner, I am all about it. I will even take the smallest ones, cook face down, flip, and crack a single egg into each. Bake until egg is set.

I would not say I am "worried" about it, I had just not put a lot of thought into just how easy it is to cheat. I feel like I need to start having regular conversations about it with dd and make triple sure I am not missing any potential opportunities for her to cheat. After reading the responses and thinking on it some, ideally, other students cheating has little impact on the non-cheaters. One area that I have seen first hand, as a previous poster mentioned, is an instructor maybe not realizing a quiz or exam has issues because there may be no "outcry" from the students. Once, dd had an exam in which a good chunk came out of left field. Dd did uncharacteristically poorly on it. It was the type of exam where we can see it after it is taken so she and I went through it and found that about 1/3 of the content had not been covered in class or in the textbook. I told her not to worry about it, that I was sure the teacher would figure it out and address it with the class. Class came and went with no mention. I finally had dd email the teacher with the specific question numbers. The teacher indeed had made a mistake and put the wrong content on the exam. Dd was the first to alert her. There are only two explanations for why this is true. Either the other students simply didn't care that there was content that seemed to come from nowhere and the poor grades that would have had to result from that mistake. Or the other students cheated on the exam without even realizing the content was not appropriate. I was baffled by the situation until this thread. That is a "little" thing in the scheme of things, I guess. I don't think I would encourage dd to turn in another student unless she was required to do so by the class policy. No good can come of that.

Stuffed squash is on our menu once a week. There are endless stuffing options. Another weekly staple is roasting up a huge pan of winter veggies, whatever is cheapest or most available. Beets, celeriac, winter radish, potato, brussel sprouts, rutabaga, kohlrabi, parsnips, etc.... Pair that with brown rice/millet/barley/whatever and top with blue cheese or walnuts or sour cream or whatever I have. This also makes great leftovers. I make brothy soups stretch and increase the protein by poaching eggs right in the soup during the last five minutes of cooking. Each person gets at least one egg. If you do this, remove from the pot any soup you think will be leftover before adding the eggs. Baked potato bar is my go to emergency dinner.

I am putting this in the high school forum because I am thinking mostly of the young adult subset of homeschoolers who may be less supervised during their academic activities. Dd mentioned that one of her classmates in one of her online classes was expelled from the class due to cheating. She didn't know the nature of the offense. This turned into a lengthy conversation about cheating and online classes. I am home with dd most days and am literally right next to her during exams and most graded work so she does not have an opportunity to cheat. I feel that is my end of the deal....to ensure that dd's work is indeed her own. But I know some kids are home alone or not supervised closely at all times. Dd said she suspects that many people cheat in online classes because it is extremely easy to do so when a student is not supervised. She expressed a normal level of dismay at the unfairness of perhaps being compared or graded against students who may have cheated. She specifically mentioned the NLE exam (not an online class, obviously) where students are ranked based on the performance of the group as a whole. I believe the instructions for the exam require direct supervision, or at least that is always what I have done, but dd is correct in that it would be very easy to cheat. There may even be parents who would allow/encourage their child to cheat since scholarship money is at stake. I had not really thought of it that way and because I am home and supervising, I had not put any thought into the subject until now. How common do you think it is for students to cheat in online high school level courses? Do you talk to your kids about this? If so, what are your talking points? Have you ever caught your own child cheating? If so, how did you handle it? Has your child ever had knowledge of another student cheating? If so, what did he/she do about it? Are online providers doing enough to ensure cheaters are not negatively affecting non-cheatng classmates? Or is that really the parents' job?

Ah. So they don't both have to be perfect squares on their own but by looking for perfect squares we can be assured their product will be a perfect square. That makes sense. Thanks! However, they is no way my 14yo was going to figure that one out on her own. Sigh.

I think I am missing something. I have the solution manual but I cannot understand part of the rationalization for the approach. This is exercise 6.3.6 dealing with Pythagorean triples. After setting up the problem we are to solve for a and b in the equation: a^2 + b^2 = (97)^2 This is rearranged to: a^2 = (97+b)(97-b) where we are to use trail and error to find b so that the right hand side of the equation results in a perfect square. The solution manual says that (97+b) and (97-b) must each (on their own) be perfect squares and that is key to solving the problem. Why is this true and where does that "rule" come from? I have reworked the problem and numbers using a simple 3-4-5 triple where I do not find this to be true: a^2 = (5+b)(5-b) If a=4 and b=3, the equation is satisfied and does result in a triple but both (5+b) and (5-b) are NOT perfect squares so I cannot figure out how we were to come to the conclusion that this must be true in order to solve for 6.3.6.

I feel like that stuff should be illegal or something. How can it smell good to anyone?!?! My own washer has never been contaminated but dd likes to thrift shop for funky clothes. I swear it takes 5 washings to get the stink out. Sometimes we cannot get it out at all, especially with synthetics. One huge pet peeve of mine involves sports uniforms. Dd is on a team where she is issued a race suit and warm-up jacket each year. I always take great care to wash ours per the instructions which clearly state NO fabric softener or scented detergents. But every year, even if she is issued the very same items, they stink because they are stored in the same tote as all of the others and someone has used stinky stuff. It was so bad last year that she could not wear her jacket in the car. I am contemplating biting the bullet and purchasing her own set, at the tune of $500, because it is causing breathing problems during workouts and races.

We also do a tree ornament. This was a tradition in both dh's and my family growing up and it is really fun for dd to look at all of our childhood ornaments when decorating the tree. She now has a healthy collection of her own for when she leaves home. We also have a rule that EVERY single ornament must go on the tree, no matter how ugly, damaged, or tacky. With our ever-growing collection, our tree is a droopy but lovely mess. It is temporary as one day in the not-so-distant future, all of dd's ornaments will be occupying a new tree. If you do this though, do be willing to let go of the tradition. Of all of our siblings, dh and I are the only ones who actually took our ornaments and carried on the tradition. One sibling has chosen not to include her childhood ornaments on her trees and the other two don't even decorate trees. This is very upsetting to our mothers. We have gone in with our eyes wide open that this tradition might end when dd becomes an adult should she so choose. But it is still worth doing for the here and now.

Our tradition is fancy fruit we don't normally have like pomegranates and whole coconut. Or nuts in the shell. The more work/effort it takes the eat, the better. Dd is a teen now so it doesn't apply as much but nothing seemed to calm the holiday crazies like sitting her down with a pomegranate or a pile of nuts with the cracker to work on for an hour or two. A little messy but at least healthy.

We haven't had a landline in 15 years which is before dd (14) was born. The first time she heard a "real telephone" ring in a restaurant at around age 8, she was startled. Our current house does not even have phone lines connected to it. Aside from airports, I cannot think of when I last saw a working pay phone.

I'm sure there are other subjects like Latin that few schools offer. My locals were not going to help because, as I have now learned, all are hostile to homeschoolers. I am sure there are reasons for this that I do not have the context to understand. When I started looking for districts that offer Latin, I learned that we are far far FAR away from any that do. 10 hours driving distance far. We are very much geographically isolated and rural so there simply are not a lot of options available to us. Most school districts within a 5 hour radius of us do not offer AP at all. I naively assumed that some school within a reasonable drive would help us out. Now I know at is not the case and will plan accordingly in the future.

No. Wisconsin.