Dd got a dumb phone at age 9 that she still uses now at age 14. We don't have a land line so we originally got her the phone when she started spending short amounts of time home alone and started to have more activities out of the house without us. We pay for it because it is mostly for our convenience. She started doing a lot of babysitting around age 12 and most houses she sits for don't have land lines so we would have had to get one then even if we had a land line ourselves. She very much wants a smartphone because "everyone else has one." Which in her defense, is true. She is the only one of her high school aged friends that does not have one. We considered gifting her one for her 14th day or this Christmas but have decided against it at this time. We have had some recent trouble with dd following our rules about her laptop and iPod use so don't feel introducing another device would be wise a this time. Maybe 15th birthday? We shall see. When and if we do, we will pay for both he phone and service until she is an adult....mostly because the plan we will get will be bundled and likely not cost us anything more than we are currently paying.

The one I found has a $75 proctoring fee. Dd will be the only person taking an AP exam at that location that day so I think it is reasonable.

Mine is mostly scum too but we also get some mildew. I leave the liner on the rod and pull it all to the side of the shower that does not have the faucet/shower head. Then I pull the curtain, one dirty segment at a time, over so that it is flat against the free wall, and scrub moving along to new dirty segment in chunks in a sort-of wedge formation. I cannot reach the very top of the liner with this method but that part is never dirty enough to need a hard scrub anyway.

We are mostly home-based. Dd will be in 10th grade next year and I will handle math, English, history, and electives. Probably science too, but that is yet to be determined. We will outsource foreign language but I don't know what or how exactly. However, I am nowhere near starting to plan. It is not super daunting as we will likely continue using AoPS for math (intermediate algebra....if geometry doesn't kill us both first) and will continue with my TWTM-style history/writing/lit. I am not ready to plan science yet as I'm not entirely sure what dd will want to do next year. Default is chemistry but I am not ready to even start thinking about that yet. The only thing I am really thinking about is foreign language as dd is finishing up AP Latin this year and wants to move on to Spanish. I don't speak Spanish nor do I know anyone who does so I am looking at online, DE, and local live options. Electives will likely be home based but no idea what or how right now. Frankly, I am just trying to get this year stabilized. The very thought that I should be planning for next year makes me LOL. I am a "super planner" to everyone I know but apparently not in this arena. I am an engineering instructor at our local university and do not have spring semester under control yet so......

I just scrub mine with the same brush and cleaner I am scrub the shower with. It never occurred to me to put it in the washer. I think my washer would shred it to pieces. They are cheap but I still don't like to just toss them if they can be cleaned. I think we have had our cheap one for 10+ years. The one it replaced is still in service, mildew and all, as our firewood cover when we go camping.

We have a 20+ yo Whirlpool that we got on a scratch-and-dent sale. We only planned to keep it, and its sister dryer, until we saved enough to upgrade. They are both still going strong and even survived years of cloth diapers and other abuses. Both have mechanical dials. I have repaired the washer myself a few times and it is easy for even a non-mechanic like myself. It has agitator cogs that are made of cheap plastic so they break every five years or so. That is a five dollar, five minutes fix once we learned how to do it. We have to have a top loader due to the configuration of our laundry room so should it ever give out, we will either seek a simple used one or go with a Speed Queen. I really don't want a washer I cannot open mid-cycle. We once had to diagnose a dishwasher problem using a headlamp-in-a-mason-jar and a cell-phone-in-an-Otterbox scheme because sometimes you need to SEE inside the machine to fix the problem.

I don't know if this was in reference to me or others who posted with troubles. But I wanted to say that, yes, I did go higher up in our local district. All the way to the superintendent. The end story is that my local district has a policy to not do anything to help homeschoolers unless they are legally required to do so. Our bigger problem is that we are 10 hours from the closest school that offers the AP class we need the test for. So we are asking schools to give a test they don't already offer. Apparently, that is a hard sell.

l live where most cross country seasons are at least partially snowy. My dd is not on a team but runs distance off-road several times a week as training for another sport and I also run in snow regularly. If there really is a foot of fresh snow on the ground, they are likely to either cancel the meet or attempt to groom the trail in some way. They may even attempt to take it indoors. A foot is too deep to run in safely. However, 6 inches or less is fine. 25 is not very cold for being active so just long sleeves and running pants, regular running shoes, and synthetic or wool socks if you have them. If not, regular will be fine. A light hat and gloves too. The more important part will be keeping them warm before and after their races. Full on winter coats, boots, warmer hat, mittens, and scarf. If they will get sweaty, have dry base layer and socks to change into afterwards. The sport my dd does also involves racing in the cold with a lot of standing around before and after. But much MUCH colder than 25 degrees. If anyone gets too chilled, I have zero problem sitting in the car with heat on full blast to recharge. In fact, parents often rotate on this duty so I might have various team members in and out of my car during races. Some races even have running school buses and portable "warming huts" for racers. Hand warmers are also my best friends.

It is a boarding school that students attend for a single semester, typically 11th but sometimes 10th grade. I don't know a whole a lot about them as a whole but the ones I know of have a particular theme. In dd's case it is a conservation and outdoors themed school. So the curriculum is tailored to that theme with classes like AP Environmental Science, history of conservation, nature in literature, outdoors skills, etc..... Most are endowed so do not cost much, if anything to attend. Dd is looking at it as a way to spend a semester doing something she loves (outdoors), have a "school experience," and seeing what going away to college might feel like. Dd is also interested in two very different career paths and this experience will give her an in-depth taste of one of those while her real life now is giving her an in-depth taste of the other. I have no idea how it would look on a transcript. For us, as homeschoolers, it will look like any other classes she is taking from outside providers. For someone in traditional school, which is where most semester school students appear to come from, I imagine the classes show up as transfer credits. The school dd is interested in is accredited by the NCA and is an approved AP provider and test center. It is not something I would have specifically sought out for dd but she found out about it on her own and has expressed a now long-term desire to attend. So, we will try to make it happen. ETA - You probably heard both mentions from me. I brought it up in the AP test site thread too. I don't think many people know what a semester school is.

I won't quote all of your posts, Sebastian, but I really appreciate your words. The goal is one hour a day but sometimes that ends up being more like 90 minutes. It seems we always get into some meaty problem right before the hour mark and lose track of time. I do work all of the problems myself. That is the only way I can really be helpful since I learned geometry with some different methods and a very very long time ago. Dd does often beat me to the answers and sometimes I get stumped, which is humbling. Dd has been good about accurate drawings and we just added color, which has helped. Getting her to write all of the things down when stumped is a work-in-progess, but she sees me modeling it so hopefully she will eventually start doing that without my prompting. I like the idea of a concepts notebook. We actually did this during Pre-A but somewhere along the line it got dropped. Reading through and understanding the solutions is very important as sometimes we arrive at the correct answer without using the same method or fully proving. More than anything though, I am glad we are not the only ones wallowing in Chapter 5 at this late date. I am starting to come to the conclusion that it is better to stick with what dd likes even if we don't get as far as I had hoped. I think I have this panic every November, but it seems worse this year! Do you do the challenge problems? We stopped tackling those mid-way through Intro to Algebra just because we were running out of time. To be honest, my dd couldn't do most of them anyway. The regular review problems are challenging enough. But I do wonder if that will cause long-term issues.

That is very good to know about the pre-calc book. We have a potentially complicated scheduling issue that is making DE a strong possibility. Dd may attend one semester at a semester school her 11th grade year and she likely would not take math at the school, leaving one semester to cover pre-calc. It will also be a light semester at home so that seemed like a good point to introduce DE for math. But there are so many unknowns at this point that I am keeping all options open. We are not as concerned about the permanent record issue because dd is likely not interested in very selective schools or a likely candidate for major scholarships.

I would hold on to the money until your existing car actually gives out. Put the $200 you have free aside monthly with the $5000. You never know, your car might last much longer than you think and then you will have more options and cash. We had a $500 beater we thought would last us a year while we were in a pinch. We ended up driving it for over 5 years with only routine maintenance. Meanwhile keep your eye out for any can't-pass-up deals that you can pay 100% in cash There are plenty of reliable cars in the $5k range....and in five months you will have $6K. ETA - I missed that you to start paying the $5K back now. Same plan applies though but you are paying down your loan at $200/month while waiting for your car to really die.

We're using it this year. I have a 2-credit block for history, literature, and writing. The writing portion works out to be 2/3 of a credit but is split between writing essays on history and literature topics and rhetoric. We are using this book as "rhetoric" and we pace it by completing two exercises a week which take about two hours. Some of the exercise sets take longer so we will spread them out over two days when necessary. Dd has learned a lot from it already so I am pleased. She has especially felt more confident doing essay peer reviews.

Another step up to Intermediate Algebra is very scary to me right now! Dd does not do the challenge problems. And I think she would be very amused to see "normal" geometry problems. There is no way I could have done this level of work when I took geometry in high school and I got straight As in that class. Luckily, I am very strong in math so I have am able to help and accurately grade her work. However, I might be too far removed from highs school math to know what could be skipped.

I feel a little better knowing hints might be OK. Sometimes the very tiniest of hints gets dd going in the right direction. And to be honest, I have gotten stuck on a few problems myself! I think you are right about switching to a more traditional program being difficult. Every year I check out several different books from ILL so dd has chance to see other options and she has had no interest in the more traditional approaches. Sigh. I knew this before asking the question but was hoping there was some magic program out there that I have missed that has a similar approach at AoPS without it being so blazing difficult and time consuming.

It is good to know that slogging through chapters 5 and 6 means a good chance of moving on successfully. I cannot see us getting through this whole book. However, to be honest, I say this with AoPS every November and so far dd has finished each book on time so it may be seasonal. But I figure if she continues to put in the hours, if a reasonable amount of the book is finished, I will call it a credit even if we do have to go back and finish up at the beginning of the next year or over the summer. DO is on my short list. Dd took Physical Science through DO and enjoyed it. She did not find it challenging but I suspect the math classes are different. Long term, Intermediate Algebra is the last class I plan to teach at home. I am hoping dd will DE for pre-calc on up. This is part of the reason I would like to stick with AoPS. I think dd will be able to handle the faster pace of DE with a solid AoPS background. If we switch to a more traditional curriculum, I feel DE might be too much of a jump. Luckily, I can teach math all the way through if necessary so we do have options.

There are good points here. I don't have the Intermediate Algebra book. I hesitate to go that route just because I think that might be even more difficult. And dd likes geometry. A lot, actually. Her drawings are good. I check them. She added the use of color thanks to a suggestion here and that has helped. Dd does struggle sometimes to show all work and to carefully list givens and assumptions, but that is a work in progress. The sleeping on problems is smart. A fresh look always improves the situation. I think I may just be too focussed on how much time and how little "progress" I am seeing. Mostly, I am dreading the possibility of taking geometry to the beach with us this summer.... But, I had not explored the possibility of moving on and coming back to problems later. That is something we can try.

It must be geometry month on this forum..... It pains me to write this, but I am considering a change in geometry curriculum. Dd (9th grade) has been using AoPS Geometry this year. She used AoPS Pre-A and Intro to Algebra. She is not what anyone would call an "advanced" student and is not super mathy but has not ruled out a STEM career down the road. Dd really likes the discovery approach to AoPS and it has been 100% her choice to use this program thus far. The year started out great and she looked forward to math each day. But, two things are happening now that compel me to investigate a different approach. First, the time AoPS is taking is simply not sustainable in dd's school day this year. She has two other very challenging subjects and is a slow worker. She is just not making the kind of progress necessary to complete the subject in one year, even if we went through the summer. Second, dd has hit a wall. Everything was going well until Chapter 5. She finally got through all of the sections but she is just not "seeing" the paths in these problems anymore. She fully understands them once we work through them together but she cannot seem to come up with the path herself much of the time (I'd say 50% of the time). Often a small hint is enough for her to see it. It looks like this single chapter is going to take a full three weeks to complete. I think her lack of math maturity and natural talent has finally caught up to her with this program. I asked on this forum if chapter 5 was difficult for others (we found this to be true of specific chapters in the other AoPS books) but it seems that this is not a common "hiccup chapter" for others. I am looking for recommendations. We will likely start from scratch as though this is the beginning of the year. Dd prefers a program that teaches to the student although I am able and willing to step in whenever necessary. She would prefer something that is simply book based with no videos or online components. I would prefer a program that offers books for the entire high school series so that if it does work well, dd does not have to get used to a different approach each year. Lastly, as a last-ditch effort, if anyone has a AoPS Geometry pep-talk-of-hope to give us reason to consider sticking with it, I am all ears. Dd is very resistant to changing programs. I feel she is actually learning more than she would with another program but also think the issues are going to snowball as AoPS builds off of previous topics. If she is not seeing the "path" in many of the problems now, I can only imagine that will get worse in later chapters. But I guess I don't know that to be true, so advice would be very welcome.

If it really were just a "small part" it would not be such a problem. The junk is everywhere. My dd is now a teen and a big foodie who prefers to eat healthily. But, if she had a preference, for junk food, she would have plenty of access just by living out in the world. Every single event, even one hour meetings, have to have snacks now. Her 90 minute orchestra rehearsals had a break for snacks. Soccer practices ended with snacks. Book club - snacks. And rarely are the snacks healthy. When dd was between the ages of 5 and 12, there frequently were two events that she attended daily that involved junk. It was maddening. I can see why teachers want to cut out the holiday and birthday sweets. It is not even special anymore. Even the chiropractor office has a bowl of candy on the desk and the office worker at my office has been pushing candy on dd every time she comes to my office since she was born. Add dumbed down kids' menus and grandparents and playdates and birthday parties and holidays. It is not a "small part" of most kids' diets. Unless you are willing to be a hermit, your kids are going to either be eating a great deal of junk or you have to put limits on it. I was a limiter. I did not forbid treats when out but we talked a lot about "sometimes foods" and tried to limit to one treat a day. This meant that for years I did not make or serve dessert at home and never kept ANY junk in the house because dd was getting more than enough out of the house. This is one of my biggest parenting pet peeves. I am on the BOD of a sporting organization and a big part of our mission is to provide programming for very young beginners. I am currently embroiled in a fight over juice! The kids do their activity for one hour then get juice at the end. The cost and hassle of dealing with the juice is causing problems so I suggested we get rid of it. People looked at me like I was insane. The prevailing opinion was that the kids wouldn't be interested in the sport unless there was juice at the end. Really? It is not even special anymore. And do we really want kids involved in the activity who are only doing it for the juice? It is ONE hour. The kids will live.

That really depends on the 17yo. In theory, yes, I think it would be fine for some. For others, no way! The safety of the neighborhood would be another factor.

I currently have a 9th grader so this may change with her age, but she is currently covering about one book per month in a style similar to how Lori D describes with additional research on the history of the times, the author, the genre, and some analytical writing. I am also calling a combo of great books, rhetoric exercises, and history 2 credits.

I have one and we are done. We did not have a set plan for number of children or age cut-off in mind but an only was not on our radar. I was 28 when she was born. Within a year of her birth, we both just felt like our family was the perfect size and eventually took permanent measures to keep it that way. Looking back, I have no idea what prompted us to be done at one. I had an easy pregnancy and labor. Dd was a happy, easy baby. She did not sleep though, and that was one factor. Now that dd is a teen (who STILL struggles with severe insomnia), I am very very glad she is an only. There was no way to anticipate just how expensive kids get as they grow up. And the teen girl drama is amazing. Our finances and nerves are stretched to the limit now. I am now learning that my tolerance for chaos, exhaustion, and stress is abnormally low compared to most mothers.

We used all three levels and did not skip any parts except for a handful of chapters that focussed on TV shows or movies or something like that. I don't remember exactly but I do remember that it was only 2-3 weeks worth, at the most. Some weeks did take more than a week. We covered the three books over four years.

Would you mind sharing what these questions are? I just passed my 3rd edition on to our local library after I upgraded to the 4th edition. We are currently using the study guide but it is very laborious and I'm not sure it is the best fit for my dd. Nevermind! I found the four question in my edition. I was thinking of something else entirely.

Dd doesn't have a set rate but tends to decline future jobs from anyone that pays less than $7/hr or so (for one child). Two or more children bumps that to $10. She is a really busy girl with other ways to make money so will only babysit if it is really worth it. ETA - We live in a low COL area and many people are not willing to pay those rates. We always paid our sitters $10/hr for one child but they were usually college students. And good, reliable sitters were so valuable to us that we would have paid significantly more if necessary.