Thanks for the advice. The possibility of dd going to school is very slim but I still want to be prepared just in case. We will know more both about school and how to approach AoPS after we have gotten a few months under our belt. If it looks like we really can finish the book, we will. If not, I will have to ask some questions.

Dd is registered for Latin III and did get a few emails. There is an orientation session later this week (that will be recorded to watch later if necessary) and the pre-semester set-up instructions. I cannot say the same has gone out for the other classes. Dd's PSQ opens on Monday.

Well, that is good to hear. I have been keeping myself up at night in fear of math this year. Dd really loves the AoPS approach but there were a couple of chapters that I thought we would still be working on in college!

No answers. I have to cough up $250 for a race suit and almost $1000 in size-specific equipment for a kid that has grown 6 inches in the last 6 months. There is no real wiggle room size-wise for either. I have no idea what to do. If I order big and she doesn't grow, at least she can use it in a future year when she does become that size but then she does not have what she needs for this year. I am dealing with this by not thinking about it.....

Do you (or others) think it is feasible to finish the whole book in a single academic year for a bight-but-not-gifted-pretty-normal-teen? She did AoPS pre-A last year and we barely finished by the end of the year. I get the impression from reading here that there is a big jump from pre-A to algebra? I would prefer to just cover the whole book but don't want to overdo it.

I think in this day of lax responding to anything, a regrets-only would be even worse for predicting numbers. If people have the gaul to show up after not being bothered to actually RSVP, or even worse, not show up after RSVPing, I would think someone who is on the fence, not planning to come, or simply scattered-brained is even less likely to bother to respond to a regrets-only-RSVP, if that makes any sense. I don't have any great answers but I seem to get a pretty good estimate with my method. I do almost all invites by email (not evites or FB which give that REALLY annoying "maybe" option) with a date to RSVP by. On that date, I resend the email to anyone that did not respond with a note at the top that if I do not hear back within 24 hours, I will assume they are NOT coming. I usually get 50% of my actual responses after that email. I then send a freaking reminder email the day before because it never fails that I will get two or three last-minute regrets because people found "something better" to do or someone has a legit illness/conflict/whatever that they would not have bothered to let me know had I not sent that last email. For a 8-couple dinner party, 2 couples bailing is a big deal and I need to know! It actually really bugs me and I host less often that I would like to because I just don't want to deal.

Thank you! This is exactly what I was looking for. Dd may go into traditional school the following year so I would like to have her on track to enter a traditional math sequence should that be required.

I know this has been addressed before but search is failing me right now. We are doing what I would like to call your typical 9th grade "algebra 1" this school year. We plan to use AoPS Intro to Algebra. I vaguely recall that the book actually covers what would normally be two years of high school algebra. Is that correct? If so, at what point in the book should we aim to cover for "algebra1?"

$10K sounds really high so I second the recommendation to get some estimates so at least you know what you are up against. We did that with our aging roof about 5 years ago so we knew how much we needed to put away. In our case a full roof rip-off (there is already three layers) and reinstall is going to run $20K+ so we knew we needed to plan ahead. We probably won't have that complete amount saved in time (since it is currently leaking) but at least we won't be blindsided. Our furnace is 30+ years old and I live in an area where a furnace is absolutely essential. We have it checked over annually and our guy says he sees no reason for it to need replacement anytime soon so it is not on our list of "big worries" at the moment. Is there something about your furnace that has you concerned? I know that a new furnace will be more efficient and a lot of people replace on that alone but until I no longer have water leaking through the roof and far more pressing issues to address, I'm leaving the furnace alone.

Furnaces cost $10K?

I also recommend Kelty or REI. We have a 20 years old Kelty with at least 300 set-ups that is still going strong and can withstand days of heavy rain. I have seam-sealed it one time over its life. We have a newer one that is a bit larger that has withstood the worse storm we have ever camped in without a drop inside. Our REI gear is similarly great but is a bit more expensive. A tent should NOT have to be waterproofed or seam sealed on a regular basis. The fumes are very bothersome for a member of my family so I would not want to have to deal with it...not to mention that stuff costs money and is a hassle to have to do. Almost any tent will weep if the nylon walls are touched in a place that the rain fly does not cover. All of our tents have full rain flies so we do go ahead and have things right up to the sides with no problem. Cheaper tents tend to have less coverage and you have to avoid the walls if you want to avoid weeping.

We have been watching (binge watching, actually) BBC via Tunnelbear. What aspect is not working for you? We have had a couple of times when our "tunnel" got slow so I had to turned it off and back on to get a faster "tunnel." But other than that, it has been great. We used this method for the winter Olympics too.

Dd finished up the last of Analytical Grammar last school year. It has worked well for her and I feel like she has a very good grasp. I do not want to spend much more school time on grammar here on out so I would like to use their reinforcement books. I went to purchase one and found that there are several (The Great American Authors, British, World, etc....). Is one better than the other or should we just go with what she would find the most interesting? And just to cover my bases, anyone have other suggestions for grammar retention? Or opinions about our plan in general? Dd is also taking Lukeion Latin 3 so gets hit with grammar on that end too.

30-60 minutes, 5 days a week? Thanks!!! My dd is excited to try this as I have been a huge flop at teaching science myself....despite the fact that I teach engineering classes for a living....

It sounds like Trail Guides is the way to go with perhaps some supplementing. Sad to say, this is a "get it done" deal in that the school schedule is already daunting this year. Thanks for the suggestions!

Anyone use Derek Owens Physical Science online? We are strongly leaning that way for this school year. I am curious to hear how much time the class required assuming you stayed on the weekly schedule. And really anything else anyone would like to share about their experience. Aside from Lukeion Latin, dd is pretty new to online classes.

Any suggestions for an 8th grader that recently asked if Tennessee is a city?!?

Not that we are organized enough to remember to do this regularly, but a detailed video should be sufficient according to our agent. Should the worst happen, you could work through the video to make an inventory and you would have proof that you really did own those things. Just take a camera through each room and pan slowly, opening drawers and cabinets.

We camp a lot at 30-40 degree nights. If you have not already purchased a tent, I suggest getting the smallest you can all comfortably fit in. This helps with keeping everyone warm. Our family of three uses a 4-man backpacking tent which just barely fits us and we can never tell how cold it is outside. We have never done this but we have friends that will run a small electric space heater to warm the tent up (NOT while sleeping and someone is watching it the whole time). The mom has even gotten up and run it for a few minutes in the middle of the night when it got too cold. They have a VERY large tent so their body heat does not heat the tent up very well. Winter hats for sleeping also helps. We rarely wear them to bed but will put them on if we wake up in the middle of the night if we are cold. If you don't want to invest the time and space into a portable toilet, you can also use wide-mouth mason jars for number one. We keep them in our camper and each of us has a labeled one. It sounds gross but we have used them when it is pouring rain or very cold in the middle of the night. Just wash them in the morning and don't think too hard about it. For sure have lids for them so one does not spill! Animals should be no problem if you keep your food in the car and cook far away from your tent. Obviously, no food IN the tent:) We had a bear raid our cooler a few years ago when we forgot to put it in the car. It was a very exciting evening. Almost as exciting as the time we had a bat in the pop-up.......

Meal prep and cleanup is about the only thing I don't like about camping. Dh is hopeless in the kitchen and even worse when we don't have a real kitchen. And his idea of "taking care of the dishes" is waiting until every single camp dish has been dirtied which means we run out of stuff and insects/animals get into the pile of dirty dishes. I waved the white flag years ago. Now, unless we can cook it on a stick or wrapped in foil, everything I bring is no-cook. This cuts WAY down on dishes and my actual input. People can make a sandwich anytime without me. And they get extra points if they prepare and eat it out of a cloth napkin so the washing machine can take care of it after we are home, rather than me washing a plate. It turns out you can cook just about anything in foil on a fire grate. Burritos, potatoes, lasagna, roasted veggies, etc..... I make those things at home and we just roll in foil and reheat. Again, extra points if you eat it in the foil and DON'T USE A PLATE. I still have to do dishes every day to keep the pests away but I can usually do them all in ten minutes and go back to my hammock.

I am MUCH less lax whenever I am feeding anyone outside of my own family. For me anyway, there is the gray area. Yes, leaving a pot of cooked beans on the stove to cool is bad bad bad but is it better or worse to put a huge pot of hot beans into the fridge where much more sensitive foods will then become warmer than 40 degrees while the fridge cools down the beans? And I also think tossing everything past an expiration date when it is still perfectly good is just a waste of money. I won't feed it to anyone else, but we sure will eat it. I won't touch the meat thawing thing since I have no experience preparing meat.

Call your local taxi companies and ask what services they offer. Where I live there are a LOT of parents without licenses and/or cars that have contracts with our taxi companies. You see them lined up after dance classes and at the ball fields. They are pre-paid and set up to regularly pick up/drop off children at parent-specified locations/times. Our taxis are small-businesses with only a handful of drivers so it is usually arranged that the same driver will do the same routes. I set up a similar arrangement for myself to get to and from work for a year when we only had one car. Not only did I never have to worry about calling (he just showed up on time every week) but I also got a discounted "bulk" rate by pre-paying. I did tip with cash but I assume that you could tip in bulk if you have the same driver.

They are air mattresses with foam in them. They come in all thicknesses. The thinnest ones are comfy enough for me. I actually find it more comfortable than my bed. Dh uses a thicker one. They are expensive but last forever. Ours are 20 years old and have been sorely abused. They have been jumped on by slumber parties, and used as a dog bed. We have even used them as rafts in the water. I have a patch kit that we keep with us but have never used it. Another issue for us is that we spend over 50% of our camping nights without electric so no good way to fill an air mattress. REI rents a lot of equipment including tents, sleeping bags, and thermarests so there are ways to try out good equipment before buying. We have never camped with the big air mattresses but we need one or two for guests in our home. I have spent FAR more on those stupid mattresses because it seems that they spring a leak after just a handful of uses and I can never find it to patch. At this point, we just give our beds to guests and sleep on our thermarests....just to save the hassle of pre-testing for leaks.

I also grew up with what I have come to learn is a lot of potentially unsafe practices. Counter-thawed meat and all. I don't believe I ever suffered from food poisoning so either I am very hardy or those practices are less dangerous as we are led to believe. I still get twitchy when eating anything my mom prepares because it has for sure only gotten worse over time. When she put a bottle of salad dressing on the table that expired in 2008 during our last visit, I knew we had to start watching more carefully. That said, I do things that are not "recommended." We don't eat meat so we miss all of those issues. But I do leave things out on the counter like big pots of soup or rice or beans to cool until I feel like they will not heat up the whole fridge. I cook 16 cups of rice at a time and tossing that in the fridge while still hot has got to be putting all of the food in the fridge at risk. I have no issue eating expired food (within reason) as long as is smells and tastes fine. I also neglect to put things like mustard and pickles in the cooler when camping since I have so little cooler space and it hasn't killed us yet. I have been known to keep home-canned goods for up to two years and will still eat them. Hopefully I will not go down a linear slide as I age so that I too put salad dressing that expired almost a decade ago on the table.

I also say nay to big air mattresses! Thermarests are just as comfy and much more durable and space-efficient.