I want everything - math, LA, science, social studies. I was using Terra/Nova CAT 6 for the last few years. When I talked to them last year they said that publisher is not printing any new tests, so the tests are like 10rs old. For some reason I didn't like that. So, figured, I'd look for something else Seton also had IOWA, but after being on hold for over 20 minutes with them I gave up this morning, so don't know if they are "newer" and as comprehensive

I used Seton in previous years, but would like to switch. I need as comprehensive as I can get test for 2nd ,3rd and 5th grader and it has to be secular. any suggestions?? Thank you!!!

For me - it's wouldn't even be a question of initial outlay of money. I love swimming, but would never ever want to have a swimming pool in my backyard. Neighbor's backyard? Sure. But not mine. Unless I was very well off. I see pools nothing but money pits and safety disasters. But I also live in New England, our summers are about 5 minutes long. Sure, it would be nice to go for a swim on that one very hot day, but all the additional expenses - insurance money, upkeep, worrying about someone injuring themselves there....no, thank you!

I gave up. I agree that I can't tell another adult what to do with their stuff. And I am not in a business of changing people and my husband is a " things" person and I can't change that. To be fair to him, he has TONS of interests and hobbies and very knowledgeable about all of it. He also likes to collect things. He has many various collections, but again, he also has lot of knowledge on those topics. All of that is completely foreign to me. Either bc I had to leave everything behind when we moved to US or I was born that way, I have noooo idea, but I can walk out of the house with my laptop (bc that's where all my pictures of the kids and family are) and never look back. I don't collect anything and never did and my interests (except for books) are not "things" related My husband lost some of this stuff due to flooding and he was mourning and grieving it. He was feeling an actual, real loss. I tried to be supportive and loving and he knows that, and he also knows that I will never understand those feelings. So.....my new mantra is.....accept things you can not control. Bc I know that in reality, that's all I can do.

Well, I lived it, so probably won't watch it. Or may be I will. It might be interesting to see it from the "outside" prespective

Hmmmm....my kids are not strangers to competition, they have been doing chess tournaments for a few years now, but I will ask for sure. I would love to get them into debate, but not sure there is a middle school debate team in our local school

My kids loved tinker / doodle / kiwi crates, but I don't think they are worth the money. And I usually got them during big sales. Out of all the subscription boxes that I've seen and we got the only two are worth the money, in my opinion are Ivy kids and Radish (that's a cooking one). @My4arrows gave a great description for Ivy kids. I was super excited about Passports one but that was a huge disappointment. What they sent was about a dollar worth of "stuff". And I am not just talking about physical items. There was very little info about the country and just a few "activities". I am officially done with subscription boxes. And this is coming from a person who LOVES the idea of subscription boxes.

He has done some writing with EIW, level 5, but I don't think they hit paragraph writing yet. I will take a look at your suggestions, thank you! I keep seeing references to IEW all over this board so I think it's time for me to take a serious look at it. We just went from WWE to EIW, and I thought that would be enough

I think that's my main problem - I don't know. As I mentioned, I come from a very different background in education and while I learned all the things that you mentioned - I really don't remember how and when I learned them. Also, some things like writing a research paper came very naturally to me, so even though I never technically learned that I did fine in college. I just don't know how to teach that!

Both of the outbacks were my parents'. I think my parents didn't want to continue doing repairs and spending time in the shop. They could afford to replace it with new cars, so they did. On '97 Outback, the transmission went out. On 2004 Outback my mom just had the car die a few times and she was done!! I am an accountant by trade and will tell anyone who will listen that it's almost always cheaper to repair than to buy another car. Like 99% of the time! I am in New England and I see people drive old outbacks a lot. It's interesting bc we have very stringent inspection rules, including no rust, etc and it seems people are keeping the cars. Anyway, sorry for not very coherent answer, but I hope it helps.

Oh guys, this is sooo helpful, thank you!! Question - I keep seeing "literary analysis" brought up - what exactly is it? (I think once again not have gone through school in US, certain things confuse me). Besides MCT, any other solid curriculum out there? I am not sure if I was missing something, but we tried MCT island and only have gone through 2 books and it didn't seem like he was picking up anything there. May be we were doing it wrong.... ETA: I just re-read your post @StephanieZ and I see you suggested EIL - thank you!!

I know this is a chit chat forum, but I feel like there are more people on here who have gone through the entire HSing so can give me a better bigger picture opinions. I am trying to map out middle school for my oldest, how will be in 6th grade next year. Here is what I am thinking so far for the next 3 yrs. We do secular homeschooling Math - AOPS - pre-algebra, algebra, geometry LA - AAS and EIW (levels 6, 7 and 😎 - is this enough? I am slowly working through English from the Roots up and some other vocab books with all three kids as well. Should be adding anything else? Science - biology, chemistry and physics. Most likely Elemental Science with lots of add-ons History - I am completely lost! We are barely through SOTW book 2, while doing BYL level 2 this year. He can do so much more! Do I continue with SOTW and BYL in order or skip to level 5 of BYL and moves into American History. Not that it matters, but I will most likely give him books from BYL to read either on his own or we'll do it together (he still loves it when I read to him). And he will "catch up" World History in high school? Geography - we just do a "country of the week", sometimes it takes longer. We also do some art and music. We haven't done any Social Studies bc I still can't figure out what exactly that means but we have plenty of discussions and readings about govt process, various economic events and cycles, etc. What else?? So, would love love love opinions, suggestions and comments. Thank you

OK, here is your dirt! 🙂 We had many Subarus over the years. None of them went anywhere near 300K. Not even to 200K. The ones my parents had - they did more regular maintenance. I am the opposite. Except for oil changes, I don't do "maintenance" which drives my husband insane. So, 1987 Subaru GL was awesome, so was 1992 Subaru Loyola. 1997 Outback was great, so was 2004 Outback. 2008 Outback was a piece of garbage (we had two of those). 2011 Outback is OK. We are at 100K and already had to change tires twice. The first time Subaru actually split the cost with us bc I threw a little hissy fit. I think we had some exhaust issues. We are on our 2nd or 3rd set of brakes. We've had it for almost 9 yrs and spent $2300 on total repairs during that time My 1997 nissan has 197K miles on it and no way it will make it to 300K. But in the last 21 yrs I spent a total of $8200 on repairs for that car. I consider that spectacular. When I look at the numbers, I would absolutely get another Subaru. But I expect it to last about 10-12 yrs and no more than 150K miles. Oh and except for 1987 Subaru, all other ones we bought new

Elemental Science was both, hit and miss Hit for my 3rd grader - we did chemistry. I have no idea how this kid is remembering all those elements and such (lord knows I didn't like chemistry), but he seems to love it. Miss for my 5th grader - he did biology. It was too dry and I am backpedaling and will be getting living books for him and may be some videos / documentaries, etc. I had a thread about it and a poster here gave me a nice list.

I absolutely can concur with highlighted But I have to disagree with your last paragraph. In my previous life, working in corporate finance I saw soooooo many young people who had all the degrees and certs and even licenses such as CPA and made very poor employees. My husband, who works for a huge international company as a software engineer says that he sees the same thing. He had an employee who he had to have "talks" with about - get this - answering emails and phone bc no one could reach him, find him during core, 9-3 hours. It went on for about 6 months. Then the guy quit bc he said the "job was too demanding". Also, last year we tried to hire a professional to some work on our house. I can not even count the number of people who didn't show up. Or showed up but didn't give us estimate.