People like to leave things on library shelves for other people to stumble upon. It's like the lowest-risk possible form of flashing. Religious tracts are also fairly common: I think the daydream is that someone will be looking for a book on elephants or something and "Bam!" discover religion. That is a lot more innocuous, but both situations occur.

When you say "leave the house" are you talking about literally leaving the house, or only scheduled activities? The reason I ask is that my son is only 18 months old (here gathering data for homeschooling), but there is no staying in the house all day. If we had a fenced yard, maybe, but even then, I doubt it. A daily walk is just an absolute requirement: if we haven't gone anywhere, he will bring us things (shoes, suntan lotion, the stroller . . .) and knock on the door until we go somewhere. My husband (who is the SAHP) walks him every day--sometimes to the park, sometimes to the grocery store, sometimes the library, but always a good long walk. Then, when I get home from work, we often walk to the park half a mile a way--that he can do without the stroller. I thought this was really normal, and that all toddlers were easily bored and needed stimulation. But I see several people here with toddlers saying they have several days a week at home. Do your toddlers not drive you crazy?

Another issue with history is that it can really be hard to decide when "simplified" becomes inaccurate, and really hard to resist filling in details about what happened when the truth is often that we just don't know. "Real" history isn't a narrative: it's a huge pile of primary sources. Any attempt to shape those into anything approaching a narrative will be inaccurate for some value of "inaccurate". I mean, look at Squanto. It's not incorrect that a Native American named Squanto probably existed and was probably of great help to the Pilgrims in figuring out agriculture in the new world. However, any attempt to give Squanto a personality--to talk about his motives, to make it alive, is to put an interpretation on it and moves you away from "100% really happened, for sure" territory. Then there is the simplification issue: Is it "historically inaccurate" to just not mention his personal enslavement and the wiping out of his people by smallpox? I think these are really big questions that any history teacher has to grapple with, and there aren't simple solutions to them. As kids age, we can help them see these dilemmas, but it's not really feasible to start with anything other than narrative history--which runs the risk that later they will feel lied to.

And sometimes, you have to fake it. I teach high school economics. AP exam is tomorrow. Do you know how excited I am about fiscal and monetary policy right now? Not at all. We've done it to death, we've done it inside and out and backwards and forwards. But some of my kids will just today, for the first time, be really ready to hear it (because they were zoned out or not ready the last 10 times) so I have to go in here in a few minutes and teach the three powers of the Fed like I just discovered them myself, pristine and shinning on the first morning of God's creation. It's not fun, but it's not fun to be perky to a cranky commuter at 6 AM if you work at Starbucks, or fun to be nice to your mother-in-law when she's fretting about the right color beige for her walls. And sometimes, if you fake it, you find the enthusiasm, because they get enthusiastic, and that inspires you.

This is really the same argument at two-income vs SAHP or HS vs PS. What you are looking for is a big decision that, frankly, no one makes casually and involves a ton of work and sacrifice. There was a thread a while ago about explaining why you homeschool without sounding like a jerk: it's a problem, because you can't pretend you don't think it's a big deal, considering all the blood, sweat, and tears you put into homeschooling. And since almost everyone here has a SAHP, I think we've all been on the same side of that argument: you don't want to say someone else is making the wrong choice, or doing wrong by their kid, but, well, you don't stay home in this day and age unless you feel pretty strongly about it. I guess what I am saying is that whatever one chooses, it can be really hard to thread the needle and make the point "I feel really really really strongly about this FOR ME, but I in no way have any opinion about you and what is right for your family". Even if you are telling the truth, people don't believe you, and frankly, sometimes people don't mean it. Sometimes when they (sometimes me) get in groups that are totally like-minded, a lot of judgmental ideas come out.

I think the internet tends to be very shaming to everyone, because it's so easy for people to lie, and to judge, and to present themselves as achieving an ideal and condescend to those that don't. When you know someone in the world, you often see the gap between their claims and their reality: I used to work with a woman that was really smug about how well she fed her children and how much she LOVED healthy food and really had this "If anyone enjoys Doritos, they must be really unsophisticated" kind of attitude, but I also saw that she brought McD's to work for breakfast twice a week. If I'd pushed it, I am sure she would have explained it was because she was so busy, on account of her kids being so needy, but that she's have preferred an egg white omelet with feta and fresh greens. And I am sure that would taste good. But she also really enjoyed the McDs. I guess what I am saying is that if all I had heard were her words, I would have felt shamed by my own tastes, my own . . .self. But because I saw her actions, I didn't. On the internet, we only get the words.

I think it's really hard to look at your house and see how it reflects you, because so much of what makes a house unique seems like the default: a house is just a house. I am reminded of my grandmother. Years--decades--ago, she says to me "I don't know why people from other countries are so attached to their "cultures". I don't have a culture". And I was like (heavily paraphrased) "Grandmother, you have certain ways you celebrate Christmas and Easter and Halloween, and you had 12 kids, sent them all to Catholic school, pushed them all through scouts, sent them all (ok, 11) to college, whatever the cost. You took them camping every summer, baked them a cake a every birthday, and named each and every one after a saint". And she said "Well, that's not a culture, that's just what people do". I worked at a grocery store for about month in college. Before that, I would have said my groceries said nothing about me, that I bought "standard stuff", and that there were only one or two distinctive items. But after working there a week, I discovered that there are no standard groceries. Every single weird thing I couldn't imagine anyone buying is actually bought by tons of people. And things I thought of as just normal--stuff everyone buys all the time--rarely crossed my register. I guess what I am saying is that our homes seem such the default that it can be hard to see what they reveal. But I think Hunter's point is good: if you aren't the kind of person who will enjoy the work of prepping BFSU, don't use it: a kid who was in the same house as BFSU but never used it is not better educated than someone who had a workbook and a series of boxed experiments. Trying to find the materials, method, or approach that is 100% best for your child without ever a thought for what your own strengths and limitations are is basically pride ("I can do ANYTHING for my kid!"), and it will hurt your child, because they won't get the perfect version of that perfect curriculum, they will get the deeply flawed presentation of it that is all you can manage. And in reflecting on past years, you need to look at what you did, not what you used.

I think for kids in the middle, this kind of thing works great. I think for very strong and very weak students, it is less ideal. A certain type of very strong student would react to this sort of structure with the idea that because they CAN redo everything until they get 100, they must, or they should. That's not really reasonable: if you make a couple careless errors on a math test and get a 92 instead of a 100, its really a poor use of your time and emotional energy to go back and take a whole different test over stuff you already know to make a 100. You end up with a kid that is taking three quizzes a day and can't focus on new stuff because they are still fretting about the old stuff. A certain type of weak student, on the other hand, has trouble really pushing themselves if they know they have a fallback if it doesn't go as planned. This is the kid that would bomb the test or homework three or four times in a row because they'd never get around to really trying, because it's always easier to lie to yourself and tell yourself you'll try next time: this time, you'll just kinda guess on every question and hope it works out, just to see if you can get away with it. This is the same kid who would rather get a 70 on a test they didn't study for than a 90 on a test they did study for, because they think the 70 when they didn't try proves that they are inherently smarter/better/talented but that they 90 they got after studying shows they couldn't master the material. I also fear losing the instructional benefit of a test: tests are supposed to be assessments, not teaching tools, but sometimes kids walk away from a test smarter than when they sat down. Sometimes they've never really focused on the material before, and only being under the gun makes them really stretch themselves. Some kids just can't make themselves THINK until they have to. As a teacher, I've handed tests back to kids and told them to go correct them. Other times, I've told a kid that their best best strategy was t push forward. It depends on the kid, the material, and the assessment. As a future homeschooler, I hope to be wise enough to match my son with the approach that works for him.

I can see the emphasis on skills and curiosity, but content matters to me, as well. My son isn't really even pre-school age yet, so we are still gathering information and making long-range plans, but I know it's really important to me that he know things. I want him to know wow many planets there are in the solar system, and what makes each one different. I want him to know why a T-rex never fought a saber-tooth. I want him to know who fought whom in WWII and when that was. When he walks outside, I want him to see oaks and maples and fruit trees, and mockingbirds and bluejays and grackles, not "trees and birds". And I want him to enjoy knowing those things, to understand that knowing those things gives depth and complexity to his experiences. If I could sum it up in a word, I want him to have context for all the other things that will happen to him in life.

Because doing the hard stuff is how he gets the better understanding of the grammar: if the composition were easy, there'd be no point in doing it. That said, it would be reasonable to do it in smaller pieces.

Magnets vary tremendously. I have known some that were everything they were billed to be, and others where the kids and teachers coasted because the selection process meant they had good enough test taking skills that their state numbers would always be good enough, and no one ever noticed or cared that they weren't really living up to their potential. One significant difference in a magnet program is the lack of sports. In an average High School, the sports season rotation defines the year, provides much of the social events, is basically the spine. Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, that's not there in a magnet program.

In Melville's "The Encantadas", he compares the Galapagos to a "penal conflagration". Kids are pretty sure that's really, really naughty.

I think one reason that this is difficult is that no one makes the decision to home school because they sorta kinda think it might be better in some ways. It costs too much and is too much work to be a casual thing. Our son is still too young for K, so no need to justify it yet, but when talking about our plans I sometimes say "We have some wacky ideas about education". It suggest we are the weird ones, and I don't really have any problem being the weird one. If someone wants to ask "What wacky ideas?", well, that's an invitation to start talking about Classical education and idea-focused and more science and social studies and SM and all the other things that will bore the crap out of them. But that's a focus on what home school can do differently, not on what public school is doing wrong.

It helps you notice when things are wrong: yes, you can always go look up information, but if you are at work and someone is giving a presentation and their data is from 2011, not 2012 as they meant, it sure is helpful if someone notices that the numbers seem off, and can go look before big decisions are made on poor information. It helps you see how things have changed: if you are reading a new recipe, it's helpful to be able to remember other, similar recipes well enough to see how this one is alike or different, and understand what the finished product will be like. It helps to remember names and biographical details of people you meet, which is invaluable in terms of both your social and professional lives.

I think the opposite of "idea-focused" is "student focused", where you let the students' interests shape the scope and sequence. An idea-focused education is going to prioritize developing a child who knows a great deal about a wide variety of things, from the workings of nature to the foibles of human nature, and can discuss those things comfortably. A child-focused approach is going to prioritize developing a child who has deep self-knowledge, is happy in their own skin, has a life-long passion for learning, and has the tools needed to learn anything they set out to master. All of those are good goals, and I think all educational philosophies hope for all that, but you do have to have priorities. Actually, I think there are a lot of educational programs that give very short shrift to any art or music, simply because of time: art and music always seems to come after math, science, all the language arts skills, social studies, etc. A kid that practices piano ten hours a week is "serious" about music: a kid who plays baseball ten hours a week is just a normal kid with a normal team practice schedule. I don't think even classical programs generally emphasize art and music, and I don't think it's a defining feature. I completely agree with this. Chasing the unicorn of perfect integration is silly, IMHO: better to let the kids discover connections between things they are studying, and if that means they have to remember back six month ago, that's a feature, not a bug; it helps review and solidify stuff. Furthermore, people always seem to think integration means chronological integration. Connecting themes, ideas, tensions, and conflicts will naturally arise as long as kids are exposed to sophisticated source material.

Offering isn't selling: I bet a lot of those things never sell, or get relisted at more reasonable prices later. But you don't see those deals as much, because they disappear quickly. It's the overpriced stuff that stays up. People are bad at pricing their own stuff--we forget that part of what we paid for when we bought it new was that we got to pick out exactly what we wanted, but when we sell it to someone else, they are accepting what someone else chose because it's good enough, considering the price. I was at a garage sale the other day, and they had dirty, worn clothes strewn out on the lawn for $3/piece, fifteen year old CDs for $5-10 each, a crappy pair of pliers for $4, when you could have bought them new for that. When I was expecting, I saw so many people selling USED BEDDING SETS for 75% of listed retail. People look at their stuff, and they remember what they paid for it, but that doesn't matter: for one thing, part of what they paid for is getting exactly what they wanted when they wanted it. For another, they were paying for brand-new quality, and very few used things retain that. I always remember the old saying about shopping: "Cheap, good, quick. Pick two" If you have to have something NOW, you'll pay through the nose or have to settle for low quality. If you can afford to wait, you can find what you want cheaply.

I think history may be the least important part of what is usually lumped into "state history"; understanding the current state of the state--the government, the economic structure, the major issues faced in the future--may be the most important thing of all. Because our news is largely national, people think of our governments as largely national, as well, but the local mayoral race may well have a greater impact on your life than the presidential election (or not, depending on a city's structure--there's something to learn!). Kids don't understand that societies and social institutions don't just happen: if there's a sports league, it's because people organize it. If the medians in your town have attractive rosebushes on them, it's because someone planted them--and found the funds to buy them, and worries about watering them now. Libraries, parks, fire departments--all the things that actually impact our kids' lives, all the government they see, is local or state, but so little time is spent on it. Even in a highly mobile society, a kid that understands how one state works--how decisions get made, who has what authority and where it comes from, the basic tax structure, the basic economic situation, the on-going policy debates--a kid who gets that about one state and local area will be able to quickly learn how a new place works. The most important thing is that they learn that there is something there at all.

They aren't "classics", but Robin McKinley's The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword are SO good at that age: not just because they have horses and a strong female protagonist, but because the prose is beautiful. Her other books are also excellent, but those two are amazing. The Rats of Nymh is compelling, as is Watership Down. Tom Sawyer. People disagree with me here, but I think Old Yeller is fantastic. Swiss Family Robinson, though you want to find the right translation/abridgment. Possibly Jane Eyre, if she reads well: I read and adored it when it was really well above my reading level simply because it was so soppy. I just ignored the bits I didn't understand. The Wizard of Oz.

That's accelerated block. At it's worst, it means you go a year with no math (or no foreign language) if your schedule works out where you have ,say, Alg I in the fall of your freshman year and Geometry in the spring of your sophomore year. It's terrible, and schools don't usually keep it for long. The real problem, though, is that if you are going to have a bell schedule, you have to equally proportion things: 250 minutes each/week, on average. But things don't need the same amount of time. A kid might need 200 minutes week of history and 300 of math, and so is always bored in history and feeling behind and rushed in math. It's really inefficient. But the classes have to be the same because some other kid is on the opposite schedule: give Bobby 200 minutes of history and 300 of math, and then Johnny can only have 200 minutes for math and 300 for history. You can double something, but that's a huge chunk of time to add. The way around this is to put kids in "forms" where the same class stays together all day. If you do that, you can move your teachers around and set up a rotation where the the time is more efficient: the history teacher teaches two hour block in each form two days a week, the math teacher has one hour in each form five days a week, etc. But you lose flexibility; each form has to take exactly the same thing. So it's a tradeoff. In the US, we tend to highly value flexibility.

Subject matter also makes a difference: I think most people find math goes better if you take it one little chunk each day. Foreign languages certainly do better a little chunk at a time. In both those subjects, there seems to be an upper limit to how much you can master in a sitting, and past that point, more time is just frustrating. So it's better to break it up as much as possible to give your brain time to process each new idea. History, and especially science, lend themselves to longer sessions so that you can see the whole, complex picture at once. Grammar: small pieces. Literature: big chunks. Handwriting, memorization, and learning an instrument? Small chunks. One of the greatest weaknesses of institutionalized schools is that the nature of a bell schedule forces you do to everything in big chunks (blocks, accelerated blocks) or small chunks (traditional schedule). Not every subject benefits from the same structure, but if you are trying to efficiently educate a mass of kids, you are stuck with it.

Is "could get married" 16, 18, 22, 26, 30? I am not being snarky: I've known people that really pushed "no involvement with the opposite sex until after grad school.", and others families where marriage was something that normally happened between 18-20. It's really culturally determined, and there's no right or wrong. What do you mean by "dating"? No kids I ever knew did dinner-and-a-movie. They "go out", which can mean anything from passing one "will you go out with me check yes or no" note and never actually talking (in the younger grades) to living together in your 20s. So you know you don't want her doing dinner-and-a-movies. Are you ok with mixed-sex groups of kids doing social things, like going to the movies, together starting (or stopping!) at some age? Would you like her to avoid forming close friendships with boys (because those certainly lead to romantic feelings)? Are you ok with it if, at some age, she "goes out" with a boy in the kid-sense as long as she's never alone with him, or is it important that she not reveal/indulge/develop any of the crush feelings that will develop? Would you prefer that she socializes entirely with girls until a certain age, or after a certain age? Are you ok with a kind of casual "going out", but really hope she avoids any deep emotional entanglements until some age? I would talk to parents of teens at your church, if you have one. So many people answer these questions in so many different ways that it might be useful for you to talk to some people with a similar overall family philosophy. They will be able to point out some of the dilemmas you have coming, and suggest how they resolved them, or wish they had resolved them. Now is very much the time to talk to her about these things, before it becomes an argument about a specific boy.

The early Betsy-Tacy books ought to be in here, too: Maud Hart Lovelace.

You can certainly apply and defer. In fact, the top tier schools will sometimes conditionally accept someone if they really want them but just don't have room: they will suggest a gap year. A gap year, in my humble opinion, needs to be about building toward something: A Birthright year in Israel, a six month mission trip to Costa Rica, an internship in a field you are interested in where you are working on real stuff, training for the Olympics, being an exchange student for a year overseas, starting your own business, working full time on a political campaign, that sort of thing. I think that just staying home and working a generic job--retail or food service--is as bad an idea or worse than bumming around: a kid that is purely bumming around is at least broke. A kid who is working 40 hours a week and has few financial or other responsibilities really has a lot of time to party, and a lot of money to spend. I think it's actually harder to go from that lifestyle to being poor and hardworking and academic in college than to go from bored on the couch to college. Retail places, especially, are powerfully good at offering very bright hard working kids just enough money and responsibility and pride that they continue to put the retail job first, and dabble at college. But what is enough money and responsibility at 18 is a lot less when you are 25 or 30 and ready to start a family, and it's much more daunting to get serious about college then (and possibly impossible, if you start the family before you do the math!).

I went to school in Huntsville, too! I don't remember learning the counties. I do remember watching all three Back to the Future movies . . .

I don't think I ever suggested such a thing. I simply suggested it was a false dichotomy to divide questions into "objective fact based" and "Fluffy Bunnies Share their Fuzzy Feelings". To my mind, it's not clear what the OP is looking for: does she want to avoid any abstract questions in any subject, k-12 or does she want to avoid child-centered type learning, which is probably a more feasible goal--that's a philosophy issue, and there may be publishers that share that philosophy. Is conceptual math fuzzy bunnies having feelings? Does she want just how to solve the problems, don't ask all these questions about why? Does she want to avoid inquiry based science? She seems to be dismissing all non-concrete questions as inherently busywork, and her desire to commit now to a single publisher for k-12 suggests, to me at least, that it isn't about meeting a kid where they are right now. I don't think you can lump all "questions" into one category.