I have a kid with a late October birthday. I would have put him at the higher grade level if he was doing the work, but he's a little slower so I put him in the lower one. Sounds like your boy could be fourth and I'd probably put that on the paperwork.

I posted in another thread but think it got lost. Anyone use this? I'm wondering if you found the teacher's manuals necessary or if you could do WordBuild with just the student activity books. $85 is crazy for a vocabulary program! I'm spoiled, perhaps, by Vocab from Classical Roots workbooks. How do these compare with those?

I always have said I was an LCC, but I'm seriously considering dropping Latin and we did a full-on schedule of WTM-ish history this year. I don't know! So we're WTMers now I guess.

I find it aggravating. I want to find new things when I search, not the same old.

Google is more likely to return hits to you from places that you've visited before. I don't think it will be a top hit for most people or just anyone.

A friend had a babysitting gap and needs someone to take her four kids for three hours. They'll be here later. Sunday is usually our day to veg out on the couch with Dr Who, pizza and root beer floats. We'll probably try to squeeze that in after they leave, maybe just one episode instead of the usual four.

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I'm wondering if you found the teacher's manuals necessary or if you could do WordBuild with just the student activity books. $85 is crazy for a vocabulary program!

Grimm. I liked OUAT, but the adultery thread is starting to get to me.

The requirements are universal across the state. The only power individual areas (school districts, I think) have is in deciding if homeschoolers can participate part time in school extracurriculars. In none of the three districts I've homeschooled (Smithtown Central, Utica City & Albany City) have I heard of a school actually allowing that, unfortunately. IHIP stands for Individualized Home Instruction Plan. It's a description of what you plan to teach (law says: "syllabi, curriculum materials, textbooks, or plan of instruction") for each subject for the school year. What subjects you have to teach are listed too, and different at different grade levels. For kindergarten, no specific subjects are required, which is why so many homeschooled six-year-olds, who just became mandated to report, are reported as kindergarteners even if they're doing above grade level work. For 1st to 6th grade, you have to put your plans on your IHIP for "arithmetic, reading, spelling, writing, the English language, geography, United States history, science, health education, music, visual arts, physical education". The IHIP has to include a breakdown of your year into quarters as well as things you'd guess, like name, date of birth, grade level, address, names and signatures of instructors. You can set the quarterly dates wherever you want. The IHIP isn't even the worst of the paperwork we have to do. It's the quarterly reports that kill me. It stinks. But it definitely keeps stupid and lazy people from homeschooling. :tongue_smilie:

Yep. Here's that reg. SUNY is what most of the adults my sons know have done. I'd be foolish not to make sure that door is open to them.

We're not required to keep reporting, but we lose that letter from the superintendent if we stop.

Do you have a good local network of friends? Word of mouth connections are so helpful in finding the kind of work you can bring your kids along. Look for cooking, cleaning and babysitting positions. My grandmother cleaned professional offices in the evenings and brought me and my brother along from the time we were tiny. (We learned to clean well.) You can also nanny in someone else's home. Consider advertising as a person who can tutor as well as provide childcare. A job "homeschooling" someone else's kid along with yours in someone else's home would be awesome, no?

I bet you'll get more answers at this forum: Homespun Waldorf.

You can call the number on the back of your insurance card to find out. That would also be a way of getting a referral to a therapist. In my area, therapists who work on a sliding scale start at ten dollars an hour. I believe average is $50 an hour, though, for a good private therapist with a specialty. I would not be quick to label it depression, but it could be. Wait and see. It's something. Perhaps you might want to promise yourself that if you don't get it done by a certain date, you'll ask for help again. Depression can be fatal if left untreated.

Don't be embarrassed. Recognizing that you have a problem and asking for help are huge steps to be proud of taking. You're doing the right thing. It's been hell, but it's going to get better now. Do you have health insurance? Do you have a regular doctor? If the answer to both of those is yes, call your doctor's office and ask for a referral to a therapist. If you don't, it's more complicated, but the advice you have already received is spot on. Call a pastor. If not yours, just random ones from the Yellow Pages. Say, "I am experiencing severe emotional problems. I need help and I don't know how to get it." From there, just do what they say. They'll want to know if you are safe right away, and it sounds like you might be. So say yes, but you're worried about it getting worse and you need a therapist. Explain that you have no insurance. Say so if you can pay out of pocket or can't. Say if you are having a hard time following through to make phone calls. Say, "Would it be possible for you to contact this person and ask them to call me? I have a hard time making calls." Do you want someone to bug/help you until it gets done? When I was at my worst, I couldn't make phone calls. I couldn't deal with bureaucracy on even the most basic levels. I didn't have the persistence to follow through if a doctor called back and left me a message. If you don't have anyone in real life who will contract with you to not leave it alone until it gets done, PM me. I'm happy to make phone calls for you if you need.

I see that kind of thing for free on freecycle and craigslist. I wouldn't try to sell it, just give it away. Can you not just not allow your oldest to play video games?

I wouldn't be afraid to let him see your real reaction. He should be made aware of how strongly people feel about this. Hopefully his empathy for his mother would at least help solve the thing.

The requirements for junior high are cumulative. I don't think he can skip them. He'll have to get a certain number of hours in certain subjects done in order for seventh or eighth grade requirements to be satisfied and him to go on to the next grade. Our laws say: For purposes of this subdivision, a unit means six thousand four hundred eighty (6,480) minutes of instruction per school year. (ii) For grades seven and eight: English (two units); history and geography (two units); science (two units); mathematics (two units); physical education (on a regular basis); health education (on a regular basis); art (one-half unit); music (one-half unit); practical arts (on a regular basis) and library skills (on a regular basis). The units required herein are cumulative requirements for both grades seven and eight. (iv) For grades nine through twelve: English (four units); social studies (four units) which includes one unit of American history, one-half unit in participation in government, and one-half unit economics; mathematics (two units); science (two units); art and/or music (one unit); health education (one-half unit); physical education (two units); and three units of electives. The units required herein are cumulative requirements for grades nine through twelve.

Apples to Apples Settlers of Catan Puerto Rico Uno Killer Bunnies Munchkin

I don't want them to be able to earn too much time. I want them to have big chunks of time free to play.

Poll coming. I'm wondering how to limit use of our iPad & iMac by my sons. They're not spending as much time reading and playing and pursuing hobbies as they should be. We will still use these devices in schoolwork, and the kids will be allowed to read ebooks at bedtime, no matter what.

This hasn't been my experience. In our last school district, they scrutinized my stepson's IHIPs and quarterly reports to determine what classes to put him in when he transferred to a public middle school. I have had lengthy conversations with the homeschool coordinator at both that district and our current about curriculum, how well the children are progressing, what advice I might have for other parents. When one of my second graders dropped five points on a math test, the coordinator said a lot of her parents had just started Singapore and really liked that. They're paying attention.

I guess I am imagining that if he's done with twelfth grade at sixteen and it says that on his paperwork, he would have two nice plump gap years, but if he's done with twelfth grade at sixteen and his paperwork says he's in tenth grade, then he has to keep doing something academic instead of exploring freely while still under my guardianship.

My son is officially in third grade this year, on our IHIPs and other paperwork. He was eight for Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec and Jan. He was born January 30th. He'll be nine for Feb, Mar, Apr & May. So I figured he's mostly eight this year, even just by a month, so it should be third grade. Only he is going to be finished with a fourth grade math book in a month, tested out of WWE4, and is capable of reading anything. Really, academically, he should be starting fifth grade before the beginning of next year. In my planning for next year I am looking at all middle school programs. He will be nine most of next year and if I don't skip him a grade, he'll be in fourth on paper. Do I want to tell the school district that he is in fifth (or even sixth) grade next year? I always figured if I bumped him it should be between sixth and seventh, when regulations change, but now I'm wondering if they'll actually give me a harder time then because everything is more detailed. I do believe in the importance of telling the school district just how well he's doing. I think that's essential both in case he ever goes back to school (I had this happen with a stepkid, and they looked at his IHIPs to place him) and for the someday when we are asking a superintendent to write that letter stating that he completed a high school program. On the other hand, testing him at his chronological grade level means that he always scores in the 99% on everything. I'm not sure that matters much, though, really. He can afford the ten point drop he might make if he were tested at grade level.

Have you had him looked at by specialists? Tested his sight, his hearing, his processing, for dyslexia, et cetera? Not to make you feel worse, but to encourage you to look for extra help: third grade math at age twelve is a big gap and I think you're right to be worried. So often homeschoolers say, "they'll catch up eventually," but also sometimes I hear parents say they wish they had their kids tested for special needs earlier so that they could have gotten into therapies earlier and spent more of childhood doing things that work. It sounds like your son's brain might just need something you never would think of or know about without professional screening for special needs.