Then I would make her continue to work through programs that will give her new ideas about how to write. It isn't that it is fan fiction. It's that it's coming solely from inside her. She needs as much input about writing from as many good sources as possible in order to hone her craft. Be sure to find something about worldbuilding, since a reliance on fanfic can indicate an inability to do that.

I'm looking for engaging historical fiction in a biblical setting. I've found these titles: Tirzah Adara Hittite Warrior God King The Bronze Bow Beyond the Desert Gate I'm not sure which would be most appropriate for reading aloud to my seven-year-old. For him, I still look for relative simplicity of plot and language and a lack of traumatizing plot elements. If you've read any of these, I'd love to know how they stand against those criteria.

I slice zucchini with a potato peeler until there's nothing left but a core of seeds. Then I toss the zucchini "noodles" in a "sauce" that is really a kind of cashew hummus, just nuts blended in a food processor til smooth and creamy, with some herbs and oils. I saw the recipe here. I was expecting it to be completely gross but I had to try it because there just wasn't enough room in my diet to be picky after my doctor told me I couldn't have dairy or gluten. So I tried it anyway, and I was braced to be grossed out. To my astonishment and delight it was fantastic. Very delicious! The cashew hummus was very creamy and flavorful, and the noodles only had a slight crunch, the same satisfying level of resistance in al dente pasta. In fact I may have to make it tonight because now I'm craving it, just thinking about it. I know it sounds gross but eating raw is addictive. I struggled with exhaustion, a lazy immune system, constant illness, and constant brain fog for years, trying everything -- antidepressants, psychotherapies, caffeine pills, exercise, light therapy, EVERYTHING -- but within a week of eating raw I felt alive again. (I cried. All that time, all that hell, and I had found my cure. I cried my eyes out.) When I let myself go back off the raw diet (I try not to be obsessive about it), I crave those raw, crunchy veggies the way I used to crave caffeine in the mornings. I really think everyone should try a raw weekend once in their lifetimes.

I like this ketchup recipe at Instructables, since I can't have honey. You might want to look into the negative aspects of agave nectar, though, before you decide to go with this.

You could call CPS. Provoking a dog is a dangerous thing for a kid to be doing and his parents should be held responsible for stopping him. I would give the parents a warning that I was going to have to call CPS next time the kid did it. I would also videotape it so that if he does get bit, you have evidence that he was attacking your dog first.

I would print this out and mail it to either the local police station or adult protective services, whichever is more likely to have time on their hands to investigate. It lays out the facts and apologizes for perhaps being jumpy. It's just right as is.

You might also consider WinterPromise's Children Around the World for Older Learners curriculum, which uses literature to cover the whole world.

My son just turned ten. He has never written a five-paragraph essay before (or even read one that was pointed out to him as such). This year he's been doing Imitiation in Writing: Greek Myths. Before that he was doing Writing With Ease. I wanted to see where he was starting from so I told him to give me a five paragraph essay on something he knew about and if he didn't know what a five-paragraph essay was, to Google it, read about it, and then write it. He read the OWL Purdue page on academic writing and then he produced what follows. Clearly it has comma issues and organizational issues but I feel like there's something else missing and I don't know quite how to explain it. I almost want to say to him, "Son, I still don't know what psicrystals ARE." I guess I wanted him to say somewhere that these are animals from a fantastic universe created by such and such for this or that game. Also, he uses a lot of technical terms in here. What do you mean "created by a psionic class", you know? How would you direct a kid to edit this? Essay on Psicrystals (D&D) Psicrystals resemble crabs, and have crystals growing out of their backs. They are very small, and they are psionically linked to their owners via a rapport entanglement, or, in other words a small interface in the corner of one's mind that allows them to control psicrystals. They can only be created by a psionic class. These psicrystals are actually pieces of their owner's psionic powers, meaning that they have the same ability to manifest psionic powers, as their owners do. Although they are essentially pieces of their owner's mind, they usually have a different personality from their owners. Psicrystals move through a psionic propulsion system, allowing them to fly around, and possibly even stab creatures with their crystals like a bee stinger as an attack. This propulsion system is strange, because although it behaves like a normal flying spell/power, it does not take effort nor psionic power to activate, and therefore is pseudopsionic. When they have not activated the propulsion system, they have 0 STR and 0 DEX. Their eyes glow with psionic power, and they even can use powers, as long as they are appropriately leveled to within the psicrystal's limitations. Psicrystals can use Clairsentience (seering), Psychokinesis (energy weapons), Psychometabolism (biological editing), Psychoportation (teleportation), Telepathy (mindreading/mindcontrol), and Metacreativity (object creation) psionics to manifest certain psionic powers. A psicrystal can speak one language of its owner's choice (so long as it is a language the owner knows). A psicrystal can understand all other languages known by its owner, but cannot speak them. Psicrystals are created through the use of the Psicrystal Affinity Feat, and are small pieces of their creators mind, although they may not have the same personality. They can manifest psionic powers, and fly and attack with a self-propulsion pseudopsionic manifestation.

My oldest son has been a vegetarian since he found out what meat is when he was between one and two years old. He should do a bio lab next year. I would like to purchase a complete bio lab kit like the one from QSL, but they all seem to include dissections. Is there a kit that doesn't? Or are we stuck assembling our own lab class from a series of smaller, focused kits? If so, is there a list somewhere of what projects and activities I need to find kits for?

There's a ton of good stuff out there.

We were at MIT's Spark this past weekend and my ex decided to sit in on this class for parents on how to get your kid into MIT. (I refuse to base my homeschool curriculum around wooing a university that accepts only 10% of its applicants, so I didn't go.) He came out with notes and wanted to go over them during dinner. Here's what he said: 1. CTY's math/science stuff is the Holy Grail of extracurriculars one wants on their MIT admissions portfolio. 2. AOPS is their recommended math program. 3. They dislike the kind of mathletes Math Olympiad grinds out but very much appreciate the kind of mathlete that Math Counts produces. 4. What they want to see more than anything else, what says to them "this kid will fit with our vision for the culture of MIT", is when a kid focuses narrowly early on in adolescence on one very specific interest, then strives to do every single thing one can possibly do related to that interest. (However, kid should still ace his SAT subject tests in Physics, Chemistry and Math 2. So at least part of that is a desire for a kid who can focus hard and long on one thing without it damaging his ability to do well in other actually hard classes.) I was not in the presentation for parents so I'm just going off what XH said here. Curious to hear what y'all think, if you have any thoughts.

Woohoo!

The World in Ancient Times was written more recently so will be a bit more up to date in little ways. The major difference is the visual format. OUP's series is fully illustrated in color with a good number of photos of artifacts, maps and illustrative sketches. The Strauss Art books are just text. There's an occasional black and white illustration here and there but not enough that you could really call the book "illustrated." Also, I'd say the OUP series covers more history and more cultures, whereas there are only a few Strauss Art books for a limited number of cultures and periods.

I would think that Writing Strands 3 would be appropriate for her, no? WWE will ask you and her to pay attention to her spelling as part of composition, but Writing Strands explicitly states to ignore that and focus on the composition process.

How funny! Susan Wise Bauer recommended these books in the very first edition of TWTM for the logic stage, back before she had written SOTW.

I would: 1. Look at what is required by the career they want to have when they are done. You did this by looking at the cosmetology school's requirements. They only require a high school diploma, though. I would look up your local high school's graduation requirements. Not knowing your local school or even your state, I looked at NARHS, Clonlara and other homeschoolers' high schools. For non-college bound students, the consensus is something like: 4 English, 3 science including 1 lab, 2 social studies including U.S. gov't, 3 math credits, 1 phys ed, 1/2 health, and 4 1/2 electives to include some kind of art and music. 2. Make sure they have what they need to change their mind. If at age thirty this girl wants to go to college, will she be able to do so? Does she feel smart enough to do something like that? I am reluctant to write off any one as young as 18. I'd want my sons to have what the community colleges require for entrance even if they were completely certain they were never ever going to school.

What is keeping you from bringing those kids a hot meal and some paper plates, introducing yourself, and finding out their names?

I'm against censorship, but I read these books and I was horrified too. Still kind of am. I wish the universal reaction to teenagers killing each other was, "I can't stand to hear any details about that! How awful!" I don't think you should assume that everyone who reads them will not get why the protesters were doing that.

I was in the store under homeschool. The prices I saw were identical to the prices in their regular store, which I had open in a different browser. Do you see a difference?

Has anyone ever purchased an Apple product via the education store and gotten a discount? Their site promises up to a $300 discount on any computer including the iMacs, but when I follow the directions (go to the education store, select my school), no discount is applied on any product that I enter into my cart. (ETA: Whoa, font weirdness. Not sure what I'm doing wrong there. Sorry. Change is hard.)

Lingua Latina and Learning Latin Through Mythology both provide a pleasant diversion from studying the worktext.

They are not consumable. They are teaching guides, not books you hand to the student. I am pretty sure you can look inside of them on Rainbow Resource's website. How long they take depends on how you schedule them. I'd say anywhere from thirty days (working for 45 minutes every day) to half a year (once a week). I aimed to do one per quarter when I was using them and was able to do that without feeling like our weeks were too literature-heavy.

I wouldn't worry about the Santa scene because it goes by quickly and everyone is clothed. The scene where Fantine first engages in prostitution, well, it's vague and no genitals are shown and a kid with no street smarts would just be confused, I think. A child who does understand what's going on would probably not be much negatively damaged. She turns her face and cries and that is mainly what we see, no body parts, no graphic sex noises. I would more worried about the part where Gavroche is killed. It is not bloody but there is a good amount of emotional attachment to him built up in the audience at that point. Maybe it's just that I had little boys that size running around the Occupy camps doing that sort of thing Gavroche did, but it was hard for me to take and I'm not nine years old myself.

We liked BB2 just as much as BB1, but they are different. BB2 is more academic and less fun, less gentle, and moves faster, so we found it necessary to slow down and supplement with fun stuff. The author has been receptive to receiving reports of errors and sending out corrections/updating the website files.