That was my first thought, too. The mannequins are a bit weird, yeah, but wow. If The Edukators hit that house they wouldn't even have to move things around. They could just leave "You Have Too Much Stuff" notes everywhere.

Besides Asterix? :lol: There's also the Alex series by J.Martin & R. Morales. Also French - but I have one in Dutch. English or German I'm not sure about. There's a GN about whatshisname - Michael de Ruyter, but in Dutch. Also not sure if it exists in other languages. Graphic Library (I think?) has a biography series that seemed pretty good. Crazypants got them from the library in 2nd-grade-ish. Definitely elementary.

Have you tried the trick of using plain vinegar in place of fabric softener? Either in the softener compartment, or if you don't have one, in the Downy ball. The vinegar should rinse out any residual soap. Hopefully. Maybe.

Are you including biochem in the nutrition part? Maybe also a bit on infectious diseases, again, from a chemical perspective? With a good inclusion of biochem, I think it could be "science." But then I wouldn't call is Health, but something more like Human Physiology and Processes. It's totally out-of-the-box. But I think it could be cool. But I don't know how colleges would respond to seeing that on the transcript rather than bio/chem/physics credits. Maybe half-credit of "regular" bio and half-credit "regular" chem, then this class could be seen as taking the human parts of bio and chem and putting them together to make the other credit.

Yeah, I couldn't read past the first paragraph either. But it's basically an opinion piece, yes? I don't get what "essential protections" she is referring to. But legal euthanasia doesn't mean that people don't get care if they want it. Look, this is personal, my husband's parents in The Netherlands have had cancer. Both were older and retired. They both got fast, extensive, expensive treatment. No one EVER said "oh, since you're older, don't you think it's economically better if you just die?" Good Lord, no. My FIL's cancer was back under the government insurance, and he got his 2000 euro a pill experimental drug completely free. It's totally possible to have legal avenues for someone to decide to die with dignity on their own terms, and ALSO provide all of the medical treatment desired for people with chronic and terminal and expensive illnesses. It's simply not an either/or. Euthanasia /= cost-cutting. People who say that are either evil or scaremongering. Or maybe America really is filled with evil people who only consider a person's value by their economic balance sheet???? Geesh, do you really think America has taken capitalism that far?

Sigh. NOPE. The Netherlands doesn't even have government-run healthcare anymore. It hasn't for like, the past 10 years. There's still euthanasia, sure. But that was ALWAYS a private decision. And still is. But government here does NOT kill off its old and sick people. Seriously. They just DON'T.

Yeah. It really depends on what you want. Is it someone to do a pre-set curriculum with your DD? Does the tutor know that curriculum or will they need to prep for it? Or do you want a customized instruction, where the tutor preps week to week according to areas DD needs to work on? Or is your daughter's Italian good enough that she just needs to talk and have someone correct her when she makes a mistake? And if you meet somewhere there's also travel time and travel costs for the tutor. But for any of those scenarios you're also paying for requisite background knowledge and also a good bit of weekly prep time for each session. If you're willing to hire someone who is just going to run a pre-set curriculum of their choosing, a "private lesson" type of class, you might be able to knock some dollars off, since they won't need to do so much prep work. If you're willing to meet at their house, or over skype, you might be able to knock off a few more dollars, since they won't have travel costs. Maybe. But when you consider that the hour class probably isn't the only work the tutor is doing for you, yeah, $30/hr isn't outrageous. Even if they only do one more hour during the week to prep, that's only netting them $15/hr. And that's not even factoring in their expertise yet.

I binged on this blog a few days ago and somewhere, yeah, no idea where, she defines McMansion and differentiates it from Mansion. I don't like tumblr. I think she also mentioned excess bedrooms, unusable balconies, and acoustically unsound rooms in her definition of McMansion. I think the blog is hilarious, but then again, I am totally on board with the "wut? lol" style of snark communication. But also, my brother worked in a custom cabinetry shop for a little while, apprenticing with a guy who actually knew how to do his job. The total crap they saw when they did jobs in some of the "rich people" houses just blew his mind. It was so ridiculous, it became something of a running joke. Later, I worked with a guy whose previous job was in granite, and installing granite countertops. So I asked him one day "so what do you do when you go to install the corner piece and the wall isn't 90 degrees?" His answer was "Hammer." He wasn't talking about the granite. Co-workers were a bit confused, and were more confused when he said his company used the hammer solution pretty often. He and I just laughed and shook our heads. Yeah, those houses are full of structural oopsies. I wasn't at all shocked when MMH made comments on some of the pictures pointing out visible water damage. The proper construction of eaves seems to have been the first thing forgotten by the McMansion builders.

Another murder mystery - The monster of Florence (aka Amanda Knox is right, Italian police really are bad at their job). But re: Framed, besides that it also took me forever to get LA Times to show me the article - I don't get why the couple was never brought up on drug charges. They admitted to planting the weed = possession. And even if the other drugs were from their own medicine cabinet, passing out prescription drugs to other people is a crime. I guess they thought it was just a lesser charge, and would detract from the main crime? I don't know. But yeah, when it comes to discussions of race and drug crimes, I know there's bias and whatever, but moms stealing their kid's adderall is harder to catch than the corner kingpin hooking kids on crack. But geesh, it's right there and admitted and...meh???

Just raising my hand here to say - "Old School" homeschool had co-ops. Large, extensive, class-based, teacher run co-ops. I attended one in, oh I'm not sure exactly, 1993(ish). Big attendance, had classrooms, paid teachers, etc. It was defined as "extra-curricular" but that meant it included ASL, science, Recorder, and....other things as well. Trying to remember, my mom didn't sign me up for everything. My mom asked for "core" classes once, she was a "3 R's" believer but struggled to implement it. And she was ticked when the secretary said that they didn't offer that, just "extras." So, yeah, what is "old school"? A time period, or just a philosophy born from a time? Because there was a wide variety among my fellow homeschool-ees. And my "old school" mom would have been all over a co-op like CC (except for the price, lol, but she probably would have tried to be a teacher, oh good Lord...). CC is new in that it is nationally-run and systematized (like an MLM). But I really think its popularity really does have to do with tapping into an already perceived need in the homeschool world, not creating new "I don't know how to homeschool by myself" homeschoolers.

This is sorta OT - I'm asking for a friend who is interested in taking the TOEFL in the next year or so. He's a native German speaker and dyslexic. I think his disability is documented in Germany? But he asked for my help in seeing if he's prepared for the TOEFL, so I started reading up on it. Oh, it's ETS. ETS has accommodations for LD. Maybe? The ETS website is vague. And my google-fu is failing me. But the Hive knows all. So, generally speaking, I should tell my friend to request disability accommodation with ETS itself first. Right. And then ETS decides what accommodation he qualifies for, yes? What's common accommodations for dyslexia? More time? How severe would it have to be to get a Reader? His best hope is more time, I think? That's the general gist I've picked up from previous threads on this topic that I've skimmed. Just want to make sure I don't give my friend false expectations. And if anyone here has sent disability documentation from a foreign country to ETS, please chime in. :)

Bethben, I'm totally on your side here. I have a cousin with a profound disability, so I know somewhat what you have to do 24/7. And without even the break of having him in school, yeah, ouch. Tell the haters they're free to come take care of your 18yo so you have time to homeschool. It's not going to happen, so they can shut up. And "just reading" is not enough. I totally agree with you there. That was my mom's philosophy when she started having a bunch of babies again, and I spent my middle school years mostly reading junk. It's stunting. I "turned out okay" on paper, but it was a real problem that still bedevils me at unexpected moments. Maybe this other mom has the Unicorn Children who never whine or complain, learn from reading the textbook, and independently use their free time to challenge themselves and take up worthwhile hobbies. Good for her. But for you, putting the 4th grader in school sounds like the right choice right now. :grouphug:

It never was. :confused1: There was a theory advanced once about the earth being flat. It wasn't particularly popular. Look up Christian Topography by Cosmas Indicopleustes. Wiki is good here. I once was at an academic conference and went to a talk about Cosmas, because I thought it would be less of a snooze. It wasn't, sadly. But, there were good overhead slides with illustrations from one of the manuscripts, and I realized that this was what Lewis modeled Narnia on. Indeed, in The Discarded Image Lewis discusses this work and antipodes (another fun rabbit hole). One time, when rereading Voyage of the Dawn Treader I wondered if Narnia had tides. A flat earth forum explained that yes, tides can happen on a flat earth - it's because the earth wobbles back and forth (why? I don't know why). I think the physics would demand that if the whole earth is flat, and wobbles, that the wobbles would have to happen at regular times, yes? So you should be able to measure the tides increasing at regular intervals from east to west (or whichever way we're wobbling), right? The thing with these conspiracy theories is that there's usually already a pat response to the most common objections (like tides). To work through why that response if not valid means working through the physics of why the earth is round, which is more than most people are willing to delve in to. It's even worse with geocentrists (yes, they presently exist as well). The physics of proving the heliocentric model is more than people want to have in a casual conversation. It's "I read a book once that seemed really scientific, and I believe it" and that's that. Plus, there you have the problem that, from our perspective, it really does seem like the sun rises and sets every day.

Or, you could know, have it medically confirmed, and take the meds carefully (can't remember if I got 2 or 3 weeks of Doxy), and still suffer. PTLD. Post-Treatment Lyme Disease. If anyone is wondering if it's real, I have a medical history which seems to be a textbook case for it. Oh joy. But some people get bit and don't have side effects at all. Some people get better with a brief ABx. Some people don't. Not to further scare the OP! Not all ticks carry nasty diseases that can disable or kill you, after all! Wear pants when hiking, even if it is on a wide trail. That was my mistake.

Have you seen this article? I'm also so tired of the "cut your grocery bill with Ibotta!!!" advice. That's only good for people who already splurge on name-brands and alcohol. I even used multiple grocery rebate apps very aggressively one summer (combining aggressively with coupons and sales, and sometimes pinching relative's receipts, which is sorta against the TOS). And only got chump change. And you have to use a smart phone with most of them anyways soo....maybe it'll pay one cell phone bill in a year for someone who is already really spendy at the grocery store? Whoo hooo. A solution to poverty it is not. I'm still not entirely sure what this thread is about. So maybe that's all off-topic.

I don't know what article the OP linked to, but by googling the thread title I got this https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2016/02/19/a-college-degree-is-worth-less-if-you-are-raised-poor/ The Comment section is worth reading.

I agree about apprenticeships. There's apprenticeship programs for things in IT as well. They aren't going to lead to mega-bucks IT jobs, but they're good jobs. Maybe electrical engineering? That's computer-based, and just a matter of knowing how the little details have to (always and precisely) go together. Lots of Aspies in that field, I believe. Is he interested in writing fiction? Maybe have him write a fanfiction for one of his games and post it on fanfiction.net. First, he'll see that writing good fiction is really, really hard and time-consuming. Second, he'll get feedback. Maybe, just maybe, it will turn out to be wildly popular and he can pull it off the internet, publish it, sell a bazillion copies and a Hollywood movie. Or maybe not. [some published authors post fanfiction stories, btw, they think it's a great platform to try out new concepts and new genres and get instant feedback]. As for game developer - has he done anything with coding or graphic design? If the answer is no, I hesitate about that idea. People going into that field haven't just sat and played games for years, they've been making games and/or concept art for years and years. It's a hard field to start from zero in your 20's. I mean, it's done, but doesn't usually lead to a nice job at EA. So if that's not really his passion anyways, I don't think it's realistic. Also, maybe he could look into going to a different school? The school atmosphere, aesthetics, smells, etc. can't be discounted as a part of his dislike. Professor morale, class composition, and so on can also make a big difference. Just throwing that out there. He might just "click" somewhere else.

I checked it out of the library a few years ago. Looked at the Amazon preview to jog my memory.... Yes, from what I recall, the grammar explanations are really good and thorough. He really tries to explain how the grammar works right off the bat. Now, that may be overwhelming for a student, especially all the grammatical terms he uses, but for a student coming from a good formal study of grammar, or better, grammar-based Latin, it could really work. The one problem I had with it was the exercises. There's not enough of them. Since he's going more inductive/whole-parts the idea is to NOT have a bunch of translation sentences, I know. But the exercises he sets could use a lot of beefing up. Inductive/whole-parts needs MORE MORE MORE to work, and he just doesn't have that. Decker does try (much more than other Koine Greek programs) to include more than the NT, and that is appreciated, but I just don't understand why if he's working from a bigger corpus he can't find more things to ask the student to look at. Also, I don't recall, but does he give an answer key? I'm drawing a blank there. But for as thorough as his chapters are, it would be nice if he gave a thorough answer to the chapter exercises, going through and explaining why in that instance such is in that case, or so on. I have Decker's Koine Greek Reader, and one of the issues I have in that is that, while he gives a good gloss, he hardly ever brings up syntax points. Those are sorta the things that need to have to be reviewed, preferably with reading, so it is bothersome that he doesn't give any help there. So I worry that the same sort of thing is in this book, that the only helps for the exercises will be grammar cribs, and not actually walking the student through the syntax and style. Of course, a good teacher could fix that issue easily, but I'm supposing that you're intending this as an independent study? Oh, I don't know anything about the videos. That's news to me. Does he go through the exercises in the videos? That would interest me. My verdict, as it stands it's sort of like the Koine Greek version of English Grammar for Students of _____ . A helpful book to have around if your main text has you confused or stuck in a rut of plug-and-chug translation.

Do the smaller dogs need a lot of training? I am a bit partial to cats. Unless you need to teach them to use a particular litter box, they mostly figure out their own needs. Dogs, on the other hand, walking, cleaning up after them, and obedience school, grooming, washing and so on. Maybe I've mostly known high-maintenance dogs, or fussy owners. But I don't want too much effort. I already have to be the maid and brain for three people in this house (I feel like, usually, on most days, lol)! I don't know if I can handle four. I have a relative who has big Labs. Yes, they're great with kids. One of her dogs would start crying if you ignored him for longer than five minutes, so yeah, definitely attention seeking. But oh so strong and active! Maybe when we go for fish supplies I can start asking around about what breeds are common in this area. I'm not sure what the Dutch equivalent of animal shelters would be.... we need a thinking emoji here, I'm thinking a lot. Think, think think.

Oh, just to clarify, Babypants is just shy of 4, and I'm thinking that if I begin the "let's get a pet" idea now, it'll be a year before it actually gets done. Convince DH - more than a few months. Consider where to get the animal - another few months. Actually getting the animal - more months. :laugh: :rolleyes: Things get done slowly here. And Crazypants has a pet. A Beta fish. He looks at it and talks to it. That's about all he needs there. Babypants actually tried to get into the tank the other day, wanting to play with it. No! no touching! You don't touch the fish! That made him sad. Babypants seems okay with MIL's old cat, but it's hard since she likes to run off before he really gets a chance to touch her. But that's her, she never ever liked being petted. But she wasn't petted much as a kitten, so she didn't "evolve" to prefer touch. I've heard that "lap cats" are made, not born, by being petted a lot from kittenhood. Though some cats are contrary, and some cats are jerks. But suffice to say, we're not going to teach this old cat to be affectionate, lol. I'm actually trying to think if I know anyone who has an affectionate cat. Or a smart and affectionate dog. We're rural, so most cats are outdoor cats who spend the day hunting frogs instead of hanging out at home with their human. And a neighbor has dogs he likes to go see, but they're little yappy idiots (sorry, they're cute though). She also has rabbits, which he loves, but rabbits don't strike me as being very bright. Guinea pigs are pretty smart, though, aren't they? I don't know much about them. But from what I've seen, he seems to have a decent amount of respect for animals. But getting from there to a pet who is a sensory outlet and also a companion - that's a lot of responsibility to put on an animal. And I don't think he's at the point where he needs a specially-trained animal or anything, so.... :unsure:

So SPD. Crazypants has it as an official diagnosis. But Babypants....seems to be much the same as well, except different. CP was never a cuddler or a touchy-feely baby. But BP, oh boy, is he ever. And he's starting to get to the age where he can't just put his hands in my shirt whenever he wants, kwim? We have here an old, somewhat senile, yard cat. BP often tries to pet her, which she tolerates for a few moments before running off. The other week at preschool, they brought in some kittens (practice petting and be nice to animals and so on). BP was ecstatic, and tried to bring one home. So that got me thinking about whether we should start trying to train up a good "lap cat" that he can pet as he gets older. We're more comfortable with cats than dogs here, though I'm open to suggestions. I've heard of comfort animals for kids, but I'm thinking more specifically of an animal for touching, as an outlet for sensory-seeking. Has this been discussed before? I'm just trying to think through whether my thought process is correct here or not.

My DH might be an Aspie, and I didn't really relate to it that much. But I can see how those things can be an issue. DH's problem is that he tries too hard. Like sometimes he's running through the checklists, and other times he's in his own world, but usually he comes back to the "see how awesome of a husband I'm being!" checklist. But I don't always feel it, and sometimes the actions on the checklist aren't appropriate, and then he pouts about how he's trying so hard to do everything right, and he's still a failure, and so on. After one huge blow-out due to rigidity, ToM, and catastrophic thinking I found the book Journal of Best Practices (subtitle of how one guy with Asperger's and OCD saved his marriage, or something like that). It was helpful to see that other people were living the same sort of challenges. I got to see how one Aspie mind worked, and DH got to see how an Aspie husband learned how to be a better spouse. The author uses the word "selfish" to describe his behavior, which is something I tried to avoid with DH - not to characterize him in moral terms. But DH said that he agreed with that description. That sometimes his actions (his own) were just that - selfish. That brings clarity to a lot of his odd behaviors, and it helps frame them off in a way. But DH, while being pretty functional, has issues that make some everyday-life things challenging. So other people notice. My MIL even warned me, "But he's such a weird guy!" Lol. So I don't really feel isolated or misunderstood, so I didn't really relate to that in the article at all.

Has anyone used this? autismcertificationcenter.org It's free to residents of Ohio, and accredited for CEU for certain professionals. I'm not sure how much it costs if you're not in Ohio. (I keep an Ohio address, so I used that when registering). I did the intro and the School Age course. I thought it was good. A lot of the stuff I had already picked up from reading the posts here and other stuff on the web and books. But it was good to see some of the terminology shown in real life practice. I'm a person who needs to see things to really get how it's supposed to be done, so I found that helpful. I might start working on the other courses, not sure. For the light Asperger's like my kid's, it wasn't always clear how to translate the therapies used with kids with apraxia to someone as (overly) verbal as my kid. But when I hear the therapy talked about, at least I know what exactly it is and one way it's used. Just wanted to share, in case others might find it useful.

I believe that the Norse equivalent of Bullfinch is Geurber's Myths of the Norsemen: From the Eddas and Sagas. I'm not sure if it's still in print. I have an ancient old Dover edition. It's okay, I think. The illustrations in my edition aren't worthwhile, but the stories are written interesting enough, though you'll get the usual smattering of "heathen times" talk.

Okay, those goals are a bit ambitious. But you clearly have a HG child already, so statistically this 3yo is probably at least pretty smart. So you have end goals. Work backwards from there. Algebra 1 in 7th means Pre-A in 6th, which means being done with elementary math in 5th. How do you plan to do that? You mentioned BA, and that's how they're set up, so that's one option. Singapore is another I think (many people skip 6 in favor of going straight to Pre-A). BA/AoPS will take you from 2nd-12th. If halfway through it's not clicking there's other programs which are also good, but okay, you can mark down BA/AoPS for now. For Latin, what Latin program gets you to Latin IV/AP Latin by the end of high school? What's the sequence? How early do they start? For science, you'll have to think about doing the Pre-AP classes in middle school. Lots of people do that, some don't and the AP classes are fine anyways. But there's people around here who can give good ideas for middle school science that prepares for a stack of AP science in high school. There might be better suggestions in 10 years, lol, but sure, mark them down. What's popular today might even be better than what's popular 10 years from now. So, yes, I have a crazy multi-year plan sitting in a Word file on my computer. When I find curriculum lines and resources I like and think will work well, I mark them down and look at "if we finish the whole sequence, where are we at?" "is there something better I was hoping to be using during that time?" "what will using this achieve in the end?" (I also prominently mark down future resources I already own, very important!). Of course, this file has been edited numerous times and has never actually panned out in real life. But I still like it. It keeps a general roadmap in my head, even when I'm wondering if we're wandering in circles to Timbuktu. Some people are cool with pie-in-the-sky vague goals about knowing truth and beauty. That's cool. But I need rubber-meets-the-road THIS is (one) way of achieving THAT. Maybe your husband is the same way. I'll admit that I may be overly neurotic about this because I myself got homeschooled under the "the most important subject is Character" model for a few years, which meant that the only thing we did was "character" books. It wasn't until I read TWTM that I really realized that homeschooling could be different. So in my Word file things are really basic. I put a year, grade level, and age. Then next line is "Math:" followed by the name of resources. So here "Beast Academy Level 3 A-D" or whatever. Next line is another subject. "Science:" with whatever my Grand Plans are listed after. "English" is a bit wonky. Do I separate out spelling and literature and diagramming and so on? All depends on what my Grand Plans are for using that year! On one level it's absurd, on another level it's fun. But it also throws up some flags. "Did I just mark down a 12yo for honors Geometry? Hmmm..." So just write it all out. You have my permission. :) You may, of course, explain to your DH that this is just a skeleton plan of high-quality and highly-recommended resources you know you can easily acquire and you reserve right to substitute other resources of comparable quality as you go. But he may just need the assurance that these things exist, and you know a method to get from A to Z. But my DH, sigh. I printed out my Grand Plan once for him to peruse. I did this because he was complaining that it was taking too long for our kid to get to the cool stuff, like Plato and Quantum Physics. :rolleyes: Do you see? Do you see how in the Grand Plan he'll get to these things later? Now can you please stop bugging me with your History of Philosophy so we can finish The Little Prince? But he didn't understand my Grand Plan at all. He didn't know what all the names for the things were, boo, and he didn't understand why these things took so long, boo. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: But he was willing to concede that I had a plan, and maybe things would work out okay in the end. :lol: