we could do it over 2 years. But I'd be afraid the student would forget the first half of the course by the time the test rolled around! If we ever decide to attempt another AP course at home (we're doing APUSH at a breakneck pace now), I will start the work by July to allow a full 10 months to complete it. We didn't start APUSH until the almost the end of August.

No, I just searched on it and it led me directly to that page. I don't have an official login. Yikes, I don't think I need one??

My daughter has taken on-site Biola Star classes (she'll do a Torrey one next year). I have talked to several families with students in the Torrey program, and most think it's wonderful. The only one who didn't had a student signed up when there was a teacher they didn't like (who's no longer with the program). It's considered very rigorous by all the homeschoolers I know. Biola is unabashedly Christian. (Biola was formerly the Bible Institute of Los Angeles). Most of the families are evangelical, literal-Bible-believing Christians. I'm sure any student who isn't would still be treated respectfully, but I think the program's intent is to help the students develop and defend their Christian worldview.

He is not elderly...he and his wife are both late 30s, no kids. He works at home which I'm sure adds to the problem...if he went to an office everyday, the construction work wouldn't have bothered him. Did I mention the profanity-laced sign tacked to a tree in the planter strip in front of his house when we first moved in? Apparently another neighbor had been letting their dog poop in his yard and not picking it up. So he tacked up a cardboard sign threatening owners of any errant dogs. It included the "s" word among other unpleasant language. I hadn't met the guy yet (he hadn't had time to develop any complaints against us) but I knew he wasn't going to be a great neighbor. It was so embarrassing because we had houseguests right after we moved in who noticed his sign.

I might even keep some phone numbers handy for him to call & verify. Although I suspect he already has those; he seems to be the type to know his rights, and I imagine if he thought we were outside the law his language would be stronger. I guess my main problem with this guy is he didn't pick his battles. He complained about everything, and now we are going to write him off as a complainer and ignore him.

We have all those and more in our neighborhood...coyote and deer. So I don't think a little dog pee is a big deal. This neighbor has a dog. I don't know where it pees; perhaps it's toilet-trained. I never see them walking it, and I never see it in their backyard.

It's not constant...it's about 2 hours a day on the "high" setting which I pray is the only one they can hear. We had it set from 9AM-11AM (because the neighbor had helpfully told my husband when we first moved in that he often sleeps until 9). But apparently his wife's work schedule changed, and she sleeps until noon. OK...we agreed to start it at noon. But it also must run on high when we heat up and are using the spa. So I imagine that will be for an hour or two, 2 or 3 nights a week. That's what I think the next complaint will be. Although I can't imagine somebody who insists we not make noise until noon would also complain about noise between 8-9:30 PM. But he's amazed us before. And I'm also worried that he'll complain when we have friends over. Not wild parties with loud music, just teenagers splashing & playing.

Great idea; I think I can pull off the conversation re: the pump. Tonight dh and I will practice saying, "Thanks for letting us know!" if anything else comes up. But I'm not sure that would end it. The conversation about the dog was bizarre - dh said that the guy asked him, "Don't you think that's reasonable?" and my husband answered, "It doesn't matter if I think it's reasonable." At which point he wanted to argue with dh to get him to admit that it's wrong for our dog to pee in his yard, even after dh had already agreed not to do it in the future. Bizarre. As for the party...yes, I've already thought of that. The trick is to get it loud enough to annoy him but not so that the cops would actually think it a disturbance. :)

We moved 6 months ago. Since then we have had several conversations with our neighbor - all of them revolving around his complaints about something we have done. We've had a construction project going on for months, so I do feel sympathy for his complaints (mostly noise & dust related). But we have bent over backwards to accommodate him - our tile cutters moved from the driveway into the garage to keep any dust from going onto his property; we asked contractors not to come until an hour past the legally allowed start time, etc. But I started to lose sympathy for the guy when he told my husband we can't walk our dog in front of his house. (we have to go past his house to get to our mailbox). He instructed us to take the dog across the street and then head up, instead of heading up the street in front of his house. When my husband, flabbergasted, said, "But we always pick up after our dog," the neighbor said, "But he pees." Let me point out that this wasn't a daily occurrence, and my dog didn't have a "favorite" spot that was causing any damage to grass or other plants. It was at this point I decided the guy is just a neurotic freak who likes to complain about everything. But my hubby, wanting to live in peace with our neighbors, agreed we wouldn't walk the dog on "his" sidewalk. Now our construction is about done and we are ready to use our pool. Guess what? The pool/spa pump is too loud for him. I just spent the morning on the phone with different city departments making sure I understand all the noise ordinances. Yes, our pump is fine or it wouldn't have passed inspection. Quiet hours are after 10PM so unless we have something really raucous going on in the backyard before then, the cops won't address a complaint. We are about done trying to accommodate him. Am I unreasonable? Next time he comes over about the pump, can we tell him we'd love to be at peace with him, but we don't want to hear any more complaints? Honestly, I'd rather have him call the city and let the city come talk to me...since I have already been told we're fine! I'm afraid to answer my door because nobody ever comes to the door except him with a complaint. The most ironic (and discouraging) thing is that we are pretty quiet people, and one of the reasons we moved to this house is the house we were renting was too loud, near a major street, very close neighbors, etc.

Thanks so much for the responses. It was encouraging to hear from "Son of JFS". :) One BIG thing I was missing was the sample essays at the college board web-site. I thought I had everything covered because I had downloaded all of the past exams that are available at the student section of the site. I had no idea that graded student responses were available at the teacher section of the site. For anybody else who is looking for this, it's here: past essays w/ student responses We are going to stick with our breakneck pace for now, aiming to take the exam in May. So if we decide not to take it, she can always sit for the SAT II US History later.

Karen, she jots down ideas, then writes an outline. Here's a little more info: I'm afraid this is one of those classes (like French, which she just finished her 2nd semester at the local CC!) that I cannot teach. I honestly have no idea if, once she's churned out an essay, the answer is something the college board graders are looking for. Another problem is the pace of the course, with the heavy reading & essay-writing load which must be done by May 8. My alternate plan, if we decide not to do the AP test, is to pull back just a little on her weekly work. I would stretch the class until the end of May instead of having to finish by the end of April. I would reduce the essay requirements to 2 for every unit instead of 3. (a unit is approx. 2 weeks). And I would get a SAT II test prep book, with a view toward taking that in June. It sounds like I've already talked myself out of having her take the AP exam, but I am really considering all the options now and would welcome suggestions.

I need some advice and/or encouragement (or not) about our AP US History plans. My dd is in 10th grade and I decided she was ready for APUSH this year for a few reasons: 1. She's a very good standardized test-taker. 2. She's a good writer, and at least in our literature program (primarily Lightning Lit) she can quickly identify the "point" and write about it with few grammatical or stylistic problems. 3. We wanted to do US History this year and I didn't want to do it in 10th grade and then again in 12th. I carefully researched and planned, and created a syllabus based on other AP teachers' syllabi posted online. I'm fairly confident that we're doing all the preparation needed for the exam (although I admit I don't know what those other AP teachers do for the 3-5 hours a week of classroom time they have...we are doing the textbook readings, supplemental readings, and practice questions). We're about halfway through and running into major problems with the practice essays. Dd frequently claims she doesn't understand the question, or is not prepared for it based on the readings. We are timing the essays, but not limiting her time, just so we can see how she's doing. She's typically taking about 10 minutes longer than the times allowed by the exam for each essay type. (that is, AFTER I've concerned her that she DOES understand the question and IS prepared to write an essay on the topic). I am starting to wonder if we are wasting our time in pursuing the exam this year. My hubby thinks dd just might not be mature enough to synthesize the information and spit it out into an essay. Some of the questions are "explain" a topic that is described in the textbook and she does OK on those. But others are "evaluate" a topic that requires the student to come up with something that may not have been laid out in the text in a 5-paragraph essay outline form. Has anybody had a similar experience with these essays? What advice can you offer me? Thanks.

My 15yo dd just finished her 2nd semester of CC classes. I was worried about this, too. But there is less socializing at the CC campus if you are in one or two classes, than if you are at a high school all day. And it turns out that my dd *did* find a couple of people to socialize with - both 16yo homeschool girls in the same class!

I have a 12yo. Can somebody please tell me what it's OK to spend our entire 7th grade year on? :D We are already really working on #s 2 and 5 on the 8th grade list so at least we are on track for that... :confused:

My dancer "retired" this summer. I am sad about it, but we had spent over $3000/yr on her dance activities for the previous 3 years...so it is nice not to have that budget item anymore. Right now she is just taking a ballet class 2x/week at the local community college. It was *free* since she is dual-enrolled, yippee! Good luck to all of you who haven't already danced. Congrats to those who recalled!

In California, dual-enrollment means high school and community college at the same time. My 15yo is taking French at the CC and getting both high school AND college credit, depending on the college that she transfers to.

I wanted to give an update on what I ended up doing. We were headed out of town for the weekend, so I was desperate...and I happened upon this item for $40 at Costco. I had already seen so-so reviews of this while searching Amazon for the items you ladies had mentioned here. But I figured for $40, and with Costco's return policy, what did I have to lose? It worked really well...not exactly car-stereo hi-fi quality, but we could hear the stories adequately. And the best thing was that we got to listen to the music at our destination with the AC adaptor - the sound was a little better than I get through my Macbook. For the car, I used rechargeable AA batteries which still seem to be going strong after several hours. It's also pretty cute - Costco had it in pink or black or red. I'm going to stick with this until hubby buys me a new car with a real stereo. :) And as an aside, did anybody notice that Hank the Cowdog books are now available on Audible.com? They have been adding them a few at a time for the last month - only have 10 up now, most of which we already own on tape or CD, but I'm hoping for more... Thanks again for the ideas!

Will your students have had any outside courses/co-ops/on-line courses? The possibility of getting recommendation letters is one reason to have homeschooled kids participate in those. (I realize most moms probably want other compelling reasons also...but there's one!)

But the WTM general forum is designed to meet all of our needs! :001_rolleyes:

Kate, that is one thing that I was considering...one of the super-mini boom boxes for ipods. Brigitte, that is an odd-looking device! Is the speaker really integrated into the case?

Hmm, it didn't occur to me that there might be differences in the brands (mine was a Belkin). So I just looked this one up on Amazon and the reviews were mixed - specifically, one reviewer said he couldn't use it in the Los Angeles area, grr. I will have to decide if it's worth the return- postage risk on this.

First, I tried one of those FM-radio transmitters. We couldn't find a station that would work reliably as we drove around town - I suppose because we're in such a dense area with so many stations fading in & out. Luckily Costco let me return that expensive device. Next I tried a cassette converter. Every time I popped it into the cassette player, all of the warning lights on my dashboard started flashing - the stupid thing was somehow overloading a circuit. Luckily Amazon says I can return this inexpensive device. I really want to listen to books on tape, etc. with the kids but don't know what else to do (short of buying a complete stereo system, which isn't practical since we'll probably be replacing the van in the next year). Any suggestions for me?

Oh, I'm sorry that happened to you. So far I haven't had any problems with it - I love it. But I'm using their e-mail notifications mostly as a "back-up" to make sure I don't miss one of the 9 library cards we use! (3 cards each at 3 library systems). I still manually go to library elf's web-page 1 or 2 times a week and ask it to get my info - easier than going to all the libraries' websites and logging in 3 times each.

I've been enjoying the PBS miniseries (and of course, love the book and movie North & South). Is the book Cranford worth reading?

I'm glad it is working for you. My friends who faced bankruptcy & foreclosure don't talk much about the wealth of beauty in everyday life anymore. I think they saw that beauty more before they started on the Rich Dad path. They turned to Rich Dad to fill a financial need, and the advice they took ultimately made it worse.