My stylist is pricey. She's worked backstage at NY Fashion Week, and has tons of advanced training. I pay $75 every 3 months or so for a cut. All over color every 4 weeks is $105. I usually do highlights every 2-3 months, which is $145 (instead of the all over color). You can add another 20% for tip on top of that. So, I probably average $150ish/month on my hair.

That's a nice sentiment and all when you go don't go gray at 17. Premature graying isn't the worst thing in the world, but it still basically sucks. I don't consider myself a vain person, but IMHO, the time and money I spend at the salon is well spent.

My hair started going gray in my teens. Yes, you read that right. At 40, it is probably 95+% gray. I've thought about letting it go gray because it is super trendy right now, but I know that I would just look old vs. fashion forward. So, I spend the economy of a small country coloring/highlighting my hair in the salon every 4 weeks. I don't know if I will ever stop. My grandmother is 92, lives in assisted living now, and still has a stylist come in every few weeks to color her hair red. It matches her inner fire. I imagine that if she ever gives up her red hair, it will be because that fire is close to going out.

Thanks for this thread. I wrote off Spectrum because it wasn't secular, so I appreciate the reviews. O/T, but does anyone know if The Rainbow could also be easily secularized for a science-loving elementary student?

How did it go for everyone today? Sacha took first place for second grade at the test center in La Jolla, which sounds impressive, but he was the only participant for his grade (most of the kids were 3rd and up from the local La Jolla schools). Nevertheless, I am so proud of him. He's never taken a test before, and 45 minutes is a long time for a 6 year old to concentrate. I asked to see his test afterward, and he did really well. He was so excited to get a medal, and told them all how much he loves math. Honestly, I think the teacher was more nervous than the student! Watching him confidently perform on a timed test with all older kids made me feel much more confident about our homeschooling. Thank you all for your encouragement and advice! :)

If the classes/social opportunities were good enough, I would do it without the money. Most of our funds go toward the charter classes anyway, so the amount we get towards curriculum and extracurriculars is pretty minimal. The charters that don't have classes offer nearly 3X as much in our area. Without that enticement, I think very few would enroll.

This is us too. Our charter lets us do our own thing, and simply helps out financially and on the social front for my extrovert. But, we may buy a 5th wheel in a year or two and travel the U.S. and Canada for awhile. So, we will stay with our charter until it is no longer a fit for our lifestyle and/or academic goals. For now, it's a great fit for us.

We are homeschooling because Sacha was being sent to the director's office of his *preschool* with regularity. I assumed it was just a boy thing until I started to talking to other mothers of boys and realized that mine was the only one acting out He still has some issues on occasion with disrupting his weekly homeschool charter classes. He walked out of his math enrichment class last year because he was so bored. His teacher promised differentiation, but it wasn't enough. He swears that he loves his charter school classes, but we've avoided anything math or science related this year due to his acceleration in those subjects. It would be hard for me to imagine him fitting back into a regular public school environment.

Does MIF incorporate the more difficult questions from the IP, or are the questions more on the level of the TB and WB?

For me, meds + sleep + a yearly plan + me time + a supportive husband = successfully homeschooling with bipolar disorder and anxiety.

I haven't seen these mentioned on the boards, but Berkeley puts out some secular science resources here: http://www.globalsystemsscience.org/ From the website: "Global Systems Science, for grades 9-12, focuses on science-related societal issues. 12 books, teacher guides, and software can support a 1-year integrated science course or supplement existing biology, physics, chemistry, Earth science, or environmental science."

http://slickdeals.net/f/8158398-treasure-island-book-kindle-e-book-audiobook-free?p=78713582&utm_source=dealalerts&utm_medium=em-d&utm_term=18&utm_content=u5813252&utm_campaign=tu14#post78713582

Ww started Times Tales this morning. It's working brilliantly! Thank you!

The Wet Brush changed my life!

Hmmm. I did that. It shows Sacha as registered, but I don't see where he can actually play. It just shows a global leaderboard.

I must be daft. I registered us, but now I don't see where you actually log in to play the game. It just keeps taking me to the registration screen. I logged in as a parent. Was I supposed to log in as a school?

I believe that CAP has some online classes for their W&R series, but I haven't heard any reviews: http://classicalacademicpress.com/live-teacher-led-online-courses/ Athenas and Online G3 also have writing classes: http://www.athenasacademy.com/mod/page/view.php?id=2148 http://www.onlineg3.com/OnlineG3/Writing_Course_Descriptions.html

That's so awesome. And man, is he adorable!

Sacha is working through the BA 3B section on the multiplication table. He has his lower times table down, so I have been teaching him how to use the distributive property to decompose the upper times table into manageable chunks. He gets how to do it, but still doesn't have the upper times table memorized. Should I use something like Times Tales to give him mnemonic devices for memorizing, or will he likely just eventually memorize them through the normal course of repetition in BA? I was taught the multiplication table through rote memorization and speed drills in public school, and had no clue about the distributive property until high school Algebra. I'd like to keep the math as conceptual as possible, but, at some point, he just needs to know the answer cold. Just trying to think about the best way of getting him to that point. Thanks for your advice. :)

I print off some worksheets from Evan Moor's Daily Science, and use them as samples for our charter.

Mine saw it as a toddler, but it was probably too soon for him to get most of it. I am still deathly afraid of tornadoes because of the Wizard of Oz!

+1 for Audible! We love Jim's stories here!

"A Puzzle-Style, Cooperative, Chemistry Game for 2-4+ Players, where you must deduce the structure of secret molecules from clues given!" https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/geniusgames/covalence-a-molecule-building-game We have purchased several of their other science games.

My son prefers the Prodigy math game to Dreambox.

I'm not disappointed in Song School Latin overall, but their DVDs are just awful. They don't appear to have a script, and are instead just improvising during filming. The pronunciation of French during the Derivative River segment is atrocious, and even some Latin words are mispronounced and subsequently dubbed over. The whole production is so low budget, with wild sound fluctuations, that it looks like a child's film project.