I'd buy Poetry for Young People - the whole series 🙂 My now 2nd grader loves to memorize poetry! Or Artistic Pursuits and art supplies

For 5th - 8th I require summary paragraphs of some aspect of each history chapter they read - whatever they find interesting 7th-8th written lab reports for science - earlier than that I think it kills their enjoyment of the content I would find it difficult myself to write about geography so I don't require any writing assignments for that I don't use a resource, I just tell them to write about what they've studied. I do formal composition instruction separately and I do require that they apply the writing process I have taught to their science and history assignments.

I'm giving all staff at our school a sabbatical for 3 months and ordering them not to think about school the entire time 😉 But I would like to read Rethinking School

Just chiming in on the sea sickness issue ... we did 6 hr day cruise on Resurrection Bay out of Seward to Kenai Fjords Naruonal Park. It was amazing and we saw all kinds of ocean life and glaciers calving into the water ... but 4 of the 12 of us were puking off the back of the boat and 1 of us (me) kind of wanted to die. DH said the waves were about 6 ft that day and the boat was shaped so it smacked up and down on top of them instead of slicing through them so that made it worse. It was disappointing because I was soooooo looking forward to that cruise! But I'm not sure I'd do it again.

Yes, Elegant Essay. I've heard other people say before that they had problems with it too as others on this thread said but we never did til this year for some reason. Yes also to Critical Thinking in US History (the older 4 CD set not the newer books from Critical Thinking Company) and K12's American Odyssey. We used all of the K12 book but only selected lessons from the cd's. Using all of those would be waaaaaay too much! 🙂

I don't know why your quote isn't showing up? Oh well ... We stayed at hotels or lodges, usually in 3 rooms but sometimes in 4. 1 night in Anchorage, 3 in Seward, 2 in Talkeetna, 2 in Fairbanks, 3 in Denali, and 2 in Palmer. We went south first, then north, then back south to fly back out of Anchorage, timing our stops so we never had to drive more than 5 hours on a traveling day. I'm not convinced we got any deals on pricing despite our large group size ... Alaska in the summer is high season for sure and we pretty much took what we could get! We booked a full year ahead of time and still didn't get our first choice on some lodgings. It was a trip of a lifetime! 🙂

For my parents 50th anniversary in 2017, they took us all (me and DH and our then 5 kids, my brother and his wife and daughter, so 12 all together) on a 2 week trip to Alaska and asked me to plan it 🙂 I did a lot of research myself and knew pretty much what we wanted to do, but actually booked it through a tour guide who actually lives in Alaska so she could help me make sure I wasn't being unrealistic about distances and travel times and available services and whatnot. That was a good choice! We went in July and it was light for the whole time, it only got dusky in the late night hours. You are almost certainly not going to see the Northern Lights in summer. They spent about $3500 per person (including all flights & transportation, gas, meals, excursions, lodging, and souvenirs - the whole shebang). They joked they were spending our inheritance and they weren't wrong ... but the memories were priceless. We flew into Anchorage and rented 2 mini vans and spent time in Anchorage, Seward, Talkeetna, Fairbanks, Denali, and Palmer and then flew back out of Anchorage. The only place I would have skipped would have been Fairbanks. It was fun and beautiful, but in hindsight I would have spent more time in the Seward area instead. Flying in between locations is going to be $$$$ and also take up a lot of precious time. We would have loved to see things further north and west than Fairbanks, but it just wasn't feasible time or moneywise. I honestly don't know if we would have gone if we could only have stayed 4 or 5 days. A lot of people go on cruises, which is fine and I'm quite sure they have a lovely time, but I feel like we saw a lot more (esp of the interior of the state) and had a lot more flexibility by not taking a cruise. If you want more info about travel agents, itinerary, etc I'd be happy to provide it, but didn't want to give you more info than you actually want 🙂

Many people think that Apologia is too wordy, but my kids have all loved it and thrived on it and consider Dr. Wile to be a close personal friend LOL I love it too - because I can hand them the book and tell them how to use it, grade their lab reports and tests, and otherwise be hands off for science from 7th grade until graduation and still be assured they've received a good science education thanks to Dr. Wile 🙂

Hits: SOTW 1 - We used MOH before and I liked it and tried to use it again this year, but it just wasn't right this time through with my 5th grader and 1st grader so we switched to SOTW and loved it! Fix It and IEW - perfect for my 5th grader this year and I can see real progress in her writing - yay! Comparative Gov & Politics - perfect for my 11th grader who is really into that kind of stuff - I got a college text and had him read and then do a presentation on each chapter to teach me the material and it was awesome! Homemade World Cultures & Religions course for my 9th grader - I pulled together various resources and books and then she wrote about each area of the world - she loved it and learned a lot! Misses: Destinos was great for my oldest DS but a hard slog for my 2nd DS for Spanish III this year. We finished enough to call it a credit, and I would probably still use it again, but I'm not as enamored with it as I once was. EE - not sure this is actually a miss, but it was harder to use this time around with my 9th grader than it was with my 2 older DS's - not sure why? Everything else is the same stuff we've been using all along ... so I guess those are technically "hits" because we keep coming back to them and using them successfully ... but they just don't seem new and exciting anymore 🙂 such as Apologia science (middle and high school, NOT elementary), God's Design, EiL, VCR, AG, CT in USH with American Odyssey, Video Text Alg & Geom, Visual Link Spanish, Art of Argument & Argument Builder, MM, AAR, AAS, Wordly Wise, Artistic Pursuits

Fix It Grammar has been great for my DD for 4th and 5th grade. We switch to Analytical Grammar in 6th-8th, but Fix It was perfect for her in those grades. 15 min/day tops and she did use the grammar in her compositions more consistently.

That's interesting, this is about the exact opposite of how I operate. How could I possibly hate (= feel an intense emotion about) someone I've never met or seen or even existed during the same time frame as? I realize that many people in power have done atrocious things that disgust me and I can feel comfortable denouncing those actions as wrong and ugly in no uncertain terms - but hatred seems like a more personal emotion to me and I would never apply it to some political figure I've never interacted with, unless it's using hyperbole, kind of like "I hate lima beans". Yes, this exactly. I can think any manner of unpleasant thoughts about a public figure (he/she is so wrong and off base and man he/she sure seems stupid and I can't believe he/she actually did that, etc etc) but not have any real emotions that actually touch my heart about them at all. As far as hating people I do know and interact with ... well, as a Christian I try not to but like any other thing that Christians aren't supposed to do that doesn't mean I don't find myself falling into that particular sin from time to time. I guess my working definition of hating someone means I hope they die soon and that I don't end up meeting them in heaven, which my spiritual self really doesn't want to feel towards anyone even if my earthly self feels like they deserve it, so I consciously work to try to change my feelings about those people to be more charitable. Sometimes that's easier said than done.

Agreeing with forty-two ... kids who like and are good at creative writing don't really need creative writing instruction. My girls who like to write stories and songs don't really connect those activities with "composition" as a subject in school, because the end goal of both activities is so radically different. The not so fun and less creative writing assignments like summaries and outlines and essays and whatnot are the ones that they need explicit instruction for, and WWE/WWS have got those bases covered for you.

16 years ago I told my DH the next move is to the nursing home and I meant it 😛

We use K12's high school world history text, not Spielvogel's, with GC Foundations of Western Civ (and also with GC History of the Ancient World: A Global Perspective), so I don't know if this will be relevant to you or not. But I don't even try to coordinate the book chapters with video sessions ... I just have them read through the text and watch the videos in order and take notes and discuss with me and write a paper or two. I figure by high school they have enough background knowledge of the sweep of world history (thanks to WTM) to make sense of the info even if it's not precisely coordinated. If this was their first round through world history, I might be more picky about it.

Depends on the group. With my very best girlfriends that we've known each other from our early married days through 20 years of raising kids and we all know each other's husbands and ups and downs and medical problems and parenting issues and faith hangups ... absolutely we discuss tea and not infrequently! Generally we don't share the gory details, although I have had more intimate 1:1 talks with some of them about specific issues from time to time, but sometimes we do, esp when the story is too funny not to share 🤣 In more general groups where I don't know people as well, like my hsing groups or my Bible study group (where we discuss intimate emotions but not tea) ... no. That would be weird.

I don't remember my first Wallmart trip, but I do remember when the full length video for Michael Jackson's Thriller came out on MTV!

Just today I had to explain to my 15 year old daughter that you didn't use to be able to get groceries at Walmart or Target but had to go to a whole separate grocery store, so I guess I'm old enough to have lived before the days of Super Walmart and Super Target 😊

We rescheduled our big Disney trip twice before we actually went in 2010. Once because the economy tanked in 2008/09 and we needed to spend our savings on a new vehicle instead of a vacation (isn't adulting fun?) and once because the guy my husband works with's wife was having a c-section during our vacation dates and they both couldn't be gone at the same time (which my husband neglected to tell me because he never really thinks about vacation planning until we were almost ready to go and I just happened to talk with the guy's wife at church one day and connected the dots). We still had a blast! 🙂

We decided to hs when oldest DS was in 7th grade and began when he was entering 8th grade. We were not necessarily unhappy with our local ps, but were tired of feeling like the school schedule ruled our lives and wanted more time with our kids before they grew up and left the nest. Best decision we ever made! Hs'ing really made fostering a close relationship easier and more natural than trying to "squeeze it in" around the ps schedule. High school was accomplished with almost all courses at home. DS took 1 CC course senior year, and did a couple online at your own pace courses (no live instructor) and the rest was either on his own or with me. DS is pretty advanced academically and achieved things he never would have had time for if he'd been tied to the ps schedule for 4 years (for example, teaching himself several programming languages in his spare time and having time to tackle AoPS). While I adore WTM and have learned so much from it and gained confidence to do high school with rigor on my own with it as a guide, its humanities heavy standards are just not what my kids are looking for in an education. So we skipped Latin 😛 did a bit of logic and focused more on math and science and electives than on the classics. I did/do appreciate the WTM method of studying history and literature together, just with less emphasis than WTM gives it. I've only graduated one so far. Right now DS just finished his freshman year at Purdue studying CS while working (part time during the school year and full time during the summer) for a local engineering firm doing programming. He kept a 4.0 and was invited to join the CS Honors program. He lived at home and commuted freshman year but signed a lease for an apt with friends for sophomore year. Aside from schoolwork, he joined a group of ag students which are designing an automated ATV that farmers can use to identify and eliminate weeds in their fields (he worked on the camera and programming aspects) and he auditioned and was invited to join a gospel singing group as part of the Purdue Musical Organization for next year.

We have an Odyssey and a small 8' covered cargo trailer and we are able to bring all.the.things. when we camp! Bikes for 8 people, a dorm fridge or 2 to plug in instead of messing with ice and coolers, the works ... we look like the Clampetts going camping LOL We have a nice 12x14 cabin style tent that fits all 8 of us (with cots for the kids in one half and a queen air mattress for me and DH in the other) and all our bags too. I've considered getting one of those small port a pottys to keep in the tent so I don't have to go outside and walk to the shower house at night, but so far haven't done that yet. If you only need room for 4 people or so, you'd have plenty of room in a tent a bit smaller than ours and still have room for a port a pot toilet. We looked at RVs too, but just couldn't swallow the cost.

I would not use a formal curriculum if his phonics skills are solid. I would work on just reading books with him doing buddy reading (you read a page, then he reads a page) and asking him questions as you read the story together to ensure he knows what's going on in the story as he decodes his page. If you are using books that are right on target for his reading ability (not too easy, not too hard) then his comprehension should improve with practice, without wearing him down with a formal curriculum. Unless, as you indicate, there may be an underlying ADHD issue, in which case further testing and diagnosis might be a good idea.

I gave birth 2 weeks ago and I'm 45 and sister, I promise you it will get better after you give birth!!!! Today I took a walk with NO pain, slept 3 hours at a stretch before baby woke to nurse, can finally find my ankles, my carpal tunnel is almost gone, and am almost down to my pre pregnancy weight already. (Which is still about 20 pounds too much but that's another post) My 1st thought when baby was born was "Is she ok?" followed immediately by "Hallelujah I'm not pregnant anymore!!!!!" Lol I am taking the rest of school easy - just finishing math with the 5th grader and reading a bit every day with the 1st grader. I'm still tired because I have a nursing baby and all, but I feel about 100000% better than I did the last month of my pregnancy. Hang in there!

I got a tattoo at the end of college, when I turned 22. I thought it was cool and hip and the design (a crescent moon and a star) symbolized "true love" to me at that time. It's very small, high up on my right hip. I thought I was being very smart about placement, thinking no one but me and my husband would ever know about it ... not realizing at the time that kids know no privacy boundaries and every last one of them would someday ask me, "Mommy, why did you let somebody draw a picture on your butt????" 🤣 I wish I hadn't got it now, but most of the time I forget it's there, so it's not like it's a huge regret. It just ... doesn't represent who I am anymore, I guess, and it seems kind of silly and childish to me now. Not that I think everybody's tattoos are childish, just that I can recognize that me getting mine was a childish decision.

Great news! You can do it! 🙂

My oldest DS is a perfectionist and he just missed an A+ in 2 of his classes, one of them by only .05%. And he was ticked at both himself and his professor 🙄 even though he kept his 4.0 Frankly I roll my eyes and tell him it's good for his character to have people other than me reminding him that he's not perfect 🤣 DH (who is an engineer and survived courses where a 50% was the grade that set the curve) tells him the same thing. Sometimes I think his life just isn't hard enough if that is what is making him mad LOL