Not sure how old your kids are, but we generally do a staggered start so at the end of the year we are also staggering off subjects. That helps a bit? But some years are just tough--you are clawing your way across the finish line.

I emailed DO and heard back. I can private message anyone who wants to see it. There is a plan for improving the grading speed, but it will take some time to implement.

While I am stuck on the floor doing physical therapy and strength exercises, I might as well brush up on my Chemistry for next year. I started watching the GPB series, and it's okay, but I might want something on Youtube or another platform that requires less clicking to move from one video to another. I know there is a Crash Course Chemistry and it looks like Bozeman Science has an AP Chemistry playlist. Maybe there is another source as well? Does anyone have a preference? Thanks in advance!

@workingmom what did you end up using and did it workout for you?

Last year my son did a class at home on Cultural geo and world religions. We used "World Religions: A voyage of discovery" by St. Mary's press. It's a Catholic resource. We are not Catholic. I found it was pretty even handed but I did have some differences with how they presented some of the Christianity section (not totally surprising since we aren't Catholic). To learn more about the Muslim faith as it compares to Christianity, we read through sections of this workbook I picked up at church a long time ago: https://www.amazon.com/DARE-EXPLORE-Samya-Johnson/dp/1613797486

I'm so sorry. Joining the others in prayer that your flight would go smoothly and that your time with the family will fill your cup.

I didn't read most of the responses. My initial reaction is: only God is in control of if your daughter understands God. That is why He sends the Holy Spirit. If she doesn't understand the Bible, or if she doesn't understand God, then her first resource in figuring that out is talking to God about it and reading His Word. If she is really and truly God's child, He will bless her desire to understand and grow and things will be clearer eventually. That said, the more we learn the more we realize we have yet to learn. If God is infinite, and He is, then what we can learn about Him exhausts our own ability to learn it since we are finite. So the more you learn about God and yourself, the more you realize you have yet to learn. Even as you seek to put your sin to death, you learn yet more of your own sinfulness. At her age my issues were not with God really but with all the people walking around claiming they loved God, namely "Christians" or "the church." There is and always will be a LOT of hypocrisy among those who call themselves believers. It is tough for most people to tease out the two things, God and His church, and understand that just because one is failing (the church) doesn't mean that God has failed too. We shouldn't give up trying to find fellowship with true believers who live in humility with one another and love one another, but if we struggle to find it we should not frame that as God has somehow failed. That's tough to swallow though. IMO, the best way for anyone to understand what is means to be a Christian in the midst of a bunch of people who aren't "walking the talk" is to read their Bible. All of it. There are other resources that help us to make sense of the Bible, break it down into chunks and present them as tools for evangelism (like Evangelism Explosion, etc.), or provide a framework for study (like commentaries) but the reality is that those are just secondary sources and they are designed to support the Truth in God's word. We should not lean on them more heavily than we lean on the Word itself.

Prayers

I can't really help but to say that our GSD mix doesn't respond well to Trazadone (or Trazadone with Gabapentin). It just doesn't work for him. We have had more success with Xanax. It really calms his anxiety but doesn't knock him out. He also hates the vet, but we are working on that via happy visits. He hasn't had the aggression at home issues you are mentioning though--I do agree I would at the least want to see about having him checked for an injury.

Can I get a witness? LOL

May I ask--did you give them any feedback at the end of the year?

I appreciate this input. We were looking at it for next year.

I have no advice, but I wanted to note that I once heard explained the difference between a peacemaker and a peacekeeper. It sounds like your husband is trying to be a peacekeeper which is impossible. Here is one explanation: https://thoughtcatalog.com/peace-ofure/2017/05/the-differences-between-being-a-peacekeeper-and-peacemaker/

Sort of frightening because when you go on the Ohio hospitals dashboard our in hospital numbers are way down. So if they are still on "critical operations" (they were in January when we peaked) to me that means there is a huge staffing problem. Or am I misinterpreting?

Ohio is now reporting numbers weekly and I feel like I have a harder time making sense of the trends because of that. It appears that our case numbers are lower than the prior two weeks' totals but our deaths and hospitalizations are up slightly. I guess it could be a lot of nonreported cases? Or somehow the case numbers aren't predicting the other two? How do I evaluate when things are moving in the wrong direction? Hospitalizations? @kbutton

I would personally try to find a physical therapist with lots of experience with the shoulder. Massage is not bad though. Do be careful because that sort of injury (rotator cuff) can easily lead to frozen shoulder. I had bilateral frozen shoulder last year and it's really really bad.

I'm not ready to pull the trigger. Probably can't afford WHA with the extra student fee, etc. anyway. I hope more people sign up!!

So far I have done all the teaching at home. If we use the schedule I have, we will skip the matrices chapter and the chapter on stats at the end of Dolciani's book. I am tempted to add the stats back in since we aren't tied to a school schedule and also because I don't think that is in the Pre-Calc book. For next year I have the Larson Pre-Calc and the videos from Dana Mosely and I planned to continue to learn ahead and facilitate for my son if possible and if that plan fails, he can do the monthly subscription through Cool Math Guy and get assistance from them as it uses the same text. I am not sure of our plan for Calc. Possibly Cool Math Guy or Derek Owens. I hadn't thought of doing stats, mostly because I thought Pre-Calc would be a full year. I guess it's possible that his pre-calc will go a bit deeper than the Dolciani text. I just finished a section not too long ago that had a ton of concepts all wrapped into one section (four different videos on Tarrou's Chalk talk covered the material in this one section.) So I was wondering if that was because they assume more time will be spent on it later. I guess we can see how it goes and go through it quickly if we find it "easy" and then do stats as well. Is there a stats that people recommend? It doesn't look like Derek Owens offers Stats. Cool Math Guy uses Understanding Basic Statistics by Brace.

So helpful because we also did Singapore (Math in Focus) to Dolciani. Thank you!

So we have been working through the Dolciani Algebra II with Trigonometry book. We are doing the Trig parts as well as the Algebra parts following the suggested schedule in the teacher book but I did add some additional Algebra concepts (e.g., sequences) that weren't in the schedule. I flipped forward to see what chapters in the Alg II book (from the end of the book) are not on my schedule and what they contain--those concepts include matrices, determinants, probability and statistics. I had planned on him doing Larson's Pre-Calculus next year. So I went to look at that TOC to make sure matrices, determinants, etc. are covered (I assumed they were, but wanted to confirm) and I noticed that there is a LOT of repetition from what we have covered this year. I did a quick google and one site said some kids move straight from Alg II with Trig to Calculus. This was never my plan. I had looked at WHA's schedule and they use the Larson text after the Dolciani Alg II text. I guess they could have just covered the Alg concepts in the Dolciani text. I have no way of knowing. Am I messing us up somehow by covering Pre-Calc next year? I can't see how it would be totally bad to re-cover some of the ground again to make sure it is solid. I suppose we could accelerate if it is really easy? Thoughts? @daijobu

I'm so sorry that you have to do surgery! No advice, just prayers. I do know some people whose kids have had spinal surgery with Children's if you need a second opinion, etc.

As a former environmental consultant, let me just say there is a whole lot of chemistry in environmental science, if that is the major she sticks with. Ecology and conservation--has it sometimes--it depends on if she leans toward natural resources conservation (e.g. naturalist) versus natural resources protection (e.g. EPA). That said, even a naturalist is going to learn to look out for sources of pollution and their impact. Getting a good chemistry class in now may help her further refine her choice of major. I recommend a solid chemistry class. If she needs motivation, she could spend some time reading up on Superfund cleanup sites, drinking water contamination issues of the last couple of decades, etc. I think perhaps once she reads those, she will understand better how chemistry is a part of environmental science in general. This college has many majors relating to the environment, ranging from forestry to engineering. Just FYI if she wants to explore the spectrum of options https://www.esf.edu/departments/

work most likely. I would love for them to go to a camp but we can't begin to afford it.