Is there a school that would fit the bill for: 1. has to be east of Mississippi 2. smallish- under 10,000 students preferred 3. has to have engineering- chemical engineering and/or material engineering and/or petroleum engineering etc. 4. conservative student/teacher body 5. can be private or public So far I have not found one. Am I missing something? Would love some help from moms who have experience and already gone through the college searching stage? Thank you very much in advance.

Ds wants to have his comics he has been writing for the last year. Has anyone has any experience publishing children's comics? How do we start? Where do we start? How about copyrighting all the character's names (they are all original and somewhat silly) and characters themselves? Appreciate any and all suggestions. Thank you.

Thank you very much for all the replies. I double checked with Essentials in writing company and they stand by their 1 credit for each- composition and literature. And yes, we have an approximate lineup for all 4 years of high school but it is full. 9th grade (8 credits) 10th grade (8 credits) English English Geometry Algebra 2 America History Honors Physics (Wilson Hill) Government & Economics Astronomy Honors Biology Japanese Environmental Biology PE/Health Japanese Computer Applications (FundaFunda) Engineering Religion- New Testament 11th grade (8 credits) 12th grade (8 credits) English English Pre-Calc (online class) Calculus (online class) World History Constitutional Literacy (0.5 credit) Japanese DE fall semester Japanese DE fall semester Japanese DE spring semester Japanese DE spring semester Chemistry or Honors Chemistry AP Chemistry or DE Chemistry Engineering computations with MATLAB Engineering design and Entrepreneurship Religion- Old Testament Personal finance/recordkeeping He also plans to continue with archery 4-5 hours every week. And then there is the usual library events (we have lots even for kids his age), park days, hanging with friends, family time and just plain down time.

Ds and I spend some time going over the "final list" of what he would like to tackle for 9th grade and we have way to much but he does not want to budge much in letting go of some things... This is what we have Math- geometry (BJU) Composition -Essentials in writing 9 (full credit according to the publisher but works well for ds so we will keep it) Literature- Essentials in Literature 9 (full credit according to the publisher but works well for ds so we will keep it) History- Modern American history Japanese- Irasshai with video, student text, Mango Japanese Science- Honors Biology (fundafunda) Science-Environmental science Engineering- Catapult academy Engineering Instrumentation and Analysis And he wants to cover Government and Economics too. All this adds up to 9 full credits. None of the classes are easy like art/PE, etc. He also does Archery 4-5 hours every week. And then there is the usual library events (we have lots even for kids his age), park days, hanging with friends, family time and just plain down time. How realistic is this? Thank you very much for any advise

You can contact Lancaster Archery Supply. We had ordered from them and they have always been very nice about answering any questions we may have regarding archery. http://www.lancasterarchery.com/

How about Fundafundaacademy.com- they have a semester class on photography. We are actually considering it next year as an elective for high school. And if you have questions specific to the course, just email them, they are more than happy to answer and of the questions you may have (depending on time of year it may take a few days to get a response) http://www.fundafundaacademy.com/product/photography/

That is the thing- they don't ask, just send us stuff. When I asked for non-food stuff- I asked for books because we are readers here but I keep getting gift baskets :(

Love it. Thank you- that made me laugh.

Yes, I have told her I can't eat. Not that I gave it away. I'll have to say I gave it away- I already see the entire family commenting on my ungratefulness. Can't win.

They have been told that there has been testing done and even saw the test report. Nothing. Never thought of regifting to a place of business. Thanks for the suggestion.

every item would have milk in it. And I have told my family I can't have milk for the last three years and yet again, another gift basket was just delivered this afternoon full of items with milk. I tried nicely redirecting them towards non food items- books, amazon, etc. that first year. Now, I don't even mention it. It is just sad that they either don't care or do it on purpose. Every year $70 spent on basket of food not being eaten- I won't even give it to my kids because most of it is a chemistry set and we eat pretty clean. I'd rather they spend it on books for kids- my kids love to read, but apparently the family is just not getting the memo or does not care enough. Oh well, now I have to make a phone call to my mother to thank her for the gift basket as it is expected. Sending a thank you text or email is considered rude. What can I do, if anything, to deter this kind of gift giving? Thank you for letting me vent a bit.

Thank you for your suggestion. Our library does not allow that until kids are 16 yo.

Thank you for many of your suggestions. I will have ds look into this and see what we have locally and if it is anything he would be interested in. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a parent who would lead anything that is techy/science related in your area. There are some who do computer coding/programing but claim to be to busy to take the time and tech. It seems everyone is waiting for someone else to step up and get something going. The two robotics groups I am aware of are way to expensive and they mandate that you have to travel to all competitions they get to organize/participate in. Last year they went all the way to state level which would mean 2 days travel and overnight spent at the hotel. That is also a partial problem with 4H archery- the traveling distance to and from competitions, especially state level which or us is two days with a night spent at the hotel. Agree that traveling long distance is part of rural living but driving somewhere for an hour each way just to get to a 45 minute class is just not justifiable. Our state does not allow homeschooler participation in any club or class or sport. And 4H is very limited mostly concentrating on forestry, poultry and cotton ball judging. We have archery and BB and photography but that is about it. The neighboring counties will not take you and those that are willing to take you into the program usually mandate additional participation (like you have to join at least one additional club in order to participate in the one you want). Certainly not easy to find what we are looking for. If my child wanted to be a plumber/welder/AC tech, we have 3 schools for that within 15 minute drive. Go figure.

Thank you for many of your suggestions. Unfortunately our state does not allow homeschoolers to participate in anything public school. It would have be perfect otherwise since we have a very good STEM academy literally down the street from us but because it is part of public school we are not allowed in. I never thought of writing for the newspaper. Will have to run that by ds and see if that would be something he might do even though writing is not his favorite thing to do. Ds has zero interest in boy scouts that is why we went with 4 H originally because the rules and requirements were not as tight as boy scouts in our area.

Ds was part of the chess club last year and the year before but did not want to go back this year. Thank you for suggesting this.

Nothing archery related similar to what you mentioned. The nearest kids museum of any kind is little over an hour drive one way providing traffic is good. Thank you for your suggestions.

We are thinking ahead for next 4 years of high school and totally coming up short in the extra curricular / volunteer / community service department. This is my math and science child (especially chemistry and astronomy). His goal is to study chemical/materials engineering. He is finishing up the first of 4 years of the pre-engineering courses and seems to enjoy 2D/3D CAD design done with SolidWorks. He does archery through local 4H. He does not however participate in regional/state competitions due to driving distances and dh working schedule). But he has done all the local county shoots and plans to continue through the rest of his school years. He also participates in Lego robotics class through the local library (but we are not sure how long that will last because of the low turn out this year so they may discontinue). Given all these points of interest, what can we look for, where do we look? (this would be much simpler if we were in a large city but we are in a smallish city where even the nearest grocery store with descent food is 10 minute drive; the big city is about an hour one way plus traffic) Thank you very much for any and all suggestion.

Just curious- are you taking capsules or liquid Vitamin D? It maybe that different delivery method would work better rather than increasing dosage. When mine was in the low 20s, I tried capsules and nothing would budge. My doctor was ready to start me on mega doses and I was not willing. Then a friend of mine suggested liquid and what a difference. Even at 1000 IU per day my numbers went up by almost 10 points in just 6 months. Now I take 2000 IU per day, recheck every 6 months until numbers are where I want them to be. I take Ddrops. You can find them on amazon cheaper than CVS (400, 600, 1000 IU per drop)

Which one would you choose for English (writing) and science (chemistry, physics, AP chemistry)? and why? I am trying to decide for next year's 9th grade and these are my 3 choices. Thank you in advance.

Would you mind sharing what specifically did you use for Biology, Environmental science, and astronomy? Thanks

Yes, I have been reading a lot there as well as general discussions. I guess it is just a lot of material to process and will take time. There is just nothing comparing to actual student/parent experience rather than just reading course description/list of books used in the course.

He plans to do both in one year- whether it will be just Environmental science or AP version we don't know yet. I guess we'll check into biochemistry as well. I just figured some biochemistry will be covered in biology and some in chemistry.

So ds who plans to go into chemical engineering is asking to do a whole lot of science classes while in high school starting next fall. As of right now I do not know if we will do dual enrollment or how. It is an option for Japanese as it is close to home but any science classes with labs are an hour one way twice a week and with 3 other kids, schooling and my health I do not know if it would be feasible when the time comes. So, this is the list ds would like to complete: chemistry with lab 9th (BJU chemistry is my back up if I can't find anything else) biology with lab 10th- looking at possibly doing class through Fundafundaacademy.com but still planning environmental science 10th (someone suggested AP as it is fairly easy even for AP) more advanced chemistry with labs 11th grade (AP?) physics with labs 12th grade astronomy 12th grade I am hoping for decently priced courses since we will be paying for WTMA Rhetoric classes every year and engineering classes through Catapult Academy. Something that we can do at home would be ideal, especially chemistry. Ds would love to do chemistry with all the bells and whistle if he could unfortunately the nearest chemistry lab classes (with real full lab set up) are 2 hours drive for a one-hour class. I need help. Appreciate any and all advice. Thank you very much.

Russian step by step-- either basic edition on your own or school edition. You can call them and discuss differences between two versions but from what I heard and what I have seen from actual textbooks, school edition is much more through than the basic edition. Also school edition counts as 1 high school credit for each book covered. And you don't have to get all the bells and whistles. This is the link for the School Edition: http://russianstepbystepschooledition.com/ This is the link for basic edition: http://russianstepbystep.com/

And ds requesting something not overly involved because he wants to concentrate on science and math. Just something that can be done and worth 0.5 credit each. Thank you.