Is anyone familiar with this site/program? Dd found it listed in the CollegeBoard Scholarship Handbook, so it's probably legit, but I am not familiar with it. In general, we have only had our kids apply for scholarships within their university or with organizations that we already know, so I'm not sure how to decide what other scholarships are worth pursuing. I know we should never pay to apply, we shouldn't pursue "guaranteed" scholarship claims, that sort of thing, but beyond that I don't know what to consider. Thank you!

My dd: George Mason University (Honors College, University Scholars Program) Longwood University (Honors College, Merit Scholarship) University of Evansville (Honors College, Merit Scholarship) University of Virginia

I like those! I've made them from paper, but I never thought to make them from fabric!

40 hours or not, I'm impressed that you can knit! My oldest dd taught herself to knit a number of years ago, and she has taught me at least half a dozen times. I completely forget how EVERY SINGLE TIME. I managed to complete a narrow scarf by working on it non-stop for 3 days, and I am pretty certain that will be my only knitted accomplishment! Good luck with the socks!

I actually like the light blue best! It looks wintry, natural, and modern. Old lady colors - not at all! 😄

I have absolutely NO projects in progress. 😐 But I wish I did! It has been years since I've been organized enough to attempt crafting, but I am very aware of how much I miss having a creative outlet. So I appreciate this thread!!! It's encouraging to me to see other people's projects. Things I would like to try - small crochet or cross stitch projects, maybe. Scarves? Personal ornaments? Heatable rice/corn filled hand warmers? I like the idea of a dice bag for the gamers on my list. I should really be able to do this now that my youngest is 13, right?! Thank you for the thread!

Tonight - stuffed peppers, rolls, spinach salad, and probably ice cream for dessert. My two teens will probably each eat two peppers, dh and I will each have one, but I can fit 6-8 in a single baking dish. I hear you on the struggle with lots of teens to feed! We just had 8 teens/adults here last week from Tues-Sun - so much food! We had Thanksgiving food (obviously) one day, but the other days we had chili, turkey/vegetable soup (https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/curried_turkey_soup/), a sausage/cheese/hashbrown casserole, lasagne (huge fan of Stouffer's for "emergency" meals), and baked tacos (https://www.thecookierookie.com/baked-spicy-chicken-tacos/). Along with piles of hummus, crackers, popcorn, pretzels, fruit.... Hope that helps!

I just subscribed to PlanToEat.com. Hopeful that this will help me get my meal planning game back on track! I believe that you can share recipes with friends on the site if you know usernames. Can we start a thread to share usernames for anyone who is interested? My PlanToEat username: sandsmertz See you there!

I recently gave away my copy of Thank You, Sarah! I regretted that this week, lol. It's a great book! We did look up some information on Sarah Hale in lieu of the book this year.

We did this earlier this fall - the house smelled amazing when we baked the actual whole pumpkin! 🙂

Is there a distinct difference between the two? I have toyed with the idea of an air fryer for a few years now, but I keep talking myself out of it because I have a convection oven. Does the air fryer produce better results? I'm really tempted to get one, but I also don't need one more appliance on my kitchen counter! I feel like I'm not getting the appeal of the air fryer. But I still want one! lol Thank you!

Here are some art projects that coordinate well with the week: https://www.hodgepodge.me/thanksgiving-art-for-all-ages/ We've also done lapbooks and mini unit studies in the past to cover specific holidays like Thanksgiving.

DS13 asked me this week whether or not he should participate in a karate demo in a few weeks so that he could add it to his transcript! ?

Your confusion was mine as well! I am putting together her transcript and writing her counselor letter, but the admissions offices told me they also want me to write the teacher letter. I made sure that they understood that I was already submitting the counselor letter and the academic records, and these schools specifically asked me to also write the teacher letter. I was sure the first school was an exception, but then another school had the same response! They both want at least one other letter of recommendation from someone else, but they actually require a teacher letter from me in addition to the counselor letter from me. This is the complete opposite of what every school wanted when I did this 6 years ago and again 4 years ago. The two schools requesting this are even schools my other kids applied to in the past, and at that time these same schools did NOT want a teacher letter from me. If I'm remembering correctly, the difference a few years ago was that the Common App just had a section for letters of recommendation, generically, so once we had a letter or two loaded, that met everyone's requirements well enough to submit the application. Now, each recommender is assigned as either a teacher, counselor, or other. Then each school has their requirements - they may require 1 teacher and allow 2 optional others, for instance. So dd's current letters of rec are both in the "other" category, but the schools that require a teacher don't consider the application complete without the teacher rec. Many schools are set up to allow but not require letters in both the teacher and other category, so there we're fine with the letters she has. But the schools that require a teacher letter won't let us complete the application. That's what prompted us to call the admissions offices to ask what they wanted there. I thought they would want us to reassign a recommender we already had, but they were very clear that they wanted those letters submitted along with a teacher rec from me. I'm really scratching my head over this! Perhaps it was this way before, but I didn't catch it because my older kids had letters of rec from community college teachers. This dd hasn't done any of her classwork that way, so this is new to me.

I have spent a good bit of time on the phone today with admissions officers from various universities, and I am surprised by the number of schools who actually want the main teacher letter of recommendation to be from the homeschooled parent! A total shift from the situation 4-6 years ago when I was going through this process with my older kids. Anyway, my dd has to invite me to be a recommender on the common app, and she has to choose a subject - should she choose "other" since there are multiple subjects? Or should she choose one of the core subjects, since that is what the schools are looking for? I'm probably (definitely) overthinking this - I'm sure the admissions officers will look more at the content than the label. But I'd appreciate any input. Thank you!

Not a class specifically, but if you are looking for female mathematicians there is an online site called Girls' Angle. The group is a math club for girls in Massachusetts, but outside of that geographical area they have resources on their website and in their magazine. Their blog is here: Girls' Angle Blog. Electronic copies of their magazine are available on their website for free, or you can order a paid print subscription. They do have some math videos posted as well that your dd might enjoy.

Thank you!

Thank you for posting this question! Is the idea of a Activities Resume to create a document that can be submitted along with a transcript so that the transcript covers ONLY academics while the Activities Resume covers everything else? Is it better to have a separate Activities Resume as opposed to adding an additional page to a transcript documenting community service, awards, work experience, etc.?

Thank you!!!

How detailed should I make the course titles on a transcript? Should they be generic but easily recognizable (i.e. English 9 [Grammar/Composition]; Freshman Literature), or should they be more specific (i.e. Essay Composition; Modern Western Literature)? I feel stuck here! I would appreciate any input. Thank you!

Thank you, Arcadia! I'll take a look.

Good for her! Impressive focus and determination!

I didn't think about Alcumus! That's a good idea. Key To is also a good suggestion. I'm not familiar with Pizzazz. I don't own the AoPS Prealgebra book, but I'm not opposed to buying it. Your ds12 good guesser sounds a lot like mine in this regard! ?

Some books we have enjoyed: Poems to Learn by Heart by Caroline Kennedy Favorite Poems Old and New by Helen Ferris A Poke in the I: A Collection of Concrete Poems by Paul B. Janeczko A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms by Paul B. Janeczko Sensational! Poems Inspired by the Five Senses by Roger McGough

As an example, he was working through a set of problems multiplying and dividing powers of 10, and he had "forgotten" how to handle exponents. When I showed him, he remembered and worked several problems quickly, until one of the questions had a negative power of 10, and that threw him. I feel that the computation skills are present, but not so solid that he can work problems automatically, if that makes sense. Does that clarify it?