I don't think hours per day has much meaning, b/c different kids can take vastly different amounts of time to do the same work! My 5th grader does: Matin Latin 2 SOTW 3 Singapore 5 Plato Science Caesar's English (vocab) Growing with Grammar Memory work (poetry, subject facts) and then of course various writing assignments, art, etc etc She's usually done pretty quickly, 2-3 hours, but both my kids are fast workers.

That's correct in my state to the extent that home schoolers and other non-approved private schools are welcome to issue diplomas based on their own criteria all day long, but if you don't follow the state requirements, you automatically lose what can be VERY significant state funding. So, while hs'ers do not HAVE to comply with our state's requirements, they are put over a financial barrel in order to encourage them to do so. In addition to the state financial aid, the only public university in my part of the state will not accept non-approved diplomas, a big problem for those who financially need to stay home while attending college. I know that the A Beka issued diploma is also considered 'approved,' and thus you can get the financial aid, but again, you have to spend a lot of money to go this route.

I do think it's important to see what is being taught/required in the schools, and then to make an informed decision on what should and shouldn't be included in your home school. Like someone else mentioned, my history path doesn't match up to the social studies taught in school, and I'm fine with that. The key word is aware. You should know if and how your curriculum veers from the local norm, and be aware of any potential consequences. Make informed decisions.

Do you know what I do for fun sometimes? I take some of the things my kids do when they are "done with school" and mentally write them up as lesson plans with learning objectives, complete with educational jargon :lol: Seriously, google "elementary lesson plans" and you will see exactly what I mean. Schools, particularly elementary schools, spend a great deal of time planning and executing activities that "just happen" for many home schoolers. Why, just now my kids practiced their measuring and reading skills, tested their ability to follow directions, engaged in both individual and group work, and used their verbal communication skills to report on the result (they followed a new recipe to make lunch). I'm not mocking schools for doing this. Many of the activities are worthwhile, and some kids would not get the chance to do them otherwise. It's just that school teacher are required to plan and justify (what core skills does this activity address?) how their time is spent, while we have the luxury of letting our kids take the lead for them. Sweet!

Sure, and she still would not have the street address in this scenario. She already has a phone number where she can reach dd when she is with dad (the cell phone). Not an apt comparison; these are completely different situations. The difference is not just in child molesting versus dog poop, but in an occasional observer versus a person in the situation confiding that something is wrong and/or troubling them. Observing that no one promptly cleans up when the baby pees on the couch is not equal to observing or being told that the baby has running sores b/c he constantly sits in pee. Likewise, observing that your friend's dad does things that you consider weird (like the recent thread re kissing kids on the mouth) is worlds away from your friend saying "my dad molests me." And yes, I also consider the situations to be quite different in likely levels of harm. I have seen dozens of parents doing things that I consider to be bad and/or potentially harmful, but few of them rise to the level of reporting to child welfare. Foul though it may be, the children are actually at little risk of developing any serious illness from dog or rabbit feces. I don't report to CPS based on "their house is stinky and gross from animal poop, and there's a chance the kids could get sick from it." The fact is, it's not a bit likely that a child is going to get a dangerous illness from this situation, and there's no information to show that they have any chronic or recurring illnesses from it. If they were living covered in ringworms and mites and had infected scratches or sores, that's different. Right now, the reason for reporting is pretty much "that's disgusting, and kids shouldn't have to live that way." That's not enough for me. Kids live and even thrive in all manner of situations that I would never consider for my own kids, but these aren't my kids. If I want a lot of leeway in raising my kids the way I see fit, then I have to extend that leeway to others. Many people think living in a house that reeks of animal poop is freakish and potentially harmful. Many other people thingk that keeping your kids home for school is freakish and potentially harmful. It's been a long hard fight getting to the point where home schooling is legal in all 50 states, and it's an ongoing fight to keep it so. There are many, many people who think that "children shouldn't have to live that way" and I definitely oppose parents having to constantly defend their decisions unless there is clear cause to believe that the child is in potential danger.

Certainly it's normal. He's the dad, not a babysitter, and he doesn't have to report in each time he takes his kid somewhere.

A little argument never hurt anyone ;) but you didn't sound argumentive at all. I actually didn't mean to imply that infant potty training isn't a good idea in many cases, only that this lady wasn't putting forth very convincing arguments for it. My first dd spent much of her infancy nekkid on a beach towel, as she had such sensitive skin, so your way of doing things might have interested me a lot back then.

That sounds like enough quantity-wise, altho' you'd need to check w/your state dept of education to be sure. I would check requirements ASAP, tho', as they can be quite specific. My state requires 4 credits in English; 3 of them have to be specific courses, the 4th can be one of about three different courses. So, it's not enough to take four excellent courses in English - you have to take those specific ones.

The ball is right in the strike zone folks; A Beka swings, aaaaaand . . . misses! Ugh, sorry, but this wouldn't be a classic novel if it didn't reach far deeper than that. And I'm not Carol, but I wanted to address the Cliffs Notes question as well. Sparks, Cliffs, etc are great tools for helping students understand. But any literary paper needs to be supported by the actual text, not just the study guide. So it's fine for her to comb the guides looking for ideas to base her paper on, but she then needs to return to the text itself for support. Like this: "H suffered for her sins but a case can be made that she was happier after her punishment than before. For example, on page 67, she tells her friend blah blah blah. Likewise, the only mention of her smiling comes when yada yada." Poor example but gives you the idea. A character analysis of Pearl is an excellent topic choice, imo.

I'd say no. I'm sure that most kids do that sort of thing as part of their everyday lives. The details might differ, but many, many students with full transcripts also have numerous skills and responsibilities that have nothing to do with school. And if she's college prep, I wouldn't let words like "home ec" or "life skills" anywhere near her transcript. I'm not downgrading those skills on their own merit, but they are not academic. Personal finances are an ongoing area of teaching at our house, we feel it's well worth spending time on, but I'm not going to put "consumer math" on a transcript, kwim? It can be seen as a downgrade, not an upgrade. The play is an extra-curricular and should be listed as such. Again, most kids participate in extra-curriculars, and it's in addition to their academic load.

I wouldn't hide it, and don't even see how one could (barring strained long-distance relationships).

I paid about fifty bucks for dh and I for the weekend, not the early bird price. You cannot POSSIBLY look at all the vendors for any amount of time in one day, that's how many they have! Plus, it's very overwhelming, I find it best to go through one day looking for potential good fits, and then return to those in more depth the following day.

decaf's in the ORANGE pot, karen, ;)

This is meant to be examples of the writing, not the handwriting, but they are handwritten in both cursive and print: http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/resources/guides/scoring/g4esamples03.pdf and some samples/criteria from 1915, lol: http://books.google.com/books?id=gJmdAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA7&lpg=PA7&dq=handwriting+samples+fourth+grade&source=bl&ots=JURJsqovUh&sig=Bv4stM3v9hKS3y9OQLUci_Yo7wg&hl=en&ei=gBO2TPmaN4KBlAeE87jxBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAzgK#v=onepage&q=handwriting%20samples%20fourth%20grade&f=false

Honestly, it's gross, it's disgusting, but I don't get the impression that it's a "call CPS" level of danger. People are nasty. Sad, but true. Houses with several indoor dogs are going to be smelly even if the 'stray' poop is picked up promptly. I have been in houses that smelled awful to me, and the dogs didn't poop inside. You have to work pretty hard to have indoor pets and a fresh smelling house, and these people have both a baby and a poop room, soooooo . . . Given that you KNOW your dd tends toward drama, I'd want to see it myself before reporting it. And it would have to be quite bad before I'd report someone for dog poop and baby pee in the house. And I'd have to say that whether or not CPS has reasonable procedures in place, and follows them, varies widely depending on where you live. When I lived in Florida, CPS was feared by everyone; there were constant stories in the paper about unreasonable 'search and seizures.'

A computer; let him type.

Other - Plato Life Science

in my day if somebody didn't get a concussion, bloody lip or nose you were not playing hard enough. Epic link!

I was "meh" on the MCT line until I saw him speak at a convention, and then I thought he was so bloody brilliant that I had to try some of the books. Grammar: still pretty "meh" on this. I do like the idea of the 4-level analysis (and we have used it), love the practice sentences and his commentary, don't like the actual grammar books at the lower levels. I do have The Magic Lens, which may be worth reading for myself and then discussing, but below that, the actual grammar books don't grab us. At all. And the time required doesn't have the payoff that the vocab does for us, so just not worth it. Ceasar's English: my 5th grader is passionately in love with this! she loooooves reading through it, pinning down the nuances of words, discussing the quotes, the whole nine yards. And she isn't even my word girl, I was pretty surprised. I didn't buy Word within a Word for my older dd, b/c I thought it looked utterly confusing and nothing like CE, so I can't speak to that one. Essay Voyage: we haven't used this yet, I have been reading over it and really am not in love with the look/feel of it, but I think it may require that group reading/discussion to really take off. I'm going to try and tackle that soon. Poetics: haven't started this either, shame on me! I think it will be enjoyable in much the same way CE is, though. And I actually have several more that we haven't used yet, but that look great (Classics in the Classroom, the ones on Jefferson and Lincoln, oh he has much of my money). As others have stated, these are not books you hand to the kids to get their language arts done. They are teacher and time intensive, and you really can't slot them into a time frame very well (well, you CAN, but you'll be cutting some great discussions short).

I think it's nearly impossible to forecast, sorry! fwis, my 7th grader started Art of Problem Solving Algebra after finishing about half of Saxon 8/7; no problems so far.

Honestly, for those ages, I probably wouldn't swing at the third pitch this year. I'd just put science on the backburner for a while, and start keeping an eye out for great books, activities, and field trips. At 9 and 7, I personally don't think there's much in the way of worthwhile science that they can do on their own. Much better, imo, to give it a rest for a while (even if a while means this year). If you're going to buy a text book and hand it to them, you might as well save the money and just have them check out a science book from the library each week, y'know? They're a bit young to do actual experiments on their own, but "explore and discover" time can be just as fun and worthwhile. Week 1, hand them the scale balance, weights, and a challenge to see what else they can find to weigh/balance. Week 2, give them bins of water and a variety of measuring cups, and have them explore volume. Week 2, give them the digital camera and send them into the backyard to photograph as many examples of animal life as they can find. And so on. Giving them the time and permission to discover and explore is much more worthwhile science than you will find in any elementary book! And all you have to do is keep a running list of ideas (after a few weeks, they will probably start chiming in as well).

Why not SOTW with the activity guide? It's full of those types of activities, supplemental reading lists, and so forth. If you prefer to do it on your own, The Well-Trained Mind lists history topics by grade, and some supplemental reading. It's how we old-timers did things back in the day . . .

When they were lower elementary, heck yes we finished before lunch! Well, sometimes we didn't START until after lunch, but it was never more than 2-3 hours tops. Honestly, my 5th grader can still get her work done in less than 3 hours pretty much every day. Anything that goes past that is usually a hands-on project, more the fun type stuff. My 7th grader does tend to have stuff to finish up after lunch these days, but, hmmm, not tons of stuff, really. She definitely doesn't do a 9 to 3 schedule or anything like that. We are lucky that they are both quick workers (altho' this only holds true for the youngest when I am in the room, ;)). Of course, everyone has a different idea of when "school" is over. We have never formalized independent reading time or PE into the school day; if we did, the day would be longer. But I really urge all parents of littles to try and compress that school day; enjoy this time of relaxed learning and spontaneous field trips! This time will be gone before you know it. I absolutely treasure the "slow start" we had, and it didn't cause any problems for us at all.

I read the Infant Potty Training link someone posted, and . . . eh, really? She spent a year and a half thrusting her kid onto mixing bowls, sinks, and handy patches of grass to pee and poop, all so he could be potty trained at the age of two? (which is also the age she gives as an average for "Western" babies). I find that spectacularly unimpressive, lol. I'm kind of picking on this lady's page, but honestly, I do not see how this is an improvement over changing diapers and then training at a later age. And I don't find most of what she says particularly amazing. I promise you, if you take any breastfed infant, strip them naked, and pull their lil' butt cheeks apart, there's an excellent chance they'll go, no Poop Whisperer needed :lol: And I know she/others say that non-Western infants train much earlier, as early as a year, but I'd like to know what they consider "potty trained" for a one-year-old, b/c I can't imagine they are crawling off to the bathroom, hoisting themselves onto a potty, and so forth. That, I would consider amazing. Crawling off to a corner of the yard just doesn't work for me, y'know? For the record, my two wore disposable diapers from birth, and then daytime trained at 18 and 21 months. Night time not long after, but I don't remember exactly. I'm guessing there's a pretty wide range no matter what method is used.

I would definitely work on foreign languages; she has a wonderful advantage and it would be great to keep that going. Check your library for free resources: books, audio cds, and software. Almost all libraries now have some type of online language program that you can use from home. They aren't necessarily kid-oriented, but a straightforward presentation for pronunciation and practice is fine, imo. Also, check the foreign language options on any dvds you allow her to watch; you can often switch them. I wouldn't do copywork beyond a word or two, if she's willing. Much better to have that one perfectly copied word than a sentence with mistakes, messiness, etc. Again, the library is your friend! Even small children's sections are likely to have a lot of choices in the "learning" genre. I would also make sure to give her plenty of time and space to do her own thing. Provide her with notebooks and pens, craft materials, good books, etc and let her go. We naturally want to guide and nourish any gifts our kids may have (especially when they are willing students!), but it is very easy to be tempted into over-guiding them. Don't direct everything. I always think it's sad to see a child who has no idea of what to do when left on his own.