Things that I was not expecting: The floor is never clean. Even if I just clean it, in comes the dog or a load of firewood or the kid from playing outside. Simple is delightful and I really like how it feels to be this involved with my life. However, EVERYTHING takes longer: dishes, laundry, heat, visiting, paying bills, all of it. It can become hard to relate. We live in the middle of the National Forest. It means that we are self rescue with fire, we frequently use a chainsaw to cut away dead fall in the winter to drive places, feet of snow, life flight helipad for emergency, one room house. You are not necessarily going to be there, but rural life puts you in a different perspective. We do not talk about it much with town friends and family. Do you go to church? If not, you might want to consider it. Everyone around us is extremely conservative. Not just traditional (we are that), but ultra-conservative. That is hard. Simple gets really hard when you are sick, have broken something, or are getting older than 60. Be prepared to complete suck at being a farmer, simple, or self reliant. Google is your friend. Making friends and admitting you are a city slicker goes a long way. You will get there. It just takes a bit.

If he were going back over and doing them again himself, then one try for half credit would seem reasonable. If you are doing it with him, then I would not in good conscience be able to say it was a test. To me, a test means he is on his own to demonstrate knowledge (even if modified to recieve more than one try). You going back through with him is wonderful, but it does not seem like any credit should be awarded once you are instructing.

I have heard that First Start French is better if the parent knows absolutely no French. Where as Galore Park is great if the parent (or someone frequently interacting with the student) can speak the language. Any thoughts? I can help with explaining grammar and sentence structure terms, as my technical linguistics knowledge has gotten quite high, but I have no actual French background. Our friend who is employed as a translator through various foriegn governments is the one who is going to do an hour a week of structured writing and communication instruction.

My son takes syllabus exams every year and participates in multiple festivals judged by the American Federation of Music Clubs. This paperwork is then our documentation of his standing nationally as well as provides a concrete framework of matieral for various levels.

There is a standard product called tent tape. It is used to repair rips in the ripstop nylon of a tent. It has a super, crazy, insano sticky back and a cloth front which is waterproof (though not shiny). You cut a patch and stick it. If you iron your jacket it will melt. I promise you. You cannot get a setting high enough to actually melt an adhesive iron on patch. Use tent tape. You can get it most places from Walmart to The Academy.

We roll it into his humanities studies. I personally do not like how stereotypical most children's geography study resources are. We did an entire year on studying mythology. Included in that was quite a lot on landforms, climate, and economic/political structures. We did a couple years on climate, carbon, and global environmental science relating to economic and population issues. We did a year on world religions and the clashes/convergence of cultures there in. Currently he is really into how cultural systems of economy support government and power dynamics of class and gender. He is intregued with how a culture stratifies into heirarchy. That generally leads back to resources, trade, and physical location. I make it a point to talk about geography a lot, so it is not a separate subject here.

We mainly use Gardeners Art Through the Ages (an ancient copy from by CC days.They are dirt cheap now on Amazon, but it was the most expensive text I bought back then!) It not onky contains great images and a timeline, but a magazine style layout. Ds can read blurbs about history, summarize, and then take notes on images of the works. I suppliment with a handful of Great Courses since we have Great Courses Plus. These provide a more modern take on many of the pieces. 30 Masterpieces of the Ancient World How to Look At & Understand Great Art History of European Art Great Artists of the Italian Renniassance If you look at the AP Art History packet, it outlines the 250 works they cover. We have essentially been sprinkling these in over the last two years. At this point Ds can name over 60, along with region, time period, artist, and important details. It is just all wrapped into history so he doesn't do one crazy year and then brain dump.

To me this sounds like an emotional disconnect. There is something she wants, but logically it cannot be interaction or friends - she has both. Is there a way to sit down and logically explain that? to ask her what it is she thinks she might be needing or creating in the idea of *every day* and these long lost people? Family therapist has had me do this with Ds a couple of times. Ds will decide on a hollywood image of something and then just destroy himself either trying to achieve the dream or be mortified when the dream does not appear. By setting out the un-emotional logic, Ds can figure out what he actually wants and really have a chance to achieve happiness. Therapist has also tried talking with Dh about his version of idealized family (childhood was very messy and hearbreaking for dh) versus the reality of raising a child and being married. So often we tend to idealize or flat out lie to ourselves. The consequences are rarely as dramatic as rerouting school/future, but in certain instances bursting the bubble might greatly help.

My kid cannot do dark literature, unless it is politically dark (dystopian). Social juustice dark makes him a basketcase and really feel the weight of the world. He has a whole stack of fun, interesting books. He is really into young adult feminist literature right now as well. Any interest in those?

To keep you options open, I think you mainly need to focus on if your kids can test well. If you have some hyper specific course like Genetic Differentiation of the Eastern Tit Mouse and then they get a great score on the AP Bio test or the SATII, that seems like a major asset for the college track. You have a very interesting course, the kid has a definite learning interest or passion, and your bases are covered with outside verification at the national level. You just list Early Feminist Literature During the Italian Reniassance, well then no one knows if the student has their history or literature bases covered. It doesn't really show colleges anything. Without a way to somehow quantify the interesting learning in more standard terms, all you have are very esoteric mommy grades. That gets a bit dicey. It does not sound like any of your kids want to shoot for tippy top schools. If that were the case, most start prepping in 7th grade, which means that ninth should definitely be figured out. Large amounts of extensive research has been done on the courses/community/interests for the ridiculous transcripts most of elite schools seem to want. If your kids are leaning that way, interesting classes and fancy scores are the way to go.

Well, the kid has convinced me to let him dabble with French by himself if his other work gets completed. There is no way to legitimately say no. We have a friend who is fluent who has agreed to look over his translations and do pronunciation once a week. Anyone have good beginner French curriculum? Bonus points if it can expand past first year into high school.

What about any outsourcing? The thing that will make independence easier over the next year or so is that Ds has been able to outsource core classes. Without that, I would be drowning. Within the next couple of years, Ds is essentially going to be doing private tutors in his subjects across the board. He is homeschooling, but majorly outsourced. I become an administrative assistant. This is definitely doable. Hers do not need to be core, but they would allow her to have outside rsources for instruction. Even something as simple as an online umbrella to hit the major stuff, from home, and then she can enjoy learning her own things in between. For her age, it would more than likely not take very long to get through the "have to" and to the individually fun stuff.

I have done this. In some ways I still do - now I work from home. Ds is fairly unschooled still. I do not think he could go back to traditional methods now that he has been released to doing school and his own life his way. When Ds was younger (elementary), it was easier. Do the next thing was how many programs were set up and the complexity of the tasks being asked were much lower. I recognized this last October that he now (middle school) needed more from me again. The complexity of time management and scaffolding was really taking a toll. He had elementary all figured out and was in a groove. The jump up meant I needed to be more direct in supervision and tutoring. Assignments became "take notes on the lecture and write an essay. This contained a whole lot more moving parts and places for uncertainty than just finishing pages 7-12 in a workbook or reading and summarizing chapters 10-12. So I came home to be of greater avaliablity and have lessoned the amount of hours which I HAVE to work. I still try to work the same hours, but if I get derailed by a math lesson it is no big deal. I have a feeling in a year, he will be completely set to be fairly independent again. When I was working full time, it definitely required an extensive amount of prep from me so that Ds knew EXACTLY what was expected. As in down to the minute, page number, word count, no need for ANY questions. I had to list the resources to use, the resources if he was stuck, and the resources if he finished early. He had a One Note notebook with everything all linked. He could school from his iPad pretty much anywhere. Then I had to be rather ruthless in expecting it to be done. He could not talk to me during designated work hours, but could anytime outside of the hours. There were specific times for things to be completed and checked. If he did not get done during his personal worktime, he had to do it during his free time until it was done regardless of whether we were going to hang out or he had something fun planned. This was the hardest part. It only took a month or so of really strict expectations, but I really disliked being that parent. He was just not developmentally aware of how important my work was. I was mom all the time to him. This took me being very upfront. It sucked. Many of my non-work hours became hours discussing school, correcting school, or tutoring questions. Ds has said more than once it is nice to have me back as just his mom, rather than so much of his life being about school. We distinctly planned super fun no school days, vacations, and trips. It became paramount to definitely have sanctuary time that was strictly no school. Last thing was to easily set up the household for him to take care of his own needs. Mornings I would work and then come home. He was responsible for getting himself up, feeding himself, tending to the dog, getting dressed, hygine, keeping the house clean, signing on to his online class, and staying on task. From ages 9-11, he had the mornings to himself and I would come home at noon. This has paid extreme dividends now that I work from home. There is no reason to derail me about laundry, food, the dog, etc. I don't know. It is doable. It is not preferable. He did not get fabulous one on one instruction from me. He did not get really challenging curriculum (because he had to be able to do it all himself). It was miles better than public school. The kid can manage himself like a mini-adult (schedule his own lessons with his own phone, call his own cab, pay from his wallet, tip well, set his own alarms to get himself ready, get addresses off the internet, text me when he is returning, whole deal). He is essentially almost college ready in that department, but some feel that is too much stress too young. The long and short of it, you are telling your child "Handle it" for a large chunk of their day. You have to be in order to be a responsible employee. This does not mean you are abdicating your parental responsiblity (public school just was not going to emotionally work for my Ds at that time), but it is hard on the kid. It means you and your child are a team in a whole new way. If she does not pull weight, you go down too. If you do not get the ducks all lined up, she sinks. That is neither good nor bad, but it is a lot to put on a small person who more than likely just does not have the judgment center to get it. Ds is my best friend. Hands down, not even thinking about it. He knows me better and has me more figured out than anyone else. If he didn't, and I didn't know him in the same way, it would have fallen apart.

In going back to get my degree all reformalized, I have done three different transfer credit evals with three different schools. Essentially all said the same thing: we will take the basic 101 stuff, we won't take anything over 7 years old, and you have to take your education courses with us. The degree lisencure is a BA in mathematics with endorsement and an MA in science education with endorsement. Having previous degrees did not matter. I could transfer 65 credits at the most generous school and those were essentially just 100 levels across the board As much as it would be wonderful for her to knock out many of her degree requirements for education, I would be leery of thinking you can kick off too many this far ahead of the game. If she wants to take the course, that is always great, but much like the biology stuff, she might find it actually hard to transfer the courses into her major later. If there is a direct transfer agreement, you probably will have much more luck. This does then limit her 4 year choices.

I have recieved. A list of classes, times, and links to join. We will be watching Honors Comp tomorrow and Thursday.

Can she make the numbers with manipulatives? If you say 3, can she show you three? Not with fingers, but with moveable objects. If she can understand one to one correspondence, then try having her count while using manipulatives. She might be a kinesthetic/visual learner. The above approaches use audio and written visual. Most kids can catch on that way as they are usually strong in one or the other. However, some kids really do not prefer either so they struggle. I have terrible trouble with audio learning. Foriegn language in high school was so very difficult for me because it was predominantly auditory. If this is how people were evaluating my learning, they would honestly think I had a processing issue! Write it down and show me with pen and paper, I am all over it.

Ditto! Fill me in. Languages require a lot of research for me since they are not my thing.

Hey all! Thought I would throw out a bit of an update. The job fair is 20 days away. All the formal paperwork has been submitted and vetted (Dh's certification, transcripts of degrees, formal recommendation and supervisor observations, ect). He has registered for the job fair, gotten the days off of work for the whole fair, and reserved a hotel. Now he has to add any and all "supplimentals" to the digital portfolio for recruiting schools to look at. These are things like recommendations from previous students or parents, youtube videos of lessons, personal statements, personal webpage, pinterest classroom pages, additional awards, prezi accounts....the list goes on and on of various other resources you can show them. It is a lot and takes so much time. Now my job is to make him look like a rock star with flashy online stuff, formalizing all his business cards, making his resume graphic (it is really old school), and getting all his clothes to look snazzy. He hates all of those things and if I do not help will drastically procrastinate. Ds' job is to start understanding that online classes are definitely a must if we are going to do this. Homeschooling is illegal in many countries and thus, dh is directly disqualified from recieving a job in these places if we cannot verify "outside education." Luckily, that is not very extensive. Showing two classes is enough. It merely means that Ds needs to start organizing himself. Time management is a bit illusive still. Passports, shots for the dog, rehoming the cat, and language learning will all happen once we have an idea of where we might be going. By mid February, we should.

The goals thread was great to really start formalizing the ever shifting ideas about next year. How about one for curriculum plans? Anyone starting to figure out what next year holds? Here are our current plans....sure to change in a week since I have put this out there..... Music: Piano and possibly violin if we wind up going abroad (moving a piano is a bit problematic), continuing music theory English: Homegrown. Advanced Diagramming. Efficency at scaffolding. Depth of discussion/ oral rhetoric Science: Environmental Science at home with the AP test Latin: Lukeion Latin 2 History: Lukeion Meet the Greeks and Meet the Romans; continuing Art History Math: AoPS; Derek Ownes for verification of Geo and Algebra II The boy is expressing an interest in French. As far as I am concerned, no foriegn language other than Latin is going to be decided until we get final confirmation on the country we will be living in. This has never stopped him before, so he might decide to begin dabbling in French.

Perhaps it has nothing to do with math? She will soon be 11. Could this be puberty, brain fog, hormonal? When Ds started to shift, it was definitely frustrating to be continuously told "I don't get it" over and over and over. It was perhaps the most frustrating because he was previously so willing to learn and work with me to learn. Not during brain fog. We switched to Khan Academy, beginning at the total beginning and then just letting him go up until he needed the videos. If he was stuck, he could ask me. Usually, I was only involved when multiple self tries fell flat. In about 3-4 monthshe had some confidence back and we were able to actually move forward.

I do not know exactly when it happens, but at some point the kangaroo feet just start growing, and growing, and growing. I was very worried about Ds. He will probably always be tiny around in frame, but gracious! He has definitely decided to grow. Keeping him in pants and shoes is getting to be tiresome and we have quite a few years left. I very much hear you on worrying. It would have magnified mine tremendously if I had an older boy to compare him to. Your youngin' will decide one day to grow and then watch out!

We have a binder here that has been neurotically laid out by me with everything I could possibky think of. A family we knew had mom die unexpectedly and homeschooled kids Dad was supposed to take care of. It was a mess. As personal stress therapy, I made the binder and showed Ds where it was, how it was laid out, and asked if there was anything he thought I should add.

Alumus is like Khan Academy. It does not do the teaching. You can look at hints, see steps, figure things out, but it does not contain the proof based math, the written explainations, the discovery method. As long as there is SOME curriculum, no biggie. It does not have to be AoPS. If she just needs a break to plow through some Alcumus for a while, the is reasonable too. There is nothing wrong with lots of practice problems and really spending time crunching numbers for a bit. Reading a math book is a skill. It is a different kind of writing and a different way of expression. Completely removing all curriculum might be a bit of a steep learning curve in a formally graded or college situation later.

We did this with Ds. It never really mattered. He is ahead academically, but right on par socially. For events which his age mattered (youth group, camp, etc) he is grouped by 6th grade. For events which are academic (piano tests, outsourced classes, etc) he is grouped by 7th grade. Recently, he has decided he wants to try and attend high end boarding school for high school. This changes the scenerio a bit. If this holds as a long term goal, we will formally adjust him back to 6th grade. This way his age can allign with the very signficant resume he is going to need to get in and he can have the necessary legal status to be able to handle many issues which you need to be 16+ to take care of since he will be on the other side of the country. Long story short, grades are fluid and really do not matter. Pick which works best for the situation and just go with it. If needed, re-evaluate later.

I had friends in softball who bleached their upper lips and arms from about 13 on. The only problem was that once they tanned, it looked rather freakish and drew way more attention. With my sensative skin, creams and bleaching were out. I tried it once. The level of epic failure/humiliation is still embarrassing. Now I wax. I would not go back to shaving. I started shaving by 5th grade regularly (age 10). I started waxing as an older teen (17) when a older friend went away to college, then came home and showed me how. At 9, just let her shave. Give instructions about where not to shave, because I do not know of a single child who does not have a story about hair being removed through curiousity by someone. My older brother shaved my widows peak off when I was young with his razor. A classmate removed her sideburns (it was so awkward looking!). Another took out her eyebrows in a fashion which sounds similar to a PP. There are lots of YouTube tutorials if she is self conscious about you showing her or talking to her about it.