I would do what makes your DS most comfortable.

Yes, that's hot - even to this heat lover. Dry heat of that temperature wouldn't be that hot, but that humidity makes it hot.

This happened to my kid's iPod. They put it into recovery mode, plugged it into the computer, went to Apple iTunes Store, and then went to iPod link. And then, without doing anything further, it just disappeared. If that doesn't work try doing the same thing with the iPod in DFU mode ( but you will lose all your data that way).

On the bright side, your total tuition bill for all 4 years should be substantially lower. There are all sorts of paths to a degree and your DS seems mature enough to know what he needs and I bet he'll be fine.

Glad to hear your update! The bolded is also true for me, LOL!

We didn't divide the book into "lessons" so much as we looked at each chapter as a "unit". So in botany, for example, each chapter has some reading, then several activities you can opt to do. So DD read the lesson and then I assigned activities due on different days (So Activity 1.1 was due on Wednesday, after the reading, for example, and then we reviewed that for a few minutes together. Then Activities 1.2 and 1.3 might be due on Thursday, and so on, through the end of the chapter). There are probably more exciting ways to implement that, but it worked for us. DD was 11 when we did botany. We did all the exercises, levels 1 and 2, and that was a perfect match for us; same with The Elements. Carbon Chemistry was more of a challenge, but we did levels 1 and 2 there also and it was fine. We skipped the games but did most other activities. It's hard to say how long it will take because every kid is different, of course, and everyone has a different school schedule and breaks. But for reference: We school from early September through early June, with no summer school, and we work 5 days per week with scattered time off throughout the year; about 34 weeks of solid school for us per year. In addition, there were some books where I added more in-depth activities (I teach biology and biochemistry at a local college, so DD and I did some far more in-depth stuff for certain units). Anyway, with that said, it is easy to complete 2 books per year. But that doesn't bring you to 34 weeks of school and you'll fall up a bit short if you are implementing some type of science each week. You can try to cram in 3 books per year, but IMO that is a lot and you will wind up not hitting the books in-depth. So like I said, I supplemented with free ACS chemistry online and my own experiments and so forth; DD was a busy kid that year, LOL! I estimate each chapter would take 1-2 weeks, depending on whether or not your were hitting it hard and in-depth or skipping a few activities per chapter. Two weeks per chapter would be a very comfortable pace, I estimate.

I used this program with DD and am using part of it with DS next year. The GeoSciences segment is super-excellent; I can't say enough good things about it. The kits you have to buy are perfect for the experiments and the only other stuff you'll need is random, cheap stuff that is laying about the house (like a Styrofoam cup, black sharpie, whatever). So, nothing of any significant expense, and yes, somewhere in the book is a master list of all the trivial crap you'll need. The astronomy section is God-awful, honestly. The readings are fine, but the lab exercises are lame, frustrating, and useless. I went off-script with DD once I realized it was not really an effective astronomy program and basically pulled together my own labs as best I could. Instead of the lame exercises in the book, I bought Chris Oxlade books on various planets on Amazon for a cheap used price, made a few trips to the planetarium, hung out with an astronomy club for a few sessions, and did the Solar Walk (check online for procedure - it's free) for lab exercises. But I always felt my daughter was ripped off in the astronomy department because I was putting things together on the fly. This year with DS, I bought Real Science 4 Kids astronomy for middle school. I received it last week and it looks much better and I plan to use that for the astronomy section. But that is an extra expense that you might not want to take on. So, given that half of the book is wonderful and the other half is a pile of steaming dung, this is what I would do: Don't buy the kit; just go to Home Science Training Tools and buy the individual materials you will need only for the GeoSciences half of the book. When I ordered materials, the kit was not put together and I had to order things separately anyway. Home Science Training Tools always has online ship codes or free shipping; sign up on their website to get on their email list and you'll get them in your mailbox. Or search the web for online coupon codes. For astronomy, don't buy the Van Cleeve books (they are awful) or anything for the kit. Just buy the Oxlade books if you can swing them. But if you can't swing them, the encyclopedia is fine. But the Oxlade books are not as dry and are excellent for middle school. Here is an example of one and there are others for other planets, the sun and moon, etc...: http://www.amazon.com/Jupiter-Neptune-Other-Outer-Planets/dp/0750249226/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1437106324&sr=8-1&keywords=oxlade+Jupiter Make your astronomy labs about planetarium visits, hanging out with your local astronomy club, going constellation and stargazing in a dark area (for this, the planisphere they recommend as part of the kit is worth the buy), using your binoculars to observe stages of the moon, make a model of the solar system, and pull labs such as these off the web: Solar Walk: http://dustbunny.com/afk/planets/howbig.html General astronomy lab links: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/educ/docs/3-stardst-ch03.pdf http://www.eclipse.aaq.org.au/index.php/classroom-activities Moon stages: http://www.csuchico.edu/~abykerk-kauffman/courses/geos142/packet/pdf/51LabOnPhases&Eclipses.pdf

And it's law school.

That's an awesome story! I had a similar situation last night when we were at the pool. Several tweens were engrossed in their phone while my kids and a few others were in the pool, laughing and goofing around. After the pool closed, these kids could not pull themselves away from the phones; the conversation was so, well, not a conversation, and they were completely unable to function socially when the parents pulled the phones away. It's worrisome that the kids aren't able to develop any personal social skills and everything has to be mediated by electronics.

If his thing is sports, can you find his chosen sport outside of school, in the community?

"My insurance won't cover it and I can't afford to pay cash".

On this topic or on another topic?

I've used 3 McHenry curricula now (including botany) and am on my 4th one. I cannot implement a damned thing without explicit instructions and idiot-proof scripted teacher manuals and I find McHenry easy to implement and requires little to no preparation; it's open and go.

I would get the implant if at all possible. In time and with passing years, that missing tooth will allow your teeth to shift and can change the shape and appearance of your entire jaw.

Can you snap close-up pictures of the wound, drainage area, and what has drained and email them to the vet and ask him once more? Tell him you're just really nervous because you haven't seen anything like that before; anything to get him to take a look at the pictures.

I'm sorry your dad is so sick. Sending my best to you and your dad.

The sounds on my phone are all on "off" at night; I kind of expect that if others don't want to be disturbed, they'd do the same, but maybe I need to re-think that.

I can't stand fast-food burger joints, any of them. I don't like hamburgers or fries. I am 52 and just tried Chik Fil A (I think I spelled that wrong) for the first time in my life last week. Oh, I am in love! The spicy chicken sandwich was so good! I love Trader Joe's, but I won't step foot in those big box monstrosities like Costco or Sam's Club - I hate them for no good reason; they are totally unappealing. My favorite food store is an old rural country farmer's market here in Virginia with the door falling off the hinges, creaky floorboards, and a stuck door knob. The food is off-the-farm fresh.

I wonder if I would want to have a boulder dropped on my head or be stoned to death with pebbles? I think I'd opt for the boulder. It seems this will probably eat up more classroom time, because you just know that every test will be preceded by extensive prep.

My DD has this problem. She has been a lightbsleeper and late owl since she was a young child, and by puberty she was staying up really late and was unable to fall asleep so she was tired in the morning and the next day. What helped was getting up very early consistently; in other words, no sleeping in on the weekends or days that she has nothing to do. Make sure she's busy and has assignments/ activities/appointments early in the morning so she doesn't have a chance to slip back into that late owl routine.

We used these by having my son to the written work, but I do think it would be just as effective to have an oral discussion using the teacher guide. I had my son do the written work, and when we went over the questions, we often expanded on the discussion. But I think oral discussion would be just as effective.

I started afterschooling in the middle of 5th grade, and full-on homeschooling at the beginning of 6th grade. It is mighty scary that first year, and especially the beginning of middle school when you are trying to prepare the child for high school. I try to choose non-religious materials whenever possible, but I am open to religious materials if they are very good and get the job done. As such, my materials list that I like is both religious and non-religious, as follows: History: I really like History Odyssey. I just started Early Modern with DD (13) this year and love it, so I bought Modern Times for next year, as well as Ancients for DS (10). DS is currently working through Story of the World, which we all love, but I feel it is too babyish for middle school. If your child is anything like mine coming out of public school, their sweep through the course of history was hit or miss and I strongly recommend a read through the 4 volumes of SOTW prior to beginning History Odyssey. The HO timelines are wonderful; you should get them as a supplement to the HO books or make your own out of copier paper. It will help your child place events in history in prespective. We live near Revolutionary and Civil War battlefields, as well as Colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown, so when we studied the American portion of history, we did a lot of field trips to those places. But most places have cool and inexpensive historical sites and parks for you to use. Science: We've had to try a few things and piece them together until we found something that worked here. Some resources I've called on for DS and DD that I liked for chemistry were Ellen McHenry The Elements and Carbon Chemistry, supplemented with Exploration Education for hands on work. For Physics we are using Exploration Education for hands on work, and Hewitt's Conceptual Physics as a text. The Exploration Education kits for Physicl science covers 2 years of material, chemistry and physics. For biology I brewed my own and set up my own labs and exercises, as well as included many biology-related camps, museums, zoos, and aquariums. For Astronomy: Real Science 4 Kids, supplemented with trips to the beach for stargazing, the planetarium for more in-depth work, and tagging along with the local astronomy club viewing nights. For geology, I liked ClassiQuest's Geosciences book, supplemented by field trips to museums. All of these options have heavy hands-on work as I planned them, but the materials can be a bit pricey; check out the classified boards here and the used homeschool curriculum website for better prices. You can PM me for my bio syllabus and more detail if you'd like, once you have decided on a particular branch of science you want to tackle this year (if you opt for biology). Latin: You have a lot of decent choices in this category, but I am thrilled with our progress using Memoria Press' First Form Latin (we started with Latina Christiana). This is one of those programs where I opted for a religious curriculum because it was so good. It's easy to skip the prayers and religious stuff without impacting the lessons, if you choose. It sets up a great grammar foundation for translation later on, has a video teacher, and explicit instructions for the parent, along with answer keys and tests. This is another one of those programs that you can easily find used and cheaper on used websites. I would run far and fast from Rosetta Stone because it's expensive and there is no grammar component, so it will be hard to build fluency off of, and you can't give high school credit without a grammar component. You'll get vocabulary roots and grammar out of the MP Latin, though. Math: This is very kid-dependent. Does your child do well with a spiral curriculum (constant review) or a mastery approach? My DD thrives on a spiral approach; a spiral has been wonderful for her, it has solidified her skills, and her test scores have skyrocketed with Saxon. DS uses Saxon also, but uses Beast Academy for challenge and interest. Whatever you choose, be sure and give a placement test first and follow the guidelines of the placement test. You have to decide first whether your child needs a spiral or mastery approach, and then decide what your goals are for said child (solidifying skills, challenge, whatever). Lots of math texts available used also. Etymology: I just bought McHenry's "Excavating English" for DD. OMG, what fun! In fact, so much fun that I bought a second book and am going to work it with her. The age range is 13-18, but if you've got a student who is clever with English and take it slow, I think it would be fine for an older 5th grader. It's not word roots, which you'll get with Latin, but language origins. Check out the samples online; as an English-oriented person, I think you'll love it! Good luck with your choices!

There has been some talk about school files moving with a student into college and then into adulthood. This was proposed by the Gates foundation as part of RTTT; some private schools (I am thinking of NYS particularly) have also jumped on the common core bandwagon. As far as I know, nothing has come of it so far, but it is definitely on someone's radar and once medical information is out there, it can't be taken withdrawn; it's out there. Better not to expose it to that potential to begin with.

To say a school is peanut free or some other such proclamation is giving a false sense of security to people with deadly allergies, since you can't control what that child eats for breakfast or has on his clothes when he comes into school. The assumption should always be there are allergans around and to act accordingly (i.e., keeping an epi-pen and trained personnel nearby always).

nm; too many panties will be wadded up.