The tests in 6/5 are still every 5 lessons. In Algebra I, the come every 4 lessons.

I don't think I would tutor a child online for reading; especially not a young one.

We started with DD in 6th grade with Latina Christiana, which was about a year too late IMO; I would have preferred it if we had started earlier, but I was completely unaware of so much until DD was taken from public school at the end of 5th grade. We started DS on Prima Latina in 4th grade, and I think this will make for an excellent progression through his Latin studies. The reason I think 3rd - 6th grade is ideal to start Latin is because it will allow me to slowly move through Latin, spending several years on learning the Latin grammar inside and out, and it will still leave time for plenty of time for translation work in high school, even allowing a student to progress to AP Virgil if they are so inclined. Starting Latin later than 5th or 6th grade means having to go through the Latin grammar a little faster in order to reach AP level studies. Also, starting Latin by 4th-6th grade means you won't need a separate grammar or vocabulary program for the middle school years, and it can even suffice as your logic program in middle school. The main benefit for DD, though, has been an improvement in the care and precision in how she handles her other schoolwork. When DD came out of public school, she was careless, sloppy, and imprecise in her work. Latin taught her to be the opposite, and if we never get a stitch of other benefits out of Latin, that alone will have made Latin study worth every minute. As far as finding time: We treat Latin as a core subject here, so it is priority along with math and English. History, science, art, music, and modern language get in line behind Latin. In 4th and 5th grade (for DS, that's the Prima Latina and Latina Christiana years) the workload is light to moderate, and Memoria Press doesn't really seriously pick up the pace until First Form Latin. At that point, Latin was taking about 35-45 minutes/day. This is for 34 weeks of work because we don't school year around; with year around schooling, you could probably get away with 30-35 minutes/day in FFL. So that's all to say, I make time for it by sacrificing lots of other things, but I do this because it has benefitted DD greatly after just a few years of it.

We loved Prima Latina here, and it was a huge hit. But I don't see much benefit to starting it in 1st grade with your younger because the rest of MP lineup is a bit above a 2nd grade level, IMO. If you are overwhelmed and your oldest has already done PL and doesn't want to repeat it, I think you can safely park Latin until 5th for your oldest, when she might be more receptive to LC.

I laughed so hard when I read that article! Awesome!

OK, that clarifies things. So SO isn't an issue at your new place. OK, try and work on the situation first, without packing up and leaving automatically. The easiest thing is probably to see if the landlord will allot you money or a break on rent to clean the place to your satisfaction yourself. Given the positives of the area as you describe them, it's probably worth the hassle to stay. I wouldn't be sending nasty lawyer notes to a landlord who lives across the street and with whom you will need a working relationship for your remaining time there; not unless things got unbearable.

Between the SO and the condition of the place, I would try and get out of the lease. I wouldn't offer any money up front right away; not unless you can't get out of it another way. What does your lease say about breaking your contract? You might also offer to find them a tenant so that they do not lose a month's rent on anything. Try and find amicable ways to get out of it first, before resorting to telling the landlord the place was a disaster and didn't meet standards and huffing off. ETA: Just read your further posts. I think you should go with your gut about whether to stay or not. The sex offender thing would give me pause; I could always clean the house to my satisfaction and paint it, although the fact that the landlord didn't do those things could be an indication of how he will be as a landlord. Is a level 3 sex offender the worst kind, or is a level 1 SO the worst kind? I can't remember which is which. IOW, did the SO get on the list because he was 18 and diddling his 16 y.o. girlfriend, or because he molested a child? If he molested a child, I wouldn't stay for any amount of money. But if he just got it on with a slightly younger teenaged girlfriend, he isn't a threat to your kids.

Backgammon and Stratego.

This is been my experience. My kids went to a play based, English language preschool.

No, I can't recommend one that doesn't get beaten up by July, although L.L. Bean makes better than average suits, as far as quality goes. My kids are on both swim and dive teams, in addition to their recreational swimming, and most of the suits are sadly beaten up by July. My best advice is to get multiple suits for each kid and rotate them through.

I like the subtleness of posting a grammatically corrected sentence as a response, but really, your sweet revenge will come when you produce obviously better educated, obviously more polite, obviously more engaged young adults. Which you could point out, but then that would be obviously impolite, LOL.

It depends on what "broken" means. Some things like a slipped belt can caused the treadmill not to move properly, and that is simply a matter of maintenance. But actually damage? I think I would say something along the lines of "Oh, we'll be needing our treadmill back soon, so would you like to have it repaired at your house before we pick it up?"

I don't think I would do anything besides let your friend know of the behavior. I probably wouldn't invite them back if bad behavior turns out to be habitual. I would expect a NT child and non-NT to be taught not to spit and to act civilly. Based on your description of the siblings and mom's reaction, I'd say they were run-of-the-mill rude.

The print books are beautiful; splurge if you can.

I'm in the process of doing this right now for physics, but it's not done yet. We are using Hewitts conceptual physics.

We really loved the trail guide to world geography; I would recommend that. Why are you hesitating ?

If you are *positive* they are not coming and can swing the cost, I would send a note to the invitees telling them that due to last-minute circumstances the party has to be moved. And then do something on a date when more people are available. But first contact them and make sure that they are indeed not available, because some people just do not RSVP. If that's not possible, tell DS well in advance that everyone already had plans because of the holiday, and offer to have another low key "friends over" party later in the summer and make it clear that this is just a family party.

I sneak into DD room (she's the slob of the family) and cart 1 item out every few days. She doesn't even notice. I've told her repeatedly to clean that pigsty and she doesn't, so I do it now. I don't toss anything of heavy sentimental value or stuff that was a long term project for her.

I'm run of the mill North American also. Occasionally, we have Subway subs, soup and salad, sandwiches, or pizza. DH wants his main meal at night because in his job he eats a very quick and non relaxing lunch and that is our extended family meal together.

Big honkin', old-fashioned, color-coded paper calendar, hung in the office so that everyone can see where they need to be, and when. We all manage to get where we have to be. It gets changed monthly, and we just photograph it and send it to whomever needs it electronically.

Legos, reading, dive team, swimming and goofing around with friends in the pool, a few camps (robotics and marine science), family vacations, nerf gun wars, biking, occassional board games, whittling/carving, helping DH with carpentry projects, computer games on the weekend for two hours/weekend day only.

The tipping point for me would be if the child is not getting adequate sleep or exercise because they were sitting on their duff reading.

Is the person who does not want to hand over the marriage license at least required to refer to someone who will in that same office ?

I'm surprised North Carolina allows this kind of exemption; I had no idea. I think it is absolutely ridiculous that the government or government representative is allowed to opt out of any current law. In fact, government agents or agencies should be the standard bearer for a country's laws.

I do see both points of view here. Perhaps the fairest way to draw the line is to look at the Hobby Lobby decision claiming religious exemption, and also those cases that claimed religious discrimination prior to Hobby lobby. Hobby Lobby was allowed to bow out of birth control because birth control was said to be one of those things that was readily obtainable elsewhere, outside of the Hobby Lobby company, so the company was excused from providing that service. As someone else mentioned up thread (perhaps it was you?), other religious claims, such as to exempt a company from paying for vaccines and blood transfusions, were not granted because they were much harder to obtain on the outside easily. Perhaps a compromise could use this same standard: is the service readily obtainable elsewhere? It would seem that a cake is easily obtainable elsewhere. Another possibility is requiring referrals to another bakery within 5 to 10 miles that will make a cake, similar to referring pharmacies who won't hand out Plan B. In the event that cake is not readily available for whatever reason, the government could follow the standard that it set for integrating schools and integrating housing half a century ago; by setting up a bakery run by the municipality or state involved. And yes, I do believe I just suggested a government bakery. *eye roll*. Just as with integrated housing and integrated schooling, the civilian population came along in time after the government set the standard of nondiscrimination. Otherwise, I do think this will be very hard to enforce against some baker hell-bent on circumventing the law, because I can think of seven ways to Sunday for this law to be circumvented.