I thought the Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology was pretty good. It is written to the 5th/6th grade level. If you get the Notebook Journal, it includes book suggestions if you are looking to add in living books alongside.

@FarmingMomma I thought I would pop in and point you to Veritas Press Academy. They added Novare to their high school science offerings this past year. You can see the syllabus here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GAkCzuhhvXhGPwTSPxUZv-hp42w23_3rWq09dTCzpIc/edit The class meets 2x/week.

Am I the only one who had this scene from Princess Bride pop into their mind today?

Some people might be wary about buying silk comforters because you used to have to buy them in in Asia and bring them back with you. Costco carries one here: https://www.costco.com/smartsilk-silk-filled-comforter.product.100511792.html and here: https://www.costco.com/silk-haven-all-natural-silk-filled%2C-hand-made-comforter-.product.100241293.html

Silk comforters don't make noise and are lightweight. I use a cotton duvet cover in the summer and a flannel duvet cover in the winter.

I do want to set your expectations and encourage you to lock in your premiums for life insurance as early as possible. Do not forget to get insurance for yourself as well. A lot of people think about only replacing the breadwinner and forget that there are costs if the SAH parent passes away. You just need term life insurance, and there are caluculators online that help you figure out the level of coverage you need. I do advise people don't count of employer life insurance because if you lose that job, you lost that coverage. Treat that as extra on top of your basic coverage. Be prepared for your DH's insurance premiums to be higher than whatever quick quotes you get online or verbally. I guarantee that his premium will be adjusted once you go through underwriting and they get your DH's family medical history and find out that his father and grandfather both passed away in their 40s. Good luck though. I really encourage you to do it as soon as your can though.

Try using those other apps. Prodigy is adaptive so it will move on in skills that are mastered. It's pretty fun to play and free. If you want to have more access to other game reward features like leveling up faster and having more pets, you can get a membership. I got it though this facebook group buy. https://www.facebook.com/groups/StormsInTheSkyy https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/

Is there a reason why you want to continue on with memorization? Once this is mastered, I would just move on. If you are looking for something to do math wise to occupy time, perhaps Dragonbox math apps to introduce algebra or perhaps prodigy math for math practice.

You might want to take a look at Jacobs' Mathematics: A Human Endeavor. I used it to delay the start of delay. You spend time in lots of interesting math topics. 1. Mathematical Ways of Thinking - The Path of the Billiard Ball, More Billiard-Ball Mathematics, Inductive Reasoning: Finding and Extending Patterns, The Limitations of Inductive Reasoning, Deductive Reasoning: Mathematical Proof, Number Tricks and Deductive Reasoning 2. Number Sequences - Arithmetic Sequences, Geometric Sequences, The Binary Sequence, The Sequence of Squares, The Sequence of Cubes, Fibonacci Sequence3. Functions and Their Graphs - The Idea of a Function, Descartes and the Coordinate Graph, Functions with Line Graphs, Functions with Parabolic Graphs, More Functions with Curved Graphs, Interpolation and Extrapolation: Guessing Between and Beyond4. Large Numbers and Logarithms - Large Numbers, Scientific Notation, An Introduction to Logarithms, Decimal Logarithms, Logarithms and Scientific Notation, Exponential Functions5. Symmetry and Regular Figures - Symmetry, Regular Polygons, Mathematical Mosaics, Regular Polyhedra, Pyramids and Prisms6. Mathematical Curves - The Circle and the Ellipse, The Parabola, The Hyperbola, The Sine Curve, Spirals, The Cycloid7. Methods of Counting - The Fundamental Counting Principle, Permutations, More on Permutations, Combinations8. The Mathematics of Chance - Probability: The Measure of Chance, Dice Games and Probability, Probabilities of Successive Events, Binomial Probability, Pascal's Triangle, Independent and Dependent Events, The Birthday Problem: Complimentary Events9. An Introduction to Statistics - Organizing Data: Frequency Distributions, The Breaking of Ciphers and Codes: An Application of Statistics, Measures of Central Tendency, Measures of Variability, Displaying Data: Statistical Graphs, Collecting Data: Sampling10. Topics in Topology - The Mathematics of Distortion, The Seven Bridges of Konigsberg: An Introduction to Networks, Euler Paths, Trees, The Moebius Strip and Other Surfaces

I thought the Holt biology text was pretty good as well. It was used for the Athena Academy course. It wasn't overwhelming at all. My son was in 5th grade by age when we did that. I believe CK12 biology is free so you should be able to line up topics and take labs from there as well. You can even use some of what's in there to supplement what you plan to do. They have interesting videos, simulations, discussion guides and real world applications as well.

And you aren't being annoying by asking...it's NOT intuitive at all. There's no way a newbie would be expected to know this.

three words...padded bike shorts. ETA: if it was your first class, get there earlier next time to ask the instructor about how to adust the seat and also how to sit properly on the bike. This is actually a thing.

Hmmm...both DH and I both agreed geometry was the one area neither of us liked very much. Everything else was completely fine - algebra, trig, calc, stats. I think number theory was a bit of a challenge for me simply because I was unused to thinking about math that way. I see the same thing in my son whenever we get to geometry type problems as well.

Ok, based on what you said, this would likely rule out Clover Creek this year. Jetta has algebra as a pre-requisite. There's a lot of problem solving that you have to do and manipulating equations in the first semester. While the text is conceptual, Jetta brings in a lot more math than the book does. The class is very good, so if you could delay for him until he completes algebra, I would say it is well worth waiting to do that if you want a really well structured entry to high school science. My son had a bit of a rocky start coming into the class because of the executive functioning and study skills required to be successful in the class. My son was sick for almost 2 weeks at the end of September so he had to work to try to catch up. Fortunately, there was a mid semester break that let him do that. You wouldn't be able to differentiate this class because everyone has the same assignments which is a constant flow of daily assignments, quizzes, labs, and tests. Athena's would be good for exploring physics at a high level which is what I used it for when DS was 9. It was fine for our purpose which was to explore and not necessarily do it for a credit. If I had to choose only one or the other because it was going to be the only physics until he would pick it up at the AP level, I would pick Clover Creek personally. DS has gotten a lot out of the course and really grown into what is required. Jetta does such a great job of organizing the class and laying out exactly what is expected. It really was a great first high school level science course for my son with the output required at this level. He was at a point where he needed to level up. I follow the philosophy that another boardie mentioned on here that there is one course that really required him to step up and put in effort in studying every year. As much as I like Athena's, the Physics course wouldn't achieve that goal because it isn't designed to do that. It also does not have the labs you are looking for unless it has changed since we did the course. However, it is a perfectly good solution for a high input low output low stakes solution. So, I think maybe Athena's is more up your alley based on your last paragraph if you want to add in labs yourself. At the time, the teacher was using this website https://www.physicsclassroom.com/The-Laboratory for problems. The laboratory section I linked has loads of labs that you can access to add to the Athena's course if you decide to go that way.

We've done both Athena's and in the middle of Jetta's Clover Creek one...what are you looking for out of the class and for which kid?

on the other hand, I think next year going into the fall, you will have a much better idea of good choices. The market is pretty good at weeding out the poor performers, all the early adopters will have tried all sorts of products and the reviews will be in of the best choices out there.

this is reason why having natural ventilation is ideal. It only takes about 15 to 20 minutes for air to fully exchange.

I saw this on WSJ that breaks down visually how many people have had Covid by state. The map towards the bottom would need to be toggled to cumulative. https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-many-people-have-had-covid-19-across-the-u-s-11607623862?mod=e2fb&fbclid=IwAR1S4pr5yg1p7YmT0N4PocblRCa5868pS8J73LvbPNlApbcdS8mJjSjBB_k

If you want to a purifier that is effective against viruses, you need to look for ones with UV but you need to look carefully at the exposure time to UV and the intensity of the UV as well as how much air is processed by the purifier. I know...complicated.

I do want to start using my set when my DD4 is a bit older. It's been sitting in boxes for many years at this point. Thought I would share a photo just for fun. I always like seeing photos.

Plates with metal trim should never go into the microwave. They can spark and start a fire in there.

I would highly recommend https://ground.news/ to anyone here. It is an aggregator of news and will show you the bias rating of a news agency (from three non-partisan media watch dog groups). It it really helpful that in one place I can choose to read a left, center, and right to see how a particular story is being reported. Nothing is being filtered from me as I can see everything in one place. My favorite aspect is their blindspot feature where they show you what isn't been reported on and by extension seen by the left and the right. The website site is a lot more powerful than the app IMO since I can see more.

The rule of thumb I've been using is when I discuss things with people is that whatever your opinion on X issue, unless and until you can articulate a well reasoned argument for the opposing point of view then you haven't done enough to understand X issue. Educating yourself about opposing point of view doesn't mean you can't have your point of view. It means that you are engaged in actual discourse about said topic. About the conflation of American Christianity and politics, there is a really excellent book out by Kaitlyn Schiess called the Liturgy of Politics. This is the summary here: A generation of young Christians are weary of the political legacy they've inherited and hungry for a better approach. They're tired of seeing their faith tied to political battles they didn't start, and they're frustrated by the failures of leaders they thought they could trust. Kaitlyn Schiess grew up in this landscape, and understands it from the inside. Spiritual formation, and particularly a focus on formative practices, are experiencing a renaissance in Christian thinking―but these ideas are not often applied to the political sphere. In The Liturgy of Politics, Schiess shows that the church's politics are shaped by its habits and practices even when it's unaware of them. Schiess insists that the way out of our political morass is first to recognize the formative power of the political forces all around us, and then to recover historic Christian practices that shape us according to the truth of the gospel. https://www.amazon.com/Liturgy-Politics-Spiritual-Formation-Neighbor/dp/0830848304#:~:text=In the Liturgy of Politics%2C Kaitlyn Schiess explores how it,fresh and much needed view. You can hear her talk on Holy Post about the book here: https://www.holypost.com/post/episode-420-four-false-political-gospels-with-kaitlyn-schiess

The CDC did look at the risk of people continuing to be infectious after day 10. I seem to recall something in the 1.sometimeg % range being discussed on Dr. Campbell's channel. The discussion essentially was weighing the higher compliance of 10 days versus continuing out to 14 days given the relatively small number of people. I thought it interesting that this is offers as an option, but the CDC does continue to recommend 14 days as preferable.

I do encourage my son to say what he has written aloud because he can't "hear" what might be wrong or awkward about what he has written. I don't have him necessarily say it aloud before he writes though. Just afterwards. It probably would help him more if he did and make less editing work on the back end. He just won't do it that way, and it isn't a hill I want to die on. We have agreed that he will read his entire paper aloud all the way though after drafting it. I will also say that I have seen a lot of improvement though so far in his writing halfway through WWS1.