My older 2 did some MEP through level 2 or 3. The oldest started playing around with BA 2 as it came out when she was 5 or 6, but it didn't become her main thing until she was about 8. She has done some Math Mammoth when she needs time to practice/marinate on a topic. When she's focused on BA it takes under 3 weeks a chapter, but she's had to take some extra time with division and fractions so it's taken her about 14 months to get through level 5 (after finishing level 4 in about 7 months). The next started with level 2 in second grade, so he would have been 7.5. He works pretty steadily but doesn't tend to do more than I ask. He works on it 4 days a week, doing 2-3 lessons a day in the online version. On test days that's the only thing he does. It takes about 2.5 weeks per chapter, probably. The 6 year old (almost 7) flew through level 1 lessons last year. He did lessons about 3 times a week, most weeks of the school year, and finished all of level one and some of two. Most chapters took him 4 or 5 days of doing stuff. He could have gotten through more if I'd pushed, but I don't think I need to push "getting ahead." Good luck on the placement tests! I sometimes have luck making something "earnable." Like, we'll go to this extra fun place if you earn it by cleaning up/doing extra work.

I use Beast Academy for my kids. I have one 11 year old finishing up the last couple of chapters of 5 , one 9 year old halfway through 4, and a 6 year old near the beginning of 2. The 6 year old is the only one who has level 1 available. We mostly use the online version, though we have all the books. I like that it gives instant feedback. During math time, I can listen to the chimes and know who is struggling and go to them, while the others continue on. Between the comics, the videos, and the step-by-step demonstration of his to do sample (and missed) problems, I feel it teaches more than thoroughly. My oldest struggles the most with it, but she's great at real-life math when it comes up, so she sees it has been worth while. The website has some helpful documents for planning and understanding Beast Academy. Look under "parent resources." One includes an explanation for each chapter with a flow chart showing which previous chapters this especially builds on and which it leads to, as well as information about why AOPS presents information in a particular way. This may be especially helpful if you find one chapter especially difficult as it will show you which previous chapters you can return to to fill in gaps. If you go with online, you get access to everything, so you can unlock previous chapters, either for fun or review.

You can get pregnancy test strips of Amazon super cheap. They aren't as convenient as the "pee on a stick" kind since they are just little steps of paper. You have to supply your own cup, but they are just a few cents each, which helps with frequent testing for peace of mind.

When he leaves, don't allow him to keep any stuff at your house without a written agreement that you are only allowing him to store stuff but he doesn't live there. In our area at least, once you've let someone move in, they have to willingly leave or you have to go through the legal eviction process. If he tells the police he lives there and his stuff is inside, they may require you to let him back in.

I just put that on hold at my library after reading this! I haven't found anything that's great for the elementary level, but I keep looking. With my kids, talking about parables in relation to Genesis is helpful for understanding "true doesn't have to be fact." Biologos' Integrate looks great, but very solid for teenagers. I've read through a bit to adapt down to my kids, and I plan to do that some more.

Yes, it's this. I would have felt super uncomfortable with this as a kid and would have tried to hold it all night long, which didn't make for a good sleep over.

Most of the sleepovers recently have been asked for primarily by the girls, not initiated by us. I have one family that we used to allow sleepovers with that let them stay up till early am hours, and that's now nixed. I don't need any cranky kids for sure. That's one reason I don't really want to give up on these. The kids mesh well together, have a lot of fun, but also go to sleep at reasonable hours!

This is kind of why I'm hesitant to tell my kids "it's now against the rules to have sleepovers" or burn any bridges. My family is very fortunate to have a "deep bench" of family in the area to call on in crises. This family doesn't. I don't want to do it say anything that would isolate them in crisis.

We're in the range it's doable but far from ideal. About 30 minutes one way. Like most of you have said, the correct answer is telling my kids that they have different rules about this and probably have no more sleepovers.

I think mostly this is a vent, and I'm sure I'm a bit judgemental in my frustration. I fully respect any parent's right and responsibility to not allow their kids to be in a situation they think is dangerous, but the proposed solution makes me uncomfortable, so we are at an impasse. If you have successfully navigated something like this, or you relate to the other mom in the situation and want to shed light on what you'd be thinking, I'd appreciate hearing about it. My two oldest, 11yo girl and 9 yo boy, have friends right about the same age that are sister and brother in another homeschooling family, and I'm reasonably good friends with the mom. We've done a lot of fun stuff together, mostly with moms and kids, plus we've had their kids over for sleepovers from time to time, including for family emergencies, sometimes the girl, sometimes the boy, sometimes both. We haven't sent our kids there for a sleepover partly because their house is more high-stress than ours (not in a terrible way, but the kids have more fun here) and because a bathroom is out of commission there, meaning the kids would have to either go through the parent's bedroom or go into the grandparent's space on a different floor of the house to use the toilet, and I don't want my kids dealing with that in the middle of the night. The long stalled out renovation is not a happy topic for them, so I haven't brought that up. Recently the girls have been trying to get together for another sleepover, and my friend told me her husband is no longer comfortable letting their daughter have a sleepover in a house with boys, so we should send my 9 year old to their house for a sleepover at the same time as the 11 year old comes here, or the girls could go there while the boys come here. I'm not comfortable with that and told her so. The reason I gave, which is my main one besides the bathroom situation, is that I don't want to transmit to my son the idea that he's viewed as a potential predator when he's barely begun thinking about puberty. I think this will hurt his feelings, make it hard for him to respect his friend's parents, and lead to questions and discussions that are more nuanced than he will enjoy or benefit from at the moment. She thinks that we could do this slyly without them knowing, but I'm almost certain that would not last an hour. He's a perceptive kid who likes things to be very black and white. He knows that he has to make peace with the fact that other people sometimes have different rules, but that's not easy for him yet. I know youth-on-youth violence is a real thing and it can be easier to set rules before kids get to puberty instead of waiting, but if her husband doesn't trust us to keep things appropriate with our 9 year old, he doesn't trust us and shouldn't send his kids here without a parent at all. I'm happy to make up mutually agreeable rules together, like not going into each other's bedrooms or having the boys and girls sleep on different levels of the house, but if we're going into who is a potential predator, statistically the dads and the grandpa are the ones we need to be talking about before prepubescent boys. I think the mom may have other concerns that we should probably discuss, but they wouldn't be addressed by this "solution." We are less theologically and politically conservative than they are , though both serious about our Christian faith, and my kids are friends with some different kinds of people that they don't want their kids to know. We answer our kids' questions honestly, but in consideration of their age, while they believe in sheltering their kids in a way that sometimes requires what I would consider lies, though with very good intentions. My kids are careful not to discuss potentially controversial topics with these kids, which isn't particularly difficult for them, but my friend may be concerned that eventually they will come up. It may just be that we need to stop having sleepovers, but that would be sad. They've been friends since they were very young, longer than any other non-family friends. My daughter has told me (without my asking) that it's a little hard to be friends with them, but she wants to stay friends. My daughter probably self-censors more than is necessary, but cooking together is one of the things they can both enjoy talking about, planning, and executing, which is part of why they are wanting to do a sleepover (more meals than just hanging out for an afternoon). My son enjoys having out and playing with his buddy and is always up for having him come play and sleep over, but he doesn't pursue it. They all play together pretty well. Their daughter once expressed the idea that she'd like to marry my son one day, but that was several years ago when they were all very little and he was the only non-brother boy she'd spent any real time around. We didn't make a deal of it, and I think she's likely moved on, but maybe that's part of what makes the mom concerned.

I've used AAR for a couple of years now and enjoy it. You can use it to fit your own schedule. The idea is that you work for 20 minutes (more or less, as fits your kid's age and focus ability), stop, and pick up there the next day. Each day you start with a bit of review, using the cards your child hasn't mastered yet, then move on to new material. If your child has a lot of review, there are ideas to "gamify" the review so that it isn't straight flashcards. Some kids spend about a week per lesson, while mine typically finishes a lesson (or two) a day. Some people follow that pattern M-Th and then use Friday to redo a favorite activity and reread an earlier, easier story, especially if the ideas are clicking but fluency is lagging.

Science mom is going to have physics in the fall, which may aim a bit older. I'm planning on having my middle schooler play around with Khan academy to see if anything catches her interest or sparks a desire to research more

Most of the homeschoolers I know are pretty well-off, though tend to need to be more frugal than their peers if their peers are sending kids to public school. There are some I know who might fit in the "poverty homeschool" category, and it's something hard to think about. The family whose situation I know best clearly has different priorities than I do, but because we both homeschool, we fall into the easy mistake of assuming values are the same until we encounter awkward moments in conversation. They are die-hard homeschoolers whose choices mean that they are sometimes unsure of where they will live in a month or two. It's only reached crisis level twice in the decade I've known them, but the first time it lasted over a year. They have lots of debt, a fairly cramped house, and grandparents who have struggled with money choices living with them (who are also in debt). One person earns money in a family that includes four adults. They have constant stress about bills, car and home repairs, and inter-generational living. Their oldest has significant anxiety issues, which may stem from this or may not, but they don't want to take her to any therapy unless they are sure that person won't report them to family services. I've tried to tell them that the social workers and foster care system in our state is way overburdened and famously leaves kids in situations in all kinds of awful situations, even ones that lead to their deaths, that the horror stories of CPS taking away kids for no real reason come from completely different states, but it doesn't matter. It seems many of their choices are made due to fear that come from rumors that spread through their homeschooling community. I don't love that dynamic. At the same time, these are their choices. They have the information about their circumstances, much of it that I don't have, they have their values, and they are content with their choices. I try to be an honest supportive friend, giving my opinion if asked and focusing on shared interests when possible. I'm pretty sure they are doing the same in areas where they think we are making foolish decisions.

MEP1 has been pretty perfect for my bright 4 year olds, though we have to scribe for them since the boxes are tiny. We have only used through level 3 (and that not for all of mine) before switching to Beast Academy, so I don't know how the older levels pan out. I've really enjoyed level 1 multiple times.

My 6 year old first grader has two big siblings and one little, so he gets a lot of what I'm hoping is salutary neglect. He does Beast Academy, almost done with level one, and it's really a bit too easy, but it'll get harder. He is a little over half way through AAR4 but really doesn't need it and reads everything easily. If we don't finish it, he'll suddenly feel a desperate need to do so in a few months, so I'm trying to do a last push through. He's in AAS1, but most days he's able to hide out and run out the clock on that one. Next year it'll be a more regular part of his day. He tends to duck out of group history lessons, but they are aimed above him. Next year oldest is splitting of and we're cycling back to Ancient History. Then I'll be aiming it much more at him. He does science (Mystery Science) and First Language Lessons with 4 year old brother, which makes it more fun for him and lets him take the role of teacher/mentor, which is good for him. I've been looking a little at the new AAS. I don't think I'll spring for it as we already own 1-7, plus I like the more streamlined, mature feel of AAS. I think if I had a struggling reader, though, it would be great to use a more colorful AAS to reinforce AAR in a more relaxed way. We've used it largely to build up handwriting stamina, as well as to reinforce spelling, punctuation, etc.

I picked it up in fifth grade, read the first few pages, and quit because it takes a lot about Jem and football, and I didn't want to read another sports book. When I finally read it some time during high school, I was surprised to find very little football in the book, haha. I wouldn't want to introduce it before about age 13, even for advanced or mature readers because I think readers need to be able to see Scout as a little girl, not a peer, to understand the point of the narrative. Of course, they need to also be able to handle racism and violence.

Once I was flying with dh, 2yo, and 3yo. We reserved seats together, but they put us in 3 different places in the plane. We pointed out the problem and would have been fine with one parent being separate or with one kid with each parent, but they find us 4 together at the very back of the plane, just in front of the galley. This turned out to be awful because we could overheard everything the very angry, rather potty-mouthed flight attendants said in the gallery the whole time. Apparently, some of them were planning to use that row to rest in during the flight, and they acted like it was our fault they couldn't. My two year old accidentally pushed the call button during boarding as it was in the remote control for the TV screen, located on his armrest. I apologized sincerely and said I'd do my best to keep it from happening again, but the flight attendant tried to demand I promise it wouldn't happen. I wasn't willing to promise that since we were on an eight hour flight, the button was in very easy reach, and he was just barely 2. I promised I would try my very best (and, as it turned out, he didn't press it again because my best is quite good). Whenever a kid on the flight cried, we could hear then behind us cussing and blaming our kids. The only time my child cried was during landing. He had a bit of a cold, which probably didn't help, but mostly he was sad he had to stay in his seat and not be held during that time. I get that it is annoying to hear a child cry, but he wasn't the loudest crying child even at that moment. The worst flight attendant decided to come out before debarking and tell me that I should never fly with a sick child because I was putting him through horrible pain. I was apparently a bit scary in my icely - calm response to her. It was just a bizarrely bad flight with cursing flight attendants behaving passive-aggressively, and openly aggressively to us, except one really nice guy who clearly felt horrible and kept stopping by to compliment the kids, give them treats, and apologize with his whole demeanor. I sent in a complaint, being sure to praise him, and never heard a word in reply. That's a really irrelevant story that I hadn't thought about in years. I agree, airline's treatment of passengers with kids can be awful.

Out of curiosity and boredom I searched the name of "Nick" the poster above and read for about 5 minutes. It's a mess. I don't recommend. Some people are really angry. He went to jail. Probably the colleges aren't too blame, but I don't care enough to read any more. If Nick himself is posting, he should stop.

In high school we were quietly told the unofficial policy was that we needed to be quiet about it if we needed to carry pain meds, and we shouldn't share, but the school had enough real things to deal with that they weren't checking purses for otcs, and they weren't going to notice them if they could help it. I let my (homeschooled) son carry ibuprofen starting at 8 because he very occasionally gets migraines that make him vomit, and worrying about a headache becoming a migraine makes him miserable and anxious. He can take it on his own, but then he has to tell me he has done so as soon as he gets a chance to. We would be able to work with school rules if we had to, but it would make him nervous that the person with the meds might be busy or mean or no where to be found. I'd be inclined to decide what the spirit of the rule is and follow that rather than the letter.

We "ran" a 3.14 k race and got given pie at the finish line. The scare quotes are because the 6 of us divided into pairs and I was with the youngest who ran about half, walked a quarter, and got carried a quarter.

Echoing a couple of posters above: expectations about bug and rodent presence is going to need to be regionally adjusted. In our area, even if you keep things very clean and use lots of poison, you are going to find at least dead cockroaches in any given building. They come in from outside and are perfectly happy to eat the glue in corrugated cardboard, soap, the bodies of their fellows, anything. Obviously there are things you can do that make it get way, way worse, but if you are from around here, a few roaches here and there just isn't a big deal because my sanity won't allow it to be. We don't allow food anywhere except the main level, but roaches will still climb up the side of the house, squeeze around the upstairs window screens, and feast on the spare soap under the sink. It is disheartening.

In our state, we can have a free necroscopy done by the extension service. I haven't done it, but I'd suspect they would want to track the spread of flu. You have to refrigerate, not freeze, the bird and get it there pretty soon.

I really liked The Chosen by Chaim Potok in high school. While it's written for adults, it's about teenagers and has no bad language, violence, or sex. If the kids aren't strong readers it might feel too slow paced, but it's setting is simultaneously extremely familiar and extremely foreign, at least to"white bread Americans" like me, so it's intensely interesting. There's a lot there to think about and discuss.

All About Learning Press has a homophones book that includes games.

Are you looking for things at about that same level in terms of maturity? When you say "nothing too graphic," does that include sex, language, and violence, and what is too much? If your kids were handling Roll of Thunder just fine years ago, I may have been interpreting "nothing too graphic" too protectively.