Invites sent to @Melinda and @Acorn!

Science demonstrations/activities?

My finishes last week: The Awakening by Kate Chopin - I enjoyed her style of writing, but not the story itself so much. Granted by John David Anderson - this was a pre-read for my girls, and I enjoyed it. Delightful writing and an engaging story. DD#1 also read and enjoyed it; I think DD#2 is in the middle of it now. The Dark Tower and Other Stories by C. S. Lewis - these were okay. I know they were mostly unpublished manuscripts found after Lewis's death, so not as polished as his published works. Currently reading Learn from the Masters, which is about using history in teaching mathematics.

Yes - I had already sent Rush an invite, just forgot to post here and say so! 😄

Done!

I totally get that - I would guess that a large percentage of us deal with impostor syndrome! Invite sent. 😁

That's amazing - what a wonderful reward for her hard work!

I think that's Jessica Fletcher.

My crazy fantasy involves getting a PhD, research, and writing projects (some related to the PhD field and some in a different field), PLUS continuing to homeschool my kids (and doing it well), PLUS having a clean house and decent meals at home and enough sleep and time for my crafty hobbies and reading. Oh, and those writing projects would make me decent money (in reality, even if I accomplished them, I don't think the money would be very much). I don't ask for a lot, do I? 😄

Yes, it's for privacy. We are open to any active WTM members who want to join, but this way the posts are not Out There for everyone to see, and they're not indexed by Google. That allows a bit more freedom for discussing, in particular, issues related to the parenting of these kids. There may be things that we feel a desperate need to discuss with others in the same boat, but we don't want to make all the details completely public. So this provides a place for that. I sent you an invite! 🙂

My rising 5th grader recoiled in horror when I asked if she would voluntarily participate in something extra related to math. 🤣 My rising 2nd grader is in BA 5A, but I'm not sure if age is important for what you need. If you can use her, she'll be happy to participate.

Invite sent! Anyone else? ☺️

*sneaks back in after missing quite a few weeks* Hi! I hit a chunk of time where I was not having the opportunity to read much, and then I was just pre-reading stuff for my kids, and then I was doing my annual-ish re-read of the Harry Potter books...so I stopped posting in these threads. But I am back to "normal" reading now. I'll share what I've finished this week when we get to next Sunday's thread. But I did want to come in and mention that I finished H. D. F. Kitto's The Greeks, and @Violet Crown had asked me to share what I thought of it. There were times when it dragged a bit, but overall I really enjoyed it. I found his description of the polis and of the role of the individual very enlightening. According to some of the reviews on Goodreads, the book includes some outdated scholarship, but I think on the whole it's readable and informative. I was also reading Thoughts on Religious Experience by Archibald Alexander. I got about 20% of the way through and decided to drop it. The content was fine, but not enough to make up for the ridiculously long paragraphs. It was not uncommon for a paragraph to be two full pages. When I got to a five-page paragraph, I threw in the towel.

I thought you were, too! But you were not on the members list, so I just sent you an invite.

Our pediatrician's office starts giving them in September and encourages people to get them earlier rather than later. My own doctor's office doesn't give them before October and encourages people to get them later (Nov/Dec), claiming that the shot is only effective for 120 days and you don't want it to be gone before flu season peaks. In our family, we've had flu hit in early October and in late March. Because of our experience, I prefer to err on the side of too early, and I doubt my doctor's claims about the shot's effectiveness disappearing so quickly. So we get the kids their shots in September and we get our own shots in October. The CDC recommends by the end of October. Regarding CVS - make sure your insurance covers flu vaccines given there. Mine does not; I have to get it done at a doctor's office instead.

I will send you an invite in a moment (if I can do it from my phone - if not, it'll be when I get home). There was an initial group that was just called Parenting Accelerated Learners, but with a board upgrade it was not working right, so we started the second one. 🙂 If anyone else would like an invite, just let me know.

I always forget about the private groups too!

Perhaps if you don't feel that you can abide by her wishes exactly, you could have an additional get-together for just the people mentioned, a "time of remembrance" or something along those lines? I'm very sorry for your loss.

With the "hasn't been to the dr. in years" - some friends of mine were surprised to learn that they were no longer considered existing patients of their doctor because neither of them had been seen in some amount of time (I think 3 years). Their dr was family practice and so they'd been at the office plenty of times with their kids, but they themselves had fallen off the existing patients list. So they were told that they'd need new patient appointments before they could be seen for other issues. I wonder if there was a similar issue here? Whatever the case, I'm glad he managed to get an earlier appointment!

I think for the first year or two we did gifts, but then...meh. Our anniversary is very near Christmas, so we're already doing gifts that time of year. It was fine with both of us to drop the anniversary gifts. We do enjoy going out for a special dinner, just the two of us. It isn't always on the actual day, just whenever works for our schedule and ILs' as well (they watch the kids for us). A couple years ago one of the kids got sick so we rescheduled, and then another kid got sick that day so we rescheduled again - I think we celebrated our anniversary like three months late. 😄

We took our kids to a science museum in another city one time. They had lifelike animal...paintings? statues? I don't remember, but one of them was some sort of water bird, which DD#1 was interested in at the time. I didn't see a label, so I asked an employee I saw nearby what kind of bird it was. Her: "Hmm...I'm not really sure, but I think it's a goose." Me (realizing that she's not going to give me anything more specific): "Oh, a goose. Okay, thanks." Her: "Yeah. Or maybe a mongoose." She was completely serious, bless her heart. I managed to keep a straight face while I thanked her and ushered the kids into a different room, then I did the silent laughter thing.

Make sure that if you have multiple wish lists on your Amazon account, the ship-to address gets updated for ALL of them. I have lists for my kids attached to my account, and at one point someone sent DD#1 a birthday gift but it still had our old address on her wish list.

My DD#2 had a reaction to sunscreen a few years ago, not as bad as your DD's but a severe enough rash that it scared me. We tried Vanicream sunscreen and have had no problems since then. I can reliably find it at Walgreen's. There are lists of sunscreens that are better for people who've had allergic reactions (such as this one), but which particular brand(s) will work is going to vary from person to person. Seconding @Pen's advice to gradually increase the amount used for whatever you decide to try, not putting it all over her at once.

I like a lot of the ones that have been mentioned, such as Newsies, Phantom of the Opera, and Les Mis. Another one I love that I haven't seen anyone else list is Jane Eyre.

I agree that reading TWTM is a great start. And you don't have to read it cover-to-cover - just look at the introductory material and then the parts that apply to your child's age. I also agree that you probably don't want an all-in-one, grade-level curriculum. What I do is to list out the subjects I want to do with the child, then tackle them one at a time. I search this forum for ideas. There are grade-level planning threads where people list what they plan to use for that grade next year - that could be a good place to start. Here's the 3rd grade thread for the upcoming school year. Even if you don't end up using things labeled "third grade," you can get an idea for what publishers are out there, then go to their websites and look at samples of what they offer. I end up with a bunch of browser tabs open to different samples, and then I narrow it down to 2-4 options and come back here to look for reviews of those particular ones before I make my final decision. Also, I can't tell for sure if you're asking about declaring an official grade level for him, but if so: that depends on where you're located. In my state (Florida), we have to report the child's date of birth when we notify the district of our intent to homeschool, but we don't have to assign the child a grade level. If your state (or umbrella school or whatever) DOES require it, I think the general recommendation is to go with the grade your child would be in if he were in public school unless there's a reason to "officially" change that. Your child can be a 3rd grader on paper and be doing work that's not typically done by 3rd graders. You can make grade level adjustments down the road if needed.