Ooh! My BIL would love the Jelly Belly factory...off to research.

of any one specialty item, what would it be? For example, the cathedrals of Europe, the wines of France, bbq of the USA deep south, the Camino de Santiago (although would you call this a specialty tour-hiking day after day?)... Off the top of my head, a cheese tour of one area in France would be eclectic and interesting to me. I feel a little funny saying it because I've never heard of anyone doing it, but it sounds tasty! The savory snack thread had me thinking about cheese...lol

Welcome! My just-finished 5th-grader worked on Treasured Conversations for writing/grammar review, Spelling Power for spelling, reading classics at her leisure from our bookshelves (currently reading Anne of Green Gables/Avonlea--loves!), and Ellen McHenry's Carbon Chemistry&Elements this past year. Our writing trajectory is Writing With Ease 1-3, MCT Island, Treasured Convo., more MCT and Killgallon, Writing With Skill 1-3 (7th-ish - 9th grades) + Kolbe Academy JH lit. (7th/8th), spelling from 3rd grade to JH. If I were pushed to find a different writing program, I'd try Classical Academic Press first. We like to run through McHenry's science programs in those middle years. She's engaging. Interestingly, DD did a slime recipe from a science lab kit, and after having made so much on her own, she knew it was a bad recipe and why it failed. I mean, she and DD14 have made copious amounts of their own slime and have become slime aficionados.🤓👩‍🔬 In all the "fun", they've learned quite a bit about the reaction of basic elements, what makes for a good feel/consistency. DD16 loved A Wrinkle In Time at that age--she still loves sci-fi and futuristic books. Lots of engaging books to choose from! There are many paths to the same destination. GL!!

This can help: RightStart Fractions ETA: Here's a video:

DD works at a local ice cream & market shop. She wears a mask. She washes her hands, puts on new gloves, scopes ice cream, sets on counter for customer to pick up, takes off gloves, does the cash register, washes hands & repeats the whole process. Same procedure for other tasks too. The rest of the shop is a small grocer. Social distancing, not more than 10 people in store at once, etc. DH is non-essential and works in a white-collar office. Employees were encouraged to work from home as much as possible from mid-March on, guessing about 85% have chosen to do so most of the time. He goes to work and is the only person in his department in an isolated private office. His admin ass't (high risk) works from home, and they zoom once or twice a day to communicate. He wipes down door knobs and surfaces before work w/sanitation wipes. No mask, no gloves, yes hand sanitizer. Cleaning crew sanitizes all spaces daily. He does most of his meetings via phone or zoom, a few in the office but only those who are showing no signs of any illness. Some co-workers are wearing masks and gloves, and only some during face-to-face meetings. No cases have been suspected or confirmed. I would suspect that since we have a smaller population and much distance between, DH's office naturally has virtual communication options/procedures in place, and it's working toward their advantage now. We live in an upper prairie state that has a low population and no shelter-at-home orders, yes social distancing & some self-isolating. Our state continues to operate similar to the first guideline phase of states reopening.

I might have to buy Jenson's to have as a reference along side our regular program. Thanks!!

Digestive enzymes help break down food while probiotics support overall health in the digestive tract. Here's an article that explains the difference. DD ate a ton, food and breastfeeding F/T, and was still failure-to-thrive w/me on a fairly restricted no-wheat/dairy diet. Apparently she needed a digestive aid for her food. Recommended by my health-nut mom, it was our last ditch effort before the dr. intervened, and it worked!!

Negin, it's been years since I've contributed to the book-a-week thread, but I seem to remember we have similar taste in books. I have two to recommend if you've never read them before... Cold Sassy Tree & Dragonfly Happy Reading!

Several of mine were terrible sleepers. By the last one, I tried a digestive enzyme because she had some failure to thrive issues. Within 2 weeks of mixing the powder with her baby food, not only did she start gaining good weight, but her sleeping regulated to normal. Wished I knew this for my olders because I'm convinced it would've helped their sleeping, too. I'm just throwing this out there as something to consider regarding sleep issues.

That's good to keep in mind! I could see any book by Agatha Christie being approved.

I know, isn't it fun!!

Again, thanks for these ideas! She told me she's read And Then There Were None and Sweetness, liking the former more than the latter. She likes spy/CIA type of books so Mrs. Pollifax may interest her. A few bad words aren't as big of a deal as romantic scenes. I think Louise Penny novels might be an option, too. Nancy Drew is too young for this class, unless I'm thinking of a different series than the traditional Nancy Drew. Reality is that she may bring a book to her teacher, and it be rejected because we're not sure how strict she is with the mystery label.

Thanks for all your suggestions! She tends to like current reads so I'm sure she'd like some choices in that vein, too.

I also thought Agatha Christie...which one is the most attention grabbing?

DD15 needs to pick a mystery book for her high school lit. class. She'd like a clean, shorter, page-turner. You're a great group to ask! Ideas? One idea I had was The Man Who Was Thursday, but maybe it's not quite a mystery and more of a suspenseful thriller. What do you think?

The bolded above was also our experience.

This is our experience, too, except she's not completely scattered, maybe a bit brain-dead sometimes...lol This was our experience, too. Switching screens and getting off task was a constant struggle, but it doesn't go away when they go to school. Competition has been very valuable for DD as a motivator. She's found how she "places" in the intelligence pecking-order. It's been eye-opening to her. We sent DD15 to a college-prep, private, Catholic school this year for her Sophomore year and feel like it was the best decision for us/her. She is an independent, bright, driven, excelling student that thrives at anything outside of the house--appearances matter to her. For her, outside classes always took precedence over anything I would do with her at home, in our case these were her core classes, math, english/lit, history, and we constantly fought about the work. For the preservation of our relationship, she went to school. She desires to make school her responsibility and not mine, and we want to encourage her natural tendency to accept maturity/responsibility, not holding her back. If she wanted to stay home, we would've made that work, too. It's been good for her social life, too. There aren't many homeschoolers we know in the area that are her age so going to a b&m school opened up more opportunities for friendships. It's not a panacea, but it's better. The fall semester was a steep learning curve for her, but she's found her groove this semester and is doing well. She had to drop down mid-fall semester from one advanced class to a regular (with upper classmen-so somewhere btwn her grade level and the advanced class...weird, but it works) section in math since we didn't know where to place her, but otherwise, she's been placed well. It's a bigger school so it can accommodate several types of classes and activities. I really had to die-to-self when she went to school because I felt my pride was on the line and I had to get over myself...lol Most of the educational decisions were taken out of my hands that I've controlled for her whole educational life and all my failings as a homeschool educator would be obvious--move along, there's nothing to see here...lol I mean, I've been all-in since before kindergarten! Considering my homeschooling outlook of life and education, conforming to institutional living was a big change for me. I've had to accept (-ish, still trying, btw) of the strict schedules, expectations, mindless following, restrictive imagination, busy work in order to gain her educational success and maintain a good relationship with her. It's a trade-off. During DD's Freshman year, she had 4 classes w/me, 1 online through the state, 1 at this Catholic HS, 4 through an educational co-op. One reason we never chose the all outside or online classes route is that it felt like there was no cohesion of schedule or curriculum integration. I did the best I could trying to tie it together but felt she was being pulled in too many directions, and I didn't want to do it all at home. We plan on sending our four other children their Sophomore year to this school since it's been an overall positive experience for us. We are choosing Sophomore instead of Freshman year because I feel kids mature quite a bit between their Freshman and Sophomore and hope to avoid that additional emotional angst and pressure. They can also do more classes at home their Freshman year and transfer in more than a typical Freshman can, setting them up to have room to take more alternative classes than the basic trajectory. Our kids are social, neuro-typical, and have no LDs as far as I know so it makes the transition easier. One last thing, we had DD shadow a friend in advanced classes last year to see what a school day might look for her. I wanted them to seem as hard as possible so she didn't think school would be a walk-in-the-park. Even with all my planning, it was the easiest school day her friend had had in a long time...some things you just can't control...lol If nothing else, shadowing gave her confidence to know how a typical school day is actually organized and run since all she'd ever seen of school was neighborhood kids getting on the bus and what's on TV. And I agree w/AA & klmama, every kid's different and no one way to go about this. For me, sometimes the hardest thing about homeschooling isn't the work but the attitudes. Here we are trying to educate critical thinkers who want to "argue" about everything, and it can be draining for me. GL in your decision!

I agree, there are so many good books out there! However, sometimes the shear amount of possibilities is paralyzing. Good luck in your/his search!

That sound super interesting! Hope the teacher gives him a pass. Ruminating now, speaking of Russian lit., I read Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment in high school. Some of the guys thought it was awesome, but I thought it was one of the most depressing things ever--murder and the mental anguish that comes with it... Wonder what I'd think now... And another, speaking of depressing, interesting, and Russian, I read a short story, Ward No. 6 by Anton Checkhov, a few years back that I really enjoyed while most others didn't. In its depression, it made me chuckle about how we are all one step away from Ward No. 6, either true insanity or what others perceive as insanity...good times! <insert the old running crazy emoji> Very thought provoking.

Well, you've peaked my interest. <insert 'I'm all ears' emoji> May I ask which book he chose?

Thanks for your quick answers. Now I'll be able to sleep better tonight...lol...😴 For DH and I, a head-scratcher for sure.

Would that adjective be considered a predicate nominative?

What if the sentence is lengthened to: The parents named the child Tom, an old family name. 'an old family name' would be an appositive. Would Tom also be an appositive? The longer sentence is included in a section about appositives in DD's book. One of her classmates insists it acts as an adjective, diagrammed with a backslash after child and before Tom.

DD is diagramming this sentence: The parents named the child Tom. parents = subject, named = verb, child = DO, Tom = ? Hive, please help a girl out.

A few ideas outside of the futuristic/dystopian theme: The Scarlet Pimpernel, A Tale of Two Cities, Cold Sassy Tree, The Man Who Was Thursday