Yeah... this is one of my general complaints. They take over community completely in locations. Then, you have to pay in order to have homeschooling community. While some parents work for them for pennies to actually make it happen.

You can do your own curriculum alongside it through third grade. From 4th-6th it takes over writing and grammar (but, I actually think IEW writing is fabulous, so that's fine). In 7th grade it takes over your life. Groups differ in how much they expect kids to practice memory work at home. I'd ask questions about how many kids in the community were memory masters and how much that is pushed. I find a lot of what corporate CC pushes to be completely frustrating and mind boggling. However, a lot of decent people belong to groups, so it can provide a good community. I'd consider starting your own co-op.

I've read a lot of good reviews about CK!2 biology. I'm highly considering using it for my own daughter AND for our co-op next year. However, I've read some really bad reviews of CK12 chemistry. Why would biology be so good and chemistry be so bad? Can anyone explain more about how the open source texts work?

Hmmm. Tell me the downsides of the new chemistry. I read the first chapter and liked it. Junior high science just looks like a desolate wasteland.

Apologia is showing they are about to release a new, easier general science curriculum. I'm super curious!

I just saw they were releasing a new version by a new author. Has anyone seen it??

I had no idea so many of you were in the Austin area! There is a Kerby Lane in Round Rock with a playground. Get the queso.

Any suggestions for something we could use in a co-op setting?

Why the self paced course as opposed to just working through the text? I'm looking myself... we've also done a lot of Sonlight. DD looked at some samples of the Omnibus text and said she really liked it.

She did Lost Tools for 7th grade. This year in 8th she is doing a combo of the Creative Writer assignments and assignments from a co-op class that involve literature responses. I don't want to start her in something too easy, but I don't know how much the program sort of builds on previous books. She is definitely a liberal arts kid and not a STEM kid.

I may offer to do the biology labs for a handful of 9th graders in our co-op next year. I've been looking at the Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experiments. At first glance, it looks really complicated. Once I get going with it, will it be easy to implement? Are there any other options I should consider? I'm considering using the CK12 text because Guest Hollow has the option to leave out the evolution topics, but other families could include them if they desire.

Any suggestions? Something either a big group can say together or a class of about 10 kids can work on making a book of figures or something?

I am currently using levels one and four of Nancy Larson. My 6 year old is in level one. I have a 9 and 11 year old combined in level four. I really, really, really love Nancy Larson science. I do not read the script word for word. I love the skills it teaches with highlighting key words. I like the workbook type pages. I like that it comes with everything I need. I like that there isn't an experiment every single day. I am on round two of these levels. I've already done both of them previously. I still like it on round 2. I wish it wasn't so expensive. I wouldn't get level one for a 9 year old. I'd probably stick her straight into level 3. It's been a couple years since I looked at level 2, you could consider that one, but I do think level one is too easy for the average 9 year old.

This is unbelievable considering I joined this forum when my daughter was 3. History - Omnibus 3 Science - Biology - CK12 with Guest Hollow English - Windows to the World in co-op plus Omnibus 3 Foreign Language - maybe not this year? Math - Saxon Algebra Elective - Bible - Omnibus 3 Elective - Psychology - unsure on curriculum Orchestra - not totally sure how to make this a credit. She takes a private lesson once a week and plays with a youth orchestra once a week. That along with daily practice? Is that enough? Editing as I plan...

I'm going to go with the crate training crowd. I don't think the dog needs to sleep in it, but there will be times when it is useful. You have someone coming to work on something in your house and the dog needs to not be underfoot. You have a toddler over who won't leave the dog alone. You have a sick kid who suddenly wants the dog out of his bed for the night. You can just lock the dog in a room, but our dogs tend to scratch to get out if they think high excitement is happening on the other side. We've also had dogs who have gotten sick and needed to be put on crate rest for a week or so. I also think it's not 100 percent necessary. I would just say it's a useful tool for your doggy toolbox.

I think the general drama surrounding this has made me more hesitant to let them experience this as a first funeral. I'm not sure if I'm being overprotective or if it's reasonable.

Under a doctor's care and taking medication. And, I agree. This is not a normal situation. I think my parents are worried the stress could literally kill her. Edited to add - I also doubt my mom will step away. I think she views it as her responsibility to sort of carry her little sister through this.

I'm considering this. It sucks a bit because we will have to take two cars there. I've also considered looking at flights to just see if there is some chance I can get a cheap flight home.

We go to my parents every year (about 4 hours away) from December 30-January 1st or 2nd. We do a late Christmas celebration and I run a local race that does a New Years Eve/New Years Day two day event. This will be my 6th year to run the race. It's important to me that I get to run. My aunt's second husband just died. They've been married for 10 years. (Her first husband died previously and she had a really difficult time before remarrying.) My kids have seen her less than 5 times in those 10 years. I'm not sure if my six year old has ever met her. None of them are confident they really remember who she is. They may have only been around her twice, but I can't remember exactly. She is probably going to move in with my parents. She has a lot of anxiety even when she's not in the midst of a crisis. She is already staying with them in their living room because she has a sick dog and wants to be close to the back door. The funeral is Wednesday. We are supposed to be staying in town from Sunday - Tuesday. We are going to stay until Wednesday so that I can go to the funeral. I told my mom we would get a hotel room. She is ADAMANT that we stay with her. We have four children who are ages 6-13. Our 6 year old is completely obnoxious. (I love him, but he will not be sitting quietly in corner reading a book.) I think this seems like a bad idea. My parents have said she has been sobbing constantly. Saying she wishes she was dead. I understand she is in the midst of a traumatic event, and I am not faulting her reaction. I just think spending the night there doesn't sound in anyone's best interest. Some of my kids sleep in an upstairs gameroom that opens up to the downstairs. There will not be walls and doors between everyone at any point. My mom thinks the kids being there will be a good distraction for my aunt. My aunt has never had children. My mom also thinks it will be good for my kids to see people dealing with grief. I have a hard time believing that them seeing a relative they do not know falling apart is a good "intro to grief". My mom also thinks they should attend the funeral. I disagree. They do not know him. They do not know any of his family. If we don't stay at my parents, this will start drama. I'm not particularly excited to drop hundreds of bucks on a hotel on a non-vacation trip either. WWYD? Please don't quote... I'm probably going to delete this since the internet lasts forever... Edited to add - This trip was arranged and the race paid for before the death occurred. We will still be staying at my parents some during the days... I'm just wondering if we need a place to be able to retreat to.

You look great without makeup. I'd get some lip gloss and call it a day!

Probably under $350. I've never owned one before. I do a fair amount of baking. I've always used a hand mixer. I'm not really sure what to look for other than sometimes I make double batches of cookies at once, so it would be nice if it worked with a big bowl.

We've used Story of the World for years. We've used a lot of Sonlight stuff. I usually throw all the readers and read alouds at my oldest and modify the history. She can run through a dozen books in a weekend. We like IEW for writing... at least what I've used up until 6th grade. We tried Lost Tools last year and hated it. She's used Saxon for years and really struggled with 8/7 last year. We went with 1/2 because I felt like progressing forward would be a huge mistake. She's been doing really well this year and it seems like we've gotten over that hump. Nancy Larson is the only science program I've used that I like... and they don't extend into middle and high school. We find Apologia to be too detailed. My oldest can spell, knows her grammar... I think she's ready to be done with those sorts of language arts details and just write essays. Edit: Actually, when I'm running through everything my 8th grader is doing, I'm realizing she is doing all the readers and read alouds from Sonlight F, a book club that requires a book to be read monthly, and a literature class at co-op. It's hard to give her too many books.

We’ve always homeschooled. My oldest is in 8th grade currently. This forum is so overwhelming to me. We don’t have money to outsource much of anything. I do direct a co-op and we can look into offering 1-2 classes for 9th grade credit next year. But, we don’t have paid, “qualified” teachers, so it will need to be something I (or another mom) can pull off instructing. Are there curriculum options that are fairly laid out? Pulling together courses seems so daunting for my first go around with 9th grade! Please tell me I can do this!

The estimate I'm getting from Office Depot to print the Lively Latin book is $110! I was going to have 3 kids use this program! Is there a way to print it cheap??

My oldest daughter did two years of CAP writing in 4th and 5th grade. We then did two years of Classical Conversations and she did a year of IEW and a year of Lost Tools. In general, she seems to be a natural writer. At a convention in March, I swung by the CAP booth to look at their books since we had really enjoyed the books we did in 4th and 5th grades. The person working the booth told me you can't jump back into the program. You have to start at the beginning and work through. I explained we'd already done some of the books. She said we could maybe repeat the 2nd book and start from there. I tried to just step around her and look at the older kid books, and she basically stood and sorta blocked them. I wasn't going to get into an argument with someone to purchase what they were selling, so I just walked away. Later, I stopped back by the side of the booth and snatched up a book. I was looking at it and the sales person came back by. She asked what I was looking for. I was like, umm, well, I thought I would just look again for my 8th grader. Just to see. She took the book out of my hands and put it back on the shelf. I was a bit flabbergasted. So, crazy sales person? CAP really MUST be used start to finish with no breaks? It's put a bad taste in my mouth for CAP products. I wound up switching Latin as well. But, I'm not sure if I should really hold one person working a booth against the entire company...