My old user name was Momto4inSoCal. Thank you for any help!

Yay! Thanks for all of the hard work keeping our forums going!

Thanks everyone for the encouragement to let her stay in her activities. She's very social and an extrovert so she thrives being involved in all of these activities. I think I've been reading too much on the college boards and I was worried we needed a specialty right now to get into college. 7th grade is young though. Maybe the problem is more my introverted nature makes me want to be home more but with 4 kids it really just isn't possible.

Building foundations for Scientific understanding. I like the way it makes my kids think and make connections between what they know to what they don't know. We are on vol.2 this year and will be doing middle school next year. I am very relaxed with it. It genuinely peaks my interest along with my kids so we learn the lesson and investigate together.

My dd is very artsy. She plays piano, she takes a stem class where she is learning CAD, she is on a competitive dance team and she loves to paint and draw. The problem is she is involved in so much I feel like she is stretched and really is pretty middle of the road in all of them. She loves all of her extra curricular activities and does not want to drop any of them. She will be in 8th grade next year and as we approach high school I'm wondering if I should push her to focus on less activities so that she can master some of them? She is currently saying she wants to be a graphic artist so I don't know if I should drop some classes and focus on art more?

Luckily we have a ton of good school that are local. The school DD currently wants to attend is a state school so it's not too expensive and has a really good engineering program although it's an impacted major so she'll need to get in. We are within driving distance of Cal Tech but I've never brought it up and I wouldn't push either DD in that direction. While I prefer to aim high I am also realistic about what our possibilities are.

We have some funds toward college just not a lot especially considering we have 4 kids. Granted they may not all go to college but even if only 2 kids want to get a bachelor's, at 35k-75k a year it's just not going to happen. We are looking into all of our options and I want to make sure we've explored every route. My oldest is going into 8th grade so I am hoping with careful planning we can get them into a college without loading them with debt. We've broken down schools by cost and we have considered community college. The community colleges near us actually have a pre engineering degree and a transfer graphic design degree which is what both my dds are interested in. They are both in robotics and the class is run by students from the college one of my dds say she would like to go to. We do have a cheap plan but my kids are young and they could change there mind so I just want to have a plan for multiple avenues we can go down. I want them to have as many options as we can afford.

Thank you this is super helpful! We will probably do a combination of Dual enrollment, clep, ap's to try and get some credits for free or low cost. We would qualify for this I'm hoping to find other scholarships like this to help cut cost. What else should we be focused on? Extra curriculars? My oldest wants some career in art, graphic design, video game design etc so she will be in a lot of art classes her high school years. I'm not sure if that will lead to scholarships though?

I'm trying to map out a high school plan but there are so many different test and I don't really want to constantly be testing my kids but we really need any help financially they can get so if we need to test we will. By testing I mean ACT, SAT, PSAT, SAT Subject test. I've read some people do them multiple time but if you do all of these test and the ACT and SAT more than once that is quite a few test? Do colleges really need this many test?

Dd is taking the WTMA pre-algebra Saxon and it she spends about 1hr30 per day on it. She is in a co-op wed so that day she doesn't do math. Her teacher assigns 4 lessons plus a quiz or test each week along with a discussion question. So total around 6 hours but then you need to add in class time. Pre Algebra is 1 hour 2x a week.

If they take the CHSPE will the CC's still consider it duel enrollment or will they now have to pay for the classes? Are they still last priority registration? Eta:sorry piggybacking on your post...

It's uses on the high school forum. I don't have any experience but from what I've read their classes are pretty tough.

We have a cart with two bins in it. One for each child. Any books they are currently using stay in the bin. Books for the year not in use go on the bookshelf. Every child has a section on the bookshelf. I have a basket with kindergarden books for my twins and another basket with morning time books.

We are finally leaving CC and it feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. We were with CC for 3 years and this year my oldest was in challenge. It has sucked everything I love about homeschooling out of our day. Before CC we had great disussions, we crafted, we read together. None of that happens now. I need to pick my own curriculum. I absolutely love creating courses for our family. Finding projects, books, topics that I know my kids will enjoy. I love going on bunny trails and hearing questions and little minds thinking. CC is full of memory work but oddly enough none of the memory work typically associated with neo-classical education. They never memorize poetry, bible is somewhat an afterthought. It's one passage for the whole year. We stayed because all of my kids friends and my best friends are in the group and I figured it was one day a week washed away but we still could do what we want the rest of the time. At challenge level it changes though and I just can't justify it anymore. And yes small groups of like minded parents doing enrichment activites outside of school time is a great idea. We are involved in enough outside of CC that I'm not worried about them seeing their friends.

Dance has been the most expensive and the least benificial educationally. My DD's loves it though and they are a part of a great group where all of us have connected really well so we keep going and keep paying... Stem class is really expensive but it is definitly worth it. Also I agree with everyone else that outsourcing subjects get's really expensive. I plan on having a combinition of outsourced vs home taught classes to keep cost down. Language and Math will be outsourced. History, Science, and language arts will be taught at home.

My daughter is ADHD, SPD and I suspect high functioning ASD but I haven't had her re-tested. I pulled her out of school and it was the best decision we could have made for her. She was quirky as a little kids, as a 12yo now she would just be considered weird by other kids. She hasn't always been the easiest kid to homeschool and it's been a big learning process for me all around. She did poorly in school, was always below benchmark and now she is working at least a grade ahead in most subjects. That being said, that's her not anyone else. She was overwelmed at school. She would shut down at home. She couldn't get through the work the way they wanted her to and spent recesses and lunch in the classroom trying to finish. I didn't try the IEP route, I just pulled her out. I think due to her sensory issues though, the whole process of being out every day with so many people would have been overwhelming even with IEP's. We are just about to start the evaluation process on my 6yo and I think for me emotionally he's been the harder one to deal with. I'm really not sure about a diagnosis for him but he's very violent and frequently loses control. My 6yo is very bright also so academically I have no doubt he is doing better at home but definitly the services are what I do wish we had. It's not easy at all. I spent 15min in the car crying yesterday after he had a monsterous melt down at the store. He's a twin and his brother gets upset when he's upset so it's double work trying since his twin doesn't understand why he's so upset. It's hard to know what the best choice is since you only have results from the choice you've made. My reasoning for homeschooling is that no one else is going to fight for my child the way I will fight and I'm willing to put the extra effort into finding what works. I don't regret our decision and I have no plans to change course but I also don't want to mislead people into thinking it's easy or doesn't require quite a bit of research, reading, and dedication.

Have you looked at Art in Focus by mcgraw hill? It goes through art history, appreciation and understanding. It's a high school text but I plan on using it with a 7th and 8th grader next year.

What is the standard kids ought to be achieving? If I go by state standards then first off none of my curriculum is on the california approved list, secondly I have never followed the science and history guidelines - I'm sure at some point we touch on most everything, but does that equal neglect? How many people have not followed the exact state guidelines. I'm guessing very few homeschoolers follow the science and history standards. Most people do interest led in those areas. I think ultimately what people on here are talking about is not educational neglect, since truthfully we haven't even defined what we mean by education, but generally parental neglect. A parent whose child is being pulled out of school for missing to many days and then calls it homeschool has some serious issues going on. There is a general neglect or even abuse in a situation like that. In the case recently here in California they said the children did have some schooling, the main problem was the physical and mental abuse. The question then would be how many homeschoolers are abusing there children or neglecting them to some degree. I don't personally know of any and hopefully if anyone knew of any children being abused they would report the situation to the police rather than debate it on a forum.

It's hard to define educational neglect unless you define education. You can use state standards but if that is what education means then many homeschoolers would be under neglect. You could say teaching all 4 subjects (math, language arts, science and history) yearly which would mean anyone who is unschooly would fall under the neglect catagory. Just because someone doesn't school the way you do or follow state standards doesn't mean they are neglecting their children. Ultimately though I think maybe you are talking about children graduating high school via homeschool and not being college or trade school ready? I have thought a lot about all of the various homeschool methods (unit studies, charlotte mason, neo-classical etc) and how they don't align with traditional school and at some point in the childs life it could be detrimental to them when entering college. Ironically many of these idea's at one point were implimented in the public schools but since they've fallen out of favor they not longer align with the current public school model.

Re-Post from logic board I think I have it down..... mostly.... Hake grammar 8 WWS 2 AoPS Algebra Great Courses Joy of Science Roman Roads Media Greeks Art of Argument Robotics Class I'm still not sure about literature....

I think I have it down..... mostly.... Hake grammar WWS 2 AoPS Algebra Great Courses Joy of Science Roman Roads Media Greeks Art of Argument Robotics Class I'm still not sure about literature....

I semi used it this year but it wasn't as big of a help as I thought it would be. The first reason has already been mentioned. A lot of curriculum has a back page and it drove me crazy. Do I put an extra page in one file or leave a page out? We have a lot of books that don't necissarily have pages to be seperated. I don't like having seperate systems. I prefer everything to be in one place. What I ended up doing is putting pictures for picture studies in each file along with books that I wanted to read that week and some worksheets. It has been fine for that but that is only a portion of our work. I'm on the fence about using it next year.

Thank you for the recommendation I ordered the book. We go back to the studio tomorrow so I'll see how they react. Hopefully you're right. I really need to let go of worrying what others think during these moments, it's sometimes hard as a mom. My daughter is really amazing and I feel like sometimes people don't see that because of her differences.

My DD has been diagnosed with SPD and ADHD and sometime we have issues with her getting stuck or just shutting down completely. It usually starts with me asking her to do something she doesn't want to do. She is generally a pretty easy kid but she gets in these moods and it is hard to work with her. She just start saying no or i don't want to and fold her arms and there is just no talking to her, no reasoning, nothing. If I ask her why or what she's protesting against he will just say no I don't want to. For example yesterday she had jiu jitsu and she refused to take her sweatshirt off to put on her gi. I finally said we are just going to leave and she started crying. She took the pants off (she had shorts underneath) and left them in the studio and then wouldn't get in the car. Finally after 25min I got her to get in the car and she immediately fell asleep. When we got home she went to her room and slept another 2 hours. We had gone to the mall earlier and I'm wondering if it was maybe sensory overload and going to Jiu Jitsu was too much for her. I don't know how to deal with her when she gets like this and after she sleeps she is fine. It's like she's just gone during the episode. I've found the only thing that snaps her out of it is giving her time to isolate and then eventually she comes back. I'm also thinking of having her re-evaluated. She is 11 so it's not like she's a little kids having a normal temper tantrum. I'm wondering if maybe this is Autism or maybe it's just the SPD. Has anyone else delt with this or have any advice on how to handle these episodes better? I also don't know if I should explain her diagnosis to the jiujitsu studio. Now that she's had an episode there maybe they need to know why it happened? I'm never sure if I should make the teachers of the classes she's in aware of her diagnoses or not.

I plan field trips for our co-op and one thing I've learned is to get there money rather than there yes. If they've paid they show up. Also I always say non refundable to make sure people don't try and pay then back out. Many places I can get a refund so if someone gets sick or has an emergency come up I do my best to get them a refund but if you let people think from the start they can back out they will. I think most people now a days have busy lives and often have to choose between A or B so commitment is a big issue. As I said though if they have money paid out already for it then they will show up. It was already budgeted and paid for and if they don't go they will have paid for nothing.