The biggest reason I think is that younger people are moving away from where they grew up and the lack of multigenerational homes. I think it is much easier for the older generation to *continue* to live with their children than it is for them to *move* into the child's house. We, as a society, are less likely to live in the same location as our parent's and even less likely to have children, parents and grandparents all living in the same house. I don't have any solutions to this because I honestly don't see it as a problem. I don't think my parents would want to live with us. We are too noisy, too messy and and too everything for them. In short, we have children and they don't want to deal with the kids every day. And so they would rather live in an adult community, even a *home* than deal with the issues of kids. And I respect that. But with that decision comes the reality that if they can't live alone, then the alternative is to live someplace else.

This is from my daughter, age 9. She will be ten in October and will be in fifth grade when we start. How do you feel about home schooling? It has its good points and bad points How long have you been home schooling? Five years Do you wish you could attend school outside the home? No Do you miss friends and or teachers? No, because I never had any school friends to begin with. Do you ever get frustrated having your mom as your teacher? Yes

We will start September 2. We really needed the break.

Could you sign her up for swimming year round? Or some other kind of activity? Then she would do something and you would be happy too.

Yahoo says 103 outside. I really don't know. I am not going out there! It is about 82 inside and the ac is working hard.

It's 5:41 pm here. Dd9 is playing neopets. Ds7 is playing Wii (Zak and Wiki) and ds4 is watching him play.

Ours is $209 year round. We set the air conditioning to 82 degrees and hold during the summer. That is as warm as we can stand. I would guess that the actual bill is around $380 during the summer and very low during the winter. Our heat bills in the winter are tiny, like under $50. We could much easier live without heat than we could live without air conditioning.

My dh is a computer programmer. He has worked for ASU and the folks doing the Mars projects, but now is working for a big name search engine company. He loves hanging out with his fellow geeks.

In our house we call that "Shiny." As in, any shiny object completely distracts someone and they totally forget whatever they were doing before. I have been known to ask, "Did you just shiny the dishwasher tab?" and tons of other things. I don't have any solutions, but you are not alone.

Fantastic Mr. Fox. It is a huge hit around here.

It finally worked at about 8:30. Thank you for trying.

I am trying to get into our paypal account and it is giving an error message. Is anyone else having issues with paypal?

I did think about that. I know she would like it. I just can't bear to spend the money.

These are the first ones I could think of: Mouse and the Motorcycle Fantastic Mr. Fox Little House on the Prairie The Rats of NIMH The Great Brain (very tomboyish) Babe the Gallant Pig Mrs. Piggle Wiggle

Drink 6-8 ounces of formula at a time isn't necessarily a problem. The only concern I would have is if they are someplace like Phoenix where it is super hot and the little guy is drinking because he is thirsty rather than hungry. Even then the solution is make sure he is kept at a good temperature and keep feeding him as he wants it.

We don't look like we need financial aid on paper. And I suppose compared to some we don't at all, but I have a limited amount to spend on homeschooling and I just can't justify to myself paying for all of Calvert just to skip big chunks. If I am going to spend that amount of money I want to feel I got my money's worth. So instead I will buy individual items and if I need to adjust part way through I won't feel as bad. As a happy accident both kids placed into the same level of math for Teaching Textbooks (Math 7). So my costs there just shrunk. If I need to buy my daughter the next level sooner rather than later, I will still have the money I would have spent on her math waiting. (I have read the posts about why Teaching Textbooks is not ideal. For me, right now, it is looking pretty dog-gone good. For us, for now, it is right.)

The issue is that after I spend the big bucks on Calvert I won't have the option of buying a new book part way through. I am totally stuck with the box of stuff. Including the one math book for the year. And you are absolutely correct about the fact that if I need to remind her, she doesn't really know it. She needs more practice and more help than I can easily give her. IEW looked good until I realized that it was very very teacher oriented. I am not capable of that right now. I am not sure what WT2 is. But we unless things change again (not likely) we are going to use WriteGuide, which should give her lots of practice and lots of feedback about how to write and I don't need to be the bad guy.

DYS is Davidson Young Scholars.

Calvert called me this morning. And for my son they told be pretty much what I expect to hear. They suggested Calvert 3 with Math 5. His writing was a major problem. He just doesn't like doing it and it showed. Their guess at math is slightly lower than I guessed, but I understand that he wrote some numbers backwards and that he didn't remember to reduce his fractions. I am okay with this placement. He would be alright here. But for my daughter it is different. They recommended Calvert 5 with Math 6. I am very much not sure this is a good fit. Actually I think it might be a good fit, for about a month and then it is going to be easy. Very easy. They were concerned that she didn't do complicated enough sentences and didn't include enough details. She can do that. But she needs to be reminded and I didn't do any reminding. And the math... she forgot everything about percents she ever knew. I could teach her percents in less than a week, but I didn't prep her for the test because I wanted it to be hers. And apparently percents are a make-or-break item. So now I am re-thinking the school in a box idea. My son might be alright. But my daughter probably not. I have a week before we leave on vacation to figure out a plan. The Rainbow catalog and I are going to get together.... wish us luck.

We are in AZ, in Gilbert actually. It is a very homeschool friendly place. I'll link you to a FAQ page about homeschool rules. http://www.afhe.org/faqs_getting_started.htm Charter Schools are not just a place for troubled kids. There are many for arts or technology or other things. There is also the Arizona Virtual Academy which is a k12 charter school that you do at home. If you have more questions please ask, there are several board members in Arizona. I hope you enjoy the heat!

My daughter is a natural speller. She doesn't do spelling anymore because it isn't necessary. My son is not a natural speller. He needs to see the patterns and repeat the patterns for spelling to sink in. It is necessary for him because he has problems writing because the spelling is not automatic. It is very hard to write a good sentence when you need to stop and think about the spelling of every word. He is using Sequential Spelling because it allows him to see the patterns and it gives him confidence that he can spell the longer words that he doesn't use on paper because his is intimidated by the thought of trying to write them down. If SWO isn't working for you then look at a different program. For us Sequential Spelling is working very well.

Let him read it again. And again. And again. You might give him another one in the same series if you would like some more variety. With my daughter it was Redwall. She carried Redwall around for months. She did read more than one of the series, but she was into Redwall forever! I was sick of hearing about Redwall. But it was just what she wanted. And ultimately she moved on.

Thank you. And my little guy thanks you too.

My men all pee sitting down, so it isn't a problem here.

I'd take the check and treat myself to a weekly Chinese food dinner until it ran out. I love Chinese food and no one else in the house does, so I get it very rarely.