Thanks for sharing! Your blog was very insightful. I wish more people would understand the pressures placed on teachers. Any teacher no matter how good can guarantee all students will produce perfect scores on test, nor should they be expected to. There are many circumstances beyond a teacher's control. I am concerned that teachers will not want to continue teaching in bad districts or underperforming schools. Who could blame them? They are threatened with lower saleries sometimes. I am not fond of teaching to the test. Students are the ones missing out.

You can get this from pets. Somehow a surface that you touch could be contaminated with the oils. It could be on your shoes, anything that you touch. Sometimes that stuff just lingers. I know how you feel, I have had that more times than I care to count. A soap made with jewelweed would help. I hope this clears up for you soon. I really like this stuff: http://www.vitacost.com/Herbs-Etc-Ivy-Itch-ReLeaf

Just a little FYI, some companies use prison call centers for their custome service reps. I don't have a list of which companies do, but it kind of makes you wonder when things like this happen.

If your packages are being delivered late, you should call Amazon. The few times my packages were late I called, another item was dispatched with overnight delivery. If you call them and explain the problem you have with their delivery method, and call enough times, they may decide to deliver your packages with another carrier. It is worth a try. So far only Fed Ex, UPS, and USPS has delivered here. I had no idea about the other shippers.

Ok, everyone can call me crazy and that is fine. But I want people to be aware they are not being told the WHOLE truth. It is difficult to make decisions when all you have is bits and pieces of information to go on. The limits of radiation for food products are set for ONE TIME consumption. This means ONE GLASS of milk in your lifetime not one glass a day. The limit for milk is "4700 picocurries" of iodine-131 or 33000 picocurries of cesium-137 so until the amount is that high do not expect the media or the government to inform you that it is not safe to consume milk. Please notice these amounts are so much higher than water. There is an article floating around about an agency recommending children and pregnant women in FRANCE avoiding milk, soft cheese, leafy greens, and mushrooms. Do not expect to get any warnings from the government until it is already too late. I shudder to think what the limits are for other food items, and the air we breath.

No Kelp capsules available at the local health food store, sold out online too. Kelp powder for seasoning food is available. I have those same questions you mentioned, but I am not finding adequate answers.

My thoughts on this are a bit different. Non-organic/non-free range cattle are sheltered, and given water from pipes. It seems odd that ANY radiation would have been detected in the milk. Organic free range have open access to grass, air, ponds therefore I would not be surprised to find levels of radiation detected. The news first said no radiation could possibly make it across the ocean, but it did, then they say no way will it get in our food and it has. No amount of radiation is safe. We are told a host of things such as GMO's, hormone fed beef, high amounts of antibiotic fed meat is safe. I have a difficult time believing unnatural radiation in milk is safe. The dairy industry does not want to suffer, so of course it will be told in the media levels are safe for human consumption. It is rumored that the safe limits have been changed, or will be changed. I am not sure what to believe. For the time being, we are cutting way back on dairy, better safe than sorry.

I am looking right now for things to sell on craigslist. I am even tempted to call a department store and ask for a donation. I know they would think I am nuts, but I don't care. There is too much an age gap to regift, we jump from 11 to 25.

I counted my chickens before they hatched. I depended on our regular Christmas bonus that we get every year. Only this year there is no Christmas bonus. I am in tears because I have no money to get my son a gift. He just graduated college, and got his lieutenant rank. I didn't get him a gift for that, and now can't afford a Christmas gift for him. My husband's boss who is also his brother didn't bother to inform us until last week. My husband has took his guitar to work intending to sell it at a pawn shop. I am disappointed because we took our savings and got gifts for one kid and a head start on the other, so now gifts are unbalanced. We ordered everything for one child, got one thing for the other child, and nothing for the oldest. It is too late to send things back and get a refund to balance things out. I am so embarrassed, but I plan to call my aunt and ask that she buy my son a gift so he will have something. He didn't ask for much, he asked for a sweater. I don't care that my husband or I will not have a gift this year but I just want my son to have something.

I found Stitches & Pins, what else is out there that is good for beginners? I found this: http://www.homesteadoriginals.com/blog/2010/11/08/free-sewing-classes-for-homeschool-families-online/ Can someone please share what they have found and liked? We believe Santa is bringing 3/4 size machine for Christmas, and would like to teach our girl to sew. I also need to brush up on my skills in the process! I think Santa may bring me a sewing machine too! both my aunts are experts with more than 40 years experience, but they live too far away. Thanks Everyone!

Where do you purchase these at? I checked on Amazon without success. Never mind I just found them on amazon. I must have been confused.

I also tried it, didn't work for me either. I did email asking to send it through email.

There is no money for law school or more education. I will talk to him about making himself more desirable, but he will tell me to buzz off.

He is going to do national Guard for another 3 years. Jobs in other branches are probably scarce too. He is not the only one, we are talking about many many young men. I am just shocked.

If it is a bored well, it may be dry. Our bored well went dry a couple of years ago. My suggestion is get a deep drilled well, not a shallow bored well.

I admit I am in shock. My son is unable to get active duty in the Army. He has served in the army, serving in the national Guard while finishing up school, and finished ROTC. He can not get full time active duty, too many applicants, not enough jobs. I always thought that almost anyone could get a job with the Army. He said because of the economy, many people have joined who normally would not have. He is disappointed, and will seek employment elsewhere when he graduates, but his rank is now lieutenant. He is not the only one, there are many other young lieutenants who can not get active duty. Anyone else heard of this??

We were told today to show up for an inperson evaluation on Monday morning. Alarm bells are going off in my head, I have never heard of having to be evaluated in person in order to get the next course. It appears we are being put under a microscope. We are unclear if this is something new that started this year or what. At this point we are ready to give up on the virtual academy.

A whole jar in one sitting. I am an addict.

Our state does not give placement test, they are strictly age grade level to start. For grades 3 and up they do scantron test after school starts. Because we are in second grade, we have not yet done scantron testing.

Our year did not get off the the best start. It is getting better though.

This is our first year. We discussed with our teacher that the language arts and math was a repeat of what we did last year. She instructed us to take unit assessments and mark all other lessons complete. Well my dc has worked very hard doing this and is almost completed these two courses. Well now the teacher says she has to administer end of level testing through an elluminate session because we completed the courses too fast, we were simply following her instructions. Does anyone have any experience with this? I have never heard of this before, no one mentioned extra testing. I would like to know something about these test, and what to expect.

I just hope we get reception. I don't want to have to wait and watch it online.

I was wondering the same thing myself. My brother told me about it thinking it was only $14.99. It is $149. From what I have read online, it does not teach the basics like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. It is meant to be a supplement not math curriculum. It is suppossed to help with more advanced math teaching tip and tricks to get to your answer faster. I am interested, I just don't have the money right now. I would hate to spend the money and then hate it.

I have had a parent tell me that as long as they get the material from some source, even if it is not K12 source and they can pass the assement it is ok. I say do what works for you. I do think we will start tweaking thing some soon. They say it can be individualized, so we will use it how it works for us. I am just glad we made it through the week.

Sorry I know I will not be much help, so not sure why I am responding. Maybe I want to share my experience. I have two kids enrolled in GCA and this is our first year with the program. I was very closed minded knowing I prefer to homeschool privately. This has not been an easy week at all. I would have prefered GCA giving parents the handbooks before the first day of school. I would have prefered they loaded courses or at least loaded introduction to online learning before the first day of school. Those things alone gave me a meltdown trying to juggle that with 2 students on one computer. Then to top it all off OLS was down all day on the first day of school, plus repairmen appointments so we all had a meltdown. My husband decided to take a couple of days off to help us get organized, it seemed that made things worse instead of better. For whatever reason the kids have the idea if Dad is around, no one has to do any school work. GCA no longer does placement test, and goes strictly by age grade level, so that is a downer. The oldest child has been more than helpful, he does his work without my telling him to or my standing over his shoulder. I know the work is too easy for him, and he is being lazy by not moving forward and just doing the minumum. I explained he needs to step it up a notch and try moving ahead a bit to where he is learning something instead of the constant review, but he is doing the required work without being told. My youngest child can be argumentive, she does not understand why she has to do things she finds much too easy. All I heard one day was "I know this why do I have to write it down?" She will even tell you what the answer is as if you are the one who needs to learn it. Our teacher did tell us we can take semester test to complete the course and get the new one. I use more than one browser on the computer, that makes things easier. Another computer would make things much easier but that is not in our budget. If you do not have at least 2 computers for 3 kids, I would be persistent they send you a computer. We wanted to get two solid weeks under our belt, and make sure things are going good before we add in any supplements like art. it is not as bad as I thought it would be, and the curriculm is of good quality. My oldest child does hate the social studies, and found the elluminate sessions boring. I told him not to worry, I could find some good history books for him to read. If I had one more child in this program, I think it would be even harder on me. With time I think it will be easier. Sorry to be so long winded. My advice is have enogh computers, and use more than one browser at a time.