We are using Key To Algebra along with Life of Fred. The Key To books are good review. They are very staightforward and easy to understand. For the price, they have been a great supplement for us.

Yes, I went to school in Austria for a while and I remember the Krampus. He had horns and chased the kids around with switches. It wasn't Christmas though, more like early December - maybe around St. Nicholas Day.

I don't have an exact answer for you since we haven't made our way to geometry yet. My 12 year old is working on the LOF Beginning Algebra book and is finding that challenging enough, but then she's not a big math lover either. As I recall, the author recommended that students master the concepts in both the Beginning Algebra and Advanced Algebra books before moving on to the LOF Geometry book. I haven't tried contacting him myself yet, but I have heard the author is very resonsive to questions, so maybe you could talk to him about where your child is at and whether the Geometry text would be appropriate before spending the money on it. He has an email address and phone number listed on his web site at: http://www.stanleyschmidt.com/contactme.htm

I probably wouldn't require him to continue if he hasn't been very motivated by the piano after that long. Is he fired up by another instrument? I don't think anyone is an incomplete person because they don't perform musically. Maybe he likes to sing. You can always learn about different music styles without actually playing an instrument. I think learning how to read music is a nice skill, but I don't think I would mandate continued piano lessons if he isn't progressing or showing much interest. Music can be very life-enriching, but then so can other things. Maybe his interests just lie in other areas. My parents forced me to take piano lessons for two years. I just hated it, and I don't think I got much of lasting value from that last year. Maybe it's time to just move on to other things that really do spark his interest.

No, but mine does a lot of reading and art work on her own during her free time. I am happy to let her do some unstructured things over the holidays. We get quite a bit done on our scheduled school days, so I don't feel bad about taking some time off from scheduled activities. I like to give mine time to spend with family over the holidays without feeling like there is yet more school work looming. We'll get back to that soon enough.

I still read to my somewhat older child. It's part of our evening before bed routine. She sometimes follows the text while I'm reading, but mostly not. I guess I wouldn't insist on him following along, but if it's something he likes, then go for it! For us, our evening reading is just a fun thing and I wouldn't want to do anything to turn it into a killjoy experience. If yours is a great reader now, I'm sure he'll continue to improve whether he follows along or just listens. Being able to listen and focus on a lengthy story isn't a bad skill either.

I feel this way too. I want to enjoy the autumn season and Thanksgiving before pulling out the paraphernalia for the next holiday. We don't get out the Christmas stuff until the first weekend in December at the earliest. Oftentimes it's later. I might do a bit of early shopping, but we don't get into Christmas until it gets much closer to the actual time.

No, I don't think they are essential, and I like the itchy sweater analogy! For us, the transportation time alone was a big factor. I work from home as well as managing our homeschooling efforts. The disruption in our day and time going to and fro didn't really justify it for us. I feel like I already have the academic preparation pretty well under control. We just do the occasional outside class for art and elective types of things.

I have mine work on this mostly on her own, but I have a middle grader, so I expect her to be able to look on the globe or in the atlas to find the answer. We go over them together when she's done. Like one of the previous posters, we also do a few things like cooking projects together.

Anything with glitter in it, because it ends up all over the house. The other thing was the slushy machine my sister bought for us a few years back, where you pour in a 12 oz. can of pop, and wait and wait and wait, and then end up with a few thimbles worth of runny almost slushy stuff. That thing made its way to Goodwill in a hurry.

Unfortunately, spring guns are illegal! We have some very creative minds on this board though. Is there any place in your backyard to put them so you can still enjoy them, yet not have them be so obvious to the local miscreants?

My mother didn't tell me anything about shaving, or any other body issues I might have wanted to know about for that matter! I remember knicking myself quite a few times. Mine wanted to start shaving when she was 11. She was on swim team for a while, and I don't know if other kids mentioned it or if the idea just arrived on its own. Either way, she was concerned about it, so I made sure she knew how to be safe with the razor before telling her to go ahead. We haven't had any mishaps yet.

No, I don't have any particular goals for myself at the moment; I just follow my muse. I do read to stay ahead of my kiddo with whatever she will be doing for school, so we can discuss things together in adequate detail. Kathleen

It would have to be a stunning buy for me to want to purchase very far ahead. When we first started schooling at home I pigged out on lots of curriculum items that sounded exciting, but didn't really work for us. Money is more of an issue for us now than it used to be, so I am pickier about what I buy. Of course, if I saw an amazing deal on something at a garage sale I might still go for it! :001_smile: Kathleen

Hi Melissa, I have a 7th grader too, and my list of subjects is nearly identical to yours. Latin has turned out to be the "gravy" for us. I have tried several different Latin approaches, but my kid still hates it and balks at it every time. We have been having a hard time getting everything done, so I have decided to drop it for now, and work on Latin roots in vocabulary instead. We don't do every subject every day either. I alternate between spelling and vocabulary, or use the vocabulary words as the spelling words. We spend a shorter amount of time on those than on other things. Math is every day. Science and history/geography we do at least four days a week. I also break language arts up into literature and writing, along with the spelling and vocabulary. Literature and writing are four days a week. I don't have big writing projects all the time, but we work on some aspect of writing on each of those four days. I like another person's suggestion about incorporating history readings as part of your literature approach. We have started doing a bit less than what I originally planned on logic as well. I haven't used the logic resources you have listed, so I wouldn't know what to suggest there. We try to do logic 2 to 3 times a week. I'm not prepared to cut logic out of our schedule, but I don't necessarily spend as much time on that as on math, science, language arts and history. I have an art and music lover, so those things couldn't possibly go in our gravy boat! I schedule lighter Fridays and art is one of the things she really looks forward to on Friday. Kathleen

I don't know that I would allow him to make the final decision, but I think he should have some input. As teens move toward adulthood I think it is helpful to work through the life decision-making process with them. If his reasons are purely social, are there any resources in your community for teen after-school activities that he could do? Youth groups of some kind? Community center activities geared toward his age group? I think it is pretty normal for teens to want to seek out friendships with other teens. Public high school isn't the only place for that to happen though. Maybe there are some other alternatives that would answer that need if that is his primary reason. My 7th grader wants to attend public high school and I will probably allow her to do that. She plays violin and wants to be in the orchestra, which is something I can't really create in a homeschooling environment, nor have we been able to find a find another suitable substitute in our community. We've done private lessons, but the violin teacher recommended ensemble playing to help move her on to another level of experience. My kid is also big on the sciences. I could probably handle that part if I needed to, but I think she would do fine in public school. She has a strong sense of herself and is very responsible, with good study habits. I think we would still continue to evaluate and consider whether public school was the best thing for her educationally. I'm not sure there is a single answer to this. People homeschool for different reasons and your local schools may be better or worse than ours. Your son has his own goals too. I just think it is important to start involving him in the process. He may be resentful if he feels that he has no input whatsoever. Just my opinion.

In my last house, there was no heat source at all in the bathroom, so we got a small space heater and turned it on briefly before anyone took a shower or bath. It was one of those closet-sized bathrooms and took only a few minutes to warm up. We never had any safety incidents. If you were concerned for small kids in the bathroom around the space heater, you could always move it out when not in use.

I don't think the work load you are giving her is too much. What you've set out is comparable to what I'm doing with my 7th grader. Some days she can putter and waste a lot of time. I find I still have to do a lot of monitoring. Oftentimes I will insist she bring her books out to the dining room table and work there in the open where I can watch better and make sure she isn't jumping up and doing other things. A few times I have set the timer and required she sit and work on X subject non-stop until the timer goes off. We try to start the day with something that's fairly easy for her. Then I have her move on to something she doesn't like, for mine it's writing, and have her focus exclusively on that for 15 -20 min. Once she engages with it, things usually move forward. It's just the getting beyond the "dreading it" stage. For literature and social studies, I try to have at least short discussions with her every day about what she's read, just to make sure she is actually understanding the material. Some days I feel like a nag, but I have to make sure she is getting good study skills down and not just skimming through her work without really absorbing much. Kathleen

I started the Critital Thinking books with my daughter, but neither of us could get into it, so I am exploring other resources. Meanwhile, I'm having her do some deductive reasoning puzzles. We've had fits and starts with Latin too, but now that we are on Minumus Secundus, it seem to be going better. I wish we did more with geography. I have folder with lots of great ideas, but we haven't done many of them.

And they have the blank pages in there too!

I despised group projects in school. Teamwork experience can be positive, but I think you need a teacher to really prep the students on how to work as a team, how to analyze each other's strengths, and how to fairly divvy up the responsibilities. The group projects I recall from school were just tossed at us and everyone in the group ended up with the same grade. Of course, the slackers did very little, and those of us concerned about grades frantically did anything that was needed to get the project done. I don't think any of my school group project experiences were very edifying, yet I manage to work as part of a team daily at my job. The difference is the expectations there are set out, and if someone doesn't do his or her part, they might be out of a job.

We are lucky enough to have a fairly good library for our town. They don't necessarily have everything I want, but fortunately they do have a lot more than simply the mainstream popular titles. I do own a lot of books, but due to space limitations I have started culling my personal holdings and have not been buying so many. I have become less obsessed with reading a particular book at a specific time. Also, I found that I overscheduled way too many books into our early homeschooling activities. Now we are more satisfied to go to the library and find a book about what we are studying, instead of feeling like we need to purchase several specific ones. We do find that it helps to have a designated place to store the library books, so we aren't misplacing them or having overdue charges. The checkout slips go under a magnet on the fridge. Our library even offers an automated email service to let you know three days before your materials are due. If I feel like I simply have to purchase something, I always check betterworldbooks.com - I have had good luck with them and they have no shipping charges within the US.

If you look up "norm" or "normal" in your dictionary you will probably find both of those words describe in terms of what is approximately average - at least mine does. In terms of education, my Webster's dictionary says a norm is a "designated standard of average performance." I don't purport to speak for all homeschoolers, but we are shooting for something above average in our homeschooling endeavors. My kiddo gets one-on-one attention in all of her subjects every single day. "Normal" students in a "normal" public school are lucky to get a few minutes of their teacher's time between classes or after school. We cover subjects, like Latin, that normal public schools usually don't even offer, especially in the elementary and middle grades. I know my kid's skill level, and I can offer her things that are challenging and interesting to her - rather than a normal rote list of subjects and uninspiring or tedious lessons. If you really need to engage with MIL to discuss the issue, maybe you want to focus on things you do that are beyond the "norm." The social skills displayed by many of these "normal" kids in public school aren't always something I want my family to aspire to. Of course, there are some intelligent, well-behaved kids in public schools, but there are also many who have atrocious interpersonal skills and no desire to learn. Shoot, I bet most of those "normal" kids would probably rather not be at public school at all if they thought they had a choice! Your MIL sounds likes she's just afraid of anything different. I doubt there is much you can tell her that will satisfy her if she is stuck on a certain idea of what's normal and acceptable.

I am an introvert and have been referred to as anti-social many times - mostly by my mother, a flaming extrovert. I have two good friends, both of whom I've known for over 20 years. We are close, even though we don't see each other real often. I haven't felt any particular urge to search out new friends. I feel calm and comfy and satisfied with the small number of people I have in my life. I muddle through my husband's large family get-togethers, and I can make the necessary small talk, but it wears me out - all the noise and hullaballoo and talk about blah-de-blah. I have a deep need for my quiet, alone time, and if I have to be around gobs of people too much, I get tense. My 12 yr. old is pretty out-going and has lots of friends, so I don't think her anti-social mother has disadvantaged her too much! Kathleen