I would talk to your allergist (assuming you have one). They should be able to test your dd for reactions to the specific vaccines and then can either implement them on a particular schedule, safely in an office that is capable of treating allergic reactions, or they can determine she's too allergic and write you a note.

I think it's the age or something. When my dd attended private school in 8th grade, her punctuation skills seemed to evaporate. I promise you she had them. When she came back home for 9th grade, I made her do both of Remedia's Proofreading workbooks, all the way through. That seemed to clear things up. Remedia also has a Capitalization and Punctuation workbook if you need that. They are excellent.

((hugs))

No lie, 7th and 8th grade are the hardest for finding social stuff. A local church did have Upwards Basketball for 7th graders. You might check the Upwards website for locations not too far from you. They offer more than just basketball. Upwards was really great. If it's a bit of a drive for you, but doable, I would encourage you to try it. Our city has sports leagues all the way through high school, and my dd did city basketball in 8th grade. Other than that, we sort of re-embraced stuff done earlier on, like cake decorating classes at Joann's and building projects on Saturday mornings at Lowe's. We also explored another church. That was helpful for a time. We did send our dd to private school for 8th grade, though. The friend factor was the biggest reason. My dd did make a couple really good friends, finally, towards the end of the school year. We are back to homeschooling, but she kept those friends. So you are not alone in your experience. ((hugs)) Best of luck.

First of all, try reefgazer's suggestions. If that doesn't work, maybe look up Visual Spatial Learner and see if that fits him at all. If so, you may have to change how you do things. What is he doing with his hands while you read? Does he color or have little figures to play with, like Ancient Rome toobs or something: https://www.safariltd.com/products/view/super-toobs-ancient-rome-figurines-660304 That might help. For the vocabulary, my dd also is that way. When she was in 4th grade, we used more visual resources for vocab, like https://www.superduperinc.com/products/view.aspx?pid=CRD58&s=webber-core-curriculum-vocabulary-cards-level-three#.VvBop-IrK70. These days (9th grade), she draws a picture for every vocabulary word.

I guess I would start talking up the fun stuff about homeschool. Sleeping later than 6am, no homework after school, whatever else you can think of. Buy some fun curriculum materials now, maybe. Inchworm manipulatives. Feet by the foot. Other cool math and science stuff. Maybe some Montessori grammar manipulatives. History toobs. Get some fun "educational" books like Grammar Tales and Sentence Family and Berenstain Bears Big Book of Science and Nature Treasury. Talk about how you'll get her art lessons or gymnastics or whatever. Talk up the fun.

Yeah, I looked at her username and thought something Homework Mama, and her avatar was a parrot. I didn't get it. I'm not a sports person.

My dd will go to community college and get her Associate's degree and live at home. That will cost about $7500. Plus books. Add another couple grand. Anyway, under $10K. If she chooses to go on and get a 4 year degree (she does hate school), we have a local 4 year university with a nice transfer policy. She will continue to live at home. That will run about $8K per year. So hopefully no more than another $16K or so. We have been saving a smidge for her college thus far, but this fall will begin saving a few hundred a month due to car loan and other loan payments going away. Plus once she starts college, the 2 grand a year I spend on homeschool curriculum will go away and can be put into college. No new cars in the next 7 years. We have two cars currently, an '03 and '11, may they last forever. Unfortunately, our house won't be paid off until right after she graduates from college. We are looking forward to a plentiful income then. :)

I have a binder where I shove all my notes. I'm a list maker, so I have constantly morphing lists of what I need, what I have, etc. Plus for high school, I am tracking all of her extra curricular activities, volunteer work, etc., and that goes in the binder, too.

Yes. I compile a large plastic tub each year of books that we won't necessarily cover specifically in our studies, but that relate. The tub also includes grade-level books. For instance, we did Ancients this year for 9th grade, so the tub included all of the ancient books (a lot. Including picture books) we own, plus corresponding Horrible Histories books, plus classics and things like The Wind in the Willows and its sequel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and books like that. My dd, as part of "school", must read for 30 minutes every day from a book from the tub. Next year, our tub will have tons of Middle Ages books, including picture books because those are still wonderful and contain good information, plus Horrible Histories of the time period, plus dinosaur related books since Paleontology is our Science next year, plus grade-level books like Swiss Family Robinson and whatnot. We buy a lot from Half Price Books. We also use the library, but not for school so much. More pleasure reading. Although we own a fair amount of Harry Potter and Rick Riordan already :)

We won't be finishing our Algebra book any time soon either, so I have decided to call this year Algebra 1A on our transcript and next year Algebra 1B. My dd will also start taking Geometry next year simultaneously. Algebra can take as long as it takes, but we will go ahead and continue with Geometry so she doesn't feel behind her friends. Maybe you could do something like that, and not have to rush through things?

I just wanted to say thank you for mentioning this resource. It looks wonderful!

How about calling last year's class "World History: World Wars" and calling this year's history "U.S. History: Korean and Vietnam Wars" or something like that? You study what he wants and can box check World History and U.S. History.

I bought Stories from Dante told to the Children http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Dante-Told-Children-Macgregor/dp/150524059X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1457722931&sr=8-1&keywords=stories+from+dante+for+children and will be using it with my 10th grader in the fall. I just wanted to give her familiarity with the plot and whatnot. I'm not looking at a scholarly study.

I believe Mathusee is recommended for dyslexic children, as well as the math-averse big picture thinkers like my dd. I personally would use their PreAlgebra as, you know, PreAlgebra. I am currently using their Algebra as, you know, Algebra. We like it a lot.

Have you ever tried Neosporin (aka Triple Antibiotic) on your cuts and pimples? Works like a charm at our house.

The only thing I am outsourcing is Biology, and my "outsource" is my husband. :)

I would do lots of movies and documentaries for history, in semi-chronological order. Start with Ancient Mesopotamia (sumer/babylon/assyria). Then do Ancient Egypt. Then Ancient Greece then Ancient Rome. If you want output, maybe have her draw a picture from the movie and label it with a caption. Tape it to the wall in order. Netflix used to have tons of history documentaries. Horribles Histories by BBC is very good, and the DVDs (region 2) play on my computer in the US, even if they don't play in my dvd player. I would do something similar for science. Pick science topics and watch lots of science documentaries. Also, lots of Magic School Bus and Bill Nye the Science Guy. Some kids (mine is like this) need to a large "library" of visual images to help them process what they read. My dd is like this. Regarding a text to help her get her feet wet, you might like Usborne's First Encyclopedia of History.

Based on all of the above, I vote Option 2. Keep the house and go on with life as normal. Kids can do their activities, their orthodontist treatments, you can take some small vacations. Actually, based on all of the above, I wonder why you are even considering anything else. If you really feel like being in an RV for a bit, rent one for one of your small vacations. Don't make it a lifestyle, just a few days. Best wishes!

Love a planning thread! We're wrapping up 9th grade now, but here is what we've done this year: Math: Horizons Algebra first semester. Switched to Mathusee (love!!) Algebra and will complete this summer. English: Seton Composition, Seton High School Grammar, Abeka Vocab Spelling Poetry III, D'Aulaire's Greek Myths with Memoria Press guide, Coolidge's Trojan War with teeny bit of Memoria Press guide before completely dropping Memoria Press guides (I wanted to love them but no it was not to be), some reading out of Graphic Canon and writing short response paragraphs, lots of reading books, a couple of Remedia Proofreading workbooks, some work in the Figuratively Speaking workbook History: History of the Ancient World by SWB until about Chapter 60, when I dropped it for Human Odyssey (which we are loving!!) Science: The Science of Biology by Hoagland French: So You Really Want to Learn French Book One and Skeleton French by Galore Park Health: Abeka Health from a Christian Perspective (ugh. Meant for this to be a quick git'er done class. It is so not.) Bible: Notgrass Draw to Learn Psalms Happy planning!

Have you used Memoria Press before? I want to love it, but I used it this year for my vsl, and it sucked the life and joy right out of both of us. If it works for you, great, but if you haven't tried it before, I will caution you not to put all your eggs in their basket.

What about working toward CLEPing College Algebra? Around here, it's the minimum math required for most majors, and if he can CLEP out of it, he may not have to take any math in college (a thought which my math-hating dd adores).

Discrete Math is hard. When I took it,I learned how to do proofs, in among learning all the logic tables and stuff. You learn all the ways to prove stuff. Familiarity with sequences and series was pretty important. I always thought Modern Algebra (Abstract Algebra) could be really fun for my high schooler. It's always been my favorite math topic (although Analysis has its moments). Sadly, my dd is not mathy. Your dd might like it, if they offer it and she meets the prerequisites. Oh, it requires proofs though, so Discrete Math might be a prerequisite. Does she like matrices? Maybe Linear Algebra might be interesting to her? I don't recall having to use Calculus in that, although it's been a long time.

Isn't it that you don't want to do the teaching? Have you looked at things like elearningk12.com? Or if you don't like that, maybe just pick things like Teaching Textbooks or Mathusee for math and find some other online or dvd courses for the other subjects? I was going to mention some other options, but I just realized they were religious. If you give us a little info about what specifically you're not wanting to do, we might be able to give more specific advice. ((Hugs)) High school can be daunting, but these boards are a great resource.

Absolutely. That's what my dd wore to a recital, and no one said anything negative. It looked fine with a black skirt. And you already have them, so perfect!