Your children and your husband are your first ministry. Remember that.

When he misses those problems on the worksheet, is it really the algebra or is it piddly arithmetic mistakes? My vsl is in the piddly arithmetic mistake category. Algebra is forcing her to be a bit more careful about that, but she's rarely perfect. I think if he's capable of getting 100% on tests, then he seems to understand what he's doing. Maybe the multiple choice aspect takes the piddly arithmetic mistakes out of the scenario for him, so he can use his big picture way of viewing things. Just my two cents. :)

She is 8. If he doesn't back off, maybe she won't want to read anything for fun, ever. Shakespeare at 8? Are you kidding? His expectations are unrealistic. I like to read romance novels and mysteries and maybe stuff that you wouldn't like. I am highly educated. I am not a bad person because I like to read "fluff." Real life has enough drama and I don't feel like spending my free time with a dictionary in one hand and a book in the other. Light, fluffy reading is a wonderful way to spend my time. Let your dd read what she likes. The titles you listed are quite wonderful literature for a child, by the way. Edited to add: This is for free reading, by the way. Of course, for school work, you should have age-appropriate, reading-level appropriate books for her. Personally, I require 30 minutes a day of this for school.

Aren't most of Charles Dickens' books sad?

It's really easy to make a mortarboard with an upside down styrofoam bowl and a square of cardboard or cardstock. Attach with a brad. (to each other, not the cat) Good luck on the cat appreciating your efforts.

For each of my parents, college was a path out of poverty. This did mean that they majored in something employable. For me, it was an expected thing to do and a safety net to stay away from poverty. My major, math, is fairly employable although not as much as the latest trends would imply. I have been a SAHM for the last 15 years, however, but I still feel confident that I could find a decent job if I needed to. (I do stay active in volunteer work which can be written on resumes as "experience"). For my dd, college will be a continued safety net away from poverty. She hates school, and we are insisting on an employable Associates Degree at the very least. She is aware that a four year degree is our preference. So yeah, for our family, an education has intrinsic value in that knowledge is desirable but the purpose of college is to keep us out of poverty. (We do not take student loans, by the way. We attend schools our parents can manage to afford.)

I don't remember that specific story, but I have read a few James Rollins, and there is occasionally some explicit stuff. Honestly, if you really want her to read them, you should definitely pre-read each one. Some are more explicit than others. As a for instance, in one of his books (Amazonia?), a mostly naked warrior lady is struggling to kill a guy, and she's about to, and he reaches down and pulls a knife out of her you-know-what, because apparently he knew the little known fact that females in her tribe like to keep an extra knife in that location. He ends up killing her with that knife.

At our church graduation luncheons, each kid gets a table to decorate with whatever they want. Senior photo, areas of interest (one girl had horseback riding stuff on there), letter jacket (ooh, or a mum would be cute), anything to represent them. We also had a baby picture slide show. So cute! Could each kid pick their own song to be played (well, a small portion of a song) when they walk up to get their diploma? Decorate graduation cap, definitely. The serious kids don't have to, but they might like to.

Wow. You are doing plenty. Do they like that it seems "easy" to them or are they complaining? If they are happy about it, I really wouldn't change anything (and also be prepared to do a little less if needed some day because you really are doing a lot.) If they seem to want more challenges, then you need to post on the Accelerated Learner board. They will have some great suggestions for you.

You just explained something to me that I never understood. My dd was in 1st grade, and in them trying to teach her to read, they would have her learn all the different sounds each vowel could possibly make. She never understood why or when to choose what sounds. I pulled her out and taught her to read with Abeka Phonics. There were some very clear rules: When there is one vowel in a word, it usually makes its short sound. When there are two vowels in a word, the first vowel says its name and the second vowel is silent. I'm thinking Abeka uses the "horizontal" phonics, which I had never heard called that before. Interesting. Do whatever works for your kid.

My dd learned her letter sounds from Leap Frog Letter Factory. It is excellent.

What I'm hearing is: You don't want projects. You do want chronological order. You are bored by SOTW. You don't want history to take up a lot of time. Okay, here are my suggestions: I think the chronology is most important in the idea of the four year history cycle: Ancient, then Medieval, then Early Modern, then Modern. Inside of each of those, a lot of overlap happens chronologically, and it seems really natural to divide it up by culture. For your year of Ancient, I would divide it into Ancient Egypt, Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, and Ancient Rome. Spend a quarter (9 weeks) on each. Every day, just read a picture book or excerpt from a non-picture book. Maybe occasionally watch a relevant video. That's it. If you want to notebook or whatnot, go for it. If you really can't stand not to have a spine to guide you, I really like Usborne's First Encyclopedia of History. http://www.amazon.com/First-Encyclopedia-History-Usborne/dp/1409522431

Not harmful. Visual aids are not a crutch. They are a help to learning. Some kids are very visual, and need the picture association.

A family who doesn't believe in doctors, food allergies, or asthma. They would try and cook milk, egg, and peanutty foods for my kid and refuse to let her take her medication. They would instead rub essential oils on her extremely sensitive skin. She would, of course, end up in the hospital, assuming she survived. They would also clean constantly and insist cursing was always appropriate. And have a jet set lifestyle.

For my 9th grader this year, we are using the following for English: Seton High School Grammar Seton Composition Abeka Vocabulary, Spelling and Poetry III Memoria Press guides for D'Aulaire's Greek Myths (fall semester) and Coolidge's Trojan War (spring semester) Figuratively Speaking (spring semester) We also read all the "ancient" related excerpts from Graphic Canon, and she wrote a tiny response paragraph on each. (fall semester) Lots of real books. For 10th grade, my current plan for English is: Abeka Grammar and Composition IV Abeka Vocabulary, Spelling and Poetry IV The "medieval" portions of Abeka English Literature. We will read all the "medieval" excerpts from Graphic Canon, and she will write a tiny response paragraph on each. Lots of real books. I may also throw Yoga for the Brain in there somewhere.

I don't recall the History of the Ancient World saying corn. I believe it said wheat and then barley, because the soil got saltier and barley is more tolerant. In the US, corn means corn, like corn on the cob yellow corn. I didn't know it meant other things other places.

Just musing... is it really that ds needs to not live with dh anymore? Can you maybe say, hey, if you would like to move out (stay in town or not, go to cc or go away to college, or move to some random city), we will support you for a year while you figure stuff out? At the end of the year, let's look at where things are and make some more decisions? That way your son can take control of his life with a safety net.

Check some likely colleges that she might attend and see what their requirements are. FWIW, states seem to vary widely. In Texas, they want 4 laboratory sciences from high school, even though Texas is not particularly known for its academics. (Although this is for state schools only. The community college lets anybody in no matter what classes they have.)

Yes! We also had a rough start. We're doing 9th grade. We started in August, and it was REALLY hard until about mid-November, when we finally found our groove. But we still really needed a week off at Thanksgiving, and now two weeks at Christmas. Looking forward to starting back next week, with a couple of new things. We switched out math programs and I got something that will hopefully be fun for writing. We needed our breaks, though, for sure.

Books Curriculum Yes, they do make me happy. :001_smile:

I pass out her report card and her awards (usually award ribbons from Mardel or the teacher store). The award ribbons say things like "Math Whiz" and stuff like that. She gets a certificate for reading however many books she read that year from her school tub of books. Oh, and I like to have fun when I'm passing things out. She sits on the couch and I stand up in the front of the living room. I mispronounce her name a few times as I ask, "(mispronounced name), is there a (mispronounced name) here? Anyone? I have her report card. (Mispronounced name)?" She comes up and gets it, and I shake her hand. Then back to her seat for me to make another announcement for an award ribbon, and to mispronounce her name again. It's our little end of year ritual. We enjoy it.

Took down the tree and all Christmas decorations yesterday. All done, all gone. I tend to put the tree up Thanksgiving weekend, so the day after Christmas, I'm DONE. So lovely to have a blank spot there. Plus our cats have been gradually decimating the lower branches, so it's nice that we don't have to deal with that for another year.

Me! We'll be reading See How They Run http://www.amazon.com/See-How-They-Run-Campaign/dp/1599908972/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1451153198&sr=8-3&keywords=see+how+they+run and some Cartoon Nation books. I plan on filling out an election poster, like How We Voted! Chart http://www.rainbowresource.com/product/sku/023663 . And we'll go through Power Basics American Government text.

James Bond movies? Action hero movies? Maybe Raiders of the Lost Ark? (It's been awhile since I've seen it so I may be wrong) Actually, aren't a good 90 percent of all movies "pretty lamp" movies?

I know one communications major who got a government job in the SSI office (social security disability, I believe). I know another communication major who worked as an office manager for awhile, and then she got some Microsoft certification. Not sure what happened after that. It's a good major, I think. Applicable to a wide variety of jobs.