Yes. We have a couple of different homeschool groups. What's your flavor? We have HOST, which is Protestant and in Corpus, sort of centrally located. There's a Northwest Corpus one (think Calallen), there's a San Patricio country one (more over the bridge or out of town). There's a Catholic one. There are some co-ops, which tend to be Protestant. A baptist church on north Padre Island has some co-op classes. I think HOST is the biggest one, and it has a facebook page. Try H.O.S.T. Homeschool Organization of South Texas.

Hmm. Or maybe Paleontology? Or Geology: Age of Dinosaurs?

So would it be better to just call it geology and then we can sort of subfocus on dinosaurs? I'm thinking of the thread about nontraditional sciences. So I should perhaps use a geology book as a spine?

Well, from some various sources, so far I have: Simulating how deposited sediments form layers in the bottom of a lake Simulating radioactive decay and the dating of a fossilized bone Make a scale model of a dinosaur and determine its weight There are also some neat experiments in Dinosaur Discovery: Everything you need to be a paleontologist with more than 25 experiments. http://www.amazon.com/Dinosaur-Discovery-Everything-Need-Paleontologist/dp/1416947647/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1442852267&sr=8-1&keywords=dinosaur+discovery

What if we used this textbook: Dinosaurs: A Concise Natural History as our spine? What should I name the class that would be acceptable for the name of a high school laboratory science? http://www.amazon.com/Dinosaurs-Concise-David-E-Fastovsky/dp/0521282373/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1442844631&sr=8-1&keywords=dinosaurs+a+concise+natural+history

Thanks for your reply. Good questions. This is for high school. Our state universities have the same entrance requirements as our state's graduation plan, and they want 4 year-long laboratory sciences. Biology is fun, but so are dinosaurs :) I thought I would take advantage of the fact that we homeschool and can do more fun sciences than your typical high school offerings. I think we can figure out enough material to spend a whole year on dinosaurs, plus enough labs (although some may be more geology or fossil oriented). I'm not looking for "rigor," necessarily. Just learning and retaining.

We're only 9th grade and have outsourced nothing, so I voted zero. Except for science, I'm generally of the opinion that if I wanted someone else to teach my kid, I'd put her back in school. :) My husband is our science teacher, so it's outsourced from me but not out of the house. :) I'm not opposed to outsourcing, but I'm also not necessarily opposed to regular school. It's just not a good fit for my kid or our family. 8th grade at private school taught us that very, very well.

So in my state, we need 4 Laboratory Sciences, only one of which needs to be either Biology, Chemistry, or Physics. We are doing Biology this year, so I figure we'll have more fun with the remaining classes. My dd is interested in studying Dinosaurs next year. What would I call the class? Dinosaur Paleontology? Dinosaur Paleobiology? Intro to Paleontology: Dinosaurs? Geology: Dinosaurs? Help me, Science-y people. Thanks!

My 9th grader loves Heidi. (She also enjoyed the whole Little Women series, so that's why I suggested it.) (She is also not interested in romance books.)

Peruvian hats lend themselves to costumes. Party City carries a bunch, for about $10 each. http://www.partycity.com/product/peruvian+hats+snoods.do?refType=&from=Search&navSet=peruvian%20hat&bypass_redirect=1 Olaf, Minnie Mouse (this is a "laplander" hat), Minion would all be good for church and easy to pair with clothes that would work.

Another cute costume for church (can you tell I've done this?) is Where's Waldo. You get a red and white striped shirt (I bought a nice cotton rugby off Amazon, but there are tons of red and white striped shirts around), and wear it with jeans (or jeans shorts). Find a Waldo cap or hat. I own this one: http://www.amazon.com/Wheres-Peeking-Striped-Trucker-Baseball/dp/B00ET98L22/ref=sr_1_28?ie=UTF8&qid=1442692712&sr=8-28&keywords=waldo+hat but this one is cute: http://www.amazon.com/Concept-One-Accessories-Ecwa1001-Peruvian/dp/B008HSW9UG/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1442692754&sr=8-8&keywords=waldo+hat and so is this one (and it's on sale!): http://www.partycity.com/product/waldo+cap.do?refType=&from=Search&navSet=waldo&bypass_redirect=1

Cat in the Hat is easy. You buy the hat (or the headband if you don't tolerate hats well -- that's me) and the bow tie. Wear a black shirt. Ooh, Party City has a $20 kit. It comes with white cartoon hands, too. http://www.partycity.com/product/dr+seuss+the+cat+in+the+hat+kit.do?refType=&from=Search&navSet=cat%20in%20the%20hat&bypass_redirect=1

I just wanted to throw out there that Usborne has a wonderful book on Dickens called Illustrated Stories from Dickens. We love that book at our house. Has several of the stories, illustrated, in easy language. It's a nice way to gain familiarity with Dickens without torturing oneself with the tough language. http://www.usborne.com/catalogue/book/1~CG~CGI~3848/illustrated-stories-from-dickens.aspx

That sounds disturbing to me. I don't like it either. We use a pediatric dentist and ortho, and they always allow one parent back there, and there's no yelling. I'm pretty sure there's no restraining either. They may sedate them (with permission and at a later date) but I believe that's it. Your dentist sounds positively medieval.

One of the Tiny House people (on HGTV) bought a yurt. It was spacious and might fit your budget. It also might be more wheelchair accessible than an RV.

Some of those frozen lasagnas are pretty good. Easy Mac? Cheese sticks. Sam's Club has wonderful premade meals in their meat section. Chicken alfredo, enchiladas, tons of stuff. You just heat it up. Cans of tuna and corned beef hash. Or did you want healthy stuff? Ha ha.

Illustrated Poems for Children by Orska. Wonderful. http://www.amazon.com/Special-Collection-Illustrated-Poems-Children/dp/B001BOXB7I

Thankfully my dh is handling Biology this year, but if I had to do it, I really like the looks of Timberdoodle's offerings on the subject. They have a Pacworks biology set of workbooks and a Biology 101 dvd. Here's the link: http://www.timberdoodle.com/Principles_Theories_Precepts_of_Biology_p/570-biology.htm http://www.timberdoodle.com/Biology_101_p/101-365.htm

I'm wondering what everyone's writing goals for high school are. I look at English programs, and they mostly seem to hit on being able to do (as a goal) long papers on literary analysis. How useful is this as a life skill? I personally can analyze literature out the wazoo, but I have a dd who hates to write. She also is capable of discussing literary analysis stuff, but writing a whole paper on it would be torture, and I am having a difficult time seeing the value. Research reports I get. Basic business type writing I get. The other stuff? Help me understand what's important and why, for life. Thanks!

We freeze everything. I keep ziploc freezer bags in gallon and quart (fairly inexpensive in bulk at Sam's), and food gets tossed in the freezer. Then I am free to re-use them at my leisure, to make chili or whatnot. Sometimes my dh makes himself a lunch for the next day out of dinner, but if that doesn't get taken to work immediately, it gets tossed in the freezer.

Muppets!

These may not be what you are looking for, but I enjoyed them as a younger person, and they certain have an epic feel to them: (I can't recall how "appropriate" they might be, though. Research that if it matters to you.) Clan of the Cave Bear (by Jean Auel. She has one or two after this one, too, if I recall correctly. All good.) Really interesting. The Thornbirds (love it or hate it, it's an epic. Interesting. Kind of sad and painful.)

I read that as duckshires, not duckishness, at first. Hmm. I kind of like the Duckshires.

I used some of the Key to ... booklets for my vsl. I did go in and color everything with colored pencils before handing the book to her. Voila, color! Then I just taught it like the book, a little bit at a time. Sounds like Key to Decimals and Key to Percents would work for your student. Once we got the core concepts down, we did the first Key to Algebra book (yes, I colored it all over again), read the first couple of chapters of Zaccarro's Real World Algebra, and started (successfully) Horizons PreAlgebra. I never bought it, but this book always looked interesting to me: Principles from Patterns Algebra http://www.christianbook.com/principles-from-patterns-algebra-student-book/david-quine/pd/228001?event=ESRCG Best of luck! Math is sure a journey with a vsl, but I have found that once we hit PreAlgebra, everything really clicked.

My dd has attended, in her lifetime, two private schools and one public charter school. At each and every school, the math instruction, in my opinion, has been subpar. I have had to do extensive "tutoring" myself, constantly. Daily. And that is one of many reasons why we are back to homeschooling. :)