My kid's piano teacher had a recital with less than stellar attendance. He sent out an email that from now on, barring illness, if any kid doesn't attend the recital, he will cancel the whole recital. This seems very unfair to the other kids. How would you respond to this?

Does anyone have a liquid in glass, outdoor thermometer they love? Is there a reason these are not easy to find? I want my kid to learn how to read this kind of thermometer, but they had none at the hardware store.

Both of my kids who play instruments do this, and I don't really understand why. They will play a piece very well a couple times a week very well for months and then all of a sudden we'll review the piece and they've forgotten huge chunks of it. Generally, the next time I ask them to play it, they play it perfectly. Why does this happen? It doesn't happen super often, but when it happens, they often get very frustrated and discouraged. How do you handle this during your kids' practices?

We used Rightstart, and it had a lot of games and visualization techniques for these math facts. We've never used Math U See, but in Righstart, the jump from manipulatives to mental math comes from encouraging the child to start visualizing the abacus in their heads. Could you do the same thing with the blocks?

I personally think phonics instruction is really important. However, All About Spelling teaches phonics through spelling. My oldest learned to read fluently very young, so we only did phonics through spelling. My second learned to read at a more traditional age. I personally chose to finish a reading phonics program with him first and then switch to AAS. I know AAL recommends doing phonics work through both reading and spelling concurrently, but I personally do not want to devote that much time to phonics. I'm not familiar with the pathways book, but I would say that if he's reading, I would be tempted to just work through All About Spelling and see if he is able to apply the phonics rules he's learning for spelling to reading before adding another curriculum.

That's very helpful. I'm not on their mailing list nor did I realize that it sometimes went on sale like that. I'll sign up and wait for a good deal. Thanks.

This is definitely a concern of mine. We've skipped quite a bit in RS C, because he doesn't need that level of review, but as a result, he did A, B, and part of C for kindy. I suspect that if we stick with RS, it'll mean buying D and E both in the same school year. That's a lot of money to spend on math for one year.

Does anyone use Headspace App? I finished the free trial; I like it better than the other meditation apps I've tried; but I'm waffling on the price of the monthly subscription. If you use or have used it, do you feel like it's worth it? What paths have you used? Have your kids tried any of the paths directed at kids? Thanks.

With my oldest child, I never switched curricula unless it wasn't working. Why fix something if it ain't broke, right? My second child is thriving with Rightstart. Math is his favorite subject, and I think a lot of it is because of how Rightstart is designed. However, it's pretty parent intensive and expensive. He's also mathy like his sister, already working on level C though he just started first grade. I already have all the Beast levels published, and I like the rigor of Art of Problem Solving. I'm really struggling with dropping $110 to get level D for him, when we already have a great math curriculum. He's been reading the Beast Academy guides, but he insists that he wants to stick with Rightstart Math. Any advice on selling him on Beast? Or should I just suck it up?

I held my pencil with all five fingers into adulthood. I changed it when I started working on fixing my oldest child's finger grip after a year of kindergarten where they didn't bother fixing it. Holding it with all five fingers smudged the writing as I wrote. I wish someone would have corrected it when I was younger.

We've done Rightstart 1st edition A-C and then switched to Beast Academy Level Three, and that worked well for us.

Of course you should ask your teacher, but the only difference I can think of in terms of sound in the first book is that in the revised version "May Song" does not repeat.

We press them and then coat them with mod podge. I think dipping them in wax would be more expensive, but this process is time consuming.

Are you teaching him piano or does he have a teacher? If he has a teacher, I would mention this complaint. Poor technique and posture can cause pain.

We decided to try Writing Strands, starting with level three. After spending a year of watching her so frustrated, I feel so relieved to see her work through her writing mostly independently and without complaint. My library actually has IEW's Teaching Writing Structure and Style, so I'm putting that on hold to think about.

My six year old is currently wrapping up Rightstart B (first edition), and we simply love the program. We will probably switch to something more independent and inexpensive after C, but it's been such a great, gentle, fun way to start math. My six year old says that math is his favorite school subject.

I'm pregnant with what I hope to be my fourth living kid. I've suffered through multiple miscarriages and recently a stillbirth. I desperately want to have a child I get to keep after losing my baby so close to term, but the stillbirth devastated our family. Hopefully this one last rainbow baby and then, despite how long I've fantasized about having five kids, we are done. The risk is too much.

My daughter struggled with Writing With Ease Level Three all of third grade. Of course she failed the test at the end of the year. She just doesn't have a good enough working memory for the narrations and the dictations. As much as I like the idea of narration and dictation for language arts for the early years, it's not working for her. I prefer something secular. Any suggestions about what to try for fourth grade?