My dress was off the rack from Macy's at $100, I made my own veil from a length of toile fabric and bridal notions purchased at a wholesaler for a total of $2 (and made another later for a friend who liked mine so much). My shoes were $20 and I wore them afterwards. My husband's tux was rented, although I don't remember how much that was. It wasn't expensive. I made invitations on a laser printer for $40 (cost of fancy paper and envelopes - only 40 guests). The flowers were about $400 - for me, my maid of honor, my husband, best man, and two nice rose arrangements for church. We did no flowers or favors for reception at all. My BFF's boyfriend (now husband) took and developed photos as our wedding gift, and they turned out very well. I don't remember how much we paid for the limo, but we only had it for 2 hours. Someone gave us a ride home in their car from the reception. I did have hair and make-up done, which was $100 each plus tip. We had our reception in a small restaurant during their normally closed hours, and it cost about $40 per person (only 40 guests). There was no money whatsoever to throw around, and in a way I am glad that we were in that situation. My sister in law went into debt to have the big wedding she wanted.

The thing is, they do get different instructors. 🙂 If you read my student reviews, you would definitely think so. How could a single person be both caring, attentive, supportive, etc. while being unapproachable, unwilling to work with the student, or lacking in some other way? I usually start out a term by telling students how much I hated going to office hours and that I almost never raised a hand with a question for fear of appearing stupid. Sometimes it helps and encourages some of them to come out of their shells, but I can't make them come to me with a question. They need to advocate for themselves. I usually have a handful of students in each class who take the initiative to connect with me, and they tend to do well. This term I've had several with truly awful real life circumstances, but they kept in touch nearly every week, and we were able to work together to get them back on track. They are all going to get high grades. I also have several who dropped off the face of the Earth for several weeks and then came in expecting special treatment. I can see some of those students writing a poor review, but their grades will be entirely due to their lack of attendance or putting in any sort of effort. So yea, these two groups definitely got different instructors. ETA Departments are used to seeing these sorts of negative reviews. As long as it's an outlier and not a trend, you have nothing to worry about.

This looks good! I scrolled down to the grade 8 (I think) worksheets, and they cover things like selecting sources, examining different views on the same topic made by different people, putting together time lines, cause/effect, and other ideas. Thank you for sharing!

That's funny (not really, but you know what I mean 😃). I don't catch everyone who cheats, but I do get quite a few. At times I know that a student plagiarized or cheated, but I can't prove it directly, and that can be frustrating. They often claim no knowledge of the cheat sites even when shown the matching text and link to the paper. I recognize my previous student papers, too. This reminds me of this one student who uploaded his own paper (to sell) to one of these sites too early, meaning that it came up as a 100% match when I went to grade it, but it was actually his paper. Sometimes I can get the site to take down papers, but more appear far too quickly.

Like Farrar, I would like to see a comprehensive resource on this. I don't know if one exists, but if it does, it would be a great help to my students. This topic is not easy to quantify or to put into a set of formulaic steps. A lot of learning happens through discussion and working through examples. For instance, you could spend an entire semester studying just the American Revolution in the context of information literacy. You can start by reading a current U.S. textbook and identify sources (if possible), bias, credibility, and authority. Who wrote the textbook? Can we discern their political affiliation/worldview/motivation? What seems to be the underlying theme? How are the events presented? Who are the heroes and the villains and why? Then you can read about the same events in a current British textbook and ask the same questions. Are the events leading up to the Revolution described in the same way? One British textbook I saw (can't remember which now) called it the American Rebellion. How would you interpret the narrative if you were a British student? What would the events mean to you if you were a public school student in, say, Mongolia, reading the same textbook? Then you could spend some time reading history books - fiction and non-fiction written in different time periods since the Revolution to the present day that take place or describe the events. Apply the same types of questions about authority, bias, etc. Then you could go into primary sources and read personal letters, newspaper articles, speeches, political cartoons published at the time on both sides of the Atlantic. What do these artifacts tell you about the people and the times they lived in? How did their worldview/political affiliation/bias shape their writing? This would involve a great deal of reading, writing, and discussion, but I think it would improve a student's thinking skills as well as information literacy.

It is definitely an important topic, and it's great that you are looking for ways to teach your children information literacy skills. At the grade 5 level, encyclopedia should still be ok, but you should prepare to move toward using primary sources and multiple types of information (print, online) as your students get older. I am a university instructor, and many of my students struggle with this. At the college (and preferably high school) level, students need to understand that using an encyclopedia (or something like Wikipedia) is fine as a springboard or start for their paper or project but not as actual references. Encyclopedias are secondary sources - their information has been summarized and rewritten to fit the format of the text, and the quality of the information can vary widely from topic to topic within the same text, and it is not possible to identify individual authors or check their qualifications. There can also be multiple content errors. Encyclopedias and dictionaries are not acceptable sources in academic papers at the college level. Many of my students have never been told this, and they struggle to find academic sources. Academic search engines such as EBSCOHOST are not very user friendly, and students go back to Google, producing low quality work. Google Scholar is better, but many articles it lists require purchase or access through a higher ed institution. To evaluate information, you can start by identifying the author and deciding whether or not they are qualified to provide information, how old the information is, and what types of bias the author may exhibit. In other words, you wouldn't want to trust a 20 year-old article about a medical condition that was written by a person with no medical training. I don't have a curriculum to recommend as I teach this to my students by example using academic search engines, but I found a book that may be helpful. It appears to be a planning book for teachers, but it could perhaps help you get started. Purdue OWL Writing Lab is an excellent resource as well. It has some information on evaluating sources, too.

Does your son have a background in technical drawing? This would include basics such as cross-sections, projection planes, inclined and oblique surfaces, etc. If he doesn't, you might want to look into getting an intro to technical drawing book and have him practice on paper so that he gets an idea of what is involved. A good feel for 3-D geometry and being able to manipulate 3-D objects in his head is helpful. Also, given 3 projections or views from top, side, etc. can he figure out what the object should look like in 3-D and sketch it to scale? These are the sorts of exercises I had to do in school and college when taking an AutoCAD class. I found this book on Amazon that looks good, although I don't have personal experience with it. Technical drawing is really neat, but AutoCAD has a good-sized learning curve, or at least it used to when I last had experience with it (admittedly quite a few years ago).

I am a cat person, and I feel that I need to have a cat in my life at all times, but in this situation I would not get a kitten. Sure, cats are a lot less work than dogs, but kittens need to be socialized and handled frequently. Someone needs to make sure that the litter box gets cleaned out (my kitties will go on the floor if they think it's too dirty - not emptied for more than 24 hours), and that the cat doesn't eat dog food (and vice versa). Some cats do just fine by themselves, but others need attention and interaction. One of my kitties was a velcro pet and would cry if she couldn't find me. She was my constant companion from kittenhood until we had to say goodbye over a year ago when she was 12. Your daughter is an adult, and she needs to understand the implications of getting a cat. This needs to be her cat, and since she is going to be away from home for a log time, she should probably delay getting a kitty until she can take care of it on her own. Otherwise this will be your cat, and no matter how much you love cats, it is probably not the best time to get one.

I know a Washington, Ruby (male). Providence ( female), Conway ( female), Tequila ( yes, legal first name), and Champagne ( yes, legal,first name also). The first few are family names, but I honestly don't understand why the parents named the last two for alcolic beverages. And yes, the names are used in full without nicknames.

It might be a little easier to do your stretches and arm exercises in the shower, or immediately after, while muscles are warm from hot water. You can use the shower wall to stretch against, too.

I think that Krusteaz would work well. I made the Kodiak Cakes pancakes for my family. They were eaten, and then my husband said that it tasted like whole wheat bread. So take that for what it's worth. ?

I don't know Polish, but I have an acquaintance who is a native speaker. This is what she said in regards to the title as a whole and the phrase at the top. siła Ja cielesnego = physical or body strength She said that there are three terms in the title - childhood trauma, alexythimia (a personality disorder), and physical strength. The title means the first two vs the third. An example she gave to explain it is a person who is strong and fit physically, but who has low processing speed for mental tasks such as mathematics or low executive function skills.. I hope this helps a bit.

As Kiara noted, excellent communication skills are important - not just verbal but also written. All the things that happen on a daily basis have to be written down clearly. There is a lot of writing, not to mention the written entrance exams. As an example, here is some information on California's written exam and New York's.

There is no etiquette for this. Nobody is entitled to highly personal information. Sometimes it is nice to just enter certain circles, such as the wider acquaintance and friend environment as if life is normal. I've had my share of challenges, and really, there are people for whom I ceased to be a person and became the circumstance. They no longer could see *me.* Honestly, they probably did not know how to handle these things, and I don't begrudge them for that at all. For that reason, I chose to share less and less with each situation. There are people on whom you can depend to really care what the answer to "how are you today?" is, and who will try to help. For others it is more of a curiosity and discomfort.

My pleasure! There is a number of original sources available, such as this Memoirs of Catherine the Great, which appears to be a decent translation. Although she was not Russian by birth, she came to be loved by her adopted people. Anything like this, you should probably pre-read or at least scan through, to make sure that there is nothing that would not suit a 12-year-old. This book goes back to the first serious rebellion (early 1600s) and covers the beginning of the Romanov era, but it reads more like a textbook. I have this one, Land of the Firebird, which manages to cover the history of Russia from about AD 850. It is only a very brief overview, but it includes some artwork as well as a good bibliography, which may be helpful for hunting down additional materials. This one appears to be highly recommended, about Peter the Great , and here is Nicholas and Alexandra, by the same author. It is difficult to say with absolute certainty what happened to them, and whether or not Anastasia really survived (which is rather unlikely).

What time period(s) are you looking for? Russian royal families go back over a thousand years... There is Ivan the Terrible, for instance, or Vladimir the Red Sun , Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, etc., etc. Each had his or her own challenges and issues of the times such as slavery, Mongol Horde, the War of 1812, and so on to deal with. It really depends on what/when you are looking for. ETA When the book was written and from which country's/worldview point of view matters, too. A book on Romanovs written before the Revolution would be very different than one written in the 1970s U.S.S.R vs. written in the past 20 years in Russia, or in Brittain, the U.S., and so on.

I use Arithmetic We Need for this purpose. It is vintage (1950s), colorful if that matters, and has solid teaching. I have the physical copies, but most of the books are available free to download on archive.org. I linked them in the Free Curriculum and Resources thread, which is pinned at the top of the General Education forum. Here is the grade 4 book (student edition). There are also teacher's guides with solutions and workbooks for most grades available free to download (linked in the Free Curriculum thread).

My daughter is like this. Her mind works quickly, and she can actually do a lot of the math correctly in her head in Algebra and physics. I have been working with her on writing out answers for 3 years now, and we are starting to make some progress. The way I can explain is that for many people, in order to solve a problem, their mind goes from A to B to C to..... My daughter's mind often just goes from A to X, and it is the right answer. It is difficult for her to write down the steps because she doesn't think that way at all. Having said that, if she does not write out the problem with the steps.... she gets to do it all over again, later, instead of screen time, properly, even if the answers were correct. There is much groaning, complaining, and sometimes there are tears - hers and mine, but we get it done. I model the problem solving process, many times, probably every day. For physics I make her set up the problem by writing out what is given, with the units, then writing the formula that best fits the situation, reworking the formula (with all the steps) so that the only part left is to plug in numbers, writing the formula with the numbers but not yet calculating anything, then calculating each piece, circling the answer, checking the units, and then reading the problem in the text to make sure we answered the question that was being asked. That equals about 2/3 page of written work per problem, with diagrams as needed (neat and labeled) as opposed to an one line answer. It is still work in progress, but the important part is that there is progress. ETA She writes with Frixxon pens, which are erasable.

We've pretty much have had cats my entire life, minus a few years here and there. Each cat will have its own personality, just like a person. We now have two brothers - Maine Coon mixes, and they are so different! Even their eating preferences, favorite person, preferred place/method for pets is unique. One will bite when happy and relaxed, and the other will only really hiss/claw when cornered. Each time we got a new cat, we spent about $1000 per cat on vet fees, but every case is obviously different. Our current kitties were strictly outdoor before coming to be strictly indoor at our home. They both had fleas and worms (vet showed me), which had to be taken care of plus extra house cleaning after treatment. They also needed their initial vaccinations and neutering. I don't believe in over-vaccinating animals, just like Pawz said above, but our kitties were already outdoors and I needed to protect them and our family also. One of the kitties was sick with cough and a fever, like a human cold, so he had to be treated for that, too. One more thing to consider - if you plan on boarding the kitty, she or he will need current vaccinations and health record from the vet. Our boarding place requires not only the feline leukemia but also distemper and something else I can't remember right now. You can train your kitty to love her carrier. It takes time, but it works. Leave it out all the time, with the door open, in a non-threatening manner and quiet area. Once the kitty goes in, put a small treat in the carrier or nearby - treat immediately. Our kitties now sleep in their carriers and run there when they want treats. We keep the carriers in the basement, with the litter boxes (we have 2 litter boxes). One of our kitties gets stressed out when boarding, so we only really take them there when we absolutely have to. Last time he came home, he had kennel cough, but thankfully he got over that in a few days. Getting a kitty is easily a 10-15 year (or more) commitment. They may not grow to love you, or they may become your shadow. One of our cats in the past used to bite ankles and the hand that was feeding it, while the hand was putting the kitty food down. We still loved her, but it's something to be aware of - kitties have quirks just like people.

I am so sorry your daughter is going through this! I don't have a been there done that advice except to suggest something on a deeper level that she would enjoy - a survey literature course from another culture with an essay component perhaps. You probably already know this, but many (so many!) college students do need remedial work that is about at the middle school level. I teach college courses, and I can't tell you how many times I need to tell my students to capitalize proper nouns such as their own names, explain what a sentence is, or show them how to set up a basic five paragraph essay. And I don't even teach English/Composition as a subject! And what is even scarier - many of my students over the years were studying to become teachers.

One of the courses I teach uses an online-only text. There is a paperback of the book in existence, but it is not entirely the same. The problem is that the quiz bank for the course, which is supplied by the publisher, uses very specific terminology that is not the same as the paperback. I've tried to change this by contacting my department, but nothing came of it. I have to use the text and the quiz bank. ? The other problem I found is that this term the publisher limited printing to 2 pages at a time for this book. Some of my students need to have a physical copy to mark up, so they have to go through disability services to get an accessible/printable version. At least the disability services is open to working with everyone regardless of documented disability status. Very frustrating.

Ruth, This entire post is fantastic, thank you, thank you, thank you! Would it be possible to start a new thread (and to get it pinned - that would be awesome) with a copy of your two posts in this thread and any other insight you may be able to share? I have already copied these posts for myself, but I think that so many people can use this information. This is too good to be lost. I would love to see any more ideas and details on any of these 3 areas - what you know, how to figure out what the assignment calls for, and how to put it down on paper or typed in.

Many higher ed institutions have had their own Foundation for Success courses or course sequences for quite some time. Some institutions allow students to skip these (based on testing), while others may require every incoming freshman (and sometimes transfers,too) to complete them. Here is an example and another and one more one here.

Our deliveries change from month to month (some are on a monthly schedule, others less frequently). The things I order are: vitamins for adults and kids, pet food, boxes of single-serve Annie's Organic Bunny Snacks (crackers for kids), apple sauce/vegetable squeeze pouches, quinoa, tea bags, coffee K-pods, toilet paper. I think there's more, but that's all I can remember right now.

I've used Nuts.com to send gifts and also buy yummies for my own family. We love their chocolate-covered fruit, nut mixes, chocolate-covered espresso beans, gummy bears, and dried fruit. I don't think I've bought anything that did not taste good or wasn't fresh.