I just started looking through All About Spelling and for "a" sounds it doesn't list a short "u" sound, at least not in the beginning. Do they introduce it later on? I scanned through the book and didn't find it but I might have missed it. I have an Anna and an Emma so we need to know! 🙂 Thanks!

I am looking for books about germs and immunology, beneficial microbes in your body, the environment, cooking, industry etc. My oldest is 8. Thank you!

I love this! And they will love it. Thanks for the idea!

Thank you! Thankfully the noise has not bothered DH while he is working. I am honestly shocked about this because, historically, the noise level has always bothered him at home, particularly at meals. He has headaches a lot and doesn't want them around if they are loud. I don't mind the general noise level but want them to know when/where it is appropriate to be loud. I know our families would enjoy their time with the kids more and want to spend more time with them if the volume was better controlled. As of now the kids usually get sent outside or put in front of the TV as soon as the meal is over and that is sad. Right now the kids WANT to spend time with their grandparents and aunts/uncles and may not as they get older if they aren't already close. Wow I guess this is opening up some sore spots. I want DH and the extended family to enjoy spending time with the kids and them being able to control their volume would really help.

Sorry, I failed to mention their ages! 8, 6, 3 and baby.

Oh this isn't really related to the stay home order, I just finally have the baby and toddler napping at the same time so I have some free time to be on here 🙂 They are outside a lot, we have a nice big yard and perfect neighborhood for biking, we have a playroom in the basement. I would just like to teach them where is appropriate to be loud and crazy and where is not as well as how to teach them to be respectful of others when people are trying to talk.

Has anyone successfully taught their children to use inside voices, not talk over each other, not make unneccessary noise when others are talking? Please share your wisdom! It doesn't bother me that much but hubs is working from home so I am more mindful of our volume and I know it overwhelms our families when they come over (and the kids are all the more excited).

Please, I am not here to debate if and when one should sleep train. We started gentle sleep training with our other babies at 2 months and after training them to sleep in their beds they wouldn't sleep anywhere else, maybe in the car briefly. This one is 5 weeks and currently takes most naps in the ergo (because I love it!!) but sleeps in her bed at night (I still rock her to sleep). Is it possible to train them to nap in their beds at home but retain the ability to nap in the ergo when we are out? Anyone purposely wear the baby for some naps at home so he/she will be able to sleep on you away from home?

Haha thanks, it is an exciting time! As long as I don't have to bend over I'm good!

I am looking for recommendations for things to read (or watch) while I wait out these last 3 weeks, birth stories etc. It's my 4th so I've been through the educational stuff before but I can always learn something new! Mostly I'm just looking for inspiration 🙂

I am due with in 3 weeks and despite previously nursing 3 babies for 2 years each I have yet to find any nursing bras I really like. Most are so thin and floppy I might as well not wear one, definitely not appropriate for wearing out of the house. I have never really been a fan of the natural look, I want good support and shaping, but at this point in life the rest of the world would appreciate that too :) I expect to be a 34D+ for a few weeks, 32D/34C for a few months then sadly dwindle from there. Now on to nursing tanks...the built in bras don't have enough support or shaping to my liking so I was wondering if there is a nursing tank without a bra? I just want to be able to wear it under something and unclip the strap so I can nurse without exposing my midriff. When in mixed company I use a cover but I don't want my back/sides showing.

I teach a class at the local university and do most of my work from home. The spring semester will start when #4 is about 7 weeks old and I am interested in having a mother's helper come to help with the older kids (3, 5 and 7) for a couple hours a week while I grade papers from home. I will keep the baby with me. What is reasonable pay and expectations? There is a homeschooled 12 yr old I have in mind to ask. I would want her to take them outside, play board games/puzzles, read, maybe get them a snack and have them pick up whatever messes they make.

With previous babies I stocked the freezer with meals but haven't found many that came out great. Out of meals that were fully cooked already the chili, meat sauce, and pulled chicken were good. Anything with pasta, potatoes, or rice got a little weird. I tried a bunch of those bags that you freeze and can just dump into the crockpot and none of them came out good. I don't know if I did something wrong but the vegetables got all rubbery. I don't plan on trying that method again. We are expecting #4 in 1 month so I really need to get going on my prep but my previous efforts were kind of disappointing. To further complicate matters, my husband has had ongoing health issues and his doctor now has him on a paleo/whole 30 diet. This is pretty new so I am still building up my repertoire of meals and most are salads. Anyone have ideas for freezable options? The budget is pretty tight so cheap is good! Thank you!

What do your afternoons look like? DH has always gotten home right in time for dinner (on the later side) and maybe 15-30 min of reading/playing with the kids before it's time to get ready for bed. I would love to be able to escape to exercise if he were home early. Since we outgrew the double stroller I have been exercising early mornings or during naptime but neither option is really appealing with a baby and homeschooling.

Wow that sounds really rough. Glad you found a plan B that worked for you!

No, we all know what you mean! As much as we love DH, it throws off everyone's routine to have him home. You would think we could get more done but it's quite the opposite! Being able to sleep in would be the biggest help. I doubt I will actually be able to sleep due to the noise. With our last baby I had the AC on and wore ear plugs and still had a hard time sleeping when the kids were up. Even if I can't sleep it will be nice to sit and nurse without having to get up to help a toddler in the bathroom or discipline.

We are expecting #4 in about 6 weeks and my husband gets 2 weeks (or 80 hrs) of paternity leave. I am psyched because he did not get any with the other kids. How would you use those 80 hrs? All at once, half days, long weekends? And what would you do about school? My older two are in 2nd and K so it's not like school is that intense but I think keeping the routine will be helpful. I think prepping him with take a lot more time than I currently spend prepping because he is jumping in not knowing where we have been. Also, he has a hard time with crowd control so I'm wondering if I should just work one on one with each kid while nursing or whatever and he can keep the other two busy and handle the food prep, dishes, laundry etc.

Wow, thank you! I suspect maybe dyslexia. She is still writing letters and numbers backwards, confuses b and d when reading and reads words backwards (reads "saw" as "was"). Her handwriting is poor. Last year she was out sick a few days and her class made her cards and I was floored by the amazing handwriting from all her classmates. I could actually read what the other kids wrote! Between the poor handwriting, backwards letters and lack of spacing between words I usually cannot read her writing. She is behind grade level for reading. Spelling was an absolute nightmare at school last year, she regularly scored in the 30s-50s and there were lots of tears during our practice times. We have not started it yet this year. She does well in math and is very bright with regards to remembering science concepts etc. We do school in the dining room which is open with the kitchen. She might just get up from the table if something else in the room catches her eye, or lean over the table to give her brother some unwanted input on his work, or wander off to another room. I think she just gets bored. She doesn't get up and leave in the middle of a craft, just things like math or phonics. I don't think this was an issue at school but she may not feel like homeschooling is a group activity in the same sense. She isn't leaving when she is frustrated or upset. She might notice her nails are long and goes to trim them or sees the cat walk by and goes to pet her. I am happy to give her as many breaks as needed if she asks, but I would require her to finish the problem she is on. She has always had a very short attention span, wouldn't sit and play with toys for any length of time, is very curious, touches everything. She is the child that would sneak into the bathroom and make messes with toothpaste and toilet paper when she was supposed to be napping or play in the toilet while I was nursing the baby. I joke that I could leave the other kids home alone at any age and they wouldn't get into any trouble but I can't leave her unsupervised for a second. Now, she has made a lot of progress as she has gotten older but still needs a lot closer supervision than the other kids. She still doesn't play with toys much but she will sit and look at books or listen to audiobooks for rest time. Getting the cat last year has been great for her, this is the first time she has ever voluntarily played by herself at all. She will sometimes do weird things like dress the cat up or try to cut her fur but overall she gets into mischief less. She does well socially. She has friends, seems to fit in, and plays well with other kids. The freaking out about her math worksheet being too hard/too long is just drama. She doesn't build up to it, there are no real tears and she can snap out of it. Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments and recommendations. I will look into the resources you suggested and check with my local homeschool group for recommendations on where to have her evaluated.

There is some "life" happening, like messes or behavior issues, and I'm in my third trimester so I see the midwife and chiropractor frequently but try to schedule appointments for times we would be taking a break anyway. But really it's just that my 2nd grader takes a long time to get through anything (you may have seen my other post about helping her stay focused). I feel confident in my ability to teach K without curriculum, more based on life and games. I know the basic math skills and reading that he needs to master. With my 2nd grader I feel much more dependent upon the curriculum because it's my first time through and I have not been prepping far ahead. Perhaps getting a better understanding of what major skills she needs to learn by the end of the year will help me break away from worksheets a bit or at least not feel compelled to have her complete every problem.

Wow. Ok I am trying not to get overwhelmed! I think we are taking too long on each subject but I feel like my 2nd grader is only productive for, at best, 50% of that time. She takes about an hour to do math and phonics with a short break in between. Science can take over an hour if we are doing an experiment or project/craft to go along with the topic. Some days we just read a book about the topic or watch a short youtube clip but I like to have them write/draw in their lab notebooks as well. Science is my favorite subject, the kids love it and it is easy for my little one to tag along so at the beginning I was favoring science at the expense of other subjects. I have had to back off to make sure we prioritize the 3Rs but I want to get back to doing a bit more. We typically spend about 1-1.5 hrs in the morning on school, 20-40 min when the little one is napping, and 20-40 min after rest time on formal school.

What I call phonics is their phonics worksheets or instruction from me. My 2nd grader is reading to me from the My Father's World Bible Reader. Sometimes we have to stop and review a rule but mostly she just reads right through. She tolerates about 5-10 min. My K-er is doing the alphabetti books (progressive phonics) where the child reads a few words and the adult reads the rest. This does involve a lot of stopping to sound out words. He does 10-20 min and would happily do more. My 2nd grader loves the series so she sits with us and follows along, usually whispering the words along with us so that makes me feel better about how little she does.

Right now the only subjects we consistently do every day are Bible, math and reading. We do phonics 2-3 times a week, handwriting 2x a week, and writing/journaling 1-2x. For whatever science topic we are currently learning about we do an experiment, craft/project, book, video, or activity of some sort a couple days a week. I had hoped to work on it every day. We don't do any formal history or geography, some happens via readalouds. I do have curriculum for art and music but we never get to it. DD practices her instrument every day and we do the occasional craft, usually to go along with our science topic. We do a lot of readalouds and they listen to audiobooks during rest time. I had planned to do phonics every day, some kind of writing every day and work on our science topic every day but it seems I am way off! Are we doing enough? Have I prioritized the right subjects?

I would say yes. She has a hard time sitting still. She always gets up out of her seat for no reason in the middle of dinner and school. We do make sure to get outside or otherwise get a lot of exercise and that helps everyone.

She probably does have some sort of LD but we have not really looked into it. She was at private school and they weren't into testing/labeling and it has not been so severe that I have sought out testing. She loves gum but we rarely let her have it and also loves doing things with music on. I can't even read if there is music on so it baffles me that it could help someone who is already distracted but you are not the first one to tell me that! I have felt the same about fidget toys etc. I can see her loving it, she is always grabbing at anything in reach to play with while I teach. I have always discouraged that because it seems like yet another distraction but maybe that is the secret!

We do some Mammoth Math (with similar issues) and have Abeka sitting on the shelf. I do really like the deeper thinking required by Beast so I think it is worth using even if it is more teacher-intensive but I can give the Abeka a try. I do suspect she has ADD or .....something? I have not really looked into different LD much but since toddlerhood I have known she was different. She has always had a very short attention span compared to her peers and siblings and really struggles to play independently. She has never been one to play with toys for any length of time and is very prone to mischief. She starts hyperventilating and wailing "I can't, I can't, I can't" then when we do it together she has no trouble. I will talk to her about it at another time of day to see if she can explain her response. Thanks!