The first bolded statement: I can only think of a few teachers in twenty or so years of public education in multiple U.S. states that were actually enthusiastic and passionate about their subject that made any measurable impact on my education. I am/was (it's complicated) extremely passionate about music and band in particular when I was younger. I played the flute and piccolo and dabbled in other instruments. Even though I was enthusiastic and passionate about the flute, I know that I positively suck at teaching music, teaching others to play an instrument in particular. I've tried to teach or tutor the flute and I'm just not very good at it. I'm great at teaching lots of other things but one of the things that I am most passionate and enthusiastic about, I just lack the... ummmm... normal student experience I guess?... to understand how to relate to a beginning student or even an intermediate or advanced student looking to improve their performance. I've tried to learn how to be a better music teacher but it is just not something I'm good at and I accept it. I delegate the role of teaching my kids to play instruments, even my daughter who wanted to play the flute, to other people who are better able to help them. An enthusiastic and passionate teacher does not guarantee a good experience. The second bolded statement: I don't find teens to be good sources of reliable opinions. Sure, there are kids (teens are still very much kids) who are correct in their assessment of their education but I wouldn't take a teenagers opinion to the bank on much of anything, much less parenting decisions. They are still young and lack life experience to see things from another's point of view sometimes. It is common for teens to think that their parents had it all wrong and everything would have been better if things had been done their way. It is equally as common for many of those same teens to come back years or even decades later, when they have more life experience, and say, "Hey you know what, maybe my parents weren't so wrong about everything after all." I absolutely agree that there are teens out there who would have been much better served in even a mediocre public school than a half-hearted homeschool from a parent who either cannot or will not pull it together to provide at least a bare minimum GED prep class. But I would not take a teen's word for it. I would need more evidence before I could make any sort of determination on their individual experience much less blanket assumptions about anything as a whole.

I'm glad it went well and the sped teacher was there with you. It sounds like the teacher really was just naive. I hope your daughter can bounce back from this experience and keep trying her personal best at her schoolwork without fear of surprise public critique of her work.

That is part of the IEP manager's job, to take notes of what is discussed and get everyone who attended the meeting to sign that they agree with the meeting notes. But for sure if the IEP manager is not doing his/her job or doesn't think this issue requires a formal meeting, make sure you fill in and take notes and get everyone in attendance to sign your notes and have them added to the IEP file as well. And definitely do not meet with this teacher one-on-one by yourself and ask to re-schedule if that is not possible today. The IEP manager would be ideal but the principal or your husband would do as well. If this woman finds it ok to humiliate your daughter "anonymously" in front of her peers, I don't want to know what she might say to an adult behind closed doors without witnesses. Maybe I am just cynical or maybe this teacher is just shockingly naive and didn't realize how devastating it could be to a child, never mind a learning disabled child, to realize it is their work that is being picked apart by her peers but you never can be sure which it could be if you've never had an issue with this teacher before. Better safe than sorry.

Dh and I are both of the same mind as the bolded. It is one thing to say, so and so has messy handwriting or joke that they will grow up to be a doctor some day with that kind of handwriting. It is completely a whole 'nother ball of wax to publicly critique the handwriting of a child with a documented learning disability that affects their handwriting.

Definitely not overkill. I think what you did is perfect! Write out everything, all your points. Make several copies to bring with you and give copies to everyone so that they can all be addressed. Ask that it be put in the IEP file for documentation of the incident. I know it is hard but you are absolutely in the right in the situation and the teacher is in the wrong. Be confident and don't worry if the teacher or anyone else thinks you are over reacting. I promise, you are not overreacting and your daughter absolutely deserves an apology from the teacher at the very least! *hugs*

Omg, as a parent with kids who had IEPs in the past, I would be beyond livid. There would be emails going out to everyone from the teacher up to the district level and maybe even the state! You absolutely need a paper trail and documentation when there is an IEP. I may even have my child write or record her account of things to bring to the IEP meeting that I would be calling immediately. I find the teaching practice of using current student examples uncooth to begin with but to do it to a current student with an IEP?!? Oh heads would be rolling! I am angry on your behalf, OP! This child likely cannot help what was being criticized on her work because of her learning disability! That is the whole reason she has the IEP in the first place! I would insist that at the next in-service (and I would suggest that one be called immediately) that this teacher's teaching practices be critiqued by all the teachers in the building with her present. Not just this one incident, all of her teaching practices, no holds barred. Ok, maybe that's a little too "eye for an eye" just because this makes me angry and it wasn't even my kid, but I know what it is like to have a kid with an IEP. The only problem that I ever had to escalate was a teacher/coach (district rules that the coach also has to teach something so he was given a science class to teach, sigh) that didn't understand that ds's IEP applied to his class as well, regardless of whether or not he, as the teacher, personally thought he needed the help and extra supports. I talked to him once and then gave the emails back and forth to the principal and IEP team. It was never a problem after that to get him to provide the needed supports for ds. Dh says make sure the local news knows about it too... not sure I would go that far but I would certainly have that in my back pocket if the school tried to sweep things under the rug.

When we lived near Aldi's, I would buy what I could there and pickup what I could not get there at Walmart. We only get to go to Aldi's now when we go to one of the bigger towns 90 minutes away . I usually get canned vegetables, sugar (regular, powdered and brown), flour, vanilla if they have it, baking items if it is around the holidays. Dh and the kids will all eat Aldi's snacks and cereal without complaint. Love their almond milk and regular milk is always cheaper than anywhere else. Cottage cheese and sour cream. Their shredded cheeses freeze really well. Oh, dh loves when I get him a container of pistachios or cashews and they are always cheaper at Aldis. Jasmine rice like someone mentioned. Macaroni noodles and lasagna noodles. We used to love their boxed mac and cheese but they changed the recipe and now it is just gross. Their parmesan chicken strips though are divine on a bed of spaghetti noodles and topped with spaghetti sauce and Italian blend cheese for a quick and easy chicken parmesan. We used to get spices like garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, paprika, oregano, basil and chili powder but the Aldis near us stopped carrying the larger 5-ish oz bottles of spices for $1 when they remodeled. Now they only sell 1 - 2 oz bottles for a $1. I'm looking into growing my own herbs and telling dh every chance I get how nice it would be to have a really nice dehydrator and spice grinder. lol Speaking of kitchen tools, I got my digital kitchen thermometer, digital kitchen scale and a set of metal mesh strainers from Aldis on one of their special buys. Love and use those daily for 3 or 4 years now (I know I bought them when we still lived near Aldis but I don't remember exactly when) and they all work great.

I was going to suggest the bolded. My husband and I do a lot of woodworking projects and we like the brand called Plastic Wood. You can find it at Walmart, Home Depot or Lowes. Other places probably have it too but those are the places that I have gotten it from. Over fill the screw holes slightly and let it dry completely (24 hours should do it but 48 if you want to be absolutely sure). Rather than sand it down (and possibly scratch the surface around the hole), rub the excess filler away with a wrung out rag or wash cloth until it is flush with the surface. Let it dry again (an hour or so should do it this time if it was completely dry before you rubbed it down flush) and then predrill your holes with a bit slightly smaller than the diameter of your screws. Then screw then hinges on. It sounds like a lot of work but it is a lot of waiting for it to dry more than anything. I've fixed quite a few stripped screw holes this way. You can also do a combination of the toothpicks and the wood filler. Fill the holes with toothpicks and then fill the remaining gaps with woodfiller. You will need to sand instead of just rubbing away the excess filler (more mess and possibility of scratching the cabinet face) but especially larger holes to better with wood and filler rather than just wood alone. Both techniques work as long as you use a good quality filler (NOT Elmer's!!!) and you aren't overly rough on the doors (no little kids who are still learning that cabinet doors are not climbing equipment), it works fine and holds for a reasonably long time. If you want even more strength, get longer screws and a fresh piece of wood on the inside of the cabinet for the longer screw to bite into. These are all just temporary fixes though. You will need to eventually replace the cabinet faces or the entire cabinet.

Perhaps outsourced classes are not the right fit for him to get more social connections if they are causing him to have to pare down his academics that much. Maybe something more social focused like a club of some kind that interests him or sports or something else would get him the social time he craves without sacrificing academics. Two hours a day for each of three subjects for a 12 year old sounds like either the instruction is above his level or he's wasting a lot of time. My 12 year olds were allow to waste all of their time they wanted but they were not allowed to waste my time. The school day went on as planned and they had to do any work they didn't finish as homework in the evening or on the weekends. It's amazing how much less dwadling there is when it is their free time that they are wasting and the amount of work is not reduced because of their dwadling. Now if he has learning issues that truly affect the amount of work he is able to complete in a timely matter, that is a whole 'nother topic. But I also wouldn't outsource classes for that child unless the teacher is trained and able to work with children with learning disabilities. I also wonder if some of the classes that he isn't getting to are truly necessary. Does he really need spelling or grammar? I cover those things in the context of their writing for other courses by 7th grade. Unless he is woefully behind in those areas or never studied any grammar or spelling, I would question my motives for giving extra time for those subjects in 7th grade. Does he need typing? My teenagers could type faster than me without ever having had a formal typing course. I don't care how they type honestly as long as they are reasonably fast (no hunt and peck) and able to proof read and correct their own typing. What are you calling "computers"? I took computers in school in the late 80s and early 90s but computers are so ubiquitous now and most kids can and have been using them since they were preschoolers usually. I don't see a computers course being terribly relevant to kids who have never known life without them. Unless he is doing coding or something but there again, if he is having so much trouble keeping up with core courses, perhaps that needs to be a hobby or side interest that he pursues on his own time for now. Every child and every homeschool is different but if each subject is taking a neurotypical 12yo two hours a day, I would say something is definitely out of balance.

Thrift stores also have sheets and blankets that can be cut up for fabric. Even thrift store shirts and such can be deconstructed for fabric and be a cheap source of small fabric pieces for quilting or doll clothes sewing. When I need to make dog toys or beds or things for small animal cages, I grab the $2 fleece blankets at walmart. It works well and I don't care if it gets chewed up or shredded, I can always make another on the cheap. I have rat hammocks that long out lived our rats that were made from cheap fleece blankets from walmart.

Any sort of leftover that is good to eat cold. Pizza is a favorite but pasta meals and casseroles can be good cold too. Crock pot meals that can be taken along in the crock pot so it is still warm when it is time to eat. I can't remember where I saw this but one mom would cook hot dogs coins and chili in the crockpot and bring it to her kids' baseball games. Open a snack size bag of corn chips, ladle in some chili and hot dogs and put a little cheese on top and you have fritos chili pie in a bag. Not the healthiest but fun change of pace every now and then. I'm sure there are lots of other variations on this idea as well. Maybe beef stew or chicken pot pie filling in the crockpot and serve it over a biscuit in a bowl? The traditional sack lunch was always a favorite with my kids too because they weren't eating it every day for lunch. It is quick and easy for them to throw their own together if you take a little time to set up some choices. I can go more into detail if you want but it is nothing mind blowing or anything. Just setting up a system so they can make their own bagged lunch/dinner before they head out the door. Bento boxes are just another take on sack lunches and goes well with the suggestion above of just having "bunch of stuff on a plate". Some grocery stores sell premade bento boxes near the deli if you are really in a hurry.

I'm not sure where you are located but American military installations overseas usually have large homeschooling communities. We had both active military members and ex-pats in the ones I was a part of. That could be one way to get involved with some co-ops and meet with other families who are also trying to create a rich learning experience while living overseas. Another possibility is to find an international school that might have some leads on either former members who now homeschool in the area or possible culture events they might let you participate in. That option would just depend on the international schools willingness to let homeschoolers participate part time. Again, not knowing where you are located, is it possible that there are missionaries in your area that might homeschool or know about homeschoolers in the area? Is there an ex-pat community or an American Legion? Just another some other avenues to possibly explore for leads to find some other families that you might not otherwise find out about. Honestly, the most fun we had while living overseas was just getting out and mingling with others, whether they homeschooled or not. That was how we found the most interesting people and invitations to cultural experiences that we might not otherwise have gotten. It didn't matter that they were not homeschoolers. We met people young and old who loved sharing their culture with us because we showed an interest and shared our own culture with them as well when they were interested in our culture. We didn't always have great experiences. Sometimes, we just enjoyed being out and seeing things rather than talking to people and that was fine too. For example, at one point we lived literally on the beach. My kids remember exploring the tide pools during low tide and finding all kinds of fish, plants and animals that they might otherwise only see in books. The fact that it was a Japanese beach was irrelevant. They got to experience wading through tide pools and that too is a great experience. What kind of experiences can you find in your area that you might not be able to experience elsewhere even if it doesn't involve people or culture? I remember worrying too when I was homeschooling my kids overseas. The local host country schools would not accept military children usually but we had DODD schools available to us. They had culture lessons and guest speakers all the time. Was I robbing them of an experience by homeschooling them? In hindsight, I can honestly say that no, I don't think I did. The DODD schools might have brought bites of culture to the classroom but we were out experiencing the culture and people too. We learned how to communicate and make friends with people when we don't speak the same language. We learned and practiced how to be courteous and respectful of the local people when we are guests in their country. We got to see how they really live, work and play and share in some of it. In hindsight, I can say I think they got a much richer experience than the kids who had disjointed bites of culture brought to them. And they remember so much about it, more than I even realized they remembered now that they are grown. You know what they don't remember? They don't remember going to the homeschool Lego club at the base library. They don't remember that our trip to the castle ruins was with a boy scout troop. They don't remember the homeschool easter egg hunt we went to or the end of the homeschool year parties that we went to. They do remember playing basketball in the rain with some of our Japanese friends. They do remember asking other kids at the park how to say this or that in Japanese even though their Japanese was limited and the children they were asking only spoke limited English. They remember talking to the cashiers in the stores we went to and how impressed they were with how much Japanese they could speak and the culture details they were aware of. They did not have a "typical" homeschool experience but the experience they did get wasn't lacking in any way. It was just different and quite unique.

I don't have LOE in front of me right now but I want to say that somewhere it says the sounds you can sustain when singing and "a vowel is a sound you can sing" is just a shortened version of that. Think like singing warm up exercises like "May, Mee, My, Moe, Moo" or just singing scales with the simple "ah" sound. In both of those you sustain the vowel sounds while singing. You could "sing" the scale with an m or n sound but you would be humming really, not singing. If you pronounce the sound of m as "muh" and the sound of t as "tuh", yes you can sustain them but you are sustaining the "uh" sound which technically belongs to the letter u (or the schwa depending on how you teach). If you have taught Spalding though, I'm sure you know all about being precise and not tagging "uh" on the end of consonant sounds. I think LOE could be a good choice for your situation and you could skip the singing vowels part if it really bothers you. There are other ways to identify vowels and LOE is flexible enough for you to just do that part how you want. LOE recently put out a new book of games that includes instructions for the games in the lessons and I think it has some additional games. If you just want the fun game component, that could also be an option for you.

Just for a reference point, I have 5 kids who are past 3rd grade. One, maybe two of them could have done that problem in third grade without much hand holding and they are have problem solver personalities (i.e. lots of patience to get it wrong a lot before they get it right) and are fairly math inclined. I wouldn't consider the hand holding Lori D. described as out of the ordinary for an average third grader, but for one with possible learning disabilities that could interfere with their ability to think it through, I think it is absolutely appropriate. Practicing those types of problems, with lots of help learning strategies for solving those kinds of problems, would be a good thing to try but I don't think it is too far outside the realm of normal for a third grader to need that kind of help learning how to setup their strategy for those problems.

I think the parenthetical is a broad generalization. Not all kids understand simple counting by ones very well when they enter kindergarten or even first grade, even if they can count by rote well beyond 10. I think pretty much all your students have had an advantage of environment, intelligence or both. I can't remember where I first saw this example but it was talking about math remediation for young kids and it discussed asking a 5yo or so girl who struggled with math concepts to identify which set of circles had more. She had two sets of paper circles about the size of quarters in front of her. The top line had 5 paper circles all lined up touching edge to edge. The bottom line of circles were spaced out with about a 1/2 inch between them so that even though it only had 4 circles, the line of paper circles seemed longer than the top line of circles because of the spacing. The 5yo girl identified the bottom line as having more. When asked why, she said because it was longer than the top row. I have seen many children come to that conclusion or similar conclusions. They may be smart kids but just weren't taught the concept of counting and numbers in a way that made sense to them so they made their own, albeit faulty, conclusions. If you are lucky, it just takes a couple of remediation sessions to get them on the right track. Worst case scenario, you discover after several sessions that the child's math issues run much deeper than a simple misconception and you need to start looking into possible learning disabilities. Like I said, I had college students (yes plural and many of them education majors *facepalm*) who could not come to that conclusion on their own. They could rattle off several different ways of thinking about multiplication and could do simple to semi-complex (at least middle school level) multiplication problems that "didn't involve any letters" (their words for variables) without problem. But they either would not or could not synthesize that information into a new application such as how does multiplication help you tell time. Is it inflexible thinking? Is it lazyness? Is it a failure of true understanding? Is it stage fright from mathphobia? Well, yes on the surface it appears that it could be any or all those things. But it just goes to show you cannot make any assumptions about what a student can or cannot derive from your instruction. The answer is not to spoon feed them or treat them as intellectually inferior (think Sheldon Cooper trying to teach first grade math to a bunch of average first graders), you just cannot assume that anything will become clear to all students just because you taught the basic concept that underlies the usage situation. Some kids just do not make conceptual leaps like that even if they are bright kids overall. And there will always be kids that need explicit instruction for every little thing because assuming they will be able to apply anything they have learned outside of what you have explicitly taught is folly. I absolutely agree. Many kids can multiply long before you call it multiplication. But that doesn't mean that they all can. Some kids really do need literally years of exposure to a topic before they can really internalize it. I tried introducing the idea of multiplication to my bright mathy ds about this time last year. He could tell you that if you had 2 cookies on each plate and you had 3 plates then you have 6 cookies. It certainly sounded like he was ready for the next step up from addition. But he wasn't. He didn't get it when I explained about repeated addition being another operation called multiplication we could play around with. So I waited and tried again this year. He now thinks much more abstractly. He doesn't need the cookies and plates anymore to see the relationship. He can say with ease, "well I need 9 things because three 3s is 9" and other such things. He needed a little more time to cook the idea in his head before he was ready to grapple with the idea of multiplication. I also agree that the wording "a copies of b" is a pretty abstract idea for early elementary kids. Even if you show it to them as plates of cookies or math blocks, there are going to be more than a few kids with the deer in the headlights look. And there is no guarantee whatsoever that any of them can take that idea and synthesis it for use in new situations even if they understood the concept and could apply it during your instruction. Square_25's dd is a very abstract thinker and able to synthesize information effortlessly it seems, which is great for her, but she is no where near the norm for an elementary school child. She is quite lucky that she can be homeschooled because I doubt even gifted programs could keep her challenged and not bored just from some of the examples of her explanations of concepts that have been given. To be clear, I don't think that skip counting is a vital, "not-to-be-missed" part of early elementary math education. It is a tool that has many possible uses but it is not the ultimate or only way to teach the essential topics of early math education. But I definitely think that for some kids, it can be the key that gives them the "aha!" moment of understanding for some topics which is why so many math programs include skip counting exercises. I absolutely agree with you @square_25 that rote memorization of skip counting number series' does children just about as much good as memorizing their phone number to learn how to subtract. If the skill of skip counting is learned in isolation of other math skills, it is just pointless memorizing that hopes the child can draw the connections themselves correctly. And as I said above, you just cannot count on all children or even adults to make those connections correctly every time.

Just saying, I really don't think waiting to teach telling time until after they have learned multiplication is a very common approach. Skip counting by fives isn't hard for most kindergartners and one of the most practical applications for counting by 5s is telling time (with the other being counting coins) but not all kindergartners are ready to wrap their heads around the concept of multiplication in my experience. Some average to advanced kindergartners could probably understand multiplication as repeated addition but almost every kindergartner I've come across could understand skip counting by 5s without problem even if they don't quite understand yet that it is more or less the same thing as repeated addition. Not all kids, even ones who know how to multiply at any age, could connect the dots and realize that they could multiply the number on the clock by 5 to figure out the minutes. I would say most kids at the very least would need to be lead to that conclusion, if not explicitly told. I've tutored college students who sadly could not have come to the same conclusion your daughter did on their own. Your daughter is very bright and math intuitive just based on what you have posted about her around here. Not all students have that advantage in their back pocket.

Same here. I have never and will never give timed math drills. I will say that my mathy kids liked timing themselves and then try to beat their own time but I've never given my kids say 2 minutes to try and finish a certain number of problems. I'm more concerned with accuracy than speed. In my opinion, speed will come with practice and speed should not compromise accuracy. I would rather my cpa or banker be slow and accurate rather than fast but prone to mistakes, kwim? Of course, if they are fast and accurate, I would assume they have a lot of experience and that is great but if I have to choose fast or accurate, I will always choose the latter. On the topic of skip counting, I think it depends on your goals for skip counting and how you are implementing it. If you are just memorizing a rote series of numbers or songs, I don't see much use in it. We learn to skip count to see the patterns. We look at a number line or hundreds chart and notice the patterns such as how counting by fours is every other number counted by twos and 5s and 10s are the same way. We see that every number counted by twos ends in an even numbers. We look to see what numbers coincide like how if you count by any even number between 0 and 10, they all eventually land together on 120. We look at how skip counting, multiplication and division are related. If you are just memorizing a song or a series of numbers by rote, it could be helpful I guess but if you aren't looking at the patterns and the how and why skip counting works like it does, it's just another piece of memory work, in my opinion. You aren't using the skill of skip counting to its full potential. My youngest son is actually working on skip counting relationships right now. He's 7 and in first grade this year but he works at a late second grade level in math. We are just starting to take on multiplication so skip counting is a good way to ease into it. He loves seeing how many skip counts it takes to get to X number or whether you can even get to that number by skip counting (i.e. can you skip count by 5s and get to 88?). I haven't made him memorize the skip counts but he can skip count by any number as high as he wants to go because we look at the pattern each different skip count takes and he can extend that pattern out indefinitely. We've gone up into the thousands just skip counting for fun on long car rides. We each take turns counting up by whatever number we choose. So I would say "2", ds would say "4", dh would say "6" I would say "8" ds would say "10"etc and we just keep going to see how high we can go or how long it takes us to get to a certain number like 800 or something like that. It passes the time and works his math and logical thinking skills.

Just from my personal experience, and I really don't want to go too deep into it honestly because my divorce and the aftermath is still a trigger topic for me, but I was allowed to continue homeschooling through the divorce process because it was the status quo while we were married. Ex tried to fight it but the judge ruled against him saying that if they had been homeschooled all these years than a few more months to the end of the school year wouldn't hurt them since he wasn't claiming I was abusive toward the children. Of course, that just gave him the idea to start making up all kinds of stuff about me abusing the children in future allegations against me but I'm sure he would have thought of it eventually on his own anyways. So, she may not have to prove anything at this point. Just saying that homeschooling has been the status quo for x number of years during the marriage and that she wants to continue until the end of this school year rather than change one more thing about the children's lives during what is already a difficult time for them may be enough to convince the judge to allow it without question or any sort of proof needed. Definitely have any proof you can gather in your back pocket just in case but I would start off with just asking not to have to make anymore changes to the children's lives at this time. It can work, it did for me. If she is considering putting them in public school at some point anyways, she might check and see what sort of services would be available to the younger child for learning disabilities. It shows that she absolutely cares about their education and is taking steps towards getting the child the help they may need but also it might cut down on the wait time for services next year if they have already evaluated the child this year and determined that he qualifies. Of course if she really doesn't want to send them to ps then I would document, document, document that her stbx stopped paying for educational services that the child needs. Now that I think about it, document the not paying for therapy no matter which way you want to go.

Kathy Troxel - Audio Memory Geography songs Apple Music Store Google Play Music I had completely forgotten about those until @annegables mentioned them. They do come as downloadable mp3s.

When I'm not around many English speakers, like when I was teaching English overseas, I was told repeatedly that my English had no real accent to it. It was very plain and very understandable to those who were trying to learn how to understand native speakers. And thanks to the Spalding I had as a kid, I could easily describe to non-native speakers how to position their mouth and tongue to elicit sounds that were difficult for them. Many of the students I taught said that it was really helpful that I could describe to them how to make the sound successfully. I believe that some of them may have described my speech as neutral English or a neutral accent. *shrug* I do tend to pick up accents where ever I go too. It is not intentional and I'm not usually not aware of the fact that I am doing it. Right now, I have a bit of a southern accent but those who have lived here all their lives say they can tell I'm not from here because I don't have an accent like them and my friends that knew me before I lived here tease that I've picked up a southern accent. The ultimate compliment that I think I have ever gotten was from a Japanese friend when we were living in Japan. I often asked her or her husband when I needed help with learning and understanding Japanese. I were having dinner with them one night not long before we left Japan so I had lived there for almost 5 years by then and the friend told me my Japanese had gotten so good that she wouldn't have guess I was American anymore if she wasn't looking at me. I asked her why, what had changed and she said I didn't speak "Japanese with an American accent" and that my pronunciation was very clean and that is was good when we met but still had very much improved over the years. Arigatou waga tomoyo!

I actually got this comment quite a bit when we traveled abroad. I don't have any real accent and I always look up local cultures and customs of anywhere I travel before we go and if it isn't an English speaking country, I try to learn as much of the language as I can so I'm not always having to say "Do you speak English?". The last thing I ever I want to be is a stereo-typical American tourist when visiting another country. I remember when I was about 10 or 11, I was watching some TV show with my dad and one of the characters made some sort of comment about being American and thinking that they should be treated differently (i.e. better) or given special privilege because of it. I remember saying to my dad that I hated that so many Americans acted like that and that it was silly to expect to be treated differently based on your nationality when you are basically a guest in a foreign country. That sent my dad off into a tirade about how I must have learned that attitude at school (umm, no it was my own opinion that I formed myself, thanks) and how America is falling to pieces because the schools are anti-American patriotism, blah, blah, blah... I had never traveled abroad yet at that age but I really wanted to. I was an adult before I got the opportunity and I positively love experiencing the cultures and traditions of other countries. I especially love getting away from the tourist areas and getting to see what the country and culture is really like, iykwim.

I don't know if you are still looking but we really like the Scratch Garden videos on Youtube. Lots of different topics, catchy songs. "Salamander is not a Number" is just part of our family culture now. I like the skip counting videos they put out too because they aren't all stilted rhymes or raps. It is just skip counting to a steady beat. That's just what I prefer, ymmv. The Water Cycle video is one I hear ds(7) singing while he's playing.

As long as he is using complete sentences, age appropriate grammar and mechanics and not using any "text speak" or local colloquialisms like "ya'll" or "you guys", I would just be happy that he is putting words on paper at 9 years old. He still has nearly a decade to work on his tone and voice. Use small bites to work on polishing his writing over the next 9 to 10 years and he will develop that more formal tone in his academic work. It is not something I would expect at all from a 9 year old though. Willingly putting pencil to paper and expressing coherent thoughts and ideas in a neat and orderly fashion is praise worthy at age 9.

We rarely eat traditional breakfast foods. Leftovers from dinner the night before are great for breakfast. Typical lunch sandwiches (tuna, lunchmeat, Pb&J etc.) are all fair game for breakfast here. With food sensitivities and allergies, we had to let go of preconceived notions of what was "breakfast food" or "dinner food". Honestly, your stomach doesn't care so long as it isn't an allergy or food sensitivity food. Once we let go of the idea that certain foods were only appropriate for certain meals, the options opened up considerably. I honestly love leftover veggies from the previous evenings dinner for breakfast. Cauliflower rice with mixed veggies in actually sounds delicious right now for breakfast lol. You could add whatever bit of meat you wanted for protein.

We have a "no dogs on the furniture" rule at our house. When the dogs forget their manners, we put a box in the recliner they like to jump in when no body is sitting in it. We put something heavy enough in the box that they can't knock it out of the way but still light enough for us to move when someone wants to sit in the chair. After a week or two of the box in the chair they usually stop trying and ignore the chair again. Both of our dogs were shelter dogs/rescues so we did have to work for a long time to retrain them to the rules we wanted and break old habits. We've had one of them for about 5 years now and the other for about 3 years. We only have issues with them forgetting the rules very rarely now. If you don't have a box handy, a medium or large size moving box will work. They are less than $2 at Walmart or Home Depot.