I would have thought the same thing with my older kids as they were always around babies when they were young but when I read this I got to thinking my youngest son, who is 5 1/2yo, will be 6yo in January, might not know. He has only been around kids older than him, no babies in the family at the moment. He has never really been around babies. So I found two Youtube videos of babies crawling and walking that looked similar in size and weight so he wouldn't try to use height or weight as a guide. Asked him what each baby was doing and then after he watched both I asked him which baby was older and which was younger and he told me the crawling baby was older. I didn't tell him if he was right or wrong but I asked him to tell me why the crawling baby was older and he said because he was using his arms and legs and not just his legs. I can see his logic given that he does not have any actual experience with babies. He has never observed one for any amount of time or watched a sibling or cousin grow up so he really has no real life experience to draw from. Youngest children and onlies really may not know that most babies crawl before they walk. I know this is a bit of a tangent from your topic but I just wanted to share the results of my little experiment lol. It doesn't worry me that he didn't know and I wouldn't think to teach that to an elementary student, there are so many other things I think are more important during this time, but it really can be something that an elementary child doesn't know. I hope you find your workbook. Honestly, I would probably do a picture narration (child draws, I scribe, possibly have them label if they can write).

If anyone else missed the Mystery Science group buy earlier this year like I did, they are running it again until September 16th. It is $23 ($20 plus $3 handling fee) for access to all the lessons until June 2019. Mystery Science Group Buy

After going through 3 sets of headphones in a year, we got our son a set of Cozy Phones and they have really held up well. We have the corded kind but they do have wireless. They aren't noise canceling and don't have a microphone but these things still work like new even with a rambunctious 5yo using and abusing them. When he wears them out in public, at first people don't realize they are headphones then they want to know where we got them. Lol. He has the Paw Patrol ones but the have lots of designs and some just plain colored ones. We purchased them on Amazon but they have a website as well Http://www.cozyphones.com

While I do love Spalding and went to a Spalding elementary school back in the 80s and can spell very well because of it, I have to agree with 8FillsTheHeart. Spalding is helpful for lots of kids, but not all kids. It is not the be all, end all of phonics and spelling curriculum. Spalding still relies on the child memorizing which phonogram should be used in which word in many cases. Yes, they are told in spelling dictation which one to use and there are 29 spelling rules that help relieve a good portion of the ambiguity but there is no rule that tells a child that it is "fruit" and not "froot". They simply must remember which phonogram was dictated for that word but if they have not had that word dictated yet, they must guess and they may or may not get it right. It is not as if the word fruit is an uncommon word for a first grader or even a kindergartener to want or need to spell. While the word fruit may not technically be an exception, it does follow the rules, it also has to be memorized at least to the point of memorizing which phonogram to use. All of the words that 8FillsTheHeart listed break the "Use 'tch' after a single short vowel" It is such, not sutch; much not mutch, and so on. Again these are not obscure words, they are words that every young learners will come across everyday if they are reading or being read to from age appropriate literature. Spelling the word, which as witch is absolutely phonetically correct even according to Spalding rules, but it changes the meaning of the word completely. It simply has to be memorized the which is spelled with 2 letter /w/ and /ch/ /k /sh/ instead of 3 letter /ch/ even though the vowel is making its short sound. If the child hasn't had that word dictated yet, I would never in my wildest dreams expect them to get all that right. I love Spalding and its phonograms and rules. I have taught them to all my kids in one way or another. But I don't believe it is any sort of magic cure all of the spelling woes of all children. Not by a long shot. I imagine the child in question in this thread would be bore to tears and learn to hate spelling if she were forced to learn the Spalding way at this point. I imagine she already knows the rules even if she doesn't verbalize them they way Spalding does. She can see the patterns in English without them being explicitly layed out for her.

IMHO, if you wanted her to be bored to tears because you were teaching her what is obvious to her and drilling it into her head the way they do in institutional school, you could send her to institutional school. A Master's in education means your SIL knows how to teach the masses, not your child in particular. If your daughter can spell well (and it sounds like she does) and you are happy with her progress (and it sounds like you are) then take what your SIL says with a grain of salt. I assume you aren't telling her how to to do her job, when she has walked a mile in your shoes, teaching YOUR daughter in a one on one situation and not in a classroom, then she can have an opinion worth listening to. Does she need to be taught explicit spelling rules? Doesn't sound like it. It sounds like she has an innate grasp of them. Could she benefit from learning spelling rules? Maybe, maybe not. It might be helpful or it might bore her to tears or over complicate things that she already understands without being explicitly taught. If things are going smoothly, she's learning and making age-appropriate progress, why rock the boat? FTR, I am a proponent of teaching spelling rules, but I also know first hand there are kiddos who just don't need them to be able to spell well. They are able to figure out the rules on their own just by being exposed to words and there is nothing wrong with that. If she were struggling at all, I would say teach her some rules but it doesn't sound like she is at all.

Could you draw one with markers and a large piece of poster board? The scale does not have to be perfect. Just a close representation of the area and symbols for places you frequent would be fine for little ones. They could even help draw it. You might even consider leaving it unlaminated so you can have an ongoing project of adding places to the map. My five year old is doing maps right now as well. We read the book Mapping Penny's World by Loreen Leedy which he thoroughly enjoyed reading all the maps in the book and giving directions to find things. We are going to draw some of our own maps next week and I ordered him his own compass to experiment with.

I'm another one who typically scrapes the icing off and just eats the cake, lol. When dh's grandmother was in the hospital recently, we were given a gift certificate to eat at a nearby restaurant whose flagship menu item was purple vanilla milkshakes. Dh got one for dessert and said it was alright but the flavor seemed familiar but he couldn't identify it. I took a little taste and knew immeadiately what it was. It tasted like frosting with way too much food coloring in it. Yuck!

Did you keep your family in the loop when you and future dh were getting serious? No on first or second husband Did you tell them marriage was on the horizon prior to the official proposal with ring? Didn't have a ring for either marriage so I guess that is a no lol Did your dh keep his family in the loop? First dh, no. Second dh, yes he did. And do you think the couple is obligated to do so? No but if I was expecting a wedding with all the trimmings paid for by them my answer might be different Would you view the couple as dishonest if they kept their plans to themselves or only confided in one side of the family prior to the official engagement? No but I may as well have an advanced degree in toxic family relationships so I view things much differently than most people. As for my children, no I wouldn't feel they were dishonest but if they didn't tell me about the engagement, I would want to know why they didn't feel like they could talk to me.

When I was a work-study who had to close up the computer lab at night, I would call campus security to escort me to my car. I wasn't even a young adult at this point but a married, middle aged college student with her own kids. Security didn't mind doing this at all, in fact, they eventually just had someone waiting for me when the computer lab closed.

As a teenage lifeguard, I would have been bound by the pool's rules regarding safety infractions. The pools I worked at were more stringent on safety infractions (running around the pool, dunking people, relieving yourself in the pool) than annoyance infractions (splashing others, interfereing with lap swimmer in a safe but annoying way). Safety infractions got one warning and then the pool manager was called to ask the person (and their family if it is a child) to leave the pool. Annoyance infractions were "3 strikes" infractions so on the third strike they were asked to leave the pool. This mom could not handle her children at the pool and would have been asked to leave at the second safety infraction from her 9 year old at any pool I worked at as a teenager. I've been in that season of life before where I am out numbered by littles and there are certain normal childhood activities that I couldn't take my kids to because I couldn't parent effectively in that situation. It sucks but it is only a season. It will pass and we will reach a season where it is possible. It does sound as though this mom has given up on disciplining her child for whatever reason, whether it be because she's overwhelmed or chooses to be a permissive parent is neither here nor there. When her child's behavior directly encroaches on my or my child's safety, that's where I draw the line. I would have reprimanded the child myself for dunking my child, complained to the lifeguard (doen't sound like it is the case this time but sometimes a lifeguard really doesn't see an infraction and telling them allows them to keep a closer eye on the person) and if it continued, I would complain to the pool manager. If the pool manager recieves enough complaints on the same child, it should cause them to ask the family not to come back. Again, I'm sorry for the mom but her children are a safety risk and that cannot be tolerated at a pool. It is all too easy for an "accident" or "I was just playing" to turn into a life threatening event at a pool. If the pool manager is as lax with safety as the life guards seem to be, I probably wouldn't return to that pool. I might even complain to whatever entity maintains the pool (the city, parks and rec dept, YMCA...) or maybe write the local paper or something about safety concerns. Again, if enough people do it, it may change policies at the pool for the better for everyone.

LOL, I think your son handled that beautifully for what it's worth.

I get it. It is really annoying especially if you are used to having to be defensive about your stance on homeschooling because either family or the people in the area you live in in general always seem to disapprove. It will get easier to let it slide in time. Most people really are just trying to make small talk or are genuinely curious. It bugs me too though I despise small talk as a whole, not just small talk about where and when my kids go to school.

Well, it's true that school is suppose to be a bit of a challenge, she shouldn't be in tears everyday over everything but if it were all easy then she wouldn't be learning anything. Do you feel she is challenged but not overwhelmed? What specifically does she think is hard? Is there something that can be done to lighten her load a little without sacrificing stretching her mind a little at a time? Umm... honey, that's why we homeschool. There are some things about preteen culture that no child should have to be exposed to. I get that she feels left out but maybe it is time to have a heart to heart with her about middle school culture and what a true friend is. Discuss with her what is wrong with pop culture in your family's opinion, why you believe it is wrong and why following the crowd can be unhealthy. I love that my kids were allowed to be kids for as long as they needed to be. I love that they could be individuals and not feel pressured to fit in. I love that they had plenty of time to figure out who they were before they were more exposed to the big wide world. I love that they could learn on their own personal time line and not feel under challenged or overwhelmed by a one size fits all system. I'm glad I was able to foster and model what a good relationship looks like, whether is it be friendly, familial or romantic. I'm glad that I was able to have the kind of relationship with my kids that they felt comfortable coming to me with anything, even as teenagers. I don't think I could have had the same kind of relationship with them if they spent most of their waking hours in school from the time they were little bitty. I'm glad that I could up and change the curriculum if it didn't fit the child inside of trying to make the child fit the curriculum. I'm glad we could just up and have a family day any time we wanted and get school done when it was convienient for us. If we had a late night at ball games, we could sleep in the next morning so no one missed sleep and everyone could do their work when they were rested and able to do their best.

I would always err on the side of what makes the child excited and happy at this age. A child who is excited to learn is a child who is more likely to practice happily and they will learn more when they are happy and practicing willingly. If they have their heart set on an instrument and have done a little research and still have their heart set, then I would let them give it a go with the expectation that they must complete the 8 week session before switching or stopping. More common instruments like violin, guitar and piano are always going to be easy to find lessons if they want them later. But if they have the chance to learn a less common instrument like banjo or mandolin, and they are excited about it, I would go for it. Once they can read music, no matter what instrument they started on, it will be much easier to teach themselves another instrument if they want. I started band in 5th grade playing the flute. In 6th grade, I learned to play the piccolo as well. When I was in 9th grade, my sister started playing the clarinet and I learned as well just playing through her beginner book with her. I taught myself piano just messing around with pianos throughout childhood and young adulthood. When my second oldest son took up violin, I taught myself from his beginner book in order to help him. All that to say, once you can read music, learning a new instrument is only half as hard as learning the first one.

I remember saving up my money to buy high end clothing and shoes that my parents wouldn't purchase for me. My parents would often contribute what they thought was reasonable for an item, and I could use my money to make up the difference if I wanted something more expensive. I remember one jacket in particular that I wanted that was $75 but my parents were only willing to spend up to $40 on a new jacket for me since I needed one. I paid the difference with my own money and got the jacket I wanted. Honestly, I'm really glad my parents let me buy whatever I wanted with my money. If I hadn't had the chance to make some frivolous purchases while I was still living at home and had them for a safety net, I shutter to think what kind of financial mistakes I could have made as a young adult if I didn't have that experience under my belt already. I might think differently if it were a child who couldn't save a dime but happened to come into a large sum of money some how but I don't see anything wrong with letting a child who is a saver enjoy the fruits of their labor and buy what I would consider a splurge item.

It could be eggs or it might not be eggs.... I developed what was diagnosed as an adult onset allergy to eggs with similar symptoms to what you describe but I kept having more and more and more food sensitivities popping up after that. I finally had allergy testing done when I was breaking out in hives daily and no one could figure out why. I tested negative for eggs but insanely positive for tomato. I had never cared for tomato since I was a child so I didn't eat a lot of it by choice but when we cut it out completely and started avoiding tomato like the plague, all of my food allergies and sensitives calmed down and some disappeared completely. Within six months of eliminating tomato, I could eat eggs again. All that to say, it might be the eggs, it might not. It could be something the chilckens got a hold of in your MIL's barnyard that is coming out in trace amounts in the eggs. Have you tried eggs from different sources to see if it causes the same reactions? When my egg allergy developed, we were getting eggs from a family member as well. The first thing I did was try some grocery store eggs to see if the same thing happened. Unfortunately, for me, it did but it is worth looking into.

My birthday is March 31 so almost an April baby. My kids have birthdays in January, April, May, June and July. Dh is in January as well. My bio dad's birthday is September 9th lol that is too funny about it being the most common birthday. So his birthday was 9-9, his older sister's birthday was 4-4 and his mother's birthday was 2-2. All by coincidence, far too long ago to really try for designer birthdays like they do nowadays.

Would he tolerate watching youtube art videos? The Art For Kids Hub has a youtube channel where you can watch and follow along for free. Perhaps if he could get step by step directions on how to draw something that interests him and see other kids drawing and all the wiggly lines and imperfections they make, it might encourage him to try? My 5 year old LOVES this youtube channel but he doesn't have issues at all with fine motor skills. Another hit for my current 5yo has been the Ed Emberley art books. Simple, step by step line drawings that he can easily replicate.

Lol, I have picture books from when my oldest (20yo now) was little that have been around the world and back with us. I would (and did) give up moving a lot of things before I would give up the books. However, I might give up some of the chapter books without pictures if I had to and I could get an e-book version of it. I don't mind reading aloud from an e-book but I would rather the kids read from the actual book if at all possible. I don't know what it is but until they reach jr high/high school, they just seem to have an easier time reading actual books rather than e-books.

I have 6 kids. Granted there are some big gaps ('98, '00, '01, '06, '08, '13) but I've never felt overwhelmed or unable to "do it all" with lots of kids. I've never had hired help, rarely have I had family around to help out on a regular basis. When we were military, we had neighbors that helped out and we helped them too but I really only asked them in an emergency (like when I had a kidney infection and stones and had to go to the ER) not when I need to go to the grocery store. My house wasn't the most immaculately clean one on the block when the kids were all little but it was just a season in life. As the kids got older and could contribute to the household more, they did and were expected to. They could all do their own laundry by the time they were 10. They asked to make dinner more often than not once they were teens/pre-teens and unless I had something going on the answer was almost always yes. I was much stricter with routines and chores with lots of kids in the house than I am now because I had to be to keep order and peace in the house. It is certainly possible to have a large family without tons of outside help but it takes a certain mindset, a willingness to compromise and the ability to lower some standards in order to raise and maintain others. It also doesn't hurt to take to heart "to every thing there is a season."

I've been coloring my hair on and off since I was twelve. I started getting noticeable greys in my mid twenties. If I feel like dying my hair, I dye it. If I don't feel like it, I don't. I've dyed it blonde, brown, red, purple, and every shade in between. The one time I let a salon dye my hair, it was suppose to be a mahogany brown but it came out almost black and I hated it. I have very fair skin so super dark hair colors do not look good on me. Other than that one time, I've always done it myself. It is currently dyed a deep reddish color that highlights purpley tones in the sun. It's one of my husband's favorite hair colors on me. :-) I had not dyed it in over a year before this most recent dye job. My natural color is medium brown that easily takes sunny strawberry blonde highlights from being outside. My greys are still scattered but with concentrated streaks near my temples.

This. There can be coves where the waves are never more than gentle laps and then there are beaches where rogue waves come out of no where. Especially when tides are changing. Adults who have lived near the sea all their lives can still be taken off guard by an unpredictable wave. A newborn at the beach seems like a bad idea altogether to me but my skin is so fair that I can sunburn under a huge umbrella while applying SPF60 every hour. It would never occur to me to take a newborn to the beach much less in the water. On a different note, my then-12 year old daughter was swept down a local river by a rapid after I had told her and her brother repeatedly to stay away from the rapids at the far end of the natural pool we were all playing in. Luckily the falls in the rapid was only a few feet and she caught herself on a large rock. I dove in after her and got her back to shore. Her reply when I got her to shore and asked her why she went near the rapids, 'The water looked calm on top, I didn't think I was near enough to get pulled under..." Ugh! Fortunately she wasn't hurt, just shaken up, but we had a long talk about undertow and currents on the way home and why you don't judge flowing water by what it looks like on top.

A newly second grade child substituting "soke" for "soak" sounds like a fairly age appropriate spelling mistake to me. It is a phonetic spelling of the word 'soak' so it does show that he was trying to apply the rules he knows. He just went with the wrong one which I would just chalk up to lack of experience. There are some sound combinations that it really just comes down to lots of exposure and experience before it becomes second nature. Lots of reading, lots of writing, many many exposures before the word becomes part of their permanent memory. I would be more worried if the spelling he chose was not phonetic at all and just seemed random or if he was 2 - 3 years older and still making the same mistakes. If you are having more issues with Sequential Spelling and just feel like it is time to change things up, then by all means find a new program. You mentioned SWR looks complicated and you are absolutely right, it LOOKS way more complicated than it actually is. I've been using SWR with my kids since my grown children were little and we just started with my youngest. I've never been to a training seminar. I'm sure it is helpful for some people but I cringe when I hear people say it is necessary. I honestly don't believe it is necessary, just nice if you are inclined to do so. You can absolutely implement the program without a seminar. I've been doing it for years. Another program you might look into is Logic of English, not the lower levels that are designated by letters (Level A, Level B...) but the book for the upper level I think it is actually called "Unlocking the Logic of English" or something like that. A lot of people find LOE a lot easier to implement than SWR. One last suggestion, you might check your library for The Writing Road To Reading. IMO, the easiest edition for those new to Spalding to understand is the 4th Edition. You absolute do not need the newest edition of The Writing Road To Reading. A good used copy of a previous edition or a borrowed copy from the library will work fine to just try it out and see if it will work for you.

A dysgraphia diagnosis could give your son testing accomodations if he is still homeschooled when it comes time to take standardized tests. My second oldest son, who was diagnosed dysgraphic, had a scribe for tests. He could tell his scribe (usually a teacher's aide or the teacher herself on the big tests) what he would write if he could and she would write, verbatim, what he said. This didn't really come into play much until he was junior high or high school age but having the history of dysgraphia diagnosis made it much easier to get these accomodations approved when the time came. Even if he never takes a standardized test until college, having that history of dysgraphia diagnosis will make getting accomodations for his disability much easier than trying to get it diagnosed at the same time as trying to get the accomodations.

I took a look at the workbook. Could it be that your children are intimidated by the example drawings? Some kids might be inspired by the drawings or able to mentally pick them apart to create their own similar drawings but a lot of kids would assume that the example is what they are expected to produce and then become frustrated and prone to bad attitude when their skills are not able to produce similar looking results. Sometimes the best thing to give them is a blank piece of paper, an open ended assignment and let them surprise you with what they can do. They often produce the best results when there are no expectations up front. My second oldest son is dysgraphic but he loves nature. His nature journals consisted of more photographs than drawings and that was fine with me. Drawing was not and was never going to be his strong suit and rather than turn something he loved into something he dreaded, we adapted the assignment to fit his particular abilities. Since your children are just starting out, perhaps photographs of what THEY find interesting out on your walks would be more productive learning wise and work on drawing skills separately until they feel confident enough to sketch what they see. Also remember that in the end, there will always be people that just don't enjoy drawing no matter how much they practice. What is your end goal with nature journals? Do you want them to learn to draw? Do you want them to appreciate nature? Do you want them to develop a curiousity about nature? If you want them to learn to draw, nature journals might not be the best way for them to learn this skill set. If you want them to appreciate nature, consider letting them appreciate it in their own way, nature journals might not be how they appreciate nature. If you want them to develop a curiousity for nature, perhaps focused lessons on things that are interesting to them and using the nature journal to record their observations would be a better use of time.