We got plenty of "bedtime" books as gifts, but reading a book was part of our sleep routine for naps too. Finding a book specifically about napping was harder, but this was our favorite.

We keep it simple but we carried on our yearly tradition of eating soup by "candlelight" (err... the christmas tree lights and some glow toys) and watching the Little Bear Winter Solstice episode.

If you want something from the earlier part of the century, I really enjoyed "Uprising" by Margaret Peterson Haddix. It's a fictionalized account of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (1911). Depending on what your class entails, there is a series of historical role-playing video games called Mission US that I use with my students. The "City of Immigrants" game pairs very well with Uprising.

Lucky Charms!! We had other sugary cereal from time to time, but my mom refused to buy Lucky Charms because my sister and I would eat 2/3rds of it in a day (including all the marshmallows) and then leave the last third (of just the brown cereal) until it went stale. Then I went to college where the dining hall had that row of cereal dispensers available at every meal. I think I had Lucky Charms at least twice a day for the first few months of college. And I was far from the only one. The novelty of sugary cereal with dinner was definitely a thing!

I've seen people discuss doing DNA tests using throw-away email addresses or by using a fake name. Is anyone knowledgeable on how/if that changes the privacy concerns?

We live local to the NC Zoo, so we're pretty spoiled in that regard. Construction on the new Asia section is slated to start soon. We also really enjoyed the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo: 1. a really cool treehouse playground 2. koalas 3. daily 'elephant walks' where they close the pedestrian path to walk the elephants across from one exhibit to the other 4. a really cool veterinary care center where (if you're lucky and catch it right) you can see them caring for the animals

To add on to this, some museums have multiple reciprocities. We’re members at the western North Carolina nature center, which is not local for us, but gets us reciprocity at science centers (Astc) and zoos (aza). There are a few other museums around with multiple affiliations, but that one was the cheapest we found.

Thank you all for your responses!! I think I'm going to purchase Math With Confidence to look through in more detail. I love the idea of RightStart but with the complexity of the program I just don't think it'll get done reliably in our situation. I'm decently mathy myself, and I've done enough digging that I feel I can figure out how to suppliment along the way as needed. The more I think about our situation, my biggest need is a reliable spine that'll lay out the conceptual teaching for me and her. I feel comfortable adding to or condensing as we go, I just need the basics of how to teach it well laid out with a predictable routine. DD won't start school until fall of 2023, so we still have lots of time to take things at her pace. She's a pretty typically developing, eager-to-please, slightly ahead of schedule kind of kid. She's known her letter sounds for well over a year and has been reliably able to blend for about 6 months. She can count items up to about 30 and does some natural basic subitizing. We've purposefully kept her in a play-based preschool instead of switching her to the district's Pre-K, so 90% of her day is just unstructured play with her friends. Right now she asks to do "lessons" every night, but I've definitely got an eye out to make sure I don't burn her out. So next question... For those of you who have used Math With Confidence... do you think most the concepts and activities in her Facts that Stick books are/will be in the MwC series? I know she's only released K & 1st so that may not even be applicable yet.

I recently started Level 1 of AAR with my 4 year old and from what I can tell I think it's going to be a really good fit, both for her and for me. I'd like to start more purposeful math instruction with her in the summer or fall. Is there a math curriculum that's structured similarly to All About Reading? A little bit of background: my husband and I are both teachers and DD will almost certainly go to our schools with us. There's a lot we love about our district (most notably, the chance for her to be in a dual language program), but the math and reading instruction are... well... what you'd expect from a run-of-the-mill public school. Obviously, I'm going to go at her pace and follow her lead, but I'd like to introduce the big reading and math concepts at home before she encounters them at school to prevent any bad habits or misunderstandings. In my daydreams of homeschooling, I loved the idea of getting a set of C-rods, using Education Unboxed videos and Miquon, and doing lots of exploratory math. But with working full time, I'm realizing we'll really need an open-and-go curriculum if math is going to get done. With that said, here's what's working well for us with All About Reading, and thus what I think I'm looking for in a math curriculum: * Solid conceptual teaching... I teach middle school ELA and have had some Orton Gillingham-based training, so I knew what to look for conceptully in a reading program. But I'm not totally sure what constitutes "good math teaching" (though I suspect it's similar... learning the concepts and 'whys' instead of just memorizing) * A balance of games/hands on teaching and more straightforward work... the predictable variety in AAR is probably what I like most right now. I like how each lesson is a mix of 3-4 different activities (instead of me having to cobble together a game or random app or search for extra practice problems). I don't need anything crazy elaborate, but DD thrives on the more imaginative games... feeding the monster her review words, etc. * Clear lessons with ongoing review... I like their structure of working for 20 minutes and not feeling pressured to finish a lesson in a day. I really, really like the review box. On days where I can't work with her but she really wants to do a "reading lesson", DH or grandma can pull out the review box and play a game with her current cards. RightStart piqued my interest because of all the games, but I don't know much about how the program is truly structured, plus it feels like a LOT (sort of like how Logic of English seemed way more intense to me than AAR). Singapore feels like what I think "good conceptual teaching" is supposed to look like, but is it mostly workbook based? Is there a script like in AAR? Would I be left to find my own games to add? Math with Confidence seems to check a lot of boxes, and I like the few Kate Snow webinars I've watched, but I haven't heard much about it. And I'm sure there are lots of others that I'm missing. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated! 🙂

ME TOO! I've decided it's the fact that I came of age with Little Mermaid and Aladdin, so Alan Menken music just feels so right to my soul. Plus the pro shot version is so well done, I feel like I 'know' the show better than a lot of others.

I like a lot of the ones listed here, but Mean Girls is the one show where I like every song from beginning to end almost equally. It’s not necessarily my all time favorite show (though it is really good and funny) but it’s my go-to for cleaning and driving since I don’t feel the need to skip songs.

These swim rompers from target were a game changer for me last summer. Look good for lounging, comfy for swimming, and they have POCKETS. I bought a lightweight kimono cover up and a uv-material drapy cardigan that I wear over them poolside.

There's a Crayola Experience in Plano. We haven't been to that one yet, but we did one last summer and my 3 yo LOVED IT. I was expecting it to be super commericialized and cheezy, but it was super hands-on and so worth it.

This is random, but you might consider reaching out to a local lactation consultant/La Leche League. Since lip + tongue ties can interfere with breastfeeding, they usually know who in your area specializes in it.

That's interesting. My body has always been fine with straight shots, but in college/my early 20's I'd get that response with blood draws and TB tests (which I had to have every summer working a summer camp). Thankfully I only truly passed out once or twice before I connected the dots and figured out how to ward it off. I still always warn the nurse before a blood draw and plan to hang out for awhile after. But now that I stop and think about it, the last 5 years or so I haven't had any issues.

I agree. I watched an episode of a live stream last week that had some great conversation around this. An atmospheric chemistry professor made a comment that stuck with me - we would never accept dirty drinking water, but don't think twice about breathing dirty air. Here's the link in case anyone's interested. It's long, but the whole conversation is facinating. There seem to be a lot of musical theater people in this thread - the main conversation is between three scientists and two Broadway leads, getting deep into the nuance of the specific risks and needed precautions in a live theater environment. I've got no connection to that world - I just like the show because they often have reunions of old Broadway casts and TV shows. But hearing people have these detailed conversations is super interesting.

We did this last year! The book is adorable and making the bread was a lot of fun, but the recipe in the back of the book turned out horrible for us. It looked nice, but tasted awful. That said, I am admittedly not a great baker so it could have just been my ineptitude. 😜 Just wanted to throw out a caution in case you're planning to use it!

We were there this summer and really enjoyed it. Maid of the Mist is definitely worth it, and I might not totally rule it out for yourself - there are places on the bottom level where you can stand and stay totally dry and get a very mild experience. Cave of the Winds was also really fun. You can choose how close you get to the falls if you want a less intense experience. But you're going to get sprayed pretty much the entire time, so if that's not your thing you may want to skip that part. There was a cool museum/movie before it though. The visitor center also had a film (which we didn't pay for). Definitely walk out to Terrapin Point. Definitely skip the aquarium.

Here in NC there is a provision in the guidelines for schools that if someone tests positive, if they masked correctly and consistently and the other kids did too, the exposed kids do not have to quarantine. That fact alone - even if you think masks don’t work - should be enough to make masking a no brainer. Well… one would think anyway… 🙄

You can buy headphone splitters (cheap) that plug into the disc player. Then they could listen at the same time through their own individual set of headphones. I wonder if having them in the room together but in that little sensory chamber of their headphones (maybe facing away from each other or with a divider) would be a good baby step forward.

I have this swim romper from target. It has a built in bra and adjustable straps. I pair it with a long sleeve zip-up rash guard from Amazon - wear it open like a cardigan around the pool and zip it up if I’m “real” swimming (looks a little bumpy and odd but gets the job done).

Our situation is slightly different... we'll be traveling on a 2 month road trip this summer. We are vaxxed, 3yo DD obviously is not. I'm not overly concerned about her getting COVID in normal life (she goes to preschool where only the adults mask), but I DO NOT want her to get COVID on our trip. Even if she has a mild case and is ultimately fine, the idea of having to find a place to get tested, quarantining in our camper and/or having to hightail it home sounds awful. So we will all be masking and continuing our normal protocols throughout the summer (no masks outdoors, high quality masks indoors, avoiding crowded areas, no indoor dining, plenty of hand washing). We were planning to do all that anyway, and DD isn't bothered by the mask, so it's no stress to us. Thankfully we'll be traveling through areas that have higher vaccination rates/stricter COVID policies than where we live, so hopefully we won't be the only ones masked.

I'm pretty sure I got here through a Pinterest image of all things. Maybe 2012/2013? I was a teacher (with no knowledge of homeschooling and no kids at the time) looking for storage solutions for my classroom. I found some pictures of those 10 drawer carts that were popular for workboxes at the time and thought they might be helpful for paperwork. That led me to some blog posts where I realized it was a homeschool thing, which led me down the rabbit hole of researching homeschooling in general. Somewhere along that trail I stumbled onto these boards. I lurked for years and years, gathering information for my own classroom teaching, teaching my own future children, and just life in general. Because of this board, I use The Writing Revolution and REWARDS in my classroom with my students. I understand why my 7th graders come to me so low in reading (shout out to our whole-language-and-balanced-literacy school district) and I have the skills to diagnose their needs and attempt to remediate them. This board led me to The Explosive Child/Ross Greene's work, which has fundamentally changed the way I work with my students. Because of this board, my 3 year old daughter plays with Cuisenaire rods and is starting to sound out CVC words. We'll probably never officially homeschool (I love my job and financially, quitting probably won't ever be an option), but I feel prepared to teach her at home alongside what she gets at school. Lurking on this board has helped me pick out a baby carrier, wrestle with my faith, deal with bullying in my classroom, and prepare for COVID. More than anything it's helped me internalize the idea that there's ALWAYS an alternative out there to the way we think things 'have to' be done. So that's how I got here, but more importantly a huge THANK YOU that I've been meaning to say to all of you for building a place that even non-homeschoolers can benefit from. 🙂

Hi all! Long term lurker, occasional reply-er, but my first time making a real post. My DD just turned 3 and (thanks to Little Bear) loves classic fairy tale-style pretend stories (dragons, princesses, goblins, etc). So far we've not read many 'true' fairy tales, mostly because I assumed they'd be too scary for her. She read the Three Little Pigs in the fall and talked about being scared of the wolf for a long, long time. But she got this fairytale game for Christmas and has become super smitten with it - narrating more and more complex stories with all the little pieces. So I think she'd enjoy hearing more of the traditional stories, but I know she'll need a very gentle retelling and I'm not sure how to tell from descriptions online what might be best. Does anyone have any suggestions for a gentle introduction? Sweet (instead of scary) pictures, happy endings, etc. As much as possible, I'd also love to avoid places where the characters being are being called names, punished, scolded, or labeled "bad" - I've noticed that makes her uncomfortable in other books we've read. Thank you!!!

It has been a huge, huge blessing. And not just for travel - we've had ours set up in the driveway since March. It's been our teach-from-home spot and is on standby (stocked and ready) as our quarantine location should one of us need it (DH was exiled there for a few days in the fall while waiting on COVID test results).