You're not the only one. I don't think we're unusual either.

If she's finishing wws2 then I'd have zero qualms with just letting her write. She sounds lovely and it sounds like you're doing a fantastic job!

Are you talking about only creative writing? At 12 I'd be happy to just let her write and enjoy it, I'd probably start intentionally discussing things in a pre-academic-writing way and looking to do some writing across the curriculum work (wtm style) in a year or so.

And if he apparently did nothing wrong, what's the slander?

Well, I think it is part of women telling their stories at the moment. Sparked by #metoo, but as a safe dialogue about sexuality from the woman's perspective. A perspective that is usually either idolised or pornified. I think it is an important conversation, part of discussing consent and rape culture. It reminds me of the short story Cat Person published late last year. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/11/cat-person I really doubt it will help Grace get 15 mins of fame, it rarely works that way for women.

I agree. And deciding to go along to avoid violence and hoping it's over quickly is not uncommon. Often that's the safest route, even for explicitly rape situations. And speaking of rape situations, most of them aren't strangers jumping out of bushes or gun to the head. Many of them start out exactly like Grace's story. I don't think this case showed a crime, but it could well have. This is why enthusiastic content needs to be the standard. Treating your partner with respect and consideration, rather than as a prop in a private porno.

Meghan Murphy wrote a good piece on this: http://www.feministcurrent.com/2018/01/15/aziz-ansari-accusations-may-not-rape-rape-culture/

Lol! My wishlists are similar, I have to automatically double the cost though for Australian Dollar and international shipping :( I did my shopping in october/November, though I still have a few books to pick up along the way. We start back next week!

Nope.

Sounds like a great idea for a class! My dd (a pretty accomplished from-scratch cook) would love it!

Yes this. Pastry Arts implies specialised pastry techniques. If you want learning to read a recipe call it Beginning Baking or something. I agree that I'd like to see things like: Pie crusts - sweet and savoury Choux Petit fours Puff pastry Yeast doughs (cinnamon scrolls or something) Fillings, custards, creme patisserie etc. And yes, I think the design decoration of the gingerbread house for competition is a good idea! I would also include safe food handling and hygiene standards.

I just had a similar conversation with my children's violin teacher, who has 5 children of her own. Her oldest (a girl) had all her hyper focused attention and was winning violin competitions at age 3! Her youngest, a boy, is 5 and is only just starting music lessons. I really understand, there's a difference in being the youngest that has both positives and negatives. With my first it's all 'speak clearly no baby talk', with my youngest it's 'awww that's adorable and he's still so young!' So one child speaks clearly and the other needs remediation and I feel guilty lol. One reads earlier, because we had vast amounts of time with no siblings to just read read read! Now my youngest has older siblings to read read read to him! The OP sounded exactly like a normal 4 year old to me.

Sounds normal to me, she sounds delightful. My youngest was 4 in October. He likely wouldn't be able to pick out his written name or tell me what letter it begins with - like your dd he could probably visually identify what it starts with (also E!), he knows his shapes pretty well, but I doubt his drawing of a square would have corners lol. He can draw a kind of stick figure but he'll need to interpret it for you! He still can't get his clothes on correctly, without fail they'll be at least backwards. I'm not at all worried about him. What do they learn at preK if they already know all this stuff?

Hi Chooky, my oldest is Dd age 12 who would be going into grade 7 - high school - this year too! I'm surprisingly not at all worried about it, I'm really happy with our plans and we're pretty much just doing the next thing from grade 6 to 7. My biggest worry in upping output is probably spending longer on maths. She's good at maths and enjoys it, it just simply takes longer! Would adding missions in Khan Academy help her interest in maths? My daughter has been compulsively watching Vi Hart (maths related) videos on YouTube so I have hexagonal bits of paper all over my house!

The Simpsons predicted Trump!

My mother in law will take the dishes you're not quite done with to wash them immediately! I cannot even comprehend her cleanliness standard. Dh would also have pause about wasted cinnamon and opening the freezer a lot, and would probably send the kids outside with their game, there's literally not enough space for cardboard boxes in here... My 2 older boys are playing a very involved imaginary game - outside!

She sounds absolutely adorable Elizabeth! We finally got our house build started! Right now I have 60 foundation holes dug and a ton of building materials on site. I might actually get a house built this year!

Happy happy birthday Rosie!

I like Protestant just fine. I wouldn't have called my fellow protestants ignorant of their religion, we had plenty of references to Luther et al in sermons this year (the 500th anniversary thing...) There is a vast difference between say, Lutheran and Assembly of God denominations such that Protestant is really too vague - it's like saying 'not Catholic'

Sounds lovely Pegs! We plan to start back on the 22nd. I'm putting the finishing touches on the implementation aspects of my plans. My kids will be in 7th, 5th, 2nd and 4 year old kinder and we have some cool stuff planned! We'll jump in with morning time from the beginning - we do bible/copywork, history/narrations, read one of Shakespeare Plutarch Spurgeon or Poetry/dictation, we do some translation practice of either Latin or Russian, sing, art (drawing or watercolour) Science will start off slowly with only nature study for the first 4 weeks, with some tying up loose ends in botany (mostly just harvesting and collecting seeds). Then we'll spend about 28 weeks on an electronics/circuits unit. My older 3 are all doing Classical Writing levels this year, I remember how much I love this program. Lots of interesting things and I feel like I haven't over planned so I'm looking forward to starting!

Firstly mama, you're doing a great job! Fralala is right! Secondly, independent play is good for the kids. Really really good, it sets up their little brains to be creative and critical thinkers - it is their most important work. Set em up with a shelf of things they can do independently - puzzles, lego, playdough etc. Turf them outside! Don't feel guilty - this is a GIFT to them. My 4 year old gets a lot of this gift and I do feel guilty sometimes - his life looks very different from my oldest's at 4, which has both positives and negatives. Tackling disruptive littles while teaching young-not-yet-independent students is just hard work, you're not doing anything wrong, it's just not ever going to go smoothly! Embrace the chaos, be consistent, and things will look different one day. Thirdly, you'll be okay with scheduling, you get better at it as time goes on. I tend to do 3 blocks of work - morning time, skills, content. Each block is between 1 & 3 hrs (for me! Not for all my kids!) And for the skills block I tend to work subject by subject from youngest to oldest (as in, maths for 7y/o, maths for 10y/o, maths for 12y/o) - with my older two completing independent work while I'm teaching someone else. Morning time is important to me because it keeps us connected as a family learning together, and we do some fun stuff!

I've seen it happen too - 3 times! Twice within my own family! The husbands seem totally opposed for decades, only occasionally attending church for their wife's sake, and then bam! God's love breaks through! This was my brother in law's first Christmas as a Christian, it was delightful and very special. Keep holding on Katie, our God is an awesome God!

I literally just read an article about this... http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-07/the-woman-who-cant-stop-daydreaming/9108508

We also go out the base 10 blocks for long division. Then, after he was comfortable doing it with the blocks, we moved to pen and paper and I made him draw base 10 blocks. Lots and lots of practice with the blocks.

We are on summer holidays for 2 more weeks. I'm planning school stuff for this year and project managing our house build. Kids have 'summer workbooks' with a daily list - 10 items for my older two (things like instrument practice, read to your brother lol), 5 things for my seven year old - so they're not completely slobbing around! This year we're doing 3 x 12 week terms - each term divided into 3x4 week mini terms with at least a week off in between each mini term, those weeks are for excursions and catching up on other busyness because building a house lol.