No exhaustion, normal tired that comes with being sick. Must just be a run of the mill cold here. Hope your son is feeling better JFS!

Interesting, my son has been sick as well with no fever (or body aches). I'm sure it's just a cold, but now you have me wondering. :confused: My systoms are even milder then his, but I'm fairly certain I was given the vax in the 70's. The school lined us all up and gave us a shot and I remember my parents being upset that they weren't asked for consent. Can you imagine that happening today!? There would be riots in the street! I wonder who paid for that? Maybe that's why my folks were upset, they got a bill in the mail! :lol:

I agree about sending the note and she should go to the last day of class! The only thing I would add, if you haven't already, is to have your child tell you in her own words what happened and why. We have done this with each of our kids in the last year. One is 19 and other 7, the situations were very different, but both times we got some valuable information. I'm not suggesting that what the teacher told you is incorrect, but the teacher may not have all the info either. For example, Did someone dare her to take it or did someone else take something and she followed the lead? Don't let her blame obviously, but the lesson could quickly go from don't take what doesn't belong to you to much bigger lesson about personal responsibility and not following when you know it's wrong. It will be hard for a 6-year old to tell you what happened, calmly lead if need be, but try not to suggest what happen. We must have sat in silence for 10 minutes while we waited for our 19-year old to tell us the whole story. *sigh* It's never fun, but it turned out not to be as bad my imagination had lead me to believe either! ;)

Is she able to read it herself? If so, after you have read it twice and she still can't answer, I would point to the portion of the text that has the answer and have her read it aloud to you.

:smilielol5: I don't even know you, but that is funny! I'm so glad I'm not ignoring you!

In WA we are required to teach reading and writing. LA isn't listed, so spelling, FLL, WWE goes under writing for me. I put down 30 mins for reading everyday, which is a conservative estimate because most of what we do is reading and either my dh or I do read-alouds ever day plus my son reads on his own. I'm not disciplined enough to time us on our reading.

You just described my son with one exception, he is a Scorpio. ;)

I like that! I'm going to use it. I also give my son regular wide ruled paper for his copywork like a pp suggested. He uses the handwriting paper when we practice cursive though.

My son still struggles with keeping the letters and numbers on the line. The bottom half of number 5 is always under the line! But just yesterday I was looking back at some of his school work, we started in Aug, and he is getting much better. One of his first assignments in Aug started on one line and ended on the one below! He sometimes makes letters or numbers backwards, but self corrects. His spacing is pretty good when he is paying attention. If he rushes then that is another story. You can get handwriting paper that has the lines slightly raised. I wish I could tell you where I got mine, but I don't remember. It helps because they can feel the line when they write over it. Also, remind him to do a finger space between words.

Have you started phonics with him yet? My son was much the same way when he was 4, so I started teaching him to read. Now at 8 reading is his favorite thing to do!

I'm glad your dd is ok! I know what you mean about bad news. My dd is out of state at college, at one point I told dh I wasn't going to answer my cell when she called because it was ALWAYS bad news when she called that line!

I pay $15 for 30 min lesson from my neighbor. A college or High School student would be great choice. I would check with your local music store and see if they have bulletin board that they allow teachers to post on. You could call or email the band teachers at the high school near you.

My school room looks very much like a kitchen! We have a table, stove, refrigerator, very convenient for snack time. :lol:

My initial response is that the letter writer is using the same rude tone that he is accusing the student of using. Possibly the student could have worded his concerns to the teacher better, but this letter was just as rude and lacks the positive "spin" that teacher was suggesting that the student use.

We used Star Spangled States from Knowledge Quest last year. My son and I both loved it! I can't say enough! You do need the book and workbook, but it's worth every penny.

You can buy rocks to polish as silly as that sounds. Or do like the pp said and have a truck load dumped on your drive! :lol: Sorry, that image is still making me laugh! But we are doing a rock walkway in our yard so that just may be happening soon and I am sure will grab a hand full of those and toss them in. We also live close to a river where we can get rocks. Emily, a rock diary is a great idea! Ours will be in the garage as well.

No, I'm only using STOW and I check everything out from the library. I go through the suggested reading list a couple chapters at a time and put everything on hold at the library. I will most likely get the Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History soon, because I know we'll get a lot of use out of it, but that is it.

:lol: That is funny! To answer loudness question, yes they are loud! The cheaper ones have loud motors and you can her the rocks tumbling. Part of why I'm looking at the Lortone. They are supposed to be much quieter from what I've read so far.

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My son has recently become interested in rocks and getting a rock tumbler. We are looking at this one for a birthday present. (I'm sure I can find a better price.) I had a tumbler as a kid and loved it! My daughter had a "toy" tumbler when she was younger and didn't love it! LOL So we want to get a non-toy one. Does anyone have any experience with this or other tumblers? Any curriculum or book suggestions to go with it? Thanks

My 2nd grader is doing mostly first grade work as well. He is just over halfway through FFL-1 and SWO-A, STOW-1 as well. I'm looking into starting WWE-2 when he gets to FFL-2, which should be about Jan. Since our language program was weak last year I really want to get him up to grade level by the time he starts 3rd-grade, but it's more important to me that he adsorbs the material. If that doesn't happen and we don't get caught up I won't stress about. (I won't stress about it, I won't stress about it) I'm not at all concerned about catching him in STOW though!! I was going back in forth last year between STOW and Star Spangled States. I went with States and I'm not sorry I did. I think we are chapter 9 of STOW.

I would recommend starting with level 1. I started my 2nd grader on FLL 1 this year. The first half went very fast, we did about 60 lessons in 8wks. We skipped a lot of the redundant stuff on nouns and even though he already knew what a noun was he never got bored. My guy loves he can be on his feet while we do the lessons and he enjoys the memorization!

Sounds like school to me!

I'm in SW Washington, with Oregon just minutes away. We find the political environment better on this side of the river. I know we aren't supposed to talk politics here, so I'll keep just leave that as a broad statement. But if your family is politically minded you might want make sure that is a good fit for you as well. WA has one of the highest gas taxes in the country right now I'm paying about 2.85 gallon. My Mom was here a few weeks ago and thought our food prices were high and she is in the Bay Area of California. I believe Median house price is $250 down here in SW WA. Home school laws are easy. You send in an intent form. You're supposed to keep records, but they don't specify what those records are to be. You are supposed to school for 180 days or 1000 hours per year, but they are "liberal" in what counts as school so that is easy to do. Someone mentioned that testing is required in WA, but I'm under the impression that you don't have to test unless you are a) after a WA State Diploma or b) if the student has any contact with public school. For example if a high school student was taking one class at the local school then they would have to test, but even then I THINK you can refuse. Testing has been a hot button in WA for while in the public schools and they are rolling out a new one this year to replace the WASL that everyone disliked so much. I had a teacher tell me that the old one has just been redressed with a new name, so it remains to be seen if it will be any better. My son takes resource classes with the public school and I know good portion of the parents have refused the test. For whatever that is worth. LOL Winters are rainy with occasional snow. There is plenty to do. Down here we end up going to Portland for somethings like OMSI or the zoo. ETA: Looked it up on HSLDA.org and testing is required, but there is a loop hole in that you can get an evaluation by a "certified person". http://www.hslda.org/laws/analysis/Washington.pdf

I can totally see my son trying something like that! I've noticed lately that, while he still complains, his complaints have less passion behind them and he ends up doing the assignment at an acceptable pace instead of dragging it out for an hour or more. He actually acts like he is enjoying math and is willing trying to improve his handwriting! Woo Hoo! Keep after her. She'll surprise one day and get on board!