Just like you might chart a preemie's development differently from a newborn's, you could look at his English skills in relation to the 6 years that he has been in an English speaking environment. Does he talk/write/have the vocabulary of a 6 year old? If so, I'd just have him start from there. If he's not moving forward (at least a bit), I'd have him evaluated for learning disabilities.

Have any of you had your kids take this exam? My daughter loved the National Mythology Exam put on by the same organization. I thought this would be good for her too. Is it necessary or advisable to order the extra materials that they put out or is the syllabus enough? Thanks!

I can't imagine in your CM schedule how you could stay on track for those 10 minute intervals like poetry and memory work. One long bathroom trip or a pencil that needs sharpening or someone knocking on the door and it'll be all over. I like realistic schedules best. The "3R" version has several subjects within a period that (I assume) you could skip if something else takes longer or you have a distraction.

Is your coop predator-safe? We just lock our chickens up in their coop at night and let them out in the morning. During the day it's not a problem if the run isn't entirely safe. Most predators attack at night (or late evening). We did bury our hardware cloth about a foot underground should we ever decide not to lock them up. Unless your coop is really big, I wouldn't leave your chickens locked up all day. Mine get antsy if they don't get out as soon as it gets light. As for your fence fixing question... If you can't redo the entire fence to secure it, I would dig a mini trench and take a strip of hardware cloth and screw/staple/nail it into your fence posts so that it reaches to the bottom of the trench. You could add some ties to attach it to the existing chicken wire. Then fill it up with dirt/gravel/concrete/rocks... whatever you think will hold it down. But I'm not entirely sure what your fence currently looks like, so I'm not sure if that makes sense.

Plus... if you did decide later on that you want to have more kids, sperm is a whole lot cheaper to buy than donor eggs and in-vitro fertilization (the difference of $200 and $20,000. My dad had a vasectomy that he regretted, and I have a brother who came into being via a sperm donor. It's a complete non-issue for both my brother and my dad.

In 1989 when the new NCTM standards came out, he would probably have been in first or second grade, right? He might have gone through his math education with one of the more controversial math programs like Mathland that focused on concrete visual number sense over efficient algorithms or memorization of times tables. The drawing 27 and 81 circles might have been a strategy he was taught.

Schools in our relatively wealthy district have an excellent social environment. However, I've experienced horrible environments when I was in school and when I taught in PS.

I have my 4th grader (and her 5th grade friend who I also teach) do book summaries instead of "book reports". Summarizing is a really important and surprisingly difficult thing to do. I started out by having them use a template that I created. I'll copy and paste it below. I tell my kids that writing is like cooking. When I first try a new dish, I like to follow a recipe... but after I figure out how to make the dish, I like to change it... adding some extra spices or whatever. This template is a recipe: Book Summary The __(1)____ "______(2)_______" by _______(3)_________ takes place in _____(4)_____ during ______(5)_______. It tells the story of ____(6)_______, a _____(7)______, who is trying to______(8)____. At the beginning of the story, _________(9)__________. Then ________(10)____. After that, ___________(11)______. Finally, _____(12)_____. As the story ends, ________(13)_______. For the most part, ___________(14)____________. 1. Write the type of story are you summarizing (eg. short story, science fiction novel, biography). 2. Write the title. Capitalize and use quotation marks 3. Write the author's name. Capitalize! 4. Write where the story takes place 5. Write the time period the story takes place 6. Write the protagonist's name 7. Write an appositive phrase telling who the character is (eg "a ten year old girl from New York City") 8. Write the main conflict of the story (eg "who wants to escape from slavery" or "who is trying to find her mother." or "who dresses up as a boy in order to be a soldier in the army.") 9. Write one sentence describing the beginning of the story. Use words that tell the mood of the story. 10. In one sentence, tell what happened next. 11. In one sentence, tell what happened next. 12. Write the climax of the story. Try to capture excitement by using strong verbs. 13. Tell the very end of the story -- the resolution. 14. Write a sentence describing whether you liked/disliked the story and why. Write who you would recommend it to. (eg "I loved this story because I felt very close to the main character. The writing was engaging and I felt like I was really there. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about the civil war from the perspective of an ambitious young girl.") Example: The fantasy novel "Going Postal" by Terry Pratchett takes place in the city of Ankh-Morpark on Discworld during the year of the prawn. It tells the story of Moist Von Lipwig, a condemned criminal, who has been given the opportunity of a new life re-opening the decrepit city postal service. At the beginning of the story, Moist is executed, but awakens to find that the city's despotic ruler is offering him a new life as the Postmaster General. With a golem and a staff of two insane men, he cunningly manages to clean up and reopen the Post Office . Eventually, his post office comes to the attention of the mobsters who scurrilously run the clacks towers and he proposes a race. As the story ends, Moist manages to show how evil the mobsters are and prove the reliability of the mail service. Without reservation, I highly recommend this book to anybody interested in reading a funny, well-written story about a cunning man with a daunting task ahead of him.

We had an animal (squirrel? cat? raccoon?) who crawled under our porch and died. We could do nothing. I ended up posting a note on the door for the postal worker so they didn't think something dead was *inside* the house. It lasted a few days and went away.

We are just starting 4b this month, so we haven't seen 5a... perhaps it's different. My daughter and I have an agreement that she will do math every day. But I will not ask her to do more than one little segment of math (to the pencil noting which workbook exercise to do). We do the textbook together. Then she does one workbook exercise that follows along with it. Nothing more. She is a very slow kid in everything she does (eating, walking, getting dressed...) but math is always done within an hour. I'd probably skip the tests if I were you.

I think knowing how to talk about grammar is important... but diagramming isn't. I taught my older daughter how to make syntax trees rather than diagramming, because it makes more sense to me... it's easy to see how the phrases and words are related to each other... and it can be applied to other languages. But do kids really need to know this? Probably not.

To me... "united with love" sounds like a third person is uniting them... with love. "united in love" sounds too much like the people are 'in love'. "united by love" sounds right to me.

I think any of these could be reasonably expected to be learned anywhere around middle school (give or take a few years...) I would not expect more than a few pages for a report at fourth grade - including pictures or graphs (which really mean 5-6 paragraphs or so). It depends on the child and the content and the time... A formal bibliography is worth introducing prior to writing a report.

The Hits: -Story of Science -Singapore -OUP Medieval -History Portfolios -Spencerian cursive OK: -Soaring with Spelling/Growing with Grammar -Lively Latin The Misses: -Pictures in cursive

We love it here... I'm thinking Victor, Bert and Anya will be at fashion week... and hoping Anya will win.

Thanks for the info!

Is he a fluent reader? Does he decode words pretty well? Here are some things I have done when teaching reading. A lot of these are just things that a good reader generally does (and does without any particular instruction...). But some kids need more explicit instruction to be able to understand a text: Before he reads, get him to tell you what he thinks the story/chapter/article is about. Ask him what he already knows about the topic/character/author Ask him what he thinks will happen in the end. Get him thinking about what it is he is going to read. Teach him to look at the title, pictures, captions, charts, table of contents, chapter headings, subheadings, back cover etc... to get ready to figure out what he's reading about. Have him read easier books or picture books and comic books and re-tell or answer questions about the text. If he's reading a classic, find a children's version first with lots of pictures... or an abridged version, then the real thing. If there is a movie, let him watch it first. Or read a summary of the book first. Do whatever you can to give him support for reading and understanding the real thing. Have him illustrate a story himself in comic book style. Or ask him to act it out with someone and perform it. The goal is to get him to look in the text to figure out what happened first, second... You could even photocopy a short story and cut it into paragraphs. Ask him to put it back together. Have him read aloud to you and stop him regularly to probe what he understood, what he thinks will happen next, etc... Read something a bit more complex aloud to him and model good reading strategies to him. When something seems potentially confusing, stop yourself and admit that you aren't sure what just happened. Re-read the paragraph aloud. Wonder aloud to him. Talk to yourself about what you've read and what you think might happen. Show him how to figure out a word he doesn't know by looking at the context. Let him write in a book or stick post-it notes in the text. Have him put question marks where he doesn't really understand a paragraph. Or circle words he doesn't know. Or write notes in the margins. If I can think of anything else... I'll add more. Hope this helps!

We're thinking of starting the process of becoming a foster family. Are there message boards or books or other resources that would be useful to someone considering this path ? Thanks!

:iagree: I am unwilling to live imagining all the potential bad that could happen. And yes, I absolutely leave my 9 year old at home. And she stays at home on occasion for more than an hour and when I am a longer distance away. We have resources (cell phones, tenant, nearby grandparents, friends, neighbors) should she need them. But really... we live in a safer time and place than any before. And throughout history, nine year olds have been successfully staying at home (or going out, or taking care of other children, or taking care of a house, or working). It doesn't bother me at all that she stays home and reads her book and drinks a cup of tea while I run errands.

Sure it's worth it. Not knowing your son exactly.... most high-average kids can handle pre-algebra in 7th grade. That gives you 3 semesters. plus two summers to get him ready. Depending on his placement, you could theoretically do 5b, 6a, 6b and the corresponding CWP and IP. You may want to start the CWP at 3rd or 4th grade level to get into it. He'd be well-prepared and well-challenged.

I try not to think about my kids in terms of being ahead or behind... unless you're thinking of putting him in school, it doesn't matter too much. What does matter, very much, is that he is improving in his skills. I would focus on doing a very little bit, but doing it daily and with consistency. If he has a tutor in math twice a week, that's great... but is he doing math the other days? If not, I'd have him do a little bit each day. Even just a page, or maybe a few problems... or even just a single problem if that's where he's at. Same with spelling. I'm not sure about AAS, but I would encourage you to be certain that even if he does a little bit, he does it daily. AAS may be awesome, but if it's not getting done, it's useless. Same with dictation and any other subject that you feel is important. I'd forget about 'graphic organizers'. It's just a trendy term that educators use to talk about ways to help kids understand content material that they read. It's nothing magical... it's just jargon and common sense.

This year is the first year I haven't needed to wake kids up and nag them to get started. My 9 yr old will get up and dressed and cleaned and eat breakfast. My 7 yr old will get up and eat breakfast and then ask if she can watch TV (at which point, I say... after you get dressed and are all ready to start your day). But they don't yet start their work... they just get ready on their own.

:iagree: We have cobalt for dishes and red for serving dishes

Do those of you who answered, actually count the number of clothes and keep it to that? We seem to have a constant flow... Too small clothes given to friends Cute dress bought at the mall Jacket disappears at school Girls borrow each other's clothes Various Hand-me-down from friends added to dressers Need new underwear, pick up a pack of 6 at Costco. Toss out three of the too-small undies Sleepover guest leaves shirt here Lose a sock Birthday present -- new sweaters I have no idea what the kids have... Then there's the winter clothes boxes that will need to be switched out.

My daughter read Song for a Dark Queen last week and decided that Boudicca wasn't nearly as cool as she'd thought she was. She decided that she was just as horrible as the Romans were. I suppose that the realization that brutality happens on both sides of a war is an important one. She is reading Sword in the Circle, though has had a hard time getting into it.