Why are they in the news again? Did something new happen? Just curious as I'm apparently uninformed. :confused:

I have always wondered for those PS teachers using the 40 hour a week argument why then it is okay for a child to be tutored at home (medical reasons or whatever) through the district at a few hours a day as equivalent? The PS district is thus admitting it only takes a few hours a day for 1-1 instruction ... or am I missing something?

Not everyone would agree with me obviously (depends heavily on your parenting style), but I award small prizes for 100% correct on the first try. I had to do it heavily for a while because DS would stop trying. He had never been to PS at all so it was just a personality thing, in a hurry. It got us over the hump and it is better now.

I had an external version with my first. It was successful for us, but I understand honestly the success rate is not all that high on the average. It was unusual around here too. It was done by a very elderly physician with a roomful of gawkers .... ah, students and younger physicians ... who had never seen it performed before. Literally there were probably 20 observers in the room. :glare: For us, we avoided a C-section, which is what I wanted. I do not by the way think, C-sections are evil, but I wanted to avoid an abdominal surgery if at all possible. I was monitored before, during and after for several hours to make sure baby was perfectly okay, and there was an OR ready if he was in distress in order to do C-section. He stayed in a couple more weeks and was born vaginally. I joke he was stubborn then and is still stubborn to this day and tries to do everything backwards. :lol: Edited: I have since learned that many believe acupuncture can be very very effective in encouraging turning a breech. If I had known then what I know now, I would have tried it before the version as that has very very low risk obviously.

My kids are slobs quite honestly at the table. Then again they are 7 and under. ;) We use them once and toss them in a basket in the kitchen where all kitchen linens go (dishtowels, etc). We have several dozen. When we get low we wash, which is probably twice a week. I do not have a set time range or day for washing them.

I have used the plaid K and then C and D. It works well for my son (2nd grader). It is no frills and a little dull in my opinion. He just plain needs the explicit practice rather than picking it up in reading/context, most especially including practice in writing. It works okay for him, but is definitely not his favorite part of his day very honestly.

Is she missing the information from percentages and decimals upwards in that program or just that specific topic, i.e. does she just have a gap? A gap you can fill up and return to where you were rather than completely backtracking. If you do need 500 level though, just go with it, go at her pace and lay the foundation solidly, being glad the whole time you figured it out before she hit college coming out of PS. ;)

Would community colleges and other colleges be ready for the influx? What I'm hearing here is our community and state university system had funding cut and were already crowded before. There are many many more qualified applicants than positions available. I guess this would only be a problem the first year or two until it evened out. I guess they are counting on not all of them going to college of course anyway. Are there that many kids 16-18 desperately wanting to get to trade school? And are there jobs out there for them right now, or in 2 years of trade school? I guess I'm not clued in enough to understand the point of the new idea. Admittedly, I don't have a high schooler yet.

In that age range, library sales are our #1 place to find them.

Our local one does not that I have seen. Unless they hide them somewhere. I have never seen a rental one in the aisles either.

Math and LA first. I have my pre-K and 2nd grader working at the same time at the table and can easily alternate between them that way. The pre-K does as much as he wants and wanders off. By that time, the 2nd grader is usually done with his math and LA and we go on to our read-alouds, history and so forth. My pre-k guy sometimes wanders in to listen and sometimes not for those. My pre-K guy also gets his time to be read to while the 2nd grader has his independent reading, although what usually happens is the 2nd grader loves to relisten to the pre-K stories so sits in too. :)

Those are GREAT. They are exactly what they were using when comparing and cutting pizzas in the DVD we watched. I wonder if I can get those locally, otherwise will order them. Thanks.

Thank you for the suggestions. I considered pausing for a while, but he has completed the work after the fractions as well, which is area calculation involving manipulating shapes to determine unit wholes and add them up. He had zero problem with that, or with other mental shape manipulation equating to numbers, or comparing relative sizes of different shapes. Those are very similar mental requirements of abstract understanding and manipulation. We also do the "intensive practice" workbook and he does fine in that in all topics except for the fractions. We start the intensive practice a month behind the corresponding regular text so that he encounters the challenging problems weeks to months behind their introduction in the regular text, as followup and expansion. With that in mind, I don't think we are hitting a developmental roadblock. We had that in reading a few years ago, but it was a total roadblock and a few months rest and relaxation from any LA cleared it up. This doesn't seem to be that though in this child -- just a topic that somehow he is not picturing correctly in his mind. I do realize he will see it again, if nowhere else than the next recipe we cook together. ;) He is starting to add fractions of mixed denominators spontaneously (and correctly!) in cooking though, and I don't feel he has the solid conceptual foundation and I want to work on the foundation. I'm going to go check out those resources mentioned. Maybe one will really click with him. I'm suspecting it is a need to do hands on in order to solidify it, beyond what we already tried.

Can anyone recommend a good supplemental book/website/idea - ANYTHING - to help a 2nd grader doing Singapore 2b with fractions? He is just not getting the idea. We tried physically breaking candy bars, drawing diagrams, a fractions DVD, talking about it endlessly, little pieces of paper, etc (in addition to his textbook and workbook of course). He has trouble grasping relative sizes of different fractions (i.e., 1/11 is smaller than 1/2) and then comparing them with the same numerator. And lets not even get started about when they get to whether 2/5 is bigger or smaller than 2/12. He is totally lost and I'm having trouble with further ways to present this to him. Any suggestions?

I can't honestly recall for my 3, somewhere around 25-40 pounds I think for each of them, and it was definitely in spurts not consistent smooth gain. And each one of them I was prepregnancy weight by 6 weeks postpartum, though honestly that is nothing spectacular as I run overweight to begin with. Only this pregnancy has anyone commented. I have a brand new out of school midwife who states I have gained too much already and should only gain 4 more pounds the entire pregnancy ... um yeah I'm only 18 weeks along and she really expects me to only gain 4 pounds more? She wanted me to only gain 10-15 pounds this pregnancy. :glare: [i started at 165, heavy for me.] Thank goodness the other midwives in the practice are realistic people who actually have children. I'm not particularly concerned honestly because by my scale I have only gained 5 pounds so far, not the 11 they state (they weigh with shoes/clothing so what I'm wearing has a big impact). Unless you gain like 100 pounds or something, I'm doubtful about the importance personally, especially if this is not her first pregnancy and she knows her own normals. Our bodies are different. As long as mama eats a reasonable healthy diet and was reasonably healthy beforehand I'm convinced baby will be fine most of the time.

Yep. I'm the oddball in the midst of friends and family who us public schools. It's not worth war here. They know I don't feel PS is for us, and that I have very serious problems with the way things are going with PS though. I make no secret of that. But I don't talk it about it much at all unless specifically asked. It is more peaceful with less defensive friends that way. Honestly, I'm not criticizing their choices, just the state of the public schools my tax dollars are helping to fund. My beef is with the schools not the parents who utilize them. But it is still more peaceful to keep relatively quiet.

We have 3 cards in use most of the time, max 40 each card. We don't usually use all 3 maxed out, though we have once or twice in the past. We probably have 50-60 average, 100 on heavy weeks when everyone chose books (2yo, 4yo, 7yo and me) plus I was checking out curriculum items. When we get desperate, we use DH's card too. ;)

What has helped some for me in the non-medication arena: Neck/shoulder massages (DH is the BEST, but I have a massage pillow thing too). Icy hot type of topical gels on the neck/shoulder/temple areas. Do you know your triggers well? Treating those helps me. Food is one, so I eat regularly. Any sinus congestion can trigger a migraine for me so I am quick to take Sudafed or other measures to control sinus congestion. Bright light bothers me so I am obsessive with my sunglasses. Extra calcium sometimes helps me if my diet has been lacking. And homeopathic PMS formula helps my cyclic migraines with menses.

My 7yo has very severe eczema. Here is what our allergist has recommended in terms of soap and lotion: Dove fragrance free, Eucerin, Aquaphor. Eucerin has "calming cream" that sometimes helps DS. It absorbs well so would presumably be suitable for a face, non-oily. There is a Eucerin body/bath oil soap targeted at sensitive skin given to us in samples that seems to be working well on DS in terms of washing but keeping his skin very moist. You probably already know it, but moisturizer is best put on when the skin is still moist from a shower to absorb better. We have to use prescription items as well, but those are the regular recommendations given to us. If the facial eczema is new, did he change soap or anything new lately to cause a flare?

We just got a huge wall map for my son's room when he was that age (age 3-5). My DH did extensive foreign travel at that time, so we would mark where daddy was located at any time. He seemed to understand, and had a good foundation when we started regular geography later on.

Relationships - mine with the kids, and the kids with each other. My oldest is good with the youngers, something I don't see in his PS friends, even those who have younger brothers and sisters. My oldest is excited about school still, not depressed or sad. He loves to learn.

30 minutes by foot :001_smile: Less than 5-10 minutes by car, including loading people up.

We use it a lot for 2nd grade and pre-K. I find lots of fun things to print out for lapbooks for my 2nd grader. And there are loads and loads of printouts for the pre-K and K set, little fun books, coloring, etc.

I did it for a little over 10 years, then in the field as an editor and manager. I "retired" to be a SAHM a few years ago. LMK if I can help.

Ah, I see. I was apparently making this harder than it needed be. So I would then put writing, any activity sheets, etc., just in the weeks?