Kay in Cal
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Posts posted by Kay in Cal
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I went to school in Baltimore and LOVED it! I would totally live there again... though I think that the great parts of it are more urban. We lived in Charles Village by JHU, and with all the problems it was a great place to live. What I miss most is the public transportation! Professional sports teams, museums, the harbor, lots of history, are all easily accessible. I like the "neighborhood"y feeling of the city--how each little are has it's own personality. So many great activities around the various schools, many of them for free. I'd live there again in a second (if dh would leave So Cal!), but I'd probably want to buy a row house and fix it up. They can be so lovely...
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Wonderful! I read the title of your post and I was worried for a moment... this sounds so awesome!
I'm feeling envious... 7 acres. Sigh.
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So many places have generic unisex dressing rooms nowadays (like Target) or the rooms just open onto the store itself (as in many smaller clothing stores). Doesn't bother me... I assume that area is for people to assess what you are wearing after you have changed. The voting area, so to speak!
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We're gamers too.. role-playing (actually got to see a preview of 4th ed D&D and it was surprisingly good) a wide variety of games and lots of board games as well. My dh is a SAHD, except on Wednesdays, when he works in a comic book store for "fun". Anyhow, I'm always excited to meet gamers around here!
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I had a hard time finding someone local when I was searching... was considering buying half a cow shipped from somewhere else, but I'd rather buy local too. If you find one, let me know!!
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Totally an aside, but Clwcain, what kind of gaming forums do you hang out on?
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If you are looking for a "system" to help you implement, I can't recommend "Accountable Kids" enough. We bought the book only, made up our own cards, so it was inexpensive... and now the chores get done every day, they know what expectations are, and yelling is WAY down.
From their site:
"Accountable Kids is a unique parenting program designed to teach accountability and responsibility in the home. It is a back-to-basics system which includes essential principles and concrete parenting tips for strengthening relationships and building a foundation for success; an ideal program for ADHD natural treatment therapy. Children learn to balance choices and consequences in a fun, productive manner."
http://www.accountablekids.com/
I'm sure lots of people do this naturally, but for us it was wonderful to have a system. My 6 year old is very challenging, and his behavior has significantly improved since we got this up and running.
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I think water too! I don't care for soda very much, and my older ds won't drink it at all... there must be some others out there who feel the same way.
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We are Academy 18/21. My dh claims it is properly pronounced "Academy 18 slash 21. I just say "Academy 18 21".
Very very geeky reason for the name... can anyone guess? Knowing how I met my dh is a big hint...
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Congratulations! I love the cake/dress story... and the look on your face is wonderful! Hope you have an awesome evening....
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Both my dh and my oldest ds have been diagnosed with ADHD, and this sounds like typical behavior. If he is on track academically, I don't think that holding him back a year is the right thing.
Kids (and adults) with ADHD require coaching to learn organizational and focus skills. Punishment, or even maturity, is not necessarily going to change that.
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:iagree: Grade is an arbitrary term to begin with. I would just keep on going at whatever level she is at and not worry about grade. Kids in ps aren't all at the same "level", but they are in the same grade. It sounds like she made concerted effort, it was just a tough year situationally... holding back should only be for dire circumstances, IMHO.
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Wow, that was really out of context and slap-down rude. Where did I ever say Jesus was the government? What I said was... Jesus does indeed require us to share our drinks that we take to the park if others don't have them. Whether or NOT the government requires it, Jesus requires it of Christians.
You disagree?
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I sent an email to another Scholastic contest that didn't say anything about homeschoolers one way or the other, and got a reply back already this morning:
Dear Kay,
I can only speak to the Scholastic Book Fairs' Kids Are Authors contest, but we do indeed accept entries from homeschoolers. If there book should win the contest, the $5,000 voucher in product must be awarded to a non-profit organization of their choice as we can not award prizes to individual families. Please see our website for our complete entry form, guidelines and regulations.
That makes total sense to me... I'm not saying that a huge prize shouldn't go to a whole school of children (or co-op, or NPO group), but that individual children should be allowed to compete. Clearly other departments of Scholastic agree... so why the "no homeschoolers"?
It isn't about "entitlement". It's about customer service!
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Ahwahnee wrote "When you take your kids to a park, and bring a chest full of drinks, should you be required by law to give half of them to everyone else in the park, since you have so many? Or should you be able to choose what you do with your drinks? Would you go to the park if you were required to give away your drinks?"
Worked for Jesus. The disciples weren't crazy about the idea either, btw... ‘Where are we to get enough bread in the desert to feed so great a crowd?’
Matthew 15:32-39
Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, ‘I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat; and I do not want to send them away hungry, for they might faint on the way.’ 33The disciples said to him, ‘Where are we to get enough bread in the desert to feed so great a crowd?’ 34Jesus asked them, ‘How many loaves have you?’ They said, ‘Seven, and a few small fish.’ 35Then ordering the crowd to sit down on the ground, 36he took the seven loaves and the fish; and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 37And all of them ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. 38Those who had eaten were four thousand men, besides women and children. 39After sending away the crowds, he got into the boat and went to the region of Magadan.
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I have one dedicated bookcase in our school area.. it's a floor to ceiling Ikea IVAR bookcase. Crafts that take adult supervision with my boys (lots of collage things--eg macaroni, sequins, foam pieces, shells, etc; finger paints; big bottles of tempera paints; playdough and lots of supplies) are higher up, in large labeled bins by category. That stuff they need to ask me to hand down so they can play.
Starting mid way down the shelf are smaller drawers with little items--scissors, markers, rulers, tape, glue, stickers, colored pencils, chalk, crayons, etc. All are in those small three-drawer rubbermaid type things with the drawers labelled. Then there are two shelves with paper--coloring and activity books, writing paper, construction paper, etc. The bottom shelf is "found" craft items like tubes, boxes, etc. Everything they can reach they can pull down as they like. My 4 year old is my art boy; he's in an out of the craft materials all day.
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Story of the World -- history made accessible
Growing With Grammar -- so easy to teach and implement
EPGY Math -- my ds LOVES math now, and he's soaring
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There are many Wall Street corporations who support him, and his economic policies including:
Goldman Sachs, Meryll Lynch, Lehman, JP Morgan, and Citigroup
My sister in law is CFO at one of these corporations--she's a banker who handles billions, BILLIONS, in her day to day professional decision making. She is a huge Obama supporter, and has done lots of research into how his election will affect thier company, stockholders, and personal investers. She thinks Obama has fantastic economic policies.
Since I hated economic in college, and all my professional budgeting experience is at a small church with an annual budget of just over $200,000, I'm willing to defer to her experience.
Personally, I don't vote based on how much money I think I'm going to make, but on how the majority of people will be affected, regardless of my own situation. I'm convinced Obama has the best chance to turn this nation around in a positive direction, and not just financially.
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OK, this is what I wrote:
I just read online that Subway and Scholastic are not accepting contest submissions from homeschoolers?
I'm truly hoping this must be an error. Our local homeschool group regularly submits Scholastic book orders, as do many others, and we have been attending your warehouse sales as homeschoolers for years. Obviously, some branches of Scholastic are very happy to embrace the pocketbooks of home educators, so I would hope our children can fully participate in your contests as well.
And homeschool children certainly eat just as much as those in public or parochial schools! Both my kids love Subway... and there is great disappointment that thier writing is unworthy of your consideration. According to the US Department of Education, in 2003 (the year for which the most recent data is available) there were 1.1 million homeschoolers in the US, a 29% increase in the previous 4 years. That's over 2 percent of students in 2003, and that number has grown since. http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oii/nonpublic/statistics.html#homeschl
That's a lot of current and future customers to insult and antagonize...
Kay (name)
(location)
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This stuff ticks me off to no end... let's not let them forget we're out here spending our money!
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prove that Bush thinks God is telling him what to do.quote]
Excerpts from a Slate.com article by Steven Waldman
"Stephen Mansfield, author of The Faith of George W. Bush, goes on to say: "Not long after, Bush called James Robison (a prominent minister) and told him, 'I've heard the call. I believe God wants me to run for President.' " Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention heard Bush say something similar: "Among the things he said to us was: I believe that God wants me to be president, but if that doesn't happen, it's OK.' "
Are the White House and the Bush campaign actively encouraging the idea that Bush has been put there by God? Bush has been careful to never say anything close to that in public. And yet the combination of passages in carefully vetted speeches and quotes from close friends or supporters indicate that this is the understanding.
In one sense, it's not surprising that some people believe this. Many, if not most, Americans believe that God intervenes in the lives of humans. If that weren't the case, prayer might be considered superfluous, meaningless. If God intervenes in the affairs of ordinary humans who pray for recovery from illness or a better job, it only stands to reason that He would control something as consequential as an American presidency.
Yet it's hard to recall another instance of a presidential campaign so confidently promulgating the idea that its candidate had divine endorsement. The potentially dangerous implication is that since God put George W. Bush in the White House, opposing him is opposing Him. A person could get smited for that."
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Here is a fascinating interview with Todd Risley, who co-authored the landmark Hart-Risley study on language development in children.
Wow! Go watch this link, folks!!!:thumbup1:
Short form: Those families who talk to their kids MOST in the baby/preschool years see the greatest vocabularies later, higher IQs, better test scores and reading comprehension. The correlation is amazingly direct--ie, the more you talk, the better the kids did.
The amazing variability got to me--the family that talked the most was 3600 words an hour addressed to their child, the one that talked the least was 150 words an hour addressed to their child. No wonder!
I think this study is probably right on. We had our own little experiment in our family, because my dh (who was/is a stay at home dad) went into the hospital for 6+ months when our kids were 3 and 1. The boys were with a nanny during the day for that entire--I was at the hospital with my dh, and even when he was home he needed nursing care and was bedridden. Our kids missed out on having dad there 24/7 and Mom was busy and exhausted. I believe that's in large part why our younger son is not as verbally strong as our older son--he missed out on our family, our dynamic, during a super developmental stage. There's nothing I can do to change it, and at the time we had no choice, but I still regret that he missed out on what WE would have done and said with him. No nanny is as good...
I think he's bright, and he's catching up. Still... talk talk talk! I wouldn't be surprised if our family breaks that 3600 an hour easily, as do many of you, most likely! Lol!
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4) Every word against the war *is* a word against those proudly serving
I think this is fundamentally untrue. Both my parents were career military, both Vietnam veterans. My dad retired the day after I graduated from High School, but I grew up on and around military bases. My mother worked at the Pentagon on 9/11--she still does, but a civilian now, she retired as an Air Force Colonel about 10 years ago. I am strongly anti-war, but would never dream of speaking "a word against" those who serve. I question this war, was one of the few who seemed to be against it before the invasion began, and I do care deeply about the American troops in harms way, some of whom I know personally, all of whom are "my" people--the military community that raised me.
Part of what we do in a democracy "is" question wars. Do you think that no administration has ever made a poor decision? Or only that no poor military decision has ever been made? Do you believe that citizens have no right or responsibility to ensure that the best possible decisions are made by the government they elected? My religious convictions only add impetus for me to speak out and exercise a civic value.
I guess I can understand that confusion of feelings--my father in law is still horribly insulted by anyone mentioning that we lost the Vietnam war, or that it was not worthwhile geopolitically speaking. He still is personally insulted by that statement. But there can be individual heroism even in the midst of wars that were unwise from the standpoint of the government. There are plenty of stories throughout history about individuals who were in the "wrong" war, or even on the "wrong" side, who still fought bravely and well and did their best to make some goodness in the midst of despair. I don't think there are many in the anti-war movement of today who would deny that reality.
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Thanks! We do one day of historical copywork, one day from our (history cycle) literature, and one day of poetry copywork a week. Next year I'm going to add a "fun" day of copywork--from whatever ds is into at the time (right now, Pokemon).
Keep 'em coming, if you have other resources!
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Bump... anyone? Anyone?
Local news just did a piece on the Grocery Game
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
You really have to clip paper coupons... the ones on the site are not nearly enough. I actually have people from church who save and give me all their coupon inserts that they don't use. No expense to me...
The BEST is when our local stores have TRIPLE coupons. We went to the store every day during that time period two years ago... and I still have enough free Windex/Hand soap/Air freshener to last me another year. Stocking up is key--as I remember I got 12 free bottles of barbeque sauce that week. It's all gone now...