Bought this hat for my 3 year old. I love it

My DH has never fallen asleep on a date before, but we don't have much creativity either. Almost every single date we go on involves going to Barnes and Noble or TJMaxx. We never get to look around when the kids are with us. :001_smile:

A close friend of a friend died of a brain tumor a couple of years ago. She knew she was terminal and had about 3 months to live. She spent that time doing a lot of fun things with her husband and two young children, and her free time scrapbooking (she couldn't walk anymore because of how the tumor effected her and was unable to read, but could still write) and writing them letters. At the time, I thought a lot about what I would do if in the same position. I think what she did helped her family and gave her a lot of peace as well.

I read the first three to my 5 year old and she loved them. Nothing objectionable in those that I can remember. We actually had a great discussion during the one (I think it's the 3rd) about when Betsy and Tacy become friends with the immigrant girl--- about what immigration is and about being kind to people who are different than us.

At our church one Sunday as the tray with the bread was passed, I noticed that the bread had green on it. I thought, Oh no! It's moldy and the people who prepared communion didn't notice! When it finally got to me, I noticed that some other pieces had red on them. They had bought bread with candied fruit in it :lol:

I love mine for big baking jobs like at the holidays. I don't have the pasta attachment (or maybe I do...my hubby got it for me with all the attachments he could find one Christmas..before kids...when we had $$$ still :D), but I use the grinder attachment for grinding meat, make cranberry sauce, etc. fairly regularly and have never had a problem with cleaning. Granted, you do have to take it all apart which takes a bit of time, but it's not a big deal at all.

How about a short before school math session with her and the also speedy but not accurate 4th grader? Even if it's just 10 or 15 minutes, it will give you the opportunity to emphasize that they need to slow down and take their time when they do their work.

I just had to look after I saw your thread title --- love it!

I would ask your mommy friends what they think of the local schools. If nothing else, you'll get an earful of information to sort through. We picked our school based on size (it's small. My daughter has 17 kids in her pre K/K class), other parents' recommendations, program (it has the only 1/2 day K program in our city which is what we wanted), and my daughter's two best friends had already gone there the previous year and are in her class (big selling point for my daughter :001_smile:) Usually at some point during the year, the school board releases the rankings of all the public schools based on test scores in our city. It made me feel good that her school was ranked #3. Perhaps your city does the same? In the end, I really think it comes down to a gut feeling that you get when you visit and meet the teachers. Trust your gut.

For the preschoolers, I must vote for "The Color Kittens" by Margaret Wise Brown. My 5 year old dd and 3 year old ds LOVE that book.

I completely agree. It took forever to get my husband on the homemade train after we were married because pretty much everything his mom ever made was out of a can or box. If it doesn't look familiar, some people just won't eat it. Don't feel bad---feel good that you're instilling good habits about food in your family. Maybe the one person who tries your dish and likes it will be more inspired to make more food homemade themselves. One other comment --- most processed foods are full of sodium and/or sugar. I think the average American palate is just used to food being super salty and sugary, and most homemade food isn't.

I think it depends on a lot of factors. My oldest sister is 19 years older than my youngest sister. They are not close at all. On the other hand, I am quite close (i.e. talk on the phone with at least once a week since we live far apart) to my sister who is 8 years older than me, my sister who is 5 years younger than me, and my sister who is 8 years younger than me. I think the best thing to do is to make sure that most activities your family does involves all the members. As your baby gets older, try to get your older children to act as mentors to the little one. One of my fondest memories of my older sister Lisa (the one who is 8 years older than me) is the day she came to my school when I was in first grade to ride me home on the handlebars of her bike. Granted, probably not the safest thing to do, but it was the coolest thing ever to introduce my big sister who went to (wait for it) HIGH SCHOOL to all my friends and my teacher. Be aware that the age difference will be evident for a long time and they may not be super close as kids. It's so great now that it has pretty much all evened out now that we're adults.

Are you able to volunteer in the classroom? Sometimes this gives you extra time to spend with the teacher to get advice, along with helping out your son and his class.

I agree with the previous poster about the teacher possibly trying to teach study skills. We have to remember that the teacher has to teach to the weakest student's level in PS. If the other kids in your child's class are bombing their spelling tests because they're not studying the words well enough, then the teacher has to find a way to get them all up to a base level. Are parent/teacher conferences coming up soon or do you have an opportunity to talk to the teacher? Maybe you can ask for some additional spelling words for your child to work on or, like the previous poster suggested, just not worry about it and focus on other areas that you dd needs to work on.

I found The Secrets of the Baby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg to be hugely helpful. Maybe they have it at your library? Ultimately, I did end up using the "cry it out" method for one night because nothing else worked with my dd. She did sleep through the night after that. Luckily, my ds slept through the night out of the box...phew.

Two of my favorite non-fictions that are in the same vein are Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman. My all time favorite fiction books are White Oleander by Janet Fitch, Blindness by Jose Saramago, and The Road by Cormac McCarthy. These are all my go to recommendations for my hard core book reading friends. The three fiction books I listed really blew me out of the water.

I actually met a delightful little girl in the airport one time when I was traveling named Valentine. I suppose Valentina could work too.

I don't know anything about Phonics Road, but I wanted to respond to your thread because your situation sounds a lot like mine. I'm using OPGTR with my daughter 2 or 3 times a week (she's in 1/2 day K five days a week) and it has really helped her reading skills. Her teacher (at this point at least) is only teaching them sight words so it's making me feel better that she'll have a good foundation for reading in the future. We do a little bit of writing practice too. I too have largely left my son alone. He can identify all his upper case letters and numbers through 10. I tried with my daughter at 3 to do the Letter of the Week curriculum and felt that it really didn't do anything at that early of an age. In fact, I didn't think doing anything academic sunk in with her until she was nearly 5. We did a lot of playing outside, baking, painting, reading books and coloring which reflecting back was the best thing I could have done. I'm going to take this path with my little guy too.

We started OPGTR when my daughter was 4.75 and skipped the first 25 lessons. It hasn't hurt one bit to skip those. I found that until around lesson 50 it was a struggle, then we started bribing with stickers. We're cooking along around lesson 113 now. If you're looking for reading ideas, try www.amblesideonline.com. I've got a list of stuff we're reading at my house here: http://enchantedschoolhouse.blogspot.com/p/2010-2011-kindergarten-read-alouds_21.html Good luck!

I know that might make me seem a little dense, but I had a "supernatural" tooth fairy experience. I was on a mission to catch the tooth fairy, who I assumed was my mother. I was gripping the tooth in my hand under my pillow, pretending to be asleep while my parents were still awake. Next thing I know I have a quarter in my hand and my tooth is gone. My parents are still awake because the lights were on in the living room. At that moment, I was firmly convinced the tooth fairy was real. My mom finally burst my bubble one day when we were riding in the car and she asked me to help her sneak my little sister some money for her tooth that night. Apparently, there was a short period of time that fateful night when I was asleep and she managed to get the tooth out of my hand and the money in. We had a good laugh about it. I too would have assumed that a 7th grader would have a clue about Santa's existence, but the tooth fairy on the other hand... :tongue_smilie:

:iagree: As a person who took piano by choice from 5th grade to 11th grade. I would try to break it into several short sessions until he has the stamina to stick with it. My very strict teacher required 30 minutes of practice per day for the first couple years and then an hour per day after that. When I was at the 30 minute level, I would break it up even into 3 10 minute sessions. As far as learning the notes go, I would recommend going to a music store and getting him an age appropriate theory workbook for him to fill out as part of his school work. That will definitely help with reinforcement. My opinion is if he's committed for the year have him finish it, but don't force it. He is really quite young for piano lessons still and there's lots of time for him to learn even if he takes a break. From my personal experience, even if you start later (I was 10) it all evens out in the end. My teacher taught a few of my classmates who started as young as 5. By the time we were all in high school, there was very little difference in our skill level.

This drives me crazy too! Each family has to bring snack to my daughter's PM K class 6 times per year. The teacher designated in a letter to home that the snacks have to be "healthy" and made suggestions like fruit or cheese and crackers. I brought apples one day, homemade blueberry muffins another day, baked a couple loaves of banana bread, and brought packaged granola bars another time. I have seen parents walking in on their day with baskets full of DORITOS! Boxes full of pre-packaged OREOS!!! I had to pick my jaw off the ground. Can they not read?!?!? Okay---rant over.

I have had a terrible time finding suits this time of year too. How about new on eBay?

I don't live where I was born, but I lived in the city we're in now from when I was 3 until I was 21. I came back 6 years ago at 28. I think we're here for the long haul.

We celebrate St. Nicholas Day in a similar fashion, except we do the chocolate coins in the shoes(might have to do some real coins this year---Red has a cavity!) and give a new Christmas book to each child. We also read St. Nicholas stories that we check out from the library. For Martinmas last year, we read a library book about St. Martin and then made a Martinmas lantern by modge podging tissue paper to the outside of a jelly jar. It looked like a stained glass window! We popped a tea light in and enjoyed it lit on our kitchen table. My husband did attach a wire handle to it, but I didn't feel comfortable with a four year old running around with an open flame. :D