I think Frog and Toad and the other Arnold Lobel books are an extra step beyond Go Dog Go or Green Eggs and Ham. They have longer sentences and more words on the page, and more words which go beyond simple CVC or CVCe patterns. That said, they're about ten times better than most early readers in quality, so they're worth getting to as quickly as possible. ;) They've recently put out some omnibus versions of the Dr. Seuss Beginner Books series. For example: http://www.amazon.com/Big-Blue-Book-Beginner-Books/dp/0375855521 There's the Big Blue Book, the Big Red Book, and the Big Green Book. For about $10 you get five stories with the original full-size artwork, all at about a 1.5 grade level. They'd make a great set of first grade readers.

The first level of "I Can Read" books is quite advanced. It's hard to fill the gap between Bob books and fluent reading of basic texts! We liked: Mo Willems' Elephant and Piggie books. These are especially nice because there are so few words on the page, but they are incredibly enjoyable to read. The Dr. Seuss "Beginner Books" series. Includes Seuss titles like Green Eggs and Ham, but also many others. Some of the simpler titles in the series are Ten Apples Up on Top, Put Me in the Zoo, and Go Dog Go. But actually most of the books in this series are pretty easy to read, and the older ones especially have a high percentage of phonetically regular words.

Here's the thing: 95% of people who lose weight on a diet regain the lost weight (and sometimes more). Research shows that even when they stay on the low-calorie diet, people start to put weight back on. The diet industry does a great job of convincing people that they are just not trying hard enough and need to stick with it - but in fact, a huge body of scientific research shows that dieting doesn't work for very long. The good news is that you can make significant improvements in your health, comfort, and physical abilities without weight-loss dieting. Exercise increases your cardiovascular fitness and decreases your diabetes risk even if you don't lose any weight. The same is true for a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains - it has health benefits even if you don't lose weight. So I recommend making changes that will make you feel good and improve your health, without worrying as much about the pounds. It's called the Health at Any Size movement, and it has been shown to have very good results.

For me, homeschooling one kindergartener, it's a part-time job. I have another part-time job outside the home. Motherhood, now, that's a full-time job. For sure. I average a 168-hour work week with that one.

It's lively and funny and her "voice" comes through very clearly. Those are excellent qualities in writing. If you told her that she should use a formal or elevated style, she didn't complete the assignment appropriately. If you didn't specify, then she did. You might want to extend the lesson by talking with her about how the appropriate tone/style changes according to the audience.

Does anyone incorporate a filing system for lesson plans? Nah, no one around here would ever be interested in that kind of thing.

Let's take a look at the class demographics, shall we? http://www.law.umich.edu/prospectivestudents/Pages/classstatistics.aspx 75% of the class of 2010 is white. 79% of the class of 2011 is white. 76% of the class of 2010 is white. 79% of the population of the United States is white, according to the Census Bureau. You don't mention gender, but according to the same statistics 55% of the classes of 2010 and 2012 are male, and 57% of the class of 2011 is male. 49% of the US population is male. It doesn't look like we'll be seeing a shortage of white male lawyers any time soon.

I have the same questions. The information we've been given is twice removed from the original research: the research was summarized for general readers in a book, and then the book was summarized for newspaper readers by an op-ed columnist. There's simply no way to evaluate the conclusions as reported by the columnist. Social science research is too complex for that, and too easily influenced by confounding variables.

...try to get them out of the house. Preferably somewhere they can entertain themselves instead of needing me to entertain them. A change of scenery usually works wonders for us.

We haven't managed to get this scheduled yet, but I was planning to introduce a new video every week and have my child watch it twice. I think the extra exposure will be helpful in making the vocabulary stick.

I keep a homeschooling blog for a few different reasons: - Homeschooling is unusual among my friends and family, and many of them are interested in following along to see what we're doing. - I enjoy preserving memories of what we've done. - I like to share our experiences and ideas with Five in a Row with others who may be considering or using that curriculum.

Anyone actually finish the 30-day shred? I'm sorry, I just can't imagine what you're going to do with all that cheese. Anyone else having a hard time saying good-bye to summer? Articulation therapy really helped my DD with this. I don't want to pass judgement In that case, an internet forum may not be the best place for you.

I'm a little nervous about your continued questions about which meds people recommend, given that you say you can't get in to see a doctor and you've been taking meds that belong to other people (Xanax) and meds that aren't appropriate for your condition (Flexaril). Self-medicating like this is harmful and dangerous. It is not going to make you better, and is very likely to make you worse. If you are willing to PM your location, I will research options for low- or no-cost mental health care. It is very important that you get competent help for your anxiety.

I did this into adulthood, and so did my DH. It's just a function of reading at a higher vocabulary level than the people around you speak. So many people in my life have made fun of me for mispronouncing words. One of the things that proved my DH and I were right for each other is the low-key way we handled each other's mispronunciations. "Oh, I always thought that was pronounced 'X'." "I don't know, let's check the dictionary." Both of us were so tired of people thinking it was funny or making a big deal out of it, so we were really gentle with each other.

I think a HUGE part of it is the child's readiness. A child who is ready to potty train usually learns quickly and easily. A child who is really struggling may just not be ready. We got a lot of benefit from naked time. It can be hard for a young child to understand why underpants are different from a diaper. We encouraged potty sitting and would read to her, play with her, etc. while she sat on the potty. Once we "caught" a few that way, she was very excited and motivated to see if she could do it again. Definitely keep a potty in a central area like the living room or playroom... if you have hardwood floors.

Here are some sermons from my church, if you want to browse through and get an idea of what a UU religious message might be like: http://www.firstunitarian.net/publications/sermon/index.asp But UU churches can be pretty different from each other, so the best thing may be just to ask your father what his church is like.

Okay, guys, I have a complaint about this thread. I usually read WTM on my phone while I'm nursing my toddler to sleep at night. Do you have any idea how hard it is to choke back laughter silently so that I don't wake him up?!

Please don't take your mom's Xanax. That's a bad idea. Please call to get an immediate appointment with your doctor, or with a psychiatrist if your insurance lets you do that without going through primary care. If you haven't had anxiety problems before it's important to be evaluated to look for a potential medical cause. I took Prozac for postpartum anxiety disorder and it turned me back into a normal person. A number of antidepressants are effective for anxiety. I don't recommend drugs like Xanax and Valium because you can have rebound panic attacks when you try to come off them. There are also highly effective psychotherapies for anxiety. It might make good sense to get on an antidepressant and then look for a cognitive or cognitive-behavioral therapist who can teach you coping strategies to help you head off panic attacks.

In the summer I use my George Foreman countertop grill all the time. It's indoor cooking still, but it doesn't heat up the house. It's still grilling, but there's no char-broiled flavor so there is some variety. A lot of Crockpot meals don't appeal in the summer because they are so hearty, nut pulled pork sandwiches from the Crockpot go well. We minimize cooked sides in the summer by eating a lot of bread, salads, and raw veggie platters.

Peggy Kaye's Games for Math has a ton of great ideas. We play a lot of Tens Concentration. Make up a math deck of cards (face cards removed) and put them in a face-down array. Take turns turning over two cards. If they add up to ten, you get to keep the pair. I've been focusing on tens, but of course you can play it to practice sums to any number by adjusting which cards you keep in the deck. My 5yo and I made up a math facts game called "Lost Children." I wrote numbers in pink chalk on the sidewalk, and then various math problems solving for those numbers in green chalk. The math problems were "lost children," and my daughter needed to draw chalk paths for them to get home to their "mothers." So Mother 10 had triplets, 5x2, 9+1, and 5+5. She had a lot of fun giving dramatic narrations of what the children and mothers were saying.

I work with immunocompromised people, so I will get the flu shot as I always do. I don't get flu shots for my kids, because they aren't at high risk of complications if they get the flu.

I think there are tremendous media and marketing pressures in our society for people to advance to adolescence as soon as possible and then to stay in adolescence for as long as possible. Eight-year-olds who want to wear makeup and are "too old" to play with toys and 30-year-olds who don't feel ready to settle down yet are all part of the same phenomenon. Eternal adolescence is a marketer's dream: adolescents are huge consumers of pop culture, have disposable income which they spend on themselves because they don't have responsibilities, are sensitive to trends and wanting to fit in, are pleasure-focused, seek out (and pay for) a lot of novel experiences, are image and brand conscious. So of course there's going to be a multibillion-dollar effort to convince us that we should spend as much of our lives as possible in adolescence. Of course there is.

When I read about something horrifying, I don't stop to ask myself, "Now, let me see, is this the worst thing anyone has EVER done? If it isn't, I guess I shouldn't say anything." I am an American who is proud of the civil rights and liberties generations of Americans have fought and died to defend. I find it loathsome to see other Americans defend oppression and intolerance on the grounds that Middle Eastern dictatorships do it so we should too. "Not the worst people in the world" might be good enough for you, but it isn't good enough for me.

We are all hanging out in our study. 5yo daughter is making a complex design out of pattern blocks. 18mo son is standing on a chair, taking things out of a cabinet, and repeatedly asking for Pocky. Who said he was too young to pick anything up from our Japan study? ;)

I am loving Five in a Row so much, and am so excited about what we're going to do next (and next! and next!), that it's probably illegal.