Those ice cream bars are huge, I'd ask him to take a bite if he didn't do it himself.

:iagree: This is exactly how I thought of it. I think it is a wise decision to not release the photos. We may all be a bit safer because of it and those who doubt would doubt even with photos.

Thank you for your replies. I think I will just make a list of books to "try" and see how many we get through. I am a scheduler and I often want to make things harder than they need to be.

Welcome, we too use AAS. It is a favorite on this board.

it looks like they are totally different. The sonlight book is by Daniel J Boorstin and Ruth F Boorstin while the amazon book is by James Daugherty.

Background, we will be covering SOTW 2 next year. Dd likes some read alouds, but is kind of picky. We've been reading the Burgess animal books and she liked them for a while, but she is no longer excited by them. She has started fighting read aloud time. :glare: I want her to love reading and read aloud time. I have been going back and forth about what to do for read alouds next year. Here are my three ideas, what do you think would be best to create a love of reading? (pretend at the moment that cost is not a factor) Also, I'm not especially good at comming up with comprehension/ discussion questions, I wouldn't use them everyday, but it would be nice to have them. 1. Create a list from the SOTW 2 AG so that most, if not all of our read alouds go with our history reading. I thought discussions would be easy to come up with for these since I can always bring up what we studied in SOTW. 2.Buy Sonlight core A or B (what would be best for a young 1st grader?) I would get a schedule and discussion questions, but probably wouldn't read ALL the books on the schedule or maybe read them over 2 years? 3. Put together a list of classic read alouds for her level and make my own discussion questions. (What read alouds would you suggest if you think this option is best?) So WWYD? Thank you for your input!

I love their sense of wonder, their excitement at learning new things, their imaginations and their development of character. That doesn't mean everything is always rosy, but the good times help me get throught the bad ones. And, they grow up so quickly, stages pass even when it feels like it never will.

My dd loves the Magic Treehouse stories on CD. We get them through the library. She is looking forward to being able to read them herself soon.

I do not think school from that long ago is comparable to today's schools for several reasons, safety and teaching methods being two reasons. Our society has changed significantly and the schools have changed with it. Besides, don't you want BETTER for your children than you experienced? I certainly do.

Wow, just wow. You tell her and her children they can't come over and why and she still asks???? She apparently needs a seriously blunt conversation. "Your children do not obey my house rules and they will never be allowed in my house because of that. The do not show respect to myself, my children or our things. You are doing them a diservice not teaching them disipline and respect for others." If the calls continued, I would block their number. I would also warn the leader. If a family is not willing to show basic levels of respect for others and teach their kids how to do this, they should not be part of a group. It is beyond me how these parents think this is ok.

:iagree: I always thought that scene was just the final straw in a series of choices that separated them. I always thought it wasn't the name that was unforgivable, but the reason he used it.

My dd is a bit younger, but has the exact same problem. We use OPGTR and ETC too. I recently added AAS, she spells better than she reads now, but I have seen some improvement in reading. My mom who was a ps special ed teacher for several year suggested having her reread the same books over and over to increase fluency. I haven't used this next suggestion myself, but saw it listed on here and thought it made a lot of sense. If your child is not showing dislexic tendencies (the reason I've been putting off trying it myself) and really seems to work better with sight words, teach them the phonics and then drill them with phonics decodable "sight words". It was suggested doing this in the context of a specific book so that the book can be read fluently almost immeadiately, but will hopefully transfer to new books too. The other advice I've gotten is to have them read, read, read everyday, but I can only get dd to read so much (which isn't very much) before I feel that I'm making her hate reading which is the opposite of what I'm going for.

:iagree: If you did both modern and ancients next year, would you REALLY want to do ancients the year after too when the co-op is doing it? Two years of ancients isn't bad or anything, but your kids might get tired of it. Personally, I'd just start with Modern, but I love co-ops and think they are worth some trouble.

Wow, that is SO brave of her in the first place. I rarely eat out with my children when they are 1-3 years old. We do take out or have a babysitter, this is for everyone's sanity (mine, my kids and fellow diners). I have noticed that other kids seem to be able to sit longer at younger ages than mine do. I would just reassure her that every mother has btdt, anyone with kids should understand. I always feel sympathy for parents I see in this situation, no judgement whatsoever.

I seriously thought about doing this. We are doing LHFHG right now and I just love the layout. Next year we will be moving to the WTM method, but I didn't want to give up the layout. I was going to make my own in word, as the pp discribed BUT then I realized that I want a bit more flexibility, specifically the ability to move faster in one subject than another or slow down a bit. That is a totally personal choice, but what I decided on was a check list of subjects per day all on one page (I have some that change per day of the week , just like HOD) and then write lesson plans per subject, to be kept with the subject books. This way there is not quite the ridgidness of a year of preplanned boxes, but I get to see an overview of the day on one page. Just wanted to offer a possible other option.

I agree that if you are all doing it together you should wait untill everyone memorizes what you are working on before moving to something else. With that said, I suggest you have two memory boxes, one for the older kids and one for the younger kids. When it is memory work time one parent works with the older kids the other works with the younger kids. This way it is still family time and gets done as a group. The parents can memorize things too, but the olders and not always waiting on the youngers.

First I would make sure that there weren't any major distractions around him like TV or radio or loud siblings (at my house even a quite sibling needs to go out of the room occasionally), then I would suggest he take a jumping jack/run arround the room/ tumbling break. Then hopefully he would be ready to sit quietly. If he WANTS to finish the lesson, I'd take that as a really good sign. I've found that sometimes when I don't think that dd is listening, that she is so antsy it is driving me up a wallk and I feel that she just CANT be getting anything out of what we are doing, she is actually learning quite a lot. Some kids process better when moving around which can be pretty frustrating for the teacher, but the kids don't mind. Hope you find something that helps you both. :D

I know the Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease has lots of different book lists, I'm not sure if they are by subject though.

Well, I can only speak for myself, but I don't prefer unit studies because I need more continuity. Unit studies don't last all year, most last for a few weeks to a few months. I really didn't like switching books every week when I tried using FIAR (five in a row). I felt we didn't have anything that put each week together into an overall "bigger picture". I'm now using HOD LHFHG and the history timeline gives me that feel of "bigger picture". Next year I will be switching to the WTM aproach and will tie everything into our history program. Some parents and kids have no problem with switching units several times durring the year. I really like the IDEA of unit studies, but have found that they are just not for me.

Very cute! I love the fridge.

These are some great ideas. Thank you so much! I definently think we will be breaking the lessons up into multi day lessons and I really like the idea of copying the page. i could even increase the size of the print if I did that. :D

Do/did your begining readers get through the multi paragraph "stories" in one sitting? Dd is on lesson 41, if she sees more than 4-5 sentences on one page she doesn't even want to try. She can do it, but it is work and takes her a while. The past two weeks I've let her take a break from OPGTR. She's been "reading" starfall readers each day that she has essentially memorized. I'm hoping this will help with her fluency and speed so she won't get as discouraged when reading new content. We also do ECT every day. Is there anything else I can do to help her be able to read more and more fluently in one sitting?

:iagree:I didn't mean to come across as totally anti dr.. I know that the vast majority of OBs want their patients, mother and baby, to come out of labor ALIVE and healthy and that they are in a no win situation of trying for the best end result WHILE protecting themselves from a lawsuit. I agree that our sue-happy society needs to change.

Doctors are much more likely to take INTERVENTION risks than to do nothing. If something goes wrong they bring out their list of interventions to say they tried everything they could, whether the mother/ family wanted that or not. Interventions cover a doctor's arse and often have little to do with the needs of the patient. That is why many interventions (IV and fetal monetoring come to mind) are part of hospital policy no matter how low the patient risk is.

:iagree: Very well said!