The first day of first grade is a big deal...we do pictures, eat a yummy breakfast, and the child gets a stack of new schoolbooks (and new pencils, crayons, paints, etc.). That day marks the first day that school is not optional. Before that I try to do a reading lesson most days for Kindergarten, but that depends on the child's mood...and never lasts more than 20 minutes. So I guess that my answer is six years old; and letting a three or four year old play freely and not forcing work does not seem to have an effect on their ability to sit and work for an hour when they are six years old. In my house it does not appear to be a learned ability, it appears to be a result of maturity.

What about multifocal contact lenses? They are like progressive glasses lenses, but in contact lens form. My husband wears these, and he really likes them.

That is funny, we do have a lot of the same curriculum, and our daughters are the same ages. My daughters take piano lessons, too. You are missing the precocious, spiderman-obsessed, havoc-wreaking five year old boy, though. :D As far as the outlining goes, my plan is to start by outlining really short sections of FMOR with two-level outlines. I think the book lends itself really well to that level of outlining. It is not nearly as dense with information as the KHE. We will see, though...we haven't covered the lesson yet, and I might change my mind and have her do longer sections of one-level outlines. They both have their benefits. Hmm...maybe I will have her start with one-level, and the next day I will have her expand them to two-level during her second reading...then I can have her write a summary from the outline on the third day...that will really make her cry! :lol:

The military. I live near Ft. Hood, and the soldiers that are coming back from deployments have lots of money to spend. They get paid extra during deployments, and all of it is tax-free. They come back and have money to spend on a house and a brand new car. In all my years here I have never gone out to lunch at a restaurant and not seen tables full of soldiers in uniform. If I were to start a business (retail, restaurant, construction), I would start it near a military base.

My in-laws. After the second time we had a waiter quit his job and walk out of the restaurant halfway through our meal, we quit having family dinners with them at restaurants.

We aren't exactly doing history according to WTM, but it is a little similar. :001_smile: She is using the MP guide to FMOR, which includes some timeline work. I plan on having her practice outlining from her history reading once we cover outlining in R&S (four lessons from now). Right now she reads the selection, answers the workbook questions, and we discuss the lesson on one day, and then the next day she re-reads the selection. My plan is for her to still do the same for the first day, but on the second day I will choose a portion of the reading for her to outline after she re-reads the selection. MP history is only scheduled once per week, but I am mean mommy and am making her do history twice per week so we can do the FMOR book (in their 4th grade plan) and the FMOMA in one year since I can't stand the thought of missing a book or being behind. :lol: I am holding off on having her write summaries until she is finished with her current writing curric. (Wordsmith Apprentice; she only has a few days left). She is still gaining confidence in herself when it comes to writing, so I am ramping things up slowly so she doesn't revert back to crying over every. single. paragraph. that she has to write. She does excellent with oral summaries, so I know she has the skill, she just has some perfection issues when it comes to putting it down on paper.

Have you looked at Memoria Press Lit? It only has three books for 7th grade (they are still developing 8th grade), so the reading is spread out pretty well, and you can assign as much or as little writing as you would like - it is easy to make it writing heavy or discussion heavy and still get the full benefit of the program. It does include a study of literary elements, as well. Sometimes MP Lit gets a bad rap for only scheduling 3-4 books per year in their lit program, but I think that it makes it more accessible to more students since it provides a thorough study without overwhelming the student with large amounts of reading.

:iagree: I used it with a writing phobic girl with great success.

That stuff is DIVINE!!!! :drool5:

If your son is truly having trouble with basic math, then I would recommend you supplement with MUS. Yes, there is a short video (meant for the parent, but Mr. Demme is teaching a class of children in the video so my child likes watching the videos and learns well from them), and then there are worksheets - as many as your child needs in order to master the topic. The worksheets are self-directed, you don't have to teach your way through them. At most (especially in the beginning lessons) your child will teach the concept back to you to show that it has been mastered, but since the child is just practicing the one skill that was taught in the video and reviewing previous skills, there is little direction needed from you to do the worksheet. If my daughter is struggling, I just repeat the instructions the way Mr. Demme phrased them (because she sure doesn't understand my phrasing!) and that is usually all she needs. Since my math instruction was not working (I switched my daughter to MUS Alpha this year, in 3rd grade) this seemed to me to be the closest thing to taking me out of the equation as I could realistically get. The way I see math and teach math was not reaching her at all. It was like I was speaking Greek to her...she didn't have a solid grasp on place value, much less understand addition and subtraction, and nothing I did helped her make progress. Mr. Demme, on the other hand, speaks her language. So we watch the video together (I am there to hear how he teaches the topic so I can illustrate it his way if necessary, and to pause the video if he asks a question so my daughter can answer it before the kids in his class answer it), and then I give her a worksheet and make sure she understands the instructions. There are extra activities and explanations that I can use in the teacher's guide, but I haven't needed it more than a couple of times. My daughter is "behind" in math, but I don't care...until she has the basics down, she is never going to progress in more complex topics.

Here are a bunch of cookie mix in a jar recipes; it wouldn't be hard to put them in a ziploc bag and they would last for quite a bit longer than cookies that were already baked.

My oldest child uses R&S math; she began with the 1st grade book and is currently in the 7th grade book. I can see that the books for 4th and up *could* be used independently; but no, I do not agree that they were intended to be used that way and I still stand by my opinion that *I* would not use them that way because in my opinion it would be a sub-standard program without those two elements. The books contain some review, but not enough in my opinion. The teaching portion of the lesson takes the child step-by-step through the new material, gives a heads-up to the teacher about any possible problems the student could encounter with the material, gives an extension of the new material for students that are up to the challenge, and provides mental math problems. None of this is in the student book...there is a basic explanation for the student to refer back to if they forget a step during the written work, but it is not introduced as well as it is in the TM, and I would not want my daughter to rely on it to teach herself the new material. I don't fault anyone who does use it that way, I just stand by my original post that *I* would not use it that way. My oldest is intuitively mathy and working above grade level in math, and without the teaching portion of the lesson *I* would not find it to be challenging enough or have enough of a conceptual explanation of the concepts to be an acceptable math curriculum.

I am in the middle of reading this book (it was free recently for the Kindle, now it is $0.99 and well worth it), and I am now dead set against putting my kids in public school. This book is written by a teacher that taught public high school for four years and gives some very, very detailed insight to what goes on in many schools (warning: very strong language and mature themes). He wrote the book to answer why he became a teacher, and why he quit. I know several public school teachers that teach in my local school district, and he writes the truth. My kids will self-study and take the GED, or my mom will home school them, or my husband will learn how to home school while being a full-time pastor...anything but go to public school if I were to die.

At that age *all* math curriculums are going to be teacher intensive. What you are describing sounds like CLE math, though. Definitely not Rod & Staff...the meat of the daily lesson in 1st and 2nd grade is the teaching portion; the workbook stuff is just to reinforce the teaching portion and is only necessary in the areas that the child needs more work. The workbook can be done mostly orally - for my second child I just included it in the teaching portion and she wrote only a very small amount (it was a fight getting her to write, and I did not want that to get in the way of her learning math). But I would not use Rod & Staff if I were looking for less teacher intensive, especially not as I reached the higher grades - much of the review and just about all of the mental math work is done during the teaching time, and the curriculum would appear to be a very poor one without those two elements.

:grouphug: I meant to put in my post earlier that it was only applicable in families with NT kids. I didn't, and that was careless and thoughtless of me and I apologize. It was never my intent to make anyone feel bad that their children have extra challenges and that strategies that should work with a NT kid won't work with theirs. You said yourself that you have high expectations and you are on your kids when they mess up. That is all that a parent can do, and yes, the rest of the responsibility is on the kid. The point of my post was that in families that I have known for 10+ years (families with NT kids), the children that behave have parents that have high expectations and hold their children accountable to them. The children that have really bad behavior (again, NT children) have parents that don't guide their children or have any consistence in their hands-on parenting. I am just speaking in generalities here...I know that all kids have their moments! But holding kids to a standard and expecting some measure of compliance *will* make a difference. More in some kids, and less in others, but a difference nonetheless. You are being really hard on yourself because I don't think you realize how much of a difference you are making in your children's behavior. If you are getting compliments on your kids' good behavior and your corrections of poor behavior, even if your children are not well-behaved the majority of the time, that shows that what you are doing is making a difference. I also don't think that a parent that has a well-behaved child can claim very much credit (much less all) for the child's behavior. I share my standards with my children, but it is up to them to comply. That was the intent of my original post...parents that don't even set a standard and consistently reinforce it will most likely get far fewer compliments on their children's good behavior.

From my experiences and observation I would guess that it is almost 100% parenting. I have seen out-of-control, bratty, fit-throwing home schooled children, and I have seen extraordinarily well-behaved public schooled children. The factor that I have noticed that has the greatest effect on a child's behavior is whether or not the parents consistently and immediately deal with unpleasant/unwanted behavior as soon as it appears. The child *knows* their parents' expectations and that undesirable behavior *will not* be tolerated in any situation (whether or not the parents are even present). The child doesn't fear the parent, or the consequences of their actions (i.e. punishment); they just understand that their parents hold them to behavioral standards that will be met and if their behavior falls below those standards, life as they know it will halt and they will be eye-to-eye with their parents until their behavior meets standard again. Again, it is not a fearful confrontation, but most often looking the child in the eye and saying the child's name and asking if their behavior is acceptable, and holding the child accountable to immediate correction of the behavior. I have seen this type of parenting have equal success with home school families and public school families. I have seen lax, inconsistent parenting fail in both home school and public school families. I don't think that the personality of the child has very much to do with it. A couple of the most well-behaved children that I know are extremely stubborn, picky, and tantrum-prone, but the parents don't stand for any unpleasant behavior and are very consistent in correcting the children's behavior. I think the personality of the parent probably has much more to do with the child's behavior than the personality of the child.

This post from a long-time user of all the levels of R&S English might help ease your fears a bit. :001_smile:

You have to know the magic words. Abracadabra...alakazam...alakazoo...

Wow. Just wow. I thought I grew up in a very conservative Christian home, but y'all have just made me see my childhood from a completely different perspective. My siblings and I owned/played/watched/listened to just about everything that y'all have mentioned and our parents didn't bat an eyelash. They told us the devil was evil, but that's about it. :lol:

I made this for my family yesterday and they LOVED it! Even my child who does not like traditional oatmeal enjoyed it; it isn't gooey (which is her complaint about regular oatmeal).

Dr. Wright's Kitchen Table Math 2 would be an excellent resource in your situation. It is divided up topically, and often has more than one way to teach the topic. You can preview the index on the Amazon page.

FFL teaches the student to put the pronoun ending in parentheses in the space for the subject. In this case it would be (m).

I don't know if you saw my reply in your previous thread, but I would really encourage you to ask your new OB to give you a trial prescription of Transderm Scop . It is not normally prescribed for women with HG (it has not been tested on pregnant women), but for those that have severe forms of HG a knowledgeable OB WILL prescribe it. It is a patch that stays on for three days at at time and as long as you change the patch every three days it does not wear off. The medication in it is for motion sickness, but it works for some women with severe forms of HG for whom the usual oral drugs don't work. It is the only thing that worked for me, and probably saved the life of my son (and me).

I make this recipe every year, and it is always the first thing gone at my annual open house. It is very easy to change up; you don't have to use a snickers bar. You can use a different type of chocolate chip and at a tsp of flavored extract (like peppermint or orange) and a different mix-in (like crushed candy canes) and it still turns out excellent. You really can't go wrong with two ingredients and the microwave. :001_smile: (It will get soft if you let it sit out for hours and hours; it needs to be refrigerated until you give it to someone)

:iagree: Latin is not a spoken language any more so you don't need to worry so much about the pronunciation (like you would with a modern language like Spanish). The grammar is the important part and what the student needs to be focused on. The spoken parts are for fun and for ease of memorization. Plus, you have to take in account accent...since no one has a Latin accent, their natural accent will come through slightly and change the pronunciation a little. This is bound to happen with any audio Latin program that you do since they are all being taught by native English speakers. The spoken component of Latin is so minor that I believe upper level programs like Wheelock's and Henle only focus on the written component (someone correct me if I am wrong).