I think there's 2 issues: 1. decoding versus comprehension 2. speaking versus reading speed For fun I gave my 8yo dd the MWIA assessment from a link given here. The second story has a Flesch-Kincaid Reading Level of 8.3. I had her first read it silently, then I asked her to tell me what it said (comprehension was great with lots of details) and then I had her read it out loud. Her reading speed out loud perfectly agreed with her speed on the DIBELS last year: 170 WPM. Trouble is, that's the max of her conversational speech rate. Her initial speed (reading silently) was 450 WPM. BTW, as to content: I had to correct her pronunciation on 3 words (solemn, promotional, democratic) where she was close but just slightly off (she said soul-um instead of saul-um, and accented syllable off on the other two) and she didn't know the meaning of 2 words. So if your kid reads fast, timing read-alouds isn't very accurate. But I don't know what to do with this info. I knew she was a fast reader, but not THAT fast. She must be decoding groups of words or skimming. Anyway, it's good to know there is such a disparity, because this also means she's probably unlikely to notice (trip) on words she doesn't know, so I probably need to keep on a solid vocal building program with her, right? So, should we be testing both silent and read alouds? What do we do with kids who are maxing out the verbal side of the testing? How do I keep my advanced reader growing as a reader? Thoughts?

HPV is believed to cause most (over 90%) of cervical cancer, but not all abnormal paps. 80% of sexually active people (you or your partner have ever had contact with anyone else) with get HPV, vast majority never have symptoms. From abnormal pap, only about 6% will need medical follow-up. I would call and find out what your abnormal result was (the report will use a term that says HOW abnormal and you should know this). Your Dr is an idiot. For more than you ever wanted to know about paps, from the Nat'l Cancer Inst: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/detection/Pap-test Once you have your actual DX, you can look it up on the fact sheet to see how serious (likely to progress into something more) it is. Certain changes will warrant an immediate biopsy, but most can go with wait and see. If the next is abnormal, I'd push for HPV testing and typing, since only a few strains of HPV are implicated with most cancers.

They used to use Sadlier-Oxford's Progress in Math that I liked. Their new Math+ helped push me quit the VA route. Just horrible, horrible. Teach to the lesson objectives and ignore the Math+ stuff that is problematic. Of course, part of the problem is they integrated it into the OLS so you can't just skip to the assessment or thru sections of the lessons as easily as you used to. As to friendly numbers -- total BS. May help some, but I could add with 17 as easily as 20, and so something like that would have been a waste and confusing. Kids can't differentiate crutches like "friendly numbers" from real core math concepts when they come up, so I'd definitely point out that this is a "trick" that may help *some* kids, and yours can use it if they want, but don't have to. For that matter, I think they push rounding and estimation WAY too early -- you need experience to estimate. When I was a kid I think they introduced rounding and estimation in 5th grade, now it's a major part of K math. Again, may help some with number sense, but it can be a major tripping point with others who aren't ready for that sort of "imprecise" math.

IRL people who use math for a living HAVE to show their work -- engineers double-check each other, mathematicians and physicist have to publish and defend their derivations (solutions) sufficiently that someone else can reproduce their work in full. My mom who is an RN says, "if you didn't chart it, you didn't do it." meaning everything should be documented at the time it's done. On the other hand, our children are not professional engineers or mathematicians (yet :D), and math skills often exceed writing skills in elementary years. The point isn't so much getting the right answer, but using the correct process/thinking. So, despite the dire warnings to college frosh "if you get a sign wrong the bridge will fall down!" (actually, that's WHY work is double/triple checked :lol:) if my dc make an arithmetic error but their process was correct, I point out the error but do not *always* make them rework it (or I work it out for them). If they were chronically careless, I'd handle that differently, but I've got a perfectionist on my hands! When I was in 3rd grade my handwriting was horrendous and it was hard to write out my math neatly. We had a 12' chalkboard at home, so I decided to go home, work out the problem on the board (much easier), then I write the answer on the sheet. I had maybe 6 assignments on one side of a piece of paper, just a patchwork of odd shapes blocked off for each assignments, each block full of numbers with boxes around them. I turned it in and my teacher was horrified. :lol: "Where is your work?" "At home on my blackboard," I replied. Since I excelled at math and was the first done with my assignment she couldn't doubt I'd done it myself. "Well, you need to show your work." "Why?" I replied. She paused, and wisely compromised, "Please work out the first problem on each assignment so I can see what you are thinking. And just put one assignment per page." I talked her into TWO assignments per page (she showed me how to just separate them with horizontal line). So....I think it is a balance. It is easy to kill their interest in math by too much writing and busywork, and I agree with Bill that the ability to free think math without paper or pencil is a VERY important skill. Having the time and ability to mentally PLAY with math is critical to enjoying it, like playing an old favorite tune on the piano for fun instead of always working on the next hard piece. However, the process is more important than the answer, and being able to document and explain your solution is also an important skill. For us, the balance is that I rarely require dc to show their work. I choose a couple problems each day for her to "show me how" she solves them IN DETAIL. And I've got a big blackboard. :lol: As they get older I may have them check each other's work, which is a quick way to impress the need for detailed solutions. ETA: math is a subject we mostly do together, so aside form computational practice, concepts are discussed and demonstrated orally by dc, or on the chalkboard or with objects. This means I really do SEE her process and what she understands or doesn't. At least half of math is done in a socratic method discussing the ideas of math (like nature of negative numbers, today).

:iagree: Learning grammar gives you a safety net for those 20% of the time you aren't sure if you should use I/me, who/whom, comma/semicolon, etc. It is also VERY difficult to learn those rules as an adult if you weren't taught them as a child (dh is a great example of that: extensively read, articulate, knowledgeable, always learning...and can't punctuate a sentence to save his life.) It's like learning spelling rules -- helps out in a pinch. It also trains your ear/eye to get that "that's not quite right" feeling when there is a grammatical error. I also agree that it isn't necessary to formally TEACH grammar in early elementary (K-2, maybe later if you cover the basics in a sly manner). For parts of speech, madlibs are great (and fun)! Kids learn best when it is relevant. As to the comments that "many people can't write well" or the kid that doesn't advance past simple sentences -- I would hope that those would trigger more extensive writing and grammar teaching. Being able to teach what YOUR child needs (instead of many people) is one of the great benefits of hs-ing. Some kids do pick grammar rules up naturally, but they'll still benefit from formal teaching (eventually). It's like learning to drive -- you could pick up most of the rules by observation and practice, but there are some oddball laws and signs that are important but not obvious. Those you are only going to learn by someone spelling them out for you.

I agree with the shame associated with excelling in our schools, but the tracking bit is faulty as others mentioned (and as I understand it to be done in other countries). I think there is a problem with math educators barely knowing arithmetic, let alone any math that has been developed in the last 300 years. And more basically, I don't think most people really know what math IS. People confuse it with arithmetic, with maybe a little geometry and symbolic oddness thrown in to make it seem even LESS comprehensible and more foreign. Sooooo, go look it up on wikipedia or the Oxford dictionary. That was our math lesson Friday. :D Actually, I think Monday we'll talk about what the other subjects *really* are as well. You know, what IS science? WHat IS social studies. ETA: as to tracking...challenge is always to keep sufficient exposure and opportunity to change tracks. Kids that naturally think abstractly and intuitively excel early in math, but this doesn't mean they will be mathematicians. Most kids think more concretely, but some may really take off in math when their brains develop more abstract thinking (roughly 3rd grade, I recall). If they've been labeled as non-mathy, they may not ever TRY abstraction enough to find their inner mathematician. I would LOVE to see at least an experimentation with grouping kids based on learning styles and MBTI predispositions where they could be taught in their "native" manner while continuing to expose them to other methods (since ultimately we need to be able to learn thru different styles). But then, I guess that's exactly what I'm doing in my homechool. :lol:

We had a few advantages: my college ed and having kids later gave us time both to splurge on exotic trips (pre kids) and still accrue cash to buy a nice house (aided by moving from a more expensive state to a slightly lesser one). But I really think it comes down to: identifying your priorities; valuing your gifts of time, self, and money; distinguishing needs from wants; and living your priorities. In a nutshell that means spending money where it is most important to you and not using debt. Be especially wary of recurring expenses (cell phones, car payments, etc). I can buy a lot with the literally THOUSANDS we're NOT spending on cell phones or cable tv -- we can do a whole lot of fun things with that kind of money. :p Everything we spend is computed into hours we would need to work to pay for it -- that makes it real. When I look at a "want" and think "that would mean dh would have to work and be aware form his family an extra X hours to pay for it"....well, it cuts down on the junk. Entertainment expenses should be enjoyed fully, not frittered without thought.

Have no experience with CST, but I looked into it when my neuro recommended it for my migraines. It is an ongoing thing, not a one-time (or 6week) cure. THere are many, many alternative therapies that that *may* work, but there aren't any rigorous studies evaluating them to look at. I chose not to pursue CST because they HAVE done studies on CST and it failed to meet any medical standards of effective treatment. Specifically, the rhythms they supposedly sense and adjust don't exist, different practitioners who see the same patient have completely different diagnoses and sense different rhythms; no consistency on treatments for the same patients or results. You can search PubMed for "craniosacral therapy" (what I did). In contrast, magnesium, feverfew, coQ10 all have excellent studies to back them up (one found magnesium as good as propranolol), botox is extremely pricey but good evidence based, even acupuncture and chiropractic/MT have some good evidence. Note that I am NOT saying CST cannot work for you or your sister or any one else. I'm just saying that the studies looking at CST look bad, and I don't want to get into spending the time and money to try it. On the other hand I did get 30-odd injections in my face and neck today, so I'm clearly desperate enough to try things beyond the first choice list. Good luck and good health!

I would definitely look at the samples and check to see if your local library has it -- that way you could test drive it a couple weeks and buy it *if* it is right for you! In the K-2 I like introducing the ideas less formally and using games like Madlibs (great way to learn basic parts of speech!) and Scholastic workbooks (when can download for $1). I rather teach grammar with reading and writing. :p

I like MM, but it is a little bland on the page (for visual types). Among the traditional (used in ps) curricula, I really like Sadlier-Oxford's Progress in Mathematics . It is a solid, mastery-based, easy to do without a Teacher's manual (for me at least) program. Elementary levels have that nice bubble-gum graphics that make it seem more "fun". I used it with K12's program and continue to use it with MM. Aside from curricula, right now I'm really into books like "Math for smarty pants" that drive home math isn't just arithmetic, it's present and used all around us every day, and math is FUN. It has really been helpful rejuvenating my kids love of math and they're having FUN again with it. Anymore, I use the curricula as supplement and make my math spine LIFE. It isn't difficult to look at a master-based text's TOC and figure out what they need to learn that year, then use activities in our lives plus puzzles and games to introduce/learn the ideas. We use MM and S-O for practice here and there. As long as she masters those concepts along the way, we don't need to follow a curricula right now.

Kiddos head up to bed at 7pm (asleep by 8), dh is up by 3am for work (yuck), so he heads to bed right after the kids (8:30p). Kids get up between 5-6am, no matter how dark the room or when they go to sleep. So I go to sleep between 8:30 - 9:30, unless I'm up late with a migraine. :x. DH shift is changing so he'll be able to sleep in until 4am, which will put us back on a much more pleasant 9:30p bedtime (work nights I miss our private time, but I'm spoiled since he's home by lunchtime). :D Even before kids, we were more an early up (commute), early to bed. If you start turning down/off lights after sundown it helps your body adapt to a more natural clock, I think. I'm just thankful the kids are all on the same basic schedule! 'night! :lol:

:iagree: Completely agree. I hs to provide the education, not to have someone else choose and teach what they want. THat's just enrolling them in school, albeit PT. Most (large; organized) co-ops seem to me to reek of profiteering or pyramid schemes. The only kind of co-op I'd consider would be a small group of people trading expertise, so cost should be free or cost of materials. Otherwise it is just a money-making scheme to profit off homeschoolers (and usually just the admin profit), usually preying on the insecurities of homeschoolers. I'm not against businesses providing a service for a reasonable fee, but imo that's not what a co-op is supposed to be.

In one breath you say the grade label doesn't matter and yet you are asking about starting K (a label). :confused: The level of ds's work is irrelevant. Lots of people will list their kids as K4 or K5, so Kindie is often 2 years (or more). Learning does not START in K. I would not consider your child K or start K officially yet. I don't see any advantage to doing so, and developmentally your dc may have fits and starts. IMO K-2 is about exposure to materials, adjusting to their interest/pace, and helping them develop the maturity to work consistently. A lot of 1st grade+ materials will be too rigid and dry for a 4yo, so if you use them keep it fun. In my case, my eldest did K12 for K and 1st, starting shortly after her 5th bday. By the time K started she was reading well (2nd grade level chapter books) and they started her in 1st grade math (she tested into 2nd, funny since I hadn't introduced addition until the week before her placement testing, so I opted to start with 1st). Within 3mo she had completed the K LA curric and 1st grade math, by the end of K she was halfway thru 3rd grade math and had completed ins grade LA. Did that make her a 2nd grader or 3rd grader? No, IMO she was still a K'r. :D Now she's doing 5th grade LA and math curric in 3rd gave, but that doesn't make her a 5th grader IMO. Basically because I see NO benefit in skipping he grade since I am already adapting her curriculum. Why does it matter? Because early accelerators may peter out or need to dawdle, which can feel like "falling behind" if you've mentally skipped them ahead. We spent 18mo on 4th grade math. She *could* have kept pace, but I wanted her to play with math because the tedium was killing her love of math. We dod more games, more rabbit trails, instead. For LA, I'm not moving her forward in GUM, etc this year -- I'm having her focus on creative writing and journaling, reading, and analysis (oral). Also, some states have funds for hs'rs to take CC courses between 16-18 until they graduate HS. If she skips grades now she might not be eligible for free college credit at the end. My 2.5yo is starting to read and I've started using the ETC books and using 100EL with him (his sisters didn't start reading until closer to 5, but he's been obsessed with letters and sounds since before his 2nd bday). He also counts everything to 20. But I'm not starting preK or K. It's a maturity thing. As long as he has fun and has interest, we work on phonics and math, sing songs, etc. But I don't want to put the expectation for consistency of "school". IMO "playing school" is PERFECT regardless of abilities until they are consistent in their maturity to DO school, usually sometime between 5-7. Use whatever curric you like and he enjoys, but don't think of it as starting K until you've been doing it consistently for quite a while. :lol: Or call it K4 and plan on 2 years. In a year he's doing 1st grade+ materials consistently, go from K4 to 1st grade. Sorry if I'm rambling -- got a migraine. :(

We're doing applied math, using books like "Math for smarty pants" from the library. Kids are really enjoying it, plus a good reminder that math is a lot more than arithmetic. :D

Our rule has always been that if they fight over a toy, the "bad toy" gets put in time-out. When they were preschoolers, that meant being put on a high shelf in their room until they earned it back. Now it usually means being tossed into the storage area under the stairs for a week (or until I get around to cleaning in there). We also taught the eldest to always let the younger child have the toy, observing they lose interest quickly; or the strategy of trading with them. For us, I think it really helped to not just teach them what we DIDN'T want and know the punishment, but to teach them exactly what we DO want them to do when they have a conflict with a sibling. I took a lot of supervision to intercept before things went south, and practice, practice, practice giving them the words and walking them thru conflict resolution. Bedrooms are only for dressing and sleeping. The playroom is by their bedroom and is a toy madhouse. They also know any arguing means they have to come downstairs, where they can be more closely supervised and have a much smaller bin of toys.

I think the opposite is often true: I think people think science is just some opinion that you can take-or-leave based on their "common sense" or beliefs. The whole point of the scientific method is to be...well, a method or defined process that encourages objectivity. Scientists do NOT hold a belief and then try to prove it. We follow where the evidence leads us and readily abandon hypotheses that prove to be wrong. The scientific method helps us to do this. You always observe, hypothesis, and test, but how you do these things varies depending on the problem. I think another misconception is that scientist think they "have all the answers" and are "often proved wrong". The first and most important thing a scientist learns is to differentiate between what they know and what they do not know. Scientists and engineers have to maintain a very clear awareness of what is known, what is believed, and what is unknown. It is something you work with in a visceral way every day, so you don't confuse them. Ever. The scientific method is applied EXACTLY at the intersection of those three things. Over time, the boundary between the unknown and known moves. ;)

This looks more like the sections in a lab report, not the parts of the scientific method itself, specifically procedures and materials. :D I'm afraid there isn't one universal "official" step titles for the scientific method. The closest I can come would be: 1. make observations 2. state a hypothesis (a guess you can test about those observations) 3. make predictions based on the hypothesis ("if ....then....") 4. test hypothesis with experiments 5. evaluate results (data) -- do they agree with or falsify the hypothesis? So, my step titles would be: observe, hypothesize, predict, experiment, evaluate. You could add "publish your results" since that is also considered a responsibility. Other key ideas are that hypotheses MUST be testable (why there can be no God in scientific explanations, btw), importance of the null hypothesis (idea we try to prove a hypothesis is FALSE not TRUE since you can never prove a theory, only falsify it). Also reproducibility -- if another scientist across the globe cannot reproduce your experiment and get the same results, your experiment is badly designed. All of these things have the purpose of trying to get at truth in as objective a way as possible and without a priori bias. Wikipedia actually does a good summary. I recommend reading the first section: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

DD enjoyed these and I like the positive family dynamic (not calling siblings stupid or the parents being clueless, like most kids' lit) and works in some nice educational bits. Books are about 100pp; I'd say the reading level is above MTH (and much better written!) but below Little House on the Prairie. I got an e-mail that thru Sep the Kindle books are $2.99 and books in their inventory are $5. ETA: Angela, I love that the hs lit list includes Tarzan -- I'd never thought of him as home schooled. :lol:

Sure, I need *something* to throw at them when they are slow getting my bonbons! :lol: You guys are cracking me up. :D In my exp, my fav was on a family vacation at a touristy town in April, "Gee, no kids must come here." Um, honey, that's because they're in school. :D

:iagree: MOST people go straight thru, but it's not required. :D I've reordered math a lot. My reasons: 1) Got stuck on something 2) Getting tedious and meeting resistance 3) need to accelerate when dc inhaling math For (1), I move to a different chapter/subject and just do a few of the "confusing type" problems each day, unless it's really bad then I take a couple weeks off then reintroduce the sticky stuff. For (2), move to different subject/chapter. If we're doing a "boring" chapter, I've also done it 3x a week and other chapters 2x a week (or one day of math games). (3): DD#1 found math concepts/abstraction easy, so rather than speed thru, I would hold her to one lesson a day of arithmetic and add lessons from other chapters. At one point, she was doing 4-5 math lessons a day (still less than an hour a day), all from different disciplines. I went thru her math book and developed 4 separate strands that could be done simultaneously.

Actually, I'd let your dh handle it. :D Why are you allowing your extended family to be so disrespectful of your family? Why do you let them be verbally abusive? Is THAT what you want your kids to see and think is ok? I'd let your families know that they can be supportive or SHUT UP. Period. If that's too harsh for you, two words: Caller ID. If you don't have caller ID, turn your ringer off. Seriously. Set the message to the shortest possible (usually 1min). Take a week (or 2 or 3) break from the badgering. Use the time to center yourself and get some traction with your homeschooling. ETA: phones also have this lovely little button that makes the bad callers go away. If it were my family, they'd be hearing plenty of dial tones. :) Good luck!

Yeah, but I'd leave out the, "if you're ready to have me back in your life now" part. That SOUNDS pretty passive-agressive to me. :tongue_smilie: Better not to refer to the past AT ALL.

:iagree: You can cover a LOT of math concepts just using the 1-10 numbers. I would keep exposing him to the 10-12 facts, counting *things* to 20 (to make larger numbers more concrete; it sounds like he may be having trouble connecting the abstract number facts to the REAL world), play games with counting 10-20 objects as you get more/take away, etc, but ...MOVE ON to different kinds of math. Math is a LOT more than just arithmetic, so explore those. I know in MM and other mastery programs it is easy to skip to a chapter on geometry (shapes/sizes/lines), probability (great area to learn by playing games and discussing strategy), etc. The last couple weeks I've really enjoyed using non-curricula for math -- books with math puzzles specifically non-arithmetic. For me that includes, "Preparing young children for math" and "Math for smarty pants". We're just finishing some of the activities in "I hate mathematics!" (done by Marilyn Burns, same as the smarty pants one). I don't like her attitude ("ask you parent this to see how stupid they are"), so I don't have dc's READ it, just do the interesting projects. All of these books have a gentle, very exploratory approach rather than "teachy", so it's been a really nice transition into the new year. :D IMO, the important thing is to teach kids to LOVE math (which they enter school already doing, then we kill that love by piling on arithmetic and calling it "math"). I'd just keep exposing him to larger numbers in a non-threatening way (so he can count if he doesn't remember, for example). TIe math to the concrete. ;) ETA: books like this are awesome at building REAL math understanding for concepts WAY beyond K-2. Plus it's FUN. The topology stuff was cool. We didn't do everything, but I definitely used it as a jumping off point. dc can learn a TON of math "outside" a curriculum, and it really is ok to move forward in concepts while his number sense (facts) develop. Math is kinda like a dozen different "subjects" crammed into one, so it's not surprising that kids will often be at different levels in different parts. If he's ready for 1B or 2A, do that -- just find stuff that doesn't require the higher numbers. If you can't do that with SM, either use the topics and change the problems or set SM aside and use something else for a while.

If the appearance focussed aren't feeling the love, never fear, you've got the media pouring your message on our young girls. http://depts.washington.edu/thmedia/view.cgi?section=bodyimage&page=fastfacts When I see a woman in 110F heat with her hair perfect (and DOWN) in a spotless dress and heels I admit I think, "Is that ALL that you're good for?" I think a woman can look drop dead gorgeous in a t-shirt and a ponytail without a lick of makeup. Ironically, most guys prefer the "natural" look to a woman all dressed up. I clean up good. :lol: I just don't feel the need to dress up to buy a carton of milk. I want my girls to buck the trend and be comfortable in their own skin, know their true beauty, even true PHYSICAL beauty, has nothing to do with the primping and clothes. ANd that their appearance is just a small, minuscule part of who they are and has NOTHING to do with my love for them.

I looked at OPG (got from the library -- check ALL the library systems around you or interlibrary loan), but it looked too...well, boring. DD looked at it and refused to try it. She is more visual and needs a little eye candy to get her cooperation. :D I used 100EL (the one per lesson B&W pic and bigger font is sufficient, I guess) and started ETC as follow up. You really should get your hands on a copy of both and try a lesson or two and see how YOU (and dc) like them. I think any of the will work fine, but they have different strengths, weaknesses, and styles and you'll be using it daily for quite a while, so it's worth finding out which is best for your family. :)