Singapore 2A/B, some LoF and occasional Family Math activities. We've just finished up and moved on to Beast Academy (continuing Fred).

Yes, I agree with this. What about some logic or problem solving workbooks for her to go through while you work on maths with her sister?

DD worked on a couple of Beast Academy geometry puzzles for an hour this morning. She was frustrated though & honestly I probably had her persevere *because* of her frustration. She was over the moon when she finally solved them :) I don't think taking a break or putting it away until tomorrow would have been helpful in our situation today. I have done it with other things though.

Yes, synesthesia. FWIW I've met very few musicians who don't experience some form of this. Your daughter sounds lovely.

Um? Indigenous Australians are almost twice as likely than those of European descent to be obese. Health problems like diabetes are BIG issues for the indigenous community here.

Yup. For my birthday last year I asked DH for a pair of socks. Yes, really. They are knee high pure merino hiking socks (they cost a lot more than $20 :o ). I love those things. My feet feel like they are snug in bed even when walking in sleet for hours <3

Oh I voted before reading. I clicked 0-10 per child but I didn't include ballet tights and other dance socks for DD, she would be possibly into 20+ if you want to count those. I love socks. I live somewhere cold so I can wear lots of hiking style warm ones and hand knitted ones. I still only have 11-20 (not sure exactly, but definitely in that range).

We do this too. It's the ONLY habit I have managed to train my whole family in. When it comes off, it goes in the machine. Or if the machine is on, then on the floor in front of it. All good, except that our machine seems to fill up twice a day. So we have a perpetual pile of stuff in front of it. It's ten pm here, children are asleep and laundry is "caught up" to the point that there is half a load inside waiting for pj's to be added in the morning. Then the vicious cycle starts again. Socks twice a year? Head spinning here!

Lots of informative responses already & we are in another country so I won't comment on cost but do expect to be moving sizes somewhat regularly. My daughter has gone through the sizes from 1/16 to 1/4 in four years.

30% and 21% are hardly "the same obesity stats". I do agree that 21% is still not great, but ten percent is still a significant difference. Australia does not have the same kind of problems with food availability in low income urban areas afaik.

SKL I'm glad things are seeming a little more positive. I really felt sad for you and your daughter. It is such a hard situation when a teacher has placed a student in a box & refuses to let them move out of it.

I said something similar this evening. Not today but last week DH posted on facebook that he'd overheard me saying; "Well, you'll need to move the Cambrian ocean to a box with a lid then.".

Fabulous for US folks. Not at all helpful for us in the Southern Hemisphere. He doesn't do international shipping at all.

My homeschooled child has a few close friends and lots of good acquaintances. My child in preschool has a lot of acquaintances and two very good friends, one through hs circles and one at preschool. They made friends through all of the above except sports.

DH has a red Afro (he has UK parents so we think he's a red Scot) & DD has inherited the curls but not the colour :( We never shampoo her hair, that is a sure fire way to get it to start dreading by the time it dries. She uses a good conditioner in the shower and leaves most of it in then plops in a towel. Curly girl method saved my relationship with her - she dances two afternoons a week & before we started doing this the battle to get her hair even slightly neat for dancing was impossible. Now we have normal complaints about combing etc but it's actually possible to put it up neatly.

Is it possible to edit the third part? My kids made friends through all of those things except sport.

Mother: 18 Me: 30 DH mother: 22ish I think but his eldest sister is three years older so 19ish for her first DH: 38 when our first was born, 20 when his first with ex was born. My mother felt a lot of stigma about being a young parent so I swore I wouldn't be one but I didn't want to be "too old" so I always wanted to have my first at 27. We started trying when I was 26 but I guess you can't be so rigid about these things ;)

I like this response http://friedokra4me.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/dear-mom-on-iphone-i-get-it.html

My daughter just started 3A on Tuesday. To say she loves it so far would be a gross understatement. kiwik, I just swallowed the shipping in the end. I couldn't get cheaper shipping anywhere & I couldn't find anything better. She loves Life of Fred too, but this is such a good fit for her. I actually waited four or five months to order so we could get all four levels shipped at once. I had her tread water for a while, reviewing SM 2 and cementing some fact until BA 3D was ready to order.

Another vote for Song School Latin, it is definitely fun :D

Nor me :( Lisabees :D

Another vote for the original Winnie the Pooh and Paddington books. My current three year old is loving Pippi Longstocking.

It's in my signature ;) DD has wanted to be a ballerina since age two & unlike most ballet obsessed little ones it hasn't faded at all. She currently takes five dance classes a week and wishes she could do more. She has wanted to be a scientist since a year or so later. Now at six she is quite aware that a ballet career is likely to be short lived & is therefore planning to go into science afterwards. Which branch changes weekly or even daily. DS has been saying he wants to be a builder for about a year, which given he is 3.75 would make it around the same time as DD's ballet so I don't expect it to change a lot. He has an almost uncanny ability to see how mechanical things work at once glance or how to balance a whole lot of things on top of each other to create a desired effect be it aesthetic or mechanical. I think the question with him is more if he will become a practical, labourer type builder, an engineer, an architect or some kind of artistic combination of all three. ETA when I asked DD before bed she said just what I wrote with the addition of chef. She would like to be a chef in a restaurant and write cookbooks, to which she added that perhaps she would write other books as well.

Oh my, I'm confused. Good luck with the writing though :)

Ah, they do it all week? I see. You know, I do understand the idea behind encouraging invented spelling but there are so many kids that it is actually counter-productive for. I always assumed the NZ school system was similar to here, but I recently learnt about the start whenever they turn five thing. Can I ask...what is the year called when they do go in at five? Year one? Or something before (here is Kindergarten in some states, Prep in others)? Forgive my curiosity, moving to NZ is a vague possibility that comes up every now and then for us.