Another vote for read-aloud revival podcast. I usually read late morning (after math) and again after dinner.

Kara Shallenberg's reading of The Railway Children on Librivox.

When we have big leafy greens in the garden (collards, chard, even soft herbs like basil), I like to do a chiffonade and cut them into little strips. It's healthy-ish and it looks like green party streamers in the omelet.

My BIL's baby mama and our nephew are out here for the summer. Our kids and nephew are each other's only cousins and it's been great to have them all together for the second year in a row. There was a lot of family strife on that side when nephew was a little guy (long story) but people are at least able to be civil now and tolerate each other for the sake of the kids. It's a very happy change.

Thank you for posting this!

If he takes a bottle at all, ask your doctor first and with approval add some Nordic Naturals omega-3 fatty acid liquid. Omegas help tremendously with all inflammatory issues including allergies and eczema. I was an eczema baby and it's horrible. Hugs to you all. P.S. Agree that it can't hurt to switch Ivory Snow, Dreft or Tide Free & Clear.

http://www.kumon.com/miscellaneous/kumon_recommended_reading_list.pdf

I say skip your aquarium plans and just take them to the beach and tide pools at Crystal Cove State Park near Laguna (in same county as Disneyland). Aquarium of the Pacific is good but sometimes crowded and while it is on the waterfront, there isn't really a convenient place to set up a tent and umbrella, etc. Cabrillo is much less expensive and there is a beach right there but it's not terrifically scenic since it's more of an industrial harbor than a seashore.

Five days in Fort Collins, Colo. staying with family. Rocky Mountain NP and lots of activities friendly to both kids and fragile seniors. Beautiful relaxing trip and great bonding was done by all.

Five days in Fort Collins, Colo. staying with family. Rocky Mountain NP and lots of activities friendly to both kids and fragile seniors. Beautiful relaxing trip and great bonding was done by all.

Read The Millionaire Next Door if you haven't yet. That was the one book that most changed my thinking about money. Yup! A huge portion of our furniture is just plain from the curb. I also decorate and landscape with potted plants that people have left for dead on the curb. I also buy $6 rooting hormone to grow other plants from cuttings. "Waste is lost profit made visible." Everything I know about saving money comes from Amy Dacyczyn (inactive), Trent from Simple Dollar (semi-retired), the Prudent Homemaker (active) and Mr. Money Mustache (active). I listen to the Dave Ramsey podcast almost every single day to keep my head in the game. Ask for discounts. AAA and Costco memberships are good for discounts on stuff all over town. Ask for a "good guy" discount on purchases. Tell salespeople that you are on a budget and ask if they can help you out on price at all. Call every single service provider you have and ask if you are eligible for any savings programs or discounts. You'd be amazed at how prices can fall. I like Dave Ramsey's EveryDollar budget program. It helps us see where we are being indulgent (restaurants! extracurriculars for the kids! outings with friends!) and reminds us to think before splurging.

If anyone is interested, here is the academic article that is the oft-cited source of the term: https://www.psychologytoday.com/files/u81/Stanovich__1986_.pdf

My first paid job was filing papers at a Sylvan Learning Center while waiting for my brother to do his work. (He was dyslexic and Sylvan was the first thing my mom tried.) Then hostess at a restaurant. Then I worked at a Kinko's copy shop for a summer.

All good recommendations. Look for cookbooks with "simple" in the title or "introduction to" -- they will usually have fewer ingredients and steps. Alice Waters' Art of Simple Food and Art of Simple Food II (more vegetables) are great. She has a lot of good technique and philosophy explanations before she gets to the recipes. My favorite you-can-do-it! book of techniques and encouragement and BEAUTIFUL language is Tamar Adler's An Everlasting Meal. She is ACES.

If this "debate" is representative of the quantity and quality of the remaining column of anti-gay agitation in America, we are home free.

https://twitter.com/marcmalkin/status/614437167511646208 This is my friend Marc and his husband Fabian on their wedding day. They are not degenerate, they are wonderful. I worked with Marc for five years and I never met a kinder, happier person in my life. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153955905496521&set=a.500681761520.272939.672986520&type=1&theater This is Michael and Kit on their wedding day. Michael is crying because after a decade-long relationship their legal marriage was prompted by Kit's cancer diagnosis. Kit didn't live to see their first anniversary but Kit and Michael and Kit's parents were together all the way in their cancer battle. I will fight anybody who says that these couples or any other same-sex couples are degenerate, inadequate or undeserving of equal protection under the law. Please know, you aren't damning hypothetical sinners in a distant corrupt capital. These are real people and they are identical to any equal set of heterosexuals you pick out of a lineup anywhere in this country. Edited to replace copyrighted photos with links to images.

thanks for the inspo, gang. Kids slept in today so I snuck to restart Couch to 5k. Felt good to be out early and move my body.

I didn't vote but someone on this board once suggested doing geography the kinder year (so they actually know where Europe and Egypt and China are, etc.) and then starting the 4-year history cycle for grades 1-4 (grammar) as SWB recommends. I really liked that idea, so I am currently stockpiling books for a geography study, but we are also listening SWB's audio version of Story of the World. I promised DS5 that it had "lots of fighting" and so far he has listened intently to it while on long car rides. Useful Google Doc (not mine) of books recommended for a literature-based geography study: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xqZXIiDBS8ENb4G2uuY6fZPEYzpUEkaSUAetiucfrIg/edit

In Sidney Ledson's Raising Brighter Children: A Program for Busy Parents he talks about how he used a series of afternoon college-kid babysitters to execute a tutoring program he laid out. It was their job to make sure his girls did their reading or math or whatever work. I believe he was a single dad and when he went back to work the babysitters were tasked with doing all the afterschooling program he laid out.

Valerie's Living Books is a great resource: http://www.valerieslivinglibrary.com/#thebiglist And another vote for Best in Children's Books: https://www.etsy.com/search?q=%22best%20in%20children%27s%20books%22

For memory work, I just stumbled across a British titled called The Faber Book of Useful Verse . You could also use many of the verses and proverbs for copywork.

I think it was intended to be education through storytelling rather than Attenborough-style exposition. "Here is a cool play we have produced for you, and we're just gonna stash some key points in this speech, but please disregard it and mostly pay attention to this swashbuckling sword fight we have over here."

From Laura Overdeck's TED Talk: "We never hear adults say, 'I'm just not good at reading. I just can't do that.' But it is perfectly acceptable to say, 'I can't do math.' " I don't know if "naturally mathy" exists or not, but I do know that the American belief in "natural aptitude" over "persistent work" in determining math skill probably serves us very very poorly in this domain.

My dad was an engineer; he says the only way he ever really grokked language arts was through diagramming sentences, which turned them into solvable coded equations that he could process more easily, which sounds like the other side of what you are describing.