IMHO, How to Raise a Brighter Child by Joan Beck is the least-insane and most user-friendly book in the entire early-childhood enrichment genre. I would recommend it to absolutely anyone without reservation. I also like Tim Seldin's How to Raise an Amazing Child the Montessori Way. (It's not just one long shill for the Montessori method.) The Spark by Kristine Barnett is a darn good book by any measure, but the narrative of raising her "autistic" and outrageously gifted son Jacob Barnett would likely be particularly useful to you.

There's a $1 bookstore the next county over and this weekend I found a copy of The Giant Golden Book of Biology (illustrated by Charles Harper) and completed my "Told Under the X Umbrella" collection with an ex-library copy of Told Under the Green Umbrella.

Not sure yet if we're going to be homeschoolers or afterschoolers or a mix over the years, but as we approach the traditional school education, I've begun to wonder if it would be wise to think about setting educational goals, simply in the interests of promoting effectiveness and better self-regulation. Is it enough to just pick some solid programs and use them regularly, or should I be identifying benchmarks and endpoints ("begin with the end in mind")? On one hand I believe that if we just provide a rich family learning environment, osmosis will do a lot of the work for us, but on the other hand, I don't want to be so easy-going as to be negligent. And there's some comfort in having a checklist, you know? (We ticked a box, we must have done something today!) Help! How does it work in your home? Are there any books you can recommend on establishing an organizational system that encourages daily/weekly/annual educational flow? TIA!

Is it weird that I'm most annoyed by the racist illustration that accompanied the "have a nice day" note? Don't answer that. I know it's weird.

I am out of practice thinking about this, but I did have a totally homegrown meal this morning: garlicky chard with over-easy chicken eggs. Love the "100-foot diet"!

This book is interesting because it doesn't approach children's lit from the "eager mother seeking good books for the children" angle; rather, it's a collection of author biographies and really comprehensive bibliographic listings. It's great if you're a collector and part-time children's literature scholar. I would consider it use for the reading mother/home educator, but not in the first rank of necessary books. More like a very useful supplemental source. Your mileage may vary.

Maybe the wheel is just a way to randomize a multiplication drill/game. If there was a spinner or something similar, each kid that came up would get a different number and then would have to recite 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 6x, 7x, 8x that number. Some kids would have it easy landing on 1, others would randomly land on 12 and have a harder time of it, but the randomness would be fair and the chance of landing on anything would encourage the kids to learn all their tables.

Abadaba Alphabet has a CD read by Jim Weiss. Takes about 10 mins to play through. Sometimes I play it for DS2 while we are doing the school run. All that said, the minute you crack on screen time ;), Leap Frog Letter Factory is THE BEST. BTW, Another similar, out of print video is Rusty and Rosie's Letter Sound Songs. I switch between the two. (I'm just here to corrupt your children and lead them down the path to watching Real Housewives while eating Lucky Charms straight from the box.)

Thanks for this thread, everyone. I was just coming on to ask a question about HWOT, only to find a question and many answers already right here!

Thanks for all the great tips. Will get them all. Meanwhile, discovered that the girl who really impressed me on Child Genius with her 52-card memory streak made a YouTube video explaining her method. Here it is if helps anyone:

Arabel & Mortimer books by Joan Aiken, illustrated by Quentin Blake. Girl and her weird pet raven have adventures. Kinda perfect.

Don't know if this is current, but here's a list I found while Googling: Hand in Hand Homeschool: Educational Contests Open to Homeschoolers

How do I educate myself about memorization techniques like memory palaces, mnemonics, etc.? The only memory techniques I know are based on music and recitation but it seems like there may be more sophisticated approaches. (I've been watching S1 of Child Genius on Amazon after CG champ Vanya won the Scripps spelling bee and I was amazed by the 52-card memory challenge.)

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I can't tell if he's still in it, but if he is, root for Cooper Komatsu from our home school district. He's a spelling champ AND a competitive Scrabbler and seems to be a delightful kid. http://www.culvercityobserver.com/story/2015/05/21/news/culvers-cooper-komatsu-advances-in-national-spelling-bee/4877.html As for anyone quarrelling with Indian American spelling bee competitors, I would refer them to this Economist article and just tell them to chill, because Indian Americans are definitely doing something right. http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21651331-india-should-make-more-valuable-asset-abroad-worldwide-web "In 2012 some 42% [of Indian Americans] held first or higher degrees; average family income was over $100,000, roughly double that of white Americans (see chart). Over two-thirds of them hold high-status jobs."

This story is giving me feelings. Man.

I successfully taught my four-year-old how to dial 911. We talked about how it worked and we did lots of role-playing. And then one day I woke up from a nap to a knock on the door from the local police department. They were very concerned about our well-being and they seemed to be slightly concerned we were being held hostage and I could NOT figure out what was going until the senior officer FINALLY explained: "We got a 911 hang-up from this address." Oh. The officers were very understanding, DS1 understood the gravity of what he did and the cops were very friendly with him, but it was a little more police presence than I enjoy having on any given day. The moral of this story is also talk about the consequences of 911 calls: In many jurisdictions, officers are automatically dispatched to 911 hang-ups, just in case something terrible is happening and the caller couldn't talk or couldn't get through. Cheers. :)

Another vote for One Hundred Years of Solitude. Just impeccably beautiful writing, and some fascinating insights into human nature and Latin American geopolitics as well.

Wikipedia >> Jello-O >> Mormonism

10 points to Gryffindor for citing Taylor Swift as a source. [thumbs up]

The rumors have floated around for years, but with a famous family like this, there are lots of rumors, and frankly, this one was so odious that it seemed the least likely to be true. It was a caricature of a rumor, and just the kind of hateful nonsense that flourishes online. Except it was true. As for people enjoying their downfall, anyone who knows or loves a gay person in this country and wishes them full civil rights, or anyone who would prefer to make their reproductive choices in consultation with a doctor, rather than under the moral oversight of Bill Gothard and Jim Bob Duggar, has legitimate reason to rejoice that this family have lost their public platform. This whole thing is entirely depressing.

Does the Center for Talented Youth offer summer-session physics at one of their locations? It's probably too late to register for this year, and maybe CTY is more of a middle school thing (I can't remember!), but if you're seeking an age-appropriate nerd tribe, CTY would be a great place to start. Also, if Fermilab was her jam, reach out to any and all of the other DOE National Laboratories and ask if they have any kind of camp or enrichment or open house. Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is near us and they seem to have a very strong outreach program. I feel certain there is some administrator somewhere in each of those buildings who is specifically tasked with "Sharing federally-funded research facility opportunities with young people." Also, reach out to the physics department of your nearest university campus and ask if they have any hints or if there might be a professor there who runs a "physics circle" for young people.

Right there with you. We live very non-Duggar lives, but I really enjoyed the show and felt like they were such an interesting model of a very virtuous lifestyle. I've read both of Michelle's books, and we have the girls' book on our bedside table. I was fascinated to hear Michelle's thoughts on life and parenting, and all the kids were lovely. I enjoyed watching the friendship between the kids and the crew. Jim Bob was clearly a megalomaniac, but hey, nobody's perfect, and I enjoyed the insight into a radically different, but still recognizable, world. Heck, they had a soda fountain IN THEIR HOUSE. Amazing! Sure they looked like fundamentalist loonies who started their own church in an extra building Jim Bob owned because they needed their own Special Snowflake Church of True Believers, but hey, you do you, Duggars. Now I feel naive, I feel used, and I feel complicit. Did my lack of skepticism somehow enable and rationalize the abuse of those girls? Ugh. UGHHHHH! I always thought the Free Jinger crowd were blind haters, but now I want to know if I could send a check somewhere to actually Free Jinger. Goodbye, Jackson and Johannah. I will miss your comedy routine.