sewingmama
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Posts posted by sewingmama
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Financially it would make no difference....all the rest...well I've sworn I just wont die till my kids are old enough to take care of themselves 🙄
We have had two mothers pass away in our homeschool group ...the effects on their families have been miles apart.
One father has 3 kids similar ages to mine and those poor kids...they are not in a good place at all and I really wish he would send them to school...he is not a kid person and its heartbreaking to watch how these children are now compared to how they used to be. They used to be friendly and chatty and now they are so withdrawn they wont play with anyone at all. The youngest just cries all the time and his dad is so harsh on him.
The other family seems to be doing well... there are two boys ages 13 and 11 and the dad has really stepped up and taken over the role of parenting and raising them well. The biggest difference is that he is very gentle and loving with his boys and very clued in to their needs. The boys seem to be doing really well under the circumstances.
I just cant imagine a father having to take over the care of 15 kids. I guess the older ones will step in and help. In the old days they would have just seperated the kids among relatives...not that I advocate doing that at all.
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What. The. Heck?
LOL...the only explanation DH and I could come up with is cultural differences...she was Korean ...and that maybe she was curious about trying Canadian toothpaste...although even then surely a normal person who wanted to taste the toothpaste would just squirt some on their finger ...yes🤔😂
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Wow. That's just...wow.
Yeah that was kind of my response at the time too 😂
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A woman we had just met ( a coworker of DH's) went into the bathroom and while in there used my toothbrush to brush her teeth 😳
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Boxing Day sales here in Aus and I just hate them.
Everyone just got a ton of stuff they dont really need the day before on Christmas and the next day they are rushing out to the store to buy more stuff.
I'm always so over shopping by the time Christmas rolls around I am happy to stay away from the stores for weeks after and I always wonder how anyone even has any money to spend so soon after Christmas.😳
We had some shops advertising Black Friday sales this year...and yes they called them that. That is strictly the shops trying to import an American tradition as most shops dont do it till the usual time.
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Lucky for us all family live out of state or overseas so we dont do gift exchanges. We only exchange if we get together which is very rare. This year Dhs parents, 2 sisters and neice are travelling from Canada to spend Christmas. I'm freaking out because they go nuts with gift giving (understandable since they never see our kids) but I feel like I have to get them things too and Im bad at coming up with ideas, shopping ( I detest it) and we cant afford it either.
I only like gifting my kids...doing it for others is so much work and a waste of money if they dont need/want what you are giving. We can't do gift cards cause they live in another country🤔🤔
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I saw a great Wimpy Kid costume. Kid wears normal clothes and carries this mask. http://www.kidstylefile.com.au/2014/08/08/kidstylefile-loves-kids-books-book-week-2014-costume-ideas/
My son loves Wimpy Kid...I might steal that.
My youngest is going as a spider web. Black pants, black shirt , that cheap spiderweb stuff you get from the store stretched all all over his body or you could use stretched out cotton balls and a headband with a spider made from pom poms and pipecleaners on his head.
Hes already wore it once to the library Halloween party and they loved it so much he got front page billing on their website. Cost like $4 to make lol.
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This has happenned a couple times to me. Has always been a cut on the foot. I normally wait 12-24 hours and if still in pain or in my case ...showing obvious signs of infection ..I take it in.
My cat is very quiet...so if he is complaining about something...it hurts. Plus swelling and extra sleepiness ( for a cat) are other signs it needs a vet trip.
If kitty has no obvious injuries and is complaining a lot upon touch then I wouldnt wait because Id be worried about internal injuries. Id only wait if it seemed the injury was localised like limping or a small sized cut and only complaining when touching the leg.
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Currently...I wrap them and put them in a box in the garage. When I had no garage I wrapped them and put them in a box in my room and taped it shut..so they were hidden in plain sight. My kids think Santa only brings one gift though and the rest are from us so they dont think it weird we were buying and hiding their gifts.
My kids are excellent at not snooping though...they love the suprise too much.
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I'll trade your baby rattler for this that was in my yard today (eastern brown, highly venomous). By the time I rescued my son who found it and the cat who came to investigate it and took them inside it had slithered off. So now its somewhere out in my yard and I cant find it. We plan on never using the yard again... and I'm traumatised that my son came so close to being bitten ( he almost ran it over it with his scooter). First snake I've ever seen in my yard.... or in my entire life of living in Australia for that matter. Panic is an understatement... I took melatonin and still cant sleep. 😳
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Better then what I found this afternoon in my yard...an eastern brown snake with my terrified 9yo standing frozen on his scooter beside it. The goosebumps have not gone away yet and my poor son is still wide awake and can't sleep. 😳.
Extremely venomous for the lucky Americans who don't know.
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Her cause of death was the blow to the head. The rest of the injuries were post mortem. I think it was the brother...it seemed in his interviews he did not miss his sister at all. He kept referring to her as "the body". My kids would never refer to their dead sibling like that. He seemed very disasociated with the event.
It sounded to me like he had been coached into having a false memory. That he did it but his parents tried to erase his memory and make him believe he didn't.
He had hit her in the face with a golf club previously and pooped in her bed and smeared it on some of her Christmas presents which says jealous, disturbed child to me. It is not too far fetched to believe that she did something to annoy him and he grabbed something and hit her on the head. My 5yo accidently hit his brother in the mouth with a golf club and knocked out a tooth and split his gum open..it doesnt take a lot of force with the right instrument to cause serious damage.
To me its the only thing that makes sense. I can totally imagine wanting to protect my child from growing up knowing he killed his sister. Plus if he was taken away they would have lost all their children.
There were crIme scene photos of an unbroken spiderweb across the window. It was days old and noone could have fit through that window without disturbing it.
There was no evidence she was sexually abused at the time of the incident however there was evidence she may have suffered abuse in the past... she had healed injuries. Her mother had also taken her to the doctor a few times in the past for vaginal issues but at her time of death ...no sexual abuse occurred.
Someone in the house did it..most likely the boy...and the parents covered it up by staging the crime scene. He may have hit her on the head and not realised she died ...which is why on the phone he was asking what they found. The studs on his train track matched the two pinpoint injuries on her back...suggesting he or her parents may have tried to prod her out of unconciousness.
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Thanks. I didn't spend much time on the website before because I was only interested in a few pieces of the program. I looked at their getting started page, and it all makes sense now. If I understand correctly, if I'm only interested in the language sections I could just pick up those pieces for the year and skip the science and social studies days? So instead of doing 3 MBTP lessons a day, we'd do one.
Yes..you can buy the LA units seperately from the others. If you wanted SS and Science you would buy them as seperate units..they don't all come as one.
Each unit is designed to take three weeks ...its paced at one lesson a day. So each concept take roughly 9 weeks with three units included in each.
If you really want to know what its like...just buy one unit at a time and try it. Thats what I do. I'm in Australia so I don't use the units which are all heavily American history based. By buying only the units I need I don't waste money and can skip what I dont need.
The counsel we usually give if you are unsure about commiting to such expense then buy one unit only and try it out. If you don't like it then you've only wasted $13 and not a couple hundred buying a years worth at a time. The other advantage is that you can find which level is right for you... most people start one level down from what they think they should be because of the writing involved...but if your kids are good writers then no need to worry.
I'm not sure what age level Grade 7 is...maybe 10-12? So you would go to Purchase Individual Items to buy... then scroll to the first concept 1 Enviroment and Cycles. Click on table of contents and look at the units marked LA..which for this would be Unit 1 The Wanderer. Unit 2 The People of Sparks and Unit 3 Short Stories Then page back and scroll down the options to buy till you hit the The Wanderer/online $12.93. This is the cheapest option to use but there are others as well. You can buy the paper version with or without the book as well as the online version with the book. Since I live in Australia I just purchase the online version without the book and borrow it from my library to avoid shipping.
I outlined it for you as there are so many choices and packages to choose from it can be overwhelming at first to know what you need...but its easy once you get how it works.
Hope that helps.
Oh and the customer service is excellent...beyond excellent even. Ask a question and you will always get an answer.
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Not turning on the heat is not considered abusive unless she also wasn't dressing them for the weather. There are plenty of poor people who can't afford heat but you can't take children away for being poor unless they are also neglected.
Abusive could be....making them run up and down the street in the cold to warm up. Thats insane thinking...exercise in the house if you must. However, as long as she isn't overdoing the running such as running them to exhaustion then that really isn't abusive either. It keeps bringing to mind the case of the parent who made her daighter run around in the cold outside until she collapsed and died...but I guess if it's not excessive its fine.
The hot sauce is abusive in my view...its not a reasonable punishment and people have been arrested for that before.
I guess there isn't really much here that is terribly abusive enough to call CP UNLESS the excercise in the cold is excessive or there are other signs of neglect, which if she still feeds the child and lets them go to the bathroom while being punished is probably not the case.
It is definitely not ideal and I feel for the kids but unless the kids physical care or well-being is compromised CP probably won't do anything.
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Have you been to the MBTP website..it explains and outlines it all there. I haven't used that level yet but they are all pretty similar in style. They units are meant to build on each other so the optimum is to use them in the specific order they are listed but you don't HAVE to. Its just that as the year progresses each unit is a little harder as it builds their skills.
The younger levels are very parent intensive but the older levels are pretty independent. I'm prety sure there is still lots of parent interaction in them.
MBTP is very writing intense. It isn't really a literature guide and discussion questions as such. It involves a lot of writing activities, explorations etc. Its more a unit study then a discussion guide. Each lesson has a few discussion questions but then it also has 3-4 activities of which it is encouraged to do them all to get the most benefit. You can skip some activities though if it becomes too much or is more then you want. MBTP is intended as a full language program rather then just a discussion guide so it does provide a ton of other language arts such as grammer, spelling and a huge focus on writing skills. You will not need another writing program if you use it or it will be overkill.
If you buy just the language part for a full year there are about 12 units. This is because there are 4 concepts a year and three units under each concept.
You can buy each unit online from the main website which may make it cheaper then a paper version from Rainbow Resource..each online unit is around $13.
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Trust me..1 hour is good. My DD does CLE and it can take her 2-3 hours some days. She is also a level behind but it doesn't bother me. Before CLE we tried 4 other programs and my DD couldn't learn a thing from any of them. After using CLE for a year she went from not being able to do any math to getting above 90% on all her tests. Last year she did a standadised test for 3rd graders the same as the public schoolers do and even though she was only halfway through Level 2 she scored 93%. So at least here in Australia the CLE levels are advanced for the grade.
My DD gets math now but her processing speed is super slow and her concentration is an issue..which is why it takes her sooo long. When I work with her she stays on track better and takes much less time but it still takes up to an hour.
CLE is soo worth it for kids struggling with math that despite the length or being a level behind I would never give it up. My DD is still slow but she gets math now.
My gifted son who gets math does CLE on grade level and it takes him 30-45 mins and he usually gets 100%.. so I would say for a struggler that an hour is fine.
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My DD is 10 and figured out the tooth fairy just now. However, she started loosing her teeth early and at record speed so she figured it out on her last tooth. LOL. She didn't tell me it was wobbly and didn't tell me it fell out...to see if the TF would still come..and she didn't of course. It was no big deal to her ...she figures shes 10 and too old to believe in kid stuff like fairys as well as super clever for outsmarting mum.
If your DD still believes then I wouldn't worry about it. I have friends with kids that age that still believe. Its not unusual.
And even if my kids did figure it out..they would still get tooth fairy money for their baby teeth..because it's fun for me LOL and I don't want to give it up..We just call it a tradition then.
My two oldest don't believe in Santa..they still get a Santa present..they think its fun still even though they know the truth. Neither of them went into hysterics when they found out..rather..they both felt rather grown up and smart that they figured it out but we still include Santa as a tradition now rather then a 'real' thing.
As for the younger siblings...my 7yo tells my oldest two they are silly thinking Santa is not real and they won't get any presents from him if they don't believe. It hasn't affected him at all...but he's always had his own mind and doesn't care what others think or say. He's actually quite thrilled he gets to leave cookies out on his own now ( although my other two always end up helping ..you know...just in case lol).
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Anything with too many pieces... just can't be bothered storing them, finding them, using them. I get myself confused as well as my kids.
Anything where I have to flip pages during the lesson...will never use anything that says Do this ( see page 9 of Part B Book 2).
I use PDFs all the time because of living overseas but the printing needs to be straightforward. Please put everything needed ..lesson, activities, graphics all in one sequential spot. When I am printing a lesson I do not want to print the lesson, then scroll down 50 pages to the activity section, then scroll another 50 pages to get to the map resources. I don't print all at once because I skip stuff I don't need ... put everything together please.
Hate curriculum that isn't modern. Hate the cheesy drawings and lame associations. My kids play video games and love Pokemon, Minecraft and Lego. They do not have tea parties in their clean Sunday dresses, bake cupcakes for Daddy or read books under trees.
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I have PTSD from bullying due to a physical defect. Teachers knew and did nothing. The one time I defended myself ...and by defend I mean I gave them the finger (or flipped the bird in Americanese) I was the one who got in trouble...they told on ME and I said nothing to the teacher as I was too embarrassed to say why they were bullying me.
I didnt kill myself because I was too afraid to..but I considered it....a lot.
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I get what you are saying OP. I have a kid who is terrified of the water and spent two weeks clutching the wall for dear life at his swim lessons. Knowing this, even an emergency phone call wouldn't have stopped me cheering and acknowledging his effort of his first swim alone ... I guess I'm just a typical helicopter parent...but I know when things are a big deal for my kid and when they are just an average achievement. My son would have got a standing ovation. Whatever..thats me. Turning your back is strange to me. I mean...sure take your phone call...but does it hurt to give your kid a wave and a thumbs up while you're chatting.
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Well only one of my kids has ever been invited to one birthday party lol...so we dodged that bullet. People mostly do family parties here I guess. We spent $15 which was a lot considering this family has been invited to my DDs birthday twice and either make something or get something from the thrift store. (not that it matters).
I would only spend more on nephews and nieces but we don't have any that live close...so we don't 😉
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I'd love to explore the idea of a one room school house model as being effective, particularly for students with learning difficulties. That's probably not something I can knock off in three weeks around a court case though.
Check out the Sudbury school model for inspiration.
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Hi Rosie. That would be an easy peasy one for me. Wish I got cool assignments like that rather then the 2500 words I just wrote on attachment theory🙄
Hot topic would be appropriate age to start school.."
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I would intersperse with studies showing significance of play based learning..as in child initiated not teacher initiated.
Start with Vgotskys theory of cognitive growth in children through play.
Compare with overseas countries whos kids start later and do better.
Add studies showing detrimental effects on kids who are pressured into learning before they are developmetally ready..eg. anxiety, conduct problems,
Read the book "Free to Learn" which is awesome and interesting and talks about the Sudbury School method.
Look online at Sudbury school method for inspiration lol www.sudval.org.
Read heaps of journal articles about the value of play based learning ..the real kind..not the kind teachers design to make their class seem kid friendly and up with the times lol
Hope that helps and sorry about the custody trial...they certainly suck. 😕
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Another Window Cord Accident
in The Chat Board
Posted
Cord accidents make me feel sick. I was always so careful when my kids were young...fully aware of them as I had heard of a few in the papers.
Well we rented a house that had many full length blinds and cords reaching to the ground. I was always paranoid...rolling the cords up, tying them and putting them up on the rod and never opening the blinds.
One day I was sitting at the kitchen table and I noticed a cord had fallen down and untied. It was so close to me if I leaned over I could touch it. I told myself as soon as I finished lunch I would get up and fix it straight away. My then 18 month old DS toddled past me and as he passed the cord he totally randomly reached out, grabbed it and swung it. It had a weight on the end so it swung out and wrapped around his neck three times before tangling itself into a knot at the throat. I was on my feet in seconds but it was so tight I couldnt get it undone and my DS was struggling which pulled it tighter and his face was going deep red. I had to lift him off his feet to reduce the tension and right next to me was a pair of the kids craft scissors that I grabbed and cut the cord to free him because I could not untangle it while holding him up.
I could not believe how fast that happenned with me sitting right there and always being so careful to keep them away from the kids. After that they were all doubly secured out of reach and the next time we moved into a rental we chose a place that had modern blinds where the cords are secured at the base and have a snap feature if they are pulled on.
Seconds people...it takes seconds.