I spray our tree periodically with an orange scented essential oil. Apparently cats don't like citrus scents. It's worked for three years now.

This Fantastic Beautiful is a great, hidden gem of a movie (super quirky rom-com) on Amazon Prime.

We use the Trello app and website. Easy to load, color-coded for completed, need help, with mom, etc. Plus it saves paper!

A Cultural History of Victorian England History of Makeup Both of these I made up for my daughter at her request.

Do you know where he took the course or what book/curriculum he used? My dd would love something like this

My oldest grandparent (paternal grandfather) was born on 2/22/22, President's Day, so he was named Jefferson Washington LastName. He passed away in 2001 from colon cancer. He was the best man I've ever known.

One of the key things with reluctant, beginning writers, especially boys, is tailor the assignment to their interests. So in your example of write a description of a place, tweak that assignment to: write a description of one of the areas in Fortnite or describe his dream car or describe the planet Tatooine, etc. Take a writing curriculum. Look at the assignments (what types of writing is it teaching, what aspects of good writing is it having them focus on, etc.). Tailor those to your child. Don't grade it or mark it up. Talk about what they did well and something to improve. Rewrite it together. I try to save specific writing assignments/essays that are connected with school work until high school. Yes, kids need to know how to write to fit an assignment, but not until much later, IMO, than most people introduce it. I also agree with everything that others said above, specifically @8FillTheHeart. I've learned so much over the years that has honed my own teaching writing methods. Generally if a child is balking as much as yours is that means 1) you are asking them to do something they don't know how to do (even if you think they should know or that you've taught it to them a million times), 2) you are asking them to do something that they are not ready to do maturity wise as a writer or 3) they have internalized the message that they aren't good at writing (due to pushing them to write too soon or over-correcting their work) that now they are afraid to even try.

Let me try the video again E8236724-6C9D-4931-88AC-D8F82DCBD25F.mov

My daughter is learning blacksmithing at a local living historical museum that she's been volunteering at for about two years CAD14AC0-4D60-4FC0-8D7A-943A18F896CD.mov . She loves it. Here's a picture of her first piece and a video of her in the forge.

Writing and literature for sure! I teach both at our co-op, at a private school, and online (high school level). I teach just writing to two online classes (middle school and upper elementary) as well. I love it so much!

I paid my way through a local public university in Arkansas. I worked about thirty hours a week year round, lived at home, and applied for every departmental scholarship that was posted while I was in school (usually about $500) to do it. I graduated college with zero debt, however, the university I attended has raised tuition so much that there is no way I could pay my way now. BTW, I attended the cheapest public university in the state, but it's still too expensive to pay your way through at this point.

I agree. Out of any character on the show, he was by far the most interesting because of his character development and how he pushed Veronica out of her comfort zone. I feel like the series will fall flat or just become another detective procedural without another character coming on the scene and taking that role in the show.

I was totally upset about it. It seemed like a deliberate move to say, "You like Veronica Mars? Well, now we're starting over." I don't buy the excuse about a noir detective not having a significant other either. Logan's secret missions and disappearing for months at a time seemed like the perfect way for V and L to stay together, but not necessarily have to always have Logan involved, so Veronica could be the solo noir detective most of the time. I wonder if the actor who plays Logan didn't want to do it anymore and this was his out, a la Harrison Ford in the Star Wars franchise.

I wish I was still using it! The co-op I mentioned in this post wanted me to keep teaching high school writing, but I couldn't do that using the Writing and Rhetoric program because I'd have new students jumping in ninth grade every year, so I needed something I could plug kids into without having completed previous books. I still use W&R at home for those early levels because there's just nothing better. I've been thinking about getting the upper level books for my own writing resources. I'm really sad my kids won't be able to work through the entire series. I love it so much.

I'll make one for you. I love this kind of stuff.