Close but it is moving to Nov.1 for Fall 2012, Oct.1 for 2013, and Sept 1. for 2014. So there will be approximately 1/12 fewer kindergarten each year for the next three years. The state was supposed to fund a transitional kindergarten program for kids who just missed the cut-off but the governor just cut the funding for that program so it probably won't happen.

Does she have an IEP for the visual impairment? If it is a one time thing, then I would let it go. If you talk to the teacher and the teacher is insistent that your daughter will miss recess for misbehaving, you can call an IEP meeting and have it written in to the IEP that she not miss recess because .... put in a reason related to her visual impairment or attentional issues - she needs practice to learn to navigate large playground structures for safety, has excess energy and focusing on writing tasks is more difficult for her so she needs time to relax her eyes, whatever is relevant. If it is in her IEP then they have to follow it.

I am worried about kindergarten next year for my son because the school he will go to has AM and PM kindergarten classes and siblings of current students have priority for the AM slots. He turned 5 in December and still naps everyday at his daycare. Today he took a 2 hour nap. I love that he naps because he stays up until 9:30 pm everyday. Some days I can pick him up at 4 and still get 5 1/2 hours with him. When he stops napping I imagine he will go to bed by 8 which means less family time.

1200 words with 12 point font and doubled spaced is 4 1/2 to 5 pages, which is challenging for a sixth grader, but a research paper of that length is assigned at some schools. The block quotation will help because you can find a 300 words to quote and use two block quotes so the paper really becomes 900 words. My nephew who is at a public school had to write a 5 page report on Egypt this fall with a bibilography and in MLA style. The only thing that the teacher really cared about was that the bibliography was formated in MLA style. She wasn't expecting much more. Perhaps, you are thinking they expect a college paper, but really in public schools quantity is more important than quality. It would make more sense to learn how to write one page well. Additionally, the teacher is not really going to go over each essay in detail because if it is at a public school there are too many kids in the class. My nephew's teacher really didn't give the students much help in class so my nephew didn't know where to start. My SIL began to panic so she sent him over to us for the weekend so we could help him. If you break it down into steps it will be easy. Pick four topics to concentrate on (physical geography, major cities, etc.) Each topic gets a page. Write out facts about each topic on an index card as you go through your four sources and write the books initials on each card so you know where the fact or quote came from. Put the cards an order that makes sense. If something is missing ask a question and have your child find it. Every two or three days, write one page about the topic. The teacher should have instructed the students on how to do this or something similar or perhaps might be leaving class time to do this. I kept asking my nephew if he was sure they didn't give him more instructions but he assured me that they didn't, so luckily I was able to help him if not I am not sure what he would have done.

How do you keep up with all the books? We go to the library once a week and I get a book on CD for my commute and usually a couple others. I limit my 5 year old to 10 books a week and we get 3 more for little brother. As the 5 year old is becoming a better reader I am going to need to take out more books. He can read books like Henry and Mudge or Frog and Toad but has preferred for me to read to him or to look at the pictures in nonfiction books. The past two weeks he has started picking up easy readers to read by himself and to his brother. The only problem is the books get scattered through the house. I realized if I place books all around he will pick them up and read a bit on his own. So what system do you all use to keep track of 50+ library books at once?

I am sorry you are having issues with the office staff. Unfortunately, at many schools the office manager is really rude which sets the tone of the office. I work as a school psychologist so I go into and out of many schools and I know exactly what you mean. At some schools the people who work the front office are really wonderful and helpful. I have entered other school who don't know who I am and am appalled that they can be so rude. Once I identify myself as a district employee and not a parent, their attitude changes slightly. It tends to be at more affluent schools the office manager can't be rude because parents wouldn't put up with it. At schools that have many students who are poor and whose parents don't speak English, the office managers get away with being rude. The only recourse is to email the principal with complaints. I wouldn't advise speaking to the principal in person because there is no record of what really took place. Email provides a paper trail and complaints are taken more seriously. Also you could get a doctor's note that your little kids are healthy, have no medical problems that should require them to leave school, and so they need to stay in school.

I tried to get access to the Salsa videos on the website a year ago but the website wouldn't play them. It said they were only available to purchase. I even searched this forum and there was a thread about Salsa no longer being free. I just checked and now I can watch them on my iPad. What happened?

What do you mean by one new set every four months? Does that mean 3C won't be released until July 2012 and 3Din November 2012? 4A in March 2013, 4B in July 2013, 4C in November of 2013 and 4D in March 2014? Or one new complete grade level every four months?

No extra testing, just gifted testing in second or third grade. I thought that when I went in for the tour that they were going to go on and on about how great Everyday Math is and that is why they are successful. Instead the principal went on and on about how the parents make the school special because they are motivated and want their kids to be successful in school.

My husband and I toured the magnet school today and decided to enroll our son. We liked that in the kinder class that we saw the kids were all on task and well behaved. Kinder is half day and there is almost an hour a day of center time where they give kids free choice to build with blocks, write, read, color, etc. in small groups in order to encourage socialization. An hour a day is for language arts and the principal said the kids are grouped by ability so kids who read are in one group and kids still working on learning letters are in another group. I saw a couple of journal papers on the teacher's desk that looked like a couple of kids had written what they did over the long weekend and those kids wrote three or four original sentences that were what you would expect a first or second grader to write. The school is the highest scoring in the District so they have no plans to lengthen the kinder day, which means more time for afterschooling. The magnet is a math magnet, which sounds great BUT they use Everyday Math. I am trying to stay positive about EverydayMath. I am hoping that since they have implemented it for 15 years the teachers are experienced and comfortable using it. There test scores in math are really high, but it is probably due to either the parents or teachers supplementing. Perhaps the bright side of it is that maybe he won't be bored at school in math since he will learn the traditional math algorithms at home and can learn lots of alternative ways to solve problems at school. It has to be worse for a child who is advanced in math to be made to do page after page of worksheets below his or her level at school.

I was hoping to meet families in the neighborhood by having him attend the neighborhood school. I see lots of kids walking by our house on the way to school and it would be nice to be able to walk or ride bikes to school. He was in AYSO fall soccer and the practices were on the neighborhood school field. When we walked to the practices we passed by the kinder yard and my son would point and say that he was going to play there when he was a big boy. Hopefully we will meet other parents in the neighborhood through sports or other activities. I have been repeatedly warned about Everyday Math by my brother who is still livid that he paid over 15,000 per kid for a private school that used Everyday Math for elementary school (they loved everything else about the private school). On top of the tuition he ended up sending his boys to a Kumon Center for over three years. He encouraged me to sign up my son for the Kumon Center a few months ago when I told him my school district uses Everyday Math (he even gave me the first month's tuition). My son finished Right Start A and MEP reception before beginning Kumon (we also have been doing Miquon and SM Kinder B). I am now a big believer in Kumon and will probably have him continue going to Kumon for the enrichment and we will keep using SM too (we will see about Beast Academy). I don't have hope that either school will really differentiate in the lower grades. Since No Child Left Behind the emphasis has been on getting as many kids as possible to test proficient. Kids who already score proficient or advanced are now being left behind. My husband and I are taking a tour tomorrow so I will ask what they do with kids who can read in kinder. Thanks everyone who pointed out that we can always go back to our home school but can't start at the Charter whenever we want. I do feel fortunate that we have two good choices. We have friends whose neighborhood schools are terrible and are on the waiting list for the magnet school.

Frank Shaffer was bought out by Carson-Dellosa Publishing. Anything that was published under Frank Shaffer like their Singapore Math books are now distributed from Carson-Dellosa.

Both schools use Everyday Math. I plan on continuing to afterschool with SM/Miquon and perhaps AOPS Beast Academy. We are touring the Magnet school on Tuesday morning. I was thinking if he attends the more rigorous Magnet school there might be more busywork homework that would interfere with afterschooling. I work so I haven't met families in the neighborhood. I was thinking if he went to the neighborhood school we might meet some families but that is a good point about after and before school care. Since he will be going to afterschool care I probably won't meet many neighbors since he can't do playdates during the week.

I am trying to decide where to send my son to K next year. Our neighborhood school is 5 blocks away and is a good school (California API score of 880) with 300 students. We entered a lottery for a Magnet School five miles away that is a fantastic school (California API score of 940) that has 590 students. I just got a letter that he got in (there are 100 k spots and around 250 to 300 people apply every year and about 50 of the K spots go to siblings). I like the idea of the neighborhood school because he would meet kids nearby but because it is small it has a lot of split classes and I am afraid there won't be as much academic enrichment. It also doesn't have morning care and there is no guarantee that he will get AM kindergarten so he could go to the afterschool program. If he doesn't get the AM kindergarten class I would have to find a neighbor who could watch him in the mornings. The school told me they wouldn't decide the classes until August. The magnet school has no split classes and there is always a waiting list to enter. Almost all the parents have a high level of education and cared enough about their child's education to figure out how to enter a lottery in January for the upcoming school year (if you don't apply for the lottery in January you can't attend the school). There is before and after care. My son is already reading and is about to start SM 1A. I would think that there has to be other students who are reading at this school in kindergarten so perhaps they might do something additional with those students. Both schools use Everyday Math but the Magnet school has been using it for 15 years while the neighborhood school is only in its second year of implementing it. I wish I could send him to the neighborhood school for k-2 and then switch him but there is no guarantee he would get in again. Now that he is in his little brother is guaranteed a spot too in a couple of years. Anyone have any experience commuting to a better school and giving up the neighborhood school? Any regrets?

:iagree: I love Ferby Lyla crayons for my 5 and 3 year old. They are solidly built and the color is outstanding. Crayola looks faded on paper in comparison. My husband picked one up to color with my three year old and 10 minutes later my three year old was building with blocks and my husband had colored the whole page. He commented that they were amazing colored pencils and where did I get them.

I have the kindergarten level with the workbooks and the teacher's guide and materials. I bought it for my first son who had a speech delay due to fluid in his ears (he is on his third set of tubes). I wanted to make sure that he wasn't behind and he tested too high to qualify for speech therapy. So the cost of the kindergarten level including the teacher material which is required (you can't just buy the workbook or you wouldn't know what to say or have the stories to read that go with it) was the cost of one session of speech and language therapy. I like the word list. You can go online and look at what words they picked. I am finding that a lot of the words are used in the read-alouds we are using. For example, he learned "dew" and coincidently the next week we read two popular children's books that had dew in it. I also like that they pick some words that have two meanings, ex. row - and have pictures of a row of vegetables and a rowing a boat. I tape a copy of the words and the challenge words to the inside of the front door to remind my husband and I to use the words with him throughout the week. I think it is really depends on the child whether it is worth it or not to buy. It has really helped my oldest. On the other hand I would have never bought it for my 3 year old who is fantastic at just picking up vocabulary through conversations and asking what words mean that he doesn't know. I realized that my oldest has a vague idea of what some words means but needed to learn the specific definition.

I had my five year old try it out too. He got frustrated that he couldn't get out of the swamp either. Then I went on to see how far I could get. I finally got out of the swamp, went to a different space ship/port area, but then got sent back to the swamp after answering more questions. I was not impressed at all, and my son has no desire to play. I didn't like how they set up the math visuals with balls that quickly shifted around. I tried the multiplication and it seems more entertaining Oh well, at least it was free. Anyone have any other suggestion for a fun online addition game?

You need to get a referral to an audiologist ASAP. My son is on his third set of ear tubes and has had his adenoids out too. At the ENT office they have an audiologist (someone with a masters degree) who does the hearing tests. Before getting new tubes and one month after getting tubes the ENT doctor requires in-depth hearing tests. If your ENT won't refer you then go back to your primary physician. If that doesn't work call your public school district and say you want your child's receptive language tested by the speech therapist. In my district they actually have a free hearing center that tested my 2 year old and picked up the hearing loss and fluid in his ears. We were referred there when I called about getting a speech assessment once he turned 3.

Funnix is by the same author of 100 easy lessons and you can download it for free the next week or so. It is like 100 easy lessons except the prompts are spoken by a voice on the computer. You can find it on Funnix.com

The rates of students taking Calculus has increase quite a bit in California since there was a massive push for all 8th graders to take Algebra that started a few years ago. So if you start Alg. 1 in 8th grade you make it to Calculus in 12th grade if you pass all your classes. When I looked at the state test scores for California in spring 2011 it shows that 24.7 percent of 11th graders took Summative High School Math which is taken after finishing Alg.1, Geometry, and Alg. 2, so generally it would be for students taking Pre-Calculus or Calculus. So 1/4 of the students are on-track to take Calculus in 12th grade. Looking back to 2008 (the year this cohort was in 8th grade) 50 percent of the 8th graders took Algebra so around half have passed math every year. When I looked at how many 10th graders took the Summative Math exam (which means they would be taking calculus in 11th grade and either took Algebra in 7th grade or went to summer school to take an extra class), it was 4.5 percent. So to be competitive to a top state school in California I would think you would have to have taken Calculus in 12th grade since 4.5 percent of students are most likely taking Calculus in 11th. .

:iagree: I am puzzled that no many people have really supported doing 10 minutes of structured academics a day out of the 13 hours or so that a four year old is awake if the child is at all reluctant. I read the WTM and my recollection is that the authors encourage phonics for around 10 minutes a day starting around four year old, even for boys. My husband teaches middle school and has the same experience of students not willing to work hard- including students in his gifted English classes. A year ago I started teaching my son who just turned 4 how to read. It started with working on phonemic awareness because he had a speech delay due to ear infections and it was cheaper than speech therapy. The first two months he did not enjoy the 5 to 10 minute lessons. I told him he didn't have to read but he didn't have to watch TV either, so if he read then he got to watch an episode of Mighty Machines. He always chose to complete the reading lesson. By the fourth month he often said he loved to read and would ask me when we could do reading lessons. He struggled, worked hard and had made so much progress learning how to read. He is now so proud of himself. In the end I don't care so much about when he learned to read; I love that he is learning that hard work pays off. I am not familiar with CC, but I would encourage doing something academic for 5 minutes a day to prepare for kindergarten.

What about the Great Brain series by Fitzgerald, illustrated by Mercer Mayer? About a mischievous 10 year old who outsmarts/swindles his brothers and friends. It is set in Utah around 100 years ago.

:iagree: I was so disappointed. I feel that it is a scam that you have to buy the parent's guide then if you actually want templates and printouts you can go to the FIAR website and spend more money on their lapbooking material. WHAT!!!?? I thought it was all included. Why not include everything in the parent's guide?

Do you have any materials at home to teach her to read such as Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading (OPGTR), Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, or Phonics Pathways, Explore the Code books 1-3 (each book is less than 20 dollars on Amazon)? Funnix beginning reading is going to be available free on-line in February). Learning how to read well in first grade (ideally 60 words per minute on a 1st grade text) is really critical in public school, if not it is really difficult to catch up. If the classroom is loud and unruly you would be better off teaching her how to read at home. Even if there are interventions at school you mentioned that there are kids who are lower than she is so she won't be getting much help. Before pulling her you should have a plan. Think about what curriculum you have and if you don't have any then buy some or go to the public library and see if they have any books. Look over at the K-8 curriculum forum and read up on what other kinder and first graders are using to teach reading. If you are seriously considering pulling her and don't know much about homeschooling (just mentioning this because you said it was your first post), re-post this there and ask what materials and curriculum you will need, your budget, and whether you want secular or Christian content. I have learned so much from the K-8 forum. I used to teach first grade and was trained in the era of whole language which means that I learned nothing about phonics. I learned more about teaching reading on this site than I learned in my teacher credentialing classes. Public school can be a wonderful learning environment with the right teacher and the available resources, but if my child had a weak teacher that was not a good match for my child, I would not wait and see if things got better in first grade, perhaps a latter grade, but not first grade.

Two economists (freakonomics guys) studied deaths when a child aged 2-6 was in a car seats/ booster vs. a regular lap and shoulder belt and did not find a statistical difference between the two. The greatest danger is when a child is not restrained at all http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/10/magazine/10FREAK.html?ex=1189915200&en=641c83d4b0668293&ei=5070 I should add that I still won't take that risk and fully intend to keep my kids in boosters for a long time but it is interesting that the car seat industry is huge industry and a better solution would be for car manufacturers to design better backseats for kids since that most back seat passengers are kids.