Can I add Veritas Press to that list?

LOF is once again, going to be teaching things (almost) always using the traditional algorithm. I'm not anti-traditional algorithms; I just think you need to teach kids to think first. This is called teaching math from a Constructivist perspective. A resource you might like is a blog written by a homeschool mom called Let's Play Math. She also has an ebook out that I've read and really enjoyed.

This, and also you might want to look at Dreambox Math as a supplement. Also, by third grade PS kids transcribe their answers from textbooks to paper. That's really hard for a six year old to learn to do, but not impossible. For us, it took a lot of me teaching my kid how to organize his work in a notebook. That was a skill in itself.

There are differing opinions about Horizon. Mine is that it stresses rote learning, traditional algorithms, and "drill and kill" above conceptual understanding and exploration. In the second grade books, they put little boxes up in the corner so that kids are forced to "carry the one" etc. IMO a stronger program would be Singapore or Right Start. On my blog I have a Singapore review here and a Right Start review here. Good luck!

Here are some ideas from my blog. It sounds like your daughter is moving from the "learning to read" stage to the "reading to learn stage". Yeah!

I just wanted to add that my DS8 keeps leaving fake dog poop around the hosue to surprise us. Maybe I should blog about that!

Have you looked at The Out of Sync Child? Does your son have any other issues, like not wanting to wear socks, not wanting to wear itchy clothes, or not liking loud noises?

Rivka's blog Tinderbox is another one that I've really learned a lot from. IRL I don't know anyone who is Unitarian, but I always read Rivka's UU heroes posts with interest. Does that make me hate her? No. ;) When people are talking about the Singapore blog, do they mean Health Freak Mommy?

This is a big issue I have with blogging in general. Probably 99% of blogs don't make any money at all. (Mine gets between 150-200 hits a day and makes about $250 a year). So no, it's not worth selling my children's privacy over. Not even if was $2 million a year. I change my kids' names, and don't show their pictures, but still I worry. I do think blogs can be powerful ways to share ideas about education. I've learned A LOT from reading other blogs. Hopefully other people learn from mine too. Blog reading is also a great way to "meet" people from other walks of life, other parts of the world, and other faith backgrounds. I really appreciate that a lot. Will I ever read as many books as Dangermom does on Howling Frogs Books? No. Does that bother me? No way. I'm inspired.

Here's something to say thank you: Coaches give their time and so much more

Ugh! My blog is being really slow tonight, but here's what I have up for CoGAT practice. Good luck.

What are your favorite tricks for helping everyone in your family get along, and for keeping the household running smoothly? I'm looking for creative ideas to try when your kids are driving you crazy. Last week I did this thing with paperclips that turned out pretty cool. So what are some other novel ideas beyond the standard "read this book about parenting that will change your life" advice. Any suggestions? Spin a chore wheel? Personal baskets for clutter? I'll take it!

Here are some ideas from my blog: Afterschooling your gifted child.

Here's what we did at that age.

I was thinking about this thread... I have no idea how things work in Canada, but in the US schools often get funding with major strings attached. So a school district might get X dollars but they HAVE to buy this "approved' series of phonics books with X money. So if that were to happen at an immersion school, they might have to use X money to buy the "approved" readers, this time in the other language. Which doesn't make any sense, but I could see that happening.

I wish I had seen that tea room. Sounds like fun! My favorite place to eat was Cora's. Feel free to laugh at me Canadians. I've fallen in love with a Canadian chain restaurant.

To everyone who gave me advice, THANK YOU. Here's the recap of our trip to Victoria, in case you want to do some armchair travel.

My blogging friend is hosting a free breakfast for a month give-away on her blog, in case anyone wants to take a look. :)

There's this restaurant chain in Canada called Cora's, and they do veggies for breakfast really well. I was thinking of this thread when I took some pictures. They're up on my bog here. Too bad for me my new favorite restaurant is in another country!

I've been making a Pinterest board called Creative Handwriting Solutions. Finding fun ways to work on finger strength really helped my DS7.

You have (almost) exactly what we do for Afterschooling. My thought would be don't try to do everything at once. Shoot for an hour a week right now, and then go for a hour a day over the summer. Good luck!

Shameless self-promotion? Yes, but maybe you'll get a chuckle. This is my column in our local newspaper this week: When it comes to backyard farming I keep chickening out.

Exactly! It seems like if the USDA really wanted families to save money they would at least be suggesting to skip meat one night a week. But they aren't.

A quick update. I'm on week 3 of my experiment now. I'd change my vote to Yes. I can feed my family on $5 a day per person. I can even go significantly under that. These are they ways I've cut: I've stopped considering if something is "local". I've stopped buying organic milk. I switched from brown organic eggs to white cage-free eggs. We've been eating a lot of frozen veggies. We've been eating a lot of potatoes. I've cut back on my own, G-F purchases (which means I've sometimes been hungry). I've stopped buying crackers (dh isn't so happy about that one). Phew! I've still got one more week to go on my experiment. Thank you to everyone who commented on this thread because your ideas have really helped.

Sometimes teachers hold what they call "classroom meetings" where kids can work through issues like this (with our without names). My son's teacher has a system where you can put something "on the agenda" to be discussed. I used to hold classroom meetings when I was a teacher too. One day this little first grader leaned to the girl next to her and stage whispered "THIS IS JUST LIKE DR. PHIL." :)