My son is 5, 6 in a month. In PS he would be in Kindergarten. We did K last year and he was doing mostly 1st grade work. This year we are in "first grade" but doing 2nd grade work. It is easy for him, but he needs to learn basic grammar and math concepts. We are working through Singapore 2A right now. We are almost through the addition and into the measurement section. He does not have his addition facts memorized as well as he should. There are a few where he struggles. BUT we struggle to get through the math, even when I cut out some problems. It is not too hard. When I point to a problem (396+148) he can do it in a matter of seconds; but he needs me to point to each problem and keep him going! School takes forever! Should I skip the rest of the addition and subtraction and go to the measuring and multiplication? I can have him drill on the xtramath website? I don't want him to hate math, he is REALLY good at it. He understood the concepts of multiplicaiton and division last year, he can do basic algebra problems: ___ +6 = 13. I want to challenge him without skipping over the basic skills he needs for future math, but I also don't want to fight over the work so much! I have a similar problem with reading, too. He can easily read a 2nd-3rd grade book; but he can also read a 5ht-6th grade level book; he just does not have the concentration or attention span for the length. I have not found a book to get him excited about reading yet. He likes The Magic Tree House books, but he does not get excited to read a new one, I have him read a chapter a day. I want a book that he can't put down!

Look for a teacher supply store. We have Mardel here. I don't know where else they have stores, but it is a chain. They have self serve laminating machines. It was $0.25 per foot of length (2 feet wide). I assume there must be other teacher supply stores out there. A university education department might also have something you can pay to use.

Apparently, they are fixing it. That is pretty bad! We designed a t-shirt for our dance recital in May and went back and forth about the apostrophe. We needed a possesive form of a noun ending with "ss." We asked multiple English teachers, students, and checked every grammar book we owned! Both ss's and ss' came up as correct equal number of times. It was frustrating because we did NOT want to look stupid. We ended up going with the more visually appealing version. I cannot imagine letting something like "Lets Go" through! How many people did that have to get approved by to actually make it to the printer!?!?

She mentioned preparing them for higher education, that is why I mentioned the 10 page papers. As a freshman in a state school, I had to write 5 page papers weekly for my honors classes and my history classes. As a freshman in a smaller school, my husband had to write 4 10 page papers in his freshman year. When I worked on my masters, I had to write 5-10 page papers weekly. Writing a research paper is a learned skill that is much better started early. I had to teach my fellow master's students how to research and cite in a paper....and they were all teachers in the public schools! (Theatre teachers, not English...and they were 10-15 years out of college and had forgotten a lot of research writing skills because they were out of practice.) I was not saying that a 6ht or 7th grader should write a 10 page paper, but high schoolers should at least do one their Jr year, and one their Sr year.

We used to use our gas stove top, but I was always to scared to try and light the oven. We use our grill now if the power goes out.

I did not really find it funny or creepy...really not much to it.

I could not use toothpaste while pregnant with DS. It made me sick. I was told it was fine to brush without it. You do loose some of the breath freshening. Have you tried Tom's toothpaste. My kids love the strawberry.

I signed up in May! I am so excited! I hope it helps ds want to read!

Writing skills are SO important! Not just grammar and punctuation, but structure and format. We just finished interviewing for a position that requires someone to respond to emails. We dropped several people immediately because their cover letter (if theu even had one!) And resume were such a mess!! Freshmen comp classes are really designed to remidiate writing skills. I took comp 2 and was the only one in my class who knew how to do proper citation! Those classes are not enough to make up for a lack of writing in high-school. If you take a year off, you need to work your way back in to it by high school. Have them write a brief summary, just a few lines, of everything they read for school. Then have them pick one topic a month to study and write a short 2 page paper about. Once a semester, have them do a 4-5 page paper on a topic. In high school they need to write at least two 10+ page papers. My husband was homeschooled without any writing, his firat semester he had to write a 10 page research paper. He did not know how to start the process. I helped him do the whole thing. I got a 100%;) he wrote the second paper line and did okay. He corrects my writing (grammar and punctuation) because he is very strong in that area, but he never had to actually write, so he struggles with writing letters and papers. We do make a good team. Don't short change your kids. Have them write something at least once a week. Even if you skip the curriculum, have them write essays and summaries.

My almost 6 year old is 46 inches and 42 lbs. I am not concerned about his weight. I have sent him to bed without dinner too. Our rule Is that the kids must try a new food, if theu hate It PBJ or chicken nuggets are an option. If they won't try it or refuse to eat what we know they like, they get no bedtime snack. We have plates with lids, so we can just stick the plate in the fride. We have only done it a few times. If everyone else Is getting desert or a bowl of watermelon, they will run to the table and eat their dinner. It only took a couple of nights of no bedtime snacks. (They did get good breakfasts the next day). If you have allowed him to live in shakes, it may take a few days to get him to eat. He is going to test you. If you only have the chocolate and vanilla left, make that his dinner option. The shake he dislikes or the yummy chicken. Let him help pick out recipies. Look at allrecipes.com together. Then shop for the Ingredients amd cook together. If he is proud of his work, he will at least try it.

I made one change after day one....I knew before we started that I would hate it, but I paid for it...so I tried it. Now I am 100% happy. Can't say the same for DS. He only wants history and biology! :tongue_smilie: He lived math last year...hates it this year. I think once we pass the review we will be fine.

Wow! That is crazy!

I live in a larger city, we pay $5-8 an hour for two kids. I pay younger sitters $5, and the older sitters (16-18) who also clean up after my kids and more...I pay $8. They come to my house, and I provide them food.

We use this. I pretext on Monday. If he gets all the words right we leave it until Friday. I might have him read the list, but that Is it. If he misses a word, we practice. If it is a new rule, we go over it. We test again on Friday. The next week I use the dictation sentences from that list. We have done lists 4 and 5 this way. Now that we know the routine, I am going to test to accelerate him. It is a simple system and it was cap. plus you can use it for every child without copying or buying workbooks. Just some paper.

I don't know about the older grades, but I did not like the script for Shurley English. It was too much prep work for me to teach. I prefer open and go. For Shurley english I needed read ahead and make sure I knew my part. It was just too much. But, I was looking at the lower levels. I really like R&S.

I did not like HST or HST+ at all. I find that Edu-Track is much easier to navigate.

I can read it. It looks like a mix of print and cursive, maybe that is what the person had an issue with. It is legible and neat. I hate cursive and D'nealian. I would much rather print. I think it looks neater (for me) and (for me) it is faster. We were playing a spelling game in 5th grade where we wrote the words in shaving cream on our desks. I spelled the first word correctly, but my teacher did not give me the point because I printed. She said I needed to "write" the words and not print. It was humiliating! If I can read a child's handwriting I will never judge them based on the style of the letters. It is a way to express themselves. My son likes the fancier lettering. He prefers the a like this "a" with the curve over the top and the t and i with the curve at the bottom. He taught himself from seeing it in books. Those are his neatest letters when he writes. Her writing is fine. Ask to see a sample of the other person's writing, see what they expect - the critique it :tongue_smilie:

I would be offended by the question. It implies that they think you/the person have cheated on a spouse (if you are married) or that you have multiple partners otherwise. I am proud of the fact that my DH is my one and only. I know a lot of people who can't say that. I have a blonde haired, blue eyed boy and a brown haired, brown eyed girl. People wonder. I set them straight - DD looks like me, DS looks like daddy but got both of our maternal grandmother's eyes. The hair....manhy family members started blonde and darkened as they got older. You never know what you will end up with, you can predict that two brown eyed people will most likely have brown eyed children; but those recessive genes do come out :) My SIL and BIL adopted a baby from Africa. Families don't always look alike. I would definitely be offended.

The only thing that I can see being a negative is that she has set up Facebook pages for the dolls. Other than that: 1. The stories are historical fiction, and fairly well written. You don't need to add to it unless she starts asking questions. She might find a time period she loves and will start asking for more books about it. 2. She wants to learn to sew to make them clothes - teach her to sew. This is a valuable life skill. So many people don't know how to sew. I could sew my pointe shoes together by hand and that was it. At 24, I had to make 4 Austin Powers velvet suits for a dance. I had to learn to sew in a couple of days. 3. She is being actively creative with the dolls. It is very important to let kids explore and create. It helps with their critical thinking skills. If the dolls bring out her creativity, encourage her. 4. Have a tea party with her and her dolls - teach proper table etiquette. Have her teach her dolls her math lesson. Set up an old fashioned school room and let her teach. That is the best way to be sure you know something. 5. Better a doll than a video game or internet site. There are so many things that would be much worse than a love of historical dolls. Have fun!

I am a horrible seller...I never learned any spelling rules or phonics in school. My son is great speller and I have worked phonics and spelling rules from the beginning.

I picked up a kindergarten basic skills workbook at Walmart when DS was 4.5. He loved it. He would do 20-30 pages at a time. Then he asked to learn how to read. We started kindergarten a month before he turned 5. He missed the cuttoff for public school. This year, DD is 3.5 but wants to "do school" everyday. We are using the letter of the week and some basic skills books and flash cards. She likes to find the matching pics, or find what's different. There are lots of coloring pages. My goal is for her to know the alphabet and count to 20 by the end of the year. She will also know a lot of shapes and new animals.

Not when I was in school, but when I was choreographing for a high school show choir I was stuck in a lock down drill (intruder drill). I was stuck in the color guard closet with 20 teenagers for 20 minutes....ugh!

I signed up for the emails for a while, twice. I eventually got overwhelmed. She advocates slow cleaning a few minutes a day until your house is in shape. After that, you start adding the weekly missions. The emails got to be too much, I just look on facebook now. But I don't really follow all of her plans, I use bits and pieces; then I watch Hoarders and clean my house and get rid of stuff!:lol:

We did math all year last year in kindergarten. My son has most of the addition and subtraction facts down after a year, but he still counts for some larger numbers like 7+9 & 8+9. She will get them, just give her time to practice.

Mon: Possible dance or piano class...not sure Wed: 1 hour of gymnastics, 1.5 hours of dance Thurs: Co-op, 1 hour musical theatre and other possibility for Piano Fri: Competition dance practice and class