Well, thanks, everybody. That's very informative.

I feel like it's time for my kids to step up their game and start doing barre at home to work on strength and fine tuning posture. There are a lot of barre cds on the market and it's hard to tell the difference. Does anybody have a good cd to reccommend for music to do barre to?

Even though I hear IEW is great I'm not ready to invest in a big program, I just want a basic guide to structuring paragraphs, forming arguements and key words to use.

What age group? I'm thinking in my daughters age (5th or so) Man vs Man: Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe, Holes. Man vs Nature: The Cay, Julie and the Wolves, Hatchet, Man vs Self: A Wrinkle in Time, Juniper, Dicey's Song, Matilda Bone Man vs Society: Homecoming, Shabanu Most simple tales and fables and most fantasy are Man Vs Man, it seems, or you have to go into Jungian sybolism to tease out the more complex meanings. Picture books are more complex (going to bed stories are Self). You could go for the Odyssey for Man vs Nature (god, fate) and the Illiad for Man vs Man and Self, and Hamlet for Man vs Self, all in retellings if needed.

My sister lived in the UK for years and really loved it. They came back over here to be near family when they had a baby but culturally they really prefer the UK. I do think they'll go back in a few years. We have thought pretty seriously about going over there for a few years. PS, we just came back from Amherst Shores Provincial Park in NS and it was amazing! I understand the urge to move there for sure.

It's not just you; Maine is awesome. I live near Belfast, Maine and you would not believe the number of New Jersey expatriates living in our little town.

The books of Eva Ibbotson are fantastic. A few of them are fantasy but many are not, like Journey to the River Sea, The Dragonfly Pool and The Star of Kazan. Also my DD was ready for The Mysterious Benedict Society at that age. I love all those books because they feature resourceful heroines, emotionally aware male characters, cooperative non-romantic relationships between children of the opposite sex and trusting relations with healthy grownups.

I kind of hope Harry Potter is not, because while they are super engaging the writing is not great. The books of Eva Ibbotsen deserve it for sure, and the Tillerman Cycle of Cynthia Voigt are really wonderful writing, so I hope they make it.

Yes, I know about the games, but there don't seem to be games for subtracting four digit numbers with borrowing! Thanks for the input- what is MM?

RightStart has worked really well in teaching concepts. I really wish I had been taught this way! But the one thing I notice is that there isn't enough repetition. My kids will get a concept but then forget about if over time, because they didn't really get it automated. For instance I love using the abacus to illustrate and check subtraction, but the truth is that you just need to do a whole bunch of subtraction problems to really get it reliably. I want to continue using RS to learn new concepts and ideas but I need to add something else for review and practice. Any suggestions?

I offered to teach a hands-on science class for my son's coop class. It's a group of about 10 kids age 7-9, mostly boys and QUITE physical. I'm a word person, not an experiment person, so I am looking for a kit with a requisite parts that would be pretty clear in how to teach. I am thinking magnetism, electricity or perhaps engineering/building structures. Coop is just six weeks so it doesn't need to be a ton of lessons, but it does need to be age appropriate and engaging without being babyish. I'm feeling some anxiety about it- there is a ton of stuff available and I'm not familiar with any of it. Help!

There is a good but of writing published recently about how young men don't have as much s*x as other age groups and how it correlates pretty closely with p*rn use. An increasing number of young couples simply don't have sex because the man devotes all his sexual energy to the less complicated internet star. It is sad for men and devastating for women. Also coming to attention is how young men reared on p*rn make terrible lovers and their partners are very unsatisfied. It seems like it shouldn't be too hard to persuade him that it is actually in the best interests of his future sex life to stay out of it. http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/trends/n_9437/ http://nymag.com/print/?/news/features/70976/ http://www.medhelp.org/posts/Mens-Health/Too-much-porn-masturbation-cause-ED/show/183203

Just off the top of my head, it seems like she is trying to crowd a lot of ideas into that topic sentence. Maybe try and have her break it up in order of importance, ie "Graphic design is a better career choice than the fine arts." Does she outline her paragraphs?

I think both romance novels and erotica are actually the opposite of porn. even though they are explicit, most "women's" books emphasize the emotional and relational component of sex. They tend to celebrate the individual (romanticised but clearly still human) hero. Most "men's" porn is specifically non-relational, non-emotional. The very last thing a man looking for porn wants is a real live woman with thoughts and memory preferences and a day behind her that she's still thinking about. He is looking for a body to project his own fantasies on to. There is plenty of writing out there observing how the young men that have been reared on internet porn are terminally self centered and incapable of actually acting as a generous lover to a woman. Reading harlequins may lead a woman to be dissatisfied with some part of her relationship, but it's probably not so much about his body, the size or shape of this or that. The things that typical women's erotic writing focuses on are good things that we all should want anyway ( a sensitive lover, a fulfilling relationship) To my mind "men's" porn is a whole different type of objectification,dehumanization and exploitation.

Ooo, I like those titles. Thanks!

Anyone? I know people are looking....

So, I'm leading a weekly group of thoughtful kids ages 8-10 who love to read but don't write well. I'd like to include good literature, critical reading and discussion, and some gentle written response. There are a good number of kids who are physical-visual in learning style so some projecty stuff would be good too. I'd like to skip the simple comprehension drills and get right to engaging with good books. My daughter loved Moving Beyond the Page's style of engagement but I haven't used the literature guides to know if they are what I want- they might be a little lightweight. Any suggestions?

My DD and I get into battles of will, where I just think she needs to do what I want her to do, and she just thinks she would rather die. It helps to back off and do something else, to go around the problem, so to speak, rather than through it. Often I need to refine my teaching style to get what I want in a way that works for her.

My 9yo girl is creative and has always liked to write stories about imaginary worlds and such, but last year (3rd grade) I tried IEW Fun and Fascinating with her to help her get the idea of beginning and end, plot, resolution, topic sentences and stuff. She hated now structured it was, having to fill out these boxes on her writing process. She'd get so angry she'd leave out all the good stuff and end up with a much more boring piece, even though it was structurally correct. It turned into a disaster, and she ended up refusing to write anything, ever, until I distracted her with the much more fun Moving Beyond the Page. There is lots of fun stuff to write about there but it doesn't really cover mechanics and usage. Any suggestions? Addendum: A lot of you are saying to focus on academic writing. I wish a could afford the whole IEW TWSS thing (just for myself!) but given that I can't, what are some recs on academic writing? I was looking at WriteShop and Stack the Deck. Writing Tales looks a lot like IEW Fun and Fascinating. I don't think I'm gong to get away with making her retell anymore fables!

I don't know if it's on Netflix or not, but my library has a stage version directed by Kenneth Branaugh from a series by Rennasance (sorry about the spelling, its early) Productions. The one starring Helena Bonham Carter has some dialogue cut but is true to the story, had a fabulous cast and is very funny.

We have not done speech therapy with him yet, but we have a local SLP with a fantastic reputation, so I could. It's really touch and go on the one step directions. I would get a really reliable response to "get a spoon for ice cream" but not many other things. Even when I try to be really slow and clear about what I want, it rarely happens. I added a little more info up top. He doesn't appear to me to be a kid with sensory issues- he always enjoys touch, doesn't freak out about how his clothes fit or feel or the texture of foods and does okay in busy situations, funny lighting and loud noises. His attention span appears normal to me- I worked in special ed a couple of years so I think I would recognize the sensory issues. Definitely the frustrated angry yelling escalated after we had a new baby last fall. But his yelling is not something I give in to, so it doesn't really get him positive attention or anything. I feel very frustrated with him a lot of the time, and I feel bad about it.

With my other 2 kids, I could tell them, "Go upstairs and put on your jammies" and they would. With this one, he may make it upstairs, play for 15 minutes and come back down in the same clothes with no awareness of having forgotten anything, or he may look at me, nod, and innocently keep on playing. It's true that I am more distracted now than with my earlier kids and have not given him directions and led him through them as much, but I also just feel like he doesn't "get it.". It is extremely rare for me to give him a direction and have him do it. He also seems to have a hard time making distinctions that I consider normal for his age- the big one vs the small one, the front porch vs the back, shoes vs boots or short sleeve vs long. I can't tell if he's yanking my chain to get attention or if he really doesn't get it. He has some pretty significant speech delays, too. And he cries a TON, really loud, whenever he is upset. It seems like huge overreaction to me- it's like he is making SO sure that everybody knows he upset. I don't know if this is related or not, but I also suspect he is less empathetic than my other kids. When we are having a typical frustrating interaction, he seems upset that he is in trouble, but he doesn't seem bothered by my distress. My other kids were really worried and sad when they could see that they had made me angry or upset and we could make up. It doesn't seem to bother this one in the same way. So, is this an ordinary 3yo, or is something going on? Is he just ignoring me, or should I get something checked out?

You sound like me now! I asked a very similar question just last week. I got looking around and found this blog which I found extremely helpful and encouraging http://applestars.homeschooljournal.net/an-introduction-to-the-creative-right-brained-learner/. She says that the right brain learner isnt ready to BEGIN to read until 8-10 years old. Somebody clued me into this list of characteristic signs of dyslexia, of which my son has a few, so I ordered The Gift of Dylexia (http://www.amazon.com/Gift-Dyslexia-Revised-Expanded-Read/dp/0399535667/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1312424659&sr=8-1) and am looking into Right Brain Phonocs by Diane Craft. What all these things have in common is the beleif that some kids just learn and percieve differently, and need to be taught differently. I've been doing Spell to Write and Read and Spalding Method type stuff along with Learning Lanuage Arts through Literature, and it just seems like more of the same is not what we need. Time to revamp!

So, I think I need to retailor things for my 7.5 yo, kinesthenic DS. He has some dyslexic characteristics and some just right brain characteristics, and just seems really slow to master phonograms and remember sight words. Has anyone used this, and what did you think?

Good advice. Okay, he has some of the warning signs of dyslexia (b-d confusion, was late to talk, isn't too clear on right and left, leaves out connecting words or substitutes words of similar meaning but different look and doesn't recall sight words well). I have really bad directionality myself and some of the disgraphic stuff (routinely misspellling common words, not seeing my sp. errors) but have always read fine, and my older daughter also does, and did the syllable switch when she was little but read easily. A lot of these symptoms just sound to me like a kid who isn't reading well yet. So at what point does it cross over into dyslexia?