Whether you choose to homeschool him or not, a BIG :thumbup: for raising a child fluent in his/her native tongue. FWIW, my DD is bilingual. She spoke only our native language the initial 3 years. At 3, we enrolled her in a Montessori where English was the primary spoken language. She took off after that, but continued to speak grammatically incorrect English,(as the rest of the children, her peers, were also not native English speakers). The strange part is, she was reading in English way before she gained fluency in speaking.(scratching head) She did not improve until I started talking to her in English at home.My DH, his parents and mine continued to speak to her in our native language. Now, at 7, she's fluent in both languages.

It worked for DD. What I did was alternated writing the tables out(up to12x12) with oral recitation. Within a week, she had them down pat. We're in the maintenance phase now where she recites them once a month or so, or whenever I observe her taking a pause to recall.

There's a learning curve in some strategy/skill based board games. For the first few times, I give guidance while playing, but I'm still playing to win, IYKWIM. Within the first few weeks, she's learned the ropes and all bets are off.:D

Try http://www.math-drills.com/numbersense.shtml HTH

Card games- Go fish, crazy 8, UNO.. Board games: Checkers, Chutes and Ladders, Ludo. Other games: Jenga, Lego. By far, her favorite was Chutes and Ladders. In India, it's sold as "Snakes and Ladders" and stepping on the head of the snake= decreasing numbers. .:D

It's extremely contagious until the blisters dry off and fade away. My DD had it as a 5 yr old and was quarantined for a week. She had a mild fever and blisters in her mouth, palms and soles of her feet. B complex (for children) helped a lot with the mouth blisters. HTH

:hurray: :thumbup: Congratulations!

The lines are important because, as you mentioned, they encourage uniform letters. If she gets too frustrated...how about reducing the amount she writes, instead of changing the medium. Maybe one line a day, everyday? FWIW, I do know exactly what you're going through and you have my sympathies. My perfectionist DD with superior motor skills took over a year and some months to get proficient at cursive. It is tough to build and maintain good handwriting. But, I can assure you that the effort pays off.

Sending lots of Good Luck your way! Your posts on the "how-to" of a scientific inquiry have inspired me to pursue something similar, but on a smaller scale, with my DD. Thank you. P.S.- Addressing the dynamics or politics behind competitions is an excellent idea.

I'm glad everything is falling into place for your DS. :001_smile: Good Luck for the bolded part.:D

:lol: DH (and DD) can figure out and navigate through unknown neighborhoods in our city. They just know. It's uncanny.

I love it...What a great idea!

I second Encycolopedia Brown Also look into Enid Blyton- A prolific british writer who's penned hundreds of books for children. Most of them are very accessible for young readers. I would recommend "Children of cherry tree farm" series by Enid Blyton as a start. There's usually a simple mystery involved in most of her books.

Disclaimer: We didn't use a kit. (budgetary constraints). DD built a simple Junk Bot (from a USB mouse). It was a lot of fun and DD (and we) learnt a lot in the process. DH helped with the soldering and teaching the theory behind the circuit. One good jump off point is http://makeprojects.com/c/Junkbots HTH

Sadma and Pushpak are fantastic movies. Are you a Kamal Hassan(the actor) fan, by any chance? My fav English movies (that I cannot wait to watch with DD) off the top of my head: Million Dollar Baby An eye for an eye Chocolat Bird cage The remains of the day

:grouphug: Yes! I'm just getting better at dealing with it, as DD grows up.

Oh boy...when I first visited the States(Ohio) 10 years ago(moved from Mumbai, India), I was astounded at a couple of things: 1- The size of a bag of chips 2- The Size of the refrigerator 3- That we have to 'drive' to the grocery store. 4-No people on the road. 5- The HUGE portion sizes. I got used to all of the above within 6 years, so much so that when I moved back home, My eyes and stomach had to readjust to the smaller sizes in almost everything.

What we do, is to work through a Arithmetic program for a day or two days and some basic algebra for the rest. A finger in each pie, so to speak. ( Because my DD is the sort who always wants to know "what's next after this".) I'm using a free Algebra book off the gutenberg site http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13309/13309-pdf.pdf It's a very gentle introduction to Algebra and starts with constructing simple equations from word problems. My DD (new 7 yr old) has *not* mastered all of the arithmetic required for Algebra, and we fill in the gaps as we go. She also worked through half AOPS pre-A a couple of months ago.

DD does math worksheets 3 days out of a week (accelerated), and the other 2 days, we use living math books and games such as the ones below. Origami Mastermind Connect 4 Think fun math dice Rush hour Tangram puzzles Pentominoes Kakuro -addition Sudoku Checkers/chinese checkers HTH

:iagree: I have to add that this is an EXCELLENT thread and thank you to all who've contributed!.

Lead by example.

:cheers2: I finally figured out the multi-quote feature. Yay me! :D

:grouphug: and :party:. Success stories like these are reassuring. Thanks for sharing.

I agree 100%. OP- I wanted to add that, (generally as a species), there is undue emphasis placed on getting along with whomever we meet. The day I accepted that I don't have to get every person I meet to 'like' me, is the day I truly and completely broke free of 'being out of sync'. It also helped that as I grew up, I stopped letting general opinions (about me) influence me. I love living in my own world, and I'm perfectly fine being alone in it, IYKWIM.

I've felt almost everything on that list one time or the other as a child/adolescent, but am very comfortable with my place in the world as an adult. Things sort out in time, you know. Like it's a right of passage to growing up. Although, I do second (third?) the recommendation of watching "Ratatouille" together.