Kind of feeling like Toys R Us. "Oh, we're bankrupt, closing all our stores, sales start Wednesday." Wednesday arrives. *PSYCH!!!

Wait, isn't 2900 the goal?! This thread should be in Guinness...or something.

Stiiiiiiiill here. And still sweaty. Cuz DH can't sleep if there's any light at all, so I have to ITT under the blankets.

Speaking of April Fools. I bought Jelly Belly and Beanboozled. Going to randomly mix them in the kids' eggs. Muahahaha!

If it were me, laughing...definitely laughing.

Ok...*twiddling thumbs* This is all very anticlimactic! It's now 12:01...

A little sweaty! Edit, for a MIDNIGHT ECLIPSE BOOYAH!!!!!

Who thinks the forum will actually go down right at midnight?!

30 minutes until the Great WTM Eclipse! Fair thee well, ITTers!

True story...when DD took over care of our chicken flock, I explained to her how to rotate the chx waterers so that each day, the full size chickens would finish off the waterer from the bantam chickens rug day before (so as to not waste water, and so the bantam waterer wouldn't grow algae). Simple enough...give the little chicken water to the big chickens, wash their previous watered and refill for the bantams. She did fine. For months. And then one day in February, my husband came in from the coop and asked why she was putting a FROZEN chicken waterer in with the big birds. Yeah...it didn't occur to her that the water had to actually be LIQUID. Bless her, lol. She's such a good girl.

Anxiety is not an issue for my daughter (though it is for my husband). She's just very literal and lacks an ability to infer. She's Amelia Bedelia in the flesh, lol. As she has gotten older, she's gotten a bit more...I don't know, weird? She often says things that do not make sense, in that her word choice is wrong, or her sentence structure is off. It's strange because she actually tests high on expressive language, but very poor on receptive. I'm hoping to have her evaluated for NVLD. She fits many of the signs to a 't'.

Me neither...lol. Hunh...you know, my 12 yr old was diagnosed with dyscalculia when she was 7 but lately, I'm starting to think she may have been misdiagnosed. She is working in Singapore's 3rd grade level and she is doing really really well with it. I don't really see any evidence of the number sense weaknesses she clearly had as a younger student. For sure, she has significant weaknesses in reasoning. But it pervades beyond just math. She cannot make cognitive connections very easily. I have lately been wondering if her reasoning weaknesses were actually to blame for her poor number sense when she was younger. Actually, I'm waiting on the school district to get back to me on a request for an additional independent educational evaluation. Which reminds me...they've been dragging feet.

Truth. And not just with gifted kids. My middle son is not necessarily a "perfectionist" but he REALLY struggles with self-confidence and anxiety when he is faced with any kind of difficult circumstances. I have to approach him a bit differently. For example, he is training to pitch for his Little League team. I told his coach that, despite his ability, my concern for him would be confidence and how he'll handle it when he's thrown a bad pitch in a game. Because I know he'll struggle internally with that. With not doing it right...with letting everybody down. And it will spiral. But I also told his coach that the boy's lack of confidence is EXACTLY why he should be pitching, as long as he has the support he'll need when he struggles on the mound. And he will struggle...and he will have the support. For him, Beast Academy would be an absolute no...even if he WAS math gifted. On second thought...I WOULD use Beast Academy with him if he were math gifted...but I would not let him puzzle it out alone like I do with eldest DS. Middle DS cannot handle that.

I'd go ahead and buy it. Honestly, having a curriculum that challenged my math-gifted son to the point of frustration has been the best thing for him. Not that I want him to be in a state of perpetual frustration, nor do I want him to hate math (and occasionally, he says that...but I don't think he really means it). But Prairie is spot on. If you don't offer gifted kids an opportunity to experience frustration and defeat when they are young, they REALLY struggle with it when they DO experience frustration and defeat later on. My kiddo has learned to puzzle through difficult things. How to reset himself and walk away...come back a little later with fresh eyes. It helps that I offer him a candy for double star problems, lol...as long as he doesn't whine and complain about the problem. Whine/complain = NO CANDY FOR YOU!

This is SO my kids. My kids think of the public school as some kind of CandyLand where their friends frolic and play all day every day.

So not long ago, I had a discussion with my kids about swear words. I asked them if they knew what they were and they looked at me blankly (they were 11, 10, 9 and 8 at the time). We were doing a devotional on keeping our words pure and that's what led into the talk, lol. Anyways, I explained to them that swear words are words that some people use to express strong feelings, or to be mean to others and that they are not OK to use. I asked if any of them could think of any examples they might have heard. My daughter responds, "Oh, I know! Like this...*meanest voice she could muster*...I'm going to PURPLE you!!!!" 😂😂😂😂😂 I nearly died laughing. Obviously, my kids are pretty sheltered.

Pretty sure this would be my daughter... http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/03/22/minnesota-teen-drives-into-building-during-road-test.html

Re: Driving and teens. It can't come soon enough, lol! Next year, my kids will have swim practice five nights a week, 40 minutes from home. The upside is that I'm forced to be at the YMCA, which means I actually get a workout in. (Distracting side note...do you know how motivating it is to take a HIIT class with old people who are apparently superhuman and in waaaaay better shape than you are? VERY!). On a serious note, my daughter is our oldest and with her being a little bit delayed in some cognitive areas, I don't think we will let her get her license until she's 30. Not sure how we'll handle the disappointment for her, when her 11 months younger brother is allowed to get his. Everyone ready for the Great WTM Eclipse?

Grade 5. He completed Singapore 5 last year and I intended for him to complete Beast 5 over the fall and then launch into Pre-Alg, but some of the Beast chapters were throwing him for a bit of a loop (Beast 5 is hard, y'all), so I opted to let him slow down a bit. It's a marathon, not a sprint. ;-) He loves Beast and is so sad there aren't anymore books after Grade 5.

Depends on the kid, topic and honestly, the problem. My son usually reads a section and then works through 1-3 pages each day until that section is done (usually 2-3 days. Lather, rinse, repeat. He spends, average, 30 mins/day. But, sometimes a particularly tricky problem set may take quite a bit longer.

Mystery... DH trimmed some chx breasts today, and then ground up the trimmings and pan-fried them into treats for the dogs (and cats, let's be honest). I don't know why he does these weird things, but he does. Seems like an awful lot of work, taking out threw grinder, then cleaning and painstakingly drying the grinding discs, but whatevs...whatever floats his boat. So he cooks them up and leaves them on a paper towel on a plate, on the counter. We rush out because we have kids in sports and AWANA and have to be in 50 billion places at 6:00. Come home tonight and the treats are gone. Now our doggies know better than to counter surf. And the fat one can't even. But Garfield kitty...well he's not supposed to be in the house when we're not home. And yet, somehow he got left in the house (possibly because we had to be in 50 billion places at the same time). So obviously, Garfield kitty is a prime suspect. Here's the odd thing, though. The ENTIRE plate is missing. Paper towel and all. No grease smudges, no evidence is a crime, nothing. We looked under the stove, couches, fridge, etc. Nothing. Pretty sure they didn't eat the plate. Maybe the paper towels. But not the plate. ???

Re: funding... Again, your family has paid school taxes for however long you've lived there and your child has never benefitted from them. Mostly because your district has chosen to be close-minded to homeschoolers. I feel no sadness for them.

I don't see a problem with this. At all. Frankly, the arguments about funding, and "it wouldn't be fair", etc., are way off base. You pay school taxes, yes? Your district elects to allow no part-time enrollment for any purpose, no extracurricular activities, nothing. But you're still paying those taxes (I know, we all pay, even if we don't have kids, etc.). Why SHOULDN'T your child be allowed to experience the public school environment if you're OK with the potential downsides? Frankly, I would totally do this but for a few key issues that would stop me (namely, that our district has a lot of behavior management issues and my kids don't need any exposure to that, lol). I think my kids would benefit from experiencing a classroom environment, complete with homework, long ridiculous projects, etc. At least they'd be able to take music lessons and art class. Again, I don't see anything at all wrong with this. You're not using them as a babysitter, you're broadening your child's experiences.

I'll pass on texting...I'm trying (desperately) to cut down on my own screen time, lol.

Da heck?! Mobile forum wanted me to read through EVERY SINGLE PAGE to get here. Like I have 6 months to just sit and read. Anyways, so what're you all doing during the upcoming Great Forum Eclipse?!