So, my K'er is begging me to do more science, which equates to doing any science at all since I don't do it. Now that it's spring, we'll be outside a lot doing nature things, but I wonder if this would work for us this spring/summer before we officially start first grade. Just read a chapter or so, draw a picture, and dictate or copy a sentence. Interesting!

I only have 2 kids and there is no way I would do it. Actually, I don't even babysit kids during the day if it's all day. I will do 1/2 days only, and that's for good friends, with the exception being treue emergencies. It just throws off our routine way too much.

:) Yeah, fiction is how I got interested in the first place. Sometimes the line between my fiction reading and reality can start to blur a little if I read too much! Making a list...

I've taken quite the interest in the Vietnam War lately, it seems. And honestly, I wasn't born then and don't know much about it. What I do know about it can be summed up as this: it was messy politically. People detested our soldiers. POW stories that I've read leave me wondering how humanity can be so horrid. So - book suggestions?? I'm going to start looking through our library soon, but figured people may have some good suggestions.

Bumper stickers aren't really popular around here, either that or I don't get out of the house much. My current favorite funny line is "I'm not nuts, I'm condiments. I've been promoted!"

He pays the bills and agrees to all my ideas. :)

We haven't had school in about a week. We took a day off, then I just can't get back into it.

And I don't know what I want, but I do know I don't want the crappy laminate things we have now. I need low maintenance and durable. I'm open to suggestions of unusual materials. Mid range price. I'm currently pondering soapstone. I tried to talk DH into concrete, but he said no, too much work. :) Suggestions/ideas? We are hard on our stuff, so it needs to hold up to wear and tear.

Something else I've done recently is any screen time is now directly tied to attitude and behavior.

Well, I have boys and they are younger than your girls. But the other day I made them hold hands and they then had to work together to get out the laundry baskets and sort laundry. I usually make them work together on some sort of dull chore for a while to break up the fighting and get them to work together for a bit. The connectedfamilies.org site has a lot of good things. I've printed out some pages about teaching conflict resolution as well as working through it from the parental side.

I've tried every trick known to man. This is what is currently helping. It's still commonly mixed up, but I've started to notice that sometimes he gets them right.

LOVE IT. So much, it may just go up on my china cabinet in our school area. I'm a fellow rookie with a K'er. I didn't really believe in the February blues until it hit. Yesterday we did handwriting, read books, and baked pie from scratch, that's it. Today was the most productive day we've had all week. I'm just feeling the Feb burnout and ready for warmer weather so we can get OUT of the house, I don't care how muddy we get!

Yep, unless it's a really big chicken! I can put it in at 2 (absolutely no later) and pull it out to eat at 6. I add a bit of water and seasonings.

That's just how I cook a frozen chicken - it goes in my big crock pot (minus lid, covered with foil) and straight into the oven frozen. I do 400 for about 4 hours or so, depending on how big it is and I check it a lot. When it's thawed/cooked enough, I take out the bag of guts. I'm a lazy cook!

I wouldn't. I'm weird about raw chicken.

Yep. I started out doing a lot. Over my first few months I tried Wee Folk Art, MFW K, my own mish mash of science and geography - anything I could find to try. By Christmas I dropped us to just Read Alouds (and slowly working on oral narration), math, handwriting, and a little bit of phonics each day. It works. My goal was to get him ready for our first grade curric. He's ready. We're just taking it easy until then. :) I do try to grab a few library books about a certain science topic each week, either an animal, or gravity, electricity, whatever.

I'm another white mama of black boys (1 from East Africa too!) and I have long pondered this. I have been looking closely at the A Blessed Heritage curriculum at Currclick (she also has a website, but Currclick is where you buy it) for American History for elem age. I'm either going to do that curric. alone or combine in with our regular Am. History when we get there down the road. Kadir Nelson has a BEAUTIFUL book out called Heart and Soul: The story of America and African Americans. It's too much for my K'er to process now, but he will be ready to start exploring it in time. It's worth checking into.

Holy Cow, I thought Crystal had left! This makes me HAPPY!

I check for an update about once a day, but my oldest is the same age as the boy, turning 6 very soon. It causes a very real visceral reaction for me, I can't think of it too much.

We start the first week of July and will run to the end of April. That gives us plenty over our 180 we need. This year we've generally just taken a day or two off when needed except for Christmas break. May/June will be very light, just doing a little bit a few times a week, then start again in July. That's my plan anyway.

Lights flash for an emergency. If someone is already dead...what's the emergency? I've never noticed different patterns. I think he was full of it.

You know, I looked at those pictures and I feel badly for the parents. I have ILs who are hoarders (truly). My house usually looks a bit messy and cluttered. Heck, that first picture of the living room? Upon first glance, that's what mine looks like about once a day. Just an explosion of stuff everywhere. I can see and understand how the mess quickly spirals out of control and you are left feeling helpless and just. don't. know. where. to. start. It does look like there are many many dangers to young kids there, ranging from sanitary conditions to (what seems to me) common sense toddler proofing. I don't want kids and parents seperated. The trauma from that...I don't even want to think about. But sometimes I think drastic times call for drastic measures. I do think the parents need help getting their lives in order, and I hope this is the forceable push they need.

My almost 6 year old has trouble with the difference between yesterday and last week. Before and after are good concepts to start with, then you can go with the fact that yesterday is before today, etc. We have songs for days of the week and months of the years that we practice. At 4, just keep doing what you're doing. You could google for songs to help.

DS has struggled for a long, long time to find some fluency. He's reading ok, better than some, not as well as others, but with each and every word (even the ones we started sounding out a year ago, like cat) needing to be painfully sounded out. Anything on the iPad is much more fun for him, so last week I started putting some OPG lessons on it. (We've been using ETC, but I decided to take a break from it just to change it up.) I challenged him to a race - to see if my stylus could underline the sentence before he read it. The winner of reading time wins a prize. Dude, seriously. For now, this is the best. thing. ever. For a kid that turns everything into a competition with his little brother, this is what he needs. I go slow enough to let him win, but fast enough that he doesn't have time to sound out each letter for every word. It worked like magic today and he earned a sparkle pen to do his math. We'll see how long the fun of the challenge lasts for him. Hopefully, it will help increase his fluency in the words that I know he's read frequently!