I grew up in NJ and lived thousands of miles away for 18 years. Somewhere along the way pretty early on I lost the accent. When I first moved people would ask where I was from and guess New York. I never have anyone do that anymore. I do have a handful of words though that a comment may be made about how I pronounce it. I know I do have a few terms or ways of pronouncing things from there but I no longer have a strong accent people can hear and identify. Whenever I visit I can hear the accent right away and it is strange to me that it used to be my accent. I don’t start slipping into it or using it around people that have the accent like family members. The where are you from quiz does peg me where I grew up.

Kate Snow's new Kindergarten Math With Confidence looks really good and gentle. That would be a good way to do math with a 6 year old. Maybe something like torchlight kindergarten for both kids so they get exposure to lots of books on all topics but it has a lot of picture books. Since it sounds like they have not been in school much but they do seem to do well when they do get exposed a good systematic phonics program that starts from the beginning would be good to start with. I really like using the I See Sam readers with a beginning reader to go along with whatever phonics lessons.

There already is a lot of data being collected on any person especially if they have a smart phone, use social media or a smart home device. It keeps track key words which can be used to advertise. It targets ads based on what you search for and buy. They know there is traffic on the GPS because of how many phones are on the street. Etc... So why is contact tracing to keep a pandemic at bay but also allow businesses to open such a problem that is going to lead to an authoritarian government and turn us into China!? Other countries like Australia and Europe will turn into China too? The point is to save lives. Yea a lot of places are doing well right now but that is because the actions for those places were proactive rather then reactive which was a good thing. All the measures in place is what kept the situation from being much worse but obviously allowing people to go back to work is also something that needs to happen. If all measures were stopped then other places besides NYC could get exponential growth. There are other places that have outbreaks and where hospitals are over capacity but there are also obviously places that are doing well and have plenty of hospital space. Contact tracing has worked to keep cases low in places it was tried. Yes there are asymptomatic spreaders that might not test but there are plenty of people that will test positive. If the on average 2-3 people they could spread it to are not able to spread it then that makes a big difference. Progressive politicians are not authoritarian so I don't see how they would use the fact that we had contact tracing during a pandemic to turn us into China.

Yes I agree. Contact tracing and testing is one piece of it. The other is to look at hospital capacity to handle cases and how cases are rising. They do have good guidelines and info on the what each place looks out there and when they can take the first steps slowly two weeks at a time as numbers continue to look good. Unfortunately not everywhere is following the guidelines and some are taking steps before all the criteria is in place which can lead us right back to where we were in March.

Contact tracing is what allows businesses to open while still keeping things under control. It is not only China doing it. It has worked in any place that has done it. When we first became aware of the virus and it’s spread we did not have enough testing and the ability to contact trace and we were starting to get exponential spread. We had to many cases at that point for it to be effective so we had to take the step we did to hammer down the cases to prepare hospitals with PPE and to get enough testing. If we open things back up before there is an ability to test more or find out contacts then we can get right back to exponential spread. The measures did flatten the curve. NYC has the worse outbreak but other places certainly can get bad too. They got hit early and were one of the latest to take measures. Europe is in worse shape because they had less warning then us. There are places in the US besides NYC that have outbreaks now where hospitals are being strained and there are a lot of cases. There are plenty of places that do not have the right parameters to start opening back up and very few have enough testing being done. Some places did not get hit as hard and are in good shape overall but if things just open suddenly and go back to normal without the ability to test it can get hit again. They are keeping track of if cases are going up, if enough testing is being done and what the hospitals are doing well. Following the guidelines of slowly allowing more things to open as parameters look good allows it to be done safely. The countries with good contact tracing are doing the best overall at keeping cases down while allowing businesses to be open.

Yes exactly! You will never have a perfect count and there can be instances with someone counted that did not have it but overall the numbers are undercounted by quite a lot.

Ugh I thought there seemed to not be conspiracies shared here at least but I guess I was wrong. I have posted a huge thing of facts about this with tons of links that show that numbers are most definitely undercounted not overcounted. In all places with outbreaks there are a ton of excess deaths that are not even getting counted. The hospital is filled with covid-19 patients and they used more ICU beds then are available. The hospitalization rates and deaths have soared in places with outbreaks. The morgues and funeral homes cannot keep up. The way deaths are counted for covid-19 is much less strict then deaths for flu and pneumonia for the flu season where the numbers do not come from death certificates but by excess hospitalizations. If we counted flu deaths in the same way they would be much less. There criteria for a probable death is strict. The epidemiologists asked to allow it to get a better scope. Doctors and medical examiners do not just list anything as Covid-19. If they did that would be fraud and they could lose the ability to accept Medicaid. The stuff that the deaths are being overcounted and everything is being listed as covid-19 is straight up a conspiracy theory.

This was really starting to get to me and I was seeing it shared by people who usually don't fall prey to that sort of thing. The Plandemic one got shared like crazy. Another thing I saw being shared a lot was claims that we were counting lots of deaths as covid-19 that are not. Then there are lots of stuff being shared about how it is no worse then the flu like those two doctors who ended up in the Plandemic video too. I tried to counter it with the facts and about the reliability of the sources things were coming from but it is like talking to brick walls. It is actually being shared by people on both sides. The media that it is shared from tends to be the conservative sites that are unreliable and extreme (most are fine) and the fake natural sites that are anti vaccine and pseudoscientific. I have not been here in a while but it is so refreshing to see intelligent conversations about this on the threads I have read so far. I was so saddened by how many people were falling for this and how few people were using critical thinking skills or the ability to discern sources. I was getting so disheartened I decided to take a break from social media for a while. It was getting to depressing and trying to rebuke stuff was useless. I worry people will not take another wave seriously with all this nonsense going around. I lost one parent a little over a year ago and my second parent is in a very high group in an area of the country where there are lots of cases and hospitals are full. I am scared to lose another parent but not be able to be there. I don't want them in a hospital that is overwhelmed to be put in a trailer if they die and not be able to have a funeral. The stuff that puts them at high risk is all stuff that can be lived with for a long time.

I used it with BYL 7 last year. As we were reading about a continent they worked on the seterra map for that continent until they could get 100%.

I have no problem with them doing stuff like that but they probably should just describe the different areas so people with very young children could avoid the amputation if they wanted. One time my ds was watching a Ken Burns Civil War thing and I was really surprised my dd was watching it too because she usually is not into that sort of thing. A short while later she was running downstairs because they were showing an amputation. She was older and it was on tv not something that looked real like what you saw.

I use both. I prefer digital quality but I have taken cell phone pictures that are good too. I never bring my digital camera on a beach though or somewhere with sand though.

If more people in an area get diagnosed then it leads to more awareness which leads to even more getting diagnosed and that can especially happen in certain areas. I think it is more awareness in the case of the increase in NJ and not something in the environment especially over the last four years. NJ did have a lot of industry and pollution in the past but lead paint and pollution would not lead to an increase recently it would have been earlier. Things have improved in that area. The vaccine link has been studied more then anything and has been disproven plus there is nothing remarkable about the vaccine rates in NJ to lead to a NJ specific increase. If there is more awareness about the more subtle end of the spectrum and they start screening then you will see an increase in people getting diagnosed. It could have been just chalked up to quirkiness or adhd or something else before. Doctors also may be more aware themselves. In past years it was common to hear things like they are too social and they make eye contact so it cannot be autism. I do think autism itself could have environmental triggers in addition to it being genetic. There are probably lots of genes involved so it could very well not be seen in two people but when they get together it is seen in their children. Even in identical twins there are some differences based on what genes get turned on or off or mutations etc.

FAN math gives more explicit instruction on how to do a problem but has less problems overall. So they both can be used if you want explicit instruction and practice.

She has forgotten some arithmetic too. I was leaning towards getting a spiral math but adding conceptual teaching to it as it fits. I think I will try CLE as a base and add things like Beast Academy which she prefers to MM or the FAN math books to do when she needs to learn a concept or alongside when it works out time wise.

My kids went to a school like that and the homework got worse every year especially in 4th grade. My dd at that point had no free time because homework took too long. That was one of several reasons I decided to just homeschool. The reason I waited longer to decide to pull them was because I knew once I made the decision I could not go back because we could not get in again.

My youngest dd can pick up on math concepts well and does well with learning things conceptually like how numbers can break up. She was working above grade level and she did good learning things with Cuisenaire rods, ten frames and base ten blocks. An issue I am running into though is she forgets what she learned if she is not regularly reviewing previous concepts. I was using conceptual mastery curricuoums like Signpaore and Beast Academy and at first it seemed like she was doing well but when we return to topics she actually has forgotten stuff. I am trying to decide whether to try to add spiral practice to a mastery program or use CLE but add hands on conceptual learning to it. I am trying adding spiral practice (mathematical reasoning) to math mammoth but it seems to be too much since math mammoth lessons take a while and not the right kind of spiral.

Yes that law was put in place for a reason and even if I was in a state without that rule I would enforce it. We know someone who lost their teen because of this.

I tried it on two garden beds. We had a lot of wood anyway and I covered them with topsoil. It was successful the first year but my sheet mulching style beds were more successful in subsequent years. It did not use woodchips or a cover like clover

Guessing rather then sounding out is something that needs to be addressed. It is a habit that is hard to break since it gets ingrained but it can be done. I personally prefer things similar to ElizabethB materials then Barton but there are those that do like Barton.

This among many other things was an issue with Barton for my child when I was trying to use it with a first grader. She did not engage with the Barton stories at all and therefore was not comprehending. Once we switched the problem went away and she was very much was engaging with and understanding what she read with no issues. She started predicting and wondering as she read, making comments and could answer questions. It was not really a level problem because she can understand stories that are above grade level.

I hate having debt but in your situation i would not go back yet. I would at least wait a year and try to get the school age kids reading especially if the school does balanced literacy which so many schools seem to do. If they are struggling but not encouraged to sound out words it is much hard to fix that because they develop bad habits. Reevaluate next year when your 3 year old is older and you have a chance to get the other two reading better.

That would not be in our budget at all to do something like that. If I could take a trip like that I probably prefer to do it when I had more time then a weekend and could spend time with them.

I use the FAN math Process Skills in Problem Solving and Express Math books with my dd who uses CLE since CLE is weak in word problems and mental math skills . We started well below grade level and moved through them at a rate of a few a year. She did not do well with Singapore math curriculum but she does do well with these.

She is only a 2nd grader and we do not belong to the Y. The kids take a rock climbing class that offers strength training to kids 12 and up but she is not old enough for that yet. I was actually thinking about MUS recently. I just do not like how each level focuses on a narrow topic. I did some Gattegno with her last year and she did really well with it and I was thinking she might do good with rod math again.

I used to work with adults with developmental disabilities and there is no way I could do that while taking care of small children and homeschooling. It is a full time responsibility in itself. Even the more higher functioning individuals could be hard to take care of if there were behaviors especially males. I thinking asking if your neighbor would like to do something with you or visiting a nursing home are things that you could do though.