I was raised Catholic. My family went to church every week and I was forced to go every Sunday and to ccd. I did not like church or ccd. I stopped going to church after my confirmation when I was allowed to make my own decision. My parents were not particularly religious though at home and what they told me in adulthood confirmed they were not really devout Catholics. They do think that you need to believe in Jesus and God or you will not get into heaven. My grandparents and extended family were similar. They are Catholic through culture and believe you need to be in some Christian flavor and believe in Jesus and God. I do have one grandparent who was very devout though. I was pretty much an agnostic from the get go as a child. I was very skeptical about it all. The thing that kept me from admitting I was atheist really young was the threat of hell if you did not believe in a God and how that was the most important thing. When I was 18 I had a long conversation with an atheist and realized that I was but I was just letting the fear keeping me from admitting it and I never looked back. I started going to UU after having kids but it is more a social justice club then a religion.

My current 6 year old likes a lot of the ones mentioned The Children of Noisy Village( she loves this one) The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place Just So Stories The Fudge Series Beverly Cleary books Boxcar Children series Clementine series Winnie the Pooh series Some Roald Dahl books ( Danny Champion of the World and Matilda) Little House in the Prairie series The Moffats

None of what you are describing seems out the ordinary to me for a 5 year old child. I definitely encountered kids saying similar around that age. If it was my child that said something like that I would tell them that it is not ok to talk like that and I would definitely correct the behavior. I would not laugh about it in front of them or to others. It would not concern me about a child that age saying something like that.

I think my youngest would do well with MEP next year. I like the curriculum for up to 3rd grade but I am not sure about after that. If you used it up to year 3 what did you follow it up with and what level?

Has she had an eye exam with a developmental eye doctor? My ds had good phonemic awareness and decoding but has had fluency issues. It was found during his exam that in reading just one paragraph his eyes were out of position 11 times. He also had other eye issues. Working on rapid naming is supposed to help with fluency. I tried with ds but it did not help. If he did not have the eye issue I bet it would have helped more.

Hearbuilder does a good platform on the website for checking progress. It shows what lessons they did and their percentile scores on that lesson and how many lessons there are in each different area and the total progress toward completing each section

I used it with my kids last summer. I got it for my youngest and her weakness in phonemic awareness. She did the phonological processing part and other areas too but my oldest had the kind of difficulties you mentioned and my ds could use some working memory work so I had all of them doing it. I sat with my youngest and my other two did it independently. It did help my youngest with phonemic awareness but I did not really notice any changes with my older two. I only did it in the summer though. They got so busy when they went back to school we could not do it anymore so I really did not have it as much time as I could have.

I was never against vaccines and I did vaccinate just a little slower but I admit I was more nervous about them and the ingredients and did worry they could have contributed to issues like autism or other issues in some children. I remember when my oldest was a baby the mom boards were more on the anti vaccine side. Those voices certainly won our especially in the crunchy types. I read a lot on the topic but I finally started reading the articles from the science side and I have shifted my view on the topic through the years. There are a lot of nutrition trends that also use really poor research that people say you must follow. I had to leave the crunchy type groups because I just did not fit in and people kept going on about how horrible it was that people inject their kids with poison or feed them soy or a grain. I was more concerned with environmental type issues not the vaccine and woo nutrition advice and it was the reverse in the parenting groups I found.

They say similar at the place my kids go to but not that they will never be better then a particular sensei that is them but that it takes a lot of work and many years to learn and there may be someone who is always better. They say if you use your techniques you can win matches but that you will lose a lot too and it is part of the process. I notice the sensei will be much harder on the kids that are farther along. The martial art they do is a version where to take much longer to earn belts and it is very low key when they do and I am ok with that. It is likely true that a kid will not surpass a sensei who is still training and working on getting better themselves. I guess it is hard to tell if he is really arrogant or if he is trying to show them to respect the sensei and humility. I would guess he is not meaning to be arrogant but maybe he does not always have a way with words at times.

I did not read follow up posts at first and said no since you could go to the Y but now I see why that is not a good option. I guess it depends on if you would find it a lot of work and annoying to bring them by yourself or if it would be fun and you would use it a lot. Would you know anyone else there so you have at least at least one friend to hang with if you did not meet others.

I am definitely do not follow the paleo type trends but cats and humans have different needs. Cats are carnivores so they do not need grain fillers. Cats do better on wet food then kibble and with grain free food. That wet food brand you linked is a very good one nutritionally for a cat. The kibble should be better then other kibble brands with more protein. Pate wet food tends to be better and even a few main brands can be low in fillers. My cat of course will only eat a name brand kibble with lots of fillers and not very sound nutritional and the wet food that is shredded and has fillers. I tried all the good stuff but no go.

Yes this and Subtraction Facts that Stick but any resource that builds on the ability to see the numbers from 1-10 and then 10-20 without counting when grouped together in fives and to know they are made of smaller numbers inside it. If you can really picture that then working on place value after that is down becomes easier. Education Unboxed is a good resource too.

Fan Math Process Skills in Problem Solving has explicit instruction in how to do the bar diagrams. It has less examples the Challenging Word Problems but the step by step explanation is very helpful.

I saw Barton materials in the special education pull out room at the school and asked if they use that with any students. She said she was not using it currently for a school with over 500 students some of whom I know could use it. I saw several kids from the school at the private tutoring place that uses Barton. You have to test as over two years behind and she does not even advocate testing for a kid having trouble in class because of that. It is frustrating that schools cannot just see a kid having trouble and give them help right away.

My youngest had a hard time with learning letters despite watching the letter videos that worked for my other two. She did eventually get it but it was hard for her. She also had the rhyming and first letter sound issue you mention. With both those things going on I would guess she is dyslexic. If you have coverage for speech finding a speech therapist who does LiPs would probably be helpful. We worked on phonemic awareness and letters before kindergarten and there was improvement but reading is still not really coming along. I will be giving Barton a try.

That is a very typical comment from a curious four year old and can be handled simply even without a parent around with a simple matter of fact explanation said in a calm manner.

I think the people who need that kind of help the most would not be the ones to seek it out or afford it. Generally first generation college students who parents are low income are the ones who have a harder time launching and being successful in college. I am sure there are kids that could use this kind of help that do have coverage for it or parents willing to pay but there are other type of stuff that that age group need to work through too. I think a big problem is the partying and hook up culture.

Can you use it for PE type stuff? Then you could use it for something swimming or another extra curricular she would like.

I would not worry about the sleep for one night at someone else's house. My kids know that we have our sleep routine even when they spend the night at a friend's houseor a grandparent's house and the routine is different. I think it is good for kids to have time with other adults who are a positive influence in their lives and loves them too. It is annoying about the food and them saying that they are fine when there are concerns but that is how my in laws and even dh feels. A lot of people especially in older generations feel like that. I would tell them that he cannot have the foods you are avoiding even if they make comments. I would allow the sleepover personally if there were no other worries.

Hamburger or lasagna soup.

I have a little bit younger version of that. I was hoping this would get better.

The value part is not an optional side it is actually the most important part that the curriculum is built around. I am talking about OWL but setting up a class like that is not difficult. The link I posted about is a country that uses that system and the statistics from that country about adults feeling like they made a good decision about their first encounter and teen pregnancy etc are good. It is not hard to talk to both parents and kids and discuss up front about not making each other feel bad. I found that talking about bullying and consent and that bodies develop at different rates and look different can alleviate the kids making fun of others. That occurs without a class. I did not have a class that was coed in 5th grade but I was bullied for being flat chested, skinny and not dressing girly enough.

Telling kids that there are people out there that are homosexual and that if they are is ok is not going to make them gay or want to experiment sexually. They do not go into graphic details about methods. What it does is if a kid ends up gay they have a peer group that will accept them and they feel less ostracized. Why would someone try to experiment just because they hear people are gay and do not have standard intercourse. The boys did not make comments or talk about girls when it is discussed up front about respect and making everyone feel safe. They hear that things that happen to girls is normal and that girls and boys hit puberty and develop at different rates and it is ok they are less likely to think it is something they can make fun of. There were plenty of questions that were asked when you are allowed to submit them anonymously and open dialogue both in class and at home is encouraged. A lot of the values stuff is part can be part of the home discussion.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/spring-fever/ This reminds me of this article about how the Dutch sprinkle open dialogue throughout childhood and address many topics in an age appropriate way. It does not have to be embarrassing.

Growing up we were separated by gender but OWL classes which anyone could take are not separated. I prefer it to not be separated. It is less taboo and mysterious.The kids did learn about the stuff you mention and I think it is good to be informed. It was done very respectfully and there were ground rules about being respectful before even starting and they were stuck to. I think it is good for kids to talk about these things in an age appropriate way with other adults. They had a good system where if kids have questions they can submit them anonymously. It also encourages open dialogue and talking to your kids about your values and encouraging them to ask any questions they have.