It really depends on the troop itself I think. My dd is a girls scout and she really likes it. It seems weekly meetings and events are similar to what the cub scouts do since I have both. Earning badges is different for girls scouts but a lot is similar.They even sing some of the same songs and their camps are on opposite sides of the same lake in my area. It is similar to Boy Scouts in that if you stick with it all the way through it looks good. They do camps, some outdoor stuff and STEM activities.

I got a message about the site being down through the main website but not the forums address.

It goes down every night at that time. It actually was probably 2:24. I am in a different time zone so it is not that late where I am but if I am on at that time it goes down.

I bet he would like Jedi Academy. I will try those. I think he might be ok with the first ones. He did actually pick up a Calvin and Hobbes one morning and read a few pages. I am not sure if he did it in his head or not but I can have him read some of those. He likes Calvin and Hobbes. I bet he would like Squish or BabyMouse. My older dd used to like them and thought they were really funny. He does not like Commander Toad. I think we did that one and others that were similar and he was very unenthused. He likes listening to me reading and audio books. But most of what he likes is at higher levels.

His decoding has really improve this summer. He used to make more mistakes but he is making a lot less now since we have been going through Webster's. He will sometimes skip the little words. He used to guess more and make more mistakes but he mostly gets the words accurate now. He does not flip or decode based on the first few letters. His biggest issue now is stamina and fluency. He is very good at picturing audiobooks and read alouds in his mind and he is very good at retelling all details of a chapter. He is good at comprehending what he reads aloud too. He does say that he cannot understand when he reads silently and that other thoughts go into his mind. How can he develop the inner voice? What kind of targeted work can you do? I will try to find some books he would read at a lower level and see if he can do it with those books.

He is almost 8. He does not like things like Frog and Toad. His typical interest level is still higher then what he can read. He does like Star Wars readers and anything Stars Wars related and they are a little easier for him but he hasn't read them to himself yet.

Discuss how effective methods for reading and math do not get used in favor of things that are not evidence based like sight words and math focused on slog isms rather then understanding Dyscalculia and how little is done for it Addressing learning challenges How poverty effects achievement and methods that help Year round schooling Cutting out recess, science, history and art Comparing different countries educational methods

My ds had a hard time learning to read but has been making a lot if progress. He can now decode a lot better. He picked Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to read to me. He is still a very slow reader but still in age expected norms when I looked it up but he really takes forever to finish a book. He always understands what he reads but he only reads when I have him read aloud and never to himself. I tried to have him read to himself but he says he cannot do that and he will not understand if he tries. I am hoping he eventually moves into reading for pleasure. He likes being read to and has really good comprehension for that.

I know that it was big in LA because I know people who grew up in LA and experienced desegregation. In the area I grew up in on the East Coast my siblings and I did not experience desegregation but the schools were not very diverse. There definitely were mostly white and Asian neighborhoods and mostly minority neighborhoods. It is still like that today.

After watching a documentary that explored drugs and bad neighborhoods I looked up reports on why bad neighborhoods that did not have many whited people formed. Before the civil rights laws in many parts of the country there were all black neighborhoods but these neighborhoods were functional. They had people of all classes and community organizations and strong churches. Afterwards there was a flight of the people that were middle class or above and the community organizations went with them. Real estate practices also began blacklisting these neighborhoods and you could no longer buy houses and it became mostly rentals. Highways often cut through these neighborhoods and made it harder to get to jobs. The people that were left had a hard time finding jobs, they were all poor and their was nothing left in the neighborhood so drugs became a way for people without jobs to make money. I do not think forced bussing is a magic fix but I do like the idea of trying to put better housing that people own, better access in and out, more businesses, community organizations and attractive schools that the kids in the neighborhood and kids in wealthier neighborhoods will both be attracted to will help.

I got to add to my calls today. There is a homeless camp outside my community garden that "moved" into the woods behind the garden. Most of them were very inebriated young men. In the past few days they have been demanding to get in the fenced in garden to a few of the gardeners. Today about 15 men went in the woods to the camp in small groups thoughout the day. There was some yelling in the woods but periods of quiet too. Then a group of two men and one very drunk women who had to be held up and was barely walking came walking by. She ended up passing out completely and the two guys hug each other right after she passed out. One of the guys carried her completely limp into the woods with at least 15 drunk guys in there. I called a place where you call for people who are really publically drunk and they said it warranted a call to the police which they transferred me too.

It sounds like she is a highly sensitive person which is common in introverts. I am not sure where then line is for sensory processing disorder and being highly sensitive but these things tend to occur together as well as with anxiety. I am very familiar with that type.

I am trying it out but for some reason I am having trouble with it not accepting my card or PayPal. I am not sure if it is because they are in Germany or what but I never had that issue before. My kids are just beginning but I am hoping it will help especially for my oldest who is a little weak in number sense. Since it is for 2nd to 4 th graders I am not sure how far the math will go to but I hope it works with some concepts for older children.

A baptist church around here had a park party that was at a park we were near recently. They ended up cornering me and being really pushy about wanting my kids in their church and how they will pick them up. They went on for quite a while about it. Then they did a talk where they separated the kids and try to get them to say they accept Jesus or something like that. I do not mind when churches talk about biblical stuff or a short mention of being invited to their church in a no pressure way but I do not like when they get pushy and encourage you to be pushy about it with everyone you know.

I am not a fan of churches being pushy about proselytizing but it definitely is not unheard of. Certain churches around here do stuff like that. It was done with nice intentions but the part of being asked to go to their church and going on and on about it always leaves me with a bad feeling.

I am so sorry your family is going through that loss. It is devastating. I had an incident in my childhood where I was lied to about a suicide attempt. I was very hurt that my parents were not honest with me. I had to tell my kids about an attempt and I was honest with them but I kept it very simple. I would tell the truth so they can understand rather then lie to them and get them counseling if needed to help them.

I have not had a chance to read all the replies yet. One of my kids did very poorly on the assessment thing they give you before starting kindergarten. She just was very uncooperative and barely spoke. She got things wrong I know she knew. I am pretty certain my current youngest will do the same thing. She is a similar age to your middle child and writing is is a huge weakness for her. I have heard of several friend's children doing similar or even worse. Some kids do not do well in front of people they do not know or can be really obstinate. If they are behind they are still young and have time to catch up. Kids bloom at different times. An almost 6 year even if the happen to be born right before the cut off instead of after it is still just beginning.

Does your area do zone exemptions? Here you can apply to any school in the district and if they have space the principal can approve you. They have a list they follow but they are not as full as the popular charter schools and you usually can get into a better school.

I call when the suspicious person who is acting off is in need of assistance or putting themselves in danger. For me race is irrelevant. I did call once for a mentally delayed autistic teen who was walking in the middle of the street with a blanket over his head by himself so his family could be located. I called one time when an adult wondered in a street in front of moving cars. I also called for a suspicious person in my neighbors yard. All of the above examples were not minorities. I would not have called for an autistic person who had a caregiver with him. I used to work at a place like that and we took clients on outings all the time. People have all kinds of mental health issues or neurological conditions etc so someone acting off would not bother me. I would not have thought the toy was a gun that was being brandished.

I think I have dyspraxia and I struggle with a sense of direction, maps and 3D spatial skills too. It is good to hear about others who need to go to a place lots of times before you know how to get there and who need directions and the steps written out there and back. I also need the directions from the same spot or else I cannot follow them. I used to not be able to use maps at all. Now if I do I need to hold it in the right direction and say each direction verbally. Geometry was very difficult for me.

The local police did say snapchat was a popular app for sexting and they handle a lot of cases involving it. Kids think it will disappear even though you can screenshot. I do not have kids that age so I do not have an opinion on whether to allow it or not at that stage. If I did there would be discusions on how things never really disappear and the consequences that could come with sharing nude images.

I had one when I was mostly a vegetarian and I did not love it. I did not love how it cooked beans or rice and I always seemed to need more water then the recipe called for and it still did not turn out real fluffy like a rice cooker cooks it. If you are pressure cooking you have to wait for it to get up to pressure and then a little afterwards so it really did not always save much time. It did for beans but it was hard to get the texture right even following the directions. Then the worse was that it ended up breaking when my dh was using it and he did follow the instructions on how it is supposed to be used. Now that we eat some meat maybe it would have been a lot more useful but I would not know because it broke. The idea of being able to cook frozen meat and it coming out tender sounds good.

I am trying the free trial but can you explain more what kind of things it works on and how you are seeing improvements? How long do you plan on using it? Can you have 2 kids do it for the monthly price? My oldest especially needs some help and math mammoth is not helping as much as I hoped it would.

I am not worried about the process of genetically modifying plants at all. I have no safety concerns with that. A lot of the sites like mercola and others that say they are the devil and cause problems are using fear mongering and very very poorly done studies they do themselves. They did one study with the rat breed that gets cancer in high amounts anyway and they post pictures of the tumors to scare people. I have seen lots of "studies" like that. That said the business practices of Monsanto are really predatory. I do not like how you have to buy their seeds every year or how they go to lots of places in the developing world and do the bad seed practices and the farmers who were doing fine no longer are. I also do not like how they develop the seeds to use with their herbicides so you are using more of their product.

There is a fairly high risk for food borne illness no matter how clean and sanitary the practices are. I feel it is not worth the risk for my family. There was a small farm here with good practices that lets people visit to see their practices and they had a outbreak that sent a lot of people to the hospital. People who drink it all the time have probably had more exposure and get acclimated but to me I do not want to do anything to put my kids at risk even if it was just food borne illness that they got through ok. The FDA and CDC has good info on raw milk. I know many will say it is false or fear mongering but it is true info.