I want to do some math with my ds who is 4. I was thinking of getting Right Start A but it is pretty spendy and I rather not spend that much money. Would miquon work with a 4 year old? I wouldn't push him but I think he would do good with something with manipulatives. Also what do I need to purchase for miquon? Would I be ok with the orange book, the 1st grade diary and the lab sheet annotations? I do better with stuff that is clearly outlined so I am wondering if I will be lost on how to teach him as opposed to something like Right Start that is more open and go.

In my area we have a lot of charter type school choices. Not all of them are technically charter schools some are alternative schools but they are all lottery based and funded by the state. Some of them are schools within other schools and some are stand alone programs. Off the top of my head we have a Montesori charter, a waldorf charter, open optional charters (child led learning) back to basics schools (traditional style schools that are academically ahead) foreign language immersion, (German, Spanish, Russian, Japanese) a charter school that is somewhere in the middle as far as structure goes but has high standards and a native cultural charter. Our charter schools do actually score really well for the most part but there are a few exceptions that don't and have good parental involvement. They are not all able to accommodate all students though. They don't really affect the performance of the local schools. They pull students from all over the city. One downfall is that there is no busing so it does eliminate those parents who can't afford the gas or have no vehicles and rely on the public bus system. Also since it goes on the lottery system not all parents get into the schools they want to. The charter schools and alternative programs have to go by state core standards but they can tweak the curriculum and or go above the standards if they want. Some of the schools are run on a shoestring budget and others seem to have similar funding to the local schools. That is something I am not sure how is determined. We have homeschooling charters and oversight groups too. You get state money if you go through the charter. You can pick your curriculum and activities and you go over it with a teacher. The kids need to be tested but you are able to chose whatever curriculum you want. I like living in an area with lots of choices but I just heard our state had a F grade in science core standards so I guess we have room for improvement in some areas.

My favorite is a local place called the Arctic Roadrunner or Taco King. My favorite chain is Qdoba.

I think my 4 and 6 year old have this but in different areas. I suspected it with my son who is sensory seeking for a while but then my youngest was going to an OT for torticollis and I was talking to her about my older dd and she said what I was describing in her also warrented looking into. I had an evaluation done on both of them at the place my youngest was getting OT. They both did come up in a few areas. We lost our insurance right before they were scored so I couldn't get either of them therapy and I don't know if it would have warranted it since she knew I no longer had any way of doing therapy. My ds is now going for speech therapy strictly for articulation through the school district but even though I brought up the other concerns like sensory issues they do not do anything for that when he is preschool aged since he has no developmental delays. He was in EI too and they also didn't do anything then. DD does good in school behavior wise and has no delays so I know they won't do anything for her either.

I'm looking for a history book that tells a more accurate version of the story of the Pilgrams and Indians but that is suitable for a 6 year old level. Her school is doing a lot on this topic for Thanksgiving but they are doing the cookie cutter version. I want to do more realistic versions but she is only 6 and I don't want to cover it in a graphic way or something that she just isn't ready for yet. Is there anything out there?

I joined here last year when I was doing kindergarten with my oldest and strongly thinking of homeschooling. I liked teaching dd and enjoyed a lot of aspects of homeschooling and I was strongly considering it and researching curriculum. Things were crazy with a house on the market and 3 kids but I made it work. Then we finally sold after 10 months on the market and had to move first to a short term rental then we looked for a house and moved in. DD was doing good with the curriculum but was really working on reading. I was getting worried and stressed about the reading. I decided to try a few school lotteries just in case so I had a good option if I sent her to school. They are lottery based and I didn't think I would get into any which was fine since I was strongly considering homeschooling anyway. She got into my top choice a back to basics school that really reminds me of the classical style. The summer was busy and I didn't get to do school like I planned and she really lost skills over the summer. I just felt like I wasn't doing a good job and I really liked the curriculum at the charter school. I enrolled her in the charter school and she is doing well there and she loves it. She only goes 2.5 hours a day but they pack a lot into that time. They are using the Spalding method or the WRTR which I am very happy about. My son is very different than dd so I don't know if this school will be the best fit for him so I am keeping options open including the possibility of homeschooling or enrolling him in a different school. I no longer consider myself a homeschooler but I still like this board and getting ideas. I will be supplementing any gaps in dd's education, working with my 2 littlest ones a little and eventually teaching them to read. I am staying involved with their education and finding ways to squeeze in stuff so they enjoy it to fill in gaps. If things don't work out I will consider homeschooling dd again. I figured I finally out myself that I am no longer homeschooling. I enjoyed this board a lot when I was homeschooling even though I didn't do it for very long.

Costco has a school set that dd expressed liking that I was thinking of getting. I have a love hate relationship with Playmobil. DD loves it and plays so imaginatively with it but piece pop off so easily and can be hard to put together especially the hair.

I use pinterest as a place to organize my links so I do post a lot recipes to it. I am not a good cook and depend on online recipes to mix things up. I have a lot of recipes on pinterest but cooking is definitely not my only hobby or interest.

I either don't say anything or answer the question that was asked or say they take a while to warm up. I heard that saying they are shy might make the child feel like they are so I try not to use the term that often. Other people say oh they are shy though all the time. I used to tell my oldest that nervous was a feeling and it is ok to feel nervous but you can overcome it.

My dd is going to a charter school that has a 2.5 hour day. During the week they have art, music, library, gym and health. Her school uses the spalding method or the writing road to teaching reading to teach reading. Her school is the only school in the district that uses that method. They are working on learning 35 phonograms right now. They have done the numbers 1-20 so far. They still do stuff with letter and shape recognition. They have worked on writing all the letters and recognizing and counting by numbers up to 20 so far. They have moved onto writing the other 9 phonograms they do this year and simple words with two letters. They work really hard with all the kids to get them holding their pencils correctly and to make sure they are forming letters correctly. If they don't form them correctly we need to do corrections and hand them in with their homework folder. A lot of what they are doing is pretty simple still like worksheets with color this red and this blue, how many objects is pictured below, dot to dots and what letter does this start with etc. They have started patterns. They will do the numbers up to 100, skip counting and simple addition and subtraction. Eventually they will be writing sentences. They don't do free form writing at her school. They want them writing correctly and spelling correctly. They also do not do sight words. I think they start reading in January and they give the kids books at their levels to read. They have started segmenting words already.

I live in Anchorage. We do not have winter for 9 months of the year it is more like 6 months a year from mid October to Mid April or so is wintery weather give or take a few weeks on either end. Anchorage is a lot like any mid size city in terms of amenities and chains but we do have some cool local restaurants. The job and housing market is one of the few areas of the country that is showing growth. We have a really low foreclosure rate and there was job growth. The cost of living is pretty high. The housing cost is pretty high but there are areas of the country that are higher but the heating costs and especially the food and cost of everything else make up for it and make it a pretty expensive place. Jobs do pay pretty good here but it isn't easy in certain industries that don't pay that well with the high cost of living and I don't know that the higher pay always makes up for the higher cost of living at least in our case. This area has a great homeschooling community. There are a lot of resources out there for homeschoolers and it isn't heavily regulated. You can join a oversight group or homeschooling charter and they will give you up to 2200 towards your school costs. There isn't a lot required of you and you aren't chained to any method by using one. You just meet with a teacher and go over your plans with them and the kids need to get tested. If you switch methods or decide to stop using the oversight group or sign the kids up for school you need to give back your non consumables but you keep them if you complete the year. You can use the money towards classes like art classes, swimming for gym etc We also have a lot of great charter school options for people who use the school system. The charters score well and have a lot of parental involvement. There are many charter options like language immersion, open optional which is child directed, waldorf, montessori, back to basics which is kind of like the classical method. One thing that is cool about Anchorage is all the outdoor opportunities. There is the Chugach range right in town and many trails that go through town. You get moose right at your door and bears are in town too. You don't have to drive far to see glaciers and mountains. There are so many different outdoor things to do in the summer and winter. The landscape is beautiful and unbeatable and the wildlife you see is amazing too. If you hunt or fish the salmon is abundant and sustainable and there is plenty of hunting too. One thing that is tough for me is that it is hard to get out of here. My family is on the east coast and it is a long plane ride to see them. You can't really take long car trips to other states. It is days of driving to get back to the lower 48. The isolation from the rest of the country is the thing that I like the least about Alaska. I miss my family and being able to drive to other states. Although I do really like it here despite the cold weather and I would miss it if we leave. I can't see Russia but I did see the northern lights last week and there is a Russian Immersion school and we used to be owned by Russia ;)

A cervical cap with spermicide is another option but I don't know that it is the best option for someone who really is done and does not want any more children.

I made a good tortilla soup the other day. I sauteed onions and garlic in oil until soft. Then I added chilli powder, cumin, veggie broth, water chopped tomatoes and oregano. Next I added in beans, corn and cilantro. At the end I added in crushed tortilla chips and avocado. It was really good and even my kids really liked it and asked for more.

I think a lot of this stuff is overblown and at this point I don't think it really means anything. No problems have been found with eating rice so I am not worried about it.

I'm in a similar boat. I don't really like wearing glasses. I don't like how I look in them. I don't like that I can feel them and how they usually feel slightly loose even though I take them off every night and take good care of them. I started wearing contacts at 16 but I had to stop wearing them when I got pregnant with ds and my eyes thought they were an infection. I tried again after my youngest was born and she was sleeping ok and I was able to wear them for a short while before they started itching again. I wish I could wear contacts and eventually get the surgery but I am stuck with glasses and I don't like it.

I spend less than the thrifty plan for Alaska. That makes me feel better about my budget. Although costs are very different in villages than in Anchorage where I live so I don't know if that makes a difference. My friend on food stamps with a family my size gets $300 dollars more a month in food stamps than I spend a month which I don't think is right. The food stamp amount is in line with the thrifty food plan. No wonder my budget is so tight and we can't get ahead even though my husband makes a decent income. I wanted to get out of here to be closer to family and to live where the cost of living was lower but that won't be happening. Sigh.

I didn't read all the responses but I am shocked at all the negativity. If it was my family member I would accept them for who they are and take the advice he gave in the email. They are adults and they are happy. I see no signs that this is a forced arrangement where the women are being taken advantage of. Not all children keep the religion they were raised in. They are doing what makes them happy and they are not harming any one else including children who should gasp know the truth that everyone has different beliefs. I would not write family out of my life for something like that and it does not even remotely relate to someone who beats their wife. I had friends who truly wanted a triad relationship. It isn't my thing or who I am but it isn't harming anyone. I doubt it was forced or he wanted to cheat but took another wife instead. I think there a lot of misconceptions here. It may be against your belief system but not everyone has the same belief system. We don't have to shun them for having different views. Would people shun people and shut them out of their lives for being gay, getting a divorce or other things that are listed in the bible that a lot of people do not follow? Is it that hard to tell kids that the bible says a relationship is between a man and a women and that is your beliefs. You think what he does goes against the bible but he is still Uncle so and so and we still love him even if we live by the bible and he does not. He did it in email probably so he had time to craft his thoughts and explain his position where he probably wouldn't have a chance to do that on the phone or in person

I am going to ask him for the money order but then I bet they won't do anything then and his website is still up there for him to do this to others. That is how he gets away with it. The officer said to give it time for it to arrive even after hearing me explain how it was obvious what he was doing. He agreed and believed me but said that I needed to give it more time. He must be counting on some people to not contact the police or BBB. When you just google dome climbers the bad stuff doesn't pop up with it. It just isn't right that he is scamming people who are buying something for his children. It is his pattern to not respond at all until police are involved. He needs to go to jail and his website needs to be taken down. It only really hit local news sources not national. It just isn't right that he has been doing this and it affects at least hundreds of people and nothing has done. You know behind the over 100 that did contact the police there are many more that didn't.

This is long but I was wondering if anyone had any advice on what to do. We moved into our house at the end of June and decided to order the kids a dome climber. I really like the price and look of the dome climbers on dome climber.com and that they were made in the USA. I placed an order on July, 1 2012. I got an email from them to send a check and once they received the chec they would send it off. I was a little hesitant but we liked them and Mike said it was fine. He send a check priorty mail and I was wondering why I hadn’t heard from them and on July, 11th 2012 I got an email that it was shipped out with Fed Ex and I would receive a notice before it arrived. They said it takes up to 3 weeks to get there and we are in Alaska so I didn’t get worried right away but dh did. After a month I sent an email and dh started making calls. I sent out 2 emails and dh made a lot of calls and none were answered. I then investigated online and saw they had claims with the BBB and that there were news articles about how parents sent money and did not receive any dome climbers. I called the APD and they told me they could help me but they told me to contact government websites that could help. I contacted one governmental sight that deals with internet fraud. I did more investigating and found lots of others claims. Paypal stopped doing business with him. Dh left a message this weekend saying that we were contacting police and I finally got an email this morning saying it went out USPS and would be there this week. He claimed it went out Fed Ex almost 2 months ago. I called the Tucamcari Police Department since that where his company was based out of and explained the story. Before I even told what the company was the officer said yea we know he is really late sending things out but he does. He said it was a civil matter and I said that it was fraud that he was scamming parents out of money and was never sent out. He said that I had to wait for it to arrive and then if it doesn’t then send all the evidence like the proof that the check was cashed and emails. I said that he originally claimed it went out through Fed Ex how could it be almost 2 months later and it goes out through another method. He said that he believes me but we needed to wait and then he could give it to the DA and they still might not be able to do anything. I replied back to the email which I should not have done and told the owner that I knew it was a scam and that I investigated online and will contact the police and government sights. He said that if he sent a money order would I retract my accusations that he never scammed anyone. It is very very obvious to me what he is doing. He doesn’t send the dome climber and if parents make a claim he will send one or money but he is betting on many parents not doing it. Claims go back to 2008 and there are recent claims. His website is still up so other parents can still get scammed. He made up stories for other people on why it didn’t go through but it is lies. I don’t know what to do now because if we take the money order or if he sends the climber then he can scam other parents. This is fraud. I don’t want him to get away with this anymore which he will. His website should not be up and he needs to be in jail but he isn’t because he resolves when people threaten to go to the police. He also has a second website up now called playdomes.com He talked to dh this morning and his claim was he was in Jail for contempt of child support and that is why it didn’t get sent out. Yea right. Lies Lies Lies. I don’t even want his climber in my yard after what he does. I do want my money back but not if he will go free yet again and scam others. I also worry if we pursue this they will still consider this civil and still nothing is done yet we are out of money. Any advice? Please help http://www.keprtv.com/news/38676557.html http://www.trustlink.org/Reviews/Dome-Climber-205684608'>http://www.trustlink.org/Reviews/Dome-Climber-205684608 http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080710085840AALuGwL http://www.kaboodle.com/reviews/geodesic-dome-climber http://www.bbbsw.org/business-reviews/Playground-Equipment/Dome-Climber-in-Tucumcari-NM-99127205 http://www.trustlink.org/Reviews/Dome-Climber-205684608 http://www.ripoffreport.com/sporting-goods/dome-climber/dome-climber-i-ordered-and-pai-f7358.html http://www.qcsunonline.com/cms/news/story-489839.html

I posted in wrong area sorry. Please delete

Option 3. Our place we outgrew took longer to sell than anticipated so option 1 and 2 were not doable ad would have been bad. We couldn't have swung that. We rented after we sold and it was really annoying to move twice in a short period of time. It seriously messed up my routine and had the kids really off too and took longer to recover than expected. It was hard having to keep everything clean all the time and then scrambling once we got a call for a showing to clean when it was on the market but we managed. We had a storage unit in our garage so everything went there but we would have rented something if need be. The privacy thing actually isn't bad if you go to to basics. We always left the house for showings and they barely left signs of their presence.

I thought about getting things like nuts, beans and dried fruit online in bulk but the prices don't really seem that great. Do you buy things in bulk to save money? Where do you get them from and what do you get?

My husband's company already said they would do this. If they did not have to pay the high health insurance costs they would shift that to paying employees more wages.

I'm not sure how having UHC will stop doctors from trying to be a good doctor. Teachers don't just say we are paid by the government lets do a crappy job. Some might but that isn't the majority. Other countries score really well in math, science and reading and they have public schools. Every other industrialized nation has UHC and public schools and they don't all have crappy schools and medical care. We went without insurance not by choice because my husband worked for a small company that did not offer it. The costs for private were too high and they all had super high deductibles that we could not pay. He is now working for a slightly larger company now that offers health insurance but we can still end up with pretty high OOP costs plus we pay a high monthly amount that really hurts since we already live in a high cost of living area. Canadians are not paying a little bit more in taxes because of health insurance. Health insurance is not a big factor in the taxes. We pay a lot a lot more for health care than in the countries with UHC. A lot of my friends if they do have happen to have insurance and don't work for a big company pay a really high percentage of the income for health care. When we moved to Alaska from California we traveled through Canada. My husband talked to every Canadian he came across and asked them if they liked their system and if they liked the health care and out of the hundreds he talked to they all liked it except this one guy in a gift store in the middle of nowhere in the Yukon. They all were thankful they had good coverage and did not have to worry about the what ifs. They had good experiences when they had to use it. I spent months in panic when my kids no longer qualified for state coverage but the private options were not affordable. My husband and I went without insurance for 2 years not by choice but I was terrified of something happening to my babies. A lot of people are in that situation and most of them are working adults.

We were on the market for 10 or 11 months with our condo. It sucked. I am thankful for my Realtor who told us that are market time was turning people off and she suggested we relist with another agent. People assume when a house is on the market a while there is a reason. It also might look like something is wrong since you are priced low for the area. That combined with the market time might be why people pass it over. For us it was on the market a while because the condo was no longer FHA approved and that limited buyers and because when we went on the market there was a lot of competition in our condo development. There was 9 on the market when we first trying to sell. I hated being on the market. It was very stressful.