There's hope. I was like this as a kid and went on to get a BS and MS in math. Even now, I still have to think about some basic facts (especially those pesky 6, 7, and 8s in multiplication). My son is like it now and we do some drill each day. Primarily we use xtramath.org. We also have Times Tales for multiplication facts which is a big help. We also play lots of board games where he adds amounts on two dice to determine how far to move. He's getting better, but I' not sure if he'll ever be able to just spit out all his math facts. It's OK with me. Calculators and computers can do the easy stuff.

I've never heard of it either, but it sounds like a game my boys would love. I just might get it for them for Christmas or upcoming birthdays.

It isn't exactly legal, but the torrent sites might have something. You'll have to decide for yourself if Ninjago is worth getting into trouble for. I know my kids would say it's worth more than anything.

My 3rd grader likes Logic Countdown, Critical Thinking Activities Logic, and a few others I got from a Scholastic dollar sale. Last year he did Primarily Logic and enjoyed that too. He loves logic and I keep several books around for him to do for fun when school is over.

I just found out that my 16-year old niece tried to commit suicide last night. Luckily, she was unsuccessful and it appears there's no phycisal harm done. If anyone could please send prayers, good vibes, etc. to both her and my sister, I'd really appreciate it.

I've just boiled water for eating, drinking, and brushing teeth. I've showered (maybe not quite as frequently) and definitely made sure not to get water in my mouth. I didn't do anything special about flushing my pipes afterwards. It never occurred to me.

I think manipulatives are important to solidifying the concepts, but I don't think you have to spend lots of money to buy them. Rather than buying math manipulatives, I see what we have around the house or what I can make. Here are the items I remember using last year when my son was in 2A and B: Legos (for base 10 blocks, C-rods, and anything else we needed them for) printed out number disks (I just made them in a table in Word and cut them apart) Monopoly money A clock with hands that he could turn (from off the wall in the house) different measuring cups measuring tape, ruler, yard stick, a stick from the yard that we cut to a meter long dice a hundred chart, printed from the Internet

I do the same thing and my kids know better than to whine of boredom. He's adjusting to being the only kid around (the other is in PS), which really changes his playing patterns.

Thanks for the great ideas. I think I'll try out a few over the next couple of weeks and see how it goes.

My husband and I both work (me part time) from homes and split the teaching time with our 3rd grade son. We're finding that our son is getting done with his school work shortly after lunch time each day. We are covering more than he was getting in PS, so I'm not concerned about us not doing enough school work. We are at a loss as to what to have him do after that. Here are some of the thoughts going through my head: When he's with me, he can play outside or with his toys, but he gets bored playing alone. With my husband, the house where he works has a horrible yard that I wouldn't want him to play in. The park is filled with much younger kids, the other kids his age are in school, so that's out. We can't really go places since my husband and I still have to get work done. We don't want to give him more school work. He's done what he's supposed to do for the day and I don't want to "reward" him with more work. I'm not opposed to having him do something educational, but I want it to be fun. His reading is much improved from last year, it's about a 2nd grade level now, so he can do some reading, but it's hard for him (he has dyslexia) so I don't want to push reading too much. He does like lapbooks or other project-based activities. I don't have much budget (really I have no budget) left for school materials, but I will spend some money on something that will be great or interesting to him. Neither my husband nor I are fans of letting him play on the computer or watch TV every day for any period of time. Does anyone have any ideas of what we can do for him? I'm at a loss.

Thank goodness school has started or it would feel impossible not buying curricula or school supplies. :tongue_smilie: I'm with you on spending too much on food - specifically eating out. We are allowing $200 for the month for eating out expenses. It will be in cash and when it's gone, no more eating out for the month. We've done this before and it really helps the budget.

OK, I kept thinking about this and thought we should definitely have a Mel Brooks tribute. Dracula: Dead and Loving Beer Robin Hood: Men in Beer Beer Stinks Spacebeer History of Beer: Part I Beer Anxiety Silent Beer Young Beer Blazing Beer The Twelve Beers The Beers

The Adventures of Beer, Queen of the Desert Blazing Beers Beer and Sensibility Fried Green Beer

Thanks for the good laugh!:lol:

One of mine likes to mix queso sauce with sour cream and then dip chocolate chip cookies in it. It makes me cringe just to think of it.

I have the same issue with my son and have deliberated over print or cursive as well. I'm going with trying to teach him to print properly first and then we'll move to cursive. My reasoning is that I've noticed many adult men prefer to print over write in cursive, and I also prefer printing. Perhaps it's the men I know, but I think that if he's going to print later in life, he needs to have legible handwriting. I'll be curious to see what his writing is like when we do get to cursive in the second half of this year.

Mine really liked Max the Cat made by Family Pasttimes. He could play it alone or with others which was good. The company has several other games good for young kids.

:grouphug: I know just how you're feeling. We tried to get my mom, who has Alzheimers, to stop driving and living on her own worried for her safety and others' on the road. It finally took her falling in her house and not being able to get up for several hours to shake her enough to move her. By some grace of God, it was a warm fall day and she had the doors open with just the screen doors closed. The yard guy happened to come by and she called out to him. Thankfully he was a kind, honest person who helped her and called my sister to come take Mom to the hospital. Once that happened, we didn't waste any time moving her and getting rid of her car. It was a tough transition, but she seems happier now that she's around other people and not sitting around by herself all day. I don't have any great ideas of how to have that difficult conversation successfully, but I feel your pain and I wish you the best of luck.

I'm not sure where you're located, but saying dawg for dog makes me think you live in the South. I do too and I have to work at saying some words like they should be pronounced and in the case of dog, you say o like olive. I have problems with get, and pronounce git all the time.

I really didn't like Mary Poppins. I felt she was cold and uncaring about the kids.

...starting the year with my son. Last year I pulled him half way through the year and I felt that we were trying to fill in the gaps of what he missed the first part of the year along with teaching him the rest of the year's material. I feel the pace will be much better.

It starts with the short vowel sounds only. Each vowel does have a keyword. In book four ( if I remember right) it gets into schwa and long vowel sounds.

Do you think it will work for husbands too?

:iagree:Other than the Czech part, this sounds just like us. I can remember as a kid reading something in the Bible (or something in Sunday School) where the gist was the wife took her husband's name becasuse she became the property of the husband's family when they married. I remember thinking it was crazy to change your last name to show ownership and decided then and there never to change my name.

It sounds like my son was born the same day as yours - Dec 30th eight years ago! We tend to go camping the week between Christmas and New Years with my in-laws and celebrate his birthday then. We don't have any Christmas decorations around, so it feels more birthday-like. The two years we have been home, every bit of Christmas decorations are taken down and put away by the 29th. The great part of it is that I don't have boxes sitting out for weeks waiting to be put away. On my side of the family, my mother's birthday is mid-January so we celebrate his with hers. I believe some family members might have tried to combine the two, but I put out the plans of when we should celebrate from when he turned 2 and there hasn't been any issues so far.