How about having the kids cut out parts of travel brochures, maps, ticket stubs etc from all the various places you visit on the trip and pieces of gift wrapping paper from christmas and glue them all together on a reindeer outline on a sheet of construction paper and let the kids talk about each piece on the collage during class presentation time? That way, you can do the project easily and you don't have to review with each child what to present in class because they already know what to say about their collage. My child has homework for his "extra curriculars" and piano over the holiday - we will be taking chess tactics worksheets, soroban math worksheets and piano theory worksheets to Disneyland and Tahoe. But, I try to find small breaks of 10 minutes in a day and get the homework done at that time - sort of like, finish one page of homework before we head out so that we can stay out longer in the evening.

I just ask the admissions director or the principal point blank. At this point, I have been to so many schools for admission info that I don't have any hesitation to ask. I always fix an appointment and ask in private. I specify exactly where my child is at academically (e.g. Singapore math x, reading chapter book series xyz etc) and ask how they differentiate for this case.

My local school district is the best in the state and has an excellent writing program. They use a program called "Step Up To Writing" - http://www.soprislearning.com/literacy/step-up-to-writing/curriculum I have seen Kindergarteners write 6 sentence essays with this method.

Winter camp, skiing, Disneyland. Swimming, piano and Soroban Abacus classes will continue through the break.

I have a boy like Flying Marco. He escaped his crib at 9 months. We got 2 Full size futon mattresses and put them on the floor. We used the carpet grip pads under them. Then I covered all the surrounding hardwood floor with 1 inch thick and cushiony Interlocking Foam mats. My local costco had a great deal on them 6 years ago. They look like this http://www.amazon.com/We-Sell-Mats-Anti-Fatigue-Interlocking/dp/B003HEVQMM/ref=zg_tr_2522073011_15 I swear to you that it works, it is so safe and we still have them on the floor even though he has moved to a traditional bed. Also remove anything removable from that room and use it only for sleeping. Good luck.

I agree. If she were a more positive person, maybe she would have more happier relationships (and would be more loveable) - sorry about being snarky. I have a thing against people who take to FB and spend a lot of their free time to talk about their feelings constantly. I got out of FB and told friends and family to email me instead and never regretted it. You can look up her past posts to see if the tone has suddenly changed to suicidal or if she has always done this kind of thing. I am guessing that she uses FB to vent constantly and has always been consistent in her negativity ...

I have several hobbies or no hobby at all depending on how you look at it. I like to walk when the weather is good, run on my treadmill, cook special dishes, do yoga, read books and surf the web - all of them can be called hobbies or not. I choose to call them hobbies :)

Coming back to add that if you want to teach your kids piano, then consider getting a really inexpensive or used keyboard or piano (in my area, people give away their old acoustic pianos that are gathering dust in their houses on craigslist). If you get an old piano, clean it up and see if you can get it tuned. Then, there are some really simple and elementary piano method books with CDs for beginners where there is a lot of explaining and the pace is gentle so that the children can learn one note at a time - you can buy those books and teach at home yourself until your kids reach a stage where they need expert piano tutors. If you decide to go this route, post back here and I can update with links to early elementary level books that my child's piano teacher used.

Get a contour pillow - I have tried a few and found most of them good. You can get good ones for good prices at Costco, Sam's club etc.

My 1st grader has 6 tests a week + computer programming test every other week. There is a monthly book report and monthly "current events" report on which he will be graded - so DS needs to prepare for it a little bit each evening. The tests can be any combination of the follwoing subjects: Science Spelling Grammar Composition Math Logic and Critical Thinking Geography Public Speaking (memorizing and reciting poems this trimester) But, they spread the tests out so that there is one test daily - but not more than 2 tests a day. I am not including the reading, music, Art and PE tests that they do every week in addition to the above. These tests are just assements of the music, art etc that gets done on a daily basis in the classroom and the child need not take a specific test for these. They do a monthly "big test" where an outside teacher comes in to test all the subjects that the class teacher has taught - this is for the school's Quality Control policy so that they know that the teacher is teaching as expected. They do a lot of "test prep" for ITBS starting in January, I think.

I am looking for thermal underwear for boys (6 year olds). My DS needs to go out to play during PE and recess at school and he wears a fleece jacket but that does not seem to be enough protection. I am looking for recommendations for thermal long sleeved undershirts of good quality. Any recommendations?

I took my child to Pump It Up for a new year's party last year. They played the "Gangnam Style" song a total of 8 times there for the kids to dance - their "DJ" included other songs as well. The party was for the "under 7 year old" crowd. And my DS who has no exposure to popular culture and was 5 at that time left chanting the "Sexy Lady" line from that song - he still sings it one year later - he knows no other popular songs. I felt awful, but Ds was there to meet his friends whom he had not seen since he moved out of preschool. DS sings that song as "Sensy Lady" because that is what he understood - he tried to explain the meaning to me by saying that it is about a lady with all her senses! I will not take my son to that place again. But, he got exposed to "Sexy Lady" inadvertantly. There are no guarantees to what your child is exposed to in today's culture - even if you are a vigilant parent. OP, I am sorry that your child watched porn. I would just explain to both of them that it is a grown up thing and that they are not to discuss it with friends.

Buy natural henna (it is a herb and not a synthetic chemical) - you can get it in health food stores, online beauty supply sites or in an indian grocery store - natural henna has no additives or has additives that are plant based like cloves, lemon, cocoa butter etc. There are several things you can add to it to get the shade of your choice - some add coffee for dark color (just google for recipes) - I have not researched the lighter shades. The bad thing is that the process takes 3-4 hours - you basically need to wrap your head in cling wrap and wait for the color to set in. If you have an India Town in your city, they have Indian beauty salons that will do the henna for your hair - they will give you a shower cap like thing to wear until you can wash it off.

I regulate actively how much time my child reads. What helps is that I get ebooks on the kindle app on the ipad and taught my son to zoom in on the letters to make the fonts larger - that reduces the eye strain drastically as well as lets him read chapter books with smaller print. But, there are times when he reads books for too long and I interrupt him after about 30 minutes - I tell him to play with his Legos and that is a good diversion for him.

What does your DH want to do? Does he want to take up this new offer or stay with the old job? In our family, that would be how we decide on such things. I have been the primary caregiver with noone to help me all my child's life. But, the sacrifice seems worth it for my DH who feels that the chances he is taking now would mean that he is available more for my child in his teen years. So, it is a lot a compromise and give and take. Hope you find the right answer to your question.

Does your city have a parks and recreation department? Ours offers Karate, music (piano, violin etc) , dance, art for really cheap rates. They also have subsidies for people on low income (apologies if that is not the case with you).

I take the Barlean's Ultra Swirl liquid fish oil. My DS who eats chewable omega 3s tried my liquid omega 3s and liked it. I have been giving it to him for a week and then got worried that the potency of the Ultra Swirl is too high - and I don't want to continue such a high potency omega 3 for him. He asks that I continue the "smoothie" like omega 3s. I read up on all the liquid supplements at Barleans and I am getting confused - they have so many combinations - from DHA/EPA ranging from 180mg to almost 1000+mg. How do I choose one of their products? And what dosage do I give him (child is 6 years old)? Anyone who regularly gives their child Barleans Omega Swirl, please help!

OP, there are a lot of free online resourses like Starfall, BOB books, youtube videos for learning alphabet etc (your library will have access to things like Scholastic games, PBS games etc on their onsite computers too) - you can make use of these resources to teach alphabet sounds. Also, you can sing the alphabet songs with your kids now and then to reinforce it. Good luck..

We accelerate math a lot - we are mathy people :) Beyond that we do subjects that will not be done in school. We do a lot of science - our style loosely follows the unit study model - it is child driven - DS picks a topic and I get him several resources on that topic with small hands on experiments thrown in and we stay on a single topic for a month. I also have BFSU for science and get some ideas from it as well. As for computers, we taught DS Logo and Scratch programming and he also uses Creatorverse. He works on them by himself when he has downtime which is mostly in the weekends. He works on Mindstorm twice a month though I will find a group activity for it later on when there is more time in our schedule. We are thinking of getting a telescope for him next year, so that will be another activity to add into the mix. ETA: Dreambox math and EPGY math are good resources when there is not much time to afterschool.

I looked for experience teaching very small children when I enrolled my son at 4 years old. We started with group lessons and switched over to private lessons and that transition was gentle and the initial group lessons were fun for my child - though there is no reason to start with group lessons for a 6 year old. I prefer to stay with a Music Academy instead of private teachers because the academies tend to belong to associations and have certain standards to their curriculum and their teaching methods. Also they have plenty of recital opportunities and exams which eventually help in polishing a player's skills. Since I know nothing about piano music, this was important to me because I had some reassurance that the curriculum was good and the students from our academy had won several national level prizes (and hence had to have great teachers!). Also, make sure that they teach not just how to play songs - but include sight reading, ear training, music theory, music history, improvisation etc in their syllabus. As for keyboards, most teachers in my area insist on acoustic pianos. So, you might want to get that piano tuned and ready. And, your son can start anytime. PS: My son's teacher uses the Faber Piano Adventures now but used a mix of curriculum for the first year.

Congratulations to Miss A for acing the test. From following your story for a while on this forum, I can believe that your kids are ready for 3rd grade academically! The note from the teacher mentioning that she may not be ready for 3rd grade could mean that the focus level/attention/concentration/ability to not be distracted in a classroom setting needs improvement. I have the same problem with my 6 year old who has laser like focus on a one-on-one teaching environment and who completely loses it when in a group setting and clowns around incessantly. This can be related to various things - like boredom, short attention span, tiredness, hunger, lesson content not being challenging enough, too much energy that needs to be burned, ADD, diet, lack of maturity, lack of consequences for not focusing etc. Sometimes it just works itself out in late elementary age. As for schools, do you live in an area with other good private schools? They may be able to accomodate the learning needs of both your daughters so you can keep them together. I took my son on a tour of the new school he would be going to and that tour changed his mind completely - until then he could not imagine leaving his old school and friends - but meeting the new teachers and the new classmates, seeing all the new afterschool activities etc made it all unthreatening, welcoming and fun for him. Good luck.

Salicylic acid (40%) patch with a high quality sports tape wrapped around it kept the patch in place for my very active DS for whom all the other bandages fell off. He even went to his martial arts classes with that sports tape on. Once we figured how to keep the tape on his feet, the wart went away quickly.

Frankly there is no comparison. I have a very stressful job and I think that there is a lot less stress in a SAHM's job (even the ones homeschooling fulltime) - that is just my opinion based on the months I spent as a SAHM when I got laid off. I felt that all the stress related to the commutes, sick children, no sick days off, performance evaluations, deadlines, inability to do housework etc were far greater than overseeing bath time, dinner, lesson plans and craft and science projects etc as a SAHM. Even the occasional field trip was a breeze compared to the daily mad rush to drop off and pick up my child before/after work or tearing off to run an errand at my lunch time. But, if you asked an ER doctor, a soldier who has been deployed, an emergency worker, a short order cook or an astronaut, they will tell you that my day job in a temperature controlled cubicle is a cakewalk compared to theirs. I don't see why the comparison arises - some stay home because they can/want/need to etc and some work outside because they can/need/want to etc. Both are not the same. Both have their own pros and cons. Why compare?

Smoothies made with non-dairy milk (almond, coconut, hemp etc). Scrambled tofu with veggies. Hummus with carrots or apple slices.

I don't like Harry Potter. At all. We own all the DVDs, books and I have been dragged to screenings of all those movies by my DH - despite me telling him that I don't get it, find the whole series immature. I dare not speak of my hatred anywhere else for fear of rotten tomato missiles.