Heather, there is no need to hold back from teaching the use of the abacus. You can use it as a fun hands on manipulative in your curriculum. I am no expert, but this is what I know so far about the sorobam: There is no pre-soroban math sense activity that is required. In Asia, they start to teach 2 year olds who don't know numbers the rudiments of math on the Soroban. You don't need to prepare for Soroban, you just start at your level. If the child could count only upto 10, then you can teach operations on numbers upto 10. The Soroban school I visited says they see most new students enrolling in the 3-7 years range. There are no math programs in the US market incorporating Soroban. Soroban teaches you a kind of "regrouping" based on beads according to their system to perform mathematical operation. For each level of Soroban, when you master it, you can transition to Anzan. It is not a K-8 math curriculum - just a way to work with numbers (small/big/super large) in your brain. It is a different way to handle math operations while ramping up speed of calculations. I believe that Japanese schools dropped Soroban for a while in favor of computers and calculators and that now, they are going back to their old roots and reintroducing soroban in their curriculum. There are a lot of Asian countries and some European countries where the soroban method has caught on and they are adopting it for their elementary grades. I would say that you should use a "conventional" math program as a math spine - e.g. Singapore Math. Soroban should be considered an add-on to improve computational fluency. If I learn more about it, I will update this thread. FYI: There are a ton of threads on the soroban for very young kids on the Brillkids forum that Kerileanne referred to upthread. There are plenty of people there who use soroban for teaching their preschoolers math. They also have a lot of experiences to share and resources for parents. Good luck.

I am winging it - no recipes. I do not use any liquids at all except 1 tablespoon of olive oil. I fill it to almost 1 inch from the top.

I have a 3 quart Rival crockpot. I have always failed at roasting veggies in them. They turn out soft, mushy and waterlogged and are never firm. I have tried a lot of different kinds - cauliflower, squashes, carrots, green beans etc with onion. I usually fill the crock upto an inch from the top. I only add olive oil and salt and pepper to them. I end up with a mushy mass with watery juices at the bottom. I have tried both low setting (6 hours) and high (3 hours) - and ended with visually unappealing masses. They don't taste that bad, they just don't look presentable in company. Am I missing something in my recipe? My friend told me to not add any salt because it might make the moisture come out of the veggies. I am going to try that. I love to use the crockpot because I am not home most of the time and it is great to come back to an already ready dish for dinner. So, crockpot gurus, is there something wrong in my method? Or am I better off sticking to my oven for getting this job done? Please share your wisdom.

Though I am a very strong proponent of early introduction of music education into a child's life (as early as preschool for formal learning and much before that for informal learning), I find this article a little weak on facts. It is true that music training does teach discipline and focus. But the author does not show us how music training is related to "creative problem solving". There is too much conjecture and assumption about music's role in the success of the people mentioned in this article. If all of these people had gone on to early martial arts training in their lives, they would still have focus and discipline. The author is doing a disservice to music education by writing about things that are not supported by facts. How can a person sitting in a cramped practice room all alone practicing a solo piece repeatedly for hours learn about collaboration and creativity? I see discipline and focus in this act, but no creativity or collaboration. Though I concede working in orchestras and ensembles are good for learning collaboration. What I am saying is that all the qualities attributed to successful people in this article could have been gained from other things like yoga, meditation, martial arts, team sports like basketball or just working in an office with creative people around them. What the author could have done is to talk about the recent studies that have come out on Einstein's brain that pointed to his larger than normal Corpus Callosum (the thing that bridges the right and left sides of the brain) and an enhanced right frontal lobe as being reasons for his genius. And this is all being attributed to him being a gifted violinist who started out learning it very early in life (I believe it was when he was 6 years old). Now, that would have been more interesting for me to read.

My local library collects books in good condition and uses them for circulation or sale for fundraising. We had a ton of books (picture books, easy readers etc) that were for young readers and DS is reading at a higher level now. He was sentimental last year and would just keep them to look at the pcitures. I have been on a book buying binge for him and he loves all his new books that finally he was OK with giving away his baby books. On thursday, I gave away 60 books to my library in gently used condition. I had to make 2 trips. I am loosely following Flylady - I declutter for 15 minutes every day. I find no need to save the clutter because my house has become difficult to clean, so I am just getting rid of all the clothes that we have outgrown, kitchen utensils that were never used, clothes that my MIL buys for me that I never wear (she is an impulsive shopper and buys stuff that she likes which do not even fit me), she also always gifts me cushion covers and bed sheets every year and I already have several new and unused ones from her. She gets offended if I refuse to take them and I accept them now because I want to keep the peace. We have curbside collection of donations in our town every month and I put 2 bags full in october. I got rid of baby swing, jumperoo and things like that which were taking up a spare bedroom and now it feels so spacious to see the bare floor. I have some papers that I am dreading to tackle, lots of DS's baby toys, an old bicycle to get rid of and 3 kitchen cabinets to clean out this month.

No punishment for the little guy and no, your DH is not responsible either because a child does not need much time to do it if he is determined to do it. I would instead collect some resources on germs, hygiene and how diseases spread that are understandable at his age and then spend an hour or two teaching him that what he did was unhygenic and this might make him and all the other family members sick. Also explain to him how his dad had to spend so much time doing the clean up and how hard that job is and how he could have spent the same amount of time taking DS somewhere fun instead of cleaning the bathroom. Appeal to hsi good senses to understand that he is giving you a difficult time by behaving this way. And let him know firmly that this is the last time that it happened and that he will face consequences if he ever does this the next time - it could be losing privileges or his favorite toy or screentime, timeouts or not going to a favorite outing.

The soroban is different from the standard abacus. The calculation methodology is also different. Soroban has dots marking every alternate rod that can be used for the units place of a number while calculating using both round and decimal numbers. The whole point of learning to use the Soroban is to quickly migrate to using Anzan in all calculations - Anzan is the mental abacus method of calculation - in Anzan, you visualize the pictorial representation of the state of the Soroban for each step of your calculation and you use your finger movements in the air to aid you in the visualization. After you learn Anzan for your current level, you may use the Soroban for more complicated operations while your Anzan skills catch up to your higher level Soroban skills. In the end, when you achieve mastery (there are several levels of mastery), you will be able to do complex problems like 5521.734 x 0.8197 = 4526.165 (I pulled this out of a real soroban mental test) in your mind and quickly enough to come through with flying colors in timed test situations. Look up some of the youtube videos of soroban competitions - they sure blew my mind away and got me to think about mental math completely differently. I now kick myself for being ignorant of this great and ancient method of doing mental math for so long. An added advantage of Soroban is that when the child uses mental pictures of the abacus to tie them with computations of numbers, both the left side and right side of the brain are used and a strong connection is formed between both sides of the brain. This has been thought to be somewhat similar to a child learning chess - when they visualize 3 or more chess moves in advance of their opponent, they are using their left and right part of the brain together. Here are links to soroban handbooks that you can review to see how the soroban method works. http://abacus.etherwork.net/soroban/THE%20ABACUS%20HANDBOOK.pdf http://webhome.idirect.com/~totton/abacus/Abacus_Mystery_of_the_Bead.pdf

I am a minimalist. Because I have no attachment to material things - at all. But, I married a hoarder who has a hoarder father - both of them save everything from old paint cans to rusted nails. I am a minimalist by nature because I grew up with a minimalist mother - her house has only 2 dinner plates and 2 glasses (visitors need to call ahead so that she can get more plates and cups from storage - I am not kidding). Her house is spartan almost bare looking - she does not decorate because decorations collect dust. I moved overseas with 2 suitcases and the amount of stuff stayed the same for almost 10 years. I still have only less than a dozen items of clothing (including work clothes). And I want and need very less. But, my DH and DS have an ocean of stuff. I am drowning in their stuff most of the time. Clutter makes me uncomfortable and I always wish there was less stuff around me.

There are many easy ways that you can control your young child's weight without the child being aware of you restricting her diet because you as the parent are doing the grocery shopping! I am not saying that you should starve your child - I am saying that you can change what your child consumes. Don't buy junk food (I am including candy, soda, prepackaged meals etc). Buy a ton of easy to eat healthy snacks - like fruit, veggie sticks, raisins, low fat cheese sticks, small servings of nuts, a few crackers, hummus etc so that you guys are not going hungry between meals. Cut out simple carbs from the family's food - white bread, white flour, white pasta, potatoes etc. Substitute with Quinoa, brown rice, whole grain bread and whole grain pasta. With whoe grains, you cannot over eat carbs - they can make you feel full a lot sooner. Cut out juices - yes, even apple juice and gatorade. Ask your DD to make her own juice or smoothie (help her if she needs help) with fresh fruit and veggies. Make it a daily fun event with you coming up with fun suggestions like - "hey I read this recipe where there is Kale in the Strawberry smoothie. I wonder what color the smoothie would be?" Buy only skim milk and fat free dairy products. Add a small green salad before a big meal. This helps to reduce the amount of carbs in the main meal. Make a veggie soup to have with dinner. Again, they tend to reduce the amount of carbs in the main meal. And when you eat out, try to stay away from fattening foods. If you follow general healthy eating guidelines like these, I think that it is enough to keep a young and active kid at a healthy weight. As for increasing activity, you can either do something together as a family - hiking, biking etc or put her in a structured activity - like swimming, gymnastics, Martial arts etc. Good luck.

SM has Extra Practice, Intensive Practice and Tests books in addition to the Challenging Word Problems. I recommend that you use those as supplements instead of Evan Moore. There is also an SM series called "Visible Thinking in MAth" which looked interesting and I am trying it out this year.

My son has fine motor skills that need to be worked on. He hates coloring and his art work is as if someone scribbled by holding a marker with their toes. He would end up in tears if he had to color a whole page full of stuff. We worked on it since he was 3 years old and in his preschool, he went to PS last year for K and it was loaded with coloring and that was the only difficult thing in K for him. Now, he attends an academics oriented private school where there is minimal coloring work and it is a relief to him. We have not done any coloring at home for almost 5 months. I am wondering if it is worth going back to it and giving it another try. I have a ton of Dover coloring books in interesting themes available. Is 6 a good enough age to make another attempt at learning to color? Do kids stop coloring for improving that skill at that age (do they then color mainly for pleasure)? Basically I am wondering if I should give up or try practicing it more at home. Any benefits for an older kid from learning to color better (he does not enjoy the task and must be made to sit down and do it)? I am also wondering if there is any advantage to using color pencils instead of crayons. Thanks for your help!

My DS (6 years old) told me today that all he wants for Christmas is a BrainPop subsciption. He basically said that I need not get him anything else and that he will do whatever I ask him to do in order to get it! He uses the free version of it and loves it. So, is a subscription worth it? It looks pricey to me. Anyone has opinions on it?

Update: There are a few Soroban schools in my city and they are run by Japanese instructors who were trained in Soroban schools in Japan. One of them allows a "trial class" - so we are off to sit in one of them for a family trial class this weekend. My DH is now so fascinated by Soroban after I made him watch several youtube videos on it that he is joining us for the trial class.

I always buy Snap Circuit sets and give them as birthday gifts. For very close friends of DS, we add on an accessory set from snap circuits or books to these presents. I have Amazon prime, so I decluttered my "gift storage" closet and now just click and order for 2 day delivery. I followed Flylady for a while and got rid of many things stored in my house because I could not clean easily.

I do a literature read aloud with my DS on an ongoing basis. I pick classics like AA Milne, Tolkein etc to read to him. I pick a good sentence from the latest chapter that we have finished and get him to do the copywork. Since we have read and discussed the chapter recently, the sentence is familiar and easier. I let him read it to me first and then ask him to write it down.

I would second the recommendation of Meet the Great Composers. It is not an online course. I read the book to my child and we listen to the CD together and we really like it. Your children might be able to do it on their own.

I would definitley ask a 10 year old to do it. Mine is 6 and he helped me rake leaves last week without me having to ask. But, if you think that the work is back breaking, ask them to do it over a period of 2 days instead of all on the same day. I would not pay my child to do it, though I would buy him a book or a small toy that he wants.

Thank you, Heather. I also found a few soroban apps on the itunes store. I will download them to see how they work. My ultimate goal is to teach my son Anzan in a year. I am frustrated to see how slow he is when doing complicated math. some of the apps are here in case this helps: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/master-soroban/id463382105?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/abacus-soroban/id285943787?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/japanese-soroban/id419265904?mt=12 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-soroban/id513614906?mt=8

Sorry! I take back what I said in my post. When there is mental illness involved, you need to be really gentle. And just forget what I said about asking for their help with the schooling. Ethnic and cultural differences are a totally different ballgame. In some cultures, it is acceptable and sometimes the norm to do the things that you are seeing with your inlaws and it is hard for the older people to change their way of thinking even if they live in America now.

I am attempting to start Anzan (mental Soroban or Abacus) method with my child for faster mental math. There is another thread for this here: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/493238-anyone-taught-their-kids-anzan-mental-sorobanabacus-math-and-vedic-math/ I believe that it is a great method for grown ups too and I plan to learn it along with my child. This method is very successful with a lot of scientific papers talking about it if you google it. Also check out youtube for videos of soroban math. There are a few apps for it too ...

Heathermomster, I am looking at Nurtureminds curriculum and also this free book: http://www.sorobancymru.co.uk/index.html - you can click on the links to the left that will download free ebooks for each of the topics like addition and subtraction. I have seen previous posts from you in this forum on this topic. What curriculum have you used with your DD? Is she doing Anzan now?

First, tell her to ignore the terminology of borrowing and carrying over. Spend some time reviewing place value system. And use analogies that she might understand and relate to - e.g. if you had a box of cookies and if mom ate half of it, would you have more or less? This is subtraction. If you had 10 crayons and your sister had 5 crayons, how many would you have if you put them all into one box? More or less? This is addition. Make her work out simple borrowing and carrying over problems in 3 different ways - this is how I taught my son: Method 1: 45 + 39 = 45 + 40 -1= 85 -1 etc. (I call this nearest landmark method - landmark being the closest round number. Drawing a simple number line and demonstrating the jumps while adding ot subtracting might help). With enough practice, they will be able to do this method mentally. (you can also use the "regrouping" method instead). Method 2: Draw and label 3 boxes for Hundreds, Tens, Units on a flat surface or paper. Place cuisenaire rods appropriately into each box for the above problem (for e.g. 39 = 9 units rod in the Units box and 3 tens rods in the Tens box, repeat for the next number) . Tell her how to trade out 10 unit rods in the Units box for 1 ten rod in the Tens box. Ask her to double check if the answer in Method 2 is the same as the answer in Method1. Method 3: Do the same problem with traditional carrying over now. Double check if the answer is same as in Method 2 and 1. You can work like this for a few weeks until the concept is solidified in her mind. I know that you are very busy from all the previous posts, but do look up MEP math and Singapore Math's Challenging Word Problems and Intensive Practice (you can start a grade behind for review). If you can, find a helper or tutor to work on these with your daughter. They have a lot of word problems which I believe are important in helping to visualize math and helping a child get a stronger understanding of the concepts. Good luck.

My son went to a group piano lesson when he was 4. The teacher there used games similar to those found in Keyboard Capers - you can find it on RR http://www.rainbowresource.com/product/sku/033874/b7661631301e51b4370855b4

You are not being unreasonable. I think that schooling is very important and family should respect that - for e.g. If your child were in a B&M school, would your MIL go there and ask for your child to join her for lunch? Show them that you are very serious about schedules. If you let them in your house on a school day and then keep on schooling despite their interruptions, they might get the chance to see that there is really no downtime for the kids to hang out with them. Another strategy is to pick up their phone calls only in the evenings - let them know to leave you voicemails and that you will call them back. If they still complain, consider making them work for you! For e.g. tell them that you will be running off to the doctor appointment with child #2 in the afternoon, so could they come over and supervise the math or literature work for child #1, #3 and #4 and give them their snack while you are out and supervise the bathtime for the little ones? Or, could they please take child #3 to soccer while you catch up child #1, #2 and #4 on spelling and history? Or could they do a craft or art project with all the kids while you get your weekly grocery shopping done? I think that you should not feel guilty for wanting to educate your children. And they should not make you feel that way.

Thank you so much, geodob and Kerileanne99! My child currently does Saxon math at school and I afterschool using Singapore Math. What I have found is that, though he gets very advanced concepts quickly and can produce accurate results, his speed at arriving at the results is very, very slow. I am a great fan of Soroban and Vedic math and I think that these skills not only make the math faster, they help in whole brain development. I have access to a Japantown near where I live, so I can pick up a pretty good soroban easily. I will check out the Pacchi soroban - it could be the right place to start. Kerileanne, I am off to researching those links on the brillkids site. And thanks for the tip on the SM style number bonds - it is heartening to know that Soroban and SM are compatible!