My house is quiet when DS is eating or reading an adventure book - he talks even while he is reading other type of books! I get worried if my house is quiet for other reasons - something must be amiss for that to happen.

In addition to the above, check out bedtimemath.com - it is a source for a free daily word problem. They have a free app too. We love the math and the topics they use for the math.

We used all of the above and they were very helpful in the past. I would also highly recommend a subscription to ReadingEggs (HSBC has coupons or atleast sign up for the free one month trial version) - it was a fun way to learn to spell simple words for my son when he was 4 years old.

I am happy for you all! Congratulations. Hope things go this way from now onwards!!!

I use the good quality Thermos Food jars - for both liquids and solids for lunch. They are great, leakproof and have lasted more than 8 years in our home and have stainless interiors so that they do not react with food. I have several and rotate them a lot dpending on quantity of food packed - for e.g. my DS takes the 12 oz size for lunch while I either take the 12 oz or 16 oz size for my lunch. The other convenience with them is that none of us need to heat our lunch - just open the container and eat!

Salicylic acid patch + a very good quality sports tape to bind it in place. That is the only thing that worked for my son's plantar warts on his feet. Duct tape just fell off quickly.

Thank you, Arcadia.

SKL, are you seeing problems only in math and not in other subjects? It looks like that from your post. I remember that this school uses Singapore Math curriculum - is the problem you are seeing related to the teachers not doing a good job with SM? Have you bought books like Extra practice, Tests, Intensive practice and CWP from SM and used those as a supplement? Maybe that would help to get more practice especially if you use the SM Tests book to test your kids in advance. Have you considered that it might be better to accelerate your children by teaching SM at a more faster pace so that they are working one semester level ahead than the teacher (e.g. 2B when the teacher is on 2A)? I know that it is really hard to find the time to do that, but if you could find a math tutoring center or a tutor on the weekends, it might go much faster and easier. Good luck.

Does your kid's school allow for short phone conferences with the teacher? Mine does - and I put in a request once a month or so just to touch base with the teacher. And I have gotten very interesting feedback - things that I would not have known otherwise. It just takes a few minutes of everyone's time and the teacher is happier with it because she does not have to take teaching time off to sit with me in a meeting but just call me in her free time. I find these a lot more helpful than the email communications with the teacher because she can describe the child's behavior patterns in greater detail. I am happy for you and your daughters that the 2nd grade year is going a lot more smoothly than 1st grade.

Dahlia, thanks for the tip on the water temperature for the Miso - I will be careful not to use boiling water. I will also check out the bio gaia drops. Momof3littles - my local Whole Foods carries both Jarrow and Udo, so I don't have to look far for them. Thank you.

Thanks Rosie and poikar - you reminded me of the easier alternatives to probiotic supplements. We do have Miso paste at home and occasionally make Miso soup. Maybe I should do it more often! As for Kefir, I like the flavored ones and occasionally buy it - maybe I should do that more often too.

I have given my 6 year old son Primadophilus brand probiotics of and on for all his life - it helped him when he was a baby and was put on antibiotics for ear infections. I buy the refrigerated bottle from the local Whole Foods. He also eats probiotic yoghurt daily. The current supplement he takes has 3 bacteria: Lactobacillus rhamnosus, Bifidobacterium longum, Lactobacillus acidophilus. I think that since there are so many brands of probiotics for kids these days, I should now try out some other brand which might have a better blend of bacteria in them. The pills need to be chewable and not taste yucky. Is there a brand of probiotics that is highly recommended and is beneficial to kids? I will be using it for good overall health and not to treat any condition.

How about a Strabucks gift card or a prepaid card for one of your DH's favorite lunch places? I once gave my husband a high end insulated water bottle and he still uses it many years later. And since he like Star Wars, maybe Star Wars DVDs?

First of all, DO NOT believe all that you read on the internet :) I am not sure how true every thing the author writes is (especially the part about smoking marijuana and trying to simulate his high school homework days). Secondly, the workload of the child looks OK to me - this homework looks very trivial compared to the homework at Gunn High school and Monta Vista High school in my area which have a reputation of sending in 4-5 hours of homework every night (and they also have a reputation of being Ivy League feeder schools because of the high quality of their education). My assumption is that the elder daughter has a ton of extracurriculars - like dance, sport or music and that takes a large part of her afterschool time (for e.g. my neighbor 8th grade girl dances/choreographs for 3.5 hours every evening in her ballet school). That is surely bound to make a child sluggish and sloppy when it comes time to do homework. Not to mention social networking! And why complain about finding the distance from Sacramento to other capitals - it is an excellent exercise in learning the names of state capitals and in this age of Google maps, it can be done in less than 5 minutes (including conversion to Kilometers). I personally do not know many state capitals and I could benefit from sitting down and doing this exercise myself! If a kid went on Jeopardy and answered this exact same question, we would all be appreciating the "extensive knowledge base" of such a child. Disclaimer: My child does NOT attend public school (I have my own bunch of complaints about our PS, most of them not related to the homework load), but I don't think that there is anything extraordinary in that homework load - btw, I could have done 79 pages of reading easily in my youth (can still do). And I would never complain about "reading a book" being excessive homework - especially if I were an author writing for The Atlantic whose living is made from reading and writing.

I agree with the OP. Competition is also about losing gracefully when you are not the best. My little DS has been in competitions since he was 4 years old. Not because of us being pushy parents, but because when the coaches announce an upcoming competition, my child puts up his hand and aks to participate and begs me to take him and will happily do extra chores (his suggestion!) so that he gets the chance to go. He won 7th place in an Art competition of under 12 year olds when he was 4 yrs old, won 2nd place in a sport competition for 8 year olds at 5 and won 1st place in that same competition competing with 10 year olds at 6. He was thrilled by all those wins, but a lot of parents complained that my DS should be disqualified from the sport competition because he was too small to participate with their 10 year olds (when he won first place). The competition organisers refused to listen to those parents and appreciated my DS for doing so well. But, I was left with an unwelcome feeling from all those parents. This does not mean that we take him to competitions only when he wins - he has participated in monthly chess tournaments at our local chess club for a year and has lost every time. He still loves to go and we still take him to those chess tournaments because it gives him some idea of what the best in chess look like, the spirit to handle failure like a sportsman and a chance for him to hang out with like minded peers. OP, I am glad that your child would be a "special guest" at this event. It is an honor chosen only for performers that are way out of league of all the participants (my child's piano recital had a Carnegie Hall performer as a special guest). So, your daughet gets affirmation right there that she is already a winner! And I would advise you to find other competitions even if you have to travel farther so that you don't have a dependency on this crowd of complainers. Good luck.

I have and use the most recent version of Mathematical Reasoning - it does not look like a full curriculum to me. It looks like a challenging supplement and a prep book for achievement testing. For me, it does not have a textbook feel - It is not strong in "teaching" but rather tests what your student might have learnt. Would Mathematical Reasoning + Challenging Wrod Probs (SM) + Zaccaro + LOF work for your son? I also suggest that you pre-read SM material and pick and choose what your son needs to do on each page - for example, just 2 problems in a chapter where he might know everything. Or skip a chapter when he knows it already. You might also want to check out MEP - it is a more fun math curriculum.

The book is enough if you want to try it. The DVD is not necessary. I think the whole concept is gimmicky, but my child adores it and hence it is worth it for me!

Thank you so much, Kerileanne and craftyerin! I am going to get those resources for my son.

My 6 year old announced that he wants to build complex mosaic patterns with pattern blocks - he especially likes symmetric designs. I am looking for resources that show really complex patterns (using maybe 50 to 100+ blocks) so that DS can try using them. So far, no luck. Is there any resource like Pattern Mats or Design books for these? He can do simple patterns by himself, but cannot think of complex patterns yet.

How to fit it all in: It is is agreat challenge for the parent (long day at work) and the child (long day at school, aftercare etc). I am slowly figuring out that there are 3 parts to this: planning, implementing in small doses and learning to let go if it all gets too much. And zero Screen time at home (for parent and child) - exceptions are sporting events that we watch like Superbowl, Olympics, NBA playoffs etc. I am weak at planning - I wing it most of the time. If I could make a spreadsheet and work packets and a master lesson plan that links them to time slots in our schedule, I will be all set. But, I am still to do it. Right now, I plan for one day ahead - I know that on Thursday, we will do SM Challenging Word problems for 15 minutes and some Song School Latin (less than 10 minutes). The math will be done after dinner and the SSL will be done right after piano practice. I made a work packet by tearing out the papers for these 2 activities and plan to sit with my son to get these done so that we can have a discussion. My spouse who gets home later than me is the "fun" parent - he will then work with DS on Mindstorm or play a fast chess game with him or just fool around and get involved in physical play while I catch my breath. Now, if I could only come up with a monthly plan ... What we do to afterschool: - Chess worksheet daily (he attends chess school on weekends and they send daily homework sheets for solving chess puzzles) - Math - 2 days a week I teach above grade stuff, 1 day a week I do hands on math using manipulatives (Rosie's Education Unboxed videos), 1 day a week I do puzzles and similar stuff for fun - Science - nothing this year so far. - LA - we do fun poetry memorization together, FLL 1 chapter a week and I write a Word of the Day on a blackboard (usually a funny or thought provoking word) and we discuss it on our car rides - Languages - Latin and Greek (very simple using Song School Latin and Song School Greek) - 1 chapte a week and review using CDs in the car - Logic - we do this once a week formally (using Critical Thinking Company products) - Computer programming - Scratch for 20 minutes on Saturdays Afterschool Sports and others: - Swimming twice a week - year around - Tae Kwon Do - 3 or 4 evenings depending on belt testing schedule - Chess - once a week on sunday - Piano - once a week When life gets in the way and we cannot afterschool (education using screentime for these occasions): - DreamBox math online - EPGY LA and Math online - Brain Pop

Thank you mom2pandc for going through my list and giving me your feedback. I am so grateful to be able to get the opinions of people who have btdt on this board about all these fabulous curriculum choices. I have seen a few older posts that some parents started GI early - it is good to know that your DD is is doing so well with GI. We arejust working on FLL2 and I was hoping to move on to MCT after that. I already love MCT so much from all of the reviews on this forum and I am just going to place my order :) I will buy the books and read through them for a bit myself and then test the waters to see if my DS is ready for them.

Leapfrog Letter Factory, Miquon Orange book and C Rods were essentials at our house when my child was a preKer. I also used SM Early Bird and not the Essentials version because my child begged me to let him have the EarlyBird books because he fell in love with the colorful animal pictures in those books.

Thanks you so much AprilMay. I can use all those schedules that you posted to shorten my work of planning for MCT. The real reason I am buying MCT early is because all the raves on this forum and the samples online on RFP website have made me very eager to start on this curriculum! And it is mostly to pique my curiosity. But, since you seem to think that 7 is really early for MCT and I know that my child is a highly reluctant writer right now, I may have to rethink my strategy of starting at 7 years old. Your feedback was really helpful.

Did you consider providing enrichment material for your DD in addition to the piano curriculum you have? My son is very excited to learn a lot of his favorite tunes on his own time and this is on top of the daily practice. I go on amazon periodically and get him fun music sheets like Star Wars, Harry Potter and Disney movies. I also get him DVDs about composers to watch periodically. They seem to spark his interest a lot.

We left our previous school and enrolled in a school that meets my child's needs better this year for 1st grade. Last week I got 2 emails from the old school soliciting donations and volunteer time for organizing and running their Fall festival.