In my city, the builder/house owner has to file the house plans and front elevation with the city, and then create a life size mockup with netting and wooden 2x4's on the property so that neighbors can figure out if their privacy is being invaded and they publish a notice on the property for 45 days with pictures of a mockup before beginning construction. We live in a suburb. So, if you live in an incorporated area, just stop by the city hall and ask for information filed with them about your neighbor's layout and mockup etc. That should give you an accurate idea of what is going on.

Never mind. I figured it out (need to have an account on their site and insert the code during checkout). I ordered and am looking forward to it. My DS loved SSL1 and keeps asking for SSL2. Thanks for posting about it today.

I am interested. Thanks for the coupon code! Can you please tell me where to plug in the coupon code on their website? (sorry for the stupid question).

for the littles, we put goldfish crackers, Annies Bunny grahams and Annie's cheddar bunnies. When they got older, we put small hotwheels cars, squinkies, bendable toys, erasers, small bouncy balls, playdoh, stampers with easter theme and special stickers in them. We have never even thought about doing candy so far ...

Math Concepts I & II by Ron Brown are very good. Definitely not traditional, but fun and catchy. My friend teaches K and she recommended it and we like it. We use it during long trips in the car.

This is what we do as well!

Would asking your son to read aloud to you or your second child help? My DS was not interested in reading aloud at all, until I explained to him how I would love to hear him read to me because I never get a chance to read the "good stuff" and was too busy cooking dinner or folding laundry or running errands etc and it could be his job to entertain me with readalouds while I got everything done. He liked the idea of entertaining me with readalouds and now he tries to read to me when I am doing my chores - I correct him when he skips words or when he cannot pronounce something in the right way. And also stop him frequently to ask questions about what he has just read to me to test his comprehension skills. This strategy is working well for us so far.

We started with thick dry erase markers on white boards and then moved on to thick markers on paper. Then we graduated to "first pencils" by Dixon Ticonderoga and they are awesome as they are really easy to hold. We have stayed with them until now. We copy the "Step up to writing approach" from his PS. DS draws a picture and colors it and writes 3 sentences about it once a week - it could be something really silly - like "My favorite pet is a dancing donkey" or "If T-Rexes played T-Ball ..." or something like that. It keeps him interested and engaged and he sometimes writes upto 5 sentences on his own because he gets carried away by his own stories. We also do copywork of funny sentences from books that we read and he gets to pick the funniest sentences to write them. You could try this approach as I think boys respond better to seatwork when humor is introduced. He has a "happy journal" where he occasionally writes about happy things that happened to him - like "I went to a birthday party today" or "I got a new Lego set this week". We have gradually seen improvement in his writing though he has a long way to go still.

The grip matters because a wrong grip can cause pain. My DS was pencilphobic and refused to write for a long time. His preK teacher used to say that making him write was like pulling teeth. He had a very tight pencil grip at 4 years and he used to complain that his fingers hurt when coloring or writing. We worked on it for a long time, using the thicker "first pencils" (we still use them because they are so awesome), triangular pencil grips, big markers instead of pencils, writing on a white board with dry erase markers etc. It took more than a year and finally we have corrected the grip and no more complaints of finger pain. Don't worry, you are not too late in correcting it and as a PP said, correct gently and be persistent and eventually you will see results.

Thanks to everyone for your helpful suggestions. I forgot to add that DS's school day only lasts for 3.5 hours (including recess). I afterschool in the afternoons or evenings. i am not a "strict" afterschooler and tend to go with the flow. The only thing that I am rigid about is that he practice his piano 4 times a week (it is his piano teacher's requirement). He attends an advanced "K/1st grade" mixed class where he is in the advanced reading groups with the 1st graders and his teacher claims to differentiate instructions based on ability. My original opinion was that he was being careless and not paying attention to detail while reading a math problem or a passage on a book. But, lately it seems that I have been correcting him and he has been resenting it forever and it has made me wonder if it was due to underlying issues or just related to the age/maturity level. If it is just tiredness, age related etc then I am happy because the problem is easy to deal with Hilltop, I have tried humor (funny voices or favorite stuffed toys and superheroes correcting the mistakes), but that works only a couple of times a day. dmmetler, you are right, their teacher reads aloud a problem and explains verbally what needs to be done for each and every line. So maybe that trained him to expect verbal cues to math problems. As for reading, they enforce silent reading (which I hate because I cannot hear all the mistakes being made). 2smartones, no tomatoes here... My son is a boy with very high energy and is enthusiastic about sport that he begs me to keep him in all his extracurriculars and asks for more (I am exhausted taking him to all of them). He enjoys the physical outlet for his energy and he attends most of them with friends, so he kind of looks forward to them. But, you got me thinking about him being drained - he does not look it, but it could be a possibility. And I have never heard of "eye tracking problem" before - you have given me something new to research and I will definitely follow up on it to see if that could be an issue.

My DS5 is accelerated and he is gifted (we tested him last year and he falls in the supremely gifted category). He does very well with advanced concepts and has great energy and craves constant learning and stimulation. But, when he does his seatwork, he makes major mistakes - I am talking about careless mistakes. For example, for 45-22, he might just assume that the question is 45+22 and write down the answer accordingly. He also assumes the word patterns in books that he reads - he expects words to fall in a certain pattern and just whizzes through pages reading them his way. I have to sit by his side and talk to him about the importance of double checking, working patiently and reading all the words in a page while doing his work. I have done this forever, but it does not seem to be working and has become a point of contention where he feels that I am constantly correcting his work and pointing out his mistakes. His eyesight is good (vision examined) and he has no known issues so far. I am wondering if this is just a boy thing - being impatient to finish and move on to other stuff or if this could be a symptom of underlying issues. Anybody has experience with such a kid?

My DS had a "anti-drug" week coinciding with "Red Ribbon Week" in PS (throughout school, so K was included). And the teacher was telling the kids to say No to drugs - I volunteered in the classroom that day and I heard what she was talking about - she said "drugs are bad for you. You need to avoid them to stay healthy. But there are "good" drugs that your doctor might prescribe and you need to take them as per a trusted adult's instruction!". "good drugs" and "bad drugs"? Give me a break! I keep a hawk eye on my son and as a 5 year old, he does not even get to eat snacks that are not packed by me (not even my husband packs his food) let alone consume copious amounts of drugs, alcohol and cigarettes on a daily basis. I sat through 10 minutes of her lecture on cigarette smoke, alcohol and drugs. That day my DS came home and asked me what smoking meant and what alcohol was. He was getting an education from school, alright.

It is normal that your daughter encounters such behavior in a school setting or in a public setting (like a group class, organized sports etc). Young kids have a way of hurting others without realizing what they are doing. The great thing about this episode is your daughter's positive reaction to a potentially tough situation - great job in bringing her up to realize what is "not the right thing to do" and also to stand up for herself under peer pressure. I have heard and seen so many age inappropriate behavior and bullying while volunteering in my son's classroom - what I have noticed is that most of the bad behavior is from kids with older siblings from whom they pick up all kinds of objectionable vocabulary, attitudes and behavior because it seems "cool" to say and do these things. I think that you reinforced in your daughter what the right thing to do is (though she already knew it) and I hope that she feels good that she was an "upstander" and please let her know that it is always OK to spend recess with another set of girls if someone in her current set starts being offensive. I say the same thing to my DS all the time - I tell him to go and find another group of kids to play with if bullying happened within a group. Our school implements Project Cornerstone from the K level onwards - It specifically works on Respect, Bullying, Helping others, Classroom Climate etc - if there is a similar program in your area, you could research it and ask the teacher if it can be implemented.

Have you tried Magic Treehouse series? (they are OK except for a little suspense and a few scary animals occasionally) And Flat Stanley books?

My soon to be 6 year old son wants to be a long list of things: an Olympian swimmer and then a Tae Kwon Do Olympian and then a computer engineer or a Robotics engineer and then a Chess GrandMaster and then a Opera singer and then a concert pianist and then a Traffic crossing guard and then a Firefighter and then a racecar driver and then the President of the USA - all in that exact same order as described here. Let us see.... (when he was 3, he wanted to be a teacher and paleantologist - life was a lot simpler in those days!)

I totally agree with the above comment. I want a well rounded kid as both myself and my DH are very one-dimensional people who are very strong in certain areas of life but cannot figure out how to get the right "work-life" balance. Obviously, I want my child to have a better quality of life and his mental well-being is very important to me. I want my kid to be "accelerated" because he is able to handle it easily while at the same time, not miss out on other things in life as well. So, we accelerate (but slowly by using multiple curriculum in all the core subjects) and delve as deep as we can go into each topic before moving on. We also spend a part of each day in pursuit of sport and art. And when we hit a place in our schooling where boredom or burnout is imminent, we take a short break and just do scrabble, chess, word games, read alouds, music and crafts and then go back to regular schedule feeling energized.

I just had to come back to this thread and chime in again - both my DS and I watch Rosie's "Education Unboxed" videos and I can say that though this is "not necessary" at all (I have a strong math background and can handle all the math teaching by myself) it has changed the way I teach math at home. My son loves watching those videos and I think that he has benefitted from technology that helped bring these videos to him (maybe 20 years ago, I would have taught my son using pencil and paper and whiteboard, not much different from now, but how I teach now is strongly affected by what is out there on the internet).

My point of view is much different from the majority on this thread because I feel that technology/computer/internet is a great addition to any child's education and an educator should judiciously use it to enhance and enrich the child's education. My kids have access to knowledge because of the internet that I never had when I was growing up. When my child was around 2-3 years old, we used the iPad and let him trace letters on it using his fingers - there are some really fabulous apps on it that teach elementary writing. He could hardly hold a pencil at that age, but could trace them beautifully on the tablet. He uses the iPad now for watching his favorite "Tim and Moby" videos. My son who is 5 now uses his computer for DreamBox math (which we really love), Reading Eggs (he uses this only for entertainment because he is ahead in skills), EPGY Math and LA (the LA part is really informative for him). I also load a bunch of AudioBooks for him on the iTunes app (especially the SOTW books which he loves) and lets him play them by himself. He has a few chess games that he plays on his computer when he can not get a partner to practice his games with. In his public school they have a weekly"tech lab" where they use the computer for 25 minutes each week where they do "Type to Learn", KidPix, Tumblebooks, Starfall etc. My son's small motor skills have definitely improved with typing on the computer and mouse usage. So, what I am saying is that though it is most important to teach your kids in the old fashioned way, there is a place for technology in their education. There is no need to be so extreme as to turn away from it completely. Use it as a tool in your teaching. Also, use the computer based content as a supplement for the teaching done by you. There are some great resources out there on the internet (you already mentioned Khan academy, national geo etc) which will surely enhance your child's education. And you definitely need to use technology when your children start learning computer programming! The key is to use technology as a tool and supplement and to moderate usage and monitor what they access and how much time they spend on it.

We like Lollipop logic, Zaccaro books, Mind Benders, CWP and MEP

My DS is a really hard worker even if I say so myself. And we are a completely TV free family. So, it takes a lot to keep him stimulated and engaged. Therefore, there are a lot of times that I let my DS work by himself - after instructing him on what needs to be done, circling the pages of work he needs to do and making sure he had all the writing implements ready etc. I do not walk away. I am available if he needs me - I do work related stuff on my computer in the same room most of the time or make a meal in the kitchen where he can see me through the open doorway. He knows to shout "I need help" as soon as he comes across things beyond his ability :) And we encourage working alone because it makes him an independent thinker and it is also in the same style as his PS where one poor teacher works with 24 kids. But, we drop everything we are doing to answer questions, bounce ideas around with him to help him find an answer if he hits a bump. And discuss his answers with him when reviewing the completed work and go over items that he could have done better and make him correct anything that was not done to our satisfaction. Two things that I would never, ever let him do by himself is handwriting practice and artwork. He has the most horrible handwriting in a 5 year old that I have seen, has poor letter formation, letter reversals and colors all over the page no matter where the picture outline he is coloring is. For these I sit by his elbow with eraser and an eagle eye.

We are doing Miquon, SM and MEP before starting BA.

I would not spend so much effort trying to substitute different stories whenever you come across parts that your son can not understand. I would just find a different curriculum and move on because there is no point buying a curriculum and spending the time and effort to retool it while there are so many other options out there. Hope someone chimes in with a suggestion that would better suit you.

Mine is a only child so has a hard time finding company to play with. There are no neighbors in the same age group. The boredom always hits when the academics are done and it is free play time. So, I always try to point him towards ways by which he can entertain himself. He will do chores happily if I direct him, but will get sidetracked if left to his own devices. I restrict his screentime severely, so that is not an option. So, I give him a bag full of books and ask him to read quietly by himself if he is so bored and cannot find anything to do. That keeps him quiet for a while and then I ask him comprehension questions based on what he has read while I go about my chores. Another option I have is a book full of chess puzzles. I give him a few puzzles at a time and ask him to solve them - some of them requires setting up the board and making a few trial moves to get the answer. You could try lego projects, sudoku, chess, music (instrument practice) etc. which could be stimulating as well as not "academic".

You are doing a great job with your course selection! I have always used Miquon with C Rods and Singapore for my son who is 5 (also used Rosie's videos as PP mentioned). It is a good combination and I have also thrown in a little bit of MEP into our curriculum (for the "puzzle" aspect of math). As for SM, I use all their books - WB, IP, EP, CWP - because at this age there is no reason to hurry and we take our time going into all the topics and building rock solid foundations. I would also recommend Life Of Fred and Zaccaro for the "fun" element of math. Good luck.

I plan to do exactly this! I view Spelling as different from Vocabulary building. So, you could incorporate new ways to introduce vocabulary into your daily curriculum when you finish with your current spelling curriculum.