I do believe so. He understands the concept of multiplication, and we started, and spent a long time on area on graph paper, where you could see the square units. We talked about what area is (for example the square footage of a room - how much flooring one would need to buy) vs length or volume. We've talked about how (on the graph paper) you can see that the 5x3 rectangle has five groups of 3 sq units. And he can still get there on his own. It's just never intuitive. For example in the last set of problems it asked him to find the perimeter and area of a 5x7 rectangle. And he gave me perimeter written (5x2)+(7x2) and then "area" as 5+5+7+7. When I asked him how we find the area, he said, "length times width, Oh I did perimeter again." And then he did it correctly. Later gave him two review problems for area and perimeter, the first one was a regular rectangle, which he did correctly. The second one was a 7x2 rectangle attached to a 3x3 square. He got the perimeter (YAY! That was a huge issue for a while) but didn't know how to get started finding the area and needed help. And yes, we spent a ton of time on that when we originally did it. But breaking shapes apart into other shapes - even a rectangle or square into two triangles or this figure I drew that was clearly a square and rectangle sharing a 3 unit edge into its component parts is super, super hard for him. If you do something like draw a 10x2 rectangle and ask him to divide it into 2 rectangles he really struggles.

Just to give a quick update - he's finished the MM 3B book and we're almost done with 4A. He does very well with arithmetic and seems to be catching on to most of the conceptual ways MM teaches. Order of operations was no problem and neither is multi-digit multiplication. I'm having him do all the review at the end of 4A because he's had less-than-ideal amounts of practice and I want him to have that review time. But in the week or so he's working though it, I've been teaching the first new lessons of 4B - namely long division and averages. No problems and with practice he will be fine. Geometry still a sticking point. My mom (who was an elem. teacher for decades) expressed a thought. What if the spatial reasoning part of the brain mostly closes at a certain point - much like language/learning foreign language. And a child who has had no exposure to basic spatial concepts may have a much harder time grasping them when introduced at a later age. It would certainly explain a lot about how a child who can grasp long division on the first go is still struggling with area of rectangles months after its introduction (though it's getting better - slowly.) But he's doing great - gets his work done. It's slowly getting neat enough to read (I don't know if I mentioned that earlier.) Cross your fingers for 4B - there's a decent amount of geometry in it!

Mine was done at the fire station, and lots of fire fighters were working the clinic, but it was all overseen by their head of pandemic response (and that was his position before Covid even) who is an RN, and vaccines were administered by a medical person - I'm not sure if it was a nurse or paramedic.

The parents in my circle who have given their children placement or standardized tests this year, only to find them 3+ grade levels behind certainly learned a lot about their kids' education that they hadn't known before. They were shocked at just how far behind their children were. And it was not a case of silly mistakes or testing anxiety. Those kids are truly that far behind. Now all but one of those parents has been kicked in the pants and are seeking solutions. If the state had required a test of any kind starting in 3rd grade or so - even if it never had to be reported to anyone, these parents would not be discovering their shortfalls for the first time in junior high. Because they just do care, but have executive function or other issues and let schooling get away from them until they were smacked in the face - by test scores.

This has been an issue of late. That the education the Amish provide their children was enough, for hundreds of years, that if they left the community they could still find a decent place in the world. But with technology being woven into the fabric of everyday life, as well as the minimum education required to get most jobs that will support you, some Amish youth are finding they can't leave even if they want to. Or if they do, it is a terrible uphill battle.

Yes, but NONE of the families I know are using an online program. None are from fundamentalist families, maybe two families would count sheltering their children from values they don't like as benefits to homeschooling. The most children any of them have is 4. And I absolutely know families who are not educating their children or are undereducating their children, and I have talked about it on here, because I think SOME small form of oversight would not be a bad thing. But they are a minority. Most parents I know are educating their children as well as or better than their public school peers. This just goes to show why we can not self-select our samples. You are obviously witnessing a totally different world of homeschooling than I am. And I completely believe you, but I do not believe it's a representative sample. Just like mine also is not because the demographics around me are different than the overall homeschooling makeup. But I 100% agree with you that the villainization of public school or the notion that the "worst homeschool is better than the best public school" is toxic and harmful.

Honestly the science has said outdoor activities were pretty darn safe, almost from the beginning.

Oh man, I was going to suggest Soft Surroundings. I can't really afford much from them, but the top I got there 10 years ago is still going strong despite being worn and washed weekly for 6 months a year and looks brand new. The quality is really good and they stay soft.

I would love to still see intermittent masking. Personally, when we have travel coming up I am always so paranoid one of my children will get sick and it will spoil the vacation. It would be great to have them mask in crowded situations for a week ahead of time. Also we live in the land of "it's just allergies," which is almost certainly only true half the time. It'd be nice if those folks (including my DD) masked when out.

When they built the new house they also specifically put the girls room where you had to walk through the parents' room to get to it. There was a reason for that. 😪

I'm in my 30s and so are the vast majority of my friends. It's not bias to report what has happened. It sounds like you and your husband are outliers. I work the front desk at my daughter's gym and speak to 100s of people a week. The vax was a hot topic for a while. And not one has reported more than 2 days of big side effects (sore arm and mild fatigue sometimes last a few days more.)

To the 55 and under question... It seems to be 50/50 among those I know whether they were completely asymptomatic or extremely sick. I felt like I was on the verge of pneumonia for 6 full weeks. (I am 36) one other friend my age spent a week trying to decide whether to go to the hospital because she thought she was dying but doesn't have insurance, while our third friend's family got it and no one had anything worse than a cold. My 28 year old sister went out the day the bars opened🙄, got it there, and felt like she had an awful flu for almost a month. After a competition (that we KNEW was going to be a superspreader event), most of one of the levels of our team got it (athletes and parents along with several coaches). Half had no symptoms or cold-like symptoms and half were out for weeks. One coach's (10 year old) son got very ill for a long time. One of our coaches has had it twice and been pretty sick both times. We have a teenage staff member who got it and still can not smell or taste 8 months later. With the vaccine (and a lot of people I know have gotten it) the most common issue was to be knocked out flat for a day, maybe two and then be fine. I don't know anyone who felt really bad for longer than that, or who had no issues. If you're talking in terms of which is worse to suffer through, I'd take the schedulable 2 days over the 50% chance of being laid up for weeks, for sure.

One of the number one reasons I would like my children to be vaccinated soon is the possibility of a Spanish Flu like situation where a new variant comes around and this time wipes out young, healthy people. If we thought Covid was just going to stay the way it is now, I wouldn't be in any rush for the 7 year old particularly. Either way of course I want the vax to be tested and safe - and am a little glad DD won't turn 12 until mid-July so I can see kids vaccinated for a couple months before it's her turn.

My daughter was ready for and completed Singapore Earlybird at 4. My son was not ready and did it at 6 (he has a Sept birthday so that was technically his K year.) I've always considered my daughter mathy, but my son getting the concepts in US 1 even easier than she did. There is no harm in slowing down and waiting. I have typically just carried on in Singapore unless the kid clearly did not understand the concept. The lessons build in a way - in that if you do adding decimals - now the next geometry unit will have measurements with decimals so you keep practicing the skills. I would not stop because the child can't recognize 8 on sight. I consider that a skill that just develops over time and practice.

I live in Texas and the number of people I encounter who will shamelessly lie about this is much higher than the number who will get vaccinated. And I know this because they straight up say it around me. Of course these are the same people who will say masks don't work, because they got Covid - even though they only wore masks (either gaiters or not covering their noses) in the situations where they absolutely HAD but nowhere else, including large parties. Maybe some people live where they can trust others to do the right thing, but I do not.

And if it was the last person who represented the CDC - she said she had no idea what percentage of her employees have had the vaccine, as they don't report it to their employer....

There's an good comment on that video, "60% is still almost twice the rate as general American population. If this video is supposed to suggest that employees of the CDC are more skeptical of the vaccines that general population, it fails." And as mentioned above - he doesn't even work the CDC.

Yes, the schools where I am have been huge hotspots and no one denies it. It's just that no one cares. 😕 I have heard "Why vax if you still have to wear a mask?" One Zillion times and every last time it was said by someone who will neither vax nor mask. I know quite a few people who have had confirmed covid twice - and moderate to bad cases at that. It doesn't seem like a rarity.

Yes, she's commonly called Cinder-Jana online, but some have speculated over the years that maybe she is the smartest sister, avoiding going straight from one life of drudgery to another. She has said on record that suitors had come calling and she had turned them down. She's courting now - many expect an announcement soon. (I can't remember if it's been announced officially or not, but it's pretty obvious at this point and unlike every other rumor, the Duggar camp has not denied it.) As soon as Michelle had a new baby, the former youngest was passed to one of the 4 oldest sisters. They were each the heads of their own little families within the family, taking care of all their assigned siblings from teeth brushing and bathing to putting to bed and educating. It was discussed extensively in the show, and when you watch you can see that the little kids clearly reach for their sister/mom when they're upset or need something, not Michelle. This was another issue, that when it came up here, some would act like it was totally normal, especially in large families. It is normal for big siblings to HELP OUT. It is not normal for big siblings to completely take the place of your parent.

I'm not going to comment on the rest, but a female young adult who was free to attend college, work, and move to Korea is not in any way a part of the "stay at home daughters" movement. The very definition of it is that a woman has to live at home, under the headship and authority of her father, until she marries her husband and moves in his home under his authority. She should spend her time at home furthering her knowledge of how to run a home and helping her father in his pursuits. Higher education and working are extremely discouraged and living abroad would be absolutely forbidden. Many of the girls who were the poster children and mouthpieces of this movement were not even allowed to leave their house without a "buddy." The idea being they'd be less likely to give into the many temptations they might encounter if their chaperone was with them. It sounds like you're defending these horrible practices because you are seeing them through the lens of what your family did when they are not the same.

It's so sad. We have an Indian family at DD's gymnastics and they have lost 6 family members to covid in the last couple months. They are the nicest family.

We did a several together and then there were...4? on his homework, three days later. I think he got one right. But when asked to try again, he only got one of the three incorrect ones right. So then we did a bunch more today, three days after that. And he can explain what he needs to do... In things where the practice is crucial, like place value, I assigned a lot of problems, but for most days, I am picking and choosing select problems, with the idea that if he gets them right, we don't have to spend a lot of time drilling them over and over. And for the most part he gets them right, or when I check and it's wrong and I let him try again, he gets it right. But something about counting every one. It reminds me of when my kids were first graders and they had to sort pictures or manipulatives into groups of 10 and then leftover 1s and sometimes they would have to count SOOOO many times because they would think they counted one that they didn't, or count one twice, etc.

No, adding takes at least three times as long, and you would still have to count all the lengths of all the sides anyways. And since he can't manage to get every side without forgetting one I have absolutely no confidence that he would pull the 6+ numbers from around the shape and not miss one. I did offer it as an option though. Truly it should not be long or tedious, I mean how long does it take you to count to 10 or 15 or 20? That's what's so frustrating, is it's such an easy thing to do - my first grader is doing it without much hand holding needed from me. And obviously counting isn't an issue for him, but paying close attention is and it shows up all through his work. I do not believe he's really had any kind of school work that was checked for correctness, or was held to any kind of standard, so when he has occasionally had some kind of class or workbook, he's just used to doing whatever and then moving on, good enough. I can imagine it's a difficult transition at 12 years old to suddenly have to pay close attention when you haven't really had to thus far. But the placement test, and really any test in general is get 16 out of 20 right to place where you need to. Not get 10 right and I would have gotten the other 10 right if I'd been paying attention.

This is more just counting. These perimeters are mostly under 20 units and he is just going around counting the units on the graph paper. But when there are many small sides in a row he is always accidentally skipping some. The problems where he has to add many numbers he usually does fine on. As long as you give him the numbers.

I think I am going to bring a tape measure Monday and make him calculate the perimeter of and the draw to scale the small room we work in.