Hi there! My friend is preparing to move her family to Israel for a year as her husband is going back home on sabbatical. They are planning to put their children in public school there, but she is especially concerned about maintaining enough English resources for her children, especially her K'er who is just now really getting into reading (e.g., Frog and Toad), and keeping her eldest daughter up to speed as she's a little behind currently. They've spent time there before but it sounds like she didn't do too much recon on English resources as they were always visiting his family and playing while on vacation. She's trying to keep costs low in terms of mailing lots of books, so I offered to ask here to see what the hive knows. Is it possible/relatively easy to find children's books written in English in Israel? She knows her son won't get getting reading instruction as a 5-year-old in school so she wants to make sure he has opportunities at home. Also, is it easy/possible to get access to English children's shows on tv/internet? Her children are 7, 5, and 3 yrs old. They will be in Haifa. Thanks in advance!

I agree with SparklyUnicorn. I just open up the WB and mostly use that without much forethought. For 1B I used the TB a little bit, maybe 1/3 of the time? I also didn't necessarily go in order or use all the pages. I'd evaluate how my DD was doing and move at her pace. Sometimes I'd jump to a geometry section or money section or weights, etc for awhile before heading back to the +/-/x sections. I think it's good to break it up! It's also fun to go back to a bit of a harder section a month later and whiz through it. I'd just move her quickly through 1B to cover any potential gaps and/or just start her in 2A and save 1B if you hit any snags or need extra practice. Yeah, we all purchase things we wish we hadn't in hind sight...

In a followup from my post yesterday, DD is FINALLY far enough along in violin (finishing Suzuki Book 1) that she started messing around with picking out a tune by herself today and it was a beautiful moment. She was playing Bicycle Built for Two (I didn't know she knew it!) in some unusual key. She was so proud of herself and she was thoroughly focused and having fun!!! I really have to get out of the way of this kid and let her compose, create, transpose and honor her own sweet musical style. We've totally focused on our children's accomplishments so far, but I think we could each revisit this topic and write our own parental accomplishments as relate to our kids/homeschooling for the year! Brags on myself - all those times I.... 1. Remembered to be gentle on myself and my daughter both 2. Owned it when I needed to take extra time to care for my physical and mental self. When my body asked for a nap, I listened! 3. Relaxed my expectations and instead worked hard to get giggles and laughter and fun back in music practice/lessons with DD - love of music and maintaining a strong positive relationship are most important! 4. Choose to play a game or read another book aloud or joined in pretend play when I thought I should be cleaning up the kitchen instead 5. Asked for help even though I _could_ have done it all by myself 6. Figured out that if DD turned her nose up at a book after judging it by its cover (or illustrations), all I needed to do was read 1/2 of the first chapter out loud and she was hooked ;) 7. Gracefully navigated the family-work-life balance to my own satisfaction 8. Went birding and counted it as work!!!! :hurray: Anyone else?

I haven't tried all the options and I only afterschool, but DD is working on SM3A/B right now (depending on topic). For SM2 & 3 we largely just used the WB. I haven't pulled out the TB much at all, only when I thought she could benefit from a better visual representation, but I could honestly have done without it. SM is pretty sequential, so the topics usually build on each other. We often work through a page or so together then she takes off and does a few pages on her own. If your child works quickly I wouldn't overdo it on the # of books. I purchased a couple of HIG and almost never looked at them. Beast Academy is for gifted 3rd grade, so I find it to be a bit ahead of SM3A, or maybe it's just a little advanced for my DD6's maturity level. She adores the books and pores over them but puzzling through some of the trickier questions can frustrate her. However, I love having it around to complement the SM in a different way. And the topics are very different!

Celebrations this year for DD6: Loves Beast Academy and Penrose! Has to improvise on every piano song I have her play, usually the first time around! LOVES playing scales in violin and piano. Who is motivated to play scales for fun??! Composed a charming little piano piece; I posted on a FB group, and a stranger from England sent it back with teacher accompaniment. How cool! Swims underwater great. Now working on top ;) Her ballet teacher moved her up to the age 9-11 group. I love that her passion is supported and acknowledged Taught herself cursive She did NOT kill the cat with her affections Read a million and one books? It may be at addiction level. What have I done? :crying:

I would be very very encouraged by the improvement in typing as well. I think you'll continue to see this improve (maybe not linearly as you suggested ;); and the improvement will probably be from internal motivation. I'm wondering if his physical writing might improve as he experiences greater success at combining all the language skills through typing. I'd suspect it might be a year or more behind, but I wouldn't give up on the writing speed. It's good that he's continuing to keep this up as you certainly don't want it to go backwards. I suspect he would do well at the artsy school, and gentle peer pressure would improve his internal motivation. Certainly being around a wide variety of personalities and working with them in various group settings would be informative and helpful down the road if he continues down the career path you described. Plus, if he's already good at that stuff, it would be a nice time during his developmental years to feel good about something. I think you can continue to afterschool math and other topics of interest. You could then ideally be working on the 'fun part' of learning and the school could be working on the 'hard part' of improving his output. That said, it's so hard to make these decisions when you don't know the outcomes ahead of time. I would try the artsy school, knowing that you can always bring him back to homeschooling at any time it sounds like. I also like the idea of him sitting in the classes for a couple of days (probably without Mom) to see what he thinks. I think it would be hard for him to evaluate without seeing it firsthand. *hug*

Thanks for the good feedback. It's helpful to hear about accommodations being made in the classroom. I thought I'd read Smart but Scattered, but I actually don't think I have...time for the 4th trip to the library this week ;) Any other suggestion are welcome!

Hi everyone, I have recently made the very difficult decision to pull my DD6 from her private Montessori school, and she will go into public school 2nd grade next fall (financial reasons). The local public schools are quite good, but I'm still quite anxious about this "experiment" as I'm calling it. She's been asking to homeschool almost daily for months, but I honestly don't think I can do it and work a professional job full time. Perhaps when she's older and supposedly more self-directed. I honestly get almost NO work done at home, with or without her, unless I'm on a conference call. I have my own executive function issues ;) Anyway, I'm having her tested for the gifted program this summer and they will at least cluster her within the classroom with peers working at similar levels. I'm not horribly concerned (yet) about them meeting her needs academically as it sounds like they work hard to get them at the right level in at least language arts and math, and she's not more than 3 years advanced in any subject. In some ways they might do a better job than the Montessori school did, as I felt like they spent most of their effort on her perceived deficiencies instead of balancing that with celebrating/encouraging her strengths. My biggest fears for her relate to two things: 1) her strong noise sensitivity 2) her poor executive function skills that include high distractibility (strongly related to noise) and poor time management skills. I honestly don't know what to do about #1. In some ways I'm hoping a typical public school classroom will provide more structure (everyone working on math at the same time and a request for X min of silence to begin the task). I'd love to work with her over the summer to improve #2 if possible. In general I've noticed a big improvement in her focus doing homework over the past few months, which I think is just a maturity issue. It went from an hour every day of standing over her shoulder to her taking more initiative and plowing through the week's worth in a couple of sittings. I got her a wobble seat around this time that seemed to help. However her teacher said that while she's seen slight improvement at school, still not anything like I've seen at home regarding homework. However her teacher wouldn't allow any 'gimmicks' like the wobble seat or a stretchy band in the classroom; I suspect the public school teachers would take a different view. I'm sure there are books that I've forgotten about, but does anyone else have resources they'd recommend for improving executive function? Any online resources? I don't want her slower output and limited focus holding her back from high learning in this possibly challenging new school scenario, because she really LOVES learning and does best when she's engaged in advanced topics (e.g., she wants to study chemistry this summer). When you find the right hook she has intense focus, but I think her last school wasn't very good at identifying or using those hooks. I know I also have my work cut out for me in teaching her to be her own advocate - she did almost none of this at her Montessori school as far as I could tell; for instance if her requests for new/harder material to work on were shot down she felt it was pointless to ask again later or explain it another way....at least if she's identified for the gifted program she'll ideally have an additional adult advocate that can help keep her engaged at an appropriate level. She did succeed in passive aggressively using cursive in her school journal this year despite her teacher telling her she had to perfect her print first. She started teaching herself cursive at age 4 and I told them her print drastically improved after she started using cursive, which she loved, but her main teacher was very set in her ways and made her mostly use print for written work in the classroom *sigh*. Anyway, I'd love to hear ideas from you all. I know many of you are familiar with these kinds of issues and you might have some wonderful insight. Thanks!

In some ways, 'getting a PhD' is not much different from a young child saying they want to become a 'medical doctor'. Both are somewhat abstract ideas to most 9-year-olds, and many adults. I would say your job is to help him gain a great education through high school and prepare him to do well in college. An MS, PhD, or MD occurs after college, and that's all on him, it is not something you can/should invest your time thinking about too much right now. There are so many paths and timelines to obtaining a Ph.D., and it's both impractical and impossible for you to concern yourself with those details trying to imagine how you'd make that happen. Those are life decisions he'll have to make as an adult, and by then he'll have a network of professors/professionals to help guide him in taking those next steps. In the meantime, it is fantastic to encourage him to want to be an expert in a field, and for some people that means getting a Ph.D. You could have fun trying to see what types of careers you could have with a Ph.D. in field X. I really wouldn't get hung up on this big unfathomable goal that your son innocently posed. It sounds like you're meeting his needs well, reaching out for novel experiences and encouraging him to dream big. I would encourage the dreaming without getting too hung up on the specifics, if that makes sense. Sounds like he's already on a great path to making that happen; the specifics will all work themselves out down the road in about 15+ years :)

I tend to sneak in things at breakfast some times, or little bits here and there on the weekends. Especially if you're doing math snuggled up together, they'd probably really appreciate the extra focused Mom time now that they're not with you as many hours.

Hope she didn't find any!!! :)

Me:"Well, most children don't begin studying multiplication until 3rd grade" DD6: *gasp* "Oh Mommy!!! But why would their teachers be soooo MEAN??!"

I'm wondering if it would help her to use her status as a young person in science as a cool platform to encourage more young children to get out and participate in meaningful science, or encourage educators to actively solicit younger mentees . Maybe that's not the platform she wants, but it might help take the pressure off 'must do awesome science right now and forever more' to 'what can I do right now that is most meaningful', knowing that the specifics to answering that question will change dramatically as she gets older and her experience and perspective (and physical size) inevitably changes/morphs. I'm sure there are lots of good answers to that question, but that was a cool one that might be relevant, and I bet she'd be a good advocate. Could make a statement at a meeting - given a talk about this exact topic: Yes, I'm interesting because I'm young and sometimes impress you with my language and analytical skills, but I'm hoping you'll take a moment and realize that there are probably LOTS of other interested young scientists out there with great potential and I hope you make an effort to reach out, encourage them like I've been encouraged, and make a difference. It meant so much to me when.... lots of examples of other kids too....

I know some folks complain about Rosetta Stone, but as a visual learner myself I really love it. It's not great as a whole program, but it's awesome for adding vocabulary. The images are very compelling. Use bits and pieces of it as you want. You can skip sections and just practice pieces (e.g., main lesson plus vocabulary section). Modify it to your needs.

I did research in Smoky Mountains National Park for many years. It annually receives the most visitors of all the U.S. national parks I believe. I can tell you most folks (80%?) ride their brakes. It stinks to high heaven along the main road. The downshifting options in automatics certainly varies by make/model. My Prius is okay, not great....my prior car, a Mazda Protoge 5 was much better.

I learned on manual. I've found that I like automatics just fine, but I want them to have the optional manual downshifting mode for driving in the mountains. I live in and love mountains, but no option to downshift drives me bananas.

A Congress of Baboons tickles my funny bone

My DD loved those Kumon workbooks at age 2. Writing, math & mazes. She was all over them...

:grouphug: He's so lucky to have you for a Mom and that he's so comfortable chatting with you about all these complicated feelings and strategies. You're doing a great job!!

Love it! It's good to be well-rounded, and entomologists are always finding cool new stuff. It's easier to find a new species, or find a new invasive species, when you're an entomologist. Plus, it opens you up to having a wider breadth of knowledge about the food web that your favorite critters are influenced by. I got my PhD at NCState, so let me know if you want me to put out feelers for other avenues of interest there. The entomologists are highly engaged there. By the way, this guy on FB is always finding awesome herps (mostly in Honduras at an EcoLodge where he works)...it might be inspiring for your DD to follow his page: https://www.facebook.com/Jamesadams360?fref=tsHe found an ocelot cub the other day!!

Thanks for this thread. I finally ordered Level 1 Vocabulary and Poetry, and my DD6 is loving them so far! I haven't decided about Grammar yet - we'll see how it goes with the first 2.

Yep, sounds like a good plan. I believe there are a few of us on here with experience teaching undergraduate biology classes, so asking one of us for an honest assessment on her work level would be easy to do. If your DD made any friends with the other students in her class who make A's/B's, you could also ask them for a copy of their work to compare. Seriously, undergraduates are often TERRIBLE writers, so the bar may not be very high. It is astonishing! Kudos to all the teachers/TAs/parents out there who spend tons of extra effort revising students' papers. All that one-on-one practice of tightening up your child's writing is priceless. You can be an amazing biologist, but in the end you need to be able to express yourself well or you won't be taken seriously.

i would go with your mentor's suggestion. I know your DD has sat in on classes before, but has she done all the work as well (long essays, lengthy weekly lab reports, etc)? I would set her up for success, so Ecology would be my first pick. The next semester I'd tackle Cellular/Molecular, and then the world's her oyster. Generally there are 2 semesters of intro biology all bio students have to do (one is cellular, one is more ecology/evolution). So if that's what her 'ecology' course is, she's getting her prereqs out of the way regardless. I'd go ahead and talk to the herp lady as well and at least get your DD on her radar. She might have some opportunity to sit in on labs/excursions at least.

Could you provide a link or copy the course descriptions so we can better evaluate? I don't think you can go wrong, but I would lean towards the cellular/molecular biology as in my experience upper-level biology classes always want to see those on the list. Can you ask her mentors or someone else for advice on which class? It could well come down to which teacher instead of which class. Ecology will likely be the easiest, but I'm strongly biased. I think ecology = common sense. Environmental science could go either way; the one I took my freshman year in college was for upperclasswomen and was tough for me because I didn't have the chemistry background and the team teachers both had high expectations. If it's for non-majors it could be the right level though. Cellular will have lots of memorizing and could be tough from a high volume standpoint. In general I think the intro cellular/molecular courses are the hardest, but again it could be my bias. I think early exposure to that info would be the most helpful on Biology exams.

Is there another 2nd grade teacher who might be a better fit for him? A lot of it sounds like teacher-specific issues. How is he fitting in socially in the classroom with the other students? Hugs!