I also recommend speaking as often as you can, get and read as many children's books in Spanish. Watch their favorite shows or movies in Spanish; Netflix has many shows which you can switch the audio to Spanish. Get your friends and family to speak to them in Spanish. I have felt the same frustration as you describe directed at myself for never just doing it. I finally made my move a few weeks ago, and my 4 and 6 year old children have picked up some Spanish already. The first week or two it really felt to me like they would never pick up Spanish, but even just a few weeks out from that it's a big difference. Good luck! You can do it.

Flash Point (cooperative game) Carcassonne Ticket to Ride Pandemic (co-op) Love Letter Settlers of Catan (I prefer the Junior version, but the adult one is fine, too) I recommend you watch some Tabletop videos on YouTube. Wil Wheaton plays tabletop games with his friends, and he explains the rules very clearly. There are a lot of games. I think it could really open up the gaming world to you, too! Happy gaming. I also really like game reviews by Shut Up and Sit Down. Look them up! They're British, and very entertaining. Tabletop Channel: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7atuZxmT956cWFGxqSyRdn6GWhBxiAwE SUSD: http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/

I have been looking for material to teach reading to a first grader or younger, and I wasn't satisfied with what I was finding. I am a native Spanish speaker, and I prefer a full immersion approach. Anyway, I discovered some good stuff. Spain's Amazon site offers many workbooks and textbooks for all grades in many subjects, all in Spanish, and the international shipping costs to the USA aren't horrible: http://www.amazon.es/libros-texto/b/ref=nav_shopall_tb?ie=UTF8&node=902673031 My favorite find so far, though, is this Spanish (from Spain) blog that has made available hundreds of full workbooks in various subjects for download. This one is free, and I'm in love with it: https://fichasparaimprimir.wordpress.com/ "Fichas para imprimir" is very easy to navigate. I haven't seen any teaching guides, and, perhaps because I'm looking at primary grades content, I haven't found it was really detrimental. The workbooks available are largely self explanatory, although it is admittedly better suited for use by a parent who knows the language well. I hope this helps!

I've only used levels A and 2nd Edition B, and love it. I think it's absolutely worth the money. I hope it works for you and your child as well! I see you posted you'd be getting it.

As others have said, there's a wide range of normal. My oldest child knew the whole alphabet and was writing some letters before she turned 2, and sometime around age 2.5 she knew the sounds. Reading to her, almost daily Super WHY! and Sesame Street episodes, ... tbh, I don't really know how that happened. My next child is currently 3, and every time I've tried to teach her something it just seems to go over her head as she confidently parrots everything I did not just say. For example, I'll say, "this is the letter A," and she'll say with a giant confident grin, "no, it's not, mom, that's a D. Hahahha!" I don't think she'll be doing 1st grade work when she's 5. But then again, I have already experienced this phenomenon with this child concerning numbers 1-10, and she now knows them. So, she went from appearing to understand and grasp nothing, to knowing them. It's as if she was hearing what I was saying all along, and only months or a year later it all finally clicked. She's different from my first child.

I'm schooling a grammar school kid, and she, like me, is a night owl. Her sleep schedule is roughly 10pm to 9am. I start making breakfast around then, and we finish eating and cleaning the kitchen by 10 or 10:30. Then I take my early bird baby son for his first nap at 11, more or less. After that baby is asleep is when I start school. I do math first, because it's manipulative intensive and I don't want to risk the baby waking up in the middle of that lesson, then the other subjects follow. School takes about 3 hours altogether. Then we have lunch. I love our schedule, though I would be much happier if all my children were into sleeping in. That baby is up by 6am most days, and I think it's true, what they say, that morning people are the worst. lol

It's Kindergarten for my oldest child, and the school year begins in June. She turns 4 this May. Reading (daily, 10-30 minutes) Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading as well as Bob Books to complement the lessons. Writing (daily, 30 minutes) I plan to work through the Letters and Numbers for Me (K) and My Printing Book (1st Grade) workbooks from the Handwriting Without Tears program. This child is particularly strong in handwriting, which is why I anticipate going through both levels in just one year. Of course and as always, que sera sera. Math (daily, 30 minutes) RightStart Level A, 2nd Edition Edited to add frequency and times.

My girls' bed time is the same as mine: midnight. They/we fall asleep within an hour or two either before or after 12, but the kids are typically sent to bed at 12 if they're not there already. The husband is usually awake another couple/few hours. Both girls consistently sleep between 11 and 12 hours straight no matter what time they fall asleep; the little one also naps for 1-3 hours every afternoon. My older daughter only takes a nap about twice a week, give or take a day. I don't plan to adjust our sleep for daylight savings time mostly because I think DST is a silly practice, so we've been going to bed closer to 1am these days. Oh, well. Luckily, I'm a stay at home mom. Neither my husband nor I have ever been morning people, and he works the swing shift at his work. Everything seems to be working out for us. :D

I don't know if it's normal, but it sure seems to be so based on other comments. We're going through the same thing. I took a break from Ordinary Parent's Guide last October 31st. We got through the first 26 lessons like a breeze. As soon as the reading started, though, it was arrested development. I went over the first 5 lessons in Section 3 (short-vowel words), repeated over and over, over the course of 2 whole months, and my daughter wasn't making any progress. So I stopped, and I haven't picked it up. I often quiz her on letter sounds in the hopes that she doesn't forget those, but reading on her own hasn't happened yet. For now, I read to her from any book she likes and throw in BOB books from Set 1, too. She can read some of the words in the BOB books, but not all. I plan to resume Ordinary Parent's Guide in May (after her birthday/when her new school year starts). Good luck! You're doing good work. :hurray:

My daughters both really like Wicked, Seussical the Musical, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and Monty Python's Spamalot; they request songs from these by name. They also seem to enjoy every other musical that I listen to and express liking: The Book of Mormon, Evita, Rent, Funny Girl, Oklahoma, My Fair Lady, Les Miserables, Sweeny Todd, The Phantom of the Opera, ... some more than others, of course. I love musicals and opera. The girls like the musicals decidedly more than opera. Disney movies have excellent soundtracks, and are easily musicals almost all of them. Your daughters are older than mine, but I wouldn't be surprised if they liked those, too.

My Kindergaten curriculum is simple. I cover only three subjects: reading, writing, and math. Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading The Complete Writer: Writing With Ease RightStart Mathematics Level A We do school every day and cover all subjects every day. It probably takes about 45 to 60 minutes from start to finish. And outside of that, I'm reading her anything that interests her. Everything else is extra. :)

El Cid Don Quixote

All the bills are paid online, and savings stays in the bank. The rest is cash, and we have four categories: -Household (this includes groceries and everything else for the house) -Entertainment (this includes eating out/ordering in/movies/other) -Petrol (gas money, when it runs out then we walk or stay in) -Emergency cash (for whatever, usually gets saved up and used for new clothes, milk or eggs if we run out well before next payday, et cetera)

Guys, I'm 25 and I still can't watch the news without turning into a wreck. I'm better now at masking it for the sake of others, so that they don't have to keep asking me what's wrong or if I'm ok. I have memories of myself as a child crying whenever I heard something sad, or all the anxiety I feel when someone tells me the story of how they broke their arm ten years ago. :lol: It never ends! I'll echo everyone else in saying that intellectual stimulation/not being bored helps a lot. Good luck!

I just bought my math (RightStart Level A kit) curriculum from eBay. I thought I got a good deal there. ;)

Oh, wow. That sounds like a terrible situation to live in. They forced you to stop homeschooling? :glare: Don't tell them for as long as possible! And congrats. :001_smile:

This happens in Utah, too.

I have to agree with this again. Diet is everything. The way I've come to think of it is that it's either going to cost more up front in the form of healthier food, or it's going to be a lot more expensive later in the form of illness, medications, doctors, et cetera. It's no small thing. My family is on a tight budget, too. I don't know how we'd compare to OP, but we are a family of 4 living off one income (31K/yr). We rent a cheap apartment, share 1 old car, and almost never have money for gas, but the quality of our food is not something we skimp on. We can afford less healthy food than the obscene amounts we used to buy of box/canned/sweets/artificial/corn-based food. We think it's very important and that it affects us in every way to eat healthily as a family. I know health nuts come off as abrasive sometimes, but I have to say I believe they're on to something. I hope you find what you're looking for. :)

Same! :lol:

When I was in high school and college with my first car I ran out a few times, and the reason was that I was poor and I prioritized food and books over buying gas. :D But it hasn't happened since.

I never even thought about shaving until I was around 14 and I was on various sports teams at school with a bunch of other girls who already did. My sister was interested when she was 10. I think it really varies from person to person. personally, I'd let my daughters decide when something like shaving is important enough to them to do something about it. There's plenty of time to be self conscious about a million little things. There is no need to hurry it up any. IMHO.

For this sort of problem I always want to know what kind of diet they eat. I've read from multiple sources that a diet high in cholesterol and saturated fats very negatively affects memory, as well as other things. :001_smile:

Usually at night. Sometimes i shower in the morning or the middle of the day, though. I prefer to shower last thing before bed, but it doesn't always work out, so I get it when I can get it. :D

I've been to the DMV alone with a baby, and I would have appreciated someone holding my baby while I filled out forms. ;) I promised myself that I would offer help if I saw someone else in that situation. I voted yes to the pole, though. It would be weird to just ask a stranger to hold their baby. And except for exceptional circumstances, like I described, or you described, I would think it was weird.

I have one IRL friend who home schools same as me, and her kids are a year ahead of mine so I love all her advice! I am acquainted with two other homeschool moms from a local mommies group that I'm a part of.