Nothing works except Retin-A with a prescription so make an appt with your skin Dr. You can also find a good med spa and start getting chemical peels a few times per year. Can take years off.

Wow this sounds crazy to me. They do realize these are children we are trying to make decisions for don't they? 24 hours? I'm so glad you had other families in the school so you could make an informed choice. DON"T spend one more second pining away for this one or feeling guilty. Sounds like you dodged a big fat bullet! Spend more time at the Y and enjoy your schedule. :)

Thanks Emily, no I would not say I've solved it. I'll have to remind them and continue to push gently on this for awhile I'm sure. The more advice the better. !! I have stubborn kids. They want to do things how they want to do them. Today was just a good day. :)

thank all for your thoughts -- today we spent 15 minutes talking about the open formation, we put a large pom pom inside our "cave", and worked on keeping our cave open. For the younger we focused on keeping the thumb under the index finger and made a game of it. He did great. It went better than I thought, and we will keep working on it. I won't freak on it, but we will keep working on it for now as I can see it is hindering my youngers writing skill altho only a little bit. Thanks!!

The oldest has very nice handwriting, both manu and cursive. The younger shows signs of fatigue because he has a closed off grip. After reading the above link, I guess I should be more worried about the younger now. He will be so thrilled. :)

Thank you for this link -- very informative.

Thanks - I'll look into the triangle thing. Just so super frustrating folks.

I bought these for my son in first grade a few years ago to help him get his third finger off the top of his pencil. He has eye issues as well and it was no shock this was hard for him. http://www.amazon.com/Pencil-Grip-Assorted-Bright-TPG-17550/dp/B00CKGO1VG/ref=sr_1_30?ie=UTF8&qid=1456343384&sr=8-30&keywords=pencil+grip It worked for the first year. Now he is putting his third finger on top again. EVEN OVER THE GRIP. Or he pushes the grip up high to bypass it. He's a leftie. My other son has somehow started rolling his thumb up and over the top of the pencil too and pushing his index finger down which I've never seen before (he is 3rd grade), and he is now fighting me on correction. So now I need to correct him too. :cursing: -- He wasn't doing that before an had perfect grip. He has tried the above grip and of course doesn't like it at all. :smash: Please help! I am so frustrated with this everyday reminding them and sounding like a NAG. I'm seriously ready to buy them the big giant Pre- K pencils again and just START the heck OVER. What a failure! Oh - we tried a large pom pom inside the fist someone mentioned that in a thread somewhere. To gentle up their grip. We've just started that. (I've seen our cousins from PS 3 out of 4 with wrong grips and I don't care -- I want my kids to have the correct ones.) Other grips to try or do??

I have been shopping too, and had a great recommendation from other member here for this company on ebay: this one has it all -- http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Laptop-PC-Core-i5-2-4GHz-4GB-250GB-HD-DVDRW-Windows-7-Notebook-Latitude-14-/141873225950?hash=item21084da0de My good friend builds computers and when I asked him (I'm a Dell lover here) he said go with the i5 processor not the i3 if you get a Dell Latitude. He sent me this link to the place he sends his family members to with his pick for my parameters/he hates buying off eBay because it's a crap shoot, and you don't know if they've really gone over the machines, but I know plenty of folks do it without any issues. http://www.microcenter.com/product/451304/Latitude_E6410_Windows_7_Professional_141_Laptop_Computer_Refurbished_-_Gray I would love to try the Chromebook, but we do a lot with our CD/DVD drive, Maybe I could use the Chromebook just for the kids school apps, websites they enjoy, and such. Hmmmm. I'm going to check those again. :) As for me I stay away from Walmart for technology. Bad luck with them there. Good luck!

Targee -- Of course that goes without saying. Those who know me here know I was not implying that. Every child has their own style and path to learning. But sometimes we coddle them and actually hinder them by allowing them to use things we may have not had as a child (the use of calculators in PS is what I'm referring to here in grammar stage). I'm glad your girl has found success and you were patient and gave her what she needed!

Do you have a learner who takes more than a week to learn a new set of math facts? The work in his workbook was fine and even fun, but it wasn't getting him to mastery. Using a completed multiplication chart I think does NOTHING but make them rely on the chart. Anyone with me on that? What has worked this year for third grade? Playing math games twice a week, fact copywork, reading the lists off the board, and more flash cards. I was curious to see how long it would really take to learn the 7's and 8's (for multiplication AND division) so this is what we did. And we did it to 12. We made large flash cards (5 x 7) and practiced them everyday. I pulled the face cards and 10's out of a pack of cards and we played multiplication war. We wrote them down 3 days a week on paper or the board. The boys tested each other on them 3 x/week. Grids -- 3 times a week. (I made an empty grid 6 x 6 and filled in a few facts up to 8 x 12 (49, 96, 28 answers in the middle, factors on the outside etc.), I left most of the factors blank so he would have to figure out missing factors but gave enough so it could be solved.) Now just 2 weeks later, he has got them. Now I think the most important thing is to keep refreshing them. I have seen many posts in the past asking for ideas- -- so here are a few. Enjoy! This can be altered for any math facts y OH -- I also let him play Khan Acad -- 20 questions for each factor twice a week.

I saw this reply, don't get frustrated. ! There is time for everything that you CHOOSE to do. I was getting run a little ragged earlier in the year as we were out 6-9pm Tues-Thurs and it was just too much for us. Now that we've cut that back we are getting more done, and realize the balance we have now is much better. School and music comes first, then everything else. 3-4 hours for 4th grade is plenty. Sit down a try out a check box schedule, fine tune it as you test it, and then stick to it. I've heard from many that music and math should be done first in the morning, and I'll admit we do better with it when it's done early. Good luck!

Slattery has such a presence. Love him! I think I'm going to start this all over before watching the end. :)

This might help. When you get there select Never check for updates. http://pcsupport.about.com/od/system-security/f/windows-update-settings.htm

Yes under Windows Updates you can check for updates, then select which only the ones you want to DL.

Wow thanks. My hubby hates change, and I don't think his laptop could have taken it. Thanks for saving us a huge headache.

"It's your life - you don't know where it's going but you know it ends badly." "Look, we've got oysters Rockefeller! Beef Wellington! Napoleons! We leave this lunch alone, it'll take over Europe." "Like my mother always said, 'Be careful what you wish for... because then you'll get it, and then other people will get jealous and try to take it from you." Roger Sterling quotes. :)

Will be avail on Feb 5th!!! I started this streaming this show from Season 1 at the beginning of November and unfortunately, was unable to control myself. I was sad to finish Season 7 Part 1 3 weeks ago not knowing when the final episodes would be available on Netflix. I finished all 6 seasons and part 1 of season 7 in January. Quite a few good characters, pretty decent writing, and overall I was pretty surprised about it. Love love love John Slattery. So many good lines. So for any of you who have NOT yet seen the end, or are looking for something new to watch, have at it! It's pretty fun. And I don't watch any regular network prime time shows. ***NO spoilers please :)

What does this look like in Beast Academy? How do they break it down for them? How often do they work on it? I have a younger child coming up and would love to use Beast but I've no idea how solid they are in this area. Anyone? Thanks for the thoughts.

Oh and yes we want to do some of BA 5 so that would work for some of 6th if we want. :)

Given 6th grade is a review year in Singapore, I know many of you skip 6A and 6B and do something else. What do you do instead? I'm curious as to how you are handling that grade year once they finish 5A/5B. I had planned to move away from SM at this grade, but not sure where to move to after 5B. I've peeked a little at AoPS Pre-Algebra, just not sure how hard it is or if that would be a good next step. We would take the summer after 5B and review concepts.

Oh you are right, what a bummer. I don't see it on Amazon stream either. My library carries the DVD set. But pretty sure I used Netflix. . . Don't let that stop you folks, this one's a keeper. :)

The Forsyte Saga -- http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/forsyte/ This was really good, and another Masterpiece show from the past. ****A must watch just for the performance of the character played by Damian Lewis.*** Amazing actor. Great cast of characters Takes place over many years. Fab.

I thought I had bookmarked a thread about this, but I did not. Someone had mentioned a clear plastic covering they had used for this -- I think from Walmart? What can I use that's not permanent, that will stand up to obviously kids playing on, writing on, and of course then eating on the dining room table?? I'm assuming I'll just tape it underneath somehow. There will be maps and other things to view thru it, so it has to be clear.

Thanks for suggestions! I'm heading there to check them out now. Thanks!