How and why to teach them with phonics: Overview: http://thephonicspage.org/On Reading/sightwords.html Document: http://thephonicspage.org/On Reading/Resources/Sight Words by Sound1.pdf With my dyslexic students that have learned a lot of them as wholes, it only exacerbates their problems and makes them more likely to guess, I have to do a lot more nonsense words with them, taking up valuable instructional time that could be used more productively.

We have friends who had a 3rd child while she was nursing and on birth control...1 month before the husband's scheduled vasectomy. They said only half jokingly that God clearly intended for them to have a 3rd child.

Cupcakes, crock pots, taking off shoes in other people's houses. Bring them all back!! I'm sure there are more that I've forgotten.

While you're learning, can you do lap swim with a kick board? Kicking is usually easier than the arm motions.

I went to the Air Force Academy, everyone had to pass a survival swimming class to graduate, there were always dozens of students every year who had to take it 2 or more times, most of them had no excess body fat--it's hard to learn to swim if your natural float point is under the water. With good instruction (the repeats got the best instructors), they learned to swim. So, yes, it's possible, make sure you get a good instructor, good instruction makes a difference. I would also ask about things you can practice at home to get more coordinated with the strokes you are learning.

I find the anti-federalists much more interesting than the federalists, they should be read and covered more often.

See, I knew there would be more children in the world if more people read WTM!!

I found a nice graph that shows spending vs. test scores on one graph, although the data is a bit old, still interesting. https://www.winginstitute.org/does-state-education-funding

They are just looking at the correlation, and it is small overall, but anything that makes it more difficult to have another child could nudge someone in the direction of deciding not to, I could see how it could contribute. On the other hand, my mom has said only half jokingly that she would have had a 3rd child if they would have had sippy cups when my brother and I were little. There are some modern inventions that make raising a young child easier. (But less extended family, less family farms, other modern influences make it harder.)

I personally thought meh meant whatever, but I am old and not hip, that's the way it comes across to me from my teens' tweets... So, to me meh means whatever, or not much, or I don't care for something that much, but not snarky or rude, just describing a ho hum reaction.

"No puke in car," LOL The Limo ad: 2011 Lincoln Town Car Limousine. Fully loaded!! I am the second owner; the first owner was the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas NV. Meticulously maintained and cared for. Low, easy miles. Executive used, no drunks puking in it. Comes with new high end custom made California Car Cover. Expensive CNG fuel conversion; easy to fuel up and it is cheap; currently 2.15 per gallon. I fuel up at the sanitation company. Tires are 50-70%, runs excellent. I’ve only used it a few times for various family and high school events. Lots of money making potential!! Runs excellent!!

I looked on my local Craigslist and there is a sharp looking 2011 Lincoln limo for $7,900. The family with the limo had a very faded paint job and was not sharp looking at all, but it was a reliable car for them.

Here is the funding of schools from the latest census report, if you compare to NCES education results you will see that it is not really that correlated, some of the districts with the most $ spent have the worst results and vice versa. https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2017/econ/g15-aspef.pdf

Here is an article, there is a chart on twitter that shows the growth by year over the last 20 or so years that is mesmerizing. https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-administrative-bloat-in-us-public-schools/ twitter link: https://twitter.com/DeAngelisCorey/status/1236750301341929472?s=20

There is actually very little correlation between $ and outcomes, some of the states who spend the least have the best outcomes. There is also a lot of administrative cost growth in the last 50 years, but especially the last 20, I will look for the numbers.

Yes, the European driving and parking situation does make it harder to have a larger car. We lived in Germany for 4 years. I had a VW Passat, my husband had a Miata, it was much smaller, both length and width. After 1 day of driving, I told him we needed to switch cars. The Passat was tough to drive on narrow streets and almost impossible for me to parallel park--my husband is good at parallel parking, I'm not, although I got better at it in Europe. There should be more passenger cars with a 3rd row, perhaps back facing that folds up and down.

They did get a lot of attention in the parking lot... Large homeschooling family, unusual and interesting car. It was actually cheaper than a van, too!! They just used 1 1/2 parking spots, pulling through, it was actually easier to park than a van.

We know a large homeschooling family that got a 20 year old limo instead of a van!!

Interesting study. https://reason.com/2020/10/01/do-car-seat-mandates-reduce-the-number-of-children-families-have/ It got me thinking of the dozens of threads here about what car seats to buy to get 3 kids across. Obviously, if everyone read more WTM threads, there would be more children!!

You can fix it (if you're interested in fixing it) with Kilpatrick's Equipped for reading success. https://www.thereadingleague.org/shop/equipped-for-reading-success-2016-book-by-david-kilpatrick/

My students who guess will read job as jobs or vice versa, same for ed, ing endings, they will skip or have an ending where none is there. Nonsense words and learn all the phonics they are missing. They have to be retrained not to guess, and to carefully sound out the whole word.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lxx7hs0qdKQ&t=16s She has an interesting chart about how poorly leveled readers worked for her daughter learning new words at 8:23!

It took 2 to 3 months for me at 50,000 a week to get to above 40. I had to play around with dosing, I need 30,000 a week to maintain, the rest of my family maintains at 2,000 a day. You just need to retest every few months for a while and see, it is very individual. Mine slipped to just below 30 when I tried a lower dose to maintain and I felt a bit more tired, but not as tired as I felt at 7! I have to take weekly because of my food allergies, I feel slightly wonky the day after my 30,000 dose but not as bad as when I was building up, also the 50,000 dose felt less wonky once my levels had built up a bit.

I felt wonky when I took 50,000 a week to bring my levels up from 7. My functional medicine doctor recommends 10,000 a day for someone dose loading, he says daily is better than weekly for a loading dose. You currently cannot make D from the sun in most of the US, and in CA, TX, FL, you need to be almost exactly at solar noon in just shorts with no sunscreen. You need a sun angle of 50 degrees or more to make D. https://www.suncalc.org/#/25.7748,-80.1977,3/2020.09.28/20:38/1/3 How to safely make D from the sun: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vitamin-d-from-sun#skin-color

There was a ninja tag thing that was popular when my kids were that age. You had to be quiet for it. You were sneaking so could not talk or be noisy, but it was a bit physical. Mini tramp? Jump rope breaks? It's hard to get enough exercise in when it's so hot out. You can have them wear ice scarfs outside, maybe? You wrap a row of ice cubes in a scarf, fold a rectangle scarf into a triangle, put ice row on long edge, roll up ice, tie around neck. Also, wear soaked swim suits and soaked cotton tops outside. This could make outside last a bit longer.