Yes!!! It's been like this for me for the last two years. I can only focus on nonfiction, and only if it pertains to me. Not sure what caused this shift, but it's difficult to keep up with since our library's nonfiction section leaves a lot to wish for...

Ambleside Online has a lot of free books in English. Try to see if there are German translations for those books at your library. Use different libraries as your resource, not just one. Many of the suggested titles are German in the original language. What I would also try is to find audiobooks, since these are very popular in Germany and probably easy to find.

It will be $1000 for us and they have a 10-year warranty. We'll see how it goes... Our home inspector said to avoid leaving any wood close to the house and get rid of bushes and trees that touch the foundation, siding, roof, etc. This is how they got into the house in the first place.

Just some food for thought: My twin boys are very similar to how you describe your son; sensitive, sweet and definitely advanced. They are in kindergarten now. When it comes to friends, both of them always gravitate towards the older, smarter and more mature kids in their class, because the younger ones are much more impulsive and immature, something that my boys don't like to deal with. Outside of school, what kind of children does your son like to play with? When he starts kindergarten, could it be frustrating for him to be the oldest and most advanced? For afterschooling math you can also look at the videos from Crewton Ramone. We love all the games he suggests and it has given my children the ability to reason and do mental math. We've also liked the free curriculum resources on lessonpathways.

Thanks for the tip Heigh Ho. We have mostly been reading a lot and talking about the books afterwards. I want my kids to understand what they read, and not just recite word for word by memory (even though I know that a good memory is an important skill for kids to develop!). I have stopped asking the teacher to challenge them since she provided their own book baskets and they seem happier. I guess I am still unsure how I would assert myself if I really had a major problem with their education and no option of bringing them home.

This is a regular Ed classroom and definitely no poverty, also barely any immigrants. This school just doesn't do very well overall (I'm not even sure why?) Their school uses a scripted curriculum consisting of mostly sight words and lots of guesswork... When the boys where tested, it was on a reader that listed animals in tide pools and their shapes. They could not recall every single animal from memory after reading the story. Oh well. At this point I could care less about any reading levels. I am happy to see that both twins enjoy reading. They are starting to pick chapter books to read by themselves and are very fluent readers.

I meant the end of Kindergarten. Thank you for everyone's suggestions! I do afterschool them, when time permits it, since this is full day K. Since I've last written, their teacher has given both boys their own book bag for reading, and they are very happy about that!!! She is also helping them more with writing, narrating and predictions. Overall it has gotten a lot better, but I am very hopeful that we'll be able to start homeschooling for first grade. Yay!!!

Sounds like my teenage son :-) We had the same problems (still do, but very minimal). I was also asked on this board if he is depressed, and NO he was not. We took all electronics, we take money from his account that is for his car, we've made him do extra chores for any bad grades...All to no avail!!! The only thing that finally helped was to make him study every day. Khan videos, Spanish vocabulary, Science vocabulary. Set aside a time every day (it can be different for every weekday, but needs to be a regular time) for him to do his homework or study for at least an hour. Do not ask him if he has homework, just tell him it's time to study. My son went from D's and F's in his first semester to A's and B's now. He was just lazy, but all teachers agreed that he is extremely smart (never had him tested for gifted). "Boys Adrift" by Leonard Sax is by far the best book I have ever read!!! ETA: We just got his report card in the mail...all A's this semester!!! Of course his GPA is still very low, but that will hopefully change soon too.

We have used it when my DSS was in 6th. We did it 3x a week for 20min, and he was able to have great conversations with my dad, who is German and doesn't speak a word of English. Great Resource!

CrunchyMand, Ask yourself this question: What is fun? In my opinion you can only have fun, if there is also the opposite. Take a poor child from across the globe for example and imagine his everyday life: walking a few hours every day to get firewood and water, going most days without food, encountering diseases and no hope of this situation ever changing. His life does not look like much fun to us, even though I'm sure he does have fun sometimes. Let's assume this child and his parents where brought to the US. All his previous worries would be gone and he can life a life in amazing luxury if he just did a few hours of schoolwork every day. Fun? You bet!! So why is it that our children do not think that a life of studying hard is fun? Because they have a very different perception of "normal". If you were to make your children's everyday life harder (studying more, helping out in the house more etc.), you would actually lower their bar of what they think of as fun. Complicated to explain, but I hope I got my point across. If you define your own norms, then everything out-of-the-box will be fun for your children. Only if make them work hard sometimes, they will also have fun!

Just listening in...

I sucked my thumb until I was almost 11! It was an addiction, literally. I really wanted to stop but couldn't. The only thing that made me stop were the braces that I got then, because they hurt my thumb every time I tried to suck on it. Years later my nephew was also a thumb sucker. My sister eventually told him at age 3, that Santa Claus will not bring big boy toys, unless he stops. She only reminded him gently every time she saw him do it, and it worked. So I decided to also try this with my twin boys. I gently removed their fingers from their mouths every time they went to bed and during the night (when I went to sleep). Sure enough, they stopped on their own!!! This might have worked better because they were a little younger though (3.5). You might want to read some advice from Charlotte Mason about creating good habits in your children, because that is what finger sucking is at this age, a habit.

I agree with bolt. My stepson used to call me by my first name, but now chooses to say "mommy". When he talks to his Birthmom he calls her "mom". He came up with the slight distinction and we all feel comfortable with it.

If you like the concept of MUS, but don't want your DD to redo math that she's already mastered, take a look at Crewton Ramone's videos. MUS stems from Mortensen Math, which is based on the ideas you'll be seeing in these videos. You can teach your daughter any level of math just by playing with the blocks, including algebra!!

I have twins who are using MUS Alpha. One of them just seems to always get the concepts much faster and finishes his work faster. I feel bad for the second one, because he gets frustrated and stops trying when the mathy twin finds the answers first. That said, I do teach them both at the same pace. I move them to the next topic when they understood the lesson and can do the work, NOT when they have 'mastered' all answers and memorized them. Take a look at education unboxed or Crewton Ramone.They are teaching their kids, who are different ages, at the same time. You can do that with MUS. The mastery approach does not mean you can't combine your kids' math lessons.

You might also want to try reading a book while listening to the audio version. This helped me with pronunciation when I started speaking English.

I second the videos. You tube also has plenty of audio plays (Hörspiel), which can be really interesting for your son too.

Thank you for all the advice! I have been afterschooling my boys with HOP Master Reader, MUS Blocks and German games. We don't do it all, and we don't do it every day, but it still seems to be widening the gap even more. We have also limited their screen time to the weekends. I forgot to mention that the Kindergarten is full day, which just seems to add to our frustration over a massive amount of busywork. Has anyone here previously been able to successfully advocate for their child? Or has anyone experienced very negative feedback from their kids' school for doing so? I'd love to hear how other teachers and schools deal with advanced kids.

My twin boys are currently in public school Kindergarten. Both are very avid readers and will pick up any picture book (not just the leveled readers) and read it to each other. I have been trying to advocate for them in school because I'd like for them to learn something new and not complain about being bored. So far their teacher has assessed them at a DRA 8 (equivalent to the end of K), stating that they are lacking in comprehension skills. My kids understand what they read, but I also know that they are usually unwilling to answer questions about a book. We have not talked to the principal, since the teacher does seem to be trying to accommodate them, but my boys just seem to be so extremely under challenged that I feel the need to step in again. I do not want them to skip a grade, as they are very small for their age already. Any ideas on how to go about this?

Yep, sorry.

We are in the process of buying a house right now. Besides closing costs, it would also be very helpful if you purchased insurance for your buyer (costs you about $500). This way they know that they will not have to pay replacement costs for broken appliances, furnace, AC etc. for another year or two. You could also have a home inspection upfront, so that any potential buyer knows that there will be no nasty surprises before closing.

My twin boys are in Kindergarten and both of them can read. They do not point at the words anymore when reading. Sure enough their last "report card" showed that they lack this skill! Other children who cannot read yet received a higher grade in this area. In my opinion this is a pre-reading skill that your son has probably surpassed, but be prepared for his final grade to be lower than that of his classmates. The teacher's reasoning behind this was that the spoken word needs to match the written word, and obviously my kids do not read every word perfectly (then again, neither do I)!

That's what I did too. I had my kids sound out the sight words and then moved on to having them sound those words out in their heads. Then we played a game where they had to use the flashcards like stepping stones in order to walk from one end of the house to the other. Worked like a charm! We NEVER called them "sight words" though.

We use Math U See, but my kids didn't get that at first with the decimal street. Instead I had them count by tens, then by hundreds. Finally the understanding of place value just happened. The visual of exchanging unit-blocks for tens, every time you count past nine, really helped too.

I used it for preschool and my kids LOVED it! We didn't do everything, but I incorporated phonics, language arts, music (from youTube), art, field trips and just everyday living into the curriculum. Coincidentally, we always found something in the real world that related to what the kids had just learned! I did not like their Kindergarten reading program though, so we used HOP instead (cheap older version from eBay).