[Ideas for a reluctant writer (seventh grade)]

1 hour ago, Amoret said:

This book, 12 Assignments Every Middle School Student Should Write, has a lot of good ideas. It is short, but offers guidance for both the teacher and the student, and covers a variety of different genres.

Thanks, I will take a look at it!

[Ideas for a reluctant writer (seventh grade)]

6 hours ago, kiwik said:

Ds11 is using Lantern Writing.  I am finding it much easier to insist on work being done that is set by someone else.  

Thanks for the recommendation!

[Ideas for a reluctant writer (seventh grade)]

30 minutes ago, Enigma6 said:

I have been using Writing Skills by Diana Hanbury King with my 3 middle schoolers. I only use the teacher's manual and we do things on the white board. I, too , have a high functioning guy, so I know what you mean about digging in and all that. This method works for him. It starts by having the child just make lists like things that go on a sandwich, colors in the rainbow, car types...pick anything and have the child try for 5-10 things. Once that is comfortable (a couple weeks), move on to taking 3 ideas and turning them into sentences. Sandwich fillings- cheese, ham, pickles. Then add a simple topic and concluding sentence: 

"Many fillings can go into a sandwich. First, cheese of many kinds makes a delicious bite. Second, ham adds protein. Last, pickles add that satisfying crunch. Sandwich fillings are limitless."

You don't need to add FNTL words, but mine find them useful. Write MANY of these then start to ask for just one more idea for each point. What kind of cheese? Why ham? What kind of pickles? Eventually, each basic sentence will become its own paragraph.

Writing Skills also has 4 workbooks that walk through this process. Each contains quite a bit of grammar but you could skip those bits. There are no answer keys because the answers are pretty much obvious or 'answers will vary' types. By the time Book 3 wraps up, the child is writing a solid essay, albeit a formulaic one. Not all kids are going to love to write, but at least knowing a formula to write to pass those upper classes will help them not panic over the assignments.

Adding: Below is what I write on the board. I don't have them use complete sentences

Topic: Sandwich

T.S.: Many fillings go into

D.S. 1: First, cheese delicous

D.S. 2: Second, ham protein

D.S. 3: Last, pickles crunch

C.S.: fillings limitless

HTH.

https://eps.schoolspecialty.com/products/literacy/grammar-writing/writing-skills-2nd-edition/about-the-program

Thank you! I will check this writing program out. It helps to know it works for you kiddo with high functioning autism. 

[Ideas for a reluctant writer (seventh grade)]

47 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

As one last possibly cheering anecdote: my sister graduated from high school a year ago, and I'd spent years reading over her papers. Her writing was... not great. Her arguments weren't clear, her wording was intentionally opaque, and the structure of her writing was totally random. 

We wound up only fixing her writing towards the end of her senior year! And the way we did it was by telling her to ignore everything she learned in high school. I told her to write as if she were actually talking or texting her ideas to me, to get everything down on the page, then to clean it up during the editing phase. 

So... my most successful experience teaching someone to write involves teaching a high school senior to forget everything she learned 😉. Sometimes, something just has to click. Writing is, at the end of the day, simply a method of communication. So whenever you're learning to communicate, you're really learning to write, even if you can't use those skills in writing just yet. 

This is actually really good to hear. Like I said, so many things have come late to him, that I've really not been pushing writing. But the last thing I want to do is hinder his chances in life due to inaction on my part. I do think I have a few years still to work on his writing. But I don't want to put it off too long.

[Ideas for a reluctant writer (seventh grade)]

18 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I will say that you only need a limit to what you can write as a CS major 😉 . 

Have you brainstormed with him about what he'd like to write about? In what way is he behind a 4th grader in his writing? 

My 3rd grader is currently doing all of her writing in the context of math: she's writing math proofs. This is letting us work on organizing her thoughts, writing in paragraphs, introducing topics, thinking about what the reader knows, and all sorts of fun stuff. Is this the sort of thing that your son might be willing to write about? Or maybe he could write something about the history or science he's learning about? 

Your third grader is writing in a more coherent fashion than my seventh grader does. I do like your idea of finding what he is interested in and writing about that. I have tried that, but I think I give up to easily, because it's such a struggle. I've had him pick a historical figure to write about. I've had him do a report on cats, which are his favorite thing on the planet. Sometimes he can write about anything he wants. The thing is, I'm just not seeing much improvement. And I don't know how to help him.

[Ideas for a reluctant writer (seventh grade)]

My son was an early reader and has always done well with math. He loves reading about and watching videos on science and history. Overall he is a bright kid who is interested in learning. The one area he has always been "behind" in is writing. I put behind in quotes because normally I'm not really concerned about ahead or behind, because I figure it will all even out in the end. Anything we don't cover while homeschooling that he needs to know if life, he can learn when it comes up. My goal, though I'm not always successful at it, is for us to enjoy learning together. 

But he is in seventh grade now and through a couple recent conversations I realize that he is behind where my fourth grade nephew is in writing. As the years pass and his writing isn't getting much better I'm starting to worry. His current goal for after he finishes high school is to go to college to study computer science or computer engineering. Right now he is not on track writing wise to succeed in college. I know it's still a ways off, but I want to get this turned around fairly soon so he isn't playing catch up when he gets to college.

So far he has hated every writing program we tried. We have Brave Writer, Essentials in Writing, Writing with Skill, Institute for Excellence in Writing, and a few others I'm probably forgetting. On the one had I could just pick one and force him to do it. But with every other subject, he actually wants to learn it. He may have days where he doesn't want to do school work, but for the most part he enjoys what he is studying. Everything except writing. And I'm afraid if I just force him to do it I will kill any chance that he will ever enjoy writing. He finds all the curricula we have tried boring or tedious and just resists my every effort to get him to do them. 

My son is on the high functioning end of the autism spectrum and has ADHD. Writing has always been hard for him, so I let him type instead of write by hand a lot of the time. And I have found with a lot of skills, things that other kids did at a certain age, he just did later - he was late to talk and potty train. He didn't learn to tie his shoes until he was about 10. It's only within the last year or two that his drawings have evolved beyond stick figures. And honestly I had to learn awhile ago to just leave some things until later, because he would just learn them when he was ready. 

But he is in the seventh grade now and I would say his writing is about the level of a second or third grader. And I fear that if we don't get on this soon, it may impact what he wants to do in life. 

So, if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. I am happy to try a new curriculum if there is a better fit out there. I am willing to put together my own if people have some suggestions. I am actually thinking of hiring a writing tutor, though now is not the ideal time with the pandemic going on. He doesn't really like online classes. He does pretty well with grammar and his spelling is better than mine. It's really just the writing I need help with. Any ideas at all would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks to anyone who read to the end and has suggestions to offer!

[Math taught Brave Writer Style]

3 hours ago, NorthernBeth said:

Depending on how comfortable you are, you might look into the concept of guided math.  It is intended for classrooms really, but it has that concept of doing math in different ways.  For instance, you might set Monday as your traditional math lesson day.  Tuesday do some board or card games that reinforce the concept.  Wednesday work on word problems or read books that combine the math concepts with language.   Thursday could be some sort of hands-on component-- like tieing it into real -life activities  or other curriculum ( cooking, art, science, music, shopping, decorating, etc.) Or Thursday and Friday could be project-based--- like design a pet shop to use perimeter, area, and possibly money, multiplication to buy the materials.  

This kind of thing can be a LOT of work though-- maybe you start with just one day being a game day,  and then slowly add things in as you gather some materials.  

I agree with others that RightStart is really trying to do this, although at your son's age, he is almost out of their range of materials.  

 

What you are describing is what I want to do, which I know, will be a lot of work. Thankfully I am finding several really good books of math projects that I can order online. I have been gathering some games and books of story problems. We will see how it goes and how long I can make it doing all of that planning. I have looked at Right Start. I just their games a while back, so I will probably pull those out again so we can use them.

[American history vacation]

I want to travel to New England plus New York state this fall and do an American history trip, specifically colonial America and the Revolutionary War. Has anyone done this or does anyone here live in those areas who would like to tell me some not-to-be missed places?

I also plan to hit Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and Washington DC in the spring. 

[Math taught Brave Writer Style]

7 hours ago, HomeAgain said:

This is on the upper end for Right Start, but I can say that level E is still a lot of fun.  Each day has games and various methods of learning brought in and worksheets are not the focus.  They are the independent work.  However, I think your ds would get a lot more out of it by doing a similar plan to ours - we add in Life of Fred because the topics Fred hits are often the same as Right Start, but from a different angle or level.  We also have

This Is Not A Math Book, which is math through art (basically piggybacking onto Right Start's geometry lessons at each level).  It is consumable, but worth it.
Perfectly Perilous Math, which is not consumable, but encourages outside the box thinking by presenting longer problems to solve that are wrapped up in little stories.

We've also used units from AIMS and they're quite good.  I've linked the 6-9th grade units, but if you click on the 'activity books' tab at the top you'll find the 3-5th.  They also have free mini-units to use.

We like Perfectly Perilous Math as well, but the other book and the AIMs units are new to me so I will check those out. Thanks!

[Math taught Brave Writer Style]

48 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

I'm reading Mathematical Mindsets: Unleashing Students' Potential through Creative Math, Inspiring Messages and Innovative Teaching  right now and it's validating what I thought about working with my ds and helping me connect with more resources. The book has a website with downloads and it has references with more resources to rabbit trail. 

I rabbit trailed a bit from some of what Boaler links in one of her articles and ended up here https://www.heinemann.com/contextsforlearning/  They have leveled kits, individual books, etc. I think I'm going to try some with my ds and see what happens. They have a sale this weekend and free shipping. I'm probably going to start with The T-Shirt Factory: Place Value, Addition, and Subtraction (Contexts for Learning Mathematics, Grades K-3: Investigating Number Sense, Addition, and Subtraction)  (which Heinemann has on sale for less) and their Minilessons for Extended Add/Subtr, see how that goes, and then go for the level 2 kit.

Honestly, a lot of what I'm reading in Mathematical Mindsets is a lot like what we've been doing already with Ronit Bird materials. Ds has SLD math, so he's this curious mixture of abilities and disabilities. 

I am reading one of the Mathematical Mindset books right now too! I am looking at the Mindset Mathematics: Visualizing and Investigating Big Ideas. They have them for third, fourth and fifth grade. I am hoping to use the projects in the books sort of like Brave Writer has the month-long projects. I will check out the Heinemann website as well. It looks promising. 

[Math taught Brave Writer Style]

10 hours ago, Plum Crazy said:

Depends on the age. There's a lot of math that can be done in games at the younger levels, but once you start getting into upper elementary, there could be gaps if you are not careful.

I think Right Start has enough balance of games and structure to be what you are looking for.

Simply Charlotte Mason has a Business Math that combines, but I ended up feeling like it wasn't enough. It would be a good summer math though. 

A couple people have mentioned both Right Start and the Charlotte Mason Business Math, so I am definitely going to read up on those. Thanks!

[Math taught Brave Writer Style]

10 hours ago, KathyBC said:

Living Math is sort of like that.

Thanks, I will do some research into Living Math tomorrow when I am more alert. It sounds like it could be promising.

[Math taught Brave Writer Style]

12 hours ago, HomeAgain said:

How old is your son?

 

He is 10 and going into fifth grade. 

[Math taught Brave Writer Style]

14 hours ago, sweet2ndchance said:

I've always thought of Math On The Level as being very similar to Brave Writer.  It's expensive up front but if this style of learning really appeals to you and your son, it might be well worth the price. I used it successfully for quite a few years with my older kids. I'm sort of using it with my youngest that I'm homeschooling now but not the way that it was meant to be used. I'm really just using it more as a reference than a program with him.

Thanks for the suggestion. I opened the link so I can read through it tomorrow.

[Math taught Brave Writer Style]

14 hours ago, EKS said:

If you're going to do this, unless you have an extensive background in math and math education, I would take some time to learn about both through at least algebra and geometry.  You can't effectively teach math without knowing where you're going.  For elementary math, a good place to start would be Elementary Mathematics for Teachers.  I'd read the text and work the suggested exercises.  

That said, what level are we talking about here?  RightStart actually does what you're talking about to some extent by moving between instruction, workbook, and games.  I would think it would be easier to use a program and overlay something on top to mix things up.

You make a good point regarding having a strong background in bath. Maybe I'd better brush up on my skills for the rest of the summer so I am better prepared. My son is 10 and going into fifth grade. 

[Math taught Brave Writer Style]

14 hours ago, Jackie said:

I think of Brave Writer more as an attitude and less as a routine, so I may or may not be on the right track here. For the last four years, we’ve never done our primary curriculum more than three days per week, and once we shelved it for most of a year. I didn’t usually have much of a set routine, just a stack of resources and an idea of how often I wanted to make sure we got back to the primary curriculum. We didn’t really do long math projects, though ,ath was sometimes folded into other projects. We used a mix of games, living books, math videos, supplemental curriculum-ish things, apps, puzzles... pretty much whatever I could find.

Are you looking for a list of resources? If so, knowing what math level your child is at would be helpful.

Thanks for the input. I think of Brave Writer as both an attitude and a routine. I am looking for math projects as well as fun games and interesting books and movies. Or any math resources really to liven things up but that still reinforce math concepts. My son is 10 and going into fifth grade. I would say he is probably right at grade level, not above or below.

[Math taught Brave Writer Style]

On 7/20/2018 at 11:23 PM, Slache said:

Interesting! And also terrifying. Ok. Hmmm.

• Math lab (with manipulatives)
• Games
• Read alouds
• Drills

Have you looked at SCM Store Math? It looks kind of projecty.

SCM Store Math looks great! You are actually the second person today to recommend that and I think I am going to use it this fall. And I definitely want to do math games one day a week. Thanks for the suggestions. 

[Math taught Brave Writer Style]

Math is probably the subject my son hates the most. For some reason it popped into my head today that math taught in the style of Brave Writer may make it more interesting and accessible. Has anyone ever tried this or have any ideas on how this would look? I like the Brave Writer ideas of having a routine with different types of activities on different days (rather than just workbook every day) and I like the ideas in Brave Writer for month-long projects. I did manage to find a book that has some math-project ideas, but I'm starting from scratch here and would love some insight if anyone has any. 

[Math help for 4th grader]

Thanks everyone for responding. It seems obvious as I read this, but I hadn't actually put it together that this isn't a math problem. That completely changes how I look at this. I appreciate any and all suggestions that people have. You all have given me a lot to think about. 

[Math help for 4th grader]

My son would be in fourth grade if he were in school. However, none of our math curriculum is fourth grade math. We used Miquon math up through second grade, then switched over to Beast Academy about half way through his third grade year. At the beginning of his third grade year I also bought Singapore Challenging Word Problems, to do occasionally, to make sure he understood how to use numbers in real world examples. However, I thought the third grade book was too hard, so I bought second grade. At times we can move through math slowly, because I will stop our regular curriculum occasionally and teach him about binary numbers or the Fibonacci sequence. Just to show him that not all math is just arithmetic. There is a whole world awaiting him once he learns his basic math facts. We also stop sometimes just to play games to reinforce fractions or multiplication facts. 

 

Anyway, because of the way we've been moving through math, we just recently started the third grade Singapore Challenging Word Problems and we are still in third grade Beast Academy. For the past several months he has been calling himself stupid and thinks he's terrible at math because he is so "behind." I feel terrible because part of the reason we are "behind" is because we stop here and there to do other things and because we have moved twice during the summer/fall and school just didn't always happen as often as it should have. I don't feel behind at all, because I see him progressing and learning all the time. I think he's doing great.

 

However, in an effort to build his self confidence, I decided to get him Teaching Textbooks, because I had heard they were usually a year or two behind other math programs. I looked through the grade levels and picked out sixth grade. I looked through the whole book and he already knows how to do everything in the book. Not all of it is necessarily easy, but he can do everything in there. I thought about going to a lower level, but I don't want his math to be all busy work. 

 

At first the plan seemed to be going well. Teaching Textbooks was super easy for him and he seemed to be gaining confidence. But the last several lessons have been causing stress again. Not because he's getting very many things wrong. He always gets a 95 or a 100 percent. But he's doing it on the computer and I hear screaming coming from the computer every day as he get's upset if he misses something (it gives you two tries on every problem). He rarely needs two tries, but when it does happen he becomes irrationally upset. Sometimes he will even storm out of the computer room and into his bedroom, slamming the door and talking about how stupid he is.

 

So now I am at a loss. I personally prefer Singapore Math because it is a challenging program that really makes you think. I think in the end, after completing it, he will be able to approach problems more creatively than if he didn't do the program. I only switched because I don't want him to hate math. He is really very smart and I hate to hear him get down on himself. So what does everyone think? I hate to jump around from program to program too much. But I want him to regain his confidence and at least not hate math.

[Walking/Hiking Alone.....does it make you nervous?]

I think because all of my friends are moms as well and don't always have the time/freedom/desire to leave their kids at home and hike my choices are to A. Not hike B. Hike by myself or C. Joined a hiking group. I haven't had much luck with hiking groups. I've done a bit of hiking with a couple groups but so often the timing doesn't work out or I'm not fast enough to keep up. So I'm left with either not hiking or hiking alone. Not hiking is not acceptable to me, so I hike alone. I'm not afraid of being attacked by another person. It seems very unlikely. As some pointed out earlier, I'm more likely to get in a car accident on the way there. I do worry a bit about injury or an attack from a wild animal. So I am sure to only hike in areas with other hikers. I may not be able to see them while I'm hiking, but I see enough people pass me while I'm taking a break or heading the other way that I know they are there. My husband always knows what trail I will be on and I always have my cell phone, thought the service is spotty in the mountains.

[Share your letters to in-laws ......]

Dear MIL - I have never had a close relationship with you and have been really irritated by a number of things you have done over the years. But I just finished reading through a forum about complaints people have with their relatives and I realize that you are amazing. We may never be close, and that is okay. But thank you so much for how much you love us all and how great you are with your grandson. He loves you so much and I can tell the feeling is mutual. 

[2017 resolutions/goals/plans]

I'm so glad you started this topic. This is actually something I've been really thinking about a lot during this past year or so. I dislike the idea that new habits need to start in the new year, and am always trying to implement new ideas. Reading back through what I've written, I realize I have probably written way more than the OP actually intended, but it did help me organize my thoughts a bit, so thanks! 

 

 

What resolutions/ goals/ plans do you have for 2017?

 

 

Personal: I have several personal goals so I think the personal category needs to be broken down into multiple categories.

 

Education (for me) - Come January, I am taking two classes at the university, just for fun. One writing, the other astronomy. This past fall I've been trying to relearn Algebra to help with the math involved in the astronomy class, and plan to continue relearning the math I may need for future science courses, should I decide to take them. I've taken through Calculus back when I was in college, so all of this should be in my brain somewhere. As for the writing, that has been a long term goal for the past several years, to write more. Sometimes I'm really good at doing it, other times, not so much. So I'm hoping a creative writing course will help motivate me to write more. 

 

Education (for my son) - We have weeks of homeschooling that rock and weeks of homeschooling that .... don't. I want to be more consistent with this. I especially need to focus on science. I think it is one of the subjects that my son most enjoys and yet one I get to least often. I also want to incorporate more art and music into our homeschooling. My son doesn't often ask for these things, so I often let them slip, but I think there is definite value in teaching them. Oh, and a foreign language. Spanish often gets pushed aside for time as well, and I need to make sure this one is happening daily.

 

Health and Fitness - I have already started eating better and losing weight. In the past three months I have dropped 15 pounds, which I'm pleased with. I think five pounds a month is a really healthy and sustainable amount of weight loss. I don't think I did myself any favors over Christmas, but I'm ready to get back on track and keep losing weight. I don't have a weight goal so much as a clothing size goal. If I keep going as I am now, I think I should be were I want to be by May or June. I also have a goal of climbing over the nearby mountain range (depending where I cross it is an elevation gain of 3000-4000 feet). I've been working on this goal halfheartedly for a number of months now, but I keep letter the weather (either too hot, too cold, too rainy, too snowy) get in my way. I'm ready to get more serious and be ready to make the hike (there is a trail the whole way. I don't have to do any actual rock climbing)  by April when most of the snow should be melted.

 

Financial - Our finances are in better shape than they have ever been. This is a goal we've been focused on for years. We still need to do a bit more in the way of college and retirement saving and I think we need to add a bit more disability insurance to what we already have. I'd also like to devote more money to savings. A recent roof leak (and subsequent new roof) wiped out a large part of what we were saving to build a garage. Thankfully we had enough money put aside already to fix the roof, but I think more of our income going to savings would mean that we wouldn't be so wiped out when an emergency crops up. 

 

Plans - I'm always making travel plans. From little trips to a neighboring cities, to vacations on the other side of the world. This of course goes back to the Financial goals. I need to figure out how to save more to make these happen. The two trips I'd like to do next (and it would be awesome if they could happen in the next five years, but that is probably overly optimistic) is visiting Machu Picchu and Mount Kilimanjaro. 

 

Work - I don't currently work, and as long as I am homeschooling I don't see that changing. I miss my former life in journalism. I truly enjoyed it. But my son needs me right now and quite possibly will continue needing me to homeschool him through high school. As he gets older I may try to pursue writing as more of a part time job rather than a hobby - either in the form of free-lance articles or books. I use to write these pieces about the history of small towns. Talking to some of the older folks who lived in them was such a joy. I miss having a built in excuse to talk to someone for hours about their family and town history. 

 

Home - We are saving to build the aforementioned garage. We were on schedule to possibly start building next summer, but now we will have to see. I also want to continue landscaping. It has been a slow process, but progress has been made over the past year. I also need to paint the kitchen cabinets and and some point I'd like to put in a gas range/stovetop. 

 

Relationships - As I settle into the town I live in now more (I've been here for 3.5 years), I find I am making more friends. It's a slow process, but it is coming a long. I feel like I am putting myself out there. So I plan to continue doing that. To continue to try to build new friendships with people I meet while making sure I maintain the ones I already have. Of course there is family as well. I feel like my relationship with my husband is strong. I want to keep nurturing that, keep carving out time in our schedules for us to have time just the two of us. And with my son, I feel like I need to find activities we can enjoy together. A friend asked the other day what we like to do together and I was at a loss. There are things I like to do that he does with me and things he likes to do that I do with him, but things we both like? I didn't have a good answer. Also, my grandmother is 96 and probably doesn't have that much time left. I want to be sure to stay in contact as much as possible and visit when I can (she doesn't live close), while I still have the chance. 

 

 

Anything else - For the anything else category, I'd like to add activism. For me this is broken down into two categories.

 

Political activism (if the title political activism didn't tip you off, I am going to get slightly political here, though what I am saying could apply to those on either side of the aisle. We all have issues that are important to us, even if we disagree on those issues.) - Recent events have made me realize that I have been passive for too long. I see many problems in my community, my state and my country. I may have discussed them with family and friends before. Maybe signed an online petition or two, or donated to a cause. But this election was a wake up call. I need to do more than just recognize that there are problems. As I was telling a friend of mine, I am a middle-class white woman. I am going to be just fine regardless of who is president. But millions of people can't say that. And I can't say that about our environment either. And if I don't act, who will? So I've joined an activism group and I'm trying to really focus my energies and what changes I feel need to happen in this country and what I can do to help make those changes happen. I know this is a bit vague, but that is because this is a relatively new goal and I am still trying to work out what this will look like in my life.

 

Social activism - One issue that has really been bothering me (well it's always bothered me, but I'm thinking about it a lot more these days) is homelessness. For a long time, I was either working two jobs or going to school and working full time or working full time and taking care of my son. And during those times, I didn't have much extra money or extra time. Now, I finally have a little bit more of both. So it seemed imperative to me that I give back in some way. I've volunteered at a couple shelters and made bags of supplies to give to the homeless. But it doesn't feel like enough. I feel like there is so much more that needs to be done. I drive around town and see camps of homeless people. There are people begging on most freeway exit ramps. The solution needs to be more than serving meals at a shelter. That doesn't address the cause homelessness or address how to get people off the streets and into homes of their own. This topic is on my mind a lot. I think part of my problem is that I am now, and have always been, solidly middle class. I've never faced even the slightest possibility of homelessness and I never will. So I'm a bit at a loss as to where to put my energies to be the most helpful. 

 

Okay, I've obviously written a novel here and am sorry to bore all of you with this diatribe of mine. The topic of goals and plans for the future is on my mind a lot. I think because I battle with mild depression, focusing on things I want to do in the future helps pull me through those times when I can't find much to get me through the day. 

 

[Would you travel alone....or just you and the kids?]

Yes, I have and will continue to do so. When I was 15 and my sister was 12, my mom took us on a driving trip around the perimeter of the country last lasted seven weeks. My grandfather was sure that we would all be murdered in our sleep, but we are all still alive and well. Sometimes taking off just you and the kids is the only way to make sure traveling happens.

[Anyone good at resumes, you gals have helped me before....]

I am not an expert, but I don't mind giving you my opinion. I would try to keep it on one page if you can. The only reason I would go over a page is if you have some amazing skills pertaining to a certain job you are trying to land. I think you could cut your cashier experience. I also don't think you need to include where you went to high school. I'm not actually sure what this sentence from your resume means: Performs merchandising and display activities in retail accounts as requested or directed. Do you mean you perform merchandising and display activities for retail accounts? Also, I don't think you need to keep that part of that sentence that says "as requested or directed." It makes if sound as if you can't work on your own and need lots of direction and/or supervision. If there is room under your bachelor's degree, I might explain a little bit about what skills you gained from your degree. I'm not exactly certain what a degree in consumer and family science entails. I hope that was at least a little bit helpful. Good luck in your job hunt.