I have been puzzling over this question for days now, and really need some input. My cousin, age 12, and homeschooled, just finished the Anne of Green Gables series. She wants to know why, in the last book, Rilla of Ingleside, Rilla never attends school. The book begins when Rilla is 14. School is never mentioned, though there is mention of Anne (her mother) putting her through "a reading course". I have not nearly enough knowledge of the history of education, public or otherwise, in Canada to confidently draw any conclusions, but the best I have so far is that: -Queens was roughly the equivalent of a private, boarding high school. When you graduated, you were qualified to teach at public district schools, which were grades 1-8. -Having not opted to go to Queens, Rilla graduated 8th grade and was done with her institutional education via her own decision. -Being the doctor's daughter, the household didn't need her income, so it was okay that she didn't work for wages. -I have no earthly clue what, if any, institutional credential would be required for teaching or granted upon completing "a course in reading", which I can only assume is a reading of Classics or Great Books. Am I even close? Any and all thoughts/input are welcome.

"Deep Economy". "What to Eat" is good, too.

Horror story time... One of my very close friends had a brother only 10 months older than she was. We lived on the same street growing up; all three of us were in the same grade in school. Both my friend and her brother had seriously jacked up teeth, and went through 3-5 years of orthodontia. Not just a minor cosmetic kind of jacked up, either- the kind where you can't clean your teeth properly and risk serious decay. The brother had the worst end of it. He missed most of our freshman year because he had to have his jaw broken twice. No, they didn't screw it up the first time- his teeth were that bad. Anyway, the brother gave up wearing his retainer after about five years. Within five years of that, he lost all four of his top front teeth. Wearing dentures before the age of 30. Not good.

Silk wraps have to be maintained... I think it's like acrylics, once every week or two weeks. (I've never gotten them, but my mom likes them.) They offer silk wraps at virtually any hair-nail place.

Alton Brown has a fabulous recipe for overnight, crockpot oatmeal using steel cut oats. It's basically a very rich old-fashioned Irish oatmeal. I make pancake mix using dry buttermilk (Saco brand) and soy flour, so all I have to add is water and fat (oil or melted butter). Fast, cheap, and healthier because I use whole grain flour.

If your nails are really long and they split, you might want to consider getting silk wraps. I have found that manicures vary wildly in nature... once I went, and all she did was file my nails and paint them clear, and I left thinking, "I just paid $25 for that?" On the other hand, I've gotten mani-pedis that cost about $30 that were worth every penny- pumice, lotion, massage, cuticle trim, etc. So try to get a personal referral.

I looked it up, and H.L.'s tox screen showed oxycodone, hydrocodone (painkiller, Vicodin); diazepam (Valium); temazepam (anti-anxiety); alprazolam (Xanax); doxylamine (a sedative anti-histamine- kinda like Benadryl).

From what I've read (and discussed with my Aussie friend- in Oz, H.L. is like Elvis), Ledger suffered from debilitating insomnia that lead to depression. He slept like 45 minutes to 2 hours a day for years. (Personally, I have had comparitively mild insomnia, and for me, it lead to depression, too.) Combine that with being a workaholic, the nature of his work, and some substance abuse issues... bad news. I think he was on anti-depressants and sleep meds at the time of his death.

I have sorted thru and organized all of DD's toys. All of them. Holy Merciful Sweetness, were there a lot. Anyway, I have all of toys on her playstands in our living area. (Two empty baskets even! Whoo hoo!) All that's left in her bedroom are her books- on the shelf- and her plush toys- in a pile on the rug. Please help. How do you organize stuffed animals at your house? I have tried the nets and the chain. Neither worked worth a @#$%. I made a cloth toy bag to hang from her bed, and that works fine for the tiny toys, but what about the larger ones?

I disliked Barbie as kid, dislike her even more now, and I would let DD keep it.

When we lived in SE Michigan, we had an Aldi and a Sav-A-Lot within about two miles of our house, as well as a Meijer, a WalMart, and several smaller chain "regular" groceries. If we were willing to drive, there was a health food store, a co-op, Whole Foods, BJs, Costco, Sam's, Trader Joe's, and Hiller's. There were some nice small ethnic groceries, too- Mexican, Japanese and Lebanese were our favorites. Then we moved to the great frozen north. Oh my. There are IGAs, SuperValu, SuperOne, a nice little co-op and Walmart. That is all. It was a big adjustment. But a funny thing happened once we adjusted. We spend less- much less- on groceries now. Some of it has to do with the fact that we live in America's Dairyland now, so dairy is cheap. I've finally prevailed upon the husband to eat less meat (I'm veggie, so our meat expense is negligable), and we garden, freeze and can fairly intensively. However, I think the big things that we did are: -Making everything from scratch, including yogurt, jam, soy milk, and all baked goods. (Buy a chest freezer. We actually have a big chest freezer and a smaller chest fridge in the basement. Oh, and some gamma seal lids for dry items. So worth doing.) -Having only four stores in our rotation makes it a lot easier to compare prices. I downloaded free price book software, which also helped, but it would still be too time consuming to program it for 15 different stores. -Shopping outside traditional sources for bulk goods. We buy flours, dishsoap, organic beef & eggs, and a few other odds and ends in bulk from a local restaurant (we are friends with the owners). We buy bulk produce that we cannot/do not grow from the farmer's market. We get potatoes thru a CSA. We buy fish from the Indian fish market. We live in Berry Heaven, so we asked around and have found several good berry spots which contribute greatly to jam and muffins. We do canned/frozen swaps- for example, we had more organic hamburger frozen than DH could ever eat, so we traded with a friend for frozen seafood. This year, we canned beets and gave half to MIL, she canned tomatoes and gave half to us. We spend less than $300 a month on "household"- groceries, laundry/cleaning supplies, pet supplies (2 cats, 1 dog), and if we need new sheets or a dish drainer, you get the idea. We are a family of 3, plus part time stepson, and I am pregnant. Oh, and this is important, we get WIC. That makes a HUGE dent in our dairy budget. HTH somebody.

This probably isn't helpful, but for me, it would depend on the child. This movie was violent, yes, but if you compare it to other movies that I think are good movies (Q. Tarantino, for example), it's not terribly violent. If you compare it to other movies that I don't think are good (Saw, Hostel), well, it's like calling nude art "porn". This is not to say that we should be desensitzed to violence, especially children, but there is a lot of torture porn out there now, with no redeeming artistic or cinematic value, and I want my kids to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. They'll be going to the movies without parents in just a few short years, and I very much want to be able to trust their judgement. I guess this is all my rambling way of saying that not all R ratings are created equal. As for the dark themes... yes, this movie was incredibly dark and disturbing. I think, though, it seems even more disturbing because Heath Ledger died just after filming it, the manner in which he died and the interviews he gave during its filming strongly suggest that he was dealing with substance abuse, mental illness, or both. To see how H.L. absolutely inhabited the character of a lunatic... knowing that he died right after is as spooky as... well, you know. With my stepson, my husband used this is as a springboard to discuss mental health and the dangers of prescription drugs. They also talked about the Dark Knight as proof of Ledger's amazing talent, and about how being troubled doesn't make you a bad person- Ledger obviously had redeeming qualities viewable by the world- and that the important thing is to ask for help. Because there isn't any graphic sexual content, because most of the really nasty violence is suggested or shown from several steps away, because it is an example of an R rated movie worth watching, because my stepson is mature, because we viewed it first and cleared it with his mom and stepdad, and because it lead to a quality discussion, we allowed my stepson to view the Dark Knight. No regrets.

Coffee doesn't stunt growth. It's a myth that started during the industrial revolution. Factories that hired children were pumping them up on caffeine (coffee and tea) after about 4 pm so that they could work 12 hour days. The social reformers of the time (before they helped enact child labor laws) tried various things to get factories to stop doing this, and finally the only one that worked was to launch a psuedo public health campaign that claimed coffee stunted the growth of children, who would therefore NOT grow into strong workers. For whatever reason, this worked, and by and large, the over-caffeinating of child workers stopped. Also, it's pretty customary for farm kids to drink caffeine with breakfast. My grandpa, my dad, and my husband (all of whom grew up on working farms) were drinking black coffee by the time they were seven. My husband is under thirty, so it wasn't all that long ago. I'm not sure if mores have changed since then, but I kinda doubt it.

Oh, thank you! The Groovy Girls (and Guys!) dolls are very cute. The website I looked at said that they were 13" tall, so I think that would work, as it isn't much taller than Barbie. They had lots of furniture, too. Cool.

So we just got back from a looong holiday vacation. My MIL is building a very sturdy, well made, enormous dollhouse for my daughter's third birthday, which is in the spring. Because I am an ingrate, I am dreading this. This dollhouse is 33" wide and 55" tall at the peak. (I wanted to make DD a doll treehouse ... with these dolls, some of which I have already made... *sniffs with disappointment*...) On the plus side, it has an open "back", no front (apparently the kit makers realized that such a huge thing had to sit against a wall) and is only about 18" deep. Also a plus is that it has two large drawers built into the base for storing toys and goodies. (If you follow this link -scroll down for the photo- the dollhouse in question looks something like the middle one.) The dollhouse is scaled to Barbies, which is the thing that makes me grimace even more. Now, I don't want to start a debate about Barbies being good or evil, or Barbies vs. Bratz, or anything like that, primarily because my mind has been made up about this for years. I disliked Barbies as a child, as an adult I dislike them even more, and I don't really want them in my house. So I was thinking that I could get my daughter some Only Hearts Club dolls to use with this dollhouse. They are a little smaller than Barbies, but I think that they will work. However, I have been able to find no furniture whatsoever scaled to fit OHC dolls. Will Barbie-scaled furniture work for Only Hearts Club dolls? Also, are there any OHC boys? My daughter wants everything- inanimate objects included- to come in a mommy version, a daddy version, and a baby version. (What can I say, she's way into nuclear families.) If there are no boys, this will bum her out. Anyone know of any decent quality dolls that I could use in this giant dollhouse?

Yes, J is going to put her in a traditional classroom, if/when it comes to that. She has discussed this with N and the Reading Recovery teacher, and N is adament that she wants to finish RR. J has given written notice to the school. So, we'll see how this all pans out. I think the teacher is hot mess, for what it's worth. I told J that I'd let the air out her tires, but J is more mature than I am, so she declined.

I've been round and round with laundry stuff... including powdered homemade, liquid homemade, powdered store bought in bulk, you name it. And now, I buy coldwater Tide. I don't know if they have a free/clear version, but I buy the $10 bottle at Wal-Mart. This bottle says it lasts through 56 loads, but I use a 1 oz. measure per load, so it lasts me over 100 loads. I have a smallish washer, but 1 oz. does the trick. That's a dime a load, which is a little more expensive per load than homemade, BUT I don't need/use a pretreat, and I wash exclusively in cold water now, so I think that it costs the same (or less; I haven't broken down the energy cost) as homemade and it's less intensive laundry. I recycle the bottles, of course. I spend $50 a year on Tide, which is close to what I spent buying supplies to make the homemade stuff. I use Heinz white vinegar with added essential oils as my fabric softener. Dirt cheap and yummy smelling.

I talked to J last night, and here's the update so far. -This school district, for our purposes, District A (which has one elementary school), does not have ANY traditional classrooms, they are all multi-age. I find this interesting, because I know that when a mutual friend started her oldest child in District A five years ago, there were two traditional classrooms and two multi-age classrooms. So now the District A principal's comments are making more sense to me. -School District B (actually the district J and I both graduated from) has two elementaries and no multi-age classrooms at all. Again, I find this interesting because when my cousins started there, six years ago, District B had a mix as well. J was discussing options with the principal at one of District B's elementaries, and point blank asked her why they had phased out multi-age and the principal wouldn't tell her. J said that she was very polite, and it seemed like she didn't want to say anything bad about District A, but still. J is trying very hard to make an informed and accurate decision about her child, for pity's sake, she deserves to know about all the variables. -J has decided not to put N back in Kindergarten, as all that would change would be her assignments, and J does not think it's the work that's the problem- she thinks the core of the problem is elsewhere. (75% of everything would be the same- teacher, classmates, room, just different work.) Now J says she feels pressured, and thinks the teacher is frustrated and beginning to take her frustrations out on N. For example, N has been going to Reading Recovery for 30 minutes a day, and she loves it. J says it has helped N make a lot of progress in a short time. Unfortunately, Reading Recovery ends January 31. At any rate, on Friday the teacher made N stay in at recess to do "stations", because N had missed stations to go to Reading Recovery. "But I always miss stations to go to Reading Recovery," said N. "Which is why you have to stay in today to do them," said the teacher. ?????? -J asked for the name of the reading curriculum, and the teacher wouldn't tell her. (See my comments above about District B's principal to know my feelings about this.) N has never brought a book home, just worksheets. -The comments that the teacher has been sending home with N make less sense all the time. First, it was, "N is only reading on level 7-8, and we want her on level 14," so J asked the principal, almost in passing, during their conversation, what level they wanted the students on at the beginning of second grade. "Minimum of 14," said the principal. J talked to the teacher after that, and asked why a 7 at the halfway point of first grade wasn't good enough, and the teacher barked, "I want her at a 14!" Then, just on Thursday, the teacher sent home a note that said N needs to speed up in reading her sight word flashcards. Well, J has a duplicate set of sight word flashcards at home to work with N, and says that N can't get any faster- she knows them all instantly. This seemed like a big red flag to me. The upshot of all of this is that J is going to send N back to District A after Christmas break so that she can finish Reading Recovery. After that is finished, J is going to pull N. J is unsure right now if she's going to re-enroll N somewhere else right away, or keep N at home for the rest of first grade.

I read the article... wow. Very sad. (My mom was taught whole language in the sixties and she still can't spell. My aunt [a state-wide award-winning teacher] is forced to teach a whole language curriculum that she hates and can only do phonics when she after school tutors her students that need extra help- for which she does not get paid, she just realizes that whole language doesn't cut it...) I know people who LOOVE Spelling Workout, and others who detest it... it was among my suggestions to J and it happened to be the one that she and N liked the best, and, according to J, it worked very well, despite being presented somewhat out of sequence as far as general language skills are concerned. The weird part about this is that N loves being read to. At least, she did. N knew the alphabet, the sounds each letter made, and how to write her name before K. She could read some sight words as well. J says that her problems lie in the comprehension questions she's given, and her ability to read aloud- blending, specifically. They send homework every night, generally worksheets. J says it takes about five minutes to complete. I haven't seen anything on paper regarding N's testing workup, but I'll tell you this as someone who has known children with ADD/ADHD, LDs, and autism... N seems *very* well adjusted and, if anything, somewhat high-functioning for her age. It is my guess, not having been in the class, that this situation is just a baaad fit for N. It troubles me that the principal has suggested to J that she look around at other schools. It smacks of an abdication of responsibility on his part, at least to me. I am going to call J today, and then email a list of curriculum suggestions, some of mine and the rest from this thread. Thanks to everyone. I'll post an update if anyone's interested.

There is no small classical school, lol, at least not anywhere within 100 miles. I thought the same thing- no spelling must mean whole language, but it turns out that it is a phonics based curriculum. Must just a baaad for N phonics curriculum.

I didn't get this either. This is why I asked J for the name of the curriculum, so I could help her investigate further.

N turned 6 in August, which means that she is young for her grade, especially by the new standards. The school has said to J that she is "welcome" to find a new school for N... I personally think that this is a conflict averse way of saying, "Change schools or we're moving her back", and that it has much more to do with NCLB and test scores than what's best for N. But I can be paranoid. (I haven't said any of this to J, BTW. These are just my personal nasty thoughts.) Thank you for your curricula suggestions. They're going on my list.

Just to throw this out there... post-menopausal breast cancer is much less agressive because the vast majority of breast cancers feed on estrogen. And, yes, if it's painful, there's a much greater chance that it's a cyst. So there is much reason to stay positive about your mom's situation.

I had such a good experience here the other day gathering opinions for my thesis (more replies than any other message board! Yay!) that I thought I would return with a more personal issue. A close friend of mine, J, has a six year old daughter, N, who is in p.s. first grade. (N has a August birthday.) N is struggling with reading to such an extent that the school has suggested moving her back to kindergarten. J is struggling with what is best for her daughter. I know N. She is a bright little girl and there is no reason that I can see for failing to teach her to read. N has been evaluated, and no l.d. has turned up. I told J to get me the name of the reading curricululm the school is using, and I would ask around (I'm a PAE grad student). In the meantime, I've been looking on Amazon, and I'm thinking of sending J Reading Pathways and MCP Phonics A. I know J will take anything I tell her very seriously, so I really want to give good advice. (It was me who suggested Spelling Workout, for example.) Any other thoughts or suggestions, please?? For some background (long): N is in what is known as a "multi-age" classroom. It's K-2, and the children get the same teacher all three years. J has observed in N's class, and tells me that group work is the standard, and that often the second graders will give N the answers, which are frequently incorrect, just to be done with the assignment. J also observed that the classroom is a hive of activity all the time, and that N has a hard time concentrating. N has been seeing a reading specialist for 30 minutes per day this entire school year, and J reports that she has made great progress. However, there are 14 levels in this school's first grade reading program, and N is on level 7, which is why they are talking about putting her back in K. J has told the school that she just wants what is best for her child, and if that means moving her back, then she'll go along for it. However, she (and I) don't totally understand what, if anything, will be solved if "moving her back" involves staying in the same class with the same teacher and cirricula. Last year, J bought Spelling Workout and afterschooled N in spelling, because this school does that ridiculous "kidspell" b.s. They both loved it, and J reports that now N can spell words that she can barely read. (J herself is grad student and has worked with N a lot on academics, even pre-school, so this is especially baffling for her.) J is currently not working, but, as I said, she is in grad school. She has been looking at other p.s., but is just confused at this point. The waters are further muddied by the fact that we have a mutual friend whose two daughters have excelled at this school, and are both products of this same multi-age teacher.

While this may not help for very young children, I had a professor say to me once: "There are some books that are good literature and terrible history, all at the same time." Given the book we were reading, I took it to mean that not all women were happy with not having the vote nor property rights. I have found myself paraphrasing this over and over, for example, just because Ma Ingalls thought American Indians were dirty and savage doesn't mean they were. So while the reporting of Ma Ingalls opinion may, indeed, be accurate history, her opinion itself was not.