Has anyone's DC done this course? What was your experience? http://www.noetic-learning.com/gifted/ I looked at the sample worksheets for 2nd and 3rd grade and they seemed pretty easy. I'm wondering if it would be worthwhile. The program is relatively inexpensive and they have a 14 day refund policy.

My husband and I have very different types of intelligence. I was an excellent student, graduated from top-tier universities, and worked in intellectually demanding fields, but can't put together IKEA furniture. Seriously. My husband struggled with ADHD and was held back a grade, dropped out of engineering school after winning a lucrative award for a project, used the seed money to found the first electric car company in Canada at the age of 20. He subsequently sold the company, bought a sailboat, and now fixes boats (he can literally fix anything -- it is remarkable) while he programs (robots, Arduino, etc.) and works on prototypes in his spare time (always musing about his next entrepreneurial adventure). I read the NYT and WSJ; he watches Two and a Half Men. On paper, we are very different, but we have a healthy respect for each other, as we each do what the other cannot. It helps that we also have *very* strong chemistry (even after 8 years -- what happens when you meet your spouse randomly at 4am in a bar in Vegas!)

You could definitely record it. I scribe for him on the computer, which allows us to go back and edit more easily. He now has me read things back to him, edits for clarity, and we discuss where he might use different words to give his writing a different effect. He now understands that we can use a thesaurus to get a more precise word or to avoid repetition. It's been a great exercise for us.

I haven't actually bought any BW products yet. I just read her blog and decided to incorporate some of her ideas into our writing practice. I started scribing his literature narrations last year, when he was 4, but this was the first time that we tried something more creative. If your son is already spontaneously telling stories, I would definitely run with it and scribe/record them -- no curriculum required. The main thing that I try to emphasize to my son is that he is getting his voice, his thoughts down into words, and how powerful those words can be.

These days, I think the 6 year old handles the 18 month old better than the 40 year old. :) (Takes another sip of her coffee.)

What do you all do when there are younger kids? At what age do you feel comfortable leaving the older child with the youngers? I have a pretty responsible 6 year old, who I could see leaving at a pretty young age, but his younger brother is 4.5 years his junior. I have no idea when I'd feel ok leaving both of them alone together, given the age gap. What has been your experience?

That was pretty much my reaction as well. I ordered 3 of them. Rose!!! :smash:

Powerful would be the word I would use to describe the film.

This is our first year homeschooling, but, the more experience I have, the more I see what I don't know. It's kinda like Pilates. The first time you do it, you think it's easy. The better you get at it, the harder it becomes.

Exactly. I would definitely not be homeschooling had I not read TWTM (and without the help of this forum).

Thank you!

We buddy read through Progressive Phonics (after he balked at OPGTR), read through all the Nora Gaydos books, and now just do the AAR stories. I dumped busywork like ETC because his reading took off. He will finish the level 4 readers this year. You might try accelerating through the game and worksheets and just have her read.

You must be at a fabulously family-friendly firm. From my hindsight perspective as a Biglaw burnout, the length of the partnership track and paucity of truly part-time positions, pyramid/up or out structure, and percent of female equity partners at most AMLAW100 firms makes the legal profession look highly irrational to me.

The Army had to pay me to go camping. I won't do it for free. :)

Complain was my first reaction, but yeah, pretty much this.

I used to keep a blog about our life living aboard our sailboat with our son. We started cruising with him when he was 6 months old, and I documented everything that we experienced -- the good and the bad. We had lots of people following our journey, but eventually, the amount of criticism that we received because of our cruising lifestyle became emotionally overwhelming and damaging for me. People had actually started stalking us. It was nuts. So, I stopped the blog. Lesson learned. Over the years, I've met many other sailors who keep cruising blogs -- many with kids. Based on my experience, I always secretly cringed inside when I'd read their blogs, hoping that they never had to experience what we did -- that is, until our friends and their kids were rescued in the middle of the Pacific by the U.S. Navy, and had their every parenting decision become the subject of a national debate (including a story on the front page of the NYT and on several morning news shows). You don't even want to know the horrific things trolls posted on their blog or emailed to them -- telling them that they wished they had died/sunk to bottom of the sea with their boat/home, what abusive, selfish a-holes they are, how CPS should take their kids away, etc -- and those are some of the mild ones. And yes, reporters and other nosey Parkers went back through every single blog post written and picked them apart/distorted them. Even if pseudonyms had been used, none of it would have remained anonymous in this digital age. It was all put out there for public consumption, and when the sh*t hit the fan, the public ate it up. I use my kids' real names here, but I'd never again put anything about them out on the Interwebs that I wouldn't mind the whole world knowing, including their future employers. ETA: In case you want to know what happened: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/525/call-for-help

Same here. Still no invite, but it's sitting in the cart.

If you are an Audible member, the LOTR trilogy is currently on 3 for 2 special. I picked up all 3 books for 2 credits. Sweet!

Nope. I just check online every few days to see if everything looks in order. I don't write enough checks for it to matter.

Those issues were normal for us. For phonogram practice, we used and liked Progressive Phonics (free) and the Nora Gaydos readers.

This was my impression as well. The genius thing grated on me too. I hope it's not some fundy novices trying to stealth minister to gifted kids, though, as a Jew, I'm probably just hypersensitive about that stuff.

VA is a bit far for us, and it sounds pretty religious. They don't mention any particular faith, but there was a lot of G-d talk in the About Us section. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

That was pretty much my take on it as well. Not the best news, but explained a lot of my mood and hormone issues, which, I suppose, made me feel less crazy. Or, at least, less judgmental at myself for being fat and crazy. :hat: