Neat! This article https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-10-scientists-dyslexia.html talks about using a flashing LED lamp to cancel out one of the images, but I wonder if it would be helpful for dyslexics to cover one eye while they read (alternating over time, of course).

Give Progressive Phonics a try. (It's free online so nothing to lose.) The silly stories and reading together aspects were fun for my kids. I combine it with other stuff, so one idea might be to do part of an OPGTR lesson and then finish up with a couple pages of stories from Progressive Phonics.

The only thing I've done that combines for math is Bedtime Math. It's an app that has a daily story (often a kid-appropriate news item) and then word-problem type questions on several levels. It's certainly not a full math curriculum, but it could be useful.

Do you have an induction scheduled if you get to a certain date? I found that really helpful in my last few pregancies (40+5, 40+2, and 41w). I never made it to the induction date, but knowing that I wasn't going to be pregnant past a certain date was reassuring.

But this is your 5th baby and you know this isn't normal for you.

My daughter who was born in early August started K soon after turning 5. So did her twin brother. I've had zero regrets about their grade placement academically, and outside activities usually seem to be based on age rather than grade level, so no problems there either. My daughter with a late November birthday started K at 4 (cutoff was December 2 so she beat it by a few days, but wouldn't have if she'd been born on her due date). We chose a non-academic kindergarten for her and she did great. First grade was tough though and she was having trouble with reading and math. When I pulled her out to homeschool the following year, we were using first grade materials through the summer and about halfway through her "2nd grade" year. I think at this point she's more or less caught up to where she should be for starting 6th grade. I go back and forth about how I feel about her grade level. I'm glad that I could adjust her grade by a year if I need to at this point, and I'm glad we were able to catch the reading difficulties and work on them at 6 years old rather than 7. So while I might adjust her grade later on, I think I'm glad we started her when we did.

We're a ways south of the fires, but the air is so smoky here that the sunlight has looked orange here, like sunset, all day. It's eerie!

I've seen you say this before, and I know my family's situation is similar and I need to do this. But HOW do you manage? I just go through cycles of having it together for a while, getting exhausted and burnt out, and then feeling angry with my husband. How do you take care of a big family in a way that doesn't completely wear you out? How do you realize when you're doing "too much" before you get exhausted and resentful? What do you dial back on when you've taken on too much?

She's awesome! But since you mentioned, "42 is like great-grandma age in the gymnastics world," are you familiar with the 92-year-old gymnast Johanna Quaas?

I find that my kids often have trouble remembering names the first few times they hear them, so I write them down on the whiteboard as we go through the section.

When I sign off on attendance sheets for my kids' homeschool charter, I am certifying that "educational activity was attempted". I've only had a couple of days where I couldn't say yes to that (illness - but there are a lot of days when the kids would be too sick to go to school but we still can do some lightweight educational activity at home). Anyhow, I would say "yes" for both days you described, but I'd also have my own goals for the year that were independent of checking the attendance boxes.

Well, I'm a very tall person, so I'm all in favor of tall poppies too.

I loved A Wrinkle in Time but didn't like the other books in the series quite as much. However, I also really enjoyed L'Engle's books about the Austin family: Meet the Austins, The Moon by Night, and A Ring of Endless Light as well as The Arm of the Starfish, which is not about the Austin family, but Calvin and Meg's daughter.

Well, I married the second man who asked me to marry him, but neither did any sort of special proposal. I said yes each time, but broke it off with the first guy because I didn't think we could live together. Honestly, each time I was just so relieved that someone wanted to have a family with me and glad I wouldn't be alone forever.

I'd be less than thrilled because I'm really looking forward to my youngest being 4 or so and being on the other side of breastfeeding, night wakings, diapers, and toddler chaos. I'd be worried because I have an IUD, so there's a significant risk of ectopic pregnancy if I were to become pregnant. I'd be glad that I haven't gotten around to getting rid of the baby stuff quite yet and thankful that there's plenty of room in our house and our vehicle for another person. I would tell my husband and schedule a midwife appointment. I'd hold off on telling anyone else for a while.

So my 3 big kids have been reading through Little Women, and they've been writing short chapter summaries. Yesterday, my 8yo daughter wrote: "They went to camp larance. At camp larance Jo ate spiders." I thought, "What? I don't remember that part; I'd better read it again." (I read it years ago, but I'm trying to keep up with them this time around since I don't remember exactly what happens in each chapter.) When I got to the actual passage, it read: "There's salt, here, if you prefer it," said Laurie, as he handed Jo a saucer of berries. "Thank you; I prefer spiders," she replied, fishing up two unwary little ones, who had gone to a creamy death. "How dare you remind me of that horrid dinner-party, when yours is so nice in every way?" added Jo, as they both laughed, and ate out of one plate, the china having run short. Zinnia had read it literally, not realizing that Jo and Laurie were teasing each other. It cracked me up to imagine Jo thinking, "Mmmmm, spiders: the tastiest part of the picnic!" What has made you laugh lately? Please share!

Late 70s. Recently, I was surprised to realize that my little brother (5 years younger) identifies as a Millennial, whereas I'm GenX. I mean, it makes sense given the definitions, but it's weird to not be the same generation as my sibling.

Yeah, it's just a lot. This is my first year with 3 different levels (6th, 3rd and K), and like you I'm not doing anything special with my 4-year-old. I'm kind of scrambling to get everything in and then zonked by the end of the day. And then I get to take the kids to swim team, cook dinner, clean up the kitchen and get the kids ready for bed. Some ideas: You could switch up you 7yo's work a little so that he's doing some independent work and not everything is mom-intensive. You could try something like Growing with Grammar in place of FLL. He could do some XtraMath. If you don't completely love RightStart, you could switch him to Singapore, and have some days where his math is just practice problems in the workbook without a hands-on lesson. You could drop the circle time and just listen to some music or an audiobook at lunchtime. You could change the read-aloud with your girls to a reading assignment for them (and for you) and then discuss it together. One thing that helps me out, but I don't know if it would be feasible for you, is that my kids are in a 1 day per week outdoor education program. The particularly great part is that my two little guys (4 & 5yo) go on Mondays, and my 3 bigger kids go on Tuesdays. That means that my big kids and I can knock out a lot of their schoolwork on Mondays, and my little ones get extra attention on Tuesdays.

I would look into whether the way her Bipolar is managed is considered safe during pregnancy and ask about trying out other methods ahead of a potential pregnancy if that would be necessary during pregnancy.

The water coming out of the showerhead (but only in one particular shower at my mom's house) will turn into spitting cobra venom and blind me if I let it get in my eyes. There will be a nest of rodents in our green waste bin or trash can, and they will come skittering out of the bin and up my arm as I take the bin to the curb. In recurring dreams: the brakes on my car don't work well enough to stop in time at stop signs, I forget to take care of my baby, and I get sidetracked and delayed from doing something important. Somehow, in my dreams I can never get it together to be on time to things.

I always click expecting a thread about New Mexico. (DH is from there.)

My pregnancies have all been healthy mom, healthy, full-term babies, and the only "complication" was having fraternal twins. I have pretty much declined extra screenings (e.g. nuchal translucency) and stretched appointments out a little with babies 4, 5, and 6. I didn't really have anyone to watch the kids except in the last week or so.

Sentencing for criminals in Florida shows strong racial bias (see: http://projects.heraldtribune.com/bias/sentencing/ ), so I would bet that the "looters" are going to end up with harsh sentences. I wish the news wouldn't focus on the looting because some people are going to get killed staying behind to "protect their property" in subsequent natural disasters.

So far, I've started 3 of my kids on spelling in second grade (newly 7 years old). One of them was a strong reader but hated writing, one was an okay reader and loved to write (but has awful handwriting), and one was a struggling reader who loved to write and had lovely handwriting. The kid who was a strong reader doesn't really need much spelling instruction because he usually just remembers how words are supposed to look. The two who had a harder time learning to read have had a rough time with spelling as well. In all cases, the words they were learning to spell were much easier than the words they were reading.

I started assigning reading to my kids last year, when my oldest was 10 and my twins were 7. We'd just each read through a couple chapters of a novel per day (separately and silently) and meet to discuss it together in the afternoon. One of my kids really does better reading books himself, whereas the others absorb more by listening to a read-aloud. We still do SOTW as a read-aloud.