[Christian perspective on this family issue?]

You've been given good advice. I'd do the fingerprinting in case of emergency, but I'd also be clear with my mom about what I could and couldn't do. In this case, it sounds like you can do occasional respite care in her home, but not in yours, and maybe or maybe not overnight. Your nephew has an older brother who sounds like he's in a position to help--that may be a better option, especially if there's a safety concern with your daughters.

[Chess club query regarding parents dropping Club and wanting refunds]

I would go on the assumption that she's of a "It never hurts to ask" mentality and that she's really as nice as you say she is--meaning she'll understand and not take offense, just shrug her shoulders, smile, and say "Well I figured it couldn't hurt to ask!" But, no, you shouldn't refund the money. Explain nicely that all the funds were used for startup expenses, so there is no unused portion, and that's why the policy from the start was no refunds.

 

As an aside, though, since you do have new kids coming in, presumably with new fees, you need to figure out what you're going to do with fees now that startup expenses are done. With dropping some and gaining some kids, will you need more chess sets or timers? Do you use any consumable supplies? Do you have to rent a space to meet, or will you be traveling to competitions with transportation costs and entry fees (in which case, this new money could be used as a starter scholarship fund)? Will this money be banked to be available for replacing items that are lost or damaged? It probably made a lot of sense to people to have nonrefundable fees when starting and buying lots of nonrefundable supplies, but you may need to revisit the policy for future years/terms/sessions, unless you have ongoing expenses that make the fees still needed.

[DVD storage -- tell me about using Binders instead of Jewel Cases...]

Thanks.  I am feeling like a dinosaur, but hw do you make digital copies? I think that could help a lot too, to only have the actual disks as back up and not used all the time.

 

I was thinking maybe to use the "looseleaf storage" pockets because maybe movies could be arranged in some logical way and it would not be so hard to insert more if more were added to the collection.

 

What is a logical organization, I wonder? Maybe alphabetical by title? Or to start with also have a genre grouping?

 

We also have a lot, a lot of nonfiction like Great Courses, Connections and art related titles and so on. Plus things like CD roms for educational programs, tax programs, and so on.

 

Thinking ahead to organizing as I do it in first place, rather than wishing I'd organized better afterwards, what do you think might be a good way?

 

I think that some organization that is inherent to the system more than a master list that has to be looked at would help us.

 

I sent you a PM.

[DVD storage -- tell me about using Binders instead of Jewel Cases...]

We use binders instead of jewel cases because we have an obscene number of movies, and the jewel cases simply take up too much room. It works well for us. We use sturdy, locking "vaults" instead of traditional binders so that they're more secure during our frequent moves and because the vaults provide better protection from physical damage. We also create digital copies of our movies--for our use only, no selling or giving or transferring anything--and usually watch the movies from those digital copies, keeping the physical disks as backups.

 

On those rare occasions when we have needed to find a physical disk, I have regretted that we did not organize the vaults, or at least that we didn't keep them organized as we added to and deleted from our collection, and that we never made a record of where any particular movie is. (We have 4 vaults, each with a capacity of 200 or so disks--they're not all quite full, but I meant it when I said that we own an obscene number of movies.) When I have time for a time consuming project--in about 20 years--I intend to label each vault with a letter and each slot within the vault with a number, then create a spreadsheet of what movie is in which slot. If you do switch to binders, I suggest you do something similar from the start.

 

 

ETA: This is what we use: http://smile.amazon.com/Vaultz-Locking-Capacity-Accents-VZ01076/dp/B00063E26Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452792709&sr=8-1&keywords=locking+dvd+binder

[Language Arts for K??]

I'm curious, why didn't you just start Foundations with him when he wanted to learn to read? It's appropriate for kids as young as ... what, 4, maybe?

 

If he's already reading at K, could you just skip him ahead to whatever you use with your daughter after Foundations? (Or is your daughter finished with Foundations yet?)

[Email account for kids in order to create profiles on websites...]

I use gmail. When my daughter was a newborn, I created an email address for her because she was required to have one for a frequent flyer program and it wouldn't let her use mine because mine was already in use. I set hers up on gmail, linked her account to mine, and had it forward all her emails to my main account. Five years later, we still use that account for her frequent flyer things and anything else she needs an email address for, and she still doesn't even know she has it.

[Would it be okay for my mother to try to find a former foster child?]

How heart wrenching! I hope your mom is able to find him, and that things went better for him than she fears.

[What do you call the circles on the stovetop that you cook on?]

I grew up in the southeastern U.S., using a stove with the old fashioned electric coil burners. We always called them "eyes."

 

As an adult living elsewhere, I continued to call them eyes as long as I had that type of stove. Then I had gas ones and called them burners. Then I had the flat electric ones (which I HATE, btw, they don't get hot enough and I can't keep them clean) and I never know what to call them. It's usually "the eyes, burners, whatever you call those things."

 

I just noticed in my first sentence that apparently I've started calling the electric coil ones burners as well.

 

Total side note: That's one of the hazards of living in a lot of different places and being exposed to lots of different dialects and languages ... sometimes one word comes out naturally in one environment but a different word in another environment, or the word that comes out most naturally isn't even your native language (if it's something that there is an English word for but I didn't experience much until I was in a non-English speaking country and I just used the local word for it--for me, a prime example is a traffic circle or roundabout; sometimes I use those words, but the most natural one is the Arabic "midan") or two or more words try to come out at the same time and I just stop, confused, while I figure out which one to say.

[In need of some serious prayers...]

Wow, what a way to start the year! You and your family are in my prayers.

[how do you fix your books with binding problems?]

Way back when I was volunteering at our school library in junior high, we'd fix books by reinserting the pages, dripping glue down inside the loose binding, and using rubber bands to hold it all tightly together until the glue dried.

[Speaking of home insurance]

Record what you paid (and approximately when) and, if possible take a picture. Look up online what you could find something comparable for and record that as an estimated current replacement cost. Be sure that you're insured for replacement value and that you're insured for enough to cover the estimated cost of replacement, not just purchase price.

[Finances in the news]

We could pay with "cash" on hand (meaning easily accessible money in our emergency fund, maintained precisely for those types of unexpected, sudden expenses).

 

We may choose to put it on a rewards card instead, but even if we did that, we'd pay it off immediately with money from our emergency fund.

 

I'm a big fan of having an emergency fund--the money is there when you need it, and if you have to use it, you replace it at the quickest pace you can so that it'll be there next time you need it. We follow Dave Ramsey's advice of having an emergency fund big enough to cover all required expenses for 3-6 months, so $500 or $1000 wouldn't make a big dent in it. If we had to take it out of our normal budget, it would be tougher, but the fund is there so we don't have to do that. Depending on how much came out, we'd refill the emergency fund over a period of one to several months.

 

Edited to add: Yes, I know that having a credit card at all, much less using it for reward points, is not in line with Dave Ramsey's recommendations. I used to be a DR hardliner, but now I trust myself more. My husband and I have proven to ourselves that we're capable of being responsible with money and with credit cards, and we no longer feel the need to avoid all credit cards. We actually never did, as my husband's job requires him to have a credit card for which he legally is responsible (even though he gets reimbursed for the travel expenses he has to put on it).

[Pots and pans?]

If you're looking for nonstick and are a member of Costco, I'd say go there and check out their Kirkland Signature nonstick ones. We used them for years before switching to enameled cast iron, and they were great--we kept one of them to use as an egg-scrambling pan, since egg doesn't clean off the Le Creuset well. I let go of the others because I wanted to use cast iron and because some of them had begun to get scratched after 8 or so years. I've also heard good things about the Kirkland Signature regular ones (the not nonstick ones), but I have no personal experience.

 

If you want enameled cast iron, I think Cuisinart and Lodge tend to get good reviews on Amazon for much less than Le Creuset, but I think the reviews are much less consistent. I have a Cuisinart enameled cast iron Dutch oven that I'm pleased with, but my pans and skillets are Le Creuset, so I can't offer definitive recommendations there.

[Is Starwars okay for a 10 year old?]

I haven't seen the new one yet, but my husband has and he thinks it's ok for our 5yo daughter. She's seen the original trilogy and at least some of the prequels. (My husband loves Star Wars and is passing that obsession along to her.) She's also very familiar with the story lines because of Star Wars Little Golden books.

[TOG and ARTistic Pursuits]

This year, for K, we are doing a lightened TOG Year 1 for history. We also are doing ARTistic Pursuits (AP) for art, but we're using the preschool book because my daughter hasn't done much with art before and because I thought that would make sense, since there are only 3 AP books labeled for the four years of K-3; I thought I'd do preschool for K, then books 1-3 for grades 1-3.

 

As I begin my more in-depth planning for next year, I see that I may have made a mistake--I hadn't realized that AP loosely follows the classical cycle in the K-3 books, so that Book 2 is recommended in TOG Year 2. Apparently AP2 has artist biographies that correspond well with TOG Year 2, and it makes sense to have the student do the art assignments corresponding to those artist studies as well. But we haven't done AP Book 1 yet, with its teaching about techniques that I think would be good for my daughter.

 

So, considering the conundrum I've gotten myself into, what should I do now? Should I go ahead with AP1 as planned and skip or find another resource for artist biographies to go along with TOG2? (If I skip the artist studies in TOG2, I'll add those in, albeit probably with a different resource, next cycle.) Should I skip AP1 and go straight to AP2 in order to get that AP/TOG correspondence? Should I do a combination of AP books, such that I go through the first section of AP1 during the weeks that TOG doesn't assign AP2, but use the AP2 assignments on the weeks where it makes sense to learn about an artist at the right time? (My daughter loves art projects; we could conceivably do 2 in a week, or do some on holidays and school breaks, so that we'd eventually use all of both books, but I'd feel a pressure to use it all that I wouldn't enjoy.)

 

Thanks for your advice!

[Geography and History.]

My daughter (my only child) is in K this year, so I'm not speaking from years of experience or wisdom here ;)

 

This is what we've done/are doing:

 

For geography, we're using Evan Moor Beginning Geography. The first part of it focuses on map skills, then moves into basics like continents and oceans. We may take two years to completely go through this workbook, but I think it's providing a solid foundation for understanding other geography concepts when we get to them.

 

We're studying ancient history now, even though we're only in K. I show her on the globe where different events happened. I say things like, "Today we're going to read about ancient X. It's located here," (point on globe) "in a place that we now call Y. But back then, it was called X." I'm not introducing modern flags, cultures, or languages as part of this, just physical location. My daughter already has a decent understanding that places are different countries, and have different cultures, and are symbolized by different flags because of our lifestyle (diplomatic family that moves to a new country every few years--she understands countries better than American states; from what I can tell, she thinks of each state as a different country), so I don't feel any need to stress that right now.

 

Because we started the history cycle in K, we may take a year off history at some point down the road to focus on cultural geography.

 

I can't speak to testing requirements, as I don't have any state requirements to test and so haven't looked into it. My cover school will require annual testing, but not until third grade.

[Not how I wanted to start the new year.... Update in OP]

I'm sorry. :grouphug:

[WWYD - daughter doesn't want to go to a party because of a particular kid]

If the bully's mom witnessed the past behavior, then I assume that means the kids will be with the adults. In that situation, I'd tell my kid not to worry about the bully because I would be there to deal with it. And I would deal with it. I wouldn't be mean or bully the bully, but I'd point out his bad behavior and tell him that it's unacceptable. (It would be easier if I were the hostess ... It's easy enough to say that we don't behave that way in this house so if he's going to keep doing that, he'll need to go home. It's harder when all you can say is that we don't allow people to treat my child that way so if you continue, we'll go home.) If we got there and the kid is so far off the rails that I couldn't deal with it, and the mom refused to, then I'd tell the host that I'm sorry but I can't in good conscience allow my kid to be bullied, so we're leaving. Thanks for the invitation and the food and the good time, but good night.

[Being supportive when someone is ill & you need emotional boundaries]

If you feel the need to support your ex but can't do it directly right now, point him toward someone who can do it directly--another survivor to whom you think he'll be able to relate (after discussing it with the other person first, of course), a support group of some kind, a pastor or therapist or someone else who does this kind of thing professionally. Go ahead and have someone in mind now, so that if and when your ex does ask, you can refer him to someone immediately. If you feel yourself being sucked in, get help for yourself--a counselor if you already have one, someone from student services at your college, whoever helped you emotionally through the divorce.

 

For your son, you certainly know him better than any of us. He may really be as stoic as he appears, but it's also possible that, in the face of your and your ex's emotionality, he adopted stoicism as a facade to suppress his own negative emotions. (I have tended to do that, so I often wonder if others are doing it too.) It's possible that he's feeling things deeply and refusing to acknowledge those feelings. Just be on the lookout for signs that he's not handling it all as well as it seems.

[Ditching 4-Year Science Cycle?]

Is this something I could use with both my dd concurrently? They are 4.5 years apart in age. Obviously I would have to make some adjustments, but I want science to be something we do together.

 

How organized are the lesson plans? Is there assigned reading, assignments, projects each week? Do you supplement with other resources? Or does it mostly stand alone?

 

I see there are 3 volumes that go from K - 8 in all. How long does it take to get through 1 volume?

 

I know this wasn't addressed to me, and I'm not anywhere near as far along as Ms Ivy, but I thought I'd answer, too, just so you can see multiple ways to use BFSU. My daughter is in K, and we've been using BFSU for 3 months. I'm not a scientist by any means, but I had good science classes in high school and college, so I'd consider myself as having a decent layperson's understanding of science without any specialized knowledge.

 

I try to do science once a week, though I admit that this is one of the subjects that doesn't always get done. I spent a lot of time before we started school planning out the order in which I was going to do the lessons, buying supplies, and buying some of the corresponding books. (We live overseas but are able to ship most things we need from the U.S., so I plan ahead.)

 

Depending on the lesson, we may do an entire lesson in one sitting, or we may do only one part of a lesson. There are some lessons with 4+ parts that I expect to do over the course of 3 or more weeks, for example. Before the lesson begins, I review the lesson I intend to do that day and collect any needed supplies. Then I begin the lesson with my daughter, with the book open on the table, and refer to it as I go through the lesson. When we're done, I have my daughter do a page (or more) for her Science notebook--for now, I scribe. I record the date, lesson number, and lesson name at the top. I have her tell me any important definitions, which I write for her. We review the major concepts learned, and I write them in her words on the page. Then we brainstorm together about what kind of picture would best illustrate that concept, and she draws it. If there are multiple important concepts covered in one lesson, we do more than one notebook page. Some time later, maybe the same day or maybe a different day within the same week, I read one or more of the recommended books to her. Sometimes it seems like I have a hard time finding the words to explain things to her, and the books do a better job of it. Other times the books are good reinforcement. She enjoys being able to say that she already knew what the book told her. Often, she further reviews the lesson by showing her father the demonstration or her notebook page(s) when he comes home from work. We have not supplemented with videos or anything other than the books (though I did just get her a subscription to Kiwi Crate which may at times complement or reinforce science lessons).

 

The concepts she's learned so far are ones that I would have said were too advanced for K. They're topics that my neighbor says her 10yo hasn't learned yet, or is learning now. However, BFSU guides me in presenting them in a way--and recommends books that present them in a way--that my 5yo understands and remembers them. I've been surprised at times that she's applied the concepts in real life, either by seeing something happen and saying "Did that happen because ...?" or by saying "If I do this, then this will happen" or in her play. So, I think you'd have no problem combining a range of ages.

 

BFSU requires more planning than a lot of other science curricula. It's worth it, though, both in terms of how much my daughter is learning/understanding/remembering and in terms of how much she's enjoying science. She requests science lessons--often more in a week than I'm prepared to do. If asked if she wants to do a science lesson, she happily stops whatever she's doing and says "Yes please!" with a big grin on her face. And, something we haven't gotten to yet but I know is recommended once you get to a certain point in the book--Dr. Nebel recommends that you spend a lot of time going out, finding, and identifying plants and animals in your area. Once you do the lesson where you talk about species, he recommends that you keep doing that indefinitely, while continuing with the other lessons. That kind of activity--what it sounds like you want to do--certainly is not incompatible with BFSU.

[Prayers for the baby]

Praying for Caden and for you.

[LOE Foundations for K&1, what else?]

Thank you all for your advice! I think my inclination to just keep going over the summer, possibly at a slower pace, was right. I will look into all the grammar options you mentioned and will plan on holding off on composition for at least another year.

[What do you collect?]

I'm a deliberate collector. I have a few collections, and I'm considering adding another one. However, for me, the key is quality items that mean something to me, not just large collections for the sake of collections.

 

I collect coffee mugs from places that are important to me: the state where I grew up, the college I attended, the location where we honeymooned, the places I've lived since then. I don't usually add a coffee mug from places I visit, but Disney cruises have become such a valued part of my life that I added a mug from Disney Cruiselines ... two mugs, actually, because I was having such a hard time deciding that my husband announced he wanted one too, just so I'd have a "reason" to buy two. I have a total of maybe 10 mugs that mean something to me, and they were chosen carefully to represent the place. I add, on average, one every two years--whenever we move. I rarely add one for a vacation.

 

I collect Disney pins, but again, I collect them carefully, to mean something. I have a pin that represents my first cruise, one for each of the two ships I've cruised on, one for the itinerary of my second cruise ... I didn't think to get one to represent the itinerary of my first one but I'm hoping for another chance at that one! I'll get another itinerary pin on my next cruise, though it'll be a repeat of the ship, so I won't get a new one of those. Contrast that to my husband and daughter, who each have 10+ pins just because they liked them.

 

I collect wall art from the countries where we've been assigned. We went a little overboard on items from our first post, but we've scaled back since then.

 

I collect "treasures" from our travels--pottery, sculptures, something that represents the place. Some is from vacation travel; most is from places we've lived. This is the collection where I have to be the most careful. I can go overboard pretty easily here, but I try to contain myself to only pieces that I love. Most of these items are small and display well in our china cabinet.

 

We collect Christmas ornaments--one per person per year, carefully selected to represent that person's year. I also just joined a Secret Sisters group this year, so I'll be adding that collection over the years.

 

My husband collects figurines that represent the Disney cruise ships we've been on--each ship has a statue of its captain in the atrium, and they sell miniatures. We have two. I'm hoping to complete the set, but realistically, I'm thinking we'll add one more someday.

 

I want to start collecting Nativity sets. I wish I'd started back at our first post ... one from each country would be fun :) But I have one from our second post, and I love the ones available here (our fourth post), so I'm certain I'll buy one next year.

 

 

Edited to add: Yes, my collections do add joy to my life. If I don't tend to smile when I see it, it goes away. My china cabinet is full of treasures--ones from our travels around the world, plus the Disney captains, plus a super fun Stitch we bought on board ... I'm well aware that it probably looks overfilled with clutter to many people, but I can't help but smile when I look at it. To me, it's full of beautiful memories. That's why I collect things ... actually, that's what I really collect: beautiful memories, and the things that bring them to mind.

[LOE Foundations for K&1, what else?]

We're using LOE Foundations for my daughter's K year, and she's doing very well with it. We are just a couple of lessons into Level B, but I'm a long term planner and so I'm already beginning to think about curriculum for 1st grade (and beyond, but trying to focus on 1st for now).

 

My current plan is to stick with LOE Foundations for phonics and spelling through Level D. Because we'll be taking a month off in May, I expect that we won't finish Level B until sometime this summer, and I'm debating whether to take the rest of the summer off and pick up with C in the fall, or whether to just keep going at a slower pace for the summer (also doing math at a slower pace) and pick it back up to normal in the fall. Either way, I anticipate finishing up Level D toward the end of her 1st grade year (unless she starts to have trouble with it and we need to slow the pace).

 

My question is what to do about grammar and composition, which I do not believe are included in any Foundations levels. Grammar and some composition are included in the Essentials levels, for ages 7+. But I'm not totally sure that we'll continue with Essentials after Foundations, and even if we do, I'm not sure if it includes enough composition.

 

A lot of the grammar and composition programs begin in 1st grade, and I'm wondering whether I need to start those alongside LOE Foundations, or if she'll even be reading well enough in Foundations Level C to add those in. I'm specifically wondering about adding in the copywork, dictation, and narration recommended for early writing instruction in WTM.

 

Let's see if I can distill the jumble in my head into some specific questions ...

 

(1) If you've used LOE Foundations, would you recommend having a complete break between Levels B and C, or starting C immediately at a more relaxed pace, and why?

 

(2) Is a student who's finished LOE Foundations Level B ready for grammar and/or writing/composition? (She'll be turning 6 right around that time, if that factors into your thinking, though I'm specifically concerned about whether that level will have her reading well enough to add subjects.) If not then, when in the Foundations progression would you add those in--after Level C, not until after Level D (in our case, she'll turn 7 around that time)?

 

(3a) If you think it's appropriate to add in grammar and/or writing/composition before a student completes Foundations Level D, is there a specific curriculum that has worked well with your students?

 

(3b) If you advocate waiting until after Level D before adding grammar and/or writing/composition, is there a specific curriculum that has worked well with your students? If it's a curriculum that begins at grade 1, do you just start with that level even if you're using it with a 2nd grader, and if so, has that been a problem later?

 

Thank you for any insights/advice you can offer!

[Shoes for an 11 year old (rather minor decision in the grand scheme of things)]

$10 more than your max? Unless it means no groceries, utilities, or nortgage/rent, I'd just get them. If he wouldn't take care of them, it would be different, but from what you've said, he would truly appreciate and care for them.