It's been a while since I've been in a classroom, but I can say that I've sat in staff meetings where we were instructed by the administration to highlight the kids who fit this (bold above) description and come up with action plans for them. And this was pre-CC is a district that, at the time, wasn't particularly test focused. 40th percentile was the magic number. :(

I deal with adjusters for my current job, which I'm leaving soon. I will be so glad not to be dealing with them anymore. Some companies are worse than others, but it all depends on the adjuster you draw. The agents really have nothing to do with it in most cases. It is maddening and I constantly feel so bad for our flooded clients who are struggling with an adjuster's decisions.

When I was a classroom teacher I used Kid Blog, but I don't remember whether it had a multiple page deal or not. I liked it because the kids could comment on each other's information and we could provide passwords to others we wanted to "follow" us. I could also set it up so that all comments and posts had to flow through me, so there was no chance of my students getting inappropriate comments. This was years ago though, and there may be better options out there today.

The BMI sounds just like my son last year. His BMI was so low and PS sent a letter home (beginning of K, so he was just 5). I was annoyed at the letter in particular, but evidently it was a state thing. Anyway, we brought it up to the ped and they weren't at all concerned because this was his normal. There was not change drastically in his habits, so the weight was "normal" for him. He was around 35lbs then. Our 3 year old neighbor girl weighs the same as him even now! :) Now, he didn't have the leg pains, etc. and I would want to check that out. But i wouldn't be worried about just the BMI.

We've just started with LWW, and the children are enjoying it immensely. I did vacillate a little, but I'm happy with the choice to go this way at this point.

Mine have iPad minis with the apps for books. My parents bought them for the kids when they were 5, which was a little too early for book purposes. They're almost 7 now and they still don't really use them for reading. Most of the time they would rather have the paper copy of the book. They're just getting to chapter books though, and I would think that would be a more appropriate age for reading one a device.

Lexile.com is a good place to look up lexiles. I kind of love/hate lexiles. It's helpful in determining general difficulty, but has no regard to subject and can be way off. I remember reading somewhere that lexile take into account sentence length and complexity as a major factor, which makes sense to me. A relatively easy book in poetry form will have a really high lexile. In general, an average 4th grader will be between 600-800 by the end of the year. However, the end of the year goals overlap quite a bit too and the anticipated growth from 4th on slows quite a bit as well.

We had a subscription when my twins were five, but we didn't use it much. I think that's our fault because the selection was wonderful. My two just seem to prefer paper books.

I can't believe how often I've been asked this. I never know what to say... I want to say except for the penis, but I never do. :)

My dad did the exact same thing a few months ago. I was at work and my mother called and said, "Your father is about to send you an email that he has prostate cancer, but I told him you don't do that over email." And, sure enough, five minutes later I got the email. Since it wasn't a surprise, my dad might have thought it was okay, though I'm thankful that my mom called first. I'm sorry to hear about your dad. I hope his treatment goes smoothly and that the heart problems don't complicate his care.

It didn't work for me on a 12 but did work on the single month.

Yes to the bold! We also have a local start up that provides the same type of service and I know folks that have used them with much success.

We did it for a while. I hated it too, but it did work. I use Mint.com and the Mint app for all my budgeting now. It works really well for me, but I check it over all the time. DH and I talk it over frequently throughout the month too and make sure that we are on the same page for all the categories. It's working well for us in conjunction with automatic savings transfers from paychecks.

Hatchet Walk Two Moons Where the Red Fern Grows Sign of the Beaver A Long Way from Chicago/ A Year Down Yonder True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle The Wanderer

My kids are almost seven and they are eating it up! They are so into it and I was a little worried they wouldn't be. I'm surprised by their insight on it. :)

My twins are the same age and I recently tried the free version of timez attack with them. I thought they'd like it because it was a game format. Oy! It was no good for us. They were so frustrated and these were facts I know they have mastered! Adding in a timed element made them so upset that we are going back to games with them. We're also using Miquon and playing with concepts. They've got good strategies, so I'm not super worried about fast fact fluency at this age. We will just keep plugging along!

I used these for some writing camps I taught in the past, but it's been a long time. So, take this for what it's worth. ;) I don't think you'll need answer key necessarily because the scrambles usually followed a particular pattern you were studying. So, if you were studying a certain kind of compound sentence, you would unscramble the scrambles to match that pattern. I don't remember having a key or even if a key was available. I was using the elementary level, so I really can't speak to the middle level. If it were me, I'd get the first and see what you think of it first. I also like to make up my own stuff from literature we were using.