We can all agree that there times when parents make deliberately provocative choices in naming their child - recently, someone named their child “Adolph Hitler”. There was also a well known art collector in Texas named “Ima Hogg”, who concealed her first name in a number of ways her whole life. There are also parents who unwittingly choose a name that has an eye opening meaning. Often, the names are medical terms, perhaps overheard at the hospital. I have seen babies on the maternity ward with the names “Placenta” and “Melena”. Melena sounds lovely, but it is the medical term for dark bloody stool. I have not seen, but have heard of babies being named “Orgasm” and “Urethra”. So where does “Abcde” fall on this spectrum? I’m not sure but I do think that name choices can have unintended consequences, good and bad, that parents can somewhat, but not entirely, control. Like nearly everything in life, to each, their own.

Exactly.

Wirecutter has their top boots here, and NY Magazine has their top boots here. I have Columbia Omni Heat, but I wouldn’t stand around in subzero weather in them. They are very lightweight and kind of sneaker like. I wear Sorel’s when I have to walk through slush. Mine are years out of stock, but sort of a cross between these https://www.sorel.com/womens-snowlion-xt-boot-1573951.html https://www.sorel.com/womens-joan-of-arctic-boot-1708791.html The Skechers boots on the NY Mag look great.

Private schools in NY like to give the perception that there are very few open spots because it enhances their reputation. In actuality, there are always spots because people are always moving in and out of the city. Families move to the suburbs, they get relocated abroad, etc. Kids also change schools. The average attrition rate is over 5% everywhere simply due to the nature of working in Manhattan. We were told there were no spots when we applied and it turned out our child was one of 6 new kids that year.

James’s. It looks odd, but it is grammatically correct, as in St James’s Park of London. And the more you use it, the less odd it looks! And we do say both ‘s’ sounds in James’s, so it reflects the pronounciation. I believe the exception is when the final s is not pronounced, so it would be Albert Camus’ writings. Or the writings of Albert Camus to avoid the issue altogether.

Try posting to the booksleuth discussion on Abebooks http://forums.abebooks.com/n/forumIndex.aspx?dbg=6&webtag=abebook0000dx&mobile=y There are many regulars who are amazing at sleuthing out book titles.

There are several clips of him talking about it - here is one in a speech he gave to a school. He talks about it in the first couple of minutes. He gave quite a number of “back to school” speeches that are inspirational.

Hi workingmom, it’s difficult, isn’t it? Planning and motivation are two different beasts, and you need both to get anything done. At the end of the summer, I pull out all the material I would like to get through during the academic year. I count the lessons and put post it flags to mark off where we should be by the end of each trimester. Those serve as a rough guide for me to see if we are on track during the school year. I don’t have a specific plan for each week because we would never be able to stick to it. Some weeks are just busier than others. I spend a chunk of time upfront to proclick all their books so that I can pull pages out quickly. Each child has a folder. I pull the worksheets I want them to do, circle the problems I want them to answer, and change out their folders every day. I don’t assign every problem on every page. Sometimes for Singapore IP, DD9 just does the “Take the Challenge” section, especially for units like “Tables and Graphs” and “Shapes”. Eliminating the process of flipping through the books, struggling to keep them open to the right page, and trying to write in the creases, allows my kids to waste less time. Somehow, we manage to get through most of the materials by the end of the year, and anything remaining, we finish up in the summer. As for motivation, kids respond in different ways. My younger child sees my older child doing it and thinks that’s just the way it is. Last year, DD9 went through a reluctant phase, so I showed her a clip of President Obama talking about how his mother woke him up at 4am every day to study. I explained that we afterschool to exercise her brain and make it powerful. I showed her last year’s math notebook and how she had struggled over problems that seem simple to her today. I explain that doing just a small amount every day can lead to amazing results. I try not to reward her for doing the work, but on Fridays, she has the option to do the work and have iPad time or not do any afterschooling or iPad at all. She usually chooses to do the work. It also helps that she has peers who also afterschool. Several of her friends also afterschool in one way or another and commiserating about it helps her to understand that it’s not just her. Sometimes we take a break for a week or two. Having my kids in full time school gives me the leeway to be able to do this and not feel any regrets about falling behind. Word problems get tricky and time consuming for 4th grade and up. I tell my DD that this is real math. The reason we have math in the first place, is to solve word problems. And any time we use math in everyday life, it is to solve a word problem. Good luck! It’s so helpful for me to hear about what other people are doing and it’s great to learn from each other.

In the UK, year 4 is roughly equivalent to 3rd grade in the US.

We are a month into the school year and have settled on a routine for DD9, in 4th grade and DS6, in 1st grade. It’s not ideal, but it feels as balanced as we can hope for in terms of school, afterschool activities, afterschool academics, and free time. Both kids attend an immersion school and we are feebly attempting a third language with weekly lessons, though it’s way behind their immersion language. DS6 is only assigned reading for homework, so we supplement with miquon and Singapore IP/CWP for math, and extra reading. My goal for him is to afterschool 3-4 days a week. Otherwise, he is busy with play dates and afterschool activities. DD9 has a busier schedule with sports and music every day of the week and daily homework. She usually has an hour gap in which she is waiting at the soccer field or pool before practice, so she uses that time for homework. On the two weekdays she is home before 730 pm, we afterschool before bedtime and limit it to 20-30 minutes. On the three weekdays she is home at 8/830 pm, we skip it altogether. We have longer sessions on weekend days to make up for it. It helps that I only afterschool in math and writing/reading comprehension. We are using Singapore IP/CWP and Beast Academy for math and Reading Detective and exercises from Writing Revolution and the Kilgallon books for reading/writing. I’m happy with the history, science, typing, coding and the immersion language taught at school. It does require some prep time for me because we don’t have time for me to shuffle through materials. I’m feeling doubtful that we will be able to allocate the same amount of time once we hit the middle school years, but I guess we will cross that bridge later.

I am in Manhattan, and admission into public middle school is by application only. They are due around December 1. Usually, families tour the schools in October and November and then list up to 5 schools in order of preference. It is a daunting process, even for seasoned NY parents and especially for newcomers. I have no idea how homeschooled children provide the equivalent of teacher reports and report cards. I would find a few middle schools that you are interested in, and call the admissions office to ask if they have had homeschooled children join their school. You can also try reaching out to the NY homeschoolers' alliance https://nychea.org. Our kids are in a private school here, so I don't have any personal advice for you. Good luck!

I also like Reading Detective for reading comprehension. We have never tried a learning center, so I'm not sure how they structure their sessions. Do they discuss the answers or just engage with the teacher when they have a question? I think discussion is vital to reading comprehension. We discuss every question and the reasoning behind the answer to make sure there is no reliance on gut feelings, conjectures, or knowledge from outside the passage.

We also use Singapore CWP. I have also seen Process Skills recommended as a resource that has more explicit step by step instructions http://www.singaporemath.com/Fan_Math_Process_Skills_in_Prob_Solving_L3_p/fmpsps3.htm I have also found a helpful exercise that helps in any type of problem. Sometimes the presence of more complex numbers creates confusion about the wording. You can have your student replace the numbers given with much simpler numbers. For example, in the problem Abby gave 5/12 of her books to Bob. She gave 1/6 less books to Charlie. What fraction of her books did she give away? You can try an example with simpler numbers. Replace 5/12 and 1/6 with simpler fractions like 1/2 and 1/4. Abby gives 1/2 her books to Bob and 1/4 less to Charlie. So she gave away 1/2 + (1/2-1/4) = 3/4 of her books. You can then apply the same reasoning to the original numbers.

Was this directed at OP or at my post? I agree, the schedule is really busy, and is a step up since last year. Judging from the amount of legos, kapla blocks, and board game pieces strewn about from last night, they do still have time to play. My kids do enjoy all the activities, and since we live in a very dense urban area on the east coast, everyone lives in small spaces with no backyard or outdoor space. Having a place to swim or play soccer indoors is only possible if you schedule it because space is at such a premium. We wouldn't have chosen this schedule if our kids needed help at home to keep up in school. Afterschooling is for fun and enrichment.

Hi, just to clarify, impetigo is caused by either staph aureus or strep pyogenes. Since the lesions start to crop up around the nostrils, I would assume that DD5 has intranasal colonization of one of those bacteria. Intranasal Bactroban will get rid of it - talk to your ped. They may recommend everyone in the family use it to make sure you don’t keep passing it around. As for the question - is it MRSA vs MSSA, MRSA is methicillin resistant staph aureus and MSSA is methicillin sensitive staph aureus. Methicillin is in the penicillin family, so MRSA is resistant to penicillins, like ampicillin and amoxicillin. Penicillins are very powerful cidal antibiotics which mean they kill bacteria. MRSA is feared because we have to treat it with static antibiotics, which only inhibit growth but do not kill the bacteria. That said, MRSA is not resistant to bactroban, but it is not recommended to use it more than 10 days in a row so that you don’t develop the really dreaded mupirocin resistant Staph aureus. So if it is responding to mupirocin, that doesn’t mean it isn’t MRSA. I would ask your ped until they give you a different approach, because your DD5 somehow keeps reinfecting herself.