I read Massie's Peter the Great at about that age. Somewhere between 12 and 14, anyway. It is way too long for me to imagine it as a read-aloud, but I loved it and read it a second time a year or two later. I don't recall anything horribly offensively shocking in it. I vaguely recall some sexual issues being mentioned, but I'd remember, I think, if anything was described in lurid detail. I'm trying to recall the name of a middle grades historical fiction work that, if I remember correctly, had a fictionalized account of the fall of the Romanovs and then a long easy on which aspects were verified by history and which were conjecture.

Just remembering from when I was a kid, I wouldn't be too harsh. They, in their eyes, just found a more clever way to get the required work done. Normally finding a more clever way to get something done is good, so even if they also know cheating is wrong, it's very easy to self-justify. I'd tell them matter-of-factly that this isn't acceptable and then have them do two lessons a day until they've made up what was missed. A second breech would be more serious, but they'd be hearing all sorts of stories about people who were expelled, lost scholarships, were fired, lost their family's trust, etc after the first and hope that those stories+ not benefiting from cheating would help the lesson be learned.

If the numbers you listed are ages, not grades, you could get each of the Hirsch books that apply to each child, then alternate in each book, using a lot of sticky notes to keep your places. So for a while, read the literature selections from the kindergarten book, history from the second grade book, science from the fifth grade book, and so on. Just read as much as holds the kids' attention. When you finish one section in one book, swap, but keep some balance so you've both got lots of ideas going and something aimed directly at each child every day. Another option using the Hirsch books would be to choose a text in between the older two, read from it daily, and add in related picture books to help include the youngest and give additional perspective for the older children. I wouldn't sweat to much about scheduling however you do it, but that's just me. Some people do better with them, I know.

Thanks, all, for the support and ideas. It gave me the courage to talk to the cub scout leader today to let him know and check that the Veteran's Day ceremony will be appropriate for our family this year. Thankfully, it's mostly a flag retirement ceremony, but I'm confident he will keep an eye and ear out (having spent a year overseas at the same destination himself) for anything that would be too intense.

Oh, and I've been looking through library books and identified some that show life, geography, culture, etc in this country without dwelling much on its current political situation or recent history. We'll find a restaurant serving their food and do that kind of thing as much as possible, too.

I think my shut down phrase will be something like "Thanks. We miss him, but we know he's doing work he loves and he and the soldiers he's with are very well trained and prepared." I could even, if the kids are actively listening, involve them to make things more obvious to the oblivious with "Hey, kids, remember what we talked about how papa stays safe/is working in an office to organize the other soldiers/etc." Other kids, especially older ones, are a bit of a concern. I feel comfortable talking to the parents of the ones we spend the most time with, and I'll be sure to mention to my kids that most kids have no idea what soldiers do because they've only seen movies, and movies aren't like real life. My daughter has already checked to see if he's going to "the country with lots of bombs" her cousin told her about. Thankfully for me, the country being described was Israel, and I could tell her no, not that one.

Thank you all for your reassurance. It's my hope that I'm overreacting and that those who comment freely about smaller things would button up about big ones, but I'm not willing to leave it to chance. My six year old figured out at barely age three that everyone dies and was absolutely torn up about it. We worked through it and she's fine with the idea that old people die and that sometimes really sad things happen to younger people, but this is so much nearer than that. She's a thinker and a worrier. My four year old, who will be five when dh goes overseas, broods and then has emotional reactions that seem to come from out of the blue. Either one could hear something and think on it for days before letting me know, and as smart as they are, they lack knowledge and maturity and could come up with some crazy ideas left to their own thoughts. Thankfully, dh will mostly have an office type job this time around, which does help me breath a little easier than if he were riding around, going house to house like before we were married.

My husband is deploying soon (national guard, to middle east). Our local newspaper recently ran an article emphasizing how dangerous this deployment may be. My husband assures me it's no worse than normal and the newspaper loves click bait, and I'm holding him to that. For the kids (ages 6, almost 5, and 2, with one to be born just before he goes over seas), I want to control the message to them, particularly the older two. We're going to focus on, yes, the risk is elevated, but it's kind of like how walking through a parking lot is more dangerous than through the park, which is why we can run and play tag in the park but we hold hands and stick together in a parking lot, and it's not really a problem when we do that. It's more dangerous where dh is going, but he and the other soldiers know that, so they take care of themselves by sticking together, having clothes that work like shields, and having lots of medics around, so even though it's more dangerous, they've made the danger not such a problem. We won't dump all that on them at once, just as it comes up (and they are extremely bright and inquisitive kids), we'll focus on all the things dh and the other soldiers have done to prepare. The problem is other people. There are a number of people we know who act like children and anyone not actively involved in a conversation are deaf to it. They will, for example, come up and say things like "we're all so worried about your husband's safety and praying that God brings him back in one piece" with the kids right next to me (they have done very similar before). They aren't bad people or people to avoid, just big-mouths. Is it terribly controlling or crazy sounding to post on Facebook/email around something like the following? "Many of you know dh's unit is deploying soon and may have seen newspaper coverage of this. We feel confident he is prepared and ready for this challenge, although we will miss him, of course. We ask that those of you who are around our children refrain from expressing any fears when around them, even if they appear to not be listening. Little ears pick up a lot, especially when you least expect it! We are going to stay positive, focusing on the good he can do, the great training he has had, and the support he has surrounding him. If my kids seem troubled, please help them think of good things they can do (write a letter, say a prayer) and focus on all the ways he it's protected. Also, please let me know quietly about their concerns and what you discussed so we can stay on the same page. Thank you all for your help over the coming year." Also, I plan to ask the scout leaders to warn me if any events, like those surrounding Veteran's day, will be focused on soldiers' dying so that we can avoid these. Is all that likely to be poorly received? We don't live in a heavily military area, so I know lots of people will feel the need to show support but will have no idea what to say. I think it's obvious why I'm asking you to be gentle in your responses. If I could talk to the most likely offenders face to face about this without breaking down in tears I would, but I can't, so...

I'd probably look into robotics kits or something like that if I didn't feel a need to upgrade the kids' tablets.

Could the second to last letter be a mistake that was crossed out? I can't see well enough to know, but it looks like the writer could have written a letter and x-ed it out.

When my Russian students learned a word like "fruit," they'd make a flashcard that had the word's pronunciation transliterated into Cyrillic as well as a "spelling pronunciation," something like "fruh-it" that they'd also learn. It was interesting to me because I only ever had two students above age eight who weren't good spellers in English. One was constantly drunk and only attended because he was forced to by his parents. The other was very smart but would likely have been diagnosed with dysgraphia and maybe more in America. The vast majority of my students were extremely smart and highly motivated, though, with parents willing and able to pay for special English lessons with a foreigner, so I don't know how well the method works in a more general population, let alone with native speakers of English.

Is this a good way to teach? As a kid, I found it easier to learn my spelling lists if I remembered an exaggerated "spelling pronunciation," for difficult words. For example, people was "pee-oh-pluh." This wasn't something I was taught to do, just a trick I discovered to help myself. Later when teaching English in Russia, my students had fantastic spelling and told me this is what their teachers taught them to do when learning English vocabulary. (Russian is an extremely phonetic language. Extremely). I haven't heard of this being taught as a technique here. Is that because I haven't been listening in the right places? Or because there'd be a negative side effect I haven't thought of? As a primary method, teaching through sounding out and rules of phonics and word origin seems best, but for those "tricky words" that don't seem to stick, is this a viable method?

When my daughter brought them home from school last year (interestingly, the last day before we pulled her to homeschool, but that wasn't the reason), using the steel nit comb with conditioner in her hair and combing three times the first day, then a couple times a day for a couple days, then every morning for a week worked. We didn't actually find anything after day two, but I wanted to be sure. We covered pillows and top of the bed with a easy to wash light weight blanket we changed daily. She has super straight hair, so that helped. My hair is a bit wavy and longer. I combed with conditioner, then tossed and drenched my head in vinegar, then kept combing compulsively for days. The last live ones I found were after the vinegar, and those seemed a little under the weather. We combed the boys at least once a day during that time, but they were pretty much clean. I think we must have caught it pretty early on.

There's a chance the level of difficulty at school well improve. I went to a great high school where I was fully challenged tenth through twelfth grades. Ninth was a little strange though, as some students were failing while I cruised along with over 100 in multiple classes. At the time I couldn't understand why things were easier for me than others, but I think we were supposed to be learning what could be referred to as "the school game" or could be seen as executive function type skills: reading the syllabus, planning ahead for projects and tests, going to teachers with problems, etc. If this school is similar, maybe your daughter's great grades are due to her already understanding those things.

Amazon prime is better than Netflix at having a list that you've pre approved and keeping that list at the top. That only works if your kids will obey the "only choose from the list"directive. Netflix hides the list and tries to advertise new things, so even kids who want to choose something they are allowed to have may be unable to find those things.

I was taught in Atlanta in the nineties that in social situations, a man should not initiate a handshake, but in a professional setting, men and women should be treated the same. People around here seem to follow that. In Russia, I think I shook one man's hand in two years, and he seemed very surprised by it, though he responded politely. That was kind of nice, really. Men had to remove gloves to shake hands, and had to shake at the beginning and end of every encounter, so that could make chance meetings in the street very unpleasant in the depths of winter.

This does remind me of when I was sixteen and a few of us spent the night with an older friend in college. My mom dropped us off, another girl's mom picked us up. It was the most terrifying drive I've been on with an adult driver. She kept claiming to be "the nicest driver in Atlanta," so to prove it she would slam on her brakes while driving down a state highway with a prevailing speed of 65mph, just to let cars out of driveways. They would have been able to merge easily on their own as traffic wasn't heavy that day, but was heavy enough that coming to a complete stop in the road was crazy. She later pulled a ridiculous u-turn in heavy traffic because the Krispy Kreme "hot now" sign was on. As soon as I got home, I told my mom "I'm not allowed to ride with A's mom. No one in our family is!" It was a good lesson to learn before college, but one that I'd rather have learned from a book.

Check out Megabus and then booking a hotel within walking or Marta distance to the play. (I'm assuming it's downtown.) I see Megabus and similar companies in ATL area frequently, and I've heard good things from those who've used them.

Point of interest: in my husband's police department they have renamed these items (taser, baton, etc) "less-lethal weapons," which is still very, very odd terminology, but does remind officers of the potential risks involved in their use.

My husband and I met in the church nursery as babies. There were only two other kids or age in the church at the time. Though we hadn't been close to either in years, we sent then invitations. We didn't hear back, and that was fine. I was terrified that they would just send a present, and that wasn't at all what I wanted. I just figured that a little reunion would be fun, if it worked out. One of their families was in attendance, anyway, as we had stayed in contact with the grandparents.

I understand. Usually at things like that I either find another introvert who likes one on one conversation and have a nice chat here and there between eating, clapping about presents, etc, or I situate myself near extroverts who are so busy talking to each other that they don't notice I'm not talking, just smiling and nodding in the right places. I prefer the one on one, but at least the second option helps me not feel as awkward, and I sometimes learn interesting things.

Totally with you on this!

This is mostly from curiosity, but does anyone have any resources or observations to share about the mental, emotional, etc development of gifted kids/accelerated learners. There's a lot I get out of reading books like WTM, but the stuff there about grammar, logic, rhetoric stages seems alien to my experiences and the observations I've made of my children (and most of the kids in my particular bubble.) I felt the same way reading excerpts from Piaget as a teenager. The best bet is to follow the kids in front of me, I know, but it would be so nice to have some sort of a flow chart letting me know what to expect in coming months and years. I should probably be taking better notes of what my children are doing and see if they follow the patterns of their older siblings. For example, with my eldest I was surprised to learn that I could directly teach her to use a nice, polite tone when asking for things in less than a day at age four. I had assumed she would just absorb this lesson naturally, and she seemed to through age three, then became demanding. I explained, she understood, and life improved quickly. Then, recently, I was shocked that my previously polite second-born four year old had turned rudely demanding. Finally I remembered to try direct teaching and one conversation, several reminders later, all has been better for a couple of weeks now. Will third child do the same in a couple of years? Is there a book full of these secrets? I know the example I gave probably fits non-accelerated kids as well as accelerated, but it's the most concrete example I could think of off hand. Having some guess as to how long advanced young readers are going to shun books without a picture on each page would be nice, as would how attention span develops in kids who are able to handle advanced concept, and that sort of thing.

Thanks so much for the suggestions. We need to remember to do voice recordings, and hopefully he will be able to do more while there and send them home. Someone in the frg is organizing something with teddy bears. I may look into a doll for the two year old as well. (The others would be able to enjoy it with him). We have the Seseme Street video from when he got within a month of deployment before. I'm hoping he's on a base like Kinsa describes. He did two tours in Iraq before we were married. One of the times he would have access to that a lot of the time, but the other time they didn't even have hot meals a significant portion of the time. We hope to know more when he goes for training since an advance team has already been over. Unfortunately, he was recently promoted and moved "departments" and so isn't in the gossip loop for this "department" yet. (I know department isn't the right word, but I forget exact terminology. I think I may have created a mental block against army lingo.)

In my state, and many others, that would be considered domestic violence and the police should arrest the wife in that situation as long as they can see evidence of the crime. The victim is not the one pressing charges; the state does. I know it's different in different places, but ugh... tough situation. I'm sorry, especially for your nephew.