I wouldn't let them go back unless I knew the issue was resolved satisfactorily, which probably means they wouldn't get to go back. My answer might be different if it was family and I knew the backstory really well, well enough to trust my judgement about specific situations.

I live in a diverse area of a diverse Southern city where we have just about all religions. A good friend grew up about 45 miles away in a different world. There were Baptists of different kinds, some Methodists, and a few Presbyterians. The few Hispanic families were assumed to be Catholic, and people went to the Chinese restaurant to leave tracts for the owners. I have no idea what her teachers actually said, but my friend and her peers got the idea that after the nation-hood of Israel, all the world's Jews went to live there. On a field trip to my city they saw a modern synagogue and were astounded. I feel just as astounded to hear her stories. We're the same age, roughly same economic class, same race, same religion, same state, but vastly different educations.

I watched that movie in German class back in high school. I remember it as good but very intense. I should rewatch. Mostly I remember it as when I learned that near-universal circumcision of males is a fairly recent American thing, which had to have been interesting for my teacher to explain. I can see (though it's obviously morally wrong) how/why Jewish people were made the scapegoats for years in European history. When almost everyone has one set of beliefs and customs, and there's a small group living alongside with different rules, beliefs, etc, that was probably threatening to leaders. I think someone above pointed that out. What puzzles me is how this survives in a multicultural environment. Maybe people who are upset and angry start "researching" and find old racist screeds, then decide it resonates? Does current antisemitism tend to lump all non-white people together but led by Jewish people?

While I support studying grammar, I don't find either article convincing. The first is really about the importance of language. No one needs a formal study of grammar, let alone Latin grammar, to deeply understand the difference between "I am safe" and "I feel safe." The second article has more substance, but loses me at several points, weakening the argument. The author claims to have been unable to teach college students the parts of speech. Given that I really taught the parts of speech to college students, who easily learned, when I was a college student myself, I believe this was not because the students were too old to learn. Whether the author is a poor teacher, has poor methodology, or has unusually fun-witted students I can't say. Additionally, the author groups all sorts of educational movements together into a bogey man of "radical progressives," as though the state of education today is the intentional result of a specific group. Instead, we have a horrible mish-mash resulting from conflicting waves of reform, often cancelling previous waves. Criticizing schools for including practical life skills like shop and home ec seems very out of touch when those have been gone from most schools for thirty years or more. My take on things is that grammar is great, but the formal study of grammar can easily wait until after great language has been absorbed through years of reading excellent writing. Diagramming sentences can be a fantastic way to force students to closely consider the grammar of a sentence, but it's not the only way. (And, yes, I split the infinitive in that sentence intentionally). Studying a foreign language does wonders for helping students see things in their own language that has previously been invisible to them, but Latin isn't uniquely suited for this. Those selling curriculum that teaches grammar and sentence diagramming may have reason to exaggerate their importance.

I should say, my parents were surprised once that I didn't know about our area's relatively recent history of anti-Semitism and explained it. My dad had more Jewish classmates than Christian ones in high school because he lived just outside the border of a small, wealthy city that didn't want Jewish residents and so moved their school week to Tuesday through Saturday. That seemed to have been completely wiped away by the time I was in school, as far as I knew, but the not-talking-about-it was probably a symptom my parents saw that I didn't know to see. It may be relevant that Columbine happened when I was in middle school, September 11 when I was in 10th grade. There were plenty of dangers we were hyper-vigilant about. It could be that our teachers didn't want to add to our angst too much.

I was in 2 different bubbles as a kid: a conservative, nearly fundamentalist Christian bubble at home/church and a progressive, upper-middle class bubble at school. Going back and forth between the two was strange sometimes, but hatred or fear of Jews was alien to both. We were also in the American South, so the danger we worried about was rednecks with confederate flags, most of whom seemed very pro-Israel when it came up, which was often in the early 2000s.

I can think of some kids in high school who would have thought dressing up as Hitler/a Nazi was funny, roughly akin to dressing up as the devil. Such an over-the-top baddie that now one would think you were actually supporting the badness. Thankfully, those kids had parents who would have prevented them from making that mistake (and may have prevented it, for all I know.) I can't imagine any of them thinking it's okay now. The difference is that in high school, we didn't know anyone who was anti-Semitic. Such things seemed so distant they felt silly when juxtaposed against our normal lives. Today, anyone paying attention knows that anti-Semitism and fascism in general are far too real of dangers to joke about. I suppose that means that we were in a bubble. Though I am sure Prince Harry's bubble was very, very different from my own, and he was a little late to the growing-up, I can see how it could happen.

It's really hard for me to answer this because if there were a problem that limited what I had, LA would be one area where I really could teach with just whatever. Writing utensil, something to write on, and whatever books, though preferably she with decent sized print, would be enough. If I were traveling and didn't have much space, I'd take a tablet to get library books through, blank notebook and pencils, and probably whatever All About Spelling levels the kids were on. I'd likely through in a small white board and markers as my kids are less resistant to making mistakes on a white board.

My kids have done really well with Beast Academy, mostly online, though my 5th grader is taking a break here in the middle of Beast 5 to do extra manipulating fractions practice in Math Mammoth. I'm glad I bought all the PDFs of Math Mammoth so I can pull that on from time to time. If I used it with my second, he'd find it a punishment, I think, but the oldest likes the change. My older kids get impatient with manipulatives. I've used Kate Snow's Facts that Stick books, and the 10 frame has been useful for my now 6 year old. We're doing Hands-on Equations right now. My 9 and 10 year olds are impatient, solving things mentally without the hands-on aspect, but the 6 year old is getting a lot out of it. We also did a lot with MEP when the kids were very little. I may pull that back out for my 4 year old to do a bit of school. We went from reception through level 2 or 3 with various kids ages 3-6, mostly orally or with me scribing.

It's definitely fiction, but the kind a fact-lover might enjoy, but the Zoey and Sassafras books are great for that age level.

A lot of what's in this article is good, but I always get suspicious. I totally agree that kids should be taught reverence, but it gets a little murky when we discuss what they should revere. So many times I've seen books and other educational media make horribly dismissive statements towards other cultures and religions while displaying an extreme level of reverence towards their own culture. I understand that it's hard to present multiple contradicting ideas to children in a reverential way. The adults involved must have done the work of real critical thinking, and be continuing to do that work. With my own kids I try to present the "big questions" and our human attempts to answer them over the centuries as part of what we revere. A few curricula are helpful in this, but I tend to find most homeschool curricula to be lacking in this regard, either revering certain ideas without evidence of critical thinking on the author's part or else highly reactionary to that and trying to push the "things I wish I'd learned in high school and college" into an introductory course.

This also interests me a lot, so I'm so glad it's a topic here! I'd love to see real evidence, but it's hard to get. I was looking at some elementary math homework a few years ago to help a kid, and it had instructions to the parents for how to help their kids. They were supposed to read through word problems for key words that told them which operation to use, and it listed the key words. I don't remember all of them, but they were told "share" means "divide." That sounds reasonable until you have "Eleanor had 8 cookies until she shared some with Paul. Note she has 4. How many did she share?" That would be easy if you think through the story of the problem, but the key word method gives the answer "2." I have a feeling, though, that the program just avoids ever giving them problems that don't work with their algorithm. If the same publisher also makes the standardized tests, those kids are going to look far more proficient than they probably are, making it hard to judge the merits if the program.

Is there anyone little in his life he can read to? Elephant and Piggie are great for reading with feeling because the font gives huge clues about the emotion expressed. Yes, he needs practice at his own level, too, but if he can spend some time reading aloud picture books without feeling embarrassed, it would likely be helpful.

Rubber is one movie my husband and I didn't bond over. He loves to recommend it to people. I fell asleep. He might be sad you called it truly terrible.

In college we had shared laundry facilities in the dorms. In mine, the common practice was to try to not leave your stuff in the dryer, but if you need to use a dryer that was finished but full, you needed to either track down the person or fold for them. Usually it was faster just to fold. It was a fairly small number of people involved, so people didn't take advantage and everyone sometimes folded other people's clothes and sometimes felt slightly guilty about coming back and finding your own laundry really nicely folded by one if the girls who worked at Aeropostale on breaks. I did really offend a friend of mine with laundry. We were working a summer job together and sharing a fairly small room. She brought back some clothes from her house that were rank from pets gone wrong, her parents' smoking indoors, etc. I asked her several times to handle it, then washed it after a few days of no change as I was really having trouble sleeping due to the smell. She was angry because she rightfully saw it as a criticism of her cleanliness. It was. At some point, it just had to be done. Thankfully she got over it and was faster to deal with things after that. I wonder sometimes if there was a way I could have handled it better because it was just a no-win situation. It seems to me that the op's situation is very different but may also be no-win. Ps: I wish I could line-dry and do on occasion, but usually it's so humid that even hanging things in the direct sun, they mildew before drying.

I was chatting with a city councilman, who is kind of old, holding my brand-newborn with my barely 2 year old, 5 year old, and 6 year old nearby. He jovially asked me what happened to make us have such a gap between the 2 and 5 year olds. As I gave a confused but neutral answer, he seemed to catch on to the fact that he'd asked a horribly personal question with a potentially traumatic answer and kind of awkwardly tried to keep me from answering. I think he learned his lesson, and very thankfully our reasons were practical and I wasn't upset.

When my 6 year old is slow to come downstairs in the morning, he's almost always playing in the nude in his room. I'm not entirely sure if he enjoys it particularly or his toys are always more interesting than getting dressed for the day would be. My almost 4 year old takes off his shirt constantly, even when the other kids are shivering. His big sister convinced him that it's very, very rude to show one's bottom, and he trusts her so leaves his pants on.

In the sense of "modest" being "not braggy or attention grabbing" we talk about not accidentally using your clothes to grab attention or doing it intentionally in a rude way. While there's nothing wrong with a graphic t shirt, if the event is slightly more formal, you will stand out in a rude way. You don't want to do this accidentally, and if you are doing it on purpose you'd better have a really good reason. Your bathing suit should let you swim and dive without worrying about accidental exposure, your pants shouldn't be likely to burst at the seams when your are doing sport, etc. I've talked a bit with my pre teen daughter and how different girls react to their changing bodies. Some flaunt it while others try to hide it. I want her to feel comfortable as she grows so she's making wise choices from a place of confidence. She's heard from other friends about not exposing shoulders, etc, and finds it weird but chose on her own to not wear sleeveless things around kids who aren't allowed to because she didn't want to make them upset or jealous.

My ten year old spent last week complaining that her cold prevented her from concentrating at all, and she tried to continue that this week. Yesterday I told her she needed 5 more good school days before she gets to go on Christmas Break, and it was amazing how she found the ability to focus.

I would guess that is just that they are entering that stage where they are starting to dream but still slightly awake. My kids (not special needs) certainly did this sometimes when they were very small. They might still do this, but I don't watch them sleep as often now.

Yeah, I think if any other kids in our pack had done it, my kids would be excited, but the only ones who did did it at a camp or something and I only know about it because it's in Scoutbook. Our old Advancement Chair didn't make a big deal over it like I would (new chair). I think if I could get them to talk to my friend and ask her to be their mentor it would spark their interest, but everyone is busy.

I don't have a large family by my definition, but my kids are almost 4, 6, 9, and 10, so it's pretty mom-intense homeschooling years. I've found online Beast Academy to be great because it's challenging but there are resources to help them figure things out before calling me. I still have to be nearby and redirect attention, but it makes it day much smoother. Right now we just play math with the youngest, doing things that involve counting, verbal word problems, letting him identify numbers in instructions, etc. I'll probably move into doing MEP reception and maybe level 1 with him soon. I have Kate Snow's Math Facts that Stick series, so I'll probably have him go through those for addition and subtraction before starting Beast Academy 1. If I had her Kindergarten and first grade on hand, I would likely use those instead. My kids are all very bright and catch onto ideas quickly, which certainly impacts this method.

Is he working on Super Nova or something else? DH is theoretically working on Super Nova with my older 2, but they aren't exactly enthusiastic and I don't think have even talked to the counselor yet. I'm looking forward to my oldest crossing over end of February. I think merit badges will be great "unit studies" for her to work on.

I agree with the idea of doing the minimum needed and making the focus of the season fun Christmas/Winter activities. It can be casual or you could come up with mini-units if that's what works best for your family. With kids the ages of yours, it's probably painfully slow but highly educational and fun to take time to slowly go through a recipe, find ingredients in the pantry, make a shopping list for what's missing, go on a shipping trip just for those few things and let the kids lead the way, then work together to make the recipe.

That sounds really fun! It sounds a little like when my older two were those ages, except that the math you are using wasn't around yet. It's funny how quickly things are changing! My first grader is loving that BA has level 1 now. He would probably have been fine with it last year, but I was waiting until the whole thing was ready before starting him.