I am not trying to tell you that, I am trying to tell you that I didn’t know that. I subsequently figured out my first grader’s lag in reading comprehension compared to his very high decoding was because of a lack of vocabulary. I recently read in the Memoria Press’s 1st or second grade scope and sequence, “Vocabulary is the key to reading comprehension.” After that I thought, “I wish I had read that before I had to figure it out on my own.” It took a pandemic forcing me to homeschool my son to do it. He doesn’t glean meaning from context. It explains why he prefers chapter books with color pictures on every page. Now I need to go read the rest of the grades’ scope and sequence. I am thinking there might be other gems in there.

Those sound awesome. Thank you for retrieving them from poofland.

I had a boatload of fun teaching even my babies anything. I persisted in anything that they seemed to like and didn’t keep on doing anything they didn’t like. I didn’t teach my twins to count though, my nanny taught them. As soon as they started going up or down stairs, she counted out loud as they went. I didn’t even know she did it until my sister said, “The twins can count up to 20.” They were 18 months old. My MIL taught them how to show their age with fingers and how to hold up how many fingers up to five. They were three or older and I was thinking, “I never thought to teach them that, but what a great thing to teach them.” The only thing that makes something inappropriate for very young ages is requiring output. All of my early teaching was input. If a very young child wanted to do a worksheet, I would let them though. Anything that is output, I would let them do if it was their idea. My daughter likes output. When her older brothers did school when she was 4 she just went over to the books and picked out all the subjects they did and did them herself. Every Single Time. If there wasn’t a teacher available she would figure out how to do it independently. I repeatedly told her that she was four and she didn’t have to do school. She wanted to check off the little check boxes like her big brothers had. Her boy twin did none of that, although academically superior to her.

Double post

My 4 children aren’t vaccinated for chicken pox due to me having bad, life altering reactions to vaccines, that still affect my life on a daily basis. 3 1/2 years ago, my husband got shingles on his face. It was extremely painful on Sunday night when we didn’t know what it was. On Monday am the sores broke out and it was obvious that it was shingles. I gave him high dose vitamin A, vitamin D and olive leaf extract orally. The pain went away completely and never came back. He still had the sores until the next day when I remembered to put the vitamin A on topically several times per day. By the next am, the sores were dried up. He was still tired though and had to take off work for a couple of days. He took off the entire week because he didn’t want to give anyone anything, but he didn’t have to because of feeling badly. 3 of my 4 children got chicken pox on that Wednesday. I also gave them oral vitamin A, vitamin D and olive leaf extract. I added Shaklee’s alfalfa for itching. It is an antihistamine. Two of them didn’t act ill for even one minute. They didn’t itch either. Their spots were scabbed over by Saturday am. They still looked pretty bad. They just didn’t feel bad. They laughed and played and carried on normally with all their spots. It took my daughter longer to catch it. It was a week or two later before she got it. We had the same results with her. She never acted ill at all. She itched once. My one son who regularly took zinc got it the least bad, less than 10 spots. My oldest son with the least zinc, who has white spots on his fingernails that indicate zinc deficiency, got the most spots. He is my most resistant to taking vitamins. He acted tired for about 20 minutes one day and was itchy once or twice. I will add that everyone took a LOT of olive leaf extract (OLE) and alfalfa. OLE is an extremely effective antiviral but you have to take a lot of it and frequently. Same with alfalfa. My middle child was 4 and had not learned how to swallow pills yet. He learned. I paid each 4 and 6 year old one dollar for each pill they swallowed and immediately bought them something they wanted with the money. One child had $27 and the other had $26 from those three days of taking pills. This is just to demonstrate how many pills it took to accomplish this. The vitamin A and D are liquid, so I didn’t count those. My twins were 2 and I just mixed their supps into their almond or coconut milk. This seemed to do something beneficial to my oldest’s immune system. He didn’t get sick often before this, maybe once a year and he would get a very high fever when he got sick. He just got a mild cold for one day recently but that is the first time he has been sick since he had CP 3 1/2 years ago. It is interesting to hear everyone’s stories about it lasting for two weeks. I really didn’t know it could last that long. I was too young to remember getting it along with my 5 siblings and 5 cousins. The family lore never acted like any of the childhood illnesses were a big deal at all, measles, mumps or CP. I was grateful my kids felt fine through it and I figured their duration was less than usual, but I didn’t know how much more brief it was.

I’ve been surprised how hard it is to find color illustrated chapter books with a picture on every page. My fourth grader likes them too but he should and can be reading something more difficult. I have moved them both (2nd and 4th grader) up a little in difficulty recently. I bought them last year. I still have them for my 5 year olds. My twin girl reads the easier ones now. I have the Usborne elementary history and science boxed sets too and the same kid loves them too. Snazal is considerably less expensive than Amazon for them even with high shipping. As far as sensitive, the 4th grader told me that ALL classic books are scary. He still likes them, and isn’t having nightmares, but he considers them all scary too. I haven’t read many of them, because only my daughter likes to be read to. Maybe the U.K. versions of things aren’t as sanitized. I bought a Ladybird (UK) boxed set of fairytales and I was surprised how unsanitized they were. That was when my oldest would let me read to him. My boys don’t like audiobooks either. The one who is most vocally against them reads very fast and listening is painfully slow. I feel the same way and I don’t read as fast as he does. I figured this out AFTER buying a bunch of them based on read aloud revival recommendations. I think my fast reader is unduly influencing the other kids against audiobooks. My kids influence each other a lot.

I bought them from snazal. Here’s a link for one of them: https://www.snazal.com/usborne-my-reading-library-classics-30-books-box-set-collect--DEALMAN-UD-ReadingLibraryClassics-30bks.html Here’s another: https://www.snazal.com/usborne-reading-collection-40-books-box-set-series-confident--DEALMAN-U5-UsborneCR-40bks.html Don't get too excited about the prices. Shipping is at least as much as the sets. I bought A LOT of books from them. I am very happy with them with the exception of the scary few. I seem to frequently prefer British resources. We are also big number blocks/alphablocks on YouTube fans.

Last year, my first grader was reluctant to read books without color pictures in them. I found a lot of classical abridged Usborne boxed paperback book sets from a UK wholesale website. Even with shipping from the UK they were only a dollar or two per book. I love the books. They have a full color picture on each page. The print is large with enough white space on the page. The vocabulary is quite advanced. I really think they are perfect. The fail... there are a few books like, The Story of Vampires, Dr Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein. I should have pulled those out and hidden them. Now he is having nightmares and jumps in bed with us every night. Sigh... maybe I will get some sleep again when my kids are in college.

That is a really nice overview. Thank you. I only purchased the streaming audio through TAN and it downloaded in short snippets. To play it, I have to go to the computer and start the next section and hit play every 10 minutes or so. It was too irritating to do that over and over again so I haven’t used it beyond the first try at it. Frustrating. They have it on audible and so I even thought of using some of my many credits and buying it again just to get around this. I am glad to hear Hoopla has it instead. If I were more computer savvy I would probably figure out how to get what I have to play sequentially. ...Or I could take the time to call Tan and ask their advice on it. I do like the audio though. It is well done. My kids prefer dramatized audio. None of them like audio books, only dramatized audio.

Just because my recall methods worked for me, doesn’t mean they are a necessity. My husband was in chiropractic school with me, although a year ahead of me, and he studied with friends a lot. I could never do that, but that was what worked for him. He is much more social than I am. He and his friends studied from notes from class rather than assigned reading material. He graduated with honors. An undergraduate degree in medical technology was a huge advantage for me, partly because med tech school is a little like “miniature medical school.” When I was in med tech school I worked in the hospital lab and medical students would rotate through. I remember one who had been through the med tech program first and she had a 4.0 so far in medical school. Both the salutatorian and the valedictorian of my chiropractic college class, which was me, had an undergraduate degree in medical technology. My first semester of premed, I remember my biology professor telling us it was a weed out class. I remember thinking, “I wonder if I am a weed?” That actually might have been the first day of that class. When I got an A in it, I figured I wasn’t a weed. Haha. I actually got an A in every undergrad class except for calculus and organic chemistry, and I got a C in both of them. I think that speaks to the relative difficulty of them compared to other classes, at least for me. Sorry I jumped around a lot. This stuff was 30+ years ago.

I was not homeschooled so I can’t speak to that piece, but I have a lot of medical education so I can speak to that. When I saw Latin on your list, I was thinking it would be one of the most helpful things you could do. It would make the medical vocabulary easier. Although just root study may be good enough. I did not have Latin or root study and was fine during premed and a Medical Technology program and chiropractic school, but it would have helped. Both dentistry and surgery require extremely good fine motor skills. If she isn’t good in that I’m sure it could be improved, but there are people who are so bad they probably shouldn’t consider those professions. As a medical technologist, I had a coworker who had to drop out of dental school because he just didn’t have the fine motor skills. There are lots of specialties that don’t require that and medical school will still be appropriate for them. When I was in high school I joined a group that was for students interested in going to medical school. I thought that was both helpful and intimidating. I remember a med school student telling us that she had to study for 8 hours for a single test. In high school, I didn’t study much and that seemed impossible. By the time I actually got to chiropractic school, it was not unusual to have to study for 24 hours for a single test. By then I was used to it and it was totally doable. In premed, organic chemistry is considered the largest roadblock or failure point. It was the hardest undergraduate course for me too. I got through it, but in retrospect, I’m not sure now what would have helped. Calculus in undergrad was another class that was challenging for me. Being good at rote memorization was a major plus for it all and being a good test taker. Practicing recall is a major key to being a good test taker. I can not stress the importance of that last point enough. I am completely awesome at test taking and practicing recall is mostly why. My formula was to read a paragraph, close my eyes and see if I could recall it, doing that through every paragraph of assigned reading and reading the material that way three times.

You are a potty training rock star if it will only be a week or two. My second child potty trained himself in one week and I thought I had figured something out. Then my twins took 100 years. Haha.

I figured it was a typo. It made me laugh really hard.

My mother reminded me a lot and didn’t allow me to slouch. I stand up very upright now and have for years, so I think that worked. My children have very good posture and I don’t remind them at all. I think they may be modeling me. Their nanny pointed out that they sit and stand up much straighter than most other children she sees. I didn’t even notice that until she pointed it out. It may be because we all get regular chiropractic adjustments too. I like posture correctors. They are better for far more than your posture, actually. I don’t know about them for kids. I don’t have a bad impression about them for kids, just no impression.

What country uses the term “don’t throw the baby UP with the bath water?” I am going to replace the usual phrase with that now. I always say, “I’ll jump off that bridge when I come to it,” to reflect my generally overwhelmed state.

It is an Acton Academy. They are nationwide. My kids only go 3 days a week. I am supposed to be doing something with them one of the other days. I am not that great at that. I bow down before homeschool moms. Haha. We are driving to Florida today. Geography. Well, I guess they are watching a Rock n Learn Fractions and decimals dvd. I would probably prefer a classical school. There is one here but it is 25 minutes away and the Acton Academy is 4 minutes away. That would be me driving two hours a day.

Update: When I looked at my second grader’s progress on Prodigy, I learned that he answered 456 questions the week before Christmas. They only go to school for three days. I really, really, really like Prodigy’s progress reporting. When they returned to school in January, there was a computer glitch one day, so their teacher gave them Saxon worksheets instead. All the kids decided they liked the worksheets better. That really shocked me. I guess if you answer 456 questions in three days, you might even get burnt out on Prodigy. They have been happily doing Saxon ever since. So much for me being worried about transitioning away from gamey math. Their teacher tested my oldest with Saxon’s tests and said the same thing I noticed, He’s done with 4th grade math and if he doesn’t know something, she gives him one quick explanation and he goes on and answers all the questions right on it. She wasn’t sure how accurate Prodigy was at saying a student was “done” with 4th grade math either, but we both feel better about him flying through the Saxon testing. She said she thought he would be done with 5th grade math by June and ready for prealgebra. This school is year round. This lady is not pushy. She just believes in going at an individual’s own pace. This all made me happier with the situation. I wasn’t really unhappy, just unsure.

Thank you for 5he boxcars and one eyed jacks link. I have one son who loves dice and now I know what I am going to have in his Easter basket.

The first time I looked to buy anything from Math Mammoth was when they recently had a sale. The end date of the sale changed once or twice as I looked at it and I wondered if it was a long running sale or not. Now that the sale is over, it was obviously not a long running sale. Haha. It isn't anything I need right away, which is why I didn’t jump right on it. For future reference, I was wondering if any of you know how often she has a sale?

Yeah, It even made me think, “I’m just going to retire.” I didn’t share that with my husband, who is in practice with me. Later, when I was complaining a little to him, he said, “Let’s just close our office and do fun stuff.” I know he wasn’t actually serious, nor was I, but it was bad enough on him (who wasn’t even there) that he got a little defeated too. I can’t even be mean to telemarketers. They’re people too.

I am the complainypants, not the employee, about the yuckiness of having to fire someone I genuinely liked. People have much worse problems than me, (which never stops me from complaining) including my employee now trying to get a job in this environment. Doing it in person seemed the only human way of doing it, but you then have to take on all the stress of the other person.

I am so sorry to hear about your dad. Sending prayers for you and him.

Cutie pie.

I can spell backwards. It is a little slower though. I don’t know about my kids. When I see word, I can look away and the picture of the word is still there. I just read the mental picture of the word, either backward or forward, just like reading it on a page. I think I read that is the way good spellers do it. I was always in the school spelling bee, every single year. I never won though. I can easily read upside down and I wouldn’t have thought that was rare. When I can do something, I tend to think everyone can do it. I draw very well, but my mother was a professional illustrator. I am good enough at it to be a professional, but I’m slow and perfectionistic about it, so I would starve. I can’t imagine being able to mirror write or write upside down though. That seems like it must be rare.

Billion dollar statement. I couldn’t agree with this more. I like that YOU don’t get resistance to this concept on this board. Or maybe you do and I didn’t notice it. It is a false idea that introducing things early = developmentally inappropriate. There is a way to do it that is inappropriate and that is where the resistance comes from, but there are LOTS of ways to do it that are delightful and joyful and engaging and will just light a kid up. Those “lit up” kids are so much fun.