Actually, she said that too. Thank you so much for weighing in on this topic. What do you feel are the advantages that the US has that invites more educated immigrants, other than the obvious economic opportunities? I mean, are there more specifics than just the general, economic opportunities, and where are the most educated immigrants coming from? This might vary depending on the industry. You can message me privately if you don’t feel free to say. Is anyone here in the US copying them? Them being those countries with better education systems than The US.

Just to clarify, in order for the print and pictures on TPT products to be really large, I use things that are meant to be word walls and posters to be posted in the classroom and print those and compile them as books, rather than use things that were meant to be individual reading material. This is using neurological concepts and applying it to learning. For example, you can create more neuroplasticity if your input has greater frequency, intensity or duration. Learning accesses neuroplasticity.

Testingmom.com and critical thinking company are the resources I have seen who direct you to their products that are designed for specific tests. For the topics you list, I would personally use teachers pay teachers and find some cute, colorful, large print (for more neurologic intensity of input) resources to print out and make my own books.

Ooh ooh ooh I think I have that app. I think I have every math app actually. OK that is an exaggeration. I will look to see if there is a cyber sale still at CTC for the book. I have DragonBox elements and the dragonbox algebra apps too, but I don’t think my kids liked them that much. Thank you for directing my scatterbrained self toward something I already have.

Now that you say that, I remember that she said they were adopting more of an American system there and she rolled her eyes. What a bad idea. Although maybe America can retain their advantage if everyone else’s education sucks too. Haha. I would like to expose my kids to higher math concepts earlier too, but I’m not sure how. I’m sure you can do it though. Remember, I’m the one who forgot all the math. Hey, I wasn’t using it. My kids appear to be in the gifted range too, although I would want to expose them to higher math even if they weren’t. I would also bet money they aren’t as mathematically gifted as someone’s child who teaches at AOPS. All four of them love math so far, but they might have been brainwashed by me telling them I love math. You can still forget it from disuse even if you loved it. I will have to try to contact the mom who was running the math circle here, although she was definitely in Tiger Mom territory and had her kids do Kumon when they were young. I am not very pushy. That is why I can’t do Tiger mom things. I just like to be efficient. I like to use leverage, not just sheer will. They used beast academy for younger kids in the math circle. Her husband is a mathematician and ran the older kids part of the math circle. He used Briliant.org. We were going to do math circle, but COVID happened and it isn’t running. I did order the beast guides for second grade in a Black Friday spree. They weren’t on sale, but they were in my list so I just threw them in with the things that were on sale. I personally do not like puzzles, or to puzzle through things, so I am not sure Beast will be a hit.

Thank you Peter Pan. I took him to a behavioral Optometrist when he was three as a preemptive strike because his bio mom is dyslexic. The only thing he found was that he moves his head instead of just his eyes when he is tracking. I think this is because of a retained astnr reflex. I haven’t checked him lately but he still had the reflex two years ago at age 7. He lost his Moro reflex at some point. Moro and astnr were the only two he had retained when I got him at 22 months. In spite of knowing how to remediate them, I didn’t do as much as I should have. He is very active in gymnastics, swimming and ninjas. The Moro probably got remediated through those rather than my efforts. I also never did the exercises the optometrist gave me to disengage eye movements from head movements. Spelling was the only real limitation he has had academically and that seems to be OK for now. It might show up again as a problem later though. Do you know if there is a specific retained reflex associated with mouthing? He still puts way too many things in his mouth at age 9. Also, what other problems would you see with someone who has a bad visual memory? His memory in general seems superhuman. It could just seem that way since mine isn’t good.

My Bulgarian friend told me she they started Algebra in 5th grade there. She is 43 now. She came to the US as a college athlete, married an American and stayed. She said college was very easy because it was more like what she had for high school in Bulgaria. She was not in a mathy major and was speaking in general, not specifically about math. She just gave that one thing as a specific example. I felt very strongly at the time that they were spending way too much time on arithmetic in grade school/middle school here. I am 55 and we didn’t start algebra until 9th grade back then. I know they have compressed it somewhat now, but not as early as algebra in 5th grade. Does anyone know if this “way ahead of us” phenomenon is typical of European countries? I have heard that the math education is much better in Russia for example, but I don’t know any specifics. My cousin has been in the UK for a few years for her job and has children approximately the age of mine, 5-9, and she thinks the education is better there. I only spoke to her father though, and not that long about it. When I asked my Bulgarian friend why she thought America had such an advantage considering our weak education system, she said that she thought it just hadn’t caught up to us yet. I appreciate her perspective because, besides being very intelligent, she is fluent in 5 languages and her job is related to that, so she travels extensively for her job. I think she has more of a bird’s eye view because of that.

This info might not extrapolate out to any other kid, but I thought I would mention it here because it worked so well. My oldest, 9, who was always in public or private school except last semester, isn’t the best speller. He would have spelling word homework where he had to write his spelling words three times or some other repetition. It never seemed to help AT ALL. I was really surprised because this kid has an amazing memory. I think it was 10 words a week usually. I can’t remember why I started doing it this way, but during Covidschooling, I just pulled my box of sight words cards (I have 800 of them) and did 25 of them orally. It worked and we did 25 per day. I just held back the ones he couldn’t spell right the first time until he could. I guess his good memory is more auditory than visual. We got through 500-600 of those cards in those 4 months. It was so fast and efficient, compared to 10 words a week that he couldn’t spell afterward anyway. Once he knew them, he knew them. It also sped up the process with his younger, natural speller, brother. There weren’t many he couldn’t spell off the bat, but it helped me find the ones he couldn’t, faster.

Me too. Earmuffs stop it. I traced it back to when I first got contact lenses at age 14 in 1979. Contact lens solution had thimerosal (mercury containing preservative) in it until 1990. I don’t think I would have ever figured it out if I hadn’t gotten even worse mercury toxicity over the years and recovered from it by chelating. When I looked back, every big mercury exposure I had, was accompanied by a large drop in my health.

When Prodigy declared your child in G6, what actual grade level did you think they were in? Were they doing G4, 5 or 6 in your Main curriculum?

What I mean is, when it says your child is 85% through their 4th grade material, how accurate is that? I am talking about when Prodigy places your child, he wasn’t assigned a grade and no one changed the percent required to have mastered a topic. Rather, the default is used.

The tiger mom book WAS hilarious. She definitely meant it that way. No one who wrote anything about the book seemed to get it though. I thought that was funny too. They probably didn’t even read it. I am just glad people “not getting it” led to a lot of publicity for her.

Please tell us when you can. I didn’t catch the post until after it was deleted.

Oh, I forgot, we used the Classical Conversations app for their skip counting songs. Any one of the apps has all of the songs. You don’t have to buy all three. It sounds like I used a lot of apps, and I have. It has been more of an evolution though. They like one for a while and eventually that gets old and I find another. I will bribe them with new apps sometimes. That is how I got my oldest two to swallow vitamin pills instead of gummies or chewables.

I love your list Carol. We have IPads. I am unfamiliar if all of the following are available elsewhere. We have liked Flashnote Derby for reinforcing note names and placement on the staff (I wouldn’t use for first exposure though), Duolingo for foreign language and Preschool Prodigies for music. They have material for older ages now. One of my kids, who is a bit piano obsessed, would play Simply Piano a lot. He had two years of piano lessons before that though. It comes with an easier, Piano Maestro app, but he was already past that. He likes Online Pianist better now, because it has more songs and more pop songs. I am glad he found Simply Piano first because I prefer he got some classical and “older songs” exposure. In between, he liked Piano Academy for a while. Because of the sheer amount of time he played, Simply Piano improved his playing a LOT. Any of the Endless apps, plus Nooms by DragonBox, Splash Math, Stack the States, Stack the Countries, Stack the Presidents, Slice Fractions, Fractions Boost, aren’t so reinforcing to be addictive. Sumdog and Reflex Math are good for straight math facts. The following apps are reinforcing enough to be addictive. That’s the rub. The more they are reinforcing, the more the kids want to play them (and the more they learn), but the addictive quality is there. It is partly because they have a game component to them. They aren’t 100% learning, but you have to do the learning part to get to the game. They are usually about 50% learning, but I probably don’t watch them closely enough to know exactly. If anyone else wants to contribute what they have noticed the learning/game ratio is, I would be interested. I was out of commission one day (no sick days for moms) and let my 5 year old be on the tablet for an ungodly amount of time. It was the only time that ever happened. He played Big Numbers the whole time. It was at least 3 hours. My kids have loved Adventure Academy (ABC Mouse for older kids) and Squiggle Park, which is like the Prodigy of language arts. We like Prodigy for math, and Big Numbers by DragonBox (two digit addition/subtraction). They liked Blue Apprentice too, which is many subjects, but when Adventure Academy came out, they preferred it and never wanted Blue Apprentice.

That is so awesome. I am impressed. This summer, my four year old used the word suppository. I asked him where he heard that word. He said, The Grammarly commercial.” That is the level of discovery learning around here. Haha. He and his sister are 5 now. She told me last night her throat was malfunctioning. That has nothing to do with the discovery method but I’ve got to write these hilarious things down or I will forget them.

Yes, I need one for preschool prodigies too. So many pretty, colorful things to print from them! And LARGE. How is teaching with it going? I love it, but I know less than nothing about music.

You didn’t disguise your identity very well. I AM talking about when you WERE a number. Haha. It doesn’t seem as long as two years ago, but it wasn’t recently. I acquired 4 children starting when I was 47 and ending at age 50. That has done weird things to my sense of time.

Not a number gets a prize too. I think you may have been responsible for reinvigorating this board. Since you weren’t here before you were here, you might not know that posting had died down a lot. It seems like you started posting interesting things, and interesting people started posting again too. Just thought you should know that. I’m sure you are a mom ninja too. I probably don’t have the greatest working memory. I am pretty disorganized. Nothing that stopped me from being a very good student though. Both of my parents were absent minded professor types. Maybe that is a clue to my discovery method deficiency syndrome.

One or two boxes a year. Just for my kids though. I almost never need tissues myself. My husband uses toilet paper. I couldn’t believe how many tissues he used when I met him.

I never eat out with my kids. I get them Chikfila for my convenience only. Why can’t I spell that? It is ridiculously expensive and I do it anyway. I think it is $54 for 6 of us. I used to go on a rainy day to give them something to do inside. I occasionally eat out with my husband but we have to get a babysitter and I feel guilty. Otherwise I love to go out to eat at a great restaurant. I never watch anyone else eat. I don’t really notice anyone else. My husband is very handsome (beauty/beholder) and I look at him.

Last Wednesday, inside. I don’t eat out much because 4 small kids, but I would like to support the industry. I would not hesitate to go, but I don’t seem to get colds or viruses at all. My parents didn’t either. I had the flu once, when I was 7. Only time I ever got it. I am 55.

What an amazing explanation Wendyroo, revealing your status as Homeschool Mom Extraordinaire, or perhaps an actual homeschool mom ninja, without sharp weapons.

The Wikipedia on IAHP reads a lot like the Wikipedia on chiropractic, coloring both as ineffective and unsafe. Hence, why I personally wouldn’t put any stock in either. 1/2 of our practice pays completely out of pocket for our services. (They have coverage but their copay is as high or higher than our fee). If we weren’t wildly effective, they wouldn’t. Our practice was completely fueled by referrals from other patients for decades, until Google reviews became a thing. Now we get a significant amount through internet search because our reviews are so good. My malpractice insurance is between $40-50 per month for 3 million of coverage, unheard of in any specialty. If we were hurting people right and left, it wouldn’t be that cheap.

I need to add that I so wholeheartedly believe in everything the Doman people say, do and believe and that is so unusual for me. My political affiliation is a tree hugging libertarian who doesn’t believe in legalizing drugs, just one example how I can never stay entirely in one camp. The only exception is they love discovery methods and I don’t. Haha. See, they would agree with you and you are probably right. Actually, the way they teach neurotypical kids is very much a form of classical education. They don’t call it that, but it really is, another reason it is a little boggling that WTMers are so dead set against their methods. They advocate a classical method and militantly recommend homeschooling. What not to like? They start it earlier than deemed acceptable to WTMers. They don’t explicitly say this either, but I feel they advocate homeschooling because if you use their methods, you are going to end up with a gifted child even if they wouldn’t have been gifted otherwise, so gifted that either regular or private school is inappropriate. I have one of those children, adopted from foster care. His biological father worked in a factory and his mother worked at MacDonalds. She had drugs in her system when he was born. He was believed to be deaf in one ear and one eye dropped. He had many retained primitive reflexes when we got him at 22 months old. Last year, his gifted program 3rd grade teacher, who has been one for 30 years, said he was one of the most intelligent in his class. He is good in all subjects other than spelling, and he is acceptable at that. He was the only one who got straight As one grading period and he was the only one who had perfect attendance. He truly is a walking encyclopedia in certain subjects.