Oh wow, I am so glad my daughter isn't here to read this, because she would think it was GENIUS and our house would be suddenly filled with red-hot pencils. The pens would probably be icy cold, and give you frostbite.

Another Bravewriter things that helps me -- a person who is mainly an IEW-type thinker: "Pick one thing. Make it about meaning." So of your examples, I guess I'd pick a sentence that doesn't support its paragraph, and figure out if it needed to go somewhere else or just didn't belong at all.

We had books on the bookshelves. I read the books but remained hilariously naive somehow. I guess it just didn't sink in. Edit: Just recalled, my 6 year old got a book from the library on science in general that described most reproductive stuff (just 2 pages of fine print), not the out of the norm stuff. She started asking us about it in the car and I've never seen my husband in such distress. He was just not prepared.

Ugh, I don't even want to think about it. At the minimum, we'll continue the curricula we're doing at greater than the current snail's pace. We will go to the beach frequently, and do swim lessons. Also possibly a music camp. I'm thinking of doing more organized reading this summer, but I'm not sure how. Last summer my kids did the library reading challenge and each topped 200 books, but many of those books were just blah.

Neat. I knew a woman whose partner was a woman, but would never have described herself as a lesbian. To her it was just that the person she was in love with happened to be a woman. I guess everyone has their relationship deal-breakers. I mean, I prefer tall men, my husband isn't tall... that doesn't mean I wouldn't be interested in dating tall men if my husband didn't exist. Gender doesn't always make the list of deal-breakers. I do admit that gender is extremely high on my list, though. :)

I'm guessing from when you say Frog & Toad that you are looking for things between about 2.5 and 3.5 in grade level? Some my daughter liked at that level (she didn't like the magic tree house either) were: If he likes science... The Magic School Bus Chapter books. They range a lot in grade level so watch out. This is from my list of her reads so there may be some mistakes in grade level, but you get the idea. *Grade level 2-2.5 (Frog and Toad-ish, but as a chapter book with pictures and boxes) Dinosaur Detectives, Amazing Magnetism, Electric Storm, The Giant Germ *Grade level 3-4 (Above frog & toad, might be a good stretch) Twister Trouble, Space Explorers Polar Bear patrol ,The Truth about Bats, Rocky Road Trip, Voyage to the Volcano, Insect invaders, Butterfly Battle, Penguin Puzzle, The Search for the Missing Bones, Expedition Down Under, The Fishy Field Trip, The Great Shark Escape Around grade level 3: Shel Silverstein (The Light in the Attic, etc.), Freckle Juice Some other things that are higher levels but somehow because of topic seem earlier... maybe up to a grade level or two earlier than the actual text level would suggest. The Catwings series; My Father's Dragon series Roald Dahl (e.g., James & The Giant Peach), Selznick (e.g., Wonderstruck... amazing illustrations) Edit: I totally forgot around 4th grade level is Stone Fox. My daughter hated it with a passion because *sad* so it was on the "hated it" list.

Cursive... although I am finding more and more that younger people can't read it, so at some point it could become impractical for thank you notes and so on.

Will she be starting Kindergarten in September, or PreK 4? I thought the PreK HWT with the flip crayons was nice (didn't love buying the teacher's manual though), but before my kids could do K-level work they liked those Kumon books and the I Can Cut/Paste/Color series. It's hard for me to even tell you how they learned their letters, colors, numbers before they went to school or did those workbooks... I'm sure it was just from being around me but I don't remember teaching them. I think there's a good chance she'll pick up a lot from you just from being there... but if older kids are there "doing work" you might want the workbooks on hand for her to do work at the table if she'd like.

I so want to do this, I'll talk with my husband tonight! I know he is going to object that we might attract the rat snake from next to us (occasionally shows up on our porch) if we have a ton of little snacks out back though... Edit: Booooo.... I called him and he said NO WAY because he claims our yard is already overrun with frogs and other things like frogs... I pointed out they would be OUR frogs and the kids would love them, and he was unconvinced. We live next to a wetland/swamp.

We read and talk, plus my younger daughter uses AAR and my older daughter uses the Evan-Moor Daily comprehension series, which is actually kind of effective despite the way it looks.

Mmmm I love them, although my husband calls them a waste of perfectly good orange juice. I have been to many kids parties with alcohol, but they are typically for very young kids whose parents are inviting over their friends who happen to have kids (rather than classmate parties).

Yes, this is what came to mind reading your post. Is your local K a good place, other than the level of work? Or do you think it's a bad fit every which way? My older daughter is a major extrovert and would be in a crowd of kids all day if she could. At home lately, she works 3+ years ahead but I chose to send her to the half-day K program at public school anyway (3 hrs, which includes circle time, a special or free play time, and recess each day, so relatively little actual seat work) and I'm reasonably happy with the decision. She is given a "bin" where she stores her books for when her seat time work is done. And that's on days when there isn't some special party or something. Of her class, 20% seem at least a year ahead based on where the reading groups are assigned so it's not uncommon... but that doesn't mean it's perfect. This would be a whole different story if the public school were a seriously academic full-day K design. Right now, it's just a fun social experience for her. As far as the academic piece: She also goes to a half-day Montessori (more advanced work as she has moved through the years, e.g. book reports, researching & writing nonfiction, 4 digit addition/subtraction; with some additional social interaction), then typically spends a few hours playing with friends in the afternoon, then does afterschooling some days to shore up areas not covered as well in the Montessori half of the day, then after all this and read-alouds, she typically reads until the very second we turn off the lights. I do think that a child needs to be high energy to do all this and I wonder how long we can make it work. Anyway, I guess I just mean that there might be a way to combine various resources... it really depends on what resources are available to you though (if the local public K is awful for instance, that's not a good option).

It's so interesting reading people's criteria for their lists, looking back I think I had three separate lists. There are some specific works and authors, like the Bible and Shakespeare, that I consider a core part of the cultural backdrop of their lives.... even if they don't LIKE them they should connect with them. Then there are some works and authors on my list that I would just personally feel sad if they never really loved, like Dostoyevsky, Austen, and Cervantes. These affected me greatly so I included them, but does that mean they should belong on a list for my children? Then there are some works and authors that I included more because of a concept -- like i included Kant because I feel like most people should connect with moral philosophy at some point before they are considered "adults" (either high school or college or wherever that points now comes), but really, it doesn't need to be Kant -- it just was for me. I think for a lot more people, it's Plato in the form of Five Dialogues and that fits the bill too. From Hunter's "family" example, I hope there will be a moral philosopher in my children's "family" from early on. Even today, over 20 years after I first read Kant, I still think "This is a job for the categorical imperative!" quite often, almost like I'm setting myself up to really think about a problem. But, I don't really care who it is. As long as it's not Bentham (joking, but only kind of).

I have a great relationship with my parents. I love and respect them, and I can laugh with them and talk to them. My husband has a poor relationship with his parents and says that he actually feels sad when he sees that it could have been better. My kids are young, and one of my greatest insecurities is that I can only go downhill from my relationship with my parents. I think part of it is my older daughter is one of "those" kids who came out of the womb questioning authority... all authority not just me, but it definitely has led to a different relationship than I had with my parents. Sometimes I'm not sure how to have an awesome relationship with her. I do think there are certain combinations of personality types that have to take a totally different path to a strong relationship and I wish I knew which one to take here...

Agree, in our town there are early morning/after school programs that look a lot like extra periods of music/instrumental and phys ed (extra periods). They are free and optional, I don't see anything wrong with them except that if you choose to use them you can't take the bus to school or home before/after those periods.

Favorite authors is different from what I want my children to know. As far as what I want them to know, maybe ??? these: the Bible Dostoevsky Cervantes Shakespeare Homer Kant Austen Guanzhong Vonnegut Faulkner This is the impossible task.... I'll quit editing this list and just post.

I think the men in this situation probably will get over it in time, unless this particular employee is really weird about being there (e.g., my husband says that trying to strike up a work-related conversation at the urinal should be a cardinal sin) -- in which case the problem is that he's being weird, not that he's there.

I used to think this -- that economic forces led to women being less valued -- I still think it's part of the story. But even in hunter-gatherer cultures where woman collected half or more of the food, they were often less valued. Plus, in some professions, women being barred from a profession and the profession getting higher prestige/wealth went hand in hand (e.g., the origins of the medical profession). Honestly, I do think it's about childbearing. Women are slightly weaker in general, and then very vulnerable when childbearing -- violence embodies a real power to control the scope of action of others. And,we're more likely to leave the labor force for months if not years due to having children, because biology (e.g., pregnancy, nursing) would tilt things toward the woman staying home even if everything else were equal. So over time women tend to accrue less economic power in relationships. There is an aspect of culture lag to this, too. Some of these forces become less salient all the time (e.g., with the decline of blue-collar occupations in the US and the increase in female educational attainment), but long-term effects that have persisted through culture.

As far as not liking writing at that age, I like bravewriter (1 freewrite a week, + 1 15-20 minute block of a "project" weekly, e.g., keen observation, per season). We also do IEW ( A) but I think you need a fair amount of physical stamina for writing and some grammar before starting it.

My daughters also go to a preK-K Montessori (Children's house level) and I agree, it is different to see how the children are expected to act in a conflict situation, and even at the ages of 5 and 6 they can resolve most issues on their own by talking it out. In the local public schools they do Open Circle -- I think it goes up to grade 6 and covers some of these skills. As far as what was said above about it being taught by parents. It's true, it probably IS redundant with what many parents are modelling, but so are a lot of basic literacy skills... that doesn't mean that schools shouldn't teach it, because inevitably there are some parents who DON'T model these skills which impacts the whole class if their children don't just organically pick it up from elsewhere.

We did K-3 and are now on 5/4. It really is much better, enough better than I question having done 3 -- except for the facts practice.

No expectation, but it also depends on the culture of the family. My family is very spread out, all over the U.S., so weddings and funerals are considered family reunions. Most people go. My husband's family is all very concentrated, we had our wedding 1 hour away from where they live, and some of them thought that was too far.

I think there is a general correlation between money and happiness, but there are diminishing returns. At a certain point, more money doesn't matter that much, but with the constant awareness of things like retirement and college expenses, that point is probably increasing as well. I also think we have a strong tendency to want to believe that people who have more money aren't happier, kind of like those articles about celebrities who have aged terribly. :p

My first thought was "No, but some people are just too delusional to have dogs." I have acquaintances whose dog tried to bite my older daughter when she was 3 and THEN tried to bite my younger daughter at 3. They say the dog was just "playing" and would never hurt a child. I can supervise my children, especially now that my children don't look and act so much like prey... but it does bother me that they tell people that the dog would never bite when BOTH my daughters and I vividly remember the dog trying. It seems like it's just asking for someone to take them at their word, and leave a toddler relatively unsupervised with the dog. IIRC they had another dog years ago who would "never" bite and tried to bite their own daughter at around that same age. Their dog is one of "those" breeds, but we teach our daughters that ANY dog can hurt you.

Interesting discussion... my first thought was that if someone is clearly "newly educated" in the derogatory way that "nouveau riche" is meant, they would choose to flaunt all the wrong things about their education (e.g., that they've read "hard" books not that they can really think critically about them). But if they really did that, then they aren't educated at all. I think it's possible that coming to certain things as a young child creates a different impression. My first memory of several Beethoven pieces was hearing them at Tanglewood as a child, with the rain coming down in SHEETS outside the shed... My husband's first real memory of those pieces was in a library, after attending a lecture in which their themes were identified and analyzed. I don't "know" anything about those pieces that he doesn't (probably I know less), but I "take them for granted" in a way he doesn't.