We do bigger parties at 5 years intervals: 1, 6, 11, 16, 21 (obviously we're only up to 6 but that's the plan!) Other years it is just family. Some of my daughter's friends have parties every year. I am honest and say we can't afford it every year for both of them, but we will do something every 5 years for each so that they will experience having a party at each of those ages (e.g., at 6 it was whole class, at 11 it'll be something different). But I'm also very up front with them on what we can/can't afford..so yes, their friends may have parties every year and they know they won't. Even if their feelings are hurt, there's not much (fiscally responsible) I can do to help it. As for the no one showing up thing, I feel like half of it is when it happens to occur. I feel badly for those summer birthdays (my younger daughter has one but she will probably choose a different "kind" of party), there's usually 2 kids from a whole class invite who attend those. I'm the one who shows up to every single party with my kids, but we don't travel a lot -- so many people get too busy to attend. Edit: P.s. if you do decide not to attend a fast RSVP is the best gift!

Thank you for the description. It is interesting to see all the different approaches and philosophies. My kids learned to read early... but it was almost 2 years between when they started recognizing sight words and when they read chapter books easily by blending. I do wonder if it would have been different if I'd set out to teach them, or whether it would have been frustration until they magically started blending. I never taught either of them to read until (a) they already blended c-a-t on their own and (b) they asked... and only one ever asked and it was for later stuff.

Me: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (Again) DD6: Ember Falls DD5: The disney fairies series... (someday she'll read quality books, for now any reading is fine) Read-aloud: The Grim Grotto (A series of unfortunate events) Audiobook: Story of the world, vol 1 again. We have vol 2. as well, but they always seem to prefer vol. 1

Interesting thread... my kids could recognize sight words on their own, before age 2, but blending came much later. I really wonder how much of this is about teaching whole words v. phonics. That is, it sounds like a predominant way to teach children to read early is through sight words. I would suspect that most children could learn very early using sight words. I'd be curious to hear if anyone believes you can teach ANY child to read as a baby or toddler using a phonics approach. My kids could remember sight words, even without being taught, at least a year before they could blend. Over time I've been convinced phonics is better for almost everyone; I would be really uncomfortable relying on an approach that was mostly sight words.

Agree, All About Spelling minus the tiles works fine for good readers who will move quickly. I did 1 step a day until I got to levels 3-5, where we went progressively slower. Oddly we are back to 1 step a day at the end of level 6. About the teachers manual only thing, I think you at least need the word banks too. The other stuff, like the cards, you can make your own for rules, etc. & just keep a list of words they need to review. Pretty much my constant refrain for using AAS and AAR with my kids who go through the levels quickly is: They are so expensive to use this way, but worth it for my peace of mind.

I've had to add more online things for my older daughter (6) this year, so I can focus on one child at a time. She likes: neutral - IXL, Xtramath, Lexia likes - Wordly wise online - did the early levels quickly, now she's actually learning words so it takes longer-- curious to see what retention looks like because if she retains the information it's pretty much amazing for us; Duolingo for Spanish loves - Dance mat typing, Brainpop/Brainpop jr (once a week) - she loves it so much I've thought of subscribing, but for now she has enough to do. This year, she is doing IXL & lexia on Mondays with her dad (that's the plan since those are required for school; but I can choose which level she works on), and has been doing all the rest 2 weekdays after dinner. The other 2 weekdays plus 1-2 weekend mornings OR afternoons I've been focusing on her. During this time her younger sister reads. The 2 weekdays when older daughter does online resources and the weekend mornings or afternoons that she isn't working, I focus on working with her younger sister (who IMO is too distractable for too much online). This afterschooling thing is really a work in progress for us, I doubt we'll ever really have the same set up each year.

Yes - first grader could do it, but she'd need to draw the dreaded bar diagram (dreaded by her, not us). She might be able to do it without the bar diagram by 2nd.

Until my early 30s I could get by on 4 hours of sleep a night, now at almost 40 I need 5 1/2... I kind of think it's because I wake up more -- my aging back hurts!

Ours is about the same. I hate it and dream of living in a "new" home (anything built 1980 on) but realistically I know that there are advantages of a new home, like we couldn't afford a new home with the same quality of wood. But, I expect this house to be "under construction" for at least 30 more years.

Wow, I loved #4 until I went to the site and saw the back. That is a lot of skin showing, cumulatively, too much for me even though the front is really cute. I think I'd go with #5.

Mine each get one big gift from "santa," and while they can ask, they don't always get to choose (i.e., to head off the I want a pony thing). They only get a book from us (mom and dad), and then they each buy something for their sibling out of their own money. But it's been that way since their earliest memories. I do think your 12 and 14 year olds are old enough to hear that they are getting 1 gift and that's it. It will be hard but I think they are old enough. Maybe give the 12 year old a bit of wiggle room. I would probably be honest especially with the 14 year old and say that we made a mistake but we need to head this off -- that it's not a punishment but something needs to change and you'd rather he was your partner in this process for all the younger kids, than he got dragged along unwillingly. I don't know your son obviously, but I think the chances are high that most 14 year olds would freak out and/or complain no matter how gently you explain it though. I would consider carefully how you make the transition with the younger kids, and perhaps make the change more gradually. My siblings are much older than me, and because my parents chose to stop the craziness at the same time for all of us (e.g., we all stopped getting Easter baskets in the same year, not the same age; we started doing our own laundry in the same year, not the same age), I was almost 10 years younger when I stopped getting those bigger things and I remember feeling— not that it was unfair— but sad, like I wasn't really ready at 8 or 10 or 12 to be a "big kid."

Short answer: My opinion is: (1) Evan moore daily reading comprehension is actually pretty good and doesn't take a lot of time. (2) DORA reading comprehension scores seem highly influenced by their background knowledge. Long answer: Just on the test.... My experience, with my daughters (younger than yours but it probably still applies) is that they maxed out word recognition the very first time at age 4.5, but scored less than 2nd grade in comprehension! A few things to consider: 1. DORA does not let them see the passage while answering the question. If they aren't used to this -- particularly if they tend to go back after looking at the question to scan the text (which is actually a good strategy in other situations) -- it can be about memory. I think just reminding them — they won't see the passage again before taking the text — makes a difference. 2. It's nonfiction and the topics have to do with things they are likely to have touched by a particular age in public school -- so the questions/scoring are keyed as if they already knew the topic. So for instance, even t hough my daughter reads fiction to maybe 8th grade level regularly, this year she got a 5.5 in comprehension -- we just haven't covered the late middle school/ high school content stuff in enough detail for her to have background in it. I did evan moore daily comprehension and it does help (particularly giving them alternative strategies for reading comprehension) BUT I feel like DORA's use of nonfiction tends to create a weird ceiling/floor for kids who would normally read at a higher level. Totally as a rough guesstimate, they can probably score about +3 years above their CONTENT level if their actual skill is good, or about -3 years below their CONTENT level if their actual skill is poor, but the further they get above their content level the harder the content is relative to their reading comprehension because background/context for the subject is assumed (hope that made sense).

I did this for my younger daughter, and I don't regret it but my pocketbook might! For me it was worth it to me to be sure that there weren't any gaps -- and to not have to wait YEARS as she slowly completed AAS. Altogether levels 1 through 4 will have taken a year since so much is review. The sticking point is really the price.

We've had almost every critter. The flying squirrels really taxed our ability to get rid of them ourselves, so we paid a specialized service to come out, plug all the little holes, then install specialized gates. They used the same type of gates for bats, regular squirrels, etc. They left one way out but it was a one way door, the critters couldn't come back in. Then they would come back a couple of weeks later, uninstall the gate, and plug that hole. The real problem is probably, cleaning out their mess. edit: like the PP, I have to say it as EXPENSIVE to have it done by someone else.

I would have called it copper based on that picture.But on the form I might have just strawberry blond and auburn, if it allowed two checks!

Haha, although I obviously dislike our Samsung's greatly, their great "victory music" was why I loved them at the beginning.

I've had terrible experiences with Samsungs. We bought a samsung dishwasher, washer, and dryer. The washer is the only thing which might last a few years total. Major parts are cheaply made and break within a couple of years... at least that happened to us & the repairman who came out (from a company that deals with all brands) said Samsungs are the worst appliances because they are too delicate, the parts don't hold up to the demands on them. Several thousands of dollars later, our lesson has been learned! P.S. They worked well for 2 years or so, it was at about 2 years that they started breaking in ways that would cost hundreds of dollars each to fix.

When I wear perfume I do the walkthrough or just wrists then rub on the neck things. It really is amazing how different perfume can smell on different people! My mom smells amazing in Obsession, I smell AWFUL in it. A good deal is the sephora perfume samplers, that way you can wear it a few days to try it out. Samplers are also nice because after a while of wearing one thing, you can't smell it well, then it tempts you to overapply because you are sure you haven't put any on.

"Warning"/"When I am Old" (Jenny Joseph) might be cute from kids, depending on your father's perspective on old age! Another way would be to pick poems published in the year of his birth.

You guys are inspiring me for chess! I loved to play as a child, but I haven't taught my daughters.

Just from a different perspective... at 4.5 both my kids thrived on structure. We did reading/spelling (e.g., AAR/AAS for 15-25 minutes per day combined), handwriting (HWT about 5 minutes per day), and math (Saxon, maybe 30 minutes a day). Overall it was 1 hour per day at age 4.5. Originally *I* resisted the structure because it seemed like too much... but I realized that it helped them personally have a good day. It might be important to mention they went to a part-time Montessori -- only 3 hours a day and they had a lot of choice during that time, so the rest of their day was quite unstructured, probably much more unstructured than your daughter's would be... so take it with a grain of salt.

I go to 2, then 1 if 2 fails. I usually do the talk later on as well (3) because sometimes my kids need help unpacking why you don't do things. I will say that when my kids are being badly behaved in general, I start to go to 1 more and more quickly throughout the day... but that's a problem with my patience, not a parenting strategy.

I didn't stay. I guess there might be less diverse places out there, but I have distinct memories of being able to count all the other non-white kids in town on just my 10 fingers.

Really just the legos. Most of the other things that I wanted, they saved. The legos they thought would be pointless to save, but my daughters have my husband's old legos, and honestly some of those sets are better than the ones we could buy now.

Mine is below. We didn't do as badly as I thought, but writing and math really suffered since they were outside/with friends most days for most of the day. Not that this is a bad thing, but I wasn't smart enough to see it coming. BOTH DD6 and DD-almost5 did: Gymnastics camp [done] Went to the beach once per week ([done, with with one exception] Swim class (weekly) [done] Summer reading - library program-- DD6 read maybe 10-15 books that were challenging to her, DD4 read maybe 60... but her "challenging" books are sooo much shorter [done] Play strategy games every day! [partially done --does averaging 2 out of every 7 days work?] Nature ID of every plant and animal in our yard [done] Singing Made Easy Level 1, first four songs [done -- but we wanted to do so much more!!] Brainpop and brainpop Jr Video of the week [done] What didn't get done… as in we didn't even touch it. Zaccaro challenge math Home Art Studio Bicyling The Great Return to "life of fred" Other 6 year old MATH Saxon Lessons 5/4 40-53 (with tests & investigations) -[1/3rd done I meant to do lessons 40-80] Xtramath on average a few times a week [done] IXL - once a week for 20 minutes [done] Fact practice [done] LANGUAGE ARTS All about spelling 6, steps 1 to 21 [done] Wordly Wise Levels 2, 3, 4 (lessons 1-3 so far) [done] IEW SWI-A Lessons 1-6 [1/3rd done, I really wanted to have finished this… ugh] Shurley English 3, lessons 1-11 [done] Evan Moore Reading Comprehension 3, weeks 1-11 [done] OTHER Peterson Directed, Cursive Step 3 [done] Evan Moore Daily Science Level 1 , "Big Ideas" 1 and 2 [1/3rd done, I would have liked to do more] Duolingo Spanish (very little, we just started in anticipation of possibly starting Spanish this year… but we'll c all it [done] Logic - I had 3 workbooks, we got 1.5 done [1/2 done] Typing - dance mat typing [done] 4 year old/almost 5 All about reading level 3 [done] Letters and Numbers for Me (HWT K) [done] All about spelling level 2 lessons 1-20 [done] Saxon 1, Lessons 1-85 [done] Edit: I messed up the font and can't seem to fix it. Looks crazy now. Also I keep remembering other stuff we did... weird how easy it is to forget.