Strongly disagree. This kid isn't even 5 yet. We are nowhere near the realm of "late reader." Most of us parents learned to read in 1st grade and turned out perfectly fine. This learning to read in preschool and Kindergarten is a pretty recent development and for the most part it's being pushed earlier and earlier in public schools because of standardized testing. There is NO reason a child can't be taught to read at around 6 years of age- 1st grade level- without it being considered "late reading." That's a more developmentally normal age to be taught to read, and if the child is less resistant then than s/he was at 4 or 5, more the better...and more pleasant for mother and child alike. I don't understand the concept of forcing a disinterested four to five year old to do something many "experts" don't even consider them developmentally ready for because you worry that if you don't they'll be "late readers" and because-I-said-so-that's-why? And you're talking about education not being optional with a child who hasn't even officially reached school age yet. I just don't get the hard push with this age group. It's just going to set up an "I hate school" or an "I hate reading" mindset and I would NEVER want to do that with a four or five year old.

One of my very favorite songs ever is "Making Love Out of Nothing At All." :D

The other that my mother chose was Jordan.

No. I want reading to be enjoyable and fun, not a battle or something to be resisted or fought over, or something that causes tension or frustration (for my children OR for me). I love reading too much for that, and I want it to be a pleasant shared experience. If that means waiting an extra year or two until the time is right, so be it. No way would I fight with a four or five year old over it. (My son turned 6 in November and he's quite happily and successfully learning to read now with a combination of Funnix and Reading Eggs- especially Reading Eggs, he loves that website! Last year he had very little interest in learning and there was no way I was willing to fight over it).

Yes, beautifully handled!! Sorry you were put on the spot like that, how uncomfortable!!

Here are a couple of reading skill assessment tools/tests: http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/articles/060899.htm

lol, cute!

I can understand why that might bother some people with regard to LOF. (And why it wouldn't bother other people at all and how they'd just consider it an effective way of remembering a lesson). I do not consider the example you gave for TT to be even remotely the same thing or to be "tricking" a kid though.

I'm sorry, Pamela. I know you were looking forward to them and that you are worried for them, too. These things are never easy. I just hope they are well, wherever they are.

Yeah, I have to add, I feel pretty good these days! I think I have more energy overall than I used to. I DON'T feel hungry all the time. I don't feel like I have to snack several times throughout the day and night like I used to. If I ever do snack, it's on some cheese, fruit or nuts. I used to believe I could NEVER be one of those people who could eat until I was "full" and then stop, and lose weight. I always said, "If I could do that, I wouldn't be overweight." But once I stopped that cycle of carb addiction, I DID become one of those people. It IS possible. I feel like I can do this for the long haul, not just as a quick fix, and that's key, because if it were just a quick fix, I'd eventually stop doing it, and in the past when I did a quick fix thing that I eventually stopped, I also gained all my weight back plus some every.single.time. I don't want that to happen this time. I just want to be a normal person with a normal body weight who can eat pretty normally and so on. P.S. It's also true that when I was doing low fat/fat free type of diets, I was eating a lot of processed junk and a lot of sugars and a lot of sodium and I was still eating a decent amount of carbs, and I was losing weight much more slowly, and I was often hungry, and I could never maintain that lifestyle for long, and I'd eventually just lose my motivation and give up and then where would I be? I'd be in a position where I hadn't learned anything and I'd just start going back to old habits and putting it all back on. I feel like what I'm doing now has taught me a better, more realistic way of eating for the long term. And I know to a lot of you it might not sound realistic (what, give up carbs?!) but once you break that cycle of addiction...and it really is for some of us... it becomes a lot easier than it sounds at first.

I pulled my daughter out in the middle of a school year when I decided to homeschool. It was at the end of March, with only like 2 1/2 months of school left. I figured I knew I wanted to homeschool, I knew my daughter would prefer to be home, what was the point of delaying? We were both eager to get started, I saw no point in her having to stay there any longer than necessary. So I pulled her. That was three years ago this month, and I have NO regrets whatsoever about not "finishing out the year," waiting, whatever. If I regret anything, it's not having done it sooner. Life's way too short for a child to spend a minute longer than they have to in a miserable place, feeling miserable.

:lol::lol::lol:

I've basically cut grains out of my diet almost entirely at this point. No bread, rice, pasta, cakes, cookies, crackers, etc. I may very rarely have something like it, but almost never. I don't really eat white potatoes either, though I do occasionally have sweet potatoes. I eat squash, plenty of fruits and veggies, pretty much any lean meat, poultry, seafood etc that I want. I use butter, mayo, full fat peanut butter, coconut and olive oil, though I don't use tons and tons of it. I don't buy "lite" and "fat free" processed foods, I try to stick to whole and natural foods. I've lost 44 lbs so far and that's only been since November. I don't weigh, measure or count anything. I don't obsess over everything I put in my mouth. I feel like this is so much easier and realistic than any other "diet" I've ever tried to follow, it's certainly going faster, and I can only hope that the benefits are longer lasting.

If you had asked me anytime prior to 6 years ago or so if I'd ever traveled out of the country I'd have said no, but I finally got to (on a western caribbean cruise) when I was 32 or 33 years old (and pregnant with my now 6 year old son). :D

Here's my thought process on Oak Meadow. They have this specific philosophy of "involving the whole child" and the child as "more than just an intellect" and how "childhood is a valuable period and there is nothing to be gained by rushing through it" and so on and so forth. Therefore, their earliest years are very purposefully very gentle. So, almost any of us with young kids are probably going to find their K, maybe 1st grade program and so on pretty "easy." However, I've now used OM for K (with my son), and 4th, 5th, and 6th (with my daughter) and I've noticed that in upper elementary they require a LOT of writing and *I* personally think that a lot of parents who grade-skip in the early years thinking that it's "too easy" for their kids are going to get to the later elementary years and find themselves going "Wow, they're supposed to do all that writing?" or find themselves thinking, "My kid may have gotten more out of this reading/writing/research with that extra year or so of age/maturity." And while I haven't seen the 7th, 8th, etc packages yet, I've read threads that imply this is even more the case then. Then there's the fact that by skipping the earliest years you're missing out on really sweet activities and just doing fun things with your kids, and you *might* be missing part of the point of not rushing them and the gentle approach and the child as more than just an intellect etc that is a big part of the OM philosophy. You may disagree with me, of course, this is just some food for thought. When my son started OMK this year, he did not yet know how to read, but he did already know all those capital letters of the alphabet they were "introducing." I just did it with him anyway figuring we'd still enjoy the crafts, stories, activities, gentle pace, spending time together etc. You could always supplement a bit too if you really wanted to and/or just do things on your own outside of the curriculum for fun, learning etc. I've always done an eclectic mix of things, although OM was always our main curriculum and I never went nuts with adding other stuff on. This way you don't miss out on things the curriculum has to offer, and you don't get to 4th, 5th, 6th grade and be sitting there with a kid who is much younger than they would have been in those grades going "He's not really ready for all this writing, what do I do now?" So those are my thoughts!

Hopefully this is why and not just that they are too busy! They didn't call back, so I guess we go Weds morning. She does have a splint on it, and she's resting it, keeping it elevated, putting ice on it occasionally and taking ibuprofen. It's hurting her but not to the point where she's crying today. She wants to go to her book club this afternoon so that's a good sign.

Glad to hear your son is cast free now! Some of these activities are kinda scary! haha no, and when you YOU gonna start climbing some stairs? Hmm? Well anyway I got in touch with the ortho and apparently he's quite a busy guy. They didn't give me an appointment until 8:30 Wednesday morning, although the woman I spoke with said she is going to discuss my daughter's x-rays with the doctor today and will call me back if he tells her he wants to see my daughter tomorrow instead of Wednesday. And I did ask them if they have waterproof casts and she said yes. By the way, did I mention that when we checked into the ER the nurse told us my daughter was the fourth kid to show up from the roller rink yesterday?

We're using Meet the Masters. Here's my review of it, which shows what it's like and includes pictures of the art projects my daughter has done so far this year: http://nancextoo.livejournal.com/252723.html

Oh gosh...I hope that it doesn't end up being that long, and that is crazy about your son's arm being cut!!! Thank you for the tip, I will try to get a waterproof cast!

Happy birthday! :) Pssst Negin, Google eclair with candle. :D

My daughter went rollerskating with her Girl Scouts group yesterday. She's only tried going skating once or twice and doesn't really know how but she wanted to go and a couple of her friends were going to teach her how. She ended up falling a little after 5 and hurting her left wrist. The G.S. leader and my husband agreed it didn't seem broken, so I gave her ibrupofen and suggested we see how it felt in the morning, but by 9 PM she was crying and saying it hurt so bad that I decided to take her to the ER to get it checked out. It turns out she has some sort of "buckle" or compression fracture not in the wrist, but in the long bone of the forearm right where it meets the wrist. They put a splint on it, said to use ice, elevation, and ibuprofen, and to follow up with an orthopedic doctor this morning. So I'm waiting for their office to open so I can call in about a half hour. I was told that they would most likely put a full cast on it, but that "it probably won't even need to be on for the whole six or eight weeks and it will heal quickly." Poor kid. She was nervous about going but so looking forward to it and it turned out so badly. I'm just glad it's her left arm since she's right handed, and that nothing actually broke, but I still feel so badly for her! Of course, as they were going through the discharge instructions, they said no gym or active sports until cleared by the orthopedist, and they said, "you can keep her home from school tomorrow" (it was nearly midnight by the time we left there). My daughter did apparently feel well enough to gleefully tell me she couldn't do ANY schoolwork today...she'd basically done almost none last week either as almost everybody was sick in my house last week with various coughs, colds, stomach bugs, sore throats and so on. She IS a little bit pleased with the extended time off as previously she'd been on notice that we were getting back to work today AND doing some extra catch up, too. :P

My 11 y/o daughter takes weekly judo classes. She participates in a spring and fall Homeschool bowling league. She takes swim lessons in the summer. My 6 y/o son also does the bowling league and swim lessons. He plays teeball in the summer and soccer in the fall. We go on family walks together, and other than that the kids play and run around and go to the park and ride their bikes and scooters and so on.

I am inclined to think that if you hurry to assure him how he's definitely not stupid and is so smart etc. every time he says it, that he may simply enjoy the attention/compliments and has learned that telling you he is stupid is a good way to get that sort of attention/compliments. It may be worth telling him firmly that you do not like hearing him say that, that he knows it's not true, that that you don't want to hear it again, period. My 6 y/o said he was stupid once and I was kind of shocked to hear it and I immediately hastened to tell him, No you're not, you're a smart boy and blah blah blah because of course you want to build up their esteem, but the next time he said it I kind of got the impression he just wanted that attention again, and I did tell him firmly, "You are NOT stupid, and I do NOT like when you say that, and I don't want to hear you say it again." He hasn't done it again lol. I do make a point of pointing out when he does something 'smart'- not by just handing out general and meaningless "you're so smart!" compliments, but "You did a good job reading that sentence, that was a tough one." (he's learning to read) and kind of praising specific accomplishments here and there. (Of course, if it kept on, got worse, or I saw other signs or symptoms that led me to believe he had any sort of depression or problem that needed counseling or medical attention, I would be paying attention to that, but if this was the only thing and I thought I could nip it in the bud as an attention thing, I would try that first).

Voted for you!

What the heck was he thinking?