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Have kids -- will travel

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Everything posted by Have kids -- will travel

  1. Just to add, we also love the Advent calendars. All of us. It's just so much fun.
  2. Lego sets have gotten really "playable" as well as buildable. We got my son the Lego police station for his 5th birthday, and he loves it. It has special trap doors and trick jail bars for pretend breakouts, a working garage door and traffic arm (well loved aspects), and lots of tiny extras, like money, crow bars, handcuffs, and cameras (no guns!). The Junior sets are also very playable. We have the fire station, which has fires to add to building to putting out, and a gas station, essential for any proper city. We tend to look for buildings to buy rather than just vehicles, because they are more playable. And we also have lots of random lego for new creations. We all love Lego!
  3. Could have been a virus poorly timed with your cycle. Generally, a very early miscarriage wouldn't have chills or flu-like symptoms.
  4. Impressive that you do manage to get a bit in on holidays! Mine are quite a bit younger, but travelling is so tiring that my big one usually isn't doing much more than occasionally reading. Of course, travel is enriching in its own ways, for sure! Life here has been very crazy this month. I went back to work, so the kids have gotten adjusted to having the nanny do school runs and activities. Also, we've had several Dutch celebrations that require preparation: a lantern for St. Maarten's and a dance for Sinterklaas. Add in lots of wish-list writing for Sinterklaas, and I'm lucky if DS finishes his reading. DS is finishing his fun math class this week, and I've asked the program to test if he needs to skip a class again. He loves the class, but his fine motor skills held up his progress for a while. Now he's writing for fun (I never thought that would happen) and making lots of progress, so I'd like the class to come a bit closer to his math abilities.
  5. Mine really became a wonderfully creative builder after turning age four. Every Lego creation gets customized: switching major components for different colors, accessorizing with hooks, lights, extra computers, etc., new functionality on buildings, and on and on. He'll build his own new creations as well, and I regularly clear his Lego table to allow him to reimagine the built-by-instructions parts. Even his little brother's Duplo gets upscaled into a house plane that lands on the water. Little brother is getting Kapla for Christmas (big brother even more Lego), so hopefully that will inspire even more creation. So I just mean that you may not need to buy a specific project for your child. I've found as the boys have gotten older, open-ended toys have become wide open. If you're looking for tinkering options, a good supply of free build Legos (ours is legacy Lego, so full of inspiring, strange pieces) may be more than sufficient. We also have the Zoob Car Designer Set (6+) but haven't opened the box yet.
  6. ITTA with the previous poster. If your child is already fluent in German, reading follows very simply. We have never taught our ODS any reading in Dutch. He picked it up purely from being read to in Dutch. I think we mentioned once that "j" has a different sound, but strange things like "oe" and "aa" were all very simple. Vocabulary is the limiting factor in our house for understanding.
  7. My DS has had a Timex kids' watch since turning four. A year later, he still wears it regularly. It's a very durable watch, surviving a trip in the swimming pool. If your kid is interested, there is absolutely no better way to teach them time. ODS was accurate to five minutes within a couple of months of daily use. Editing to add: My DS was obsessed with time for a while before he got his watch, so a kid less rigid about times might not be as fascinated as mine was.
  8. So you mean "reading group" rather than book level? DS's school is constantly reevaluating grouping, which makes sense as some kids get improve faster than others. It sounds like you need to talk to the school. Not just a five minute chat at pickup, but a sit-down, possibly with a headteacher or principal. FWIW, DS is in the highest reading group and still reading very far above the levels of the others. His teacher told me that they don't restrict the book level sent home to what the others' in the group are capable, but he obviously doesn't have peers.
  9. My 5yo reads at level 4 now at school (different system) but 7/8+ at home. He loves the school stories, actually, so I don't mind that they are easy for him at this point. Is your daughter enjoying the books she gets from school? How often do they get a chance to change levels? DS has gone up two levels since the start of school and is due to go up again soon. How often do you chat with the teacher? Can she provide information on what your daughter needs to achieve to move up? DS has mastered the phonics levels where he is, reads fluently, and comprehends easily. So we have worked on the school's phonics system (he can read anything but needed help to know what the teacher wanted him to say if she wrote "ai" and "igh"), expressive reading, and most recently pausing between sentences. By fixing those things that the school saw as signs of weak reading, he's moved up faster. My last point is that if the child doesn't like the books she is supposed to read for school, throw them out and let her read what she wants. No need to torture five-year-olds with boring books! Reading is reading at this age.
  10. Calendars and time. My 2yo loves his own calendar, with day of the week, numbers, and month (blocks that you change every day). Clock with gears. Days of the week song and months of the year song. 100 square. YDS picks it up and just starts counting. He loves it. (it's the small things in our house) Building. With anything. Grouping. Addition starts with visually seeing 5 as 4 and 1, 3 and 2, etc.
  11. No advice just some sympathy! I've heard your same story from lots of times from other mothers, including the one who finally understood why those other kids climbed on everything and failed to listen: her first was compliant and easy, and her second couldn't be kept still! Don't discount the younger one yet, though. My difficult child is the 5yo, our oldest, and at age 2 you wouldn't have known how far ahead he'd be now (a worryingly high level, TBH). He's still incredibly active, but it's calmed a lot. YDS is so compliant and peaceful that I would have really struggled to have ODS afterwards. Now I know it's just their respective personalities. So while your oldest will always be easier, you may not need to fully discount your younger child academically. Age 2 is very young to really tell.
  12. I'm looking for new suggestions for educational, fun computer activities for aimed at grades K/1/2. It needs to be fun enough to feel like a reward but with a clear educational benefit. At the moment, my son picks from Teach Your Monster to Read, Starfall (which he's really outgrown), Prodigy, Dreambox, and Math Seeds (also basically outgrown). Any new sites to check out are very welcome. His mouse skills are fine, typing not so much. I'd prefer it to be more game-based than video-based, but any particularly appealing sites outside of core curriculum (geography, science, etc.) would also be great to look at as well.
  13. I'm going to suggest something different, so take it or leave it. How often do friends come over to play? Or how often does she visit friends? My son has a very high need for social interaction and loves having friends over. When a good friend comes over, the two bounce off, and I'm hardly welcome, much less needed. These plays are occasionally complicated by younger brother, but that's an issue you don't have. Would more friends coming to visit help fill her days? Playing with friends is a huge part of school, so you can even sell it that way if need be. My son has two good friends who each play once a week for about two hours a time, alternating at my home and at the other boys' home. Play with friends would give you more variety without adding structure, plus extra time to yourself. That said, it very much depends on the friends. Perhaps my perspective is different, but social development is high on our list of priorities. It's clear in our house that academics are going to come easy, so play with friends helps other aspects of development that may be more challenging or less innate.
  14. Great advice here. This is what I did with my oldest at 3 and 4. Tears meant a new approach, circling back to the problem area. Handwriting will come with age as well. Mazes were for a time the only fine motor work he enjoyed. Just before turning 5, everything really clicked, and he can write a proper sentence without balking. The pushy parents I've seen are the ones that need confirmation for how bright their child is. If you find yourself wanting your child to reach a level or perform in a certain way, instead of following the child's wishes and ability, you may need to consider your motivations.
  15. If your son is reading, just keep reading. My early reader loved the I see Sam series, and I did too -- because it was slow, gentle, and funny. Early readers with actual (logical and sensical) plot. The books are available free online. My son naturally memorized words once he sounded them out, so fluency came easily here. Not sure how you would encourage it. Some picture books with advanced vocabulary that I love are the Hairy Maclary series (Slinki Malinki is my favorite) and some Julia Donaldson books.
  16. About which language, if you are going to be the teacher, it should be the language you know (or want to learn). I don't have experience with Chinese, but if you feel that one is easier or more useful, learn that one yourself and teach it on. My DH speaks 7 or 8 languages now, so no need to think American by assuming your child will only learn one foriegn language. For what it's worth, both of us have picked up languages to fluency in adulthood as well. For the reading aspect, my early reader learned to read in English and picked up our second language simply through read-alouds. No phonics instruction at all. I did worry about the languages with reading, but that was never a problem here.
  17. We also had lots of success with repeating portions of 100 EZ lessons. I read a blog where a parent said that they always re-did the first fifty lessons. At 50, it got really hard, so we did that. Turned out brilliant. We re-did the first fifty (at DS's pace, so multiple lessons per day if they were short) and finished to the end without stopping after that.
  18. Cooperative games then: Forbidden Island, Forbidden Desert, etc. Maybe Pandemic? Everyone wins or everyone loses.
  19. :iagree: We only did curriculums until ODS was confident enough to read on his own. Now he reads anything and everything. If your early reader is already reading real books, just borrow anything from the library she'll read, and keep on reading to her. He'll get better with practice.
  20. P1 (reception) is pre-K in the US. P2 is Kindergarten age in the US. How the curriculums line up is trickier, but purely based on age, your daughter would be going for a K year next year.
  21. I highly recommend the book "Bad Science." It's a popularly written science book, so easy to understand and funny, and it's got a whole chapter on the placebo effect (with proper references). Basically, the more complicated the treatment, the higher the placebo effect. For example, your placebo pills will work better if your doctor tells you to take them at strict six hour intervals with food, to be followed by a deep muscle massage. Acupuncture is an example of a complicated treatment that induces a placebo effect. Certain conditions are also more susceptible to a placebo effect; a fever has a smaller placebo effect than backpain. In a controlled trial, the pharmaceutical companies are required to give the exact same treatment (exact same pill, minus active ingredient, exact same directions, exact same "side effects" explanation) to the "placebo group." I will note, however, that for many clinical trials, it is unethical to provide no treatment (would you like to be in the cancer drug placebo group?), so most trials compare their new drug to the current established treatment.
  22. Personally, a lingering disagreement in a marriage is to me a sign of problems in the marriage, not the importance of who could presumably care for your children in the unlikely case that neither of you are able. In a good marriage, both partners put the happiness and well-being of the other partner ahead of their own, meaning that in disagreements, you work hard to see the other's perspective. I'd recommend marriage counseling to work out the deeper issues here.
  23. Lynley Dodd is fabulous! Our favorite is Slinky Malinky -- really, you have to read that one at least once. If you need to buy (and amazon.com is letting you down), the book depository does worldwide shipping for free. I've used it quite a few times to get titles that weren't readily available via other sources.
  24. Sorry about your injury! I did dislocate my kneecap, but that was accompanied by an ACl tear ... so quite a different sort of injury. The last knee injury I had was fortunately on my left knee for driving purposes, because it took five months to be relatively back to normal (biking, stairs, etc.). No surgery in that case, but the swelling took forever to go down. So it can take awhile. If the swelling is bad like mine, even when the pain is gone the restricted movement makes things difficult.
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