That sounds a lot more doable! And once you have that, you can start listing out ways you can use to do each one and find resources to help you along. You might find R&S or MP fits your goals for the year. You might find that they don't, or are insufficient on their own. But all of a sudden you've defined what you want a year to look like and given yourself many more options to take advantage of.

These are large goals for first grade, and not developmentally appropriate. What do you want to tackle as realistic goals for this year? What is something you can say is an objective for the next few months and how do you want to do it? I can break mine into smaller goals: Interest in learning present new ideas with appreciation for them know when to stop a lesson/slow down for difficulty follow his lead for interests share materials I love weave in skills in different ways be curious with him, don't give answers go new places, try new things Set a good foundation develop number sense in value and quantity, and how numbers work teach the parts of a sentence: punctuation/grammar/spelling teach the beginnings of independent writing: narration in both oral and written form (copied from a dictation) develop musical skill work on fine and gross motor skills work on memorization of small and large pieces of information

I suggest flexible work you can scale up or down. You might check out the accelerated learners board here, too, for ideas. In 1st, my DS was using: MEP math Story of the World Grammarland w/Montessori-ish exercises Mystery Science (or maybe that was K) Critical Thinking Co. logic puzzles Violin lessons Artistic Pursuits Latin's Not So Tough (for fun) One Third Stories French (for fun) Lots of games and puzzles Writing was organic, through copywork and learning to label diagrams/maps. Spelling was an older speller and then Dictation Day By Day. We leaned heavily into the activity book for SOTW and anything else we could make an activity. When we did ancient Greece he learned Greek. When he wanted to prove he could "do math fast" we played with Thinkin' Logs multiplication stackers. He read a variety of things and did...one..real book study that year with The Phantom Tollbooth. He'd read a chapter and then do an activity with me. My goal for first grade was to keep him interested in learning and set a good foundation. What are your goals for first grade?

I wouldn't use either with an advanced learner unless it was something they chose. The thing is, Memoria Press and R&S both increase physical output with age. That's not always the best situation for a child who is mentally advanced but physically on point with development. They're not structured to be able to move around the lock step of physical = mental, and it hits big around 3rd or 4th grade, when the physical output ramps up considerably. So it's not a big deal *now*, but it is in a year. There are a lot of different ways of meeting kids where they are in both areas. FWIW, my own kids did about 4-5 hours of "school" consistently from about age 4 on, but would have been indignant if anyone called it school when they were very young. There was a lot of play, a lot of physically appropriate work, and a lot of work on my end to amend lessons to different developmental needs. We did one year of Memoria Press' First Form Latin. My 3rd grader chose it after looking at all options because he likes predictability and knowing what to expect. Even he was burned out by the never ending pages to fill in the blanks, no matter how we cut it down. We didn't return to the forms and went in a different direction the next year.

What started as a 1 hour shift this morning for ds turned into 2.5 hours. The boys all work in pairs, and some shifts didn't have a pair of kids. DS extended to do the hour before to help the other scout who signed up, then did his hour with his friend. Then we found out that the last hour had a scout who hadn't worked the table before, so I gently prodded ds to stick around as much as possible. He was exhausted after last night and didn't make it through the full shift, but it was long enough, I think. And even though he didn't want to do it, he admitted on the way home that it was the right thing in both cases for him to stay.

I had wondered how this turned out! Thanks for the update!

I don't know. I'll let you know in a few years if it's the same here as it was elsewhere. This was not the experience my oldest had in high school. Parties were with friends, and all his friends were not the type to drink. They were more the type to hook up their laptops to game. Plus, they had a fine example of what not to do when their principal was arrested for very,very drunk driving. I teach my children how to drink at home, so when they go off they know good habits/bad habits, and how to set boundaries. I do not teach other people's children anything about alcohol. I think my bigger worry here is drugs at parties. Recreational drugs are a problem in our county and I don't want ds14 to be caught up in that, especially unwittingly. With so many forms out there it is harder to point out exactly what is/isn't safe, and a lot of adults I know do have some form of edibles or other things in their homes. I'm pretty sure the parents of one of ds's teammates were always on something that year we were around them, and I'm glad the two kids have stayed just acquaintances and never got closer. I won't ever let ds go into their home.

Good morning! coffee text scoutmaster about ds picking up another shift take ds to sell popcorn spray down/light up ds's hockey gear dinner: leftovers DS's team was invited to a scrimmage last night with the other team his age/level. I took him, because they're going to play each other several times this year, so may as well get a feel for how each other play. Well, sure, if that play is through the looking glass. It was the weirdest thing. They played a 25 minute period, then a 35 minute period, then a 15 minute 3:3 period to top it off. In contrast, the rules usually are three 20 minute periods or two 25 minute halves. Only two lines of ds's team made it there, because holiday weekend, so I watched my kid rotate through all positions except goalie during his shifts. 😄 Absolutely crazy. My kid doesn't play defense and was actually doing pretty well at it. But I noticed several kids, including mine, wearing 13 on their helmets and understood why the game was hastily put together. If you have heard the name Johnny Gaudreau in the news lately, it was why. It was one silent tribute to two deaths that shouldn't have happened.

Because relief is coming soon I'm not going to focus on longer solutions, but changing the color of the lightbulb might help. During the hottest part, moving to a blue or green light for a while will help calm the brain down and the color will create a new association with the temperature. We use one upstairs, where I can make it a tint of purple or go full green or blue.

Good morning! coffee meet with advisor get my student id fill out my parking pass linner: hot dogs or pizza take ds to a scrimmage dinner: burgers and fries watch something with dh? I went in this morning to tell the advising office that I wanted to start in the spring semester because the website was a LOT to try to figure out, and I'm not exactly slow when it comes to computer stuff. I couldn't even set up a proper meeting with my advisor 1 on 1 because it wouldn't let me and kept marking 3 classes on my transcripts as..I have no idea what. But I got all that sorted in about an hour, and those three classes have to be appealed because they meet the requirements, just in a different form. SO...I'm ready to go for next week. Wish me luck on finally finishing this degree!

Honestly, it's more than that. Many veterans, if you say something like "you sacrificed for our freedom" or anything else that alludes to their time as directly preserving the freedom of America, they will give you a forced smile, say thank you, and silently want to tell you to f off. They don't feel like the US has had its freedom in question since before they were born, and they weren't a part in preserving that or making it happen. More modern day veterans, from the 1960s on, have more of a feeling of being a cog in a larger wheel. The displays that civilians do can be....uncomfortable. The airman who was in the motor pool for 4 years or the marine who rocked supply for 10 years don't think you quite understand if you extend that sort of platitude. And there's all the little stories that are happy-sad: laughing about doing the first round of touch-and-gos and finding a use for that paper bag mingled with the loss of a friend whose PTSD led him to set himself on fire. The entire friend group getting awful tattoos on a drunken night and the ringleader of that lost to an IED a year later. The twisted award that you're the only one of your former group who isn't an alcoholic, depressed, or dead. Best of the best of the best, sir. The top .01%. Isn't it funny how it shakes out the weak? Yeah, freedom is a trigger word for a lot of vets because it's the sort of American nonsense that glosses over the humanity and the truth to put a shiny spin on it.

We've given up activity because of the people involved. It's not the activity's fault, it's the participants (and their parents) who actively come in sick or believe that if a child gets it worse than what they have it's because they didn't pray hard enough. Our circles got very small between 2020 and 2022. DS now attends a science-forward scout troop instead of his 4-H group. We dropped p.e. (a petri dish) and general skating classes for ones with smaller groups and coaches we trust. Other people's poor decisions shouldn't be a feature in my kid's life.

Are they the type that would appreciate being thanked for their service? Many veterans bristle at it, because the thanks is empty, full of platitude and no understanding of the actual job. I'd write it with an air of appreciation, but stay away from "FREEDOM" as a theme. Add details about their service that you know/stories they've shared, and a desire to know more after this trip. Thank them for being the type of people that did what needed to be done, and noting how it became a part of them, that duty and honor were embodied in their approach to life. Appreciate that you know it wasn't always easy, and they carried a lot. If you have candid pictures of them in uniform or with you, add those in.

DS and I were just having this discussion yesterday because it's very close to home. Mosquitoes love us, there's something about our blood that makes them take a beeline for any open skin. I keep a bottle of bug spray in my car right now for walks in and out of the rink.

Yep. And some insurance companies refuse to insure cybertrucks because they are poorly made death traps, which means that owners are stuck with a car they can't sell, can't drive, and can't make street legal.