Weight is such a small part of health. It matters more how your body feels. If you take a picture of yourself and compare it to when you were at the gym, do you look more in shape? Are you losing muscle mass? That matters.

Oh, goodness, no! I just meant sitting! LOL I have a squirrelly 5yo. Today started with a bike ride, followed by a sit down writing lesson (10 minutes) and calendar time (3 minutes in my lap), to math being spread out all over the floor and him hopping from activity to activity: mental math, balance scale, mystery box...before sitting again for another 10 minutes to do the corresponding written work. Add in a bit of science later and him reading a book to me, and I think we may have hit an hour total today where he sat quietly. Not all at once, and definitely not for long stretches. The only things I did not supervise completely were his writing (copywork). I think you are definitely on track. :)

They called the kid a potential terrorist. That's what makes the whole thing reek. Not, hey, we mistook a clock for a chair. It's a "we think you will blow up our school." The actions of the school, from the police call, to the suspension, to the letter they sent home to parents encouraging racial profiling and turning in "suspicious behavior" make it clear what their intentions are. That is not okay. A mistake can be fixed. It can have a remedy. Demeaning and humiliating a child because you have nefarious thoughts can't be.

I think it does, more than we can imagine. When reading to a new reader, I demonstrate chunking techniques, or how to use pronunciation guides (like in the many dinosaur books we have!). With one who has the basics, that's where the fun begins. Reading a book is like being absorbed into a play. We get to act out the story and put meaning to those little parentheses and quotes and italics and rhymes or rhythmic speech. :D It teaches a child HOW to read.

We used Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons. But, after having wonderful teachers myself who did things with it, we changed it up. I read the script, but the first steps were done each day using first tactile letters, and then sound cards I made in the DISTAR manner. We did a lot of playing things like Gawain's Word and running around to collect sounds in order...only after all that would I introduce the story of the day, copied from the book to omit the picture. We skipped the writing portion. In 3 months my kid was reading well enough to read on his own, a year and three months later he reads anything and everything. We don't really bother with easy readers unless it's something he's just interested in, but everything else is fair game. LOL

Do you mean sit down work? An hour is more than fine. I find we experience more when we're up and moving, anyway. :)

Sure. Let's take a look at A Beka. God used the Trail of Tears to bring many Indians to Christ. That is not Christian. That is taking unnecessary pain and death of many people, slapping a feel good outcome on it, and calling it reasonable. What happened with the Trail of Tears is NOT reasonable. That's not even an okay interpretation of God's works, nor is it backed by fact - which is what history should be based on. I have half a dozen samples of various history guides on my computer and as soon as I see how they treat Christopher Columbus, I archive it. Look at Sonlight's core 100 and the treatment of slavery, that it was not cruel. Um, no. I think it is insulting to Christians to throw together a series of events, add a band-aid of God's favor (because God must be favoring SOME people over another), and say this is what you must believe happened. Like Christians can't think for themselves? They can't apply what they know about God or see the good within the bad - the nuggets that make the world better? They can't study how a person used their faith to get through trying times to make a difference, but at the same time can't show how an atheist or non-Christian lived without talking down about them? They cannot look at how religion in the hands of the wrong people twisted God's word? That is what I have an issue with - the idea that Christians are too stupid to read history as it is written, as close to how it happened as possible, without having someone else rewrite it and add their idea of God's intentions for them. Too often it changes events, and writers will omit details they don't like. We use narrative history for the beginning stages, and switch to mostly primary sources by middle school: Letters of Note, Jackdaws, Read Like A Historian...and only secondary sources when necessary. Even then, highlighting bias words in the texts is a regular occurrence here so that we see where the author is coming from.

We like SOTW. YMMV. In that case, I'd suggest adding a Chronological Study Bible to your bookshelf. It's the bible, yes, but with historical explanations of events, cultures, etc. To me, that is Christian history. The constant revisionist history that is pandered as "christian" is not. Not only do I find it insulting to Christians, I find it insulting to God to presume to know exactly what the intentions were in each event and free will not being established at all. No, thanks. For a textbook, SOTW does a decent job of explaining events to a child. By the next round more primary sources and study material should be entering into their school area, anyway, that I don't find it as a be all, end all kind of thing.

The Book of Potentially Catastrophic Science is chronological experiments. http://www.amazon.com/Book-Potentially-Catastrophic-Science-Experiments/dp/0761156879/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1442342271&sr=1-1&keywords=catastrophic+science We use it in addition to the SOTW activity guide to round out history. There are only a few experiments per volume (the book has 50, divide by 4), but they are a lot of fun!

We're very matter of fact. LOL, have to be - we took the kids to go see David a few years back and it gets rather, uh, up close and personal. Comfort is necessary. I'm just glad they weren't with us when we saw Hermaphrodite. That would have taken more explaining than I was ready for! :lol: Bodies are seen as things of beauty, and it's easier for me if we approach what is artistic about the body if the child asks. Is it the symmetry? The societal values embodied in the art? The way the person is positioned? Many artists have had mental issues, and accepting them as a part of how the person creates art is important. Dwelling on them, and the what-ifs, I don't find nearly as important.

We didn't find all of them - the counters, for example, and we made an Allie The Alligator (and his strip of water) to help with the more than/less than introduction.

We are doing MEP. I like how little writing there is in it, but it does ask that you have on hand a few manipulatives. Reception Year is very gentle, and even Year 1 looks gentle, but approaches math a little differently than other curricula. We're on lesson 21 of year 1 and he's only working with 0s, 1s, and 2s for addition/subtraction, but works on more than/less than, patterns, fine motor skills, bigger/smaller (and other opposites), writing the same problem a number of different ways, and skip counting. It's free, you can do it orally if you need to, although I do find the writing is minimal in the workbooks.

I find this to be a cool resource - http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/01/to-my-old-master.html It's a letter from a former slave after the war, to the plantation owner that wants them to come back and work for pay. The letter was more than likely dictated rather than written directly but it's a fascinating glimpse into the backbone that freedom gives. I would also suggest looking through the Google newspaper archives for both your local area and the time periods from the colonies through the civil war. https://news.google.com/newspapers The oldest papers I've looked through start in 1774. And lastly, I LOVE this interpretation of Sojourner Truth's Ain't I A Woman. It is done as I imagine it would have been the first time around.

The only sentence that stood out to me was I decided not to push him all these years because the meltdowns and tantrums were preventing us from doing ANYTHING. This sends off red flags, and I'm not sure if its because he learned a tantrum gets him out of what he doesn't want to do or that there is a genuine problem. If it's the first, then it's time to just suck it up, start slow, add in various motor skill exercises (everything from tweezer work to painting, to washing a table with counterclockwise circles). You start with one word a day and build up copywork slowly to a full sentence. Tantrums mean consequences. And they still mean the work needs to be done. But you need to find out if it's the latter, and rule out that possibility.

Yes, this. I facilitate. In that, the book Teach Like A Champion has some great ideas to help students retain information, setting the tone for the day, and keeping it from feeling like drudgery. Mostly, though, I just think about the material. Am I excited or curious about it? Why or why not? How can I help my child be curious about it, too, and want to know the information? I seek out resources that will help me do that, and when I can't, I build my own plan of attack.

We do 4-5 days a week, always have. It's a combination of nature studies (walks, microscope work, notebooking), labs, classical science rotation, and free reading/family tv watching. During the week I have a 5yo, with an occasional 2 & 4yo. We do Mystery Science on Wednesdays with just the 5yo, continue with a further hands on study on Thurs, incorporate the 2 & 4yos on Fri/Mon, microscope notebook page on Tues, and start again on Weds.

I'd get...man...several MiniLuk sets, Sudoku For Kids (animal pieces), Anno math books, the rest of the Science of Imagineering dvds, Lakeshore Learning science or STEM kits, Montessori grammar symbols, the Allowance game, and a set of nice colored pencils. :D

Decide carefully what you want to reward. We do contracts here, because I want to reward for responsibility, not work. Work changes, the need to be a self-starter doesn't. We make a deal, I will pay for work completed before 9am (or 8pm for evening chores). I will check them at that time on the chore chart. If not done, or done poorly, guess what? The kid STILL HAS TO DO THE WORK. I just get to nag, complain, and remove the reward. End of the week is payday and the pay is determined by how much was completed on their own, not with me having to take over the responsibility. There is still a reward if there is still a smidge of responsibility, but not nearly what it would be if it was all taken care of.

No rugs here, though I wouldn't mind one of the memory foam bath mats in front of the kitchen sink. Tile gets rather tough on the feet after a bit.

I like real life sites to edit from: https://www.reddit.com/r/grammarfial http://www.cakewrecks.com/ http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/ I pull pictures from them for a weekly worksheet in middle school, along with articles from our local online news site. They get pretty bad about staying on topic and having coherent thoughts. :laugh: Being able to tailor it to *just* what my kid needs to work the most on is helpful, and it also lets him see that grammar mistakes happen all the time - knowing how to do it right is pretty cool, though.

I'm skeptical of it because it sounds like it's trying too hard to say "we send articles at the right grade level." Web-based technology, LOL. :laugh: All that says is it's online. An assessment to determine lexile range, articles within that range. In contrast, Reading Detective from CTC sells itself much better: The standards-based critical thinking activities of Reading Detective develop the analysis, synthesis, and vocabulary skills students need for exceptional reading comprehension. The activities are especially effective at helping students understand more challenging reading concepts such as drawing inferences, making conclusions, determining cause-and-effect, and using context clues to define vocabulary. Achieve3000 fails to tell me what it will do other than provide articles and questions.

This book is about 10 years old, but it's a must read before looking for new clothes. Especially if your body has changed shape. The Lucky Shopping Manual http://www.amazon.com/Lucky-Shopping-Manual-Building-Improving/dp/1592400361/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1442093087&sr=1-1&keywords=lucky+shopping+manual I was feeling a little frumpy. I joined a mommy workout group (no pressure/do what you can) so that one morning a week I make sure to take time for ME, for my health, and to make me feel better. It doesn't matter so much what I look like, I've found, if I'm not happy or proud of it.

I love teaching long division. :leaving: We use color coded graph paper to reinforce the place value and keep it all in a straight line/understand what's going on. Now, teaching how to find square roots - well, that gets a bit hairy here. Even with the models.

I have, both with and without age limits. With age limits was fine, except for the lone two homeschoolers that took 6+/1st grade to mean 5+/1st grade work. The age limit was set in place for two reasons: the sequence of the program had a very hard cutoff age for the next phase (teens), and the maturity level needed to complete each part of the phase. The parents went over my head to get permission and did their children a disservice. One did okay. He struggled, but did okay, and would have been fine had it not been for the fact that now he would have a year gap between the two phases of the program. The other did not. He struggled much more, both in terms of basic motor skills and maturity. I felt bad for both of them. When I designed a large activity I didn't immediately set an age limit. The first year I had children with an enormous range of skills, from not reading or writing at all to jr. high. I adapted my expectations and made it work - very little reading or writing involved, a lot of thinking and hands on work, acting things out.

.