Done. Thank you!

We are staying away from Duolingo for the moment, as it has Brazilian, not European, Portuguese. I might buy a starter set of physical vocab cards to keep in the car or in my bag, so we can practice outside the house.

DS10 is going to start studying Portuguese this fall. I am going to try and learn along with him, though I have started already in order to get ahead of him a bit before he starts. FWIW, I had French in high school and Spanish in college, but I have never been anywhere near fluent in anything other than English. DS10 and I have been studying Latin for two years, and will continue along while we add Portuguese. WHAT WE HAVE: textbook: Bom Dia! This includes a workbook with written exercises and a pronunciation CD. podcast/YouTube channel: I have been listening to the Portuguese Lab podcast, starting with the beginner lessons; lessons are between 7 and 15 minutes, so far. I found that they have the same lessons available on YouTube that include the words on the screen as they are being spoken. I am not sure which would be better for DS; the YouTube portal may be too distracting for him, so I could download the transcripts and print them for him instead. audiobooks: Pimsleur (European) Portuguese lessons are available through both Audible and my library. books: We have a Portuguese phrase book and The Usbourne First Thousand Words in Portuguese picture book. I will borrow picture books, picture dictionaries, and English-Portuguese dictionaries from the library as needed, and will buy a Eng-Port dictionary if we find one that we really like. misc.: My SIL' s mother gets weekly/monthly local news in a Portuguese-language newspaper, and she has been putting them aside for us. I have set up a sub-account on Netflix that will show us children's programs in Portuguese, and am sure that I can borrow Portuguese movies, either dubbed or from Portugal, from the library. My SIL is going to be our conversation tutor. THE PLAN: We will study Portuguese 6 days a week, alternating 45 minute and 15 minute lessons. On the three days with a longer period, we will work in the textbook/workbook, listening to the pronunciation CD as needed. If there is time left after finishing a section, he can move to one of audio options (podcast, Pimsleur, Netflix). On the days with a short lesson, we will start with a picture book or a quick vocabulary review, and then he can listen to a short audio option. I will make plans to see my SIL twice a week to have conversations in Portuguese and to ask questions that may come up. I am currently reading the book Becoming Fluent, and am also studying for my sheltered English instruction exam, so I can hopefully use what I learn to help along the process. Any input from those who have successfully learned and/or taught a foreign language is greatly appreciated! Thanks.

Your levels 3-5 must be first edition. My entire set, with the exception of 3A, is white dominant, like your level 2s. I bought 3A alone to check it out, and it looks like your copy - when I ordered the rest of the books they had been reprinted with white spines.

DS10 finished BA5 yesterday. (YAY!) We are definitely doing AoPS pre-algebra. I found this thread helpful (it's from 2017):

Because no one else has mentioned it, I'll recommend checking out Dr. Jason Fung's website and books, about intermittent fasting. I am 5'6", and was just about 220lbs this winter; my goal weight is 160. I had a serious issue with sugar/bread/baked goods and eating late at night, after everyone else went to bed. I started eating 16:8, which is eating in a defined 8hr window (10am-6pm for me), which meant not eating after dinner and waiting a bit before breakfast. I started losing weight gradually, maybe 0.5lb per week. I've slowly added in 5:2 fasting, and have started losing a pound/week. My diet has naturaly improved; I'm eating less sugar/junk and choosing more whole foods. (I'm not going keto, I like to bake way too much!) It's been fairly gentle. I've lost 14lbs in the last 11 weeks. I haven't changed my activity levels much, if at all. Dr. Fung has many recommendations for different types of intermittent fasting, and it is possible to lose much more weight more quickly. He's definitely worth a read. Good luck, and be gentle with yourself.

I didn't know that this was a thing. I'm going to check out out, thanks.

Can anyone recommend a voice recorder (digital or cassette) that I can use to summarize & narrate readings and then play back to help me learn/retain the information? Preferably not an app, as I have trouble self-regulating my own cellphone usage. Digital would be great if I could label the files to be able to search for specific information at a later date. Any input is helpful - thanks!

Narrating back to myself, in my own words, sounds like something that might help, thanks. I wonder if narrating into a tape recorder and playing it back to myself later in the day might help, too? I have index cards to take notes, and I purchased my own copies of the texts I am using (instead of borrowing from the library) so that I can annotate them. I am getting to the library at 9am, when they open, and have headphones to listen to listen to (very quiet) classical music, in order to keep out the sounds of the library. I wish I could get up at 5 and work at home, but DS2 still sneaks into bed with me each night and is up the second my eyes open. Even if he did stay asleep, there is so much stuff to do in my house that I would be too distracted to work at home. I will make sure to keep my cellphone in my bag to limit distractions. I am exercising before I go but probably not enough to make that much of a difference.

I left work when DS7 was born and my teaching license has since become 'inactive', and there are several hurdles to getting it renewed. I have a plan to jump the first hurdle this fall, and it starts with me studying at the library a few mornings a week. I spent 90 minutes reading this morning in glorious peace and quiet. However, as I was walking to my car, I realized that I had absolutely NO MEMORY of what I had just read. My academic brain has gone to mush, and I really have no idea how to get it back! Has anyone else gone through a season like this? Can you offer tips on teaching yourself a new topic that is only tangential to your own (supposed) area of expertise? What if you've *also* gone rusty in your area of expertise?

I am trying to figure out to combine a few subjects into a morning time-type of practice, to streamline the day. I'll have a 5th, 2nd, k, and 3yr old and am suddenly really worried about my ability to give them all adequate attention!

DS10 is on the last section of BA5D, and it definitely went much, much slower in 5 then 3 & 4. Like your son, I think a lot of it is that he thinks he can still do it all in his head, yet there are so many more moving parts that it slows him way down. If he would just write everything down, he would go so much faster! I spend the majority of my time saying, "Write it down!" over and over.

I have a referral for pelvic floor physical therapy and I haven't called yet. Maybe tomorrow...

This is what my husband uses in his senior honors physics classes! I just helped him re-shelve all his textbooks when he closed his classroom for the summer.

You can check out the Car Seat Lady's website: https://thecarseatlady.com/

I would like a good old fashioned Irish wake- put my coffin in the corner of the room, have lots of finger food, and plenty of alcohol and music! No sad faces, only happy memories!

This is an excellent point! Thanks.

Thank you!

I'll have to buy corn instead of wheat tortillas next time. Thanks!

https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/double-chocolate-zucchini-bread-recipe If you shred the zucchini finely, it melts right into the batter and you can't see it at all. It's delicious! (Also, I use Hershey powdered cocoa, it's always been fine.) I'm going to have to buy zucchini this weekend!

I forgot about taco meat. No one else will eat it due to the sauce/spices (maybe DS23, but he rarely eats with us). Maybe I will make a batch and freeze it in portions. I used to make it with ground chicken or turkey, I guess that why I stopped - he stopped being able to keep down poultry.

He used to eat cheese. He's stopped in the last six months or so. No more cheese sticks as a protein choice at lunch. He will eat grilled cheese, as long as it's provolone. We have pizza every Friday but, even that he is starting to complain about the cheese. I make an awesome double-chocolate zucchini bread where you can't see or taste the zucchini at all - he knows it's there and won't even try it. I always have an audience when I cook!

Chicken Poultry of any sort ends in puke, even if he doesn't know it's there. He ate it without issue until a few years ago. Now, it doesn't matter how it's prepared or what it's flavored with. We had hot dogs once that made him sick - I didn't realize that they weren't all-beef and included pork & chicken. *sigh*

How much does your 10yr old boy eat on a typical day? What are your best ways at getting a growing kid who is picky and has food allergies to eat a balanced diet while also getting enough calories? DS10 is allergic to tree nuts and eggs (no quiche, hard-boiled, scrambled, etc but can have baked goods with eggs in them, like cookies and banana bread). He dislikes milk and cheese, unless it's cheese quesadillas or baked mac n' cheese. He cannot tolerate poultry of any kind (including broth); it upsets his stomach and makes him vomit (he's been tested, no allergies). He no longer likes peanut butter, but will eat a spoonful if he has no other protein choice available. He likes salmon, but that gets pricey quick! He is suddenly hungry ALL THE TIME. I know that he needs the calories but, if it was up to him, they would all come from white rice, buttered pasta, hamburgers, and desserts. Any tricks on getting more vegetables and good proteins into this kid?

anyone?