OOOOH!! She's so cute!!!

That is great that you found her. If I try to look someone up by name on the web I get lost with all of the people. :eek: I'm so glad that you found her and wrote her. I'm sure she appreciated it very much. :)

Thank you pqr for starting this thread. It is so important to remember lest we forget. Here's to you Mr. Pollicino!! You are a hero and always will be! Y para ti mi querido abuelo, fuiste mi heroe primero y no sabes cuanto te estrano. :grouphug:

I'm sorry, Bill, What did you say?? I wasn't listening. ;) :D

Oh, I'm so relieved that it's not just me. I thought my question was a really dumb one, but I'm glad I asked it now since other people were wondering the same thing. :)

South Florida here. :) Born and raised in Ft. Lauderdale.

What a wonderful thing to do. :) How did you ever find her address? Did she write you back? What a lovely story. :)

:iagree::iagree: That IS cool. I just bought a used Algebra textbook because I heard so many good things about it. Mrs. Dolciani is one of the people who worked on it. I read the first chapters and it really does explain things very well. She sounds like such remarkable woman. I'm glad that you had the opportunity to know her. :)

hehehehe I didn't even notice that you put a zero. I saw a 1. How strange is that!! A BIG THANK YOU to you ladies for explaining it so well. Now I can tell my dd and act like I knew it all along. :tongue_smilie: hehe :grouphug:

You get $100.00 worth of free curriculum. :) :party:

:party: Glad for the good news, Tracey. :) :grouphug:

I'm glad I'm not the only one who's never heard of "annexing zeros". I feel *slightly* less dumb now. ;) :D hehe

I echo hsmom's sentiments. No real advice, just lots of :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: My son is 8 and still wears diapers at night. He has Autism though. BTW, I switched from Pull Ups to Overnights. They hold a lot more.:grouphug:

Anyone? Anyone?? Bueller? Bueller?

I'm sorry that I interrupted you then. ;) :D :tongue_smilie:

:grouphug: I'm proud of you, mom!! I'm so glad you're son had such a wonderful time. Thanks for sharing the pics too! :)

I hear you King, and I have to tell you that you are preaching to the choir here. I agree with you on this matter. Both of my children have had their vaccines and will continue to have them. If you read my post a little further up I was agreeing with you about your comment on the 19th century graveyards and even sharing that my aunt was left crippled by Polio because the vaccine hadn't yet been invented when she had it. I don't know why you directed your comments to me, but let me assure you that what you quoted of what I said was meant to be tongue in cheek hence the smilies. :) No worries though. I ain't mad at cha! :) :D

Ft. Lauderdale during the 70's. Not a good time or place to be. :(

I'll chime in here agreeing with the other posters. I switched from Saxon to Singapore for 5th grade and had to start with 4A &4B. I would strongly suggest getting the home instructor's guide. My daughter likes Singapore much much better and is much happier doing math now. I did 4A, 4B and 5A last year and I have done 5B, 6A & 6B this year so that my daughter can start NEM in 7th grade right on level. It was a lot to be sure, but she was able to handle it. I really like Singapore because it teaches them to think through the problems, not just solve a problem that looks a certain way. I wish you all the best. :)

This is so true. Almost every girl I knew growing up had something happen to her. :(

:grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: I'm so sorry about your son. I agree with you 100% that they should break them up.

I live not 1 mile from the Hollywood Mall where Adam Walsh was taken. It rocked our entire community. First the frantic searching for him by EVERYONE when he was missing and then when they found his remains in the canal everyone was just heart broken. It galvanized our entire community and made us all *sadly* a lot more aware of our surroundings. I am certain that every school in South Florida had a memorial for him, I know ours did. :(

I just want to clarify for my part that I am absolutely NOT blaming this poor mother. She could not have forseen this any more than anyone can forsee any tragedy. I was just speaking for myself that I wouldn't let my children out alone. When my mother was growing up, she was not allowed to go anywhere without a chaperone. Not because of fear of abductions or whatnot, on the contrary her whole neighborhood were extended family members so she was pretty safe in that respect. Rather it was a deterrant for the children to act up or get into trouble knowing that someone was there watching over them, the added benefit was that she was also protected from the type of situation that this poor family is dealing with. Call it a culture difference if you will (my family is Hispanic) but nobody in my family has suffered a social defecit due to this type of upbringing.

I think as parents we do whatever we can to protect our children and we take precautions for their safety. We use seatbelts and practive defensive driving, do not talk on cell phones or engage in other distracting behaviors while driving in order to be safe. I see no difference in supervising a child when they are outside playing. It is a protective measure. My heart breaks for this poor family, but I think I can say with confidence that had the mother been sitting right there while the child was playing that that abductor would not have taken her. :(

I've been homeschooling my daughter since she was 2 years old. She has Asperger's, OCD and ADHD. She went to a charter school for one year (3rd grade) because my husband thought her "issues" were socialization related. I thank God that she had been homeschooled up to that point, because she didn't learn a single thing the whole time she was in school and really just coasted on what she had already learned at home. She couldn't stay focused would come home from school in the afternoon and I when I asked her what she learned she couldn't tell me. Then there was the homework that she didn't know how to do once she got home because she had been spacing out all day in class. I had to sit down with her and re-teach her what she was supposed to be learning and this was at 4pm with trying to care for my severely Autistic son and trying to get dinner, laundry etc done. It was a nightmare. On top of that, she got bullied horribly and the principal's office were very blase about it. It was truly unacceptable. After two months my husband told me to homeschool her again the following year and he hasn't questioned me about it since then. I have no doubts that it is the right choice for her. As far as actual teaching, I let her personality and strenghts determine my curriculum choices and I use carefully selected materials to address her weaknesses. I also use a rewards system to encourage her through non-preferred activities. For example, my daughter loves reading, so I use a literature based curriculum and would use a lot of books and pull the different subjects into it, like geography, history etc. We did unit studies almost exclusively for Elementary school with a math curriculum on the side. I had what I called "the store" and I would just buy a lot of inexpensive (dollar store) type prizes and would assign them a price in "tickets". When she hated writing and didn't want to do it then they were "terrific writing tickets" when she got better at writing they just became "terrific tickets" and I would lay all the prizes out on the bed so that she could see them with their various prices. I would have like a piece of bubble gum be 5 tickets and a pinwheel be 15 things like that with things that I knew she wanted really badly at a higher price point. That encouraged her to work hard even though it was a struggle for her. It worked really well for us. Now that she is in Middle School, I still use a rewards system but it is rewarded on a weekly basis and also takes into account her behavior not just school performance. It just helps to motivate her to work through the things that are difficult for her. So that's what works for me. To sum it all up, I just let her strenghts and weaknesses determine the curriculum and approach and through trial and error I find what works and what doesn't. I hope this helps you some. :) I wish you all the best. :)