Seven Quick Takes on Prize Winner, Author Recommendation, Two Functioning Toilets, and MORE!

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A big congratulations to Patti Lofgren, winner of the Teaching Reading with Bob Books Set 4 + Kindergarten Sight Words Printable Phonics Lessons Combo Set. That is a ridiculous mouthful, but I can vouch for the prize, since I made it myself.

Enjoy!

For the rest of you, I’ve got a coupon code. From now until April 22, 2016, get 15% off any TRwBB set of printable phonics lessons using the coupon code AFTERTHOUGHTS .

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Do you own books by Rosemary Sutcliff? You ought to! Your children will thank you, and if you end up reading them aloud, YOU will thank you. Q-Age-Nine is currently reading The Wanderings of Odysseus and she keeps saying over and over, “Mom, this is a great book!” and I just laugh because she doesn’t know it’s a retelling of a Great Book.

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This week’s links collection:

• Feeling The Bern of Reality — The Facts About Verizon and The ‘Moral Economy’ by Lowell McAdam
  • So Bernie Sanders made the erroneous statements that Verizon had never paid taxes, and the CEO himself responded! This is his full response, and I highly recommend letting older children read it as well.
• Tablets out, imagination in: the schools that shun technology from The Guardian
  • I found the school that requires children to go without screens until age 12 and internet access until 16 absolutely fascinating.
• Mothers Be Good to Your Daughters by Kendra Fletcher
  • Wise words from Kendra.

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This month in 2014:

I don’t make my own boots, either.

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Today, I get to go to the Santa Monica screening of Vaxxed. My husband’s advice was, “Keep in mind they’re only going to give one side of the story.” So, maybe it’s a propaganda film. I think he needs to see the bigger picture: one friend, no kids, sunshine, Southern California, a day away … need I say more? I’ve done so many hundreds of hours of research on the subject of vaccines that I feel like I can sift fact from fiction for the most part, and write down notes for what to look up later on.

The friend I’m going with is the one I worked with on trying to prevent the passage of SB 277, the law that says that a child in California must be fully vaccinated {defined by politicians, who can change the definition at any time} to attend any school — even a private school — in this state. We didn’t win the battle for freedom of religion or freedom for parents and private schools, so this is our little personal protest.

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If you missed my Facebook announcement, I will also mention here that we now have two functioning toilets at our house! The flood damage hasn’t been fixed, but the root problem is solved, and there should be less fighting over toilets. If there is anything that has shown us our shortcomings, it is this. We’re still only using one shower because we fear the humidity in the bathroom with the bare drywall and no baseboards, but just being able to use the toilet is a huge benefit.

On Monday morning, they are supposed to commence with repairs! When those are done, we’ll get the carpet cleaned, and who knows? It might actually start to look normal around here.

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Answering Your Questions:

• Question: Regarding lessons, if you have to stop a lesson because your child is becoming inattentive, do you re-visit it later in the day so that it gets finished or do you just put it off to the next day? Would you do that for any subject or only particular subjects?
  • Answer: For me, this usually depends on the context, so all I can give are a few examples — I don’t have a hard and fast rule for these situations. So, for example, if the inattention was due to the environment {i.e., interruptions or things going on}, I will often come back to it later. This is especially true if it’s a reading that was interrupted. If it’s, say, copywork, I usually don’t worry about it. We just skip that day. If it’s math, it could go either way, depending on factors like how much time we’ve already spent and how the rest of the day falls out. BUT, if the inattention was because the child had just lost interest generally, I usually just move on to the narration — whatever was done was done, and that’s enough, especially in the younger years. I also have a child that has days where he is hardly worth teaching because he’s struggling so much. This is usually because he has been fed sugar. Because those days are few and far between, I do very little with him on those days — our goal is to make it through and pick back up the next day. Anyone else want to share your answer to this question?

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