Useful school/educational websites and stuff

There are a lot of resources out there and educational games etc. As you have probably already noticed, some are great and some are dire... Here's what we've found (but every kid is different so, as always, what one loves another will hate):

Games:
Most games are repetitive exercises disguised in various formats - which is not a bad thing, certainly helps practice & reinforce what they are learning. The ones I would recommend for K-2 based on our experiences are:
Reader Rabbit - spelling, reading
The Jumpstart series - a lot of different areas - maths, english, music...
Boost Maths from the Learning Ladder (they also have the start stile which is fabulous as well, and I notice there is now also Boost English - we haven't tried that one) - Maths practice with rewards as games (or you can add parent rewards as well)
Zoo Tycoon - is a strategy game, can be played in sandbox mode for the littlies and can help promote reading (as they need to read the messages) and maths (to work out how many animals they have etc)
Clifford Phonics - english/spelling

Websites:
Spelling city - warning - it is American, so you need to be careful, teachers can use it to set up spelling lists & practice games
Mathletics - often schools have this as part of their program - it is very good for practising maths

There are more which I'll try & remember to put up here as I go... Also ask your teachers if they use The Learning Federation resources through Scootle - all DET schools and most NG schools have access to this.

the sun may not always be your enemy

interesting:

Sun may be a factor in food allergies

don't you think it's interesting that so far (touch wood) none of our lot have allergies, and we all have a relatively similar attitude to things like sun and germ exposure? there may be something, or of course nothing at all, in that.

hehe

Natural Parenting (I heart xkcd)

Some days

Some days you just want to sell them. Other days you hear things like this:

G! There's a rainbow.
(sound of screen door opening and closing)
C! C! Can you see the wainboww?
(they don't listen to each other either)

And you think, why can't they be like this all the time?
Five minutes later they were pulling everything out of the toybox and making a huge mess. Situation normal.

Cats getting their own way...

By crying like babies...

Foxing

Miss 3 was put to bed at 6.30pm last night because she was being vile. Her tantrum at being put to bed was rudely interrupted by falling asleep. That's what happens when you don't have an afternoon snooze. Shortly thereafter followed the first of three nightmares that made it difficult for me and her father to watch TV uninterrupted. Finally, the last one during Miss Marple saw her insist on sleeping on Mummy on the lounge. For the sake of my TV viewing I gave in. She fell asleep half an hour from the end, so it was all good. Then things wrapped up on Miss Marple, we turned off the TV and a little voice from my lap said "I want to sleep in Mummy bed". She didn't even open her eyes. I wasn't sure whether to be annoyed by her foxing, or awed at her awesome ninja pretending to be asleep skills. She slept in Mummy bed until 8am the little sod. Mummy got sick of being kicked and vacated at 6am.

This never gets old...