@AdagioM It’s the BEST! Once the recipe is in AnyList you can put recipes into your meal plan then tap “Add ingredients to list” and it will open the lists of ingredients for all the recipes for the time period in one long list. Then you just select each one you want to add to the list. If the ingredients have the same name and unit (e.g. 5 oz spinach in one recipe and 8 oz spinach in another recipe) it will merge them into one item on your list (13 oz of spinach) and also have a little note saying that the amount is for two different recipes. If you have different units or name the ingredients differently (oz/grams or spinach and baby spinach) it sadly won’t merge them. But still, we’ve been using it for meal planning and shopping for several years and it’s brilliant!

Guided reading, the system that Lucy Calkins and others promoted, was based on figuring out how struggling readers figure out words in text, and using those strategies to teach beginning readers. Here’s an example. If you are reading a textbook for a discipline that you know very little about, you might use strategies like using the context of the sentence to figure out the unknown word. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that!! But if a child is just learning how to read and they are relying only on those strategies that struggling readers use, they miss out on actually learning the “code” of the language. The books that kids were “reading” in their earliest grades were often pattern books that encouraged kids to guess the words. So the books would say something like “The boy runs. The boy jumps. The boy climbs. The boy plays. The boy has fun!” With a picture on each page to match. During instruction, the teacher would read the first page for the kids. Then, the kids would “read” the rest of the book by applying them pattern and then using the picture clue and the first letter of the word to “read” the unknown word at the end of the sentence. The result, at least from my experience as a grade 3/4 and Grade 7/8 teacher, was that once you removed the pictures and predictable structure of a book, kids could decode CVC words (cat, sit) and some CVCe words (made, late), but when they came to an unknown word without those simple structures or multisyllabic words, they were stuck. They knew short vowels and one spelling pattern for long vowels but were basically relying on context and instinct for everything else. So their skills for decoding new unknown words was extremely limited.

There is a LOT of research, going back literal decades, that shows that a systematic, explicit approach to reading instruction is the key for most learners. Many studies show that 95% of kids will learn to read when taught using a systematic, explicit phonics-based approach. Yes, there are always a few kiddos in my class who are reading when they come in to grade 1. But here’s what I find - the structured literacy approach that I am using in my classroom works wonders for them in their writing ability. Learning how to read words is one thing, but able to write them - and especially figure out how to write unknown words - is another thing. My kiddos who come in as strong readers are often frustrated writers. Because they want to write words that they can’t remember how to spell. And if they haven’t had a phonics based approach the only strategy they have for spelling is from memory. So kiddos who can already read well learn a LOT about spelling from me and end up being very confident writers. I personally also make sure that I talk about morphology and where the “rules” of English come from and how we apply them and my already reading kiddos LOVE learning these things.

The research (and my anecdotal experience) shows that using the 4 cueing approach that Calkins promoted taught about a third of kids well, a third of kids learned to read outside of school, and about a third weren’t learning how to read confidently. The structured literacy approach works for about 95% of kids. A lot of teaching relies on a “good for all, necessary for some” approach. Structured literacy, of which phonics is a part, falls into that camp. The 4 cueing method in early reading instruction was more like “worked for some, harmed some”. When a kid has been taught with the 4 cueing method and they don’t have a good memory, they rely almost entirely on guessing. It literally got in the way of some kids learning to read.

Ok should have added more… I do bookmark the recipes I am interested in but my mail recipe storage place is AnyList so I send any promising recipes there.

I use the app!

@Jodi said in The Map of Board Games:

Great video. Wish my family liked board games more.

Not that you need another solo hobby as I’m sure painting and pigments take up all of your solo hubby time, but solo board gaming is also a thing!

@wtg If you ever want to try a modern game that doesn’t stray too far from the classics check out That’s Pretty Clever! It’s a Roll and Write like Yahtzee but with a lot of strategy and interconnecting parts. It”s a Family Weight game so really approachable and it’s super fun!

@Mik

@Mik said in The Map of Board Games:

My BIL designs and markets board games. We played his latest one the other night. Complicated, but lots of opportunity for strategy. After you've played it once it becomes clear. He also has Mines of Pekari.

I remember you sent this to me! Unfortunately we play almost exclusively 2 players or I would check it out!

@Quirt-Evans I used to play D&D but haven’t played in years. My kid and his girlfriend play though! Our recent favourite board game is Dorf Romantik. It’s a cooperative tile laying game with a campaign element. Think Carccassone but co-operative. We find it really addictive so we usually end up playing twice back to back. Highly recommend!

As many of you know, I am an avid board gamer. I know that, at least for a while, @Mary-Anna and @Quirt-Evans played board games as well. If you have ever wondered what the appeal is or how adults could possibly love board gaming so much, this video gives a glimpse into just how much variety there is in games today. The middle of the video is a bit of an ad for the guy’s game, but overall it’s an excellent overview of the world of modern board games!

I’m so glad you loved Detroit, Steve! We do too! You may recall it’s the closest city to us. We can be at the DIA or the Detroit Symphony in under and hour, door to door, including the border. In my adult lifetime it has really turned around. When Rob moved here in 2011, there were still huge areas of the city with abandoned and burned out houses. In the early 2000s, the fire department was literally out of money and they weren’t paying the firefighters. It was really awful. But building Tiger Stadium, Ford Field, and Little Caesars Arena downtown brought people into the core. And then gentrification set in. Now there is a Whole Foods and one of those fancy “fur baby” pet supply stores in an area where I previously wouldn’t have left my car unattended. The old theatres are GORGEOUS (an architecture group does a theatre tour every fall that sells out. It goes to all of the still open theatres but also some abandoned ones. It’s really spectacular!). Now, we drive across for shows, shopping, or just to have dinner. I have no problem walking around in the core after dark. We ride the public transit. There are definitely still areas that are dangerous for tourist folks to hang out in, but no more than any other large city. It is a joy to watch it come back!