May 17, 2016 at 4:44 am

There were a large number of posts approved around Sunday morning or noon, Pacific Time. I’ve submitted another post since then, and am still waiting. I also noticed there are no other new posts at the moment. This is not the first time this has happened, either.

At first I believed the staff were swamped, but now I tend to think they might just be trying to spread the publishing out in order to encourage people to visit more posts.

May 17, 2016 at 2:49 am

I agree, @bestwriter, a staple like tea should be within reach of everyone. Besides, whether it is in the cafe or tea shop where we can be tempted to order a snack to go with the tea or whether in the grocery store where we will remember the dozen other small items we need to restock the pantry, there will always be other ways for the merchants to profit from selling a reasonably priced tea.

May 17, 2016 at 1:41 am

@dawnwriter My colours are as follows:

#4 lilac

#5 indigo

#6 yellow

As always, your puzzles are very clever my friend. Thank you!

May 17, 2016 at 1:37 am

@dawnwriter @morgoodie Is it just three? OK, here are mine for the animals:

#8 Lion

#10 Monkey

#11 Zebra

May 17, 2016 at 12:38 am

@kaka135 Yes, I think it is important to encourage students to truly appreciate the teacher’s hard work rather than to compete over what gifts Mummy & Daddy can buy with their money. I think competition can be healthy in the right setting, but to me that sort of vying for status is the wrong thing to teach our children.

@nakitakona13 THe effort that children and parents go to in the Philippines is admirable. It truly does seem to be about appreciating the teachers for all they do, and not about status or bribery. More nations should develop this approach, and remember what the day is supposed to be about.

May 17, 2016 at 12:31 am

@kaka135 With how-to or other informative topics, the criterion of “usefulness” would be easier to judge. But in many of the fora, the discussions are conversational. If we apply the rule of thumb that “useful” in that setting means “adds to the discussion,” then most comments deserve a thumbs up.

In terms of the thumbs down, I would think that “not useful” means something more like “detracts from the conversation” or “potentially damaging to the community,” rather than simply stating that the comment didn’t add anything new or helpful. But in those cases, I think I’d probably prefer to report a comment that is abusive or to ignore one that is borderline, rather than to draw attention to it by voting down.

May 16, 2016 at 11:57 am

It is actually discouraged to give teachers gifts in many schools here. In part it could be perceived as a conflict of interest, because the student or his family may be “buying” his grades. I think it is also a matter of recognizing that not every family has the means to buy a gift for teacher, and these children may feel left out if others in the class are presenting gifts.

The usual times of year for gift giving are at the winter break or the end of the school year. Those who do give gifts, often will make it a small token such as a mug or a customized notebook accompanied with home baking or flowers picked from the garden. The is to emphasize the appreciation, and not the monetary value of the gift.

May 16, 2016 at 11:42 am

@bestwriter I am hoping that this is what the staff intended us to do: vote up when we find a comment has added to the conversation! 😀

May 16, 2016 at 11:21 am

@bestwriter Most black tea sold in Canada is labelled as orange pekoe, although some of the “bargain” brands are simply labelled as “black tea” and tend to taste rather like mud.

The better quality black teas are properly labelled (Ceylon, Darjeeling, Lapsang Souchong, etc.) We also have popular blends such as English Breakfast, Earl Grey, and Russian Caravan. Flavoured teas are also popular, especially lemon tea, as are the green and white teas, and herbal tea.

Tea is generally not a terribly expensive product here. Prices for the mainstream brands rise and fall, but there are often economy sizes available and they will go on special a few times a year. Most commercially prepared teas are sold in tea bags, though loose tea can be had in some supermarkets as well as in bulk food and specialty shops.

We are fortunate to have a lot of choice, and a reasonable price.

May 16, 2016 at 8:22 am

@kaka135 Sadly no, I let the homeschooling blog go some time ago 🙁

We followed the Charlotte Mason approach for our first few years, but modified it to our girls’ needs. I used a lot of the materials from the Ambleside Online curriculum. If you haven’t checked them out, you should take a look and see if anything they offer is useful to you for now or as you plan for the future. The materials are mostly free online 🙂

I am vaguely familiar with Reggio Emilia. Apparently it’s very similar to Montessori. My niece attends a school that uses this approach, and my sister is very pleased with it.

Another resource I used a lot was the Baldwin Online children’s lit site, which has a lot of vintage texts that are used as resources with Waldorf and Charlotte Mason. And we used LibriVox to find human-read audiobooks of many classics. That was priceless when the girls were still very young.

May 15, 2016 at 11:58 pm

@kaka135 has the staff given any indication on when we should and shouldn’t vote? I wouldn’t want anyone to spam the system either, but I get the impression it’s intended as an indication of whose forum content people are paying attention to and appreciating. We may not always reply to every person, but I like to vote up even if I’m not responding directly. I want to show that person’s content was valuable to me.

May 15, 2016 at 8:14 pm

@bestwriter I tend to vote up forum threads and replies as I read through them. I don’t always get all of them, but I try to show my appreciation for all the worthy remarks. If it helps fellow users to increase their rank, I think it is a kindness we can all try to remember to extend. After all, nobody will do it for us if we can’t be bothered for anyone else.

May 15, 2016 at 8:08 pm

I am a tea drinker by preference, but I do enjoy coffee too. My usual coffee is just instant Nescafe, though. I don’t brew coffee at home anymore. In fact, I gave my coffee maker to my friend! A good cup of brewed coffee is much appreciated if we go out to a restaurant or to a cafe, though. Especially one that roasts its own beans on-site!

As for tea, I am an orange pekoe drinker. I also love Earl Grey. I will occasionally drink mint tea with a meal if it’s offered, but I’m not a huge fan. I actively dislike green tea, but am fond of some of the newer flavoured white tea blends that contain some green tea as well.

May 15, 2016 at 8:01 pm

Unfortunately Grace, newbies like you and I are not allowed to edit posts. Accessing a saved draft seems to be considered an edit on this site, and so is locked out for newer users. The problem is that the option to save a draft hasn’t been locked to prevent users adding content and then not being able to retrieve it.

You’ll have to ask for help from @admin or @support to access and finish your post so you can submit it for publishing. The option to save to draft really ought to be disabled, admin, until a user has access to the editing function…

May 15, 2016 at 7:15 am

@kaka135 I think it’s a great thing that you want to reserve your homeschooling posts for your own blog. You are likely to get better traffic that way, particularly if you are targeting a narrower audience (e.g. homeschooling in Chinese, following a specific homeschool approach such as Waldorf or Charlotte Mason, etc.) Years ago when I had my homeschool blog, it did quite well 🙂

I just wanted to be sure that you realize BlogJob doesn’t own the posts you own there. The TOS had been written to make it seem that way, but I verified it with Sheridan and I have the screenshot of him saying he just needed display rights and such while content remains on the site. He had promised to look into getting the legalese rewritten, but I imagine that’s low on his list of priorities for the moment…

Copyright, as I’ve said before, is assigned to you at the moment you create a work. You don’t give it up unless the conditions of the site state that you assign some or all of your rights to them. Most social and content writing sites only ask for a license to use the work. They don’t want full rights.