There are all kinds of things out there. Just go to your local craft store and ask around. You can make craft foam picture frames, friendship bracelets. Magnets are sold in self stick sheets. I made some for my van by sticking craft foam cut outs on them and trimming off the excess magnet and adding acrylic paint details. You know...dots in the centers by dipping pencils in paint and dotting. You could make fridge frames that way too. Some of the magnet sheets are backed for painting and drawing too. You can make cute toys too. We made "I Spy" jars with plastic food jars, sand and small objects. put the toys and objects into the jar, cover with sand leaving 1/2 inch space at the top. glue on the top. attatch a card or label with all the objects to be found listed on it. Kids find the things listed by turning the jar over. Keeps kids busy in the car or while waiting. you can make it a language arts project too if you make the kids write a poem listing the objects like in the "I Spy" books! Try one of the kid craft sites too. You'll get lots of ideas! Good Luck!!! ~~Mimi

You might check the following site. Also go to google.com and do a search for teaching fractions. Good luck - I remember my dd had a hard time grasping this. Here is a link that might be useful: teaching site

As a parent and a teacher, I don't think ANY child should be condemned to spending every waking second on schoolwork. You're not going to raise a very well-rounded person that way. It's important for them to engage in activities with their peers--be it sports, dancing, music, arts, gymnastics. In my opinion, it's VITAL for them to be encouraged to do a significant amount of volunteer work (at that age, my dd was raising puppies for the Seeing Eye--I'm sure, with the nightmarish curriculum you're describing, she would NOT have had time for the daily care of her puppies, nor the 4-H club meetings, activities and trips that were involved in the project). And really? They just to be able to have hours for 'down' time--time to go for a bike ride, or visit grandma, or bake some cookies--or help Dad rake the leaves, talking on the phone with friends, going to the mall, etc. As a teacher, I'd have to say that a child who is restricted to spending virtual every waking hour on school work, is going to grow up to be one who may have some serious issues--including things like not being able to interact well with peers, or maybe not being able to relax when it's appropriate for example. You're going to have to sit down, evaluate what you like about this school, how important it is for your child to be able to engage in other activities outside of school, whether or not you can provide him with a good academic education--that you can afford--in another way. Only after you've looked at all your alternatives, will you be able to make the right decision. I don't know you--but if what you've described is completely accurate, then I feel so sorry for your child, if he's going to be put in a situation where he's going to lose a year of childhood's golden days.

I have been collecting them for years. They can be really expensive, and then shipping is expensive as well. I second the idea of printing off examples of each state, unless you have a LOT of money to spend (At east 200 bucks, I would guess, plus shipping, and they are quite heavy and would be hard to lug into school for that reason as well), or can scrounge up 50 of your home state's plates and offer them for trade somehow (still shipping costs would be high, times 49) with kids in other areas. just a thought. But it's not like the old days when each state had one main kind of plate, one usual set of colors, etc. There are SO many variations for each state, it is amazing. Maybe a study of what color combos are the most popular and why.... Hmmmm. We have used them to make borders around the top, middle, and soon we will do the bottom of my sons' room. It is very cool looking. We are waiting until our youngest is older to do the bottom. Some are sharp, all are heavy. They are not baby-friendly so we have to keep them out of reach. Maybe your son could study the evolution of the license plate or something.... If you are determined to get one from every state in a hurry, your cheapest option would be to buy them all at once from some old collector, but you would still be talking a lot of $$ and I am not sure that that would be very educational, versus buying them or finding them one at a time, on trips and such.