Yep I am proud to be an Aussie! Beautiful beaches, great weather, wonderful people! I am in Brisbane and there really are kangaroos in my front yard

You are welcome. This teaching sideways idea is what I do with my two girls (boy do I know alot about the circus! LOL ) It works really well and gives you alot of scope to teach. It also keeps the teachers happy, they dont feel like you are stepping on their toes! In Australia a lot of the gifted and talented programs aim for depth of knowledge rather than advancing studies.
Some ideas we have used succesfully
Insects unit: we found an insect for each letter of the alphabet, learnt body part names, drew dragon fly wings in detail, discussed the food chain, went to the museum to see the insects in amber....
Country of India Project: cooking (oh I loved this one  ), dress ups, history, kite festival : amazingly there was one on in our home town at the time, decorating with plastic jewels, flag colouring, playing indian games, geography and animals.
Circus- OK the only really important bits were that we bought a unicycle and spent a week laughing our heads of trying to ride it and we had a go at the Trapeze! We even took the unicycle to school for the teacher to have a go....
As you can see its pretty easy to expand sideways. It is easy enough to find what you need in a google search, the trick is to keep it fun and educational at the same time. 
And yes I fully understand how expensive all these afterschooling activites can be!

Just a quick idea, why don't you just expand sideways what ever they are teaching at school. This won't work with math( because it's a very liniar learning)  but if school does a topic on Canada teach him Canadian history and animals and weather and law... Stretch it out to depth of learning rather than height or grade  levels. If they do the circus teach him to juggle and walk a tight rope. He will have a rich and exciting childhood and it won't clash with his further education. Just something to consider I know it doenst always work but it's a good option when it can be used.

Yes it is a blessing and a curse. My daughter just spent a year at school staring at the wall waiting for the other kids to catch up. I will not allow it to happen again. It actually made her look less intelligent and her report card reflects her lack of effort, something that her teacher next year will read and make opinions on.
The trick to it is to be actively involved in the schooling in some way. For grade one I did A LOT in the classroom and will again this year as my second daughter enters grade one. I didn't want to spend time at school this past year as I was poorly treated by certain staff members early in the year and was feeling used and unappreciated ( that won't happen again either!!!) as your sister works I would suggest that she be actively involved through emails and constant requests for details on the curriculum adjustments being made for your child.
Personally if it was my daughter I would grade skip her with out hesitation. She will make friends and she will only be one year ahead. I have seen too many kids wasting away waiting for the rest to catch them up and that isn't what I am aiming for. I want my kids to STAY ahead as a way to offer better solutions to humanities problems. I want the schools to see kids like ours and say why arnt ALL kids like that. Early education for every child!
This year I will be active again to ensure MY children are catered for with advanced work and extra opportunities to study in more depth. In the school they attend they don't grade skip but they will allow advanced study in subjects. home schooling is not for me at the moment and I don't think my children would enjoy it they are very very social. Homeschooling would solve the problem but it doesn't solve the LONG TERM problem, which is the schools don't cater well enough for advanced kids.
I do hope you and your sister come to a happy solution. My advice is lots of communication with the school, keep talking til they say yes!

I am hoping someone else will answer your question more expertly but from what I have learnt recently what you are doing is laying the groundwork or making the brain connections that will allow your child the ability to have perfect pitch, with out this early life experience it is difficult to learn perfect pitch as an adult. Some say it's impossible but I don't think so myself. . I doubt that listening to good music will be enough to bring this to the forefront however, the violin lessons could well be enough though!
Please mention to your violin teacher that you are interested in enhancing your childs ear/ sound recognition in an aim for long term perfect pitch. The teacher can then introduce activities such as guess the note or copy this tune by ear, which will confirm  perfect pitch abilities.
Also if you don't get the answer here pop over to soft mozaart forum where I am sure you will get an answer.
What you are doing is helping long term so don't give it up!

Skylark you simply must check out the Rhoal Dahl books! ( I don't know how it is spelt and I am too lazy to go check)  They are fabulous and there are plenty to choose from my personal favorites are the BFG ( big friendly giant) and James and the giant peach. The BFG is great for a read aloud story.  Also Paul Jennings is popular with boys who have a twisted sence of humour ( full of lizard guts etc) great of you to help them be interested in their russion books.

The magic tree house is very popular in our house too! All of them love it. We bought a boxed set of the first 28 books of amazon for   About $60 au $2 a book! If the kids really like one of the stories we will buy the companion book on the subject an delve in deeper to the learning. Does anyone know of any other series like magic tree house that has a story based around true facts for children? We would love some more novels like this.
 I can recommend a few more books to try as I know it can be difficult to find appropriate content and that in between difficulty! In order of difficulty
Zac powers : has different levels great for boys who read early as it has large print
 fancy Nancy level one by Jane occonor for girly girls,  or any level one book in the I can read series these include batman books and every other possible interest!
Tashi : some hard words but they seem to be repeated, try to get the individual stories rather than the big book of as the big book is too big!
Billie b brown then junie  j jones for girls
Pearlie by Wendy harmer for girls who like pink!
Aussie nibbles wonderful individual stories
Rainbow magic series by daisy meadows, loads of books hear with a save the planet theme.
Magic tree house slots in here our top choice!
Roll Dahl books
 Famous five Enid blighton books
Aussie bites a harder version of Aussie nibbles
Aussie chomps harder again. By this stage your kid can read anything and you will be scanning books to ensure the content is safe faster than lightning to keep up with your kids reading appetite!

I taught the silent e rule to my 4 year old in the following way.
I told my children that the e itself couldn't talk but it still doesn't like to be ignored. It holds a very long stick and if it's friend the other vowel in the word chooses to ignore it it reaches over the top of the letter before it and whacks the vowel on the head. The vowel screams out it's letter name instead of it's letter sound and thus makes the word! To teach it to young children I would recommend cutting out some capital letters, lower case letters and a big long stick/club. Then play around with it making words. You could use the capital letters to represent the sound the vowel makes after it's been hit on the head.    It isn't fool proof but that's the English language for you! Also at the school my children go to now they don't teach it at all they just teach the children that vowels can make a number of different sounds and you need to try then out until you find the one that makes the word. A says a as in cat, a as in was, a as in face, etc look up thrass if you want more info on this. I prefer this method of teaching that lots of letters make different sounds and teaching all possible sounds from the beginning. All the other rules like silent e have too many exceptions to actually call them rules. In saying all this I still teach the silent e because kids think it's fun and they won't forget it!

If the brillkids1111 discount is still valid then the deal comes down to $78 because the softchristmas  code mentioned earlier in this thread  is still valid also! Now that is certainly a bargain! what a great Christmas present to anyone you know who ever wanted to learn piano!

Crikey! I would say a kid who has a go at tuning their own violin after only two months of lessons has perfect pitch or is well on the way towards it! Wow that's amazing, and you say she gets it close too! Probably with more time or persistence she would get it spot on! I think you can pat yourself on the back mum what you are doing is obviously working! The only evidence my kids have ever given me that they can even tell the difference between pitches is when they complain about my singing out of tune Ok I am joking but out of tune singing is something they can hear so something must be sinking in. I only recently decided to teach them perfect pitch ( well near perfect will keep me happy) when I learnt that that is the key to playing an instrument by ear. Since I can't do this myself ( yet!) I never thought it was a teachable skill! I will never assume anything is natural talent again!

We have just started using soft Mozart and it will teach perfect pitch. It contains a note guessing game for practice and teaches how to play piano in an intuitive man nor. It teaches enough pitch to be able to transpose any song to a diffent scale by ear. It also teaches us (yes children from 2 to adult!) to hear the music and pick out the notes to play it. To me this is the ultimate aim of teaching kids music. It allows them to have fun with music and master am instrument for life. www.softmozart.com there are other threads in this forum on it and a group of us from Brillkids has just started to learn and share our experiences in their forum.

I actually found 2 tablets that should run LR but neither had a cd rom but download would work fine. Both had enough memory and both were expensive    $1500 au. We will wait for more content in LR touch, but will keep these in mind for computer upgrades  In the meantime I have taken to hiding the Ipad and moving the laptop around the house to keep things interesting. I tried to download that app that allows you to control the computer from the Ipad but so far I havnt managed to get them to recognise each other. My brother is coming for a visit on the weekend...    

I think the direction the letters are made in is far more important than the style you choose. Corect direction allows for speedy handwriting at a later date. Also I think the style is far less important as the children will only use it in a casual mannor. Everything formal is typed these days! even my grade 2 daughter is encouraged to type her assignments up. Personally I have taught/modeled for my daughters exactly the font they will learn at school. The reality is when they are learning handwriting at 3 their accuracy isnt great enough for it to matter if the circles are perfectly round or slightly leaning ovals. I taught them queensland cursive print which is basically deneilian (spelling?). it did make it harder to find workbooks but we found a number of make your own worksheets online that I could type in anything and they could trace the dots. It had a choice of font styles. Children quickly learn the different types of letter "a" fonts and "y" fonts in reading, they are clever enough to handle the differences that pop up.  In Australia handwriting has recently been reduced in the corriculum as it is seen as less important these days with computers ect. It is now suggested that it need only be easily legible.
I also didnt teach the numbers soon enough. Why, I have no idea! their are only 10 numbers to learn and 26 letters! Really we should start with the numbers! My son (3) will start writing his numbers very soon now that I am sure he understands the quantities they represent.
Finally well done to you giving your children relevant writing practice It is great to see them being able to practice their skills on something they would see as important- letters to santa. My girls practiced their handwriting writing to nana, poppy, grandma, granny, and Aunty Debbie. We included an self addressed envelope and stamp for Aunty Deb to make sure we got a reply! LOL Nanas love it when they get letters from grandkids that they can take to church and show off

I personally know at least 4 children who are currently 17 and 18 months old who only say 4 or 6 words each. It is not uncommon. It is also more common for the youngest children to speak later as their siblings understand their grunts and pass them what they want without them having to ask. LR will help in many, many ways. Vocab development is just one of those ways. Your child may very well decide to start talking in complete sentances overnight, one day when it is quiet and they have something to say!. In saying all this it is good to encourage talking! Use just one word at a time naming objects that you pass to baby regularly. cup, drink, book.... And get your LR you wont be dissapointed. As mentionioned above your child doesnt need to be able to talk to be able to read. And one can only help the other.

One of my girls was a really really difficult 3 year old so I have some understanding of your feelings. Some children don't respond the same way as most and you may have to spend time figuring out her moods (morning, afternoon, evening), sleep hours and  finding what tone of voice sets her off.
A few tips to try though...
Try the reward chart. The idea is to reward good behavior so that that is the behavior your daughter focusses on. If she is often in trouble then her focus will be on always being in trouble and thus she will create more trouble. It is true that she should be expected to clean up her own toys but she is only three and still learning this! I have used with great success a hand drawn tree which my girl could put flower stickers on when it was beautiful I take her for an ice cream and we discuss her good behavior. I give extra stickers if I don't have to tell them to do the cleaning and they just get it done!
We completely changed out evening routine when I realized my girl was grumpy when she was hungry! Dinner was moved forward and raw carrot was offered while dinner cooked. Then after dinner is quiet time, no TV stories only. We also put them all to bed at 7. This keeps me sane!
Also it's important to persist. If you put your daughter to bed when she tells you she is sick and she is suddenly better then she needs to come and finish the task. If she will not,  then put her back to bed. The first few times will be very hard on you emotionally. But i hate to say it  most problems we parents have with our little ones is from us not being consistent. No means no don't change your mind!
Finally try to remember that she is still young, put on some music make it fun and get in and help her tidy. With a baby as well it is likely she is looking for some more fun time with mummy as well. Good luck, persistence pays, my daughter is lovely now and did her first year of school without getting into trouble even once! My little terror was apparently a " delight to have around and very helpful in pack up time"