I don't think they are particularly ugly beasts, *shrug*. Gollum was a lot uglier! (And dd has seen all of the HP movies, some ugly stuff in those.) I think it's great, I sort of guessed at the meaning of the beasts. I love the format, think some of the girlie beasts are pretty cute. :) We just don't have problems with imaginary creatures, in general... I guess my dd is not particularly sensitive.

DD (2nd grade) has only officially "completed" only Singapore 2a but has been "discovering" the multiplication tables on her own and has shown the ability to understand many concepts in 2b on her own, she just literally doesn't want to go through the Singapore program b/c of issues with how it is presented/learning style fit. She is also finishing up 2nd grade, about to start 3rd grade. :) So since she is the right age/maturity we are immediately dropping Singapore and going to Beast Academy. If we have to pause and fill in along the way, that's fine!

I am so tempted by the Simply Charlotte Mason art portfolios! I have been going along with the Ambleside Online art study, but I might switch to SCM next year...

Speeding through Singapore... LOL I can't imagine that with C! But I can see L doing that. :) I would just think that Singapore might seem kind of "blah" after the Beast Academy? (Remember, I'm a parent of a kid who is more drawn in by stories/puzzles than the sheer joy of doing math problems... though I hope that it kindles some of that in her too...) My youngest says she also wants to do it... She's kindergarten but I haven't done ANY formal math with her, she's learning addition on her own, but that's about it. So it will be interesting to see if it engages her at all, even if she doesn't "get" all of it.

If all goes well, I plan to switch 8 yo dd from Singapore (she HATES their textbook, no idea why, we've just been trudging through with occassional workbook pages, and supplementing with LoF,lots of math story books, math games and living math.) She recently told me that she wished that math would be like a puzzle that she could figure out on her own... I can really see her digging into the texts and reading until she understands (as she does with lots of the science/nature magazines that we get), or us reading it together. Manipulatives seem to irritate her, she is drawn to something with a storyline. So, fingers crossed that this will be a good fit for her! I want to keep up with the living math/math games but use Beast Academy in place of Singapore. I don't think she is a math genius, truly, just your average kid who does better with engaging stories/materials.

Wow- my almost 8 yo (in 2 weeks!) sounds very similar to your 14 year old, thanks for the "flash forward" so to speak. She has an official diagnosis of Nonverbal Learning Disability, but some aspects don't fit for her, but others do very well. The diagnosis came because of differentials in her IQ score, plus significant issues with writing and other tasks. We were told that sometimes NLD kids "look" like Aspergers (or even like ADD, jury is still out on that, though) but in fact are not Aspies. Our main issue is her explosive frustration in areas that are challenging for her, and I'm STILL trying to get a handle on what those areas are. We are now working with a psychologists who specializes in anxiety and learning disabilities. I definitely encourage people to get an eval, but at the same time having a diagnosis or "answer" doesn't always make the path perfectly clear, or at least it hasn't in my experience... but it's a starting point! But it is quite clear to me that homeschooling is the best situation for my daughter right now. We have a lot of "work" to do on her emotional maturity- she is VERY bright, but her ability to cope in situations that tax her is not very good right now. My goal is that she will have the freedom to grow and develop in the home environment, and I have confidence that we're building skills that will allow her to function well in the real world/adult world, which is quite different (IMO) than getting her to fit in a box at school.

Can I just say THANK YOU! Really. *I* feel like a dunce. I do have the home instructor's guides, but for whatever reason our pattern was "start with the workbook" and after looking at it, I can see that is really not how they intended. I had only skimmed the home educator's guide, and pulled it out as a resource, not using it as they intended. I would just explain as we went through the workbook. But after looking at it, wow, what a great resource! I think I will try using the guide to finish up our year (I want to make sure she really does have a good working sense all the strategies for adding/subtracting through 100, and do the intro to multiplication/division which we have not gotten to) without even using the workbook at all, just do the teaching parts of it. I did get some tiles with numbers on them, so we can use that instead of writing, if I feel the need. Wow, glad I took a second look at the teacher's guide! Now I'm itching to go look at Grade 2 materials...

Just wanted to say helpful thread... we are dealing with writing challenges here but don't have a diagnosis other than it might tie in with her nonverbal disability (every issue she has seems to at this point!). Writing just exhausts her, and we've seen no development/improvement in about 2 years in her writing. I don't even know where to start but reading this thread, thinking OT? Also, I recently read about Waldorf form drawing, and it almost sounds other approaches, and it might work with my dd's personality too. Anyone familiar with that?

Thanks for all the great info, Lisa! I am currently reading "Raising NLD Superstars" just for a general overview since this is all new to me. Wow. I have marked this book up so much already. So many little quirks and challenges we have had over time, culminating in our bigger issues/challenges are now making sense. I couldn't see before how different things were related- I keep reading and seeing issue after issue is common for NLD kids. My poor dh, he always tends to focus on the one or two pieces that *don't* fit her (for example, her linguistic understanding seems to really be exception, she does use words appropriately and has exceptional comprehension, not just reading ability), so I've been noting all the little things mentioned in the book, and then I'm going to tell *him* a story... because he has a hard thing seeing little things as a whole (which seems to be a NLD thing too! I see aspects of both me & dh seem to have combined, something which we have noted for a while.) Anyway, what other books do folks recommend? I'm looking for good information, encouragement, strategies... Also trying not to panic, because I feel like I have been reading that the elementary years are *better* years and that issues seem to intensify in middle and high school. It just kind of gives me a sinking feeling, and that's when I start getting upset, thinking I just want a "normal" child. Teen years are hard enough. But she is a blessing, and I shouldn't borrow trouble...

Thanks Lisa! I know that they talked about that there was more than 15 points difference, which in looking at some information online does suggest that she has NVLD. I think they were talking to *me* conceptually and actually trying not to get me to focus on the label, but to understand the concept. But yes, I think that would be her diagnosis... I wish I had the report already to know the specific numbers they gave me. It has been crazy-making, for sure, just figuring out why certain things have not been clicking for her like her "verbal intelligence" would suggest. Very glad to know I'm not alone... didn't know there were books about it, off to search for those! (I am someone who needs as much info as possible.)

I'm curious if anyone has any experience, ideas, encouragement for me? I'll try to make a long story short... I have a very bright and articulate 7 year old. We are Charlotte Mason homeschoolers (Ambleside Year 1) and have used HWOT since kindergarten, Singapore Math 1a/1b this year and All About Spelling is a recent addition for us. For Kindergarten we did FIAR. This year as we have added more writing (not a lot, but just continuing) I started to encounter a lot of resistance, freak-outs, comments like "I just CAN'T do it, it's SO HARD!" from what I perceived to be my very, very bright daughter. There was NO improvement in her handwriting over a two year period, she continued to write with a mix of upper/lower case letters, strange letter formation, no spaces between her words. Until we started All About Spelling she would not even attempt to spell words despite her advanced reading level... she would even misspell words and then read her misspelled words correctly. The only part of homeschool she seemed to enjoy was listening to her readings and art and free play, and at times she liked math unless she was too overwhelmed by writing that particular day. I finally reached a point of "something is NOT right" and burn-out on my part in February, and made an appointment to get a psychological evaluation for her. I also decided to go ahead and do her academic testing and get the Woodcock-Johnson to see what grade level she was really working at. She did (I thought) really well on the WJ-III... her broad reading score was really good (4th grade equivalency, very advanced) as was her letter-word identification and passage comprehension. Her written math scores were grade level, but she did better with the verbal math (?), solving word problems. However, her broad written language was average... her spelling was below average, and writing fluency only average. She did advanced things like used the contraction "It's" correctly, unusual for a 1st grader, but can't spell. The next day we got the results of her psych eval. She has significant anxiety issues, and also "mood" issues, but they think that we have supported her so well in our family/homeschool environment that the mood issues are better than they would be if she were in school. However, the important piece of information that helped a lot of her struggles make sense is that her Verbal IQ (on WISC) was 130, but her Non-verbal (performance) IQ is more than 15 points lower, not quite sure what. They said that *in and of itself* that this disparity would be frustrating and produce anxiety. Also, even though she was technically performing at grade level, because her Verbal IQ is 130, and her broad written language scores were only grade level or a bit below, that in the public school setting she would qualify for Learning Disabled/Writing. Can I say how helpful it is to know that I am not just imagining things or being a bad parent, in sensing that written language skills are truly challenging for my daughter? Her verbal and reading abilities truly amaze me, but it has been so painful to see her struggle with written work. And so much of what we work on in these early years of homeschooling are about basic written skills- doing copywork, etc. Even the little bit of handwriting I expected from her was just so painful and overwhelming. She would tell me that it made her SOOOO TIRED and was just overwhelmed. At the same time, she can listen for very long periods of time to reading and stay on task for non-writing activities without problems. So, we are not in a school environment, thankfully... I have known for some time that Charlotte simply could not do the written work that public schools require these days. But I couldn't figure out why. The psychologist team we worked with said if she were in school they would recommend modifications such as allowing her to type instead of write, and they encouraged me to teach her to type, which I'm happy to do. (Any program recommendations?) Now I'm trying to figure out what my goals for her handwriting should be. I still want her to learn to write in some form, legibly. We have recently started New American Cursive, and that does seem to be easier for her. I'm open to different approaches to help her with handwriting because she is really average in non-verbal so YES she should be able to learn to write (right? b/c the average person can learn to write!). We are going to pursue treatments for anxiety, and they think that should help her do better with non-verbal/writing tasks since right now they seem hard to her and she gets overwhelmed and shuts down. I'm also looking for a math program that is good for kids with non-verbal weakness but strong verbal ability. Maybe I should post that as a thread by itself. She has hated Singapore Math because she doesn't like all the cute pictures and such (how weird is that, still trying to figure it out!) I think for now I will try to use the manual and different strategies to teach concepts verbally first, as much as possible, use manipulative and then move to written work. We need to get the concepts down first before moving to written work. I think I need to get some CD's that have basic addition and subtraction songs to help her verbally memorize those facts, then show her she knows this via manipulatives, and then she can do the written work. Does that approach seem reasonable? I would love a program to help me with this long-term. Oh wow, long post, so sorry! Hoping that someone will have some helpful thoughts but even if not, it is helpful as I process this!

Our local homeschool store carries it, and also All About Reading (which I bought last week and love, using with my 4 yo...) I liked not having to pay shipping and being able to support our HS store. Buying in that way, though I don't get the same return policy though they told me they'd give me a bit more time (store) on their return policy.