These look great! Thanks!

I would like to start a unit study on the human body for my seven year old 2nd graders. I have several unit studies pinned on pinterest but I wanted to find out if anyone have a recommendation that they loved before I purchase. I have not had much luck purchasing unit studies thus far. My girls are a bit immature for their ages when it comes to attention spans and they are definitely more visual learners. If there is a lot of reading I will lose their interest pretty quickly. I'm looking for something a little more basic, just the major organs and systems, knowing that we will get into all of this again later in school. We don't need to delve too much into cells and DNA at this point. I have The Usborne First Encyclopedia of the Human Body to go with whatever we end up purchasing.

We have to do everything before noon otherwise I lose their attention. Math usually gets done first.

I have an irrational fear of being in any body of water in which I cannot see the bottom. I can swim perfectly fine, but I just do not like not knowing how deep the water is or what is in the water. My biggest fear is being swept out to sea during a high tide. Freaks me out just thinking about it. Oh, and being at home alone at night. I'm convinced our house is haunted by a ghost that only comes out when I'm home alone ;)

I'm super klutzy so I am always getting hurt. But the most recent one was when I wacked my head on our fireplace mantel and Im still recovering from the concussion from it! Its embarrassing...I wish I could make up a more impressive story! :)

Thanks everyone for all of the responses. It was very interesting to read each one. My DD was 4 when we had her initial evaluation so she definitely wasn't at a place to comprehend what was going on therefore we never explained it to her. Even now, at almost 8, I honestly don't think she quite realizes that she is "different", kwim? She is very high functioning, so many people tell me they had no idea she is on the spectrum. But it makes itself known in her anxiety (the biggest reason I pulled her out of public school), her need for one-on-one attention at school despite knowing her work, her inability to always comprehend instruction (at gymnastics she follows what the other children are doing instead of listening to the coach) and her tendency to parallel play with children as opposed to with the. She doesn't necessarily seem to notice that her behavior is atypical. She is super smart but at the same time I think telling her about her autism would go right over her head because it isn't something concrete that she can physically see, like an injury. Hopefully I will know when the time is right. Until then I need to think about how to explain it when it does eventually come up.

Thank you both. It doesn't really bother me in my day-to-day activities unless I experiment and try something more rigorous the day before. I can go for walks and have even taken a short hike without any issues. But doing anything at the gym (classes, elliptical etc) seems to still cause major problems. I feel pretty bad today. The headache goes away with Tylenol but, like clockwork, comes back every 3.5-4 hours. And then it's just that kind of woozy feeling, like I just got off of a carnival ride. The obvious thing would be to just lay low for the next week or two. It's just impossible to tell if I'm asymptomatic until I try to push myself but then I pay for it the next day. I will give it another few weeks and if it continues to be bothersome I will call my doctor. He did warn that it could take some weeks and as I wasn't really able to rest immediately afterwards I'm assuming my recovery is just slow. It's beyond frustrating!

Any Indian dish that includes paneer and garlic naan! Also love most Middle Eastern foods and my mom's homemade biscuits and gravy

This is driving me nuts! So I posted about a month ago that I somehow managed to hit my head on our mantel and ended up with a concussion, diagnosed by a Dr. I felt pretty bad for several days. I was supposed to rest for about a week but my paternal grandmother passed away the same day as my Dr appt and we had to drive out of town for the funeral. Anyways, its been just about a month. I feel pretty much 100%...until I try to do something more active. I work out 4-5 days a week and each time I try to go to the gym, taking it easy, I wake up with a headache and dizziness that lasts all day. I've tried one day the least 3 weeks in a row and clearly I'm still recovering. I feel particularly woozy today after attempting a cardio funk class last night. I know this differs from person to person, but any ideas on how long this can last? Its so annoying to feel perfectly fine but still not be able to live my life the way I want to. I'm an active person and we are an active family so its been a real struggle.

My 7 year old DD has high functioning ASD, diagnosed three or so years ago. She had an IEP and received some services at public school before we pulled her out last year. However, we never sat down with her and discussed exactly why she needs services. We never really discussed any of it with her, to be honest. And I guess I never really thought too much about it until this evening when I was on amazon.com browsing for books on a completely unrelated topic and stumbled across an author that has a book about explaining autism to your child and their siblings. Anyways, it just got me thinking. Does your child(ren) know he/she has ASD? If so, when did you tell him/her? I don't want her to feel different, which is perhaps why I never mentioned anything to her. She has an identical twin sister so it makes it tricky. They both are very much "everything has to be equal" and, at least at this point in time, I'm hesitant to label because she is immediately going to ask about why her sister doesn't have it and she will likely get upset even though technically nothing is going to chance. So I don't think we are there yet. But it's something that we are eventually going to have to explain.

Sadly it didn't work for us last year as well. My girls just could not retain the information and it was dry. Every day it would come with whining. Finally, despite being secular homeschoolers, we switched to CLE and the difference was immediate, like night and day. For my children the gentle spiral approach is a much better fit.

It is a bit ahead compared to our local public schools. My 2nd graders are in 203 right now and will be starting multiplication in 206. A teacher friend told me that our schools (Mecklenburg County/Charlotte NC) don't teach it until 3rd grade. We started with MM which I think is ahead of CLE but it did not work for my girls so I can't really give much input.

We have a new-ish freestanding Penny's in our town and its definitely changed from the stores of my childhood. Ours is clearly trying to be more hip. Less houseware items. It has lower ceilings with exposed ductwork and feels very cluttered because the store just isn't very big. Not my cup of tea.

My HF autistic 7 year old DD is pretty good about doing her chores, but motivation helps. My girls have a weekly responsibility chart with daily to-do chores on it. If everything is done daily they get rewarded at the end of the week. This also reminds them of what needs to be done so they don't have to argue with me about it at the last minute. She is definitely a "box-checker" child who needs it written down. If I just tell her to "clean up" she doesnt always get it. I have to explicitly say "pick up xyz in your room". BTW my NT DD isn't much better with chores so I do not think this is just an autism symptom.

Can I ask what gut issues you have? I have SIBO and have many of the same symptoms including an ever-growing list of foods I can no longer tolerate. I would have sworn it was thyroid related, but even my naturopathic Dr who ran his own tests with the full panel said my numbers were fine. I've been tested for a host of autoimune diseases over the years and each test comes back negative. SIBO and other gut issues cause lots of inflammation that can cause a myriad of health issues. Anyways just throwing that out there. Best of luck that you find some answers!

One of my twins, who has sensory issues, hates the feel of paper which makes writing difficult. Right now she has a tissue under her wrist so she can write without feeling the actual paper. Can anyone give me some suggestions on things I could buy or use to place under her wrists? I'm not sure a mouse pad would be any better as the texture is usually kind of scratchy.

Thank you all again. It's so great to get been-there-done-that advice from other homeschooling parents. I'm going to try to stick it out, but if it doesn't work I will switch to Aesop's Fables or start reading passages from our read-alouds or even start with their readers to ask that they narrate. I do think it would be easier if they are familiar with the book or story instead of just reading a few random paragraphs from the middle of a story they know nothing about. I also purchased a few issues of BW Quiver of Arrows awhile back that I could try. They do get writing practice as we use Spelling You See and Zaner-Bloser as well as dictation or copywork from FLL and the geography and vocabulary workbooks that we use daily. I guess in a way that's why I was questioning WWE. They aren't really getting the narration and I'm not 100% sure the extra writing is necessary. If I just focus on narration I can get that elsewhere.

Yep! Except my "one and done" ended up being twins :) Done and done. We are an active family. We like to do weekend trips and travel and we are always seeking out fun new things to do. It would be difficult, physically and financially, to live the kind of lifestyle we desire with a bunch of children. And pregnancy kicked my ass.

I'll stick with it. I know this is a skill they need to learn, even if it's brings about frustratration and aggravation from all three of us. I'm guilty of trying to do it with them together and I agree that it makes much more sense to do it with each one separately so I will start doing that asap. I'm also going to start only reading one or two paragraphs until they start getting the hang of it. Their attention span is just super low when it comes to listening to a reading passage. Thanks for all of the comments and suggestions!

I ask them to narrate back to me and I write it down on the write board. Sometimes I ask them to then copy it into their workbooks. They just flat out do not listen well and cannot repeat anything back to me. They space out and clearly aren't paying attention. It's been like this since way back when we did mommy-and-me storytimes at the library and part of the reason I pulled them out of public school last year. One of my girls as HF autism but neither like being read to. Today was a section from Rumpelstiltzkin. The only thing we could come up with was "the girl cried". And that was with me reading it three times and lots of whining and moaning and groaning.

We are new to WWE. My 7 year old 2nd graders are using WWE 1 and we are in the 4th week. They are fine with the copy work, but the narration not so much. I've posted before about my daughters' difficulties with listening/read-aloud time. It's something we are constantly working on, it is getting better, but they are just not in a place where they can listen to three or four paragraphs and write about it. They look at me like they don't know what to do and then there are tears and finally I have to pretty much come up with the sentence after coaxing some kind of thought out of them. It's frustrating, I'm not entirely sure it's doing anything for them and basically its just not working well. Anyone else had troubles with WWE? I'm trying to decide if I should stick it out and hope we get over a hump or if I should move on to something else? They aren't great writers so I really want something to work.

Thank you for checking on me Selkie! Its been a whirlwind week. I went to Dr and do have a concussion. Was supposed to be resting but my paternal grandmother passed away the same day I saw the Dr and we had to leave the next day for our trip cross country to make the visitation and funeral. Feeling much better now. Trying to take it easy and I'm hoping my girls will cut me a break during homeschool this week so I can get much-needed rest afterwards.

Thanks for the responses. I have an appt to see a Dr this morning. My primary GP is not in so I'm seeing a different Dr in their practice that also happens to specialize in concussions. I still feel off, my head feels heavy (if that makes sense) and have some slight nausea. DH took my girls for the day to travel a few hours away to see the eclipse so I get the day to myself to rest.

I need advice. On Friday I managed to hit my head pretty hard on the (rounded) corner of our fireplace mantel. I hit the right side on the upper portion of my temple and above it. It hurt, but I got over it and kinda forgot about it. Yesterday I woke up and it ached. I had a headache, off-and-on, since it happened. Its a bit numb and weird feeling when I touch it, but does not appear swollen. Today I woke up feeling a little better but made the stupid mistake of going to Carowinds, an amusement park, with DH and my girls. Now I feel crappy again. I'm not one to make a big deal of things and tend to brush these things off but I admit I'm a bit concerned. I get a little vertigo but otherwise I don't really feel dizzy, lightheaded or out of it. I just feel "off" if that makes sense. I'm thinking maybe it was a minor concussion? Trying to decide if it warrants a trip to my doctor. Thanks for reading!

I have twins, so technically not an only child but they are the same age and I struggle with socialization as well. There are quite a few HS groups and co-ops in our area but we are a secular homeschooling family and definitely in the minority around here because of it. We do a lot of homeschooling days at our local museums and libraries, they are both involved in extracurricular activities (HS pottery for one, tumbling for the other), HS PE through our local YMCA and fortunately they do have PS neighborhood kids to play with. But its a concern of mine, especially since one of my girls has HF autism and already lacks some social skills.