We use the Frio thing in heat/when it will be outside in a backpack. I keep leaving them in cars :tongue_smilie: and when you do that it's the end of the pens. Expensive mistakes!

One of my son's was in lesson 20, doing everything Headsprout asked, and "reading" the words/books well when I realized he couldn't sound out a single word he hadn't seen in Headsprout. If the child comes in reading CVC words maybe it works better and it worked ok for my son who was doing that when he entered the program. It's very repetitive and if a child leans toward sight reading for some reason the program will allow that or at least did for my son. I also dislike how quickly sight words are introduced and they are using words that can be decoded phonetically as sight words. So...I've taught him to read (both kids really) with other programs. I do a lot of extra outside of Headsprout and I feel that's responsible for the bulk of the progress for both kids. So while my boys have enjoyed the program I wish I hadn't spent the money. I would chose differently if I could. I do think it's so repetitive initially (in the first 40 lessons anyway) in a palatable way that it helps fluency. But I don't feel it's pure phonics nor entirely comprehensive phonics either one.

I'm glad you've got your answer. Look into the food families that go with those trees so you know what fruits in what seasons may be issues. My son can eat cooked (or frozen) from some but not all of his OAS fruits.

:grouphug: We've lost two cats--one to cancer and one to organ failure. You certainly will know. And the time you've got now to love on her, play with her, make her final time on earth what you want it to be will (I hope) be a comfort to you. :grouphug: Re: suffering. We didn't let them suffer. That's part of how you know. With my girl with cancer we had longer. Then she began to cry and really stopped eating all at once. We knew that was time. With the other we had far less time from when we knew to the end. I don't believe she had any pain. However, her quality of life was so compromised that it was obvious it was time. With the second I do have some regret. We hospitalized her to stabilize and then took her home and did IV's and some other things for a while because I just wasn't ready to let her go. She got sick so quickly. I wish we hadn't prolonged it even though the prolonging in her case was under a week. I just wasn't ready and that wasn't the best for her.

I honestly don't get the teacher intensive thing about Rightstart. It takes no planning/prep. In fact, I've read some dislike the scripted nature of the teacher's guide. When people say teacher intensive I assume it's because you do the lessons with the child as it's all hands on. I would assume, though, most early level math programs are teacher/student together? Isn't it? Is Math U See something the child does on his/her own at the K or even 1st grade level? Maybe! I don't know. I want to be with my kids for this early foundational math no matter the program I use. I realize if I had more kids though I might need a program that didn't require me (if that exists at this level). From what I can tell both programs are really good at getting the conceptual "why" behind math. I'm sure either are good approaches. I'm equally sure certain ones fit certain children better. I think RightStart fits us better. If you can get your hands on MathUSee somehow to compare I imagine you'll know just from looking which is a better fit for your child. I'm still not sure I'd switch though. I did look at MUS (in person) but I've not used it. It seemed Math U See was more worksheet based than RightStart by a lot. My impression was that it was a little "one note" compared to RightStart's variety of materials and activities used. Of course that was my initial impression not having actually used it! RightStart's variety and quick, segmented lessons really work well for my attention challenged boy. I do think both programs are good though, again, one might fit a particular child better. I can't imagine MathUSee is so much superior (or vice-versa) that a person would want to switch if what they have is working. But if you start RightStart and it's not a fit MathUSee would seem like a logical next try. I know someone who switched to RightStart from MathUSee because the MathUSee just wasn't working. I could see that happening with either program. I can't imagine, though, jumping from one of them to the other if what I had was working because they are both strong programs.

Just agreeing with others that a lot of it rings true with my son who does have issues. He's got an autism spectrum diagnosis. FWIW, The Nurtured Heart Approach by Glasser has been wonderful for him parenting wise. I read the book "All Children Flourishing" not his original book. Fits Andrew like a glove and in fact he needs it. I'm wondering if your son does too.

We went off-season (right before the December holiday crowds would hit) and it was fantastic. We followed date guidelines from Unofficial Guide if I remember correctly. We did get a GAC. My son is autistic and has mito. They don't ask for dx. but rather needs. Example: he can be overwhelmed by crowds and noise, he can't walk long distances, etc. They provided a card that allowed us to use wheelchair entrances. It's not necessarily supposed to cut down the line but it almost always did for us. It also allowed us to use his stroller as a wheelchair. Stroller issue of course not helpful at your kid's ages. But basically Disney is very special needs friendly. We couldn't have gone without that card. As a side note mitochondrial disease qualifies as Make a Wish I believe.

edited out. Sorry. I didn't read you've already got bocce and it doesn't work for your lawn. Oops!

I can tell you what we do but it's a real struggle here: no carpet in the bedroom, wash all his bedding on hot/dry on hot once a week, encased mattress, etc. We are saving for a hepa unit for his room. Our air conditioning system does have a hepa filter. I agree with the above poster that the 140 matters and we do have our water set on that for that reason. But I *think* hot dry gets hot enough to do the job. We do both. Hepa vacuum (important for dust/pet allergies) Showers before bed every time. This is really important. You don't want her taking the allergens on her hair and etc. to her bed. Similarly, we don't play in my son's room. It's as allergy free as we can make it. We also shower when we come inside from outside during his outdoor allergy seasons. That's a pain in the rear but does seem to make a difference. We tried nasal rinses as that helped my mil but it didn't help my child. We re-homed our cat. Really hard...at any rate no pets in the bedroom. He takes zyrtec and it didn't help nearly enough. Claritan helped even less (not at all it seemed). We added singulair. Big help. We're still not at 100% control but it's made a huge difference. Next step would be nasal steroids.

Certain things have had years of what I consider high quality play value here: 1. Hotwheel type cars and trucks 3. Magnatiles 4. Wooden blocks of all sorts 4. Lego 5. Train set (wooden track w/variety of trains) 6. Little counter bears and beads. They are people and cargo and money, etc.--so many things. 7. My kids have gotten a ton of play value out of rocking horses--they are horses, trains, cars, rockets (turned upside down), and on. 8. They don't play with it as much anymore but their play kitchen and dishes/food/etc. got tons of good use for years. Regrets here: playmobile, Plan toys dollhouse and parking garage, imaginext (we've got the pirate ship and the castle and both have hardly been touched), those plastic realistic looking animals--I got really nice ones and no one played much with them at all. My nephew loves playmobile. My friend's child loves those plastic realistic animals and dollhouse. I heard great things about Imaginext. Kids vary so much!

To use the Medi-share/Samiritan's purse you need to be very health before you joined (i.e. no pre-existing dx's/treatments) and be willing/able to cover preventative care and alternative care yourself. In the case of one or both it doesn't cover things under say $300. So basically you need to be able to either stay healthy or pay your routine bills yourself. I think it would work for a family without any medical things going on. For us it certainly wouldn't. Whatever you do make sure you have some coverage for major medical--i.e. umbrella/catastrophic type coverage. A car accident wrecked my bil financially because he didn't have that.

I picked what I felt would be the best option for us in each category. You don't need to stay with the same program/company for everything. I found both searching the homeschool reviews site and this (WTM) board most helpful for selecting curriculum. I've been very happy with most of our choices.

When my baby was in the hospital and I was nursing the hospital kept me very stocked with snacks. They had a nursing mother's snack room and I got the hospital food as well. If she's gluten free snacks are harder and I'd stock up for her if you could. Snacks are better than meals I think unless the hospital isn't feeding her. Since she's nursing I gather I would think they are? The best things for me anytime any of my kids were in the hospital have been those I trusted sitting with the child so I could take a walk, take a shower, have dinner, etc. I never would leave my kids alone so it was nice to be able to leave the room. Reading materials were always appreciated too.

Oops, cross posted with Ottakee and she said it better! I used instructions from the 3rsplus site. If I remember right they have a free resources section and under that there is a PDF for getting started. I read that and we were off. These books have been great here for reading instruction. I did make the notched card described on the site. We read through the words listed at the front first. I've occasionally had to give simple instruction with those new words--(i.e. "th" says /th/) but what I love is how the books teach themselves. It's structured perfectly to guide the student and eliminate issues. Generally I just reminded them to "say the sounds" if needed. The books did the teaching. My boys love the characters and stories in these books. They are so excited to read them always. I am using the first set online. We have five left. I purchased the second set yesterday. It will be nice to have them as actual books.

I would think about this aspect. One of the biggest challenges as a parent of a spectrum child (and one of the most important for our kids future functioning) is to help them learn to be flexible and handle it when things don't go as planned. I believe your actions, while I get the why for you, might actual reinforce his rigidity. Instead this could be an area of opportunity to model that plans change and people are unpredictable and yet it's ok.

I love our Frigidaire. We're hard on washers and it's never had a problem. I do run the sanitize cycle once or twice a week. I've never had mildew issues. My favorite thing is that I can set laundry to run on a delay cycle. I almost always have a load set to wash before we get up. It's spinning out usually as we finish breakfast. I'm never behind on laundry anymore. It also uses less water by far compared to our top loader. The only drawback for me is that it drips when I open the door and I dislike that. I mean we've got the thing to catch it but it still bugs me. I also found top loaders easier to load/unload. I don't know if the washer is better but I had a Fisher/Paykel top load dryer. We had problem after problem with the thermostat shorting out and the thing wouldn't heat. Then it would take forever to get a repair person, get back ordered parts, etc. And it still wouldn't work and they'd order more parts. Lowe's finally took it back. I felt lucky with that because I feared we were stuck with a machine. It worked fine during the first month so we were past the return policy. It broke the first time about 40 days after we bought it. It worked properly exactly 2 loads in the next 3.5 months. It was a nightmare. Basically, I was very unhappy with the Fisher/Paykel warranty service/customer service and their product too.

I'll check out both of those closer. It looks like the scoping is a significant upfront cost so I don't think that's an option right now for me. The virtualvocations does require me to pay to access it looks like. You found work via the site? I'll do some research on it.

I'm hoping today is a sell. :grouphug:

Are there still any legitimate work at home jobs? My parents mentioned medical transcription. I can keyboard well and actually worked my way through college in secretarial type jobs that involved transcribing. I'm sure I could learn to do medical transcribing. But I am certain the $$ outlay for training and equipment is expensive and I can't do that to find there aren't actually jobs. The more I look the more I think that's not the way to go. I do have degrees (Bachelors and Masters) in education so I thought about online tutoring though I let my license expire when my boys were born. We're in a financial wreck because of health related expenses. I would love to know if there are legitimate options out there that would allow me to also continue homeschooling.

Poor thing. That does sound lonely and dull both. I don't know what she could do if she's not wanting to read or do hobbies. That's hard and sad. One suggestion I have. They make sunglasses to be worn inside to block blue light--which shuts off melatonin production. https://www.lowbluelights.com/index.asp? They have a 30 day money back guarantee if they don't improve sleep. I would get some for her because peak melatonin production is typically at 1 am and, further, light on while she waits is suppressing it which has it's own health effects. And it might help. Are they thinking sleep phase shift disorder possibly? Usually gradual shift along with melatonin is used I think in that and then light exposure upon waking. I would try them in your situation and see if helped. I would also administer melatonin myself unless her doctor didn't want that for some reason. Beyond that though--did a sleep study show why she's waking frequently/sleeping poorly? I assume they looked at things like apnea and restless leg. But not all labs will find/report Upper Airway Restriction and disrupted sleep, poor staging, etc. are symptomatic of that. Upper Airway Restriction definitely affected my quality of sleep--I was coming out of deep staging to recover the airway, taking longer to get there, frequently waking, etc. I'm wearing a mouthpiece that is has me sleeping better than I have in my life. I feel badly for your daughter.

I'm so sorry. I will be praying for the family.

I still socially see my colleagues. If they fill anything negative toward homeschooling it's not obvious to me and I think I would know. We do talk about homeschooling (and school talk too). I think most teachers understand why a person might decide to homeschool? I guess I'm surprised anyone would see you as a "traitor" because you homeschool.

Grades 9 through 12 start accumulating transcript credits and are used for the GPA for college application, class rank, etc. here. That's when high school starts here. I typically saw a huge developmental change between 9th and 10th grades especially in boys. A 9th grade boy is typically much more like a middle school child than a 10-12 grader. I guess I see value in thinking of middle school as through 9th grade. But it doesn't happen here and I will treat 9th grade as high school both in planning and record keeping.

Crystal was better tonight. I don't care which one wins and agree that Lee needs it more. He's likeable. She's extremely talented. Is there any voice like hers currently in the market? I can't think of one. She was almost too good from the start to get the momentum AI winners typically have. Lee wasn't at his best tonight. Had he been I think he would have been a sure winner. He may still win. I think the largest contengent voters (tween/teen girls I suspect) give males a much greater chance to win. Actually, there were some really talented women voted off early this season sadly given the lackluster group that finished toward the mid to end of the pack.

I taught PS for 10 years in grades 6-12. I knew from teaching that kids form their vision of themselves as learners in the early elementary grades. That doesn't bode well for kids not "cut out" for the way school is typically done in early elementary. This includes those who weren't ready developmentally and needed maturity time, those who learn in a non-sequential way, those with learning disabilities, etc. One of my children would do worse than flounder in a classroom and I knew homeschool was a near necessity for him educationally. I now think it's better for both my kids and our family. But I do feel my teaching experiences influenced my decision to homeschool initially. As far as classical vs. other styles of homeschooling in teachers I don't know! I suspect certain personality types are more likely be draw to classical schooling. If I'm correct about my supposition, that personality type isn't typically found in k-12 education. I think this personality aspect would be more of an influence in curriculum choices than teacher training. My experience in teacher training had little to nothing to do with the way I taught in my classroom or my views about education. I have a Master's degree as well as BS in education and almost none of it meant a thing in my classroom. I think most teachers are sort of born teachers. It's more of an art than learned skill.