I'm using TOG with my ds, who is an aspie. I love TOG for it's flexibility. I mostly have him doing upper grammar work, but if the lit selection is too difficult or too easy, I could easily substitute the selection for lower grammar or dialectic. Writing is not his strong point, so I have him working at a much lower level with Writing Aids, and it has been wonderful for him. The graphic organizers are really helping him to organize his thoughts. I also have trouble with getting ds to work outside of his interests, but he is really getting into history. Our current spine is an Usborne encyclopedia, which actually helps - he really likes encyclopedias in general. I have only one child doing TOG, and it takes a pretty good amount of planning. It's not an open and go curriculum. It can get pricey, especially if you have multiple kids at multiple levels. I usually purchase books from Bookshelf Central because you can purchase by unit and level, so it makes it much easier. I think the easiest way to see if TOG will work for you is to download the 3week sample and actually plan it out as if you were really doing it, while pricing it out at the different levels you may need.

We enjoyed the New England Aquarium in Boston. Plimoth Plantation is on our list for our next trip, along with the Boston Childrens Museum. We also are planning on visiting Fall River, MA to see Battleship Cove. If you are into gruesome stuff, there is a Lizzie Borden museum there, and you can even stay in the house where it all happened.(no thank you!) If you feel like driving about 3 hours, my ds really likes Mystic Seaport in Connecticut. There are other things to do in the area, like the Aquarium, and the USS Nautilus and Submarine Force Museum. (ds loved this) Rhode Island is a fave of my SIL, and she often visits Block Island, Providence, and Newport. That's all I have for now, we are still in the planning stage for our spring and summer travels.

www.uline.com has a ton of different sizes but I think you have to order a lot. Maybe you can find someone to split the order with?

We really liked Hillyer when ds was younger, say 5-8ish. We also enjoyed his art history series, which I downloaded from somewhere free a long time ago. I can't stand Van Loon. I think it is dry and rambling at times, but ds really loves it. :confused: I have it on my Kindle, but he wants me to purchase the book so he can see the illustrations. Not very fond of Marshall, but I don't remember why. It may have been too much editing needed. I've been checking out Geurber - it seems popular around here. I think some of these titles are available on The Baldwin Project (www.mainlesson.com) if you want to get some ideas.

My only thought was perhaps some logic and spelling for the 10 yr old. We are using Mindbenders and ds loves it. We are also using Megawords for spelling - another big hit here. He is a great natural speller, but Megawords has helped him to strengthen a few weak spots while challenging him a bit.

We've been doing TWTM science recs for 5th grade, which is Biology. We are using How Nature Works and How the Body Works, both from Reader's Digest. Earth Science and Astronomy is covered in 6th using books from the same series. In the Nature book, there was one 2-page spread on evolution that I saw. Not all topics are covered in any of the books, so anything objectionable could easily be skipped over. It takes a bit more planning, but Apologia was getting too difficult to work around. I managed to get the books on ebay for less than $5 each, and a wonderful person from the hive sent me their Biology plans for the year, which was a big help.

My ds is an Aspie with a touch of ADHD. I'm not familiar with CLE, but it was immensely helpful our first year of homeschooling to use one curriculum. We used K12 our first year, and it was nice not to worry about missing anything. We eventually moved to other choices, but by then I had gained confidence in myself and had a good idea of what would work with ds, and what his strengths and weaknesses are.

I pulled ds out right before xmas. (this was a few years back) He needed some de-schooling time, as he had suffered an emotional breakdown. We kind of floated for a few months following his interests, and then we started K12 in February of that year. We kind of skimmed through math and la until we were at an appropriate area that hadn't been covered already, but the rest of the courses were so different than what he had in school that we really dug in from the beginning. There was no way any of his courses would be done at the same time, and we decided to school year round. We just go on to the next level in whatever we are doing when he completes the previous level. I truly believe in going at his pace and not having a rigid timeframe, so we are kind of all over the place now.

For a quick cup of tea, I like PG Tips. If I run out, I use Tetley British Blend. My current fave loose tea is from a cute tea room in my area - A Taste of Blarney. They also have a wonderful green tea with raspberry. I like Earl Grey tea, but I have to be in the mood for it. Recently I had a delicious Earl Grey with Vanilla. I'm mostly a black tea drinker, but I do like lemon teas when I'm sick. I will, on occasion, drink tea in k-cup form, but it's not a favorite, although I love the Canarino k-cups when I can find them. I absolutely hate when I buy loose tea and when I get it home and brew it, it tastes swampy or musty.:glare: I also think rose petals should not be in herbal or any other teas. Yuck!!

Reading this reminded me that I picked up an unused version of Oregon Trail 2 for $3 a while ago. I tried installing it on our desktop, which runs Vista, and it seems to be working! I've had luck running a few older programs on Vista, so it's worth a try if you can find something really cheap at a garage sale. Off to play...:001_smile:

I'm using WA with my ds, and he is doing great with it. He has Aspergers, and while he is highly intelligent, he has trouble organizing his thoughts. The graphic organizers have been great for him, and the ability to jump up and down levels in WA is also very helpful. He has trouble with working outside his sphere of interest, so it is an effort to stay focused. The pacing of each writing project is wonderful for him. As an example, I had him working at level 3 on a recent writing project. The first week, he was reviewing the steps in the writing process, the next week he was filling out a ladder diagram on a topic. The following week, he was making full sentences from his ladder diagram. If I felt this was too easy for ds, I could easily have moved him up to a higher level for a few weeks while still doing other weekly writing work at this level. This and WWE have been good for building confidence. We are planning on adding IEW when we get to Yr 2. The WA book has a lot of info in it on all kinds of writing topics, and helpful grading info. I would suggest picking it up used to see if it would work for you. It does have good resale value.

Thanks for sharing!:001_smile:

I mostly read aloud to my ds. He is doing UG work. We are doing Yr 1, and I feel most if not all of the books would be fine for a 7 yr old to listen in on. I find that ds can handle higher level books as read alouds than if he were reading it himself. I would probably stick to oral comprehension questions, coloring pages, etc for the younger. I often have ds draw a picture about what we read, and maybe have some copywork on that page. I don't know how much reading you were doing in LG, but my voice is often quite hoarse and scratchy with the amount of reading for UG. I was going nuts with all the Egyptian names in the Usborne IL Ancient World! :tongue_smilie:Thankfully ds is starting to do some of the reading on his own.

I don't know if you're looking for free or paid sites, but the ones we use the most are www.iknowthat.com, www.enchantedlearning.com (not as much as we used to now that ds is getting older), and www.teacherfilebox.com. I'm also on Donna Young's site for various forms. Wikipedia is an almost daily site - I'm always telling ds to wiki it.

I purchased WWE in PDF, and I have it on more than one computer. I either downloaded it more than once, or I had it on a flash drive - I don't remember which...

We have one of these - ds loves it! I saw the other 2 while I was placing my last order. They are next on my list!

Thanks, that looks awesome! I also ordered Pick Me Up and Do Not Open. They seem to be in the same style and look really neat. DK has some really awesome books. They've been getting a lot of my money lately...

Power came back last night, much sooner than what PSE&G told us. They rock! We lost some food in the fridge, but the meat in the fridge stayed perfectly frozen! I found some water in the basement, and some food (mostly pasta) we had stored on the floor under some shelving against the walls was lost. Next project for dh - to build a platform so we can use the space without worrying about water. All told, about $125 in food - not too bad. Many people fared much worse.

Looks great! I wish I had an extra room...

Thanks for the replies. My BIL is going to either move the contents or the whole freezer, I'm not sure which. I'm very grateful he's doing this for us. My dh just made a huge batch of meatballs and sauce - there's probably about 8 large containers in there. I can't even leave the hotel to help because we have our dog and my FIL's dog with us. I guess we'll have to repay him in sauce! The annoying thing is they live in town and have power, and my mom also is in town with power. Our town is only one square mile. It's a mess in our area though - downed trees and power lines everywhere. A telephone pole almost landed on our car in the driveway. The storm really didn't seem very bad - I had the dogs out a few times in the middle of it. My mom offered to let us stay with her, but dh can't work from her house - it's way too loud and crazy there! At least the business has the money to pay for the hotel, and thank God nobody was hurt in our area.

Me!!!:D Sleep is overrated...

We have a medium sized chest freezer in our basement that is loaded with meat and frozen meals. We've been without power for a full day now, but we've been told we may not have power until Wednesday or Thursday. If we don't open it at all is there any hope?? My bil said he may be able to move the whole freezer to his place. Nobody has that much room to just move the food out. Should I take up his offer? Ugh! I hate this!! I don't want to waste all that food; this storm is already costing us a hotel room until power is resumed.

I spoke to someone the other day, and from what she said, it is Switched On Online like they use in the academy, just without the teacher help.

Neuro is wondering if ds may have selective mutism along with Aspergers. He wants to put him on Atenolol because it has helped people with performance anxiety. It seems like a relatively safe drug but I'm not sure I want to add any medications. He is already on Prozac, and we took him off an antipsychotic last year. Has anyone heard of this being used with kids?

We started logic stage biology a few weeks ago, but then stalled. I like the way you handled this. It's just what I need to do to get back in gear. I think I will take a week or two and follow what you did so it's all ready for us. Thanks for posting!