Would AAS & AAR be good? They claim to be, but I would rather hear from parents who have actually used them with dyslexic children.

She does say that the words and letters are hard to see. She said she has to look at them for a long time. I will get an extensive eye exam first.

It was through Montessori, the would learn the sound and then practice with short words and readers.

I had a talk with DS last night. We are going to be science heavy this year, and literature is going to be "finish all mom's lists of elementary lit before middle school regardless of the challenge level." We are still at an impasse over Latin. He just doesn't see the point, and I'm not going to force it. That's the LAST thing we need. :lol: I had a talk with him about unschooling/child led learning/out of the box/whatever. I told him I'd be ok if he wanted to take the lead in some areas, and that I want him to be interested in what he's learning because that is really valuable. He told me he doesn't like that idea, because he "wants to know everything he needs to know." I asked him if he doesn't trust himself to figure it out. He said no, that's not it. I then asked "do you prefer me guiding you?" He said, "I just prefer you." :001_wub: So that will sustain me through this year at least. :) He lacks EF skills so I'm going to make that a big focus of the year and worry less about how much we get done.

***UPDATED post #34*** I'm seeing signs of dyslexia in my 6 year old DD. This is her first year homeschooling, she just did a Montessori program age 3 through K. She learned most if not all of the phonograms and can read, but not easily. I'm guessing she's 2e and able to mask it. She has a lot of reversals in spelling still which I know can be age appropriate, but it seems off. She reads really slow, and claims she hates reading. She switches sight words (the/a ) and completely ignores punctuation unless I slow her down. I understand that this could just be related to her being young and a new reader. I just have a little voice telling me it's something more. (Could be plain old neurosis.) Is 6 too young? I tried googling and got mixed answers.

I didn't realize it was the same person bumping the threads.

I have the nature handbook but didn't ever really get the hang of using it consistently. I bought Exploring Nature with children to try this year.

Thank you! I'll look into it.

Thank you for this Quark. :) I'm definitely open to rabbit trails, relaxed learning, and supporting his love of video games. I just have to be careful because he quickly becomes consumed and refuses to do anything else. I find the more we hit a rhythm, the less he argues and whines. It's such a fine line. He is doing a scratch workshop through G3 which I forgot to mention. He likes it so far and jumped right in trying to code. I'm hoping that what I've planned is just a jumping off point. I may have to model this a bit for him, I think he has a very rigid idea of what "school" looks like, and it looks like something he hates. ;)

I was hoping this was the case! Thank you for letting me know, that's one less thing to stress about. :)

We only started this week, but I'm kind of feeling overwhelmed and confused re: older DS, and plain overwhelmed adding in my 6 year old twins to the mix. I think we are ending up where I thought we would for DS, although I'm really wanting to go a tad more classical with him this year as last year we were "relaxed" which kind of turned into "lazy." I learned a lot about how both DS and I work, and it turns out we need guidelines. (That's putting it lightly. :lol: ) Math: we were going to finish the Arbor book series, but I'm moving him to AoPS. I just got it in the mail on Friday and I think it's going to be a hit with him. (Hopefully I didn't just jinx myself.) Lit: I seriously don't know what this kid should read. I was going to try to do an American Novel year, but there aren't enough that would interest him. I'm making him read Island of the Dolphins right now because I have it and I had nothing else for him to read. :leaving: Spanish: we were going to to Homeschool Spanish Academy, but I could not get it scheduled! I was really disappointed at the lack of availability. I wanted the same teacher for at least the majority of his classes and there was no one available. So we are now waiting on SYRWTLS, but I think he really needs a fluent speaker to get him further. I'm going to see if I can find someone locally. Latin: He refuses to do Latin, I'm getting Caesar's English back out to try to convince him Latin is great. :laugh: History: Was going to be interest-led, but I bought the K12 text and we are following the schedule another poster shared on the logic board. We haven't started yet so he may balk at this. Science: Biology! He's really loving Uzinggo. I accidentally bought him middle school instead of highschool so it's really easy, but I'm letting him have at it for fun for now until I can figure out how to switch it to highschool. We also have McHenry's Cells to work through. We will do Botany and a human body unit as well. Grammar: Finishing up Caesar's English and I'm letting him drop it if he agrees to try Latin again. If not, back to MCT. Writing: He's doing an after school creative writing program so we will just do some fun free writes and some short writing assignments for history and science. Computer Science: Scratch workshop at G3 and then he and DH are going to try out Swift. Not very "unschooly" or "out of the box" at all, but I'm learning that he hyperfocuses on anything with a screen and wants to spend all his time doing that, so he really needs my guidance. My youngers.... :willy_nilly: :willy_nilly: It's just been rough start so far. I'm going to back up and just ease into things with them. They LOVE Miquon (and I figured it out! :hurray: ) so that's a plus. I started "The Trumpet of the Swan" and they don't like it. I offered to switch to another book but now they want to see what happens with Sam and the swans so, IDK, we'll see where the next week takes us. I'm a little concerned about dyslexia with my DD. I think she's got the whole GT kid masking the LD thing going on, and I need to figure out what to do about that. Otherwise, they are pretty well set. They want art everyday which has been a challenge. I found a weekly homeschool art class for them, just waiting to hear if they have space. How about all of you? How are your AL's doing? Any curriculum hops?

I'm a mom, but there are dads that post on this board, and we all have great conversations. Welcome!

What's up with the bumping of old threads lately?

My son is 9, will be 10 in Nov. We called last year 4th grade, and he did school for about 3 hours a day. This year we are closer to 5, but I'm following TWTM this year and we are doing real science instead of "interest led."

You'll love it! I think it might be my new favorite!

I bought this book for my 6 year old DD, and it's really good! I actually teared up at the end. The main character is a GT girl with a passion for science. https://www.amazon.com/Ada-Twist-Scientist-Andrea-Beaty/dp/1419721372 It's from the author of Iggy Peck and Rosie Revere, which are also awesome. :) (My B&N had them out even though it's not the 6th)

This is a great idea, we will go on a scum hunt! :)

I just got AoPS in the mail and my first impression is that it's not going to be too hard for him, at least the first half of the book. He did most of JA last year which I'm now thinking may have been overkill for other kids but it will be good for it to seem "easy" to him at first. He loves easy. Lol

We just got rid of a saltwater tank, because we couldn't keep the algae under control! :lol: DS became friends with the owner of the saltwater fish store, I bet if we went in there they would give us some.

Thank you both!

DS is loving biology. (It's only week one, so this may be a flash in the pan, we will see.) He wants to graft algae.....can I just buy algae somewhere? I'd really love a kit. :laugh:

I have to go back and re-read too because I got the same impression you did.

I have to go back and re-read too because I got the same impression you did.

Mine had them at the beginning of August, and I put them back because I wasn't sure if we needed them and now that I want them they are gone. Costco annoys me this way sometimes. :lol:

We just started today. I just figured out my older DS forgot a ton of math over the summer, so now I'm planning a 3 week review. I'm REALLY wanting to school year round right now!