We did not use the speed drills or blacklines either. The daily lesson was more than enough for us. Lisa

Well, I started out with Rightstart with my LD son and it was difficult. I then went on to do Rod and Staff Math, which was a wonderful relief for both of us. It moves slowly and gives lots of practice. It is a traditional rote method. After we finished 2 levels of Rod and Staff, I started supplementing with Rightstart and that has really increased my son's understanding of the concepts. If I continue on this path, I will use Rightstart as a supplement at a level below whatever he is doing in Rod and Staff. Right now, we are giving another program -- SRA's Connecting Math Concepts http://www.sraonline.com -- a trial run. It is a direct instruction program and it has lots of research behind it. It is known for being especially good for children with ld's and can be used as an intervention program. It is expensive to buy from SRA, but sometimes you can find it on ebay. I'm wary about dropping the Rod and Staff/Rightstart combo since it is working, but I would like to be able to use just one math program, so that's why we are trying CMC. Lisa

I think it depends partly on the director and the flavor of the group. I was told that I would be allowed to participate "even though I was raised Catholic -- as long as I realized that Jesus is the only way to salvation and not good works". That was my first exposure to that kind of thinking as well and quite a shock. I did join, but then felt so uncomfortable with the group, I quickly dropped out. Somehow, not being particularly religious, I felt like a wolf in sheep's clothing around all these religious people. By joining the group, I felt that I was saying that I had the same beliefs, even though I never said I did. This is how I felt in many homeschool groups though in the beginning. I was just not used to being around so many openly religious people. Now, while my religious beliefs continue to evolve, I have been "desensitized" to all the openly religious statements and no longer feel uncomfortable. This was not the only reason I dropped out, though. The drive to the closest CC was quite long, my son was only in kindergarten, and I realized I could do the memory work at home without eating up almost an entire day at CC. I know there are lots of people that love the program and who it works out really well for. It just was not a good fit for me. Lisa

I love Rightstart. I think it's a wonderful program. I just wanted to throw out there that you might consider getting the Grade 2 workbooks from Rod & Staff and letting her use those as a supplement to Rightstart. It sounds like my son has some similar issues as your daughter and I have actually been using Rod & Staff as his main program and then Righstart as a supplement. Rightstart did not have enough practice for my son and he had trouble with using it as a stand-alone program because it was so conceptual. Doing Rod & Staff has given him enough practice with the mechanics that he is able to deepen his understanding of the concepts with Rightstart. Lisa

Every time I see you post about your allergies, I can't help but think how much my daughter is just like you. She is on the same medications - singulair & astelin. None of the others work for her. She clearly has a pretty bad allergy to dairy, as well as environmental allergies, but almost nothing shows up on her allergy tests. The last allergist we went to said that she thought she had something called vasomotor rhinitis, which is what you are describing. I think that's why the Astelin works for her. It is specifically for vasomotor rhinitis as well as environmental allergies. Lisa

I'm dealing with something similar right now. My son has OT issues, such as low muscle tone, and needs to exercise his muscles on a regular basis to keep strong. He enjoys swimming, so it seemed this would be just perfect. He's been taking private lessons for a year and pretty much every day over the summer with the goal of being able to join the homeschool swim team this Fall. Unfortunately, he has no muscle memory so things just don't happen automatically for him. He learns how to do things properly but he has to think about what he's doing every minute or he just reverts back to bad habits. He also doesn't have the endurance that other children do. The woman that has been working with him this summer has been awesome but when she first started working with him, he made good progress and she thought he was really going to take off. When he came back for the 3rd week and had totally lost all the skills she taught him, she was very discouraged and so was I. Really, I could have just cried. I don't expect this child to ever compete in swim meets. I just want him to participate on the swim team for conditioning and fun. This is something most "normal" kids who are even a couple of years younger than him can do. I am not giving up though! We have something called Developmental Swim Team for weaker swimmers to develop their skills and we're going to try him on that. That may be too much as well, but we're at least going to try. One accommodation that his current swim instructor recommended that I try to get for him is that he be able to wear swim fins while training. I am hoping he will be able to do that on the Developmental Swim Team and that eventually he will get strong enough that he won't need them. I think it's great that you are going to be able to try the other swim team for your daughter. I know what you mean about that hopeful feeling. Not a lot of advice here, but you definitely have my empathy. Lisa

I have 2 children that I homeschool -- my 6dd and 8ds. They are best friends and will play together from morning until night. Yet, they still crave outside friendships, my son especially. I do everything I can to help them make friends. If I didn't, they would never have the opportunity to do so. We live in a rural area and the only times they have the chance to see other children is when I enroll them in activities or invite children they have met to our home. Both kids are involved in a number of activities each week and I try to set up one playdate a week for each child. I don't think they need tons of outside friends, but one or two good ones are important. Lisa

Thank you! I will check out the MFS' blog. I always loved what she had to say on the board. I will also see what my library has by Marva Collins and Esquith. That's just the kind of book I was thinking of. Lisa

Uh, yes, I have found have the 170 lessons in R&S a little daunting at times! I am also one that has a hard time not finishing the book. What I have found in the 1st and 2nd grade level is is that I am able to skip about 1 lesson a week. I pick one that has no new material in it and I only skip it if I feel like my son is really grasping the material well. If you are able to do that, it will make a big difference. Lisa

My son's main struggle at this point is with his expressive language. He used to have real difficulty with receptive language as well, but that is the area that therapy has helped him the most. I don't know what therapy you are looking at, but my son has done lots of different things. He's done private speech, OT, 6 weeks at Lindamood Bell, Neuronet, social skills classes and Auditory Integration Training. We've gotten mixed results. Lindamood Bell, Neuronet, the social skills classes and OT were the big winners for him. Neuronet is probably the most along the lines of what you are talking about. The provider always spoke about changing the brain. My stepdaughter did the NILD program for 2 years and made progress, but not enough to justify continuing. She was older when she did the program though and I have since heard that it is more successful for younger children. I definitely feel that the therapies have helped quite a bit and were very worthwhile, but my son still has learning disabilities. I have come to realize that no therapy is going to change that. Lisa

Stacy - Thanks! I have to say I worked with my son yesterday and I kept your comment about it being an opportunity to bond at the forefront of my mind during the lesson and it really helped me through it. Lisa

Holly - I love that! That is a great list and just what I need to be doing. Those are definitely not the kinds of things that are on my checklist now. Something like this might really help me because I am such a "check the box" person. Thanks! Lisa

Stacy - I'm sure it's got to be a relief to get that completed. I thought it was just us with the lessons taking so long. I wonder how on earth this program is implemented in public school? Let me know if you want to sell your Reasoning & Writing. As torturesome as it is, I feel like it's working well. I am glad to hear that CMC isn't as bad. I haven't started that and was thinking about sticking with my R&S/Rightstart combo, but I'll probably get my husband to give it a whirl and see how it goes. Thanks again! Lisa

Stacy - Yes! I have a love-hate relationship with that curriculum. The intensity of it and the length of time it takes to get through it really pushes me to my limits. And yet, I feel as though it gives my son the very best chance of doing well, so I don't want to drop it. I'm also using a lot of other teacher-intensive curriculum -- Rightstart for my daughter and SWR for both kids. This isn't all about curriculum, but it does definitely have an impact. I am really toying with getting a part-time job so that I can pay someone else to do the DI programs with my son. Not exactly what I had envisioned when I decided to homeschool, but maybe the best for both of us. My husband has also volunteered to do the math program with him, but I am having a hard time with the idea of letting him take that over since he is wonderful in many ways, but not very consistent. If I continue doing it all myself, I like your idea about working for set amount of time rather than trying to finish the lesson. Right now, we are doing SRA's Language for Writing and it is taking 1 1/2 hours just to get through the teaching part. I am ready to tear my hair out about 30 - 40 minutes in. Lisa

Oh, Peela, thank you so much! It helps just to know that someone else understands. I need to make myself a little plaque and put it right in front of my face whenever I am doing schoolwork with my son - "Don't sacrifice today for tomorrow". Like you, I have a loving, affectionate relationship with my son outside of school. It's always this one area that has been the problem for me. My son does have a diagnosis, but I've always felt that we could just overcome it. As he gets older, it becomes clear that we won't. When I think about what I want for him, it is simply happiness. I just can't get past thinking he won't be happy because he won't have the opportunities he "should" have had. Some of this is also me feeling like I am failing if he does not do great on the standardized tests. I feel like I received a "C" after all the hard work and effort and I'm just going to have to let go of that. I think I need to somehow get my brain to accept a new goal of being the most patient, fun teacher instead of achieving academic excellence. That shift is not coming easily for more though. It's less tangible, I guess. Lisa

I need to change my entire attitude towards homeschooling. I am a type A, goal-driven perfectionist. I have a son with special needs. I think that says it all. I need to find a way to focus on the teaching process rather than whatever my goal is. I am totally motivated to "finish X curriculum" or "teach Y skill". I get totally frustrated and impatient when I feel like the goals aren't being met. I am devastated when I think a goal has been met, only to find out that it no longer is or that it is only going to be met on certain days because of learning disabilities. I was totally depressed and disappointed after our recent round of standardized testing. Really, he did well enough, but his results were not nearly what I had hoped or expected. I know I need to adjust my expectations, but how do I do this? I need to learn how to correct a child when they are not giving me the right answer. Do I just give them the answer? Asking more questions just seems to lead to frustration. I work well with my daughter because she rarely makes mistakes, and when she does, she is like her mother and is so hard on herself, I wouldn't dream of doing anything but reassuring her. My son, on the other hand, has lots of struggles but is perfectly happy with his work as long as I am. He looks to me for approval and Lord knows, I try to give it to him. This has been a huge struggle for me. I just don't know how to patiently work with this particular child. He really needs the one-on-one attention of homeschooling and he wants to homeschool, so it would break my heart to send him to public school. Sometimes, I really think that would be better for him though. Please be gentle. This is something I have been working on and struggling with since I started with my son and I'm just at a loss of where to go from here. Maybe recommendations for books on teaching would be helpful. I would like to hire a tutor to work with this child, but I just don't know where the money would come from. Lisa

So maybe that's an option I'm missing? Maybe it would make more sense to buy an Mp3 player? Can I play something like that in the car? Thanks! Lisa

Can I get some tips on how to do this successfully? I've recorded my children's memory work on Goldwave and then burned it onto a cd with Windows Explorer. I was so proud of myself, but then when I went to play the cd, it had LOTS of skips on it. I'd really like to learn how to do this. Thanks! Lisa

For those of you making recordings on the computer, can you share how you do this? I recorded some of our memory work in a program called Gold Wave and it seemed like it worked fine, but when I burned it onto a cd (used Windows Explorer) the cd skipped a lot. Thanks! Lisa

My daughter finished level A and half of level B for kindergarten. We are continuing on over the summer with 1 lesson every week or so just to keep things fresh. I am also supplementing with math fact software and I am having her do one of the Horizons kindergarten books over the summer mostly because I feel she needs more practice with writing her numbers. Lisa

I would start locking the doors because I would not like to be surprised like that at all. Lisa

After kindergarten, my son took that test and scored very high. Ridiculously high, like 8th grade reading level. He was reading well for a kindergartener, but I don't know how he scored so high. When he took the Stanford this year after completing 2nd grade, he did not score anywhere near that high. So, I'm not sure what to make of the DORA test. It certainly didn't compare to the Stanford for us. Lisa

My kids saw Kung-Fu Panda a few weeks ago and they loved it. My parents took them and their cousins and even my parents thought it was cute. The kids laughed and laughed. My mother and sister took her kids to see Wall*E yesterday and both of them told me not to bother. The 3 year old asked to leave partway through, the 5 year old kept talking through the show and they felt the 8 year old enjoyed it, but that it was not a favorite. I was so surprised to hear all the great reviews it got on this board after hearing what my Mom and sister had to say. Lisa

I agree that Pamela's pancake mix is very good. Our absolute favorite mix for pancakes is the Kinnikinnick one. We found out about it when we went on the Disney cruise. They are absolutely wonderful. Lisa

My son participated in a group last year and I feel it really helped him. He has expressive language problems and one of the number one recommendations for children with expressive-receptive language disorder is social skills classes. My son really needed to be very specifically taught some things about group dynamics and conversational skills that others just pick up on naturally. Prior to the social skills group, I had noticed that he was playing with younger and younger children. Afterwards, he started playing with children his own age again as well as younger and older children. Lisa