We had the first edition workbooks we bought second hand and I believe back then the readers were tear outs in the back of the book for the early levels, I vaguely remember that they changed it. I could also be mistaken, but either way you’re not missing anything 🙂

We loved LOE, but the readers were my least favorite part. We did them once and moved on. They seemed to be a very small part of the program. My kid liked the process of cutting and gluing, though I’m not sure if the early levels still do that. For level C and D I also borrowed AAR (all about reading) readers as they seemed to follow the same flow and had more words per page. AAR readers helped us make the transition to chapter books after LOE D without feeling overwhelmed by all the words on the page.

I don’t get this “early college” community college thing during 11th and 12th grade. How can the community college classes be the same as year 1 & 2 of the 4 year college classes and just transfer? Are they all really the same - how can that be when our national education level is so low? The closet community college has it set with the college my oldest wants to go to for everything to transfer easy peasy. Sounds like it’s perfect, but I’m still scratching my head on it. Over the years we kept in touch with people we clicked with, making our core group strong. Our social options tanked during and after COVID as one by one our tribe moved away. We’ve organized some things and it seems that parents just want to drop the kids off. When they stay they stare at their phones and I'm not sure if I should talk to them. It’s hard. Community building, mentoring, connecting...

https://www.jetpens.com/Carl-Ein-Pencil-Sharpener-Yellow/pd/25264 some of the others don’t cost as much... haven’t decided myself yet...

Hugs and fun schooling times!

Following this. I bought a hand crank one that eats pencils a couple years ago and just use a cheap hand held one now... I’d love a good sharpener!

We are slowly getting things together here and adding to our homeschool portion of the day. Most of our stuff will be at home. Dad saw a mountain lion this morning so we are learning all about them today. Bookclub (online) has gone through through most of the summer and my youngest has finally gotten comfortable talking and is sharing ideas. Yay! So we will keep going with that. There is an outside science day at a farm near us - we signed up for once a month. It sounds great - I hope it is. He will also be doing an online class at Athena's which starts soon. He's super excited about it :) Love that!

Wow, I need to look into this. I hope mine has one! But wait, Story of the World is shelved in the with regular books. :(

That makes sense. When I emailed with my daughters class backup choices I did find out there are enough kids for my daughters class now. Yay! Hope all works out for everyone!

I hope its okay if i answer. I remembered reading about it. This is from their website: In the unlikely event that a course is canceled, 100% of the cost of the course (including the non-refundable portion) is returned to the family. https://athenasacademy.com/support/faq-athenas/ We also got an email about one of the classes, if it doesn’t happen there’s other classes my daughter is interested in... my sons class has 7 kids enrolled and there wasn’t an email so that one is good. I’m not sure how many kids are needed for a class to run...

We had a credit for an online class so I gave my guy a few options and he picked the class on how to tie your shoes!?! He was adamant that it was the class he wanted. It helped! He did start shutting down and got frustrated, but the teacher helped keep him going and he did make it through the class and got a decent tie at the end. He was ready to learn it as he kept practicing (with help). A week or so later he’s made great progress and can do it most every time, he’s slow, but it works for his fingers. YAY! Yup, I hate how that works out. It all sounds great until we start filling out the calendar! There’s also the adage, the busier you are the more you get done. It’s worked before and I look back wondering how in the world we ever did all that, other times I’ve felt completely overwhelmed so I have no idea where the balance is - still trying to find it...

His sister has the histamine issues. I'll have to look into the zinc. She has 2 homozygous SNPs of one study I quickly looked at, but I'm not familiar with the research yet. We eat a medium-low histamine diet now so I'm not sure if my son has histamine issues or not. My kids, my sisters kid, myself, my sister, my dad... have all had selective mutism type issues as children... My son finally started talking in public a year and a half ago which is when we started eye therapy. He was okay with me putting him in in-person classes last year at the charter school which was a huge step. We have a reward system in place for talking to others in public. He likes to interact with people when it’s in small settings now, he goes all smiley when they ask him questions. He says he’s not scared or worried, I see it as he is overwhelmed, though I realize selective mutism is considered anxiety. We’ll keep going... 🙂 And consider the MNRI - the closest is still far from here (3 hr round trip) - but maybe soon, his Dad is doing all the driving at the moment and it’s a lot as we’re already 45 mins from most things. I am also waiting for a call back from an OT program nearer to here to see about our insurance as they might be able to do an assessment before the pediatrician visit. Because he’s pretty far ahead with everything school wise it feels like any sensory help might end up out of pocket... The dentist hasn't said anything, though I don't think his dad (he does the dentist stuff) brought up his texture thing. He’s only really had the dentist inside his mouth twice, the concentration was on making it a good experience. But it’s time soon so we’ll start there and ask. I’m hoping that part will be okay. I have tried brushing his face, though I’m a novice at it. Over the years he's tolerated more and more foods and in different ways. Stopping nursing did not encourage him to eat any differently. We did blend up all sorts of things and made breads, which he would eat, though he did catch us eventually🤣 I let him play with and eat his food anyway he chooses and things are SO much better than they were that I’ve started asking him to use his fork. Soup is hard for him and tonight he put all the broth on the cornbread, but at least he ate it that part! (Low histamine broth- only boiled for a short time and frozen immediately.) He did eat 7 bites of the soup veggies left in the bowl as he’s 7 - new rule and it’s working. He does normally likes those veggies when they are outside of soup... _____________ Thank you guys for the suggestions!

He’s got it mostly, it’s just not as perfect as it was. But yeah, I will try to get a referral through the ped as he has different things than my daughter and has had more sensory issues, most of them are much better and he’s even putting on his own socks now... Both kids have had selective mutism like issues, but his lasted a lot longer (it seems to run in our family.) He’s just a bit more quirky, but not enough for any doc so far to say we needed anything. I nursed him forever because of his texture issues made his diet limited and the doc was no help. Another doc said my daughters stomach issues were in her head (they weren’t - it was histamine intolerance) so I don’t expect much from them. I also have a call into the eye teaching college too as there’s some eye stuff that they were concerned about, but they graduated him from eye therapy last week.

It was through eye therapy so maybe it was enough for them but not enough to really get it...

Question: If your kid learned to do a good duck walk and pigeon walk so you stop practicing, but try again a month or two later and they have trouble again (better than the first time though) then was it not done long enough or is it normal to get into the flow again? Should we be practicing these things periodically once they get them? It seems like they should still be able to do it. But I did so much dancing that my body just imitates without much thought so I’m not sure if I’m just being too perfectionistic?