Aaaaauuugggghhhh!!!! I don't know!!!!! :willy_nilly: My 13 year old ds, (soon to be 14,) approaches high school age. I have some ideas on what to do, but his writing and spelling abilities frighten me. :eek: This morning in a grammar lesson, he had to create some sentences. He forgot to start the first sentence with a capital letter--AND he even forgot how to spell his twin sister's name. :( His twin sister is already working at high school level in language arts, and my ds is highly competitive and it's hard on him seeing his twin sister working ahead of him. He has finished Barton 10. He can read high school level material and do high school level math, but he can't communicate what he knows through his writing. Trying to get his writing and spelling skills up to grade level is like :banghead: . I'm not sure if he's ready for high school, but holding him back doesn't feel right either. This year was my first year homeschooling for high school. I pulled his older brother out of a private brick and mortar school during the school year. I didn't give them a chance to reject my youngest ds, but I know the private high school his older brothers attended wouldn't even admit him due to his poor writing skills and test scores. :( Enough sadness. I prefer to panic. :willy_nilly:

I voted "other". Here's why I didn't vote for the other choices: Option #1 is a type of co-op, but there are other types, such as the "fun type" where the classes are less formal. Option #2, the "fun activities" could be the focus of a co-op, but a co-op has some type of membership and participation requirements from the parents. Option #3 again, some type of membership and participation from parents seems essential to my understanding of co-ops. It sounds more like an informal school if the nothing is required of the parents except $. Option #4 Maybe I could have voted this way, but I opted for "other". "Co-op" is short for co-operative. Some type of co-operative parent participation is key to my understanding of co-op, whether the activities be formal academics or less formal play or some combination of play and academics. The only "fluidity" of membership in my understanding of co-op would be from a family checking it out for a day to determine they want to formally join the group. If the co-op offers classes, they are usually taught by parents OR the parents may occasionally arrange for outside instructors, BUT if there are too many outside instructors teaching formal academics, it starts to sound more like a school with an active PTA rather than a homeschool co-op. I've homeschooled for a dozen years now. For years, I participated in a small, informal co-op. Newer members and others coming to check out our group wanted more and more academic classes. ??? I joined looking for a way to get to know some other homeschooling families, but I don't really want other people teaching my children the core subjects. Some local homeschoolers I know have now organized into a "co-op" that looks far more like the start of a formal brick and mortar school to me. (My experience with private brick and mortar schools is that they often have some parents serving as members of the faculty.) It's not just that some of these "homeschool co-ops" don't look like co-ops to me, they also start to boarder on looking more like small private schools and less and less like homeschooling.

Our lighter load is three things a day: The Three R's Reading: what they read can vary day-to-day. It may be explicit phonics instruction or reading good literature for reading from a science or history book Writing: some type of writing where ink meets paper. It might be a handwriting lesson or a lesson from a composition book or an essay for history or literature. Arithmetic: One lesson from their math textbooks until the book's complete. Once that's done, 1-2 math pages from one of those all-encompassing curriculum books sold in stores everywhere. We've moved a variation of this past month for one of mine in high school. I require three things per day: math plus 2 other subjects, with those other two subjects rotating by the day or week. He may work those subjects more intensely each day, but I only ask him to do three things each day.

Best Crayon Picture Award in the Kindergarten Category Homeschooling Teacher with the Most Flexible Back in the House, (award goes to any of us who bend over backwards to make sure our children are learning something.) Miss Speller of the Year, (given for the most creative correct use of phonics in a word that's still spelled wrong.)

I hear you and sympathize, but the high cost of special education materials may just be as simple as supply and demand. Stick a "remediation" label on any item and most of the population won't want to even touch it, what less buy it. There's a large up-front cost for writing and printing any material. If you ever buy anything in bulk (like photos) you've probably noticed how the cost goes down significantly per item the more you buy. Same principles apply here. I'm grateful that there are people creating and publishing materials for children with dyslexia and other special needs. Most of them probably aren't in it for the money.

I've done portions of Visualizing and Verbalizing. Some was done out of sequence by me before I knew what I was suppose to do, :o , When we did get around to trying to implement the program the way it was intended, I ended up substituted another program based on similar concepts for the first part instead of using LMB's V&V materials. Earlier on our dyslexia journey, I picked up "Vanilla Vocabulary", which is one of the supplemental V&V books they offer. Without any training on V&V, we just went through the Vanilla Vocabulary book I, word by word for several months. My ds was third grade-ish age at the time and it was interesting to hear his understanding of words--particularly prepositions. I still remember one sentence he created using the word "across"--He sentence was, "Jesus died on a cross." Many of the vocabulary words duplicated with the Seeing Stars books we were also using at the time. We never finished that entire Vanilla Vocabulary book, but it and the Seeing Stars workbooks helped his vocabulary. * Eventually, I bought an old V&V manual and I was preparing for doing it with my middle children one summer, but then I discovered IdeaChain. IdeaChain is similar to the first parts of V&V, but IC has more scripting that what V&V had in the manual I had. (I believe LMB has since then added more step-by-step directions for tutors, but I was trying to do it from an earlier edition of the V&V manual that told tutors how to create their own materials.) The IC author offered phone support, and after speaking with her, I decided to use that program. IC covers visualizing words through sentences, while V&V continues from their onto paragraphs and more. I went with IC, (which was significantly less expensive that the V&V) and we finished it in less than a "semester". I very much liked that IC had a conclusion instead of continuing to provide more and more like V&V. The next "semester", I used some of V&V materials that take the imagery further into paragraphs. We picked up some of the V&V "Imagine That" books, (which I'd previously tried to do with one of mine before the training.) For the next few years, we used V&V's "See Time Fly" for history. (I supplemented, but it was V&V main history text and workbook for my child with dyslexia.) We used all that along with Barton. Barton was the mainstay of our dyslexia remediation over here. I discovered Lindamood-Bell materials thanks to Susan Barton referring us to LiPS. I wouldn't replace Barton with V&V, but I liked using some of the LMB materials as part of our homeschooling. (Edit to add: We also did more work specifically on prepositions in several ways. Something like "in the couch" vs. "on the couch" requires comprehension of the /i/ vs. /o/ sounds, plus then comprehension of position. Lips and Barton gets that started by helping to distinguish the vowels sounds correctly. Vanilla Vocabulary and Seeing Stars helped too with understanding the words and using them in a sentence. The program IdeaChain that we used also works with prepositions. Plus along, one summer every morning the kids and I did some fun songs with movements developed by an occupational therapist, Genevieve Jereb--and some of those songs worked with prepositions. We worked on them in more ways beyond that. Prepositions are usually such little words that difficult to visualize on their own, but they make all the difference in visualizing and communicating effectively!)

Prayers and condolences for you. Your blog touched me deeply. My oldest baby is a soldier.

Woo hoo! Congratulations on taking her through level 3!!! :)

Thanks for clarifying her age and grade level, as well as your desire to keep her options open for college even if you don't expect that she'll go. Given that, I'd move forward with Algebra, or review pre-algebra going at a her pace, using different materials. You say she gets it sometimes and other times doesn't, so I'd look for perhaps if she's missing some larger concept(s) of pre-algebra. Maybe there's something that she's missed that if she understood would help those areas where she struggles clique into place. She may have question such as, "How can letters be numbers?" Or in questions like "if y= x+2 and x is 2, what is y?" she might be wondering, "Where did they get the value of x?" I'd look for the unanswered questions that left her struggling with pre-algebra. She's on the spectrum, so think of areas in her particular use and understanding of language that might get in the way of these math concepts. As to finding different textbook, I've had to go on a quest to find an algebra program for my children that I liked. Seriously, we have a whole collection of algebra books here, including Teaching Textbooks, Saxon and more. Not every program works well for every person. Again for someone on the spectrum, it may be of particular importance that the material be explained in language and with images that she understands.

What age is she? Or maybe more to my point, how close to grade level is she working in math?

How disappointing--I still dislike my name. All of them.

Thank you for sharing! It's lovely how everything -including the ribbons - came together.

Focus on the mantle first, as that's usually a focal point in the room. While you'll probably want to paint or stain the wood, I'd start by trying art and accessories that you like. Displaying items takes a certain skill. Search for mantle displays you like and borrow ideas from there.

Nothing you've described couldn't be fixed by paint. It sounds like the problem is more that the house looks slightly dated rather than it being "traditional." Buy the furniture you like. Pier 1 has lots of furniture and accent pieces that could update the look.

Yes. For a period of time, we could survive by eating dandelion roots from our yard.

You appear to have created a shopping jam over at that website. We all want to see your mother-of-the-groom dress.

Lecka, I feel really old, having gone to public school kindergarten several decades ago. It was half-day kindergarten, and in those few hours away from home, my kindergarten time included a daily nap. We sang the alphabet song and worked with letters, in ways similar to what's in pre-school now. We didn't read stories--stories were read to us. There were no reading groups, no readers with CVC words--nothing of the sort! We did great art projects like making space-man helmets out of KF buckets, life-sized outlines of ourselves (I wore my favorite striped dress!), and repeated combinations of paint colors until the pretty colors all turns brown. We sang and played and did art projects. That was kindergarten. You, Elizabeth and the article described something far closer to my first grade experience. First grade--that was the FIRST place where we really worked on anything one would really consider academics. (Hence we used the word, "First".) Teachers first started formally teaching us to read in first grade, but it continued into second and even third grade. My memories of reading groups are from second grade. I have memories of my third grade teacher discussing "schwa" sounds. Absolutely nothing like reading groups or CVC readers used to happen in kindergarten.

Insecurity is my nemesis! I shared this article here on this forum because so many of you here know the struggles one of mine has faced with dyslexia. Sometimes early intervention is appropriate, and I know now to recognize the early signs of dyslexia. But, my dd 5 doesn't show signs of dyslexia--she shows signs of being 5 years old. My daughter was making progress in reading, BUT she didn't like it, and she said she didn't like school, so I pulled back on doing academics with her. Shortly after, another mom in my daughter's dance class (who has a child in public school kindergarten) shared what their doing for reading in her daughter's class. Then a short while later, I talked with another homeschool friend who has children of similar age, and her 4 year old is reading lots of words by sight. When I heard all that, I questioned my ability to teach kindergarten. But while some children are ready to read early, reading many words by sight is not a kindergarten skill. I know it's not!!!! Nevertheless, I question my child and myself. There's something wrong with schools when they've forgotten the meaning of the word "first"--as in "First Grade." And we as insecure homeschoolers can get caught up in the insanity of trying to push academics on children when those children should be busy developing other skills. Last year when doing pre-school, my youngest seemed quite bright. Then this last September, she started homeschool kindergarten, and low and behold, it turns out she's not ready for doing first and second grade work! She can read a few little words. She can count some and gets many of the general concepts, but tires quickly when doing math or just starts to get silly. She glued the pages of her math book together, making a great big mess when I was doing something besides sitting right next to her. And she wants me (or the others) to play games with her. She loves to sing and color. Instead of feeling defeated that she's not doing what some other children are doing in kindergarten, I should be rejoicing, because she can enjoy kindergarten the way kindergarten was meant to be. Go away, insecurity! My daughter is only five. She has many years ahead of her to do academics, but not much time left for that special magic of having only lived as many years as she has fingers on one hand.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/05/04/this-really-isnt-kindergarten-anymore/ This article left me feeling a whole lot better yesterday about how my five year old is doing over here in our home.

(Continued) As I was saying, solid dyslexia programs use a hands-on approach. You've made a lot of progress with him to have gotten him to his current reading level. Good job! I'm guessing you probably on your own found things that helped him experience hands-on learning. Not everyone with dyslexia has a poor memory for sight words, but many do. Some need to see a word 100-200+ times before they recognize a simple word. Fluency drills, which Oh E. mentioned earlier will likely be quite helpful. These are found in programs like Barton, and Lindamood-Bell has a program called Seeing Stars that might interest you too. But you can also create some fluency exercises using index cards for words he has to sound out when he's reading to you. And if you have any questions about if he really understands the meaning of those simple words, make sure he does. Many of the simple, common words in English are more abstract and can't be pictured in one's mind. (ie, it's hard to picture "the") and that can also get in theway of reading comprension for some.

I understand being hesitant to have a label assigned. My son's still never had a full neuropsych evaluation. We eventually got a diagnosis of dyslexia from our doctor after I'd worked with him for a couple of years using a reading program for dyslexia. If you are fairly certain of what the problem is and how to work with it, a diagnosis is a formality. I had hoped that my son's dyslexia would be remediated, and then the dyslexia would "go away." It didn't quite work like that. Along the way, I learned a lot more about dyslexia, dysgraphia (writing struggles that often accompany dyslexia but is a separate issue) and more. I'd suggest that you start with the tutor screening, the student screening at Barton Reading and Spelling. If your son can't pass the screen, you'll need to start with a different approach than if he can pass it. (My son initially failed a portion of the screen and so we did a different program first.) There's lots of other information about dyslexia over on Barton's website that you'd likely find both familiar and helpful. Solid dyslexia programs, like Barton and other Orton - Gillingham based ones, use a hands on approach.

What she said. I'd also suspect he has memory issues that go beyond dyslexia. There are various exercises that can be done to specifically help improve his memory separate from reading. Relating to reading with poor memory: drilling for fluency of common word, (in addition to all the other work for reading) is essential to helping their reading comprehension. Also, to help match up the images in his mind to the correct word, a program like "Visualizing and Verbalizing" might help. I'd suggest you look at all the Lindamood-Bell products to see what fits best at this time. They might be some resources to you could turn to in the future.

Okay, skip all the cupcakes stands. Another idea from Pinterest--"Naked Wedding Cake". You said in the op when speaking of baking it yourself, "If I could frost it properly, maybe." Naked Wedding cakes don't need all the frosting. They're layered, with frosting only exposed between the layers, then sprinkled with powdered sugar and decorated with flowers and/or fruit. They turned up in my search for "rustic wedding cakes". One was stacked in layers and used simple flowers, like baby's breath and strawberries. It looked like a beautiful strawberry shortcake, only much taller. It was simple and elegant. Since they are going with a barn wedding, a more rustic, (and not so perfectly perfect frosting) could work and it might make baking the cake yourself doable. But then the question would be how to find an oven and cake pans that far from home?

It took me years of marriage (and lots of frustration!) before I figured out these two keys to getting along with my MIL: #1--Let my husband be the one to primarily deal with his family, (especially true for any areas of conflict with his family.) #2--Don't assume that MIL really means everything she says. Some people's mental processing involves their mouths. More advise for the op: Let your MIL and FIL day dream while they're visiting you on vacation. That's a little bit of what vacations are for--to live in a fantasy for a short time and think, "Wouldn't it be nice if...." Plus, MIL and FIL seem to be involved in the daily care of their autistic son, whom the op says in paranoid and unlikely to ever be able to live on his own. They likely needs a mental break. Give them a bit of a break. Don't take everything MIL says while visiting you too seriously.

CUPCAKES!!!! Check out Pinterest for ideas about cupcakes for weddings!!! If you add the word "farm" or "rustic" to your "cupcake wedding" search, numerous great ideas pop up. There's one with galvanized steel trays layered to look like wedding cake tiers, with each tier having a different cupcake flavor. There's another with a tin can base and flowers, again stacked to be reminiscent of the tiers of a traditional wedding cake. Yet another stacks cupcakes on old wood logs, (some stacked in tiers, some not stacked but elevated on logs of varying heights) and another using what looks like wooden pallets. There's even one photo with cupcake trays stacked on an old wooden ladder. I like the ones with a small cake on top of all the cupcake layers best so there's a cake for the bride and groom to cut. Now I'm off the Pinterest to look at more cupcakes....