I have wide in front and narrow in back and crocs & flip flops work for me. It's really hard to find nice shoes. Sometimes men's are better. When I was a teen I had a pair of boys black patent lace ups that I found used which were very comfortable. No good advice for brands, etc. But I feel your pain. I used to get huge blisters on my heels as a kid as the shoes would flop up and down when I was walking. UGH. Those heel pads never stayed in at all. One idea, I think european shoes are sometimes wider in from and narrower in back, so you might try to see if that would work. It doesn't for me, but her feet may be more "normal" than mine! Also, things without heels, even in winter, like clogs might be good. Or higher lace-up boots, like hiking boots seem to work, but I have to get men's or wide.

My husband takes it as a liquid (tincture from HerbPharm) or tea sometimes with no side effects. I have tried it and it didn't work well for me, but I hate things that make me too sleepy. I have had good luck with chamomile or an herb blend with chamomile from bulk herbs. I don't know that that'd be strong enough for your son, though. Have you tried white willow bark for the pain? I have used it for pain that ibu, etc didn't touch.

My dyslexics did well with this. http://www.soundfoundations.co.uk/en_US/ The stories are crazy so I'd skip them unless you are teaching an older kid. The flashcards and notched card along with the mastery/overlearning were priceless!

I made my then 3 yo daughter a binder full of tracing letters and other fun things, like mazes and put each page in a plastic sleeve so she could do the book over and over and over! She loved it and even though she is 6 now, I think she still misses it, LOL. She had a purple binder and a purple dry erase marker. I found most of the worksheets on the website ABC Jesus Loves Me. http://www.abcjesuslovesme.com/ideas1/handwriting/learning-to-write http://www.abcjesuslovesme.com/visual-perception/350-worksheets

I was also going to suggest Kumon. The favorites in my house have been the craft books - cutting, folding and gluing - to make a toy.

Just to introduce science, you might try some videos. My kids like Wild Kratts, The Cat in the Hat (knows a lot about that) and The Magic School Bus. These are all on Netflix. I am using ES Intro to Science with my 6 yo next year, but I think it's just a bunch of fun experiments. ( I don't have it in hand yet, so I can't tell you anything for sure!) I also plan on going through Sonlight's Core A Science, which has much more reading. One nice think about SL is the experiment videos. I have already had big brother help her do some of the experiments after they watched the video and it is so great that they can accomplish that without help.

My son could read easy chapter books. His first was the Sword in the Tree, but he knew tons of phonics before starting DB, so this information may not be helpful to you! We never did B or C because he didn't need them. He did need A, and even though it was painful to get through, it was oh so worth it!

SL is not CM, but it is literature-based. Also, CM is not a book list, but a method, so there really isn't a book list for you to use to compare with TOG. Have you tried reading some of the articles at Simply Charlotte Mason or on the Ambleside Online website? If you are interested in CM my recommendation would be to spend some time at SCM first since it's a more approachable site. :)

They have taught us the Bal-A-Vis-X exercises. The latest one is really hard for us to do, we keep losing our balls. It's 2 balls thrown across to the other person who is also throwing 2 balls. I find throw poorly when I am trying to also catch at pretty much the same time. I also haven't mastered the solo 2 ball bouncing thing! My son is better at that than I am. I will check out the Focus Moves and try to talk in more detail with the VT this week. They kind of act mysterious, which I am sure is not on purpose, but it's all old news to them and I kind of get the impression that most parents aren't as interested in the details. And we are not paying ahead. They do offer discounts, the more you pay upfront, the cheaper it is overall but we went with the pay as you go option. I totally want ds to get the full benefit of VT but at the same time the cost and time commitment are issues, too. Overall, I am so happy with how he is doing and it's great that finally someone was able to diagnose and help him! This office was the 3rd place we went which claimed to do VT, but now that I've seen what they do, I don't think the other ones were really doing VT at all.

Thanks, OneStep, that was something I hadn't thought about.

Hello! First of all, I have to say I am so happy that my son has finally been able to have VT. He has been going twice a week for 2 months and it has helped him a lot. No more headaches when reading and more patience are 2 positive benefits. He can also read small print and his handwriting come much easier. They have not sent anything new home, other than more complicated Bal-A-Vis-X exercises, for about a month. He has "goaled out" of many things, the Hart Chart, the Beads and String, etc, and I think he has progressed faster than they expected. In session, he is mostly just working on the computer programs to further work on his convergence and eye teaming, at least this is what I think the computer work is doing. I know it is still a bit of a struggle for him to keep his eyes working together at VT, but at home he seems to do fine. I am wondering if it is helpful to keep on going, and if the continued strengthening is needed. I also wonder if he is pretty much just doing computer stuff if that is something he can finish out at home. He does really enjoy the Bal-A-Vis-X and I know I can buy the book to go on with that. They predicted him needing 4-5 months and dh thinks they will drag things out just to keep getting paid. What do you think? How do you know when it is time to end VT...should I just go along with their expensive program? Now that he is in, I want him to get the full benefit, but I don't want to go unnecessarily.

I think MFW is more what you are looking for. Their forum has ideas for kids who are already reading and I think the science is more interesting. Each week has a new topic, like apples, or the sun, so grandma can grab extra books from the library, too, if you want more! I did MFW and kind of streamlined it for my 4/5 dd, but you could totally go the other way and expand, which would be fun. MFW is also easier to tweak, IMO, as I think it is easier to modify as you go to work at your child's level. But I personally find HOD's boxes stressful, so I may not be a good judge of tweakability in this case! :001_smile: And I think you would want it tweakable, so it could work for both of your kids.

If you find something, I'd love to have a link. I can't stand the current quality of loose leaf paper in the stores.

I think they would love Kipper.

I know you think this is a behavior thing, but my son was kind of like that with Spalding. He did very well with Dancing Bears, which is a different approach and obviously what that he needed! I have to say, if he acts frustrated, why would you assume he isn't? My son was, and I needed to show him the phonogram card in similar situations to what you described because he just couldn't pull out the spelling from being told the four sounds. BTW, Dancing Bears is excellent to stop the guessing!

Totally not pumpkins, but sometimes we use mashed carrots in place of pumpkins. My family loves carrot pie, LOL.

You know, I like to have a schedule for some reason, but never end up sticking to it. For example, we will be using SL P4/5 this year and so far have read Milly Molly Mandy chapter 1 FIVE times. Dd just wants to hear the same chapter a few time since she enjoyed it and I don't really see a reason to "force" her into SL's schedule. Plus, that book isn't scheduled until week 22 or something but she asked to read it first and having her interested and excited is the most important thing to me at this age.

OhE, the VT said she personally couldn't do a pre-exam screening until she was six, but we could take her to the doc and get a full exam if we wanted to right away. The practice has a VT place in town and the doc is in another town, with an office there. But he is the one who can diagnose before six. I'm sure the VT could, in reality, screen her, but the doc probably wants it that way. I hope that makes sense! Thanks for sharing your son's story, Lecka. I have decided to stop with AAR for now. I asked her if she wants to take a break and she does, and that's fine with me. After a few days I will do some things in a larger scale with her.

I posted a while ago about my son having a need for VT and his Dr's appointment is tomorrow. He is so excited. I hope he keeps feeling that way... Anyway, my dd has had vision issues IMHO since she was an infant. I took her to the eye doc before she was a year old, maybe six or nine months. They had me do some finger following exercises and six months late said she was fine. At three or four she had another exam and I was told she was far sighted, but dh and I both think she also has convergence problems. I am hoping to take her for a complete exam with this new doc who has the fantastic VT working in his clinic, but affording the exam & therapy is a problem. However, it is a priority and we are working on it. The VT can screen her once she turns six (in four months) but honestly, we are good with heading straight to the exam as we are pretty sure she needs VT. For now my question is about her homeschooling. She has begun to be unhappy when we work on her reading lessons. We have done six lessons in AAR 1 after finishing MFW K and she is not enjoying it and says that all the words are teeny tiny and hard to read. I am a bit worried about her spending too much time focusing on reading and having one of her eyes "turn off" like big brother's. or maybe its too late? Is that even something I can avoid at this point? If I had the money I would love to take her in with ds and get both of them seeing correctly, but assuming I can't do that right away, what would be the best course of action? We went the reading glasses route with ds, and I don't think it helped a bit! What helped him read was Dancing Bears and I've ordered Bear Necessities for her. I think the nice large font will be better for her. But again, I want to consider what's best for her vision, and not only focus on getting her reading. Thank you for reading my lengthy post and for any advice you'd like to share!

My 2e son has never been in school since preschool. He already didn't quite fit in. But I haven't really had to explain things to him because homeschooling takes so much of the pressure off, unless you personally put it on! I don't find I have to teach to his 2e strengths, I just get out of the way and try to find stuff to inspire him...science books, robotics kits, books on building, etc. He just needs time to pursue his talents. He is now 11 and can make inventions out of "trash" that are really cool. My favorite was a doorbell he made for his room that used parts of a toy sewing maching in a really cool way. Then he took it apart and soldered the wires into a new battery source for this airplane he is working on. It was all awesome except for the solder on the baking trays. Anyway, he would be dying in school. He is so delayed academically and it is hard to understand. Ever since he was little everyone has told me how smart he is, how gifted, what a genius and yet the child cannot remember things like how to correctly write the letters in his name. Sigh. Anyway, I think homeschooling will be a good choice for your son. He will not have to compare himself to all the other kids and he can learn at his own pace. Plus you already know you can do it, with all you are already doing with him. The other parts will take patience and just taking things one day at a time. And when you get really frustrated, just think about Tom Edison and the goose eggs.

I don't think you would need to get the TMs for those particular subjects. Of course, it never hurts, but if money is tight it'll be fine. If you look on the CLE website you can see sample pages of the books. Some people recommend going below reading level since the workbook tends to be in the hard side. If I were you I would just study the samples as much as possible to get a good idea of which one you want her to do. However, if you need her mostly independant I would suggest going to grade 1. It's not babyish at all. My son did Reading 1 when he was 8 or 9 and we found it appropriate and interesting even at an older age. At the time he read the stories easily but was nicely challenged by the LUs.

I have the TM and it suggests picking one paragraph for each student to read while practicing various read aloud skills, things like obeying punctuation and reading with appropriate emotion. I'm sure in a classroom you would read the entire story, but with just one kid, it would be just a snippet. I don't think you need to schedule it, there is a prompt in the LU on the second day of each story. As for the tests, it up to you! I think I will do some and skip some. It looks like a lot of the test is review of the verse for each story. We tend to not memorize those, so for my son, I might skip the test. I have to say, though, when I had my son skip the quizzes and tests in the last year of CLE reading we did, he was kind of confused! We have just started Reading 4 and I am not yet sure what I will assign. I will just see how it goes. I know for sure I will have him do the first quizzes, since they are something I think will help him. (I mean Quiz 1 in each LU.)

Phonics Pathways has a big section on that. You may be able to check it out at your library and just use it for a few weeks. I think there is also a game in the book to practice blending two letters that you can copy and play. But the easier thing might be to make a notched card and have her blend the first letters before you reveal the last.

The library in Palmer (which is the same system for Wasilla, and entire Valley) is terrible. I can only put three books on hold at once and the overdue fees are killer. There is certainly no way to make lists on the library website. I have been disappointed! And I have been too afraid to even attempt inter-library loan, LOL, but I'm not kidding. We lived in Anchorage some years ago and I didn't have any issues with the library, but that was pre-homeschooling. I did have a homeschooling friend who seemed happy with the library there. One options would be to pay for a card for the Anchorage library, and if you decide to go through a charter school for homeschooling, you will get approx. $2000 per year per kid, which you can use to buy books.

In between, but the kinds of books that ds is liable to treasure, so well worth reading. My ds recently read the entire Indian in the Cupboard Series and has Redwall on the shelf. I don't know if he'll read them because he kind of has the audiobooks memorized.