Yes, he can be constipated even if he goes daily. Do you have e-reader? I got the Potty book on kindle. There are other things that the book mentions that can cause potty "accidents", but constipation is the main one. My DS sometimes makes the same subtraction mistakes, but I'm pretty sure it's because he's just not focusing on what he's doing.

I have the VP guides for some of their 2nd grade lit (Baby Island, Railway Children, & Pinocchio). I don't remember anything particularly religious about them. However, I hated them because they contain no vocabulary and only surface level comprehension questions. Blech. In the end, I had to read all three of those books myself and make my own vocabulary lists. (Why did I pay $12 for a lit guide?) Also, for "The Railway Children" in particular, I found the beautiful aspects of some of the character qualities expressed in the book were things I wanted to discuss with my DD, and of course, the VP guides were useless for this. I know these aren't books on your list, and I'm not sure if the VP guides are better for other books. But, in short, I hated them. I like the format of the MP guides much better. I'm currently using their guide for "Little House in the Big Woods" with my DS7. Again I don't notice anything particularly religious, but then again I haven't delved much into the activities, so I'm not sure what's in those sections.

We had an OK day with the whiteboard today. I'm going to stick with it and see how it goes. In other news, I've read the bulk of the relevant chapters in the "It's No Accident" book. Oh boy. I'm still processing... :) That would all be for another thread.

Thank you for the replies. I've been to the point of tears over the struggles with my DS, and regardless of what the real issue is, something just has to change. I'll answer a few questions: We just did the basic Woodcock Johnson--math, reading, spelling, capitalization/punctuation. What are the other subtests and what information can I get from them? Curriculum: New American Cursive, Explorer's Bible Study, FLL 2, WWE 2, AAS, Prima Latina, and Singapore Math 2. He's also been doing Evan-Moor's Daily Paragraph Editing for the past few weeks and really enjoys that. It's been a great way to reinforce what we do in grammar. He's even recognized a few misspelled words here and there....not that he can correct them, but at least he knows they're wrong! I read science (Apologia) over lunch and TOG History selections in the afternoon. He does his independent reading in the afternoon. His writing is pretty much limited to what he does in spelling and WWE2. Putting lots of words on paper is not something he does easily. Working on a whiteboard is a good idea and I'm going to do that this week with spelling. It's worth a shot! Singapore Math is a much better fit for him than R&S, if for any reason, because it has substantially fewer problems. However, I hate the way it's arranged and I feel there isn't adequate review. I'm just crabby about it, although he doesn't hate it. Maybe I'll try 100% hand-holding this week during math and see if I can skip some problems. Maybe he would like the whiteboard for this as well. I think it's worth thinking "outside the box" for other math activities or another curriculum. I would like to have something figured out soon, as I don't want to do a lot of flip-flopping in math. Maybe I should just speed up in math? I'll admit that I'm scared of screwing it up. He would love to do anything on the computer, but he doesn't always walk away nicely...and we also have the pants-wetting issue that is amplified with any kind of screen time. So I have to tread carefully. He does have some Snap Circuits, and he LOVES them! I would be open to similar suggestions of things that would engage him like this. I'm very interested in the "It's No Accident" book....I'm so tired of dealing with this.....it would be so much easier (for me, that is) if he cared about it.....Also, I'm tired of treating the symptom of constipation rather than the cause. Switching him to almond milk did make a difference, but it hasn't solved the problem, and I still don't know the root cause. I would think it has to lie in his diet, but I don't really know where to start. Thanks again....I just want things to change...I'm tired of butting heads with my son and our relationship being defined by that. :crying:

May I answer this for my child while we're waiting on Moonlight to rejoin the conversation? It's been weighing very heavy on me for the last few days. Sorry if it's long..... First of all I wouldn't describe my DS 7 as hyperactive or unable to pay attention. I think his activity level is probably appropriate for a boy his age. He is able to pay attention and focus on what he likes, and can do so to the point of tuning out everything else. (Maybe that's what hyperfocus is.) I would describe him as fidgety, easily distracted, oblivious, and unmotivated. This is what I see. He has to be repeatedly told what he's supposed to be doing because less than 10 seconds after I've said it he's distracted by something else to the point that he has no idea what I said. This is the number one behavior issue we have with him. In his schoolwork his problem areas are spelling and math....and for different reasons. Spelling does not come easily for him. He seems to have little visual memory of how words look. He automatically spells purely phonetically without even giving it a thought. We just finished AAS 2, although I have to constantly review. He knows the rules, but he doesn't automatically apply them. I'm not all that concerned about that right now, but I am concerned about his focus during spelling. Only a small fraction of the time does he have his "spelling hat" on, so to speak, and he does well. Most of the time, however, one of two things happens. Either he's making no effort at all and he falls back to his phonetic spelling automatically...OR he starts to spell a word, gets to the point where he needs to make a decision (say whether to use K or CK), and then checks out. He's fiddling with an eraser (usually tearing off bits of it and destroying it...obliviously) or sticking his pencil in the binding of his notebook, etc. I have to snap him out of it, and he has no idea what word he was even spelling. I have to constantly repeat spelling words, sometimes up to 3 times. He has "checked out" to the point that it has actually frightened me at times, and I know that he is not hearing me even though I'm sitting three feet from him. Sometimes I'll have him stand up and do 10 jumping jacks, and that can be helpful at times. In math....he understands math very well....He surprises me at how quickly he grasps mathematical concepts. The problem is that he just doesn't DO math. He checks out and does the same things he does in spelling. He fiddles with whatever he can find and becomes oblivious to what is going on around him. Very RARELY can I walk away from him and leave him to complete his math. We battled all last year, and we've battled all this year. In the past he's done R&S with some Singapore thrown in. Now he's just on Singapore because I thought all the problems in R&S were causing the issue. We still have problems. He just goes into another world and just doesn't do it. This really showed itself last year when he did the Woodcock Johnson test near the end of 1st grade. I actually sat across from him during the first part of the test, but then I had to walk away because it was driving me crazy. The first part of the math section was doing problems until he didn't know how to do them anymore. It isn't timed. He was focused on the first row of problems, and then he gets to a problem (something like 4-3) and I watch him glance over the booklet, start looking around the room, etc. Maybe a full minute later, he came back and answered the problem. That's when I left. I have no idea how many more problems he did or if he stopped earlier than he should have, but his score was a GE of 1.8. The other math parts were fluency (which is 3 minutes timed), and applied problems (done orally). He scored a GE of 2.8 on applied problems, and 1.0 on math fluency. The administrator said that he just wouldn't do it. She kept reminding him that this was a timed test and she even gave him an extra minute. He was checked out. It's not that he does his other subjects diligently and without distraction, but the distraction manifests itself mainly in spelling and math. As far as the rest of school is concerned, here is what he is good at. Reading (probably at a 4th grade level or so), narration, memory work (hasn't always been good, but he has improved dramatically) and (surprisingly) dictation. I really thought dictation in WWE2 would be difficult for him because I have to spell every other word for him, but he has actually done quite well with holding the info in his head. He can also listen to me read aloud if it's a book he really likes. I would say he came close to "hyperfocusing" when I read "A Wrinkle in Time." And here's another thing that I'm wondering could be due to some attention problem. He has always struggled with chronic constipation since he was an infant. We've done the miralax (still doing that) and the fiber thing....I've taken him off cow's milk. But he is constantly wetting his pants. Now I know this is primarily due to the constipation. But....this can happen up 4 times a day. He doesn't care about it (probably because he's a boy). But I'm really starting to think he's completely oblivious that it's even happening. I can say, "Your pants are wet," and I get a surprised look. It's even worse if he's doing something that he's REALLY focused on, such as TV or video games. I GREATLY limit video games with him and this is one reason. And forget any handheld gaming device. This past Christmas my mother made the mistake of letting him sit and play games on her kindle fire. He completely soaked his pants and the couch....and he did nothing about this until he was approached by my mother wondering why the couch was wet. He seemed to be completely oblivious. I don't see how, but..... Anyways, that's my story. Sorry it was so long. I welcome your thoughts.

:bigear: I'm wondering the same thing about my 7 yr old DS.

My oldest DD started Prima Latina in 2nd and now is doing great in First Form Latin in 4th. My DS is doing Prima Latina this year (2nd), and while he's got the vocabulary down (lots of review), grammar doesn't click as well. My plan next year is to start Latina Christiana I but be prepared to go at a slower pace as needed. I may even have to do it over 2 years. He probably would have done better with Prima Latina in 3rd.

I've only used OPGTR, and it's worked so far for 3 of my children. I also supplement with ETC. For each of them, I started when I felt they had good phonemic awareness (They could hear letter sounds in words.). My oldest DD was 3.5 and my two boys were closer to 4. My youngest DD will be 4 next month and currently has little phonemic awareness. So I'm not sure when she will be ready. For all of them we worked a great deal with a white board and magnadoodle in the beginning because they had an aversion to reading straight from the book. Once they could tackle a Bob Book, I threw those in as a reward for reading directly from the book. Once we got to the VCE lessons, I started them on Sonlight Grade 1 readers. And then we just went from there, doing a lesson (or part of a lesson at times) and reading some from a Sonlight book.....5 days a week. My DS5 just finished the silent letter lessons and is currently on r-controlled vowels. Now my youngest may throw me for a loop. Right now we're doing http://www.teachyourmonstertoread.com/, which is just an exercise in phonemic awareness and snuggling with Mommy on the couch. It's "puter" time, as she calls it. :)

It SO depends on the child. My oldest is a natural speller and frankly could have gotten by with even a burlap-sack type of spelling program. We just started level 7 a few weeks ago and only do spelling twice a week. Also, she's never had a problem writing several sentences at once. My 7 year old DS is completely different. We do spelling every day, and I have to constantly review. He knows the rules, but he doesn't automatically apply them. Throughout Level 2, we usually completed a step in one week. Some exceptions were the aw/au and ace/ice words. We just started Level 3 last week, and we're not through the review step yet. I have a few index cards with sample words from many of the steps in Levels 1 and 2. Right now I'm giving him 15 or so review words and then three sentences (for step 1). I'm expecting the steps in Level 3 to take more time for him.

I don't know about the short sound, but the "Great Vowel Shift" in England during the 15th-16th centuries (roughly) mostly affected long vowels. For example, "name" was once pronounced with the /a/ in "father". The change to the long "a" happened during the Great Vowel Shift. That's really more than I know!

3rd Grade: Math: Singapore 3 and maybe some R&S 3 Language Arts: WWE 3, FLL 3, AAS 3, CLE Reading 3, EM Daily Paragraph Editing (maybe-it's been useful this year) Penmanship: MP New American Cursive 2 Latin: Latina Christiana I Geography: Maps, Charts, & Graphs and MP States/Capitals Literature: may add some MP lit guides With siblings: History/Literature/Bible: TOG Year 1 Science: Science in the Ancient World Art/Music: Harmony Fine Arts Extras: Cub Scouts, Soccer, Basketball (winter), piano

We are currently reading "A Wrinkle in Time." We just finished "It's a Jungle Out There" by Ron Snell for our Geomissions-Latin America class.

My kids all liked Calvert's Discoveries in Music. It's not even close to being free, though! I have an older version of it called Melody Lane that I bought used on VHS.

Reading and spelling are two different skills. We use All About Spelling, but I've also heard good things about Apples & Pears and Spalding.

Since the Extra Practice book was mentioned, can someone tell me if it is arranged by chapters like Intensive Practice?

:iagree: This. As much as I would like to do something different with my youngest DD, I've taught three of my children to read with a used copy of OPGTR. I will only look into other options like AAR if that doesn't work for her.

We'll finish up AAS 7 sometime in the fall. After that, we're done with spelling. I think it's common to move on to vocabulary, but we're using Latin and some literature study for vocabulary, so we won't be doing anything formal.

Sherlock is always good. I just watched the first episode in the Endeavour series the other day and thought it was really good. I'm also a Doc Martin fan.

I wouldn't get too overwhelmed by trying to do all subjects right now, especially since you're starting from scratch. Math, reading, and writing are the most important. I would get those squared away before I even thought about history, science, music, etc. Also, I wouldn't worry about vocabulary for a 2nd grader. We use separate programs for language arts, so I can't comment on all-in-one language arts programs. CLE's language arts is grammar, spelling, & penmenship, but I have no experience with it. And I'm not sure if you want a secular or religious curriculum. For writing we use Writing With Ease, which focuses on copywork, narration, and dictation. If you have a reluctant writer, it might be a good place to start.

It's possible for them to know the capitalization and punctuation rules but still not be automatic in applying them. My DS7 is like that. I just had him start Evan Moor's Daily Paragraph Editing to give him another way of paying attention to grammar. He had no clue when we first started it, but now, just into week 2, he's been able to find most errors on his own. It's just another way of hammering it in, I guess, and I think it will produce some positive results.

Mine have always self-corrected to the right sound if they get it wrong the first time. The correct sound produces a word that they know. Although "thin" and "then" can be a little tricky.

Genius! :lol:

My 9.5 year old is 10/12 in clothes and 3 in shoes.

I would be buried in the pile of books/mail on the bar.

My 2nd grade DS does copywork, dictation, and narration in WWE. Sometimes in history or science, he'll do a notebook page. I'll ask him to tell me what he remembers, and he'll give me one or two sentences. I write them down, and he copies them.