It's hard to cut around an object in the beginning. Two of my kid still have to circle the item they want to cut out, then cut on the line. Not sure why that is easier, but it is! :)

I could have written exactly these words! It gets much better with a preview! :)

We started doing it ahead of time b/c I was feeling bad for the other kids in our class. The teacher would point to a state and have the kids find it on their personal map, and my kids couldn't do it. Then she would say the state name and capital, and they couldn't quite repeat what she had said, so they would sit there and practice saying the words until they could get them right, even when everyone else was on to the next thing. So I kept trying to hurry them up, and they were irritated. Then they were to trace the outline of the state, and they would have lost the place on the map that had been pointed out 2 seconds before and couldn't find it again. It was just constant - everything they were supposed to do was a struggle. I felt like we were holding everyone else back, not to mention the frustration the tutor had to be feeling (though she never showed it). We don't pre-teach to mastery - just to the minimum needed to keep up with the other kids in class! But for my kids, the preview needed is hearing the week's songs like 100 times the day before. Until they see it on paper, they still won't know it, but at least they can keep up!

That's what we were running into. I don't want them to know it cold ahead of time, but at least to have been exposed helps a LOT. I wouldn't do it with a kid who was likely to say "oh I already know that" or interrupt the teacher or anything, but with a kid who needs that to keep up, absolutely. It really has done wonders for my kids' confidence to be able to easily follow along in class!

The stuff we use regularly is all on a rolling chart stand. Everything from a CD player to math manipulatives to white erase board and foam letters. That way I can roll it back out of the way so we don't have to look at it all the time!

We have our maps on the walls upstairs, and just take a quick break to run up when we need to reference them for more than a second. For quick glances, we use placemat maps.

Come up with a cutting activity that doesn't require a craft plan. I have a box full of old magazines, and anytime I need 10 minutes, I send them over to find something. "Let's make a Letter F page! Go find 5 things that start with F and cut them out!" A piece of copy paper & a glue stick and you are done! Words that start with "th", colors, people who are being kind, the 5 senses, etc. Truly anything you are studying, you can ask them to find examples in a magazine. We do it several times a week! :)

We have some learning challenges here too. I usually play the week's work on repeat the whole day before. So on Monday, we will listen to the Week 7 work a gazillion times. Then we have CC on Tuesday, so that is when they will *see* it for the first time, but they have heard it a lot before that. (Yes, I know you aren't supposed to introduce it yourself, but I found that going into it cold, they didn't get anything out of class.) On Wednesday at home, I re-introduce the work using the music and paper (maps, words, pictures, etc.). At that point, they get to add one piece of paper for each section to their "smarty pants notebook" - a notebook with all of their memory work in it. The notebook normally stays in the car to use while listening. They have one page per song. The pages are mostly from the CC filesharing website. On Wednesday in the car, we listen to everything we have learned previously up through the new stuff while following along in notebooks, and keep that up throughout the rest of the week. I don't know how we would do it without the car CD player!!

We do therapy appts four days a week. Ask at the front desk if there is a room you can use each week to homeschool in. Most have a consultation room that they are very nice about loaning. If you can get 45 minutes of school in during every therapy appt, it helps a lot. My kids have backpacks that they carry to every appt that have all their supplies - small white-erase board, markers, pencils, crayons, etc. I take the main stuff in a huge Land's End bag. We listen to the CC memory work in the car ALL THE TIME. I have "smarty-pants books" (notebooks with the info printed off) in the car, and if they can't recite the info, they are expected to be following along. Too late for this year, but for next year - I LOVE the way our director schedules. We start back to CC when public schools go back - mid-August. We go for 6 weeks, then have a week off. We then do another 6 weeks, and then have a LONG break from mid-November through early January. Another 6 weeks off, then a week break, then the last 6 weeks. So the break is always in sight!

Does it have to be copywork? My kids are in OT, and the therapist is constantly harping about how for handstrengthening, every kid needs to be using Playdough EVERY SINGLE DAY and cutting stuff out with scissors EVERY SINGLE DAY.

It makes me feel SOOO much better to hear someone else admit this!!! I have 4 kids going through it right now. We are doing group lessons. The leader of our local homeschool group was admonishing me today for not doing separate lessons with each kid rather than holding two back to keep the 4 together in one lesson each day. But truly, if I had to double the amount of time I spend teaching reading, I would poke my eyes out with a stick!

:iagree: My kids will eat a reasonable sized portion of anything when someone else serves it, b/c that is the polite thing to do when someone else has gone out of their way to prepare something for you!

DITTO!! I had two kids who did this consistently. Glasses led to patching the one eye b/c their brains had quit using the bad eye and only looking through the good one, so we had to patch the good one to avoid losing vision altogether in the bad one. Both are in vision therapy, and neither ever writes from right-to-left anymore. My third triplet is on the waiting list for VT, and she still does it frequently. Our opthamologist highly discouraged the VT. She patched, then basically said there wasn't anything else we could do. My kids could force their eyes to focus for a few minutes, long enough to pass an eye test, but couldn't sustain the focus. So you can guess what that does for learning to read! The opthamologist basically said there was nothing else that could be done and they would probably eventually be labeled dyslexic. Then she told me that VT was voodoo science by scam artists and a complete waste of money. Given the improvements I have seen, obviously I disagree with her!! We will keep seeing her to evaluate the health of the eye itself, but as for how the brain processes messages from the eye - I trust the developmental opthamologist.

We are adding ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!! CC with kindergarteners is a LOT. Thankfully, our location takes a week off after the first 6 weeks, so we didn't have CC today. We are reviewing the first 6 weeks heavily in hopes of catching up!

I bought art cards from the Core Knowledge Foundation. Nice size (8 1/2 x 11), nice heavy paper, and the best part - basic info about the painting, reason it was famous, questions to ask, etc. printed on the back!

Does he WANT to write? I thought it was best to wait, so I didn't instruct my young-4-year-old when she insisted on learning her letters. Now, she has approximations for every letter (like a circle with legs for an R) and does NOT want any instruction from me. I wish I had just taught her even though she was so young. Check out Handwriting Without Tears - they have a preschool level that is very gentle and yet gets them started correctly. In the meantime, do the prehandwriting work with him - playdough and cutting with scissors every single day for strength, coloring to get the hang of aiming and putting color where you want it, as well as pressure control, getting the pencil grasp right, etc. Make SURE that when he practices, he makes his circles counterclockwise - that is a HARD habit to break later!!

Didn't know there was a message feature - off to look...

I hadn't thought of adding sayings to our memory work - what a GREAT idea!!!

The board is AWESOME - you need one! Just be sure to put the question in small type on the top of what you want them to know ("tell me about Columbus" or "what are the parts of the nervous system" in small letters on top of the sheet that has the answer in large type). That way the kids can review each other rather than you having to be leading it! :)

THANKS!!!

In addition to these, there are books for each state by the same publisher. B is for Bagpipes: A Scotland Alphabet B is for Big Ben: An England Alphabet C is for Ciao: An Italy Alphabet D is for Dala Horse: A Nordic Countries Alphabet D is for Dancing Dragon: A China Alphabet D is for Down Under: An Australia Alphabet E is for Eiffel Tower: A France Alphabet K is for Kabuki: A Japan Alphabet M is for Maple: A Canadian Alphabet P is for Passport: A World Alphabet P is for Piñata: A Mexico Alphabet S is for Shamrock: A Ireland Alphabet T is for Taj Mahal: An Indian Alphabet A is for America: An American Alphabet N is for our Nation's Capital: A Washington, DC Alphabet W is for Windy City: A Chicago Alphabet A is for Algonquin: An Ontario Alphabet B is for Bluenose: A Nova Scotia Alphabet C is for Chinook: An Alberta Alphabet F is for Fiddlehead: A New Brunswick Alphabet G is for Golden Boy: A Manitoba Alphabet L is for Land of Living Skies: A Saskatchewan Alphabet P is for Puffin: A Newfoundland and Labrador Alphabet S is for Spirit Bear: A British Columbia Alphabet B is for Battle Cry: A Civil War Alphabet G is for Gladiator: An Ancient Rome Alphabet T is for Titanic: A Titanic Alphabet Z is for Zeus: A Greek Mythology Alphabet J is for Jack-O'-Lantern: A Halloween Alphabet P is for Pilgrim: A Thanksgiving Alphabet A is for Abraham: A Jewish Family Alphabet B is for Bookworm: A Library Alphabet D is for Democracy: A Citizens Alphabet D is for Drinking Gourd: An African-American Alphabet D is for Drum: A Native American Alphabet H is for Honor: A Military Family Alphabet M is for Mom: A Child's Alphabet M is for Mountie: An RCMP Alphabet S is for Scientists: A Discovery Alphabet S is for Story: A Writer's Alphabet T is for Teacher: A School Alphabet Z is for Zookeeper: A Zoo alphabet A is for Anaconda: A Rainforest Alphabet B is for Blue Planet: An Earth Science Alphabet D is for Dinosaur: A Prehistoric Alphabet G is for Galaxy: An Out of this World Alphabet I is for Idea: An Inventions Alphabet S is for Save the Planet: A How-to-Be Green Alphabet V is for Venus Flytrap: A Plant Alphabet W is for Waves: An Ocean Alphabet W is for Wind: A Weather Alphabet A is for Airplane: An Aviation Alphabet A isn't for Fox: An Isn't Alphabet F is for Friendship: A Quilt Alphabet G is for Gold Medal: An Olympics Alphabet M is for Masterpiece: An Art Alphabet M is for Melody: A Music Alphabet M is for Meow: A Cat Alphabet P is for Prairie Dog: A Prairie Alphabet R is for Rhyme: A Poetry Alphabet S is for S'mores: A Camping Alphabet S is for Smithsonian: America's Museum Alphabet V is for von Trapp: A Musical Family Alphabet W is for Woof: A Dog Alphabet Z is for Zamboni: A Hockey Alphabet

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Has anyone seen the Discover the World - Alphabet Books series? Any comments? I'm not finding many reviews. http://www.discovertheworldbooks.com/dtw/ They have names like "C is for Ciao: An Italy Alphabet" "S is for Shamrock; An Ireland Alphabet" "P is for Pinata: A Mexico Alphabet" "E is for Eiffel Tower: A France Alphabet" "T is for Taj Mahal: An India Alphabet" "D is for Dancing Dragon: A China Alphabet" There a bunch of them - I was wondering if they were worth the price as an addition to some of our readalouds. Thanks!

Our regular opthomologist was SOO annoyed with me! I took them in every 6 months for several years, and kept telling her that something was wrong (based on behaviors described above) and she would test them and tell me they were fine and to quit worrying. As if I was just being paranoid. I even asked her if VT might help and she told me it was unproven voodoo science. That unproven voodoo science has eliminated the head turning, helped the coloring IMMENSELY, and the two in therapy have spontaneously started reading since we started 3 months ago. And they trip and walk into things a LOT less! It's ridiculously expensive, but it is one of those things I would have forever wondered if we had shortchanged our kids if we hadn't done.

I have two kids in VT, and one on the waiting list. For the first two, it was VERY OBVIOUS they had problems. Weird head turning, so that one eye was facing toward the paper and the other was facing the ceiling to block the "bad eye" from seeing. Consistently coloring within 1/4 of the line but no closer. Walking into doorframes, tripping a lot, lots of trouble with hand-eye coordination, etc. What was really frustrating was that they kept passing the traditional opthamologist's eye exams. They are able to focus for a few minutes to pass her test - they just can't hold the focus for long. I had the other 2 kids screened recently just to ease my mind even though they have no issues that are noticeable. Our issues are genetic - my mom was labeled dyslexic, but displays the same symptoms as the two kids above. My youngest passed the test with flying colors. The third triplet is unbelievably unathletic, and as I watched the test, I could see exactly why she is so unathletic. I don't know if it is depth perception or hand-eye coordination or what, but I could tell watching the test that she had issues, so what the doctor reported didn't surprise me! #3 is on the waiting list for VT... I think if you have any reason to suspect an issue, you have to followup, just in case. Better to waste $400 than to miss something and find out later that you could have done something about it. And from what I have read, these problems often run in families, so if one has an issue, you may want to think about checking the others.