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RobinF

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Posts posted by RobinF

  1. I have had two horrendous hair cuts in my life. The first one when I was 14 and the girl cut my bangs to shorter than one inch on one side. My hair was straight at the time and it stuck strait up. It was horrid and my mother cried when we got to the car (after she chewed the girl and the manager out). The second one was right before a friends wedding. My regular hairstylist gave me a mullet. It was horrible and the poor girl fixing our hair for the wedding had a time getting mine to look like anything. So if it is any consolation, while you may not love your hair, it is still long enough to be worked with. I think it is cute but I can understand you not liking it also. I hate it when they cut my hair shorter than I want. It is actually a phobia of mine. ;-)

  2. Ds has a dx of dysgraphia. During OT yesterday he told his therapist that he didn't think the letters t and h were similar when working on the lower case cursive letters. I think she was trying to get him to see that both letters started the same way. She told dh that this concerned her. I am trying to figure out if it is something we need to be concerned with or not. Ideas why this would be an issue?

  3. If you are planning to use TWTM, I would consider getting the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia and Science Encyclopedia. My boys love them. Also you might consider some fun series books like Brian P. Cleary's Words are Categorical series. If you know that you want to use Explode the Code (or any workbooks), I would go ahead and buy them. Buy your handwriting workbooks and consider buying StartWrite CD to use to make copywork and handwriting sheets. I would definitely invest in some fun preschool manipulatives (check out Timberdoodle or Rainbow Resource).

  4. There is a really good article on SWB site about dysgraphia and how to help a child. Let me find the link.

     

    I agree that we practice handwriting separately from other subjects. I scribe for many things. For math, we work problems together. I write the answers but he has to show me where to write the numbers and tell me what numbers to write. So that i know he understands the concepts.

     

    I may be the lone dissenter but I don't like HWT with tears at all for a child with dysgraphia. I have no clinical "proof" but what I have seen (I have used HWT with all four of my boys) is that my one who has dysgraphia struggles more and I think the problem is that by emphasizing all the uppercase letters first it imprints those in their mind and they are easier to write but with a child with dysgraphia this is hard to overcome and I find that his default in writing (automatic writing without thinking) will be a lot more capital letters with easy lower case letters thrown in. I wish that we had started with Getty Dubay (which I have switched all my boys too). The writing is easier to move to cursive (which helps with reversals) and I just like the way that they introduce the letters better. All of that is just my opinion.

     

    We are currently in OT which we just started. We are also working on typing and we practice using the Diane Craft's Writing 8 exercises. I actually think the fluidity of the Writing 8 helps with the automatic flow of writing.

     

    Adding links...

     

    Here is my pinterest board with handwriting and dysgraphia links.

     

    http://pinterest.com/timbosbeautiful/language-arts-penmanship/

     

    Article by Karen Hollis on WTM site.

     

    http://www.welltrainedmind.com/guest-post-karen-hollis-on-working-with-the-dysgraphic-child/

  5. We have moved and my dh is a church planter/pastor so we have moved and basically "started" a new job from home and while it can be done it is hard and take a while to find your footing with just the move much less with everything else on your plate. We were already homeschooling but it was still hard to find a new normal with school. I agree that you might want to find something either just the basics or computer based.

  6. There are a lot of coloring pages but there are also suggestions for activities. I think it is worth it for the discussion guide and if you add the activities that is a bonus. This week my boys are going to play a game related to what they study and do the maps. Also I find it helpful because I have an older child and he reads the passages from Kingfisher that are recommended in the AG.

  7. I won't get excited until it actually happens. They had the same song and dance a few years ago. The were saying 9th grade in 1-1 1/2 years. This was my oldest's 5th grade year. I put oldest dd in Calvert's 6th grade and shortly thereafter they weren't moving forward with high school again and were recommending the international Connection's Academy to all their "graduates" from 8th grade. The price has skyrocketed in just 4 years and is about to skyrocket again. I got the verticy catalog this week b/c we were looking just for ds with dysgraphia to use Calvert as our state does not have a charter school and we are not eligible for financial aid through Calvert. The pricing insert showed that the prices are good only through January 31 and then are increasing by 250+ for each level.

    That has kind of been the norm for the past few years to have a $150 to $250 increase for each program. I am excited for those that can afford it or are offered it through charter.

    If it ever became available to me through charter, I would jump at the chance. We couldn't afford K12 without our charter. We went with K12 b/c of the high school options. I will keep an eye on Calvert though. I wonder if the verticy will go through high school?

    I am excited for you, but I wouldn't be too optimistic until it gets closer and I wouldn't change my plans until I see the 9th grade show up for sell. They have done this before and then backed out of it again after saying in 12 more months and so on. Just to warn you if you didn't know they said the same thing a few years ago and then backed out of having a high school. I know there were several people who regretted banking on Calvert to have a high school when they said previously and then being sent towards a different expensive program.

     

     

    I talked with them about the possibility of enrolling our ds who has a dysgraphia dx and a dx from the local ISD of a LD in written expression in Verticy as a charter which is available in our state but was told he wasn't eligible for "free" charter enrollment because we homeschool and he wasn't coming from a public school but that we could purchase the curriculum. Really infuriated me because they would receive money from the school district if he enrolled in the charter but they were more concerned with their profit margin. I could probably push the issue if I wanted to but it isn't worth it to me. I told them to discontinue calling me about their programs.

  8. Julie, thank you for that list! You know I didn't think about the books being in order. My oldest son read most of them but my younger ones haven't taken the same interest in them. I kind of thought if I used them for reading when we were doing SOTW that might help, but I might just want them to start reading them on their own. hmmm

  9. My oldest son got his first playmobil set when he was 4. He is now 13 and we have 3 more boys. They play with either LEGOs and/or Playmobil every day. They make elaborate sets and battles with them. I will agree that many of the larger pieces (castle and ships) are harder to keep together but I find that the boys just make adjustments and new sets this way.

     

    If we had a daughter I would totally invest in a castle or playmobil doll house. For the younger boys (about 2-3) we even had some playmobil 123 that they loved.

  10. If you can find a health food store that has turmeric (the spice) in capsules, I would give her those. Also you can take turmeric and mix it either antibiotic ointment or cocoanut oil and put that topically on the spots. We have effectively treated staph/impetigo with turmeric. The only warning is that used topically it will stain things yellow so be aware if she is sleeping on something you don't want stained.

  11. We made the decision for one of our boys this year that he wouldn't play soccer. He was upset with us at the time but we decided that we didn't want to put him in a sport that he couldn't be successful at (even if he wasn't great). Instead we are doing horseback riding lessons and he is loving it. I am glad we made the choice that we did.

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