I can answer about what I plan to do with my fourth grader next year. He has used A Reason for Handwriting for two years and did the "Transition" book this year, which teaches cursive. He does a fair job with cursive. I will have him work through one more book in that series to cement the cursive and then I don't plan to have him do any more handwriting. His fine motor skills aren't great so I haven't required too much cursive from him beyond his handwriting page this year. I may require a bit more next year.

Sonlight has offered a time payment option for a while now, but now the plan is being offered with no interest for your choice of 3 or 6 months, on a purchase of $399 or more with 25% down. They evidently do a credit check. Here is a link: http://www.sonlight.com/timepayments.html This might help some folks spread out the cost of the program. :001_smile:

You seem to have a wonderful grasp of the finer points of this situation and are doing an excellent job of balancing everyone's needs. :grouphug:

In my opinion, she is too young to go from a 6 hour supervised visit to a weekend visit. I think all visitations for now should be supervised by you or by a trusted person of your choosing. It is very important to continue to nurture the relationship between dd and her bio family (dad, grandma,e tc) and I admire you for doing so. I think it is fine to pay for 1/2 of a hotel room but I would have all visitation be supervised. It is also fine to expect the bio dad to come to you for visitation. My professional background is in the area of foster care/adoption, fwiw.

amazon.com often has the lowest price and if you spend over $25, you get free shipping if the items are coming from amazon, not private sellers.

My babies came as follows: first - 37 1/2 weeks, spontaneous second - 39 weeks, 2 days, induced third - 38 1/2 weeks, spontaneous fourth - 39 weeks, 5 days, spontaneous My first baby came earlier than the rest, as you can see.

Very interesting! Thanks for sharing.:001_smile:

We use SL for readers, readalouds and history. We don't like the SL LA so we use FLL and WWE, but you can use any LA program you like. You also choose any math program you like, as well. I have combined my two boys in the history Cores for two years and plan to continue. They each have their own readers. It is a lot of reading, but I cut down on my part of this by having dh read the longer chapter book (usually historical fiction) at night before bed. I do the rest. I don't find it to be an overly long reading time, perhaps 30 minutes for me to read aloud four days a week. (That is for history and our own Bible program.) SL is very teacher-intensive, but I expect to be very involved in these younger years. If I had to read every single thing by myself, I might skip books. Dh got behind in his reading at night time and it took them forever to get through Johnny Tremain. I told him he would be reading all summer if he didn't pick up the pace.:tongue_smilie: The books do have an emotional tug, but I haven't found anything that upsets my kids. Some of the deep significance likely goes over their heads. They do ask questions at times, and I answer them honestly. Life was hard for certain groups of people at certain times in history, and they know this. I am more likely to have an emotional reaction than they are. I remember the books I loved and remember from my childhood, including "Where the Red Fern Grows". I stayed up all night reading it when I was a young elementary age child because of the emotional draw...and I cried at the end.

Interesting to see all the different possibilities. For my particular family, adding the younger into the older's Core has worked specifically because of the younger one's advanced skills in all areas, as well as maturity. He is not always able to sit still and listen to every word of the read alouds and that doesn't bother me. He gets most of it and that is good enough.:001_smile:

This exactly. I suspect that she is getting glutened without realizing it. If she eats Quaker Oats (cross contaminated with wheat) or drinks Rice Dream rice milk (labeled gluten free but containing a small amount which is enough to trigger damage in some people) or eating some of the Chex cereals which are labeled gluten free but cause reactions in some celiacs. Is she eating dairy? Dairy causes issues for many people while the villi are healing. It sounds like it took her a while to commit to the gluten free lifestyle so damage was continuing to be done. She is probably deficient on many nutrients. It will take time, but her best bet is to stick to a whole foods diet, read like crazy on celiac.com and make sure she is gluten (and dairy) free for a long period of time in order to heal. Also, it is very hard to eat out without risking cross contamination. We do it now, but for someone who is evidently so sensitive, she should probably avoid it. She also needs to check her personal care products like shampoos, deoderant, lotions, cosmetics, routine medications, vitamins...all of these can contain gluten. I didn't read all of the replies so I hope I am not repeating someone else. Good luck to your friend - it can be done.:001_smile:

I combine my two boys using SL and they are the same ages as your oldest two. I plan to do it until it doesn't work anymore. The only "tricky" thing to me is that the younger is on readers that don't correlate with the history curriculum, which is one of SL's strengths (the readers, read alouds and history are all connected). However, it struck me today that my younger son is only a year behind his older brother with the readers because he is an advanced reader. Next year he will be doing the Core 3 readers that his brother read this year (only on the regular schedule, whereas his brother was on the advanced schedule), while we do Core 4 history. At some point in the future, though, they may be able to share the readers of whatever Core we are using. It was a lightbulb moment for me. I am very blessed in that the younger one is so sharp that in terms of schooling, it is almost like having two kids at the same grade/ability level. Not sure if that helps anyone but me, but it truly was a lightbulb moment!:tongue_smilie:

I got something called "Pop Bottle Science" from Barnes and Noble. Some experiments require a little adult help, but the boys have done several by themselves.

God bless you for doing this and hopefully your church is just operating out of ignorance. Their methods go against mainstream medical advice for promoting successful breastfeeding and when I took the class, the videos advocated letting a three week old baby cry it out at night because the parents didn't want to feed the baby at night. I was taught to hit my nine month old baby on the hand if she "disobeyed" and touched something that I told her not to. Their method caused so much hurt to me and my first child. Thankfully, I chose differently for the three which followed and have no regrets. I'm sorry that this is not helpful information for you, but I wanted to offer my support to you. My heart still hurts almost 15 years later from what my first baby and I went through and I hope others can be spared that.

I wouldn't accept money that would cause a rift in the relationship. The relationship will always trump my need for money unless we are going without food or something critical.

I just smile and say, "Homeschooling is what works for our family at this point. It's good that there are so many educational options available." That makes it a personal choice and leaves little to object to or debate. I never felt guilty so much as I felt sometimes that people took my decision to homeschool as a condemnation of their decision to send to public/private school.

I work one afternoon and evening a week as a psychotherapist. I also facilitate a Grief Recovery group at my church, though this is a volunteer job.

I agree that if you use your own LA program, the Cores are good for the "grade" stated. We use our own LA and my third grader (who is a very good reader) used the advanced Core 3 readers. It stretched him, as it was a lot of reading, but he did fine with it. The LA drowned him so we ditched it and switched. That said, I have used one Core for both of my boys for two years, always choosing the older one's Core. My younger boy is very mature and super bright so he can keep up just fine with the subject matter and the readalouds. We will do the same for next year. Neither of my boys has been overly bothered by the upsetting subject matter in the SL books, though I cried through half of the "Missionary stories with the Millers" chapters last year in Core 2. It was my oldest ds's favorite book and he always asked to read more of the stories.:001_smile:

That would probably depend very much on your kids. You might have better "luck" doing the Core 4 (or 3+4, if you want to do the entire US history in one year) and including the 2nd grader, who would have his own readers. I have successfully combined my two boys (who are two years apart in age) in the older one's core for history and read alouds, which has been so nice for all of us. We curl up on the couch together for read alouds and the boys are in heaven. I will be doing Core 4 with my 2nd grader and 4th grader next year.:001_smile:

Love the older ones but I think it "jumped the shark" recently...dh and I agree that the ones with Erin as the secretary are just not as funny. I wonder if the writers have changed. (I also have a crush on Jim, of which my husband is aware.:tongue_smilie:)

I am not a hands-on activity type of mom. I am a bust at science experiments (mostly because no one can gain anything from the ones that never leave the box...). Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and I have accepted that my strength is not ever likely to be doing hands-on activities. However, I am very good at other things. My kids are happy. They are learning well and are "bookish" like me. I bought one of my kids who seems to be wired for hands on activities a little simple science experiment kit that he and his brother can do mostly by themselves. I have no guilt about this. They also play outside on our several acres of land, including in the mud when it rains, digging up all manner of fossils, collecting bugs and generally being "hands on". They are thriving. We use Sonlight. :D

If it were me, I believe I would choose the core based on the 7 year old's level of understanding and have the younger tag along as she can, since she really is very young. My three hs'ed students have a five year gap between oldest and youngest, and I have combined my two boys for two years of history cores. Next year, because the youngest is 4 and not even truly kindy age, I will not be doing separate Core with her - she can tag along with the boys on the history Core. I don't know if that is helpful to you or not, but it sounds like your 7 year old might need a bit more.

We use the workbook, not the text. We are using it as a non consumable and will be passing it down to the youngers. It is super easy to just use any lined paper for the narration/copywork/dictation.

I went to Sally's Beauty Supply and bought something called "Callous away" or something similar. It dissolves the dead skin on your heels and then you can pumice it off. Regular pumice stones did nothing for me. I'm sure you could use this in conjunction with the Ped Egg.

:grouphug:You are very inspiring to me. Thank you.:grouphug:

We use SL for history, readalouds and readers. We love it! Glad you found that it works for you. :001_smile: