Ds is doing R&S preschool series. I flipped through his math workbook today and realize that we have just 10 days worth of lessons left and he will have completed the entire book (I set him 2 pages per day to do). This is phenomenal since he is mentally handicapped and his previous ps teacher had told us she couldn't get him to count to 10 consistantly (this was in October 2009) yet he is now starting to learn beginning addition and subtraction facts and is understanding what comes before and after certain numbers. :D We still have about 6 weeks before we take a 2 week break then start our summer lessons and I have no idea what to do. I don't want to lose the time and have him begin to forget what he's learned but I don't want to start into the next math book yet (we're continuing with R&S math since it's definatly working for him). Any ideas on what to do? Just keep reviewing with him on what he's learned so far?

Thanks for your input! The books sound like something I could definately use with my kids.

How helpful have you found these books to be? Are they worth getting or don't waste my time & money?

I was in your shoes just a few short weeks ago when my precious grandma passed away. I wanted to be there so badly but couldn't go and she was just asking for her children. My mom had to go by herself, she said it was good I didn't go, I wouldn't want to see my grandma like that. She had been very sick and had wasted away til she no longer looked like my memaw. We got to see her last summer when she was still relatively well and could enjoy seeing her great-grandchildren. I will have those memories forever. It still hurst that I wasn't there. I'm sure she loves you dearly. :grouphug:

Both my ds's have used Boardmaker in public school and it works well with them, especially my son w/down syndrome. I have some Boardmaker picture cards at home left from when he was in preschool and started using them with him today during our lessons. Things went much smoother and now I'm kicking myself that I haven't been using them all along. :tongue_smilie: With both boys at home starting this summer, I know I will need this a lot, plus their baby sister has speech delays and it certainly couldn't hurt to start using it with her, too. During my research, I found out there are 2 other companies/brands that have these types of products. I'm curious if there's any major differences or if they are all pretty much the same. The all look the same to me. :) I just wish this stuff wasn't so darn expensive!!

I ran into this with my son, he uses Goodnights now (he's 63 lbs and uses the L-XL size). Pull Ups/Easy Ups go to a size 4T-5T. If you need something more absorbent, you may have to go to adult diapers in juvenille sizes. You can go to a medical supply store and see what they have. I have searched the internet from one end to the other to see what's out there and the industry pretty much jumps to adult diapers when you max out the baby diaper sizes. Good luck and I hope you find what you need.:001_smile:

My 20 month old is in speech therapy. Her next appt is tomorrow and I'm going to sit down with her therapist and have her tell me what I need to do at home (she has mentioned before reading with my dd a lot, pointing to things in the pictures and naming them then having dd repeat the words). Also my cousin is an SLP and she's going to give me additional exercises for all 3 of my kids (all of them have various speech delays/issues). Whatever I learn, I will be very happy to pass on. :001_smile:

My son is HFA. He has several repetitive behaviors, a lot of difficulty in social situations, very little control of his emotions, he has "rages" (an example is he will become so overwhelmed and overstimulated that he will go in his room, scream/rant/shout/cry and tear his room apart. After he calms down, he really has no idea what he's done), major anxiety issues, easily frustrated, moderate to severe speech delay, difficulty with eye contact, obsessive compulsive, hyperactive, attention dificiency, sensory processing disorder, difficulty adjusting to change, sleep disorder, and these are the main issues for him. His official diagnosis is classic autism-high functioning. I wanted to agree with Reya that IQ is very difficult to establish in kids with ASD. The psychologist who performed ds's IQ test cautioned us to take the results with a grain of salt because kids with autism are difficult to test accurately. IQ tests are not set up for kids with autism and can score kids with ASD with a low IQ when they may be highly intellegent. I read a story of a young lady with non-verbal autism. She was considered to have low intellegence as a youngster. As an adult, she has completed 2 master's degrees. My ds was scored with a low-average score, but every teacher he has had will tell you he is not of low intellegence (he is blowing away his current ps teacher with his math, science and art skills).

ADHD is very common in families. My dh has adult ADD, our son w/autism also has ADHD symptoms, my brother has ADHD and his dd has ADHD, I've not been officially dx but believe I have it as well. I know several families that have more than 1 child with ADHD/ADD and additional family members with it as well. So far we only have the 1 child that has been dx with the symptoms (autism and ADHD/ADD tend to go hand in hand, plus many ADHD symptoms are typical autism symptoms, too). Our dd is too young but we will be watching her closely.

Glad you were able to find a solution!

Yep, I have problems too. My mom was having major problems just trying to get into her email and ended up switching to gmail.

Yup I live in eastern WA, too, and I also had never seen them before living here. Mothersweets, maybe we should join up and go looking for those iggah socialists together? :lol:

That is fantastic! Keep up the great work!:D

Our state just started implementing full day kindergarten. They started it in the schools in the poorest neighborhoods in each district first and are supposed to be expanding it to all schools eventually. Our school district is flat broke and I have no idea how they will be paying for it, but at this point there's been no talk of parents paying money out of pocket for it. Wouldn't suprise me if this is something they eventually start doing, though.

Drives my dad up the wall everytime someone criticizes homeschooling over "socialization". Lately everytime he sees another story on the news about someone being bullied until they do something drastic, a huge brawl errupts at a school, someone starts waving a gun around the school, etc., he starts yelling "yep, that right there is the kind of socialization every kid in the world needs. Every single reason why I do not want my grandkids in public school anymore." Our younger ds's 2nd grade teacher made a big issue at the first parent-teacher conferrence about soicalization for homeschooling. Total change at the second conferrence, suddenly he's agreeing that public school socializtion is not all it's cracked up to be, especially for developmentally disabled kids.

So glad to hear that baby Josie is getting to go home!

How neat! I may have to get that one, all 3 of my kids have speech delays. Thank you for sharing!

My stupid cousin forced her husband to move out so she can relive her party girl days. Her husband is an awesome guy and primarily takes care of their 3 kids. He's living with my parents and me and dh are also helping him out as he has nothing but his clothes. His dd is 7yo and she told me her teacher is wanting her to read more chapter books. And yes, her mother won't buy her books, only toys. So K is reading The Babysitters Club series and she really likes it, I'm going to get her some of these, I find them all over at the thrift shops all the time. I see other books, too, but I have no idea if they are any good or not. I have boys, I have no idea what is good for girls, lol!:tongue_smilie: Thanks so much!

LOL, that's exactly what I meant. :) My ds could care less if the work is hard or easy, he just plain doesn't want to do it. He tries to do what I call "the cuteness factor", he really cranks up the "cute" and tries to charm his way out of doing stuff. It's worked so well at ps, he can't figure out why it doesn't work with me, lol! Um, it's called mommy is pretty immune to it and has learned your sneaky little tricks, bub. ;) I love him and he really is too darn cute and adorable for his own good. And yes, the stubborness is such a pain! Dh works with developmentally disabled adults and has worked with several adults with down syndrome and he sees the same thing, stubborn as the day is long. But as you've seen, when they do finally learn to do something for themselves, they love it! My biggest struggle with ds right now is finding ways to make learning fun so he wants to learn and doesn't fight with me so much. He had a good day today and did really well (I got him to do 4 pages of his colors and shapes instead of the usual 2, that's a good day in my book! :D ), but who knows how he'll do tomorrow. ;) Update with your progress and your student's progress, it's nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of and find out about other programs I don't know about.

I'm a mom of a child with down syndrome. My little guy just turned 10. We've only been homeschooling him since this past November, so I have very little advice in what curriculum/methods to offer. I wish I could help you more but I'm still learning myself. I'm using the Rod and Staff preschool series with my ds and he's doing pretty darn well with it. I supplement with flash cards, educational games and LeapPad/Leapster. For my ds, it's been a matter of discovering his learning level and combining that with his interests and strengths. When he was in public school special ed preschool, this was what the teachers did and it worked wonders with him. He learned a lot and retained it. Thinking back to when ds was in preschool, I'm not too sure any of his preschool teachers used a particular reading program or math program at that point. I think they just focused more on the basics (ABCs, 123s, rote counting, pre-reading skills, etc.) The last reading program ds used before we withdrew him was the Edmark Reading Program http://www.donjohnston.com/products/edmark/index.html The biggest drawback to this one is it is horribly expensive. Even ds's former teacher had to borrow it from another teacher due to the expense. But, it did seem to be working with him. Another of ds's former public school teachers (who is my special ed mentor and dear friend) highly recommends this program for special ed students. The cost is the only reason I haven't been using it at all. My mentor also said the Explode the Code series is a very good one, too, that she has seen special ed students have success with. I plan to continue with Rod and Staff for math for now until ds has the skills needed for it, but when he's ready I have Mastering Mathematics ready to start with him and I will be using it next year with my younger ds (8yo) who has high-functioing autism. http://www.masterypublications.com/ They also have writing and language arts programs. Another math program that ds has used and had success with is TouchMath. Like Edmark, it's a very pricey program. But it's a good one. I have seen this one go at pretty affordable prices on eBay. If you haven't checked it out yet, go to Woodbine House http://www.woodbinehouse.com/ They have a series of books for teaching children with down syndrome, everything from fine motor skills to reading to math. I have the books for teaching fine motor skills and reading and they are both very good resources. The reading book has an appendix of different reading programs the author recommends (including Edmark). I, too, have been frustrated by the lack of a curriculum geared specifically for children with down syndrome or any developmental disorders really. I'm not sure why, either, with so many more children with developmental disorders being homeschooled now. Above all, lots of patience and lots of love. I have to be very careful not to push my ds too hard or expect too much out of him. I'm focusing more this year on learning how he learns and making the curriculum fit him rather than the other way around. His previous ps teacher worked so hard to make him fit the curriculum that it really created a huge mess and did a lot of damage that we are still working to undo. My ds is also incredibly stubborn, sneaky and clever. He knows way more than he lets on and has learned over the last 2 years how to "play stupid" to get out of having to work hard. He's getting better, though. ;) I also have to make myself be aware of his limits, knowing that there is a point where he will max out his learning potential. It's a sad fact, but true. That doesn't mean I will stop teaching him, it just means that he's already pre-programmed to reach a specific learning level and that's as far as he will really be able to go. Our biggest goal for him is to make learning fun, help him learn as much as he can and help him have a fantastic life.:001_smile: Good luck with your work and I hope I've been able to help.:)

I appreciate everyone's input. I will sit down with her and have a discussion about what was said. I want to hear what she said for myself. I don't look forward to it, but I know having to defend the decision to homeschool is unfortunately part of making that decision in the first place. Like some of you have said, my biggest fear is that she will contact CPS about this. I don't think she would, but that is a reality. Dh got rather riled up when I told him this, his response was "bring it on, I'd really like them to try to find something. We aren't doing anything wrong and they'll see that." We don't live in a small area, but are limited to providers due to insurance. And the way ds's sessions go, I meet with her for about 10-15 mins, then she works with ds 1-on-1 for about 30 mins, then she meets with me for another 5 mins to go over what she worked on with ds and to schedule the next appt. I agree with the point made about how her working with ds 1-on-1 is working well and and using that point to explain our position on homeschooling ds. In fact, they do have group sessions but she said ds is too young to benefit from it. Go figure. I believe she's also under the misunderstanding that ds would be totally isolated from the world, which he most certainly will not be. He already gets tons of "socialization" time outside of school plus we are looking into co-ops as well. The bottom line is I need to hear what she has to say and go from there. I will make it clear that this is our decision, one that we have not made lightly and have spent a lot of time discussing and praying about. If she can't respect that and agree that subject is off limits, then we will find someone else.

My younger ds (8) has high-functioning autism and is currently seeing a mental health counselor to help with the behavioral issues he has. The first visit I mentioned that my older ds is currently homeschooled and we plan to begin homeschooling our younger ds next school year. She didn't say anything, but it was pretty obvious by her body language and facial expression that homeschooling isn't something she approves of (whether just for special needs kids or all kids, I can't say). Ds's last session, dh took him so I could go to another appt. At the end of the session, dh mentioned that ds may not be going back to school after spring break (major issues going on at school). The therapist proceeded to tell dh that I didn't tell her we were considering homeschooling ds, it wasn't a good idea, that she was against it, something about ds not having adequate coping skills and something else and he needed to stay in public school. Dh wasn't exactly sure what she was saying, he was a bit taken aback. This also led to dh being upset with me, thinking I wasn't telling the therapist things she needs to know. I hadn't told her about not sending ds back after spring break as this was something dh and I had discussed in between appts, I hadn't had a chance to tell her yet. I really don't feel comfortable with this therapist now. She has been excellent with ds, but since ds works with her 1-on-1 w/o me or dh in the room, I'm concerned with what she might tell ds during the sessions. And I want to have her tell me what she said to dh. So, should I confront the therapist and see what she has to say and explain why we don't agree and try to get refocused on the issues ds has or just tell her this isn't working out and find someone else? And fwiw, I don't believe for one second that public school would help ds with his coping skills. That's total bunk. I was seriously bullied my entire public school years and my coping skills are crap thanks to it. I never really learned how to stand up for myself and still get pushed around to this day. I don't want that for my kids.

Absolutely precious! Makes me miss my little boy being a newborn. He was 5 lbs 6.5oz at birth (full term) and dropped to 4 lbs 11oz when we was released to go home. Hard to believe that he is now 65 lbs and going to turn 10 on Saturday! Yikes! :001_smile:

Any recommendations for one that you KNOW the recipes are good? My son has Celiac disease and besides the expense, I'm getting tired of only fixing him frozen g-free mac and cheese and g-free pizza. He's an extremely picky eater, a major carb addict, so that makes it very tricky to make something he'll eat. I'm determined to get him to start eating better foods. I know, good luck with that, right? ;) I don't want to blow money on a cookbook that the recipes aren't very good, so if anyone can help me with this I will gladly appreciate it!:001_smile:

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