I don't think it's abnormal, and I don't know if I would call those tantrums. I guess that 's what they are! But I think of a tantrum as the screaming foot stomping toy throwing episode at age 3 and 4. :) My 7 year old might have times where he cries in frustration. He doesn't throw things anymore. :) At 6 he wouldn't have a meltdown in public, though. He'd save it for at home. ETA I read some responses on this page and I read your OP again and maybe what you have is more intense than what I imagined. No, mine did not scream and take 10 minutes to calm down by 6. And definitely not scream in a class. My preschooler wouldn't even do that. I agree that he needs some new strategies for calming himself down.

We will be finishing level 3 this year (second grader) and like it a lot. I was frustrated a few months ago because I worried it wasn't working and I was doing something wrong. But whatever the reason--the foundation laid by AAS, +/- my son grew up a little bit and began to spell better on his own ;) we are happy. We don't need to use the tiles very much anymore, and also don't need as much review as we once did, so it could be we don't need a program as intense as AAS after all. But I already have level 4 and we will use it. I think it's a great program.

"Gifted" in ps seems to encompass every child who is even slightly above average, and a lot of ps these days from my perspective have dumbed-down curriculum, so I guess I don't worry if it says it is for gifted if I am using it at home. Having only perused the Island materials and not used them yet, though, I can see a few areas where they might be considered more for gifted kids. For one, the repetition is not there. For another, the writing assignments seem advanced to me. It seems more assumed that kids will "get" certain things and not have to be instructed step by step.

Frances Hodgson Burnett-- The Secret Garden, Little Princess, Little Lord Fauntleroy. Has he tried the Little House books? A few of them might be boyish enough. George McDonald-- The Princess and the Goblin, Princess and Curdiem At the Back of the North Wind. There are lots more..I'm just trying to think of books that aren't too mature for 7.

He agreed to it at first because I really wanted to do it, and because we both thought we could provide an excellent education ourselves. But now we continue it for educational, social, and religious reasons, along with family relationships, which is inter-related with all of the above. :)

I would just get one first to see if you like the style. We have 3 of them. Our experience is that on each CD, there are 3 or 4 songs that we like and are easily singable and catchy with great instrumentals. The rest, IMO, suffer from some composition problems. That's a nice way of saying the melodies sort of wander around and aren't easy to remember or sing along with. We do like them for the songs we enjoy, and it is neat to hear the whole family playing and singing together. Just don't count on learning the verses from these songs--it hasn't worked that way here.

I got the basic MCT homeschool package to look at to start in the summer (3rd grade). I really, really like what I'm seeing. The only question I have is about writing. Do you all use, or plan to use, the writing assignments in the sentence book? All of them, or only some of them? Or is it better to just have them use the skills gained in the book, to continue writing narrations for science, history and lit.? Do any of you use WWE3 or 4 along with the complete Island level? I have joined the yahoo group and do plan to explore it, but thought I'd ask here first since I recognize more people that post here and figure it is more likely you all are working with a neoclassical/WTM framework. Thank you!

A real piano is very different in feel. And you want a good piano, not necessarily brand new, but one that has been kept inside (not in someone's dusty storage area for a few years) AND maintained with regular tunings and repairs.

I thought this was called "Motherhood". :D I remember my own mom doing this and us kids finishing her sentences. Now the same thing happens to me and my kids finish my sentences! :D Thirty years later and my mom seems to be cured now that she gets a full night's sleep and isn't trying to manage the needs of several children plus a household all at once!

I look forward to reading this-thanks!

I prefer field trips with either just our family, or one or two others. I have only been on a couple field trips with a very large group. They were not as good of an experience; it was like my elementary school class field trips as a kid--we were rushed through, no time to ask questions. But the worst part was that the children were not orderly because the moms were all busy socializing and paying no attention to their children or the trip. I was embarassed when the tour guides kept asking people to quiet down and it was the moms that were the ones that wouldn't shush. Oh yeah, and the not being able to take younger kids is often a problem for us, too. I do understand the reason for that, though, so it's okay.

This is what I was going to say. I have parents that let me make my own decisions and succeed or fail on my own, once I had graduated from high school. But relatives and friends I have known who had parents that tried to control (even though the parents probably didn't see themselves as controlling), attempting to manipulative their relationships, career choices, lifestyle decisions, etc., tended to eventually want to get far away from these parents. I'm going to choose to do what my mom did, let my kids go at 18, hard as it is, and keep my mouth shut. ;) Something I'm not naturally good at! I have seen over and over again the results of doing it the other way, and it isn't what I want for my family. ETA: I think having household rules for a child still living at home is different. I absolutely think an adult child living at home should be able to not bring bf/gf overnight, and contribute to the household. But they shouldn't have to report their whereabouts and activities to mom and dad in the same way they did at 16, as long as they are generally responsible.

It seems like this thread could end up hurting some feelings. For some the $ will be worth it, whatever the price. Some people have a huge budget for hs, others not.

The MMR booster that is supposed to be given between age 4-6 can definitely be given later. I was in college when they started giving the boosters, before that it was only one shot. So they started giving MMR even to all of the college students because they found that two doses were needed for protection. If you are going to vaccinate anyway what would be the benefit to waiting until age 3 or 4 for your 2 year old? In that time he will just be vulnerable. Have you seen the CDC catchup schedule? It's easy to find by googling. There are a few shots (Hib and I think Prevnar) that are no longer given at all past preschool age, and are not even required for school entry, only daycare and pre-K, because they tend not to affect older children as severely.

The newest edition of WTM does hint that the WWE curriculum is for more reluctant writers. My son is doing WWE2 and isn't having trouble with any of it, so I'm deciding whether to continue with WWE or use a program that encompasses a little bit more than WWE does. We also do more narrations than the one in WWE, and I do think that this is suggested in TWTM as well. By the end of this year (second grade) I plan to have ds writing more of these narrations himself, as per TWTM. As OhElizabeth said, it's all in there.

I have both and prefer Vos. I like the writing better, and I also feel that Egermeier's takes more liberty with the stories. Though, both of them do that to some extent, but there were a few places where I really noticed it with Egermeier's and disagreed with it.

All About Spelling uses word banks to help students remember which words use particular spellings. Basically it is visual memory. There isn't a rule AFAIK to determine which of several ways to spell a particular sound, at least there isn't in many cases. You could easily make your own word banks using the pages from a book such as ABC's and All Their Tricks.

If it were me I'd get a second opinion. We have had a similar experience with a pediatric dentist, saying there were many cavities when other dentists didn't find nearly that many (and several years later evenwithdigital xrays, there are still no cavities in this child's molars which supposedly back then were bad enough to all need caps!). I also had the experience as an adult, of being told I needed a small filling, neglecting to do it because of life circumstances, and then going back a year later and being told my mouth was clean (this was 15 years ago and I have never had any fillings as an adult). So, I think there either some greedy dentists out there, OR, maybe, the definition of "cavity" is not as definitive as we have been led to believe. It makes me wonder if it depends on their training. I have read that very miniscule caries can actually heal on their own, so it may be that some dentists are trying to fill every little thing, that there really are defects there,but that it isn't actually necessary to fill them.

:iagree: That said, many of the suggestions would be the same whether or not there is ADD, and at this age it probably doesn't matter, except that it might help you see your child differently. I'd suggest reading books by Edward Hallowell to see if it fits.

aren't chincoteague and assateague fairly close to there? I was planning to go there if I had gone to TWTM conference in the spring.

Ds7 has -finished Singapore 2A and started 2B -halfway through WWE and FLL2 -spelling has improved slowly but surely -is writing more on his own -looking forward to starting cursive -learned a lot about earth science -1/3 through SOTW2, and learned a lot of medieval British history on the side -enjoying reading more! this is huge

Be careful with threatening public school, lol. This worked at 6 the couple of times I got mad and said it, but this year, on bad days, ds tells me he would like to try school. And truthfully, that isn't an option for our family at this time. Private schools would be our choice, and you can't generally just drop into one of those mid-year. :P And we are committed to homeschooling, and I told him that. That we will make it work, this is his job, yada yada. So I can't really threaten him with school anymore, lol. Now I talk more about preparing him for life, and how his life will be enhanced by learning to work diligently, learning to write well, the habit of doing his best, etc. But at 4 and 6 that definitely did not help, though I tried!

And I'm quietly embarrassed that i didn't know 'tut tut' is current slang. I always think of it as something Mary Poppins would say, lol! Sheesh, I'm gettin old. I think it's lame when parents like the dad in the OP, try to act like teens. I get staying in touch, but no need to act just like the kids.

:lol: Thanks for the laugh.

There is also occasional abuse that occurs at the hands of public school teachers. There was a lot in the news about that in the past couple of years.