or blogs for that matter? non-specific to homeschooling, just general kid-management :) (I had a long afternoon due to a dr appt for one of them; I ended up having the other five with me and it wasn't pretty) Thanks in advance :)

I originally understood that she was saying "Oh my God" but not "God d-", though now that I look back at the OP I guess it could be both (I think there's a big difference between the two, though I realize that others might disagree, including OP):

Similar story here - and my mom is a former nun (i.e., extremely religious). In fact, I never realized there was an issue with the phrasing until I was well into adulthood and friends with people of other Christian faiths. I won't pretend to be any kind of expert on blasphemy (obviously LOL) but in the case of the teacher, it seems like the blasphemy is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak. That is, I doubt the teacher considers her words to be blasphemy. If I were in your shoes, I might consider either an in-person chat or an anonymous note offering some "education" on the subject, if that would make you feel better enough to not drop the class.

Thanks JudoMom! That helps! For anyone else interested, I just found more discussion here: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35109&highlight=saxon+prealgebra

Does Saxon pre-algebra come after 8/7 ? Or does 8/7 include any prealgebra? It's unclear to me from the Saxon website. (Not that we'll be using that, I'm just trying to predict, for no particular reason :), when dd will end up doing pre-algebra. This is her first year using Saxon. Her montessori teacher is using it as a supplement to montessori math. She's in 4th gr and her book is 6/5. The beginning looks easy for her but I assume that's just review.) Thanks for helping me satisfy my curiosity :)

12 years of hardwood in the kitchen here (five in 120 yr old house, 2 in 90 yr old house, 5 in current new-construction house). It's warmer and softer than tile. I like tile too, but only with radiant-floor heating. When our house was being built, I requested a special finish called Traffic. Normally it's for commercial establishments like restaurants. It's matte, unlike normal hardwood floor finish which is shiny, but it stands up to six kids pretty well. The floor people recommend adding a coat of finish every few years in between refinishing. After five years with Traffic, at this point I see NO need to either add a coat or refinish. It's hard to even imagine what my kids have done to this floor and it looks as good as ever. ETA: when considering a stain color for a hardwood floor, consider how the dirt/crumbs/lint will show on various light and dark shades. We have a medium oak color, and it does not show scratches or dirt (not bad for the Land of Crumbs)

Please, links would be much appreciated!! THank you!!! To the OP, it's worth doing something about it (ok, time for me to take my own advice!!!). My DH had a lisp for which he had speech therapy in high school - it never really got fixed right. He was just too old. I can tell it's still there, our kids' speech therapist could tell it was still there, and it's a little too apparent when he's had a few drinks :tongue_smilie:. I've considered trying to get him to fix it better now, because it would help him professionally. Two of my kids (9 y.o. dd and 4 y.o. ds) have a lisp issue. I've been procrastinating because I'm so darn sick of speech therapy - one of my 7 y.o. ds's is still in speech therapy, and I have little room for additional after-school activities. But I guess I need a little kick in the head here.

I agree that there is a certain rhythm to the words when read aloud. And it most certainly rhymes, at least in my opinion. I could recite it right here and now. I have recited it while putting kids to bed, but without the book. For some reason that makes them laugh. In the great green room there was a telephone and a red balloon and a picture of the cow jumping over the moon and there were three little bears sitting on chairs and two little kittens and a pair of mittens ... When I first read it with my oldest, it seemed a little awkward. But having read it aloud probably hundreds of times, it's comforting. Maybe it's an acquired taste??

I started wearing a bra around 11 or 12 but didn't get my period until 14 (but then, I have PCOS). I was already in high school. Thanks for the book recommendations - I'll look into them. DD is 9 and is in a multi-age classroom (gr 4-6) and has been commenting with wide-eyed interest that some girls wear bras in her class. I'm not ready for any of this. All I can hope is that dd is late like me ;)

Bumping up this old post for some advice. How do I clean the garage? I am petrified of the virus. So far I'm spraying the droppings with 4-to-1 water/bleach solution, picking them up with a paper towel (wearing rubber gloves) and throwing away the paper towels. There are droppings in hard to reach places (behind heavy shelves, for example) that I'm not sure how to reach. If I pour bleach and water all over the floor and hose it out, will that clean the germs off the floor? This is a big garage :glare:. The culprit is dead - biggest mouse I ever saw (and no, it's not a rat. at least I finally found it; let's just say that DH will be buying a new bag for the lawnmower). This is a field mouse. In addition to hanta virus, I just read that they can have fleas carrying the plague - I know that the prarie dogs in the ranch over yonder are suspected of carrying the plague. But I assume the fleas would be located on the dead mouse and in the nest, rather than on the garage floor? Should I be worried about fleas being in corners of the garage? Thanks! Oddly, it's not the animal itself that grosses me out, it's the germs. But I am really grossed out.

Just thinking out loud, but I'd say it would be a "disorder" if the diagnosis was made according to the criteria listed in the DSM. (and yes, I do take issue with what I contend is poor drafting of such criteria in some cases, possibly resulting in more diagnoses of disorders for things that once were merely differences. But certain "treatments" are rarely covered by insurance unless they are responding to diagnoses listed in the DSM) Perhaps one aspect of "treatment" for your child is different teaching?

yes

OP, you might find this article interesting http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_15800152 A district placing students in classrooms based on achievement levels rather than ages (not going well yet - I wonder what the details really are)

My two cents on this is that if she's really struggling with material that would be widely viewed as being age-appropriate, I'd probably want to rule out LDs. Third grade is a common time for LDs to show up as the level of work involved increases to a point where earlier compensation strategies begin to fail.

I agree with this and similar comments. It seems to me that there's a lost year in there somewhere. (And I can probably construct an argument that such a lost year has a significant cost in the long run.) I have to wonder whether an "average" kid is better off in a red-shirted environment, with a K-is-the-new-first-grade curriculum, graduating at 19. Does he really have greater knowledge or thinking ability at graduation than he would have if he had started K "on time" with a more age-appropriate K curriculum, graduating at 18? OP, as you noted, your neighborhood school is the extreme as far as red-shirting. Are they using district standards or state standards for K-1st? Where we live, the standards starting out seem fairly age-appropriate (start K familiar with letters and being able to write one's name, though they take all comers, no matter the background) and there is minimal red-shirting (probably less than 10%, last time I looked). I have some late bloomers who barely met even these standards, and as we get into the meat of elementary school (my kids are at a charter school), they are whizzing past the state standards, which here seem rather low to me for the latter half of elementary school. I wonder what the standards at the OP's neighborhood school are like around 4-5-6 grade. Or middle school.

Is the speed, etc. of the hardware of a PC comparable to a Mac? As in, when surfing the internet, etc.? That's all we really need, plus a little word processing/spreadsheet use. I guess I'm just cheap. Yesterday I ordered a Dell laptop, the first new computer dedicated to the kids (to share between the 3 older ones; I got tired of sharing mine :D). I spent $600 for a 320GB hard drive and 4GB RAM (plus some new kind of chip and more than a year of antiviral, fwiw). A similar hardware configuration over on the Apple website, the 320 and 4, starts at $1500. I won't say I haven't had any problems with my current Dell laptop (two years old) but it has Windows Vista, which is known for being buggy. (Here's hoping the new one with Windows 7 is better.) At any rate, my "old" one is running fine at the moment - it's actually really nice. I'm probably going to be buying another "kid" computer in three years or so, mostly because I'll be tired of listening to them fight over it and the 3 younger kids will be getting into it by then as well (my kids go to school so there's less time to divvy up, unless I start homeschooling some of them by then ;)) I admit I haven't used a Mac since college, 20 yrs ago. Having recently started 3 of the kids on EPGY for math as a supplement to what they're doing at school (which isn't much at the moment, unfortunately), part of me wonders if I'd need a computer for each of them if we homeschooled. I love not being the "main" teacher of a topic, and they are so much more interested in things if it comes on the computer (sure it's a gimmick but I'll use it as far as it'll take me :lol:) ETA: the more I think about it, it seems that I can get two or two and a half PC laptops for the same price as one similar Mac laptop. With a big family, that would be a huge difference if I were buying more than one at a time (and one day I probably will be doing just that) ETA again: what I really struggle with more than anything else lately is the Linksys router. Can anyone recommend a simple, *user-friendly* wireless router?

Just fyi, most opthamologists do not do VT. Who did the screening? I'd look for a provider at www.covd.org. You could get a second opinion from such a provider as well.

How is it that we have the same dd. Mine is 9.5 y.o. and is sweet as can be, except to me and some of her brothers. She's a good kid at heart - a very, very, very good kid. But the tone that comes out of her mouth lately - sometimes all I can do is stare at her and think to myself, I can't believe you just said that to me. I'm guessing it's some sort of pre-teen thing, except that she and I have been butting heads since the day she was born. I have been literally trying to explain to her why she can't speak that way to me. It's as if she doesn't hear herself. I'm still surprised when it happens because I would never have dreamed of talking back to my own mother. And yet, like your dd, she can be extremely huggy. I don't have any advice other than positive attention. Have you ever looked into the Nurtured Heart approach? I read through the book only about halfway and never got around to implementation, but it sounded like it could be a good approach for this. This sounds like pretty good advice!

My two cents: if you think she might be gifted, but her academic achievement is not on par with what you might expect from a gifted student, I'd be on the lookout for LDs. In such a case, I'd consider pursuing testing only with a tester who often deals with gifted and especially twice-exceptional kids. When three of my kids were tested last year, their issues were so unique that our tester had to have significant expertise in teasing the issues out of the various subtest scores. Having had one of the kids tested with more than one psych over the years, I was very impressed with our latest tester. We are pursuing therapy for issues that were discovered as a result of the testing - if we had not done the testing, I would not have had a clue. Also, a couple of books I can recommend: - Webb's "Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children" - the Eides' "The Mislabeled Child" Good luck! :)

I would have them double-check on the PS speech therapy - it would be unusual for a student to be put in LD classes just in order to receive speech therapy - that doesn't make sense to me. Alot depends on the district, but something about the "least restrictive environment" is what comes to mind. Perhaps what they meant was that she'd have to be pulled from her classes temporarily - for the 30 minute therapy session or whatever it is - on the days she has speech therapy? I would also consider a private evaluation.

I agree with all of the above posters - if you are concerned, there is simply no reason not to have the school district do an evaluation for speech and fine motor. No need for labels! (What label were you concerned about?) Once you have professional evaluations from a speech therapist and OT in hand, you'll know what you are dealing with in these areas. If he did have a speech delay, that is NOT something I would delay addressing. (I know about procrastination in this area, having had 3 kids go through speech therapy and younger siblings barely making the cut of normal milestones.) But you won't know until you call and ask - go to your school district's website and look up the number for the special ed department - they'll help you from there. Maybe they'll even say he sounds fine! FWIW, I have a very late bloomer (no words until 3 y.o.) who is doing great, a couple grade levels ahead in math, but still has issues for which he's getting language therapy, as well as speech therapy, at 7 y.o. He has a very bright future ahead but we still need to help him work through these weaker areas via therapy. p.s. also as mentioned above, things like The Letter Factory may help (my 2 and 4 y.o.s are currently in this phase - we watch that and two other related videos several times per day). I just noticed your comment about skinny and sleepy. I'd strongly consider seeing a nutritionist or trying some supplementation. With my ds, I just started this so I'm still monkeying around with it somewhat, but I'm extremely pleased with some basic vitamins and minerals in specific forms (coenzymate b complex, ca/mag/zinc) and tonight on the internet, looking for something else, I happened upon a new one that I want to try (poor ds, lab rat. That's where a nutritionist might help). Any vision concerns? Digestive concerns, particularly with digesting fats? D3 for the sleepiness? Just thinking out loud...

The important thing is that the teacher is willing to do whatever it takes - that's great!! Part of the answer to your question depends on where your child is at the moment in terms of reading. I noticed that in the special ed room at our montessori school there were a couple of boxes for Seeing Stars and Visualizing and Verbalizing (I was in there for an IEP meeting). Those would be programs that could help, but I think they're rather expensive. As you probably already know, the montessori method was originally developed for special needs students - that's why the classroom already has some useful things for your ds. We've been extremely pleased thus far. And you already know that the particular teacher is flexible - that's HUGE. My main piece of advice is to ensure that there's significant focus on your child's strengths as well as weaknesses. That can go a long way toward building up confidence. Make sure she takes him as far as he can go in the various subjects, especially any subjects that he loves (for example, my ds7 is a math lover who struggles with language). That's part of the beauty of the montessori classroom, the very individualized instruction.

All the recommendations above are great. In addition to OB/GYNs and REs, another doctor that might help is an endocrinologist (not an RE), if you can find the right one (I would look for one at a large university medical center, and ask their receptionist who treats PCOS if it isn't on their website, or get a recommendation for an endocrinologist from a gynecologist). If there is ever a decision to take an oral contraceptive, I really, really, really liked Demulen.

As a non-homeschooling parent (unless afterschooling makes me a homeschooler?), I urge you to not worry one bit about making someone feel guilty. When another person talks about their homeschooling, I, for one, don't feel guilty as much as envious :D. For a variety of reasons, I'm not homeschooling at the moment. If the planets aligned differently, perhaps I would be. If our current schooling situation changed unfavorably, I could do it, thanks to these boards. So go on, talk away about homeschooling - the other person just might soak up the information enough to take a closer look. I could listen all day :)

I have both GSWL and Lingua Latina. We're doing GSWL first, so they get some bearings with grammar first (7 and 9 y.o.). I don't really have a plan for LL but I thought about using it after GSWL. My current plan is to go right into Henle after GSWL, so perhaps LL will be a little reading for "fun" when we're done with Henle, or if we need a break from it at some point - it depends on how busy we are. I have no idea how to teach LL. I love GSWL - why not use that with your 9 y.o.?