Those of you with visual learners who don't seem mathy may be interested in this article http://www.visualspatial.org/Articles/mthstrat.pdf I agree that one's confidence with math has a whole lot to do with how it is taught.

:bigear: We're planning to use Getting Started With Spanish (because we love GSWL so much) but I have no idea what we'll do after that. http://www.gettingstartedwithspanish.com/faq.php

The more important the call, the louder the children. I quickly try to find the quietest place possible. Often I'll go outside if it's warm enough, and during the entire phone call the kids are inside screaming even louder, and banging on the sliding door, in order to get my attention. Then the person on the phone always asks if they should call me back at another time, as though that's going to make a difference :lol:

Thanks for the links. Can you describe the positive results you've had with the various oils? One of my kids seems to have attention problems (no official diagnosis - testing shows his working memory is excellent, and the auditory angle is sort of inconclusive; also, he needs to be moving in order to think), but the other two kids don't have attention issus, and all three of my older kids have language processing, history of speech delay, slow processing speed, and dd has boatloads of backtalk/arguing. DD has been a sensitive person since she was born (physically, as in SPD, and emotionally) and I have long suspected a possible nutritional component though we never nailed it down - I've been reluctant to do blood testing. My kids have been having fish oil for years (nordic naturals strawberry chewables) and while I know it's good for them, I can't say I've seen any changes. A couple years ago we saw a nutritionist who recommended that dd take carnitine and coq10, something about the Krebs cycle and not metabolizing fats. We fell off the wagon with that rather quickly, too much arguing over the taking of pills; I'm thinking now that if a person has difficulty metabolizing fats, the fish oil isn't getting absorbed (?). But yesterday I found a liquid supplement with both those things in it (by MRM) and the kids really like the taste, so we're trying that out. On the cal/mag/zinc, we're using the one by Trace recommended here http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=173657&highlight=trace . DS has some sort of bone issue (pain) and his hematologist (whom we see for his thrombocytopenia) recommended cal/mag. The kids aren't totally wild about the taste, so I plan to try the one by MRM that's orange-vanilla flavor. I can definitely testify to zinc's positive effect on appetite, which the nutritionist had mentioned but I had forgotten about. Lots of spagetti and meatballs for dinner last night - second helpings! I think a smarter approach would be for me to call the nutritionist (she does DAN stuff, etc.), and do bloodwork with all three (and then we get into whether to do anything about boy #4 and his little ocd behavior). But (a) I have to be prepared to spend, (b) I hate making them do blood draws, even though the one ds has them regularly and is pretty good about it (his twin brother would act as though he were being killed if we did a blood draw), and © this all takes time. Or I could spend the money with the nutritionist and just do urine samples like we did before with dd. As it stands right now I'm monkeying around with some big doses of minerals though and I need to be careful. Just thinking out loud :D

I agree that it's wise to rule out other issues first, such as vision (www.covd.org ) and giftedness. One thing I've been looking into the past couple of days re: attention is nutrition - there are various deficiencies associated with attention/adhd, such as zinc, magnesium and B6. There are also tons of hits when you try to google that - it's not easy to separate the wheat from the chaff. At least a couple things I read suggested that these minerals and vitamins may make the medication more effective. This all came about because I started one ds on a cal/mag/zinc supplement for other reasons (for the cal/mag). His behavior has been a little different the past couple of days (in a positive way!), so I took a closer look at what I was giving him, and I think it's the zinc and the mag. Now if only I could get him to take the B complex - I'll be off to the vitamin store today to look for something tastier than what I had bought. And I'm thoroughly confused on dosing.:confused:

OP, to find a developmental optometrist near you, see www.covd.org

When we did VT, there was an hour of weekly therapy, plus daily exercises at home. IMO, the vision exercises at home are critical to the success of VT. I'm not sure whether I understand - is the optometrist recommending only therapy at home and none at the office?

FWIW, per our ped's instructions, I give motrin every SIX hours as needed.

Two of my three older kids are very strongly VSL (7 and 9 y.o.). They've been doing great with Getting Started With Latin http://www.gettingstartedwithlatin.com/faq.php Lots of white space on the pages. One word/concept introduced each lesson followed by 10 sentences to translate. They learn by using the language, not by memorizing, which, as you may know, doesn't work very well for VSLs. Plus the information largely goes in visually rather than auditorally. We love this book!

The font itself is different so it's hard to tell, without measuring it in points - LoF looks a smitch bigger than GSWL, but like I said, not nearly as much white space. It's hard to say whether she'd have that problem with LoF. LoF has a smaller font than your basic Magic Treehouse-level book (not to mention that the language is more difficult). I'm a little frustrated at the moment - I was looking at LoF - Decimals and Percents because the Fractions book suddenly went missing (I swore I saw it earlier this afternoon; perhaps ds is sleeping with it again, along with his new baseball glove). I can't remember what's in it because we still haven't used the book for learning math, since knowing long division is one of the prerequisites. If you buy it and it doesn't work out, she can probably still use it later for a fun review. I suppose you could read it to her, or with her, but I think of math as a fairly visual subject. (FWIW, my other ds enjoys Murderous Maths, if you're just looking for some fun math reading. I don't think they're necessarily easier to read, I just think it's funny that other ds was afraid he wouldn't be able to read the Fred book but read the Murderous Maths book instead). If what you want is to expand her fractions knowledge, I'd check out Key to Fractions, which is more workbook-style without so much reading. It comes in four parts, so you could do as much or as little as she's able. Yeah, I'm not looking forward to re-typing so much from Henle. But then, they need to learn typing; I ought to make them do it ;) just kidding. I don't know where we'll even find the time to do the Henle, since they do go to school and I signed them up for too much summer camp.

I thought I saw a story about runaways doing this, with their bosses being not the nicest people to work for.

My ds read LoF - Fractions last fall at 6 y.o. and really enjoyed the story. In order to do the math, however, he would have needed to know long division, which he did not at the time. He just read it for fun, not for the math. His twin brother, who's more interested in math, did not have the reading skills to pull it off back then. Whether the font is too small depends on the child, in terms of both advanced reading skills and also vision skills, which can be off in the occasional young reader. Also, FWIW, GSWL is much easier on the eyes due to the generous amount of white space. LoF has nice amounts of white space, but nowhere near as much as GSWL.

I have no idea how much grammar he'd know already from LC and Minimus, but we (my 7 and 9 y.o.'s) love Getting Started With Latin, which requires no prior knowledge, is heavy on grammar and translation, and adds only one new word per lesson. When we're finished, we're moving on to Henle I (First Form Latin was a close second). In your situation, I'd find First Form to be rather tempting. It was my understanding that it did not move particularly fast. In fact, isn't the current recommendation from Memoria Press to move on to First Form after LC I?

http://www.memoriapress.com/articles/whylatin.html http://www.memoriapress.com/articles/Why-Latin-2.html http://www.memoriapress.com/articles/apology-latin-math.html

:iagree: with all this! By the way, in addition to auditory processing issues, ocular motor issues are also a subset of SPD. It's not uncommon to see these types of issues in kids with SPD. My advice is to get an eval with a good neuropsych who is experienced with 2E kids, and also to rule out vision issues (vision issues are cheaper and easier to rule out than auditory, or so it seems). I skimmed most of the posts, but I just wanted to throw out there that people with adhd are often visual learners (e.g. http://www.visualspatial.org/ ).

http://www.sophiesafecooking.com/ This cookbook would probably get you through a week or more. If this is a forever thing, you'd want to branch out with other allergen-free cookbooks eventually. This one's just for starters ;) but I found it to be relatively kid friendly. FWIW, just tonight, completely by accident, our dinner was allergen-free except for the butter on the rice (chicken tenders sauted in olive oil, rice and peas). So it's not necessarily as hard as you think. It just takes some getting used to.

We are on day 2 of this. I thought I'd give ds the full dose for a few days, then back down to a half a dose (he's only around 45 lbs but occasionally complains of bone pain). Has anyone seen it in any other flavors besides pina colada? What time of day do you usually give it? Does it matter if it's in the evening and the D3 is in the morning? Should I do it all in the morning? Thanks!!

:iagree: FWIW, no one, certainly not my mother, ever discussed grooming in this area, and I'm quite embarrassed when I picture the forest escaping from the edges of the swimsuit when I was that age! I would have appreciated someone laying out the options when I was that age. I had no idea what the possibilities were, I had no sisters and I was rather shy.

Is it acanthosis nigricans? If it is, then the best thing to do would be to deal with the underlying insulin issue.

Only one of my four boys has ever had a "real" haircut. I use these clippers http://www.amazon.com/Wahl-79300-1001-26-Piece-Color-Coded-Haircutting/dp/B00006IVEN/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=hpc&qid=1273552323&sr=8-3 except I think mine is without a few of these pieces and was slightly less, at Target My problem is that their hair needs to be longer on top than the longest guard, so lately I've been branching out by using the scissors on top - not having ANY idea what I'm doing. What is really funny is that DH let me give him a trim a few times - he really needs to get it done professionally, at least until I figure out how to cut the top.:tongue_smilie: :auto: off to youtube for further instruction

If it's just on paper, why hold him back on paper now? Why not decide later, if/when you send him to school? It may be far easier to "hold him back" on paper later than it would be to have him "skip a grade" on paper later if you change your mind (i.e., it's hard to get schools to allow grade skips but you can always go the other way). Put him at the grade he should be according to his birthday to allow the most flexibility.

Costco??? :lurk5: (four of my kids are boys, currently ages 2-7)

I'm not sure how I'd adjust the amount - I think less, but that's just intuition. The recipes for cupcakes in this cookbook call for oil. http://www.sophiesafecooking.com/ I haven't made the cupcakes from it but I've made lots of muffins from this cookbook with oil. The chocolate cupcakes have 1/3 c oil to 2 c oat flour. I don't think I can copy the whole recipe here. Does that help at all? Do you have time to play with it a bit, do a practice batch? If oil doesn't work, I've had excellent results with Spectrum shortening.

Another vote for Pamela's cake mix - my DH loved the chocolate so much that he asked for it again, even though his diet is not restricted! I bought it at a Kroger supermarket, but I think it's at Whole Foods as well. http://www.pamelasproducts.com/ As for shortening, there's also Spectrum, which is both dairy and soy free, made from palm oil, organic, no trans fat, available both at our local Kroger supermarket and at Whole Foods. In a cake, you can also just use oil (sunflower, canola, whatever) though I'd probably adjust the amount. And Earth's Best does have a variety of butter-like spreads, including one that is dairy-free and one that is both dairy-free and soy-free. FWIW, there's also a Betty Crocker gluten-free cake mix that appears to be dairy-free; I think I got it at Supertarget. But I haven't made it yet. happy baking!