You're right that this *could* be the reason, I just don't think it was really her reason, or at least not her main reason. Maybe it was the third time of asking if the cats were in competition for food that makes me feel that way. None of my other cats have shown any symptoms, and I'm really hesitant to believe it *is* the calicivirus because even the cat with the mouth problem has had absolutely no other symptoms of sickness. From reading online it sounds like a respiratory illness with symptoms, idk. I haven't seen the ulcerations, though I have tried multiple times. It's hard to see anything in a cat's mouth, lol. I thought it was a bad tooth. They did test them for cat aids and leukemia and both were negative, so that's good.

The ? ~ Have you ever heard of a vet saying they won't fix a cat because it is underweight? Vet said my 5 lb cats need to gain 3 lbs before she'll fix them. Some background~ Last summer we picked up two kittens from the side of the road. It was hot, they weren't in a box, and they had sick eyes. They were with their mom and there was a free kitten sign. Given the conditions I just couldn't leave them. They are both females and I took care of their eye problem. I already had two cats, both female, both fixed and healthy. They get along well enough, no fighting. I have multiple cat boxes and food/water bowls. Fast forward. One of the kitties has been having mouth troubles. She yelps when she eats. So I made an appointment to get her checked out and to get the kittens fixed. I was very specific on the phone about everything. They're almost a year old, with the weather going warm and having three kids going in and out, I don't want to risk them getting out and coming home pregnant. Took them to the vet, dropped them off. Got a call awhile later. The lady says the vet won't do the surgery for either cat. They are underweight, dehydrated, and unhealthy. I asked why does she think they're dehydrated? She said because their skin doesn't bounce back when pinched. Okay. I really don't see how either one could have been dehydrated. As for their weight, they both weigh 5 lbs. The one cat is shorter and a little stockier, but she is a small cat. The other cat is taller then her sister and skinny. No doubt about it. She's a rail. That cat is super active. She runs around here constantly like a bat outta you know what. We have mostly laminate flooring and you should see that cat skidding out, lol. Anyway, that cat is not going to gain any weight anytime soon. If they'd have fixed her she'd probably gain weight after quicker. That's how it went with my other cats. They want both cats to gain 3 lbs before she'll fix them?!?!?! Now I know they fix kittens as young as 4 months, so what? I don't get this. I've had multiple cats under my care over the years. One of the cats was a stray who came to us pregnant and near to giving birth. She waltzed right in my door one day like she owned the place. I couldn't turn her away. She stayed with us, birthed her babies, and within weeks escaped the house and ran away. She did come back, but she was pregnant already. She was perfectly content to stick around during her pregnancy, but soon after birthing the kittens she did the same exact thing again. I had no time to get her fixed as she was pregnant again literally in weeks. I called around and found a vet who would fix her even though the next litter was so young. She was not healthy. That cat was really not healthy. You could see her hips in a terrible way. She got fed fine, but she had three litters back to back. After taking her in to the vet they diagnosed her with a disease, fixed her, and gave her back no questions asked. They had to remove one of her kidneys during the surgery. This has been years ago and I can't recall all the details. The cat ran away shortly after the surgery, but I at least felt good that she wouldn't be going through another pregnancy in her condition. Just that the cat was clearly not healthy, while these kittens are small, but robust and healthy. For the mouth problem she prescribed an antibiotic for both cats. She told me to separate them from the other cats. I have separated them and I'm giving them the antibiotics, but I'm seriously wondering if I should get a second opinion. For money reasons I'm really hesitant though. She thinks the one cat may have calici virus as she has mouth ulcerations and the antibiotics are in case of secondary bacterial infection. Okay. Why for both cats though when the other cat has absolutely no symptoms, answer is just in case. And I really got the feel that the separation is because she think the cats are 'in competition' for food and not getting enough, even though I told her this wasn't the case. Now they are locked in room, not getting any exercise, being fed tuna and special fattening soft food and antibiotics by the vet's orders. I have serious misgivings this is going to make them healthier. Sorry! I know this has turned out to be a book! Any advice cat people?

I don't think there's anything wrong with the idea of going back to Miquon and seeing if it helps. I haven't used CLE so I can't comment on that. I have used Miquon, Singapore, Math Mammoth, MEP, and Lial's BCM. I loved Miquon and Singapore. Math Mammoth I wanted to love, even bought quite a lot of them. It just didn't go over well here. MEP is nice and different. I think it would probably be best if used from near the beginning though. Lial's is what we are suing this year as prep for Pre-Algebra, just so I can see all our bases are covered before moving on. I really like mastery based Math, but I do find constant review necessary and I've tried quite a few combinations. Using two or more curricula was just too time consuming. I wrote a blog post about how I incorporate review for free in about 15 minutes per day, using resources from the web. This is going much better than using multiple curricula. It's simple, easy, and effective. My best advice is once he seems to grasp a concept, keep at it. Don't let much time elapse without reviewing the topic. Even if you are reviewing up to 10 topics every day, if you are only assigning 1-2 problems per topic, it wouldn't take much time. If you do this while going way back in your curriculum of choice it should build confidence too, hopefully without much frustration.

:iagree:

Thing is McGraw Hill is no longer selling the test, they've phased it out I think and replaced it with the Terra Nova. This doesn't mean the CAT isn't a valid testing option. It does mean finding the relevant info online may be trickier. Not sure a phone call would even yield results, lol. I do know that I thoroughly checked the option out years ago and I was fully satisfied I was complying with the law. If I find out anything else I'll post.

An exert from OAC 3301-34-04: (bolding mine) "(A) The parent(s) shall send to the superintendent an academic assessment report of the child for the previous school year at the time of supplying subsequent notification. (B) The academic assessment report shall include one of the following: (1) Results of a nationally normed, standardized achievement test. (a) Such test shall be administered by: (i) A licensed or certified teacher; or (ii) Another person mutually agreed upon by the parent(s) and the superintendent; or (iii) A person duly authorized by the publisher of the test." Last I checked the CAT doesn't need to be administered by someone with a teaching certificate or bachelor’s degree education. If anyone finds out otherwise please let me know! We've been administering the CAT at home with grading done by Seton Testing Services for years with no problem at all. :)

Where in Ohio's law does it say testing has to be administered by someone other than the teacher? For the portfolio option it clearly states it must be reviewed by a certified teacher, but as far as the testing I don't recall it explicitly stating. I believe it simply states it must be a nationally normed standardized test. I'm off to check out the law again and see what I can find. :)

Your first year reporting you send the intent to homeschool letter with assurances your following the law, a general list of curricula, and a general list of materials to your school district's superintendent office. If homeschooling from the start of the school year you want to have the letter in before the beginning of the school year. If it is mid-year, you simply withdraw the student from public school and send it right away. At the end of your first school year you'll want to choose either the portfolio option or testing option and get that done. You send this with your second year's intent to homeschool letter before the beginning of the next school year. The portfolio option needs to be overseen by a certified teacher. You can probably find recommendations if you search for a local online yahoo homeschool group and sign up. I choose the testing option and it has always been easy and never a problem for us. I use Seton Testing Services, for $25 a student. Super easy to do. I've never had a problem with them not accepting what I send, but by law they are supposed to notify you if you need to submit something else to comply with law and give you time to comply. Really it's all very easy and once you have a year or two under your belt it won't seem like a big deal. I've been meaning to upload some documents I have to help newbies in Ohio with this to my blog. I'll link it here if I can get it done in the next day or two. :)

I agree with saving the more detailed timeline for later. The clothesline idea is perfect, very visual, just right for the younger crowd.

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out. :)

Our local thrift store is awesome, I feel so lucky. I am always finding Melissa and Doug wooden toys and puzzles for under $2. Books are usually $0.50-$1. Most of our chapter and picture books have been purchased there. Recently I found a Hans Christian Anderson collection, a collection of Grimm & Anderson Tales, Tomi dePaola's Nursery Rhymes, and Pretend Soup. I LOVE finding the larger collection books. I also found a praying mantis kit (unopened) for a buck. Last year we got egg cases and housed them in a large plastic container. It worked, but we released the mantises immediately after birth as the conditions wouldn't have been fit for live mantises. Now we'll be able to hold onto one for a few days and feed it, neat! In the past I've found microscopes and unused Science kits too.

Just dental work and eye exams for myself and my husband aren't done. I've also been eating gluten free because of health issues for about 4 years now without being tested for Celiac's or other problems of the like. I probably would've gotten some tests if I had insurance.

I was thinking of making some collaborative boards on Pinterest for homeschool related stuff. Anyone interested in being a contributor? I was thinking maybe some grade level boards ~ PreK-K, 1st-4th, 5-8th, 9th-12th, and/or subject boards ~ Art, Science, History, Language Arts, and Phonics boards. We could collect pins of ideas, projects, products, blog posts, etc. related to homeschool and the boards. If you want to contribute, post with your pinterest name and the boards you want to be added to from the list above. I'll start the boards and come back and let you know when you've been added. :)

All my favorites have already been linked by other posters. :) Here's mine. Thanks for the thread, I'll have fun coming back and exploring the other blogs!

On my blog I have a link to a free printable pdf for playing shop. I made it to use with my preschooler. It was a fun way to introduce the concept of money and money addition. :)

No words for this really, just :grouphug:.

It came up in the other thread, and I'm curious. I assumed jobs in most places in America are similar to where we live. I'd be happy to know if I'm wrong. Where you live would one, full time blue collar job support a family of four at a modest level? It wouldn't here. I know we are all likely to have slightly different ideas of modest, but I doubt it is too drastically different, just answer by your own definition. :)

It is fun! And so simple too. She is totally into it, even when I just print simple black and white pictures on copy paper, cut them out, and use those as puppets. It's amazing how much she wants to play with them, lol, definitely her favorite part of school right now. She's really creative too, I should tape her making up stories, too cute.

We approach it as play, so I think that's part of why she enjoys it. We do puppet retellings. I had some simple reproducible blackline pictures for popular children's stories, Three Little Pigs, Three Billy Goats Gruff, Gingerbread Man. I copied the pictures and cut them out, then we used them as puppets. I've started making some more puppets for our feltboard for other stories. I read the story and then we retell the story with the puppets. After that she likes to make her own versions. Too fun!

I would gently remind them it is read aloud time and ask them to hold discussion until after finishing.

I hadn't started my exploration of classical type education yet when my older two were young. My youngest is 4 and I'm doing things a bit different with her. I always read a lot and literature was always an important part of our day, but with my youngest I've been including retelling as part of her school. She loves it and I really think it is a great precursor to summarization. I don't own TWTM, though I have read through it several times. I really need to buy that book as soon as I'm able (money is way tight right now). I can't remember if SWB hits on including retelling for the younger kids or not? I've reserved it from the library again, but I'm number 3 so it'll probably be awhile. :) So, do you include retelling as part of school for your youngers? And if you have access to the book, does SWB talk about retelling? I think my youngest is going to be wonderfully prepared for summarization due to our retelling play.

What about something like Sequential Spelling? It is basically just daily lists of words, different words each day that build on previous words, grouped by 'family' or logical grouping. It only takes 10 minutes a day. I used it for 3rd-6th with my natural spellers. I have decided to go over the rules with them the rest of this year and next though, as I think it will still be useful to them. I'm making my own program to do so. We aren't to far into it, but I'm glad I decided to go over the rules with them. :)

I only print off one week at a time of anything these days. I have, in the past, printed off a good chunk of a couple things and decided not to use them for various reasons I didn't foresee. I'd much rather print off a week at a time and put them in either my teacher's guide three ring binder or the kids' three ring binders. I plan weekly anyway, so why not take that extra 10-15 minutes pulling together needed resources?

I personally wouldn't notice. I don't care nor assume anything about marital status. :)

I have allowed some work to be completed like this in the past, after I gave birth to my last child. Only work that was completely independent. I loaded their assignments for the week into a three ring binder with subject sections. They completed the work as they wanted, but it had to be complete by the end of the week. I don't think I would do this for any extended period of time, but that is mainly because most school is not independent. I feel they learn better with me putting in the teaching time for most things. However, if a subject was completely independent, you set a specific school time you were available, or you didn't mind stopping whatever you are doing when they need explanations or help, and the student was responsible, I see no reason not to include this type of work into their school.