We ended up using Times Tales and it worked beautifully but once DS has the concept I'm not hard about drilling tables.

You are soooo wonderful TYSM!

I can't even find 10 things I like on there! I'm too picky or something. :lol:

:grouphug: YES! The ever-present "oh, well, things will even out as s/he gets older." The defensiveness is excessive at times. It's a challenge to have a gifted little and I think most only see the blessing in it and stop looking past that point.

Positive thoughts and prayers for y'all. Those photos are terrifying!

I'm a fan of "The Sensitive Child"- excellent book! My son (and DH) are both "super tasters." They literally have more taste buds than most people are are overly sensitive to bitter flavors, smells, tend towards monotone colored foods, etc. DS1 has a very harsh natural aversion to tomatoes and we recently discovered that's because he has a true allergy to them (so there may be something to the body naturally gravitating towards blandness). We've tried it all- charts, rewards, bribery- all in the name of tasting new foods to no avail for nearly 7 years. Even when he first started solids he'd gag at the smell of certain foods (peas, broccoli, tomato sauces). Point being you aren't alone. We also deal with a lot of perfectionism and from reading "The Sensitive Child" it all seems hand-in-hand.

Absolutely hates! The only thing I can get him to touch is Math Wrap Ups and *sometimes* money. MUS was great for us when he was 3 but ever since not a chance.

We've really loved the Usborne First Encyclopedia series as "cores" for our science. Then if DS is very interested in one animal/event/item we branch off from there. The internet linked ones are pretty neat. Last year (K) we did strictly seas and oceans and it was so much fun and built a great love of learning.

I love the activity books! I'm NOT the artsy/crafty mama that so many seem to be but I find that there's always a do-able project for us in every chapter. They activities are really diverse and can be used for both my 6 y/o who is "doing school" and my 4 y/o & 2 y/o who just want to be part of school time. We haven't used the audio because we're not fans of books on tape in general. This is our 2nd year of doing SOTW and I did purchase the activity book again.

Tysm for the heads up! I have one in counseling for anxiety I really cannot imagine a book like this would go over well and I doubt I would have pre-read considering it's LOF!

Absolutely.I have my 6.5 y/o journal about our day but the rule is he can write anything as long as it's at least two complete sentences... a few days ago I got "I hate sentincis. Theyr to long." :lol: We do Aesop's and he reads then completes the writing exercises- it's helped tons with getting to the comfort point!

These are so interesting and diverse! DS's first word was at 5 mo, phrases by 7 mo, sight reading and memorizing books at 12 mo. At 2 he created his own language (sounded a lot like Japanese mixed with French) and his words were consistent. At 3 we had him tested for speech (perpetual fluid on his ears) and his vocab was age 8 range. Those stand out for me as the big red flags. Of course perfectionism from the get-go and that's been a constant struggle.

Ditto but we actually just do the Workbook and Textbook. Tried MUS when he was 3 and it was fine but he hated manipulatives so quickly moved on. I'm thinking we'll move to LOF at some point.

I called the gifted program coordinator and I have to wait until school starts to find out my local school offering. It doesn't seem I'll need to submit the portfolio & do an EP review because the district has to consider traits of giftedness & since he's not in public they can't :). I'll talk to the HS coordinator too to verify (I really don't want to go making extra steps- we only had it done as an "insurance policy" incase something unforseeable were to occur and we had to put him in group schooling- I really can't see him trying to attend first grade he'd be bored to tears).

It seems completely reasonable pricing to me. $16 for each entertaining hardbound book that will build a young child's love of math and knowledge. For me, I'd gladly pay $416 to build my children's interest in math. Thank you for the heads up! I read the samples to DS and he was left wanting more.

Hi! I generally don't post but I do lurk a bit :). We decided to get a giftedness assessment done with our annual homeschool evaluation for our gifted 6 y/o. My question is, since the assessment and the homeschool evaluation report are both in the same letter, will submission of both force him into a monitored EP with an annual meeting and portfolio review? We're in Hillsborough county. I seem to remember reading something to that effect but would love to know if anyone has experience. At this point we have no intent on utilizing any aspect of public schooling gifted or otherwise. ETA I should probably clarify that per the state requirements for giftedness selection we did have the IQ testing done not just assessment so the CIX scores are on the same document as the Woodcock Johnson Battery Tests of Achievement. We plan on doing the teacher assessment for homeschooling for the next 2 years then renewing the IQ assessment at the 3rd year since there's only a 3 yr validation in Florida.

It also made my DS cry- literally cry. It's a good program in the aspect that it works but the cost for us was a year of loss of interest in reading and not worth it. We switched to OPG (much MUCH better) then happily to AAS.

I think Riverview would be fine for you :). It's pretty diverse- as is Brandon. I would say west of Kings Ave is more diverse than east but either wouldn't be awkward.

Oh I'm excited to see this thread! I lurk just never have posted yet. We live in Valrico and I have 4 LOs (DS 6, DS 4, DD 2, DD 4 m) I would love to meet another HSing family! We only know one other family in the area. We are not Christian so finding a network has proved pretty much impossible (not that I have a problem with being Christian in the slightest- we're just the odd-man-out secular HSers- we do Bible study we just do not do New Testament as personal conviction. ). I'd love to meet as well.