Michele - I'm right there with you!!! Because I'm too cheap to buy and use something like quicken, I end up creating a spreadsheet at tax time. I throw all my tax deductible paperwork into a separate file folder during the year, and that, along with my check registers and credit card bills, is what I use to put the spreadsheet together. On the spreadsheet, I separate the expenses by type - insurance premiums, doctors, dentists, other health provider, health facilities (hospitals, etc), lab, prescriptions...I haven't separated them by person or date, although as a practical matter when I sort through it at year end I end up putting it in date order...We use tax prep software, so I sort according to their categories. I hear that mint.com is a good free software for people to track their budgets, but I'm a little nervous about putting my financial stuff out there on someone else's site...even though it's supposed to be really encrypted. I keep all my bills and receipts, and I triple check my providers' bills against my Explanation of Benefits (EOBs) from my insurance company before I pay any bills (I learned the hard way how important it is not to pay anything until you hear from your insurance...). The bills get stapled to the EOB after I've reconciled them. It's all a pain, but when I didn't do this, I found a couple times that I had gotten over-billed by the provider...:glare: One other thing I did last year that helped was I used a highlighter in my check register and on my credit card bills to highlight deductible expenses as they happened - it helped me find a couple holes where my filing system had broken down, and I had to go hunting for the bill. Not saying any of this is right - it's just what works for me... Golly, I yearn for the day when we DON'T have enough to itemize...:tongue_smilie:

I'll second checking out any nearby universities, if you have any. Not that we have used it - my dd has been in and out of speech therapy, through our local medical center and through a private practitioner now that used to be there, and it has been partially paid by insurance, the rest on our nickel (ugh). But that's because she has a specific diagnosis that these folks specialized in. That said, we have a private university in town that has a program that's very highly regarded, and they do great things. Early on, dd got services through the local school system, which I would rate as marginal at best - then when we sent her to private Christian school, that became too problematic. I would also second looking at underlying issues. (Elizabeth mentioned apraxia; what do they say about her hearing and auditory processing?)

I allow a calculator, but I will add a warning - I have discovered that my dd, age 16, has forgotten her times tables and basic long division as a result. She seriously could not divide 7 into 258...because she didn't remember 7 times 3 was 21...So I have decided that while I am continuing to let her do her more advanced math homework with a calculator, we are including a little "mad minute" basic math in her daily assignments. There's just too many times that you need to know that 6 times 8 is 48....kwim?

My dd is ADD Inattentive, and she is older (16 soon-to-be-17), so this may not be as helpful as I would like, but when she was evaluated a couple years ago, the ed specialist suggested we read Delivered From Distraction - Hallowell talks a lot about supplements, programs like Dore/Learning Breakthrough, and so on. Others on this forum will probably have other, possibly more pertinent suggestions, but I found a number of his suggestions about nutrition and physical activity really helped. Hugs to you!

I'll second the rest of you - while technically college MAY do some writing remediation, it's MUCH better if you could help your dc's get a handle on writing. I was a lit major in college, and I LOVE the written word. My ds, (who went to Christian school all the way through), credits me nonetheless with teaching him his basic writing skills. My dd, a homeschooled junior this year, struggles. I'm scratching my head...but I'm going to take another stab at it with SWB's Writing with Skill materials. She also has a program for younger kids, Writing with Ease, that I haven't looked at yet, but if it's anything like her hs program, you might want to look it over. One nice thing - there's an instructor's manual that seems to have a lot of good stuff in it, including samples and examples, and hints for how to help your struggling writer. And, of course, don't forget that this forum has a spot where you can submit your child's work, and get feedback!

:party: This is amazing. I'm so happy for you!!!!

I admit I loved reading this post - all your comments perfectly summed up my experience with dd last year slogging through 10th grade. Scheduling specific times didn't work (lots of resistance). Giving her weekly assignments and letting her schedule didn't work (she'd do the stuff she liked, not the stuff she didn't). In April, I finally gave her a comprehensive list of all assignments to be completed by year end. Told her school would be over when the assignments were finished. Fast forward to the second week in August - she was finally done. (Never doing THAT again!!!) That said, as to time each day - dd struggles with school, so we aim for 5-6 hours of work each day, but with frequent breaks, which means often we are not done before 5. I keep thinking there must be a better way, or that as she matures it will get easier. For now, since she'll hopefully be going off to college in a couple years, I've told her we're going to be doing formal instruction in history and lit several days a week (block style). Formal as in - I lecture, you take notes just like you will in college. Italian, English vocab and Math will be daily, working independently. For the rest, I'm really liking the approach of finish during the week or work Saturday. And I'm with the rest of you - no parent participation in the evening. My brain's too fried.

Yes, I'm repeating what everyone else is saying, but - I'm right there with you. We have a hard time getting started in the morning (9 is about as early as we can get school started...my dd is hugely low energy), and if we don't do school in the a.m., we might as well forget it. The later in the day it gets, the longer it takes to do ANYTHING. I REALLY like my mornings left alone!!!

Love all the suggestions, don't have a lot to add - but, just a thought - I did not homeschool my ds (didn't start until my second was entering hs) - but I know he enjoyed Ender's Game. For American lit, I would probably also suggest something like "The Crucible", to get an American play in there...

Don't know about your state, but here in California anyone who's 18 or older can enroll in Community College, regardless of graduation status...often younger students also enroll concurrently if they want to take a course while they are still in high school. Soooo - transcript may not be necessary, and even if it is it may not matter what the transcript looks like. Good luck - he sounds a little like my dd (although she'd rather play video games than design them... )

Our experience - initial developmental optometry eval was $100 (if we needed fuller scale eval for other ld, it would be another $300). They were willing to start us with a home therapy program - $70 for the in-office session, then they turned us loose for 4 weeks on an intensive in-home program. In a month we go back - if no progress, then I'm not sure whether they'll move us to in-office or not. I have high hopes, however - when we did something similar with our son, it worked wonders.

Our experience - dd is farsighted and astigmatic, and just started vision therapy. Also has lots of minor to moderate learning issues (related to a genetic condition, but nonetheless...) Our son was not farsighted, did VT for a month of so when he was young (couldn't cross his eyes, tracking was not fabulous - but then again, I think many kids at age 6 have that, and it resolves naturally - what we ask our eyes to do when we read is a kinda new demand on our bodies, compared to, say, running or walking...), and it was amazing and fast. Hoping for the same with our daughter (who we caught MUCH later). Agree with posters who advocate for no huge $ outlay - it shouldn't need that, in my experience!

Pretty much no boxed curriculum. I often think how easy it would be to use the whole prepackaged approach, but I really think at the end of the day building a year that is specific to your dc is the best way to educate. Pre-planned is just a couple steps away from them boarding the bus and heading off to ps...ok, so that sounds a little harsh, but the freedom to play to a child's stengths and explore their interests is one of the best things about homeschool. Altho, in fairness, sometimes it IS a LOT of work... :001_smile:

They keep telling us how it's the second most common genetic disorder after Down Syndrome, but... Delski, almost all the kids with VCFS have heart conditions, most requiring surgery, so that's often the first clue. The only 100% certain way to determine if your child has it is with a genetic test. But it was first identified in the U.S. by speech pathologists, who kept seeing patients with a similar set of issues. It took a number of years for the geneticists to catch up... Anyway, Tracy, I appreciate your thoughts. Inchstones.... so true. But it all keeps me up at night. One of the biggest things is finding the strengths among all the struggles. Pretty much all the academics are hard - just some are harder than others! And because she has problems articulating her thoughts (maybe some apraxia of speech, certainly some language processing), and difficulty making friends similar to autism, the future frequently looks downright dismal. Anyway, thanks for your responses!

My high school junior has VCFS. We just started homeschooling when she started high school. She is a great kid, but we're still struggling to figure this all out. Years ago we had been warned not to ever become her teachers - that we should only be her cheerleaders. But traditional school was not working, so here we are. She has all the classic issues with VCFS - concrete thinker, trouble with abstract concepts, huge challenges with math, working memory deficits and language processing problems. She also struggles with social skills, is in speech therapy for hypernasality and pragmatics, and we have just had some vision issues diagnosed that the dev. optometrist is recommending VT for. This poor girl has so many things she struggles with - and she works so hard! Anyway, hoping to connect with others who are walking this road, if there is anyone out there...

Ok, you got me thinking. I actually used the Thompson book for my dd this past year. Because she is CLEARLY a liberal arts type, we did what I would describe as "chem lab light" - a total of 30 hours, following the lab schedule our coop taught. There were times I "made do" rather than buy some equipment, and other times when I chose labs based on how much the chemicals would cost, and whether I could use the chemicals in multiple experiments - and still I ended up spending a little over $200. But it WAS fun!!!!

I gave my dd a year's credit for one level of RS Italian, but I have to admit I'm a little conflicted about it. We did some of the MFW's lesson plans, though not all, and I added some grammar teaching from a textbook. That said, I'm not sure that she really came out of it knowing as much Italian as someone should who's just finished Italian I. We'll be doing a coop class this next year with a member of our homeschool group who is a native speaker and professor at a local college...so I guess I'll see just how much completing RS level I accomplished!!! :)

I don't have a lot of input, but I can tell you a couple of things I did that I liked. My favorite - Conceptual Chemistry by Suchoki. Now, let me say that it is much more a "chem for poets" kind of curriculum. It is used in many colleges as their liberal arts chemistry. Not nearly as heavy on math as most other curriculums - which is why I used it, since my dd struggles so much with math. The author maintains an amazing website (conceptualchemistry.com) that has mini-lectures on all the chapters, and a huge range of other resources. He is great to work with, very supportive of homeschoolers. If you were looking for something with more math, he might even have suggestions for you on how to make that part more robust. About world history - I designed my own this year, combining the Teaching Company Foundations of Western Civ, SWB History of the Ancient World, and the Spodek "The World's History" book that some high schools use for AP World History. We linked this to our world lit - dd read "Siddhartha", "Julius Caesar", "Farewell to Manzanar", "Cry the Beloved Country", portions of "Mexican Village" and a few other books I can't recall right now. It was pretty labor intensive for me, but I was much happier with this approach than just buying a package.

I'll add my vote for MUS. DVD lessons are great, and doing proofs second semester after a review of all the plane geometry stuff is fabulous. My daughter struggles horribly with math, and sadly this was still hard for her, but I think for most non-mathy kids it's a great choice.

My dd will do MUS Stewardship this year. We are borrowing from a friend whose daughter did it last year. Neither of our girls are "mathy" - this is the best fit for us. My friend really liked the devotional aspect being joined to the discussion of "consumer" math, as she felt it helped provide a reality check in all the consumer discussions. I do believe it is probably best for kids who find math challenging in general.

I am late to this thread, but I wanted to wish you great success, and I hope you will post as you work through the program to let us know how it's going. Learning Breakthrough is something I am hoping to use with my dd sometime soon!

This sounds cool. Another option - My daughter just finished a unit on photography as part of her year-long visual arts course. We used sconline.com, which is another online photography course by a photographer/photography teacher in Northern California. It offers two options - a self-directed digital textbook, or an online class with instructor feedback. We really liked it, and it was very affordable!

thanks everybody. I feel hugely better - I'm using the right email address, so I'm going to try sending from a different email address, but then be patient in case he's on vacation (just because I'm about to start school doesn't mean everybody else is, right?) That's one of the reasons we homeschool, right - flexibility? Thanks again...

That's encouraging. I'm loving that you are so excited after having the book in hand. The availability of all the website resources was a big plus for me, and what I saw of the text looked good, but you're making me more eager to get going on this. I have actually tried two different email addresses for the author - from different places on his website. Do you happen to remember which one you used that got you such a great response? I will definitely try your suggestion of using a different email address (my husband has one), but you may be right that he's on vacation. I'm sorry to hear about your husband - I hope all goes well for him and your family.

First, I want to say I'm (obviously) a newbie here, and I've found SOO many helpful posts and threads. I have a math-challenged dd starting 10th grade, and based on everything I've read here, I was intending to use Conceptual Chemistry. Everything else seemed to need a little more math than I think she can handle (although I'd love input on that too...) Anyway, I've emailed twice to the author, other the past week and a half or so, and heard NOTHING. Is there something magic I need to do? We have a PSP that we are affiliated with, but they don't work with us on curriculum, so I don't have an official email to work from, but they do give us id's, which I copied and sent him. I don't know if he's just not around, or...??? anyway, I'm desperate to figure this out - either I get access to his website teacher resources, or I have to change curriculum, and I don't know what to change TO. Can you tell I'm stressing? I need some hive mind wisdom!