My son is only 4 but I will probably not homeschool him. He's currently in Pre-K at our local elementary school. His needs are very high and I would have a hard time homeschooling my other children if I were to homeschool him as well. My son can speak but has almost no functional language at all. He speaks primarily in single word echolalia. He has a gross motor delay and severe fine motor delay. He doesn't currently get any school based services to address either of those. He does get speech therapy and is in an inclusion classroom currently. His Pre-K class is doing okay meeting his many sensory needs. A lot will depend on what kind of placement he gets later on. He is currently the lowest functioning child in the program he's in now so I worry they may move him to a class for low functioning kids. I've noticed quite a few parents here homeschooling children on the spectrum but most seem like they are higher functioning than my son is. My son seems to enjoy going to school which is partly why I do send him. He's off this week and it has been very difficult for him to have the disruption in his routine. We've sent in 2 private therapists to observe ds at school and both have said he seems very calm and content there and seems to thrive on the routine.

Would you have any place to put up a swing? My almost 4 yo with ASD is so much better regulated since we got him a net swing. We just bought the swing which is only $42 and my dh rigged connectors from Lowes to keep the cost down. We've had to rearrange a bunch of furniture to get it on our main floor but it has really helped ds a lot. He seems to like the deep pressure of the net. My 11 yo and almost 14 yo (who don't have special needs) use the swing so it works for bigger kids too. http://www.southpawenterprises.com/Therapy-Net-Accessories-P150.aspx

We have liked certain things from MBTP. I do like their Lit studies. I'm planning to have dd11 do a couple of them this year although so far we haven't started any. We did the Little House in the Big Woods study last year and liked it. The one I'm planning to do next is Sign of the Beaver. I guess we'll see on the Beaver report if dd wants to do it or not. I did let her skip a couple parts of Little House she wasn't that interested in. I have the Animal Habitats and never could get into that one. We also got one of the concepts for 8-10 that was science related and wound up dropping it pretty quickly.

I think the birthday party drill is pretty standard. My son did not participate in it at all during testing. My ds is almost 4 and I don't think he'd be able to do the birthday party drill now. I'd say learning it from one previous exposure is a good accomplishment. My son gets one hour of speech a week and no other services and that is even with having him enrolled in school. If he was homeschooled or in private school he would not get any speech. It is nearly impossible to get OT services in my school district. Even private testing showing ds below the 1st percentile for fine motor didn't qualify him. Every one I've talked has said that no one qualifies for OT services. The only way to get ABA is to be in the one ABA classroom for severe ASD. I've heard that most of the kids in that class are totally nonverbal and many are violent or self injure. My son is moderate functioning with limited language. He currently has no behavior issues so I wouldn't want him placed there because I worry he'd pick up bad behavior. He's in an inclusion preschool class right now with 6 typical (including his 5 yo sister) and 6 special needs. He's probably the lowest functioning child in there. The thing I wish we'd done from the get go was hire an advocate. We just had our first IEP meeting with the advocate yesterday. The school staff was obviously not thrilled with us bringing an advocate but the meeting went better with her there. They wouldn't agree to anything we asked for so we are likely going to mediation. I hope we're able to agree on something. The advocate hours add up pretty quickly even though she doesn't charge for e-mails. Some states do have Autism mandates for ABA but all self funded policies are exempt from such mandates. Maryland does not mandate ABA coverage but if they did it still wouldn't help us since our policy is self funded. We'd need a federal mandate to get coverage. My son does ABA two mornings a week and it's been a help but we self pay the entire cost. If we could get insurance coverage I'd take ds out of the preschool and just do ABA.

I'm still not entirely decided between MFW Adv and HOD Beyond for 2nd grade. I already purchased Adv and then found Beyond for $20 at a curriculum fair and couldn't pass it up. I guess I should stick with the initial plan for Adv. MFW Adventures Elemental Science Earth Science (in place of MFW Science) GWG 2 WWE 2 AAS 2/3 MUS Beta for dd Singapore 3B/4A for ds LOF Elementary Books (E-H)

My son tested low for both carnitine and coq10 and I've suspected mito issues with him. Carnitine has such an awful taste we have never managed to get the recommended 800mg into him. That is what our DAN wanted him on but I never could get him to do more than 250mg in a day. I think we'll be adding P5P to our list of improvements. I see 51% report improvement with P5P on that list. We switched to a mult last week with P5P and in the last couple days my son is finally combining words. It's taking some prompting but we have been working on it for over a year with no success. We see his DAN doctor Friday and I'm going to see if we could give more than we are giving. We also do methylcobamin injections and we try to never skip one. I can see that one definitely helping as well.

I've got a 7 yo boy that just seems to get math. It is such a stark contrast to my first 3 girls that have really struggled with math. I have 2 of them in MUS and another in TT. My son would be so bored with both of those programs. He is currently using Singapore for 1st grade and has just a few pages left of 2A. He understood carrying from me just showing him a couple and the same with borrowing. He just gets it. It would be silly to have him do tons of pages of review on those things.

I got a couple great deals and I don't need AAS. I already have 1-4 so I should be set for awhile but I got Ancient History Writing Lessons. I've been debating getting that for months and I even went ahead and got Medieval for next year and the Fairy Tales book. All for $64 shipped. The Ancient History set alone is normally $49.

Neither of our families has ever been supportive and we've been homeschooling since 2003. In some ways I'm used to it now but it would be nice to get an occasional nice comment. My dad is semi supportive in that we've really never discussed it. He says my kids all seem happy and that's all he cares about. Last year he bought us a nice microscope as a Christmas present because he knew we homeschool. My mom and mil are both PS teachers and likely will never be supportive. When we first started homeschooling my mil told me that I was going to ruin her grandchildren. Eight years later and I don't think I've ruined them yet. Last year we sent our oldest dd to PS for the first time ever. She had a terrible year (honor roll the whole year- it was awful due to social stuff) and is back home this year. Last year my mom and my mil showed so much interest and excitement about her school work. They never ask what we are working on with homeschooling. When we decided to pull our dd out of school at the end of last year my mil tried to call the school to block us from doing that. My fil did make her apologize for that which she did very begrudgingly. She's constantly making comments about how wonderful public schools are even when she knows we've had tons of trouble getting services through our district for our child with Autism. My mom sent me a very long letter when our oldest was in 1st grade begging us to enroll dd. This dd has dyslexia and struggled to read. Both grandmas blamed it on homeschooling even though my dh is also dyslexic. My mom was semi supportive when we pulled our oldest out of school last year but she also knew my dd was miserable. For whatever reason she thinks CC Challenge is an actual school so has been semi supportive about that choice. My oldest dd is planning to attend high school next year so I'm sure the families with both be thrilled. I did tell my mom that my second oldest wasn't planning to go to high school but she says I really need to force her because it would be best for her. My 11 yo at this point has never been to school and has no interest in going. Our county is getting a Classical Charter School next year which I've been considering trying the lottery for that. I'm sure if any of the kids go that our families will think I've finally come to my senses.

My 7 yo twins are first graders. They could technically be 2nd graders with their summer birthday but they were born 2 months premature. Had they not been premature they would have been right around the cut off. Both of my cousins with boys with summer birthdays have also held them back. It seems to be more common now that K is all day. Neither of them homeschool. We're using MFW 1 but I'm not using it exactly as written. I really like IEW Primary Arts of Language and we're using that as well. A slower pace with reading is needed for my son due to his speech issues. He has a very difficult time saying many blends which really impact his reading. We also use AAS 1 and are about halfway through it. I tried it last year and my son wasn't ready for it. I'm trying to keep the twins together for reading right now so my dd is a little bored. We love math and science here. My dh and I are both engineers so we do a lot of it. Singapore Math is our main curriculum (dd's still in 1A and ds is in 2A- he was going really fast until we hit carrying and has slowed down a lot since then) Rightstart B- used as a supplement- it requires more time from me than Singapore so it's hard to get in everyday but we try to do a couple times a week Life of Fred- currently using Butterflies- my son is ecstatic over the next 4 books coming out- doing LOF is his favorite part of the school day Complete Book of Math (from MFW 1)- used as a supplement when the kids want- my son has done quite a bit of it but it is mostly too easy for him- it's right at dd's level though and she seems to be needing more review to cement math concepts than ds is Elemental Science when we have extra time

Dance studios vary so much. I would visit and observe at least one class before you decide. We currently have 3 girls in a total of 6 classes at 2 different studios. We've also used a 3rd studio we won't be using again. The main studio we use is because it is very close to our house and very inexpensive. The classes are 50% after the first one. The studio is more for fun and does not get into competition stuff. However it is very limited in what it offers because it is small. Also since the studio is very inexpensive the classes all tend to be filled to capacity. The large room maxes at 15 and the smaller at 10 and all 5 classes my girls take there are pretty much at capacity. Parents are allowed to view which I do really like but occasionally the parents seem to be a distraction to the dancers. The recital is also very informal and the costumes are done as cheaply as possible and generally aren't super nice. It is typical that they cost under $20 which is really nice with several girls in dance. We also use another studio for my teen because she prefers to dance with other teens. This studio is more expensive and very strict. I really kind of like it after mainly using the relaxed studio for several years. Parents must wait in the hallway (they have tv cameras for viewing) and students are not let in past 15 minutes late. The kids seem to be more serious here as well but I think part of it is the cost is more. The other studio it is very cheap to add classes and it tends to fill the classes to capacity. The classes we've used at this studio are generally smaller. They also have a very nice dance recital. They are larger and divide it into 4 shows so it doesn't get too long. The costumes are ordered months in advance and generally cost the amount of a months tuition. We also used another studio but left because the owner was really odd. My girls were signed up for Hip Hop but all the class did was model walks. They had both done Hip Hop before and said the class just was not Hip Hop. We won't be using them again. They also required parents to volunteer certain number of hours for recital and their tuition was already quite pricey. That is the only place we've used that has had such a requirement.

I bought into this and I really regret it. My older son actually was a late talker. I assumed my second son was as well and held off way longer than I should have getting him services. That being said there is a huge difference between a great speech therapist and a mediocre speech therapist. We've worked with 4 different ones and 2 were fabulous. With those sessions I was usually amazed at all the stuff the speech therapist could get my ds to say.

My ASD son is a big sensory seeker. He loves squeezing things and any kind of deep pressure. We will have him lay down on a bed and then someone will lay on top of him. He loves this. I try to do it on a bed or couch to minimize any chance of him getting hurt. We also have a steamroller machine. It really helps my son regulate himself. http://www.southpawenterprises.com/Southpaws-Steamroller-Deluxe-P96.aspx I think the brushing is for sensory defensiveness but many kids are both sensory seekers and have sensory defensiveness. It kind of seems contradictory but my sensory seeker can't stand things like tags in his clothes or anything touching his hands. We haven't had much luck with brushing here.

My 11 yo is really enjoying CTC this year. I have not used the younger guides. PROS: The boxes work well for my dd. I can see how they would drive others nuts though. For my particular child using the program it works well. I also like how boxes are marked with "I" for Independent. There are also ones marked that we do together. My dd will do many of the "I" boxes on her own and will just show me her completed work. I love how Bible is integrated throughout the program. I like that it is mostly open and go. I'm not searching for a ton of supplies each day. Around here that means they frequently don't get done. The lessons are short but well done. It does not take dd all day to get through school. I've got 5 other kids including a special needs child with many therapy and doctor's visits each week. I need something with little prep for me. CONS: I don't like their Science and am not using it. So far it's worked okay subbing in our own Science for what is written. Some of their book choices are not what I would pick. My least favorite so far was the dinosaur book used. We are not young earth either so I do have to modify some things. I don't like Rod and Staff English but again I sub with GWG. I know they strongly recommend against subbing but I don't think I could use the program exactly as written. Some of the hands on activities don't work well because they try so hard to only use things you would find around home.

My 11 yo is doing CTC and loves it. There has been no problems getting her to do her work this year. She really likes the layout with the boxes and generally gets started on all of the "I" boxes on her own. She did MFW last year and while I prefer the layout of MFW it was not what works best for dd. I actually bought both Preparing and CTC manuals to see what would be a better fit and I'm glad I did CTC. She seems ready for the work level in it plus she really wanted to do Ancient History. I did not care for the Dinosaurs of Eden book at all but have liked all the others. I need my twins to get old enough for Preparing because it sure looks like fun. I am not using all of CTC resources either. I'm subbing Elemental Science and I'm not using either the grammar or writing recommended. Dd was already doing well in GWG and she does weekly writing classes I don't need to add to it. I didn't get DITHOR but I'm wondering if I should have. We haven't done much in the way of lit study this year but we've been so busy I'm not sure I could fit more in. I love the notebooking with CTC. At the end of the year my dd is going to have a gorgeous notebook to show of her work for the year.

This is on my list for my 3.5 year old with Autism. He's a big sensory seeker and loves this swing at therapy. It's only $42 and rated to 200 pounds. http://www.southpawenterprises.com/Therapy-Net-Accessories-P150.aspx I'm mostly looking at therapy catalogs for ds. He doesn't really play with toys aside from puzzles. We keep them on a cart in the garage or ds puts all the pieces in the clothes chute so I'm not really looking to add anymore. I think we're going to invest in a 4' by 8' mat for Christmas as well. Ds loves to crash so that would give him some padding.

My 3 yo with ASD attends a program with 6 typical and 6 special needs. It's through our local school district. Overall it has been good for ds. This year my 4.5 year old dd is one of the typical children in the class which seems to help ds. The biggest issues we've had are with the teacher. She frequently doesn't respond to e-mails and isn't terribly pleasant to deal with. I have observed the class numerous times and she seems like the type that is wonderful with small children and not so good with adults. The class ds is in does not have low functioning children in it. My ds is the lowest functioning child in his class. We are considering a move to the district's intensive ABA classroom but it is primarily for low functioning kids. My ds is considered moderate. His current class mostly has high functioning kids. I worry about putting him in the ABA classroom and spending all day with nonverbal children. We've been told most all of the children in it are nonverbal. My ds is verbal but so limited (single words only) so it's hard to know where to put him. I think I'd want a high functioning child in with some typical peers. If the district wants your son to attend for the socialization I doubt you are going to find much in a classroom with only autistic children.

I'd probably do an eval. My 11 yo always had trouble with th and we kept hearing how she'd outgrow it. She still hasn't. That is the only sound she has trouble with though. I'm planning to do Speech Therapy for her but our insurance doesn't cover articulation disorders so it's entirely self pay. My 7 yo son is in speech therapy and he has trouble with th, ch, j, and a couple other sounds. I'm glad I'm going ahead and doing therapy now with him instead of waiting. I had planned to do the 11 yo after he's done but I think it's going to be awhile I'm hoping we can swing speech therapy for another child after Christmas. For my 7 yo son it isn't a matter of reminding him to use th instead of the f sounds he is not able to say it. With speech therapy he can now say it but he still favors the f sound (d sound in the middle of the word) so we are constantly reminding him and practicing words over and over.

IEW PAL- I'm loving this with my twins and they both really look forward to it each day. The farm folder really helps motivate them. The file folder games are great too even if it took many hours to laminate and cut everything out. HOD Creation to Christ- My 11 yo is really enjoying this. It is laid out perfectly for her. She is very motivated to get all her boxes checked each day. She did MFW last year and never liked it. I think it is the layout of the manual that is better for her.

Maybe I should have posted this on Special Needs but it deals more with the teacher. I homeschool my 5 older children and I send my son with Autism to public school. I have always tried to be as friendly as possible with ds's teacher but every time I see her it is awkward. I first met her at ds's eligibility IEP meeting and the Child Find coordinator brought up that I homeschool in the middle of the meeting which wasn't very well received. When I brought ds to meet the class a few days later she made some comment about homeschooling being a lot of work and asked a couple uncomfortable homeschool questions about it I tried to avoid best I could. I saw her again at ds's next IEP meeting. He was supposed to get a conference before that but she flat out refused because he was having an IEP meeting. When we got to the IEP meeting she said she could answer any class specific questions after the meeting but after the meeting she just walked back to her classroom and didn't offer to answer any questions. She may have just thought they were answered during the meeting but I left kind of frustrated because I did have more questions. At the end of May I requested a conference because I felt I didn't know how ds was doing. IEP meetings do not really give you a good idea and she rarely sends home ds's notebook (he is functionally nonverbal). She stopped sending home newsletters at the end of February so I really had no idea what they were working on unless ds brought an art project home. She didn't want to do a conference in May (said he'd get one in October) but did let me come observe ds in class one day. I brought a nice thank you gift and note to try to break the ice. It was then I realized how completely tuned out he was. He seems to be shutting down in class. His private OT thinks it's because his sensory needs aren't being met. It was so close to the end of the year to try to do anything about it. Yesterday the school had an Open House for ds's Pre-K class. Ds had ESY in July but hadn't been into the school in a month nor had he seen his regular teachers since the beginning of June. I thought it might ease the transition to bring him to the open house. I even brought a bag full of wet wipes and tissues to donate. Those are hard to send with ds on the bus. When we got there the teacher told us the open house was for new students that hadn't visited the class before so it made me feel like we weren't welcome to be there. The note mentioning the open house on the school's website did not mention anything about only being for new students. I did see some of the other special ed kids there including one of the girls that was in his ESY program so I wasn't the only one that brought a returning child to the open house. I wound up getting to talk to the 2 classroom assistants for a bit which made it worth the trip. They are the main ones dealing with ds but our district doesn't allow parents to contact assistants directly. We must deal with the teacher. During July I had asked the Vice Principal if it would be possible to have my son's private OT observe him in class and to have the district's Autism Codre observe him. She seemed agreeable to both and it sounded like she mentioned it to the classroom teacher but when we were at Open House yesterday ds's teacher kept saying his progress was good and that he didn't qualify for any school based OT. My request was not even for school OT but for sensory breaks. I had not planned to mention anything about it at open house as it wasn't really the time or place to discuss something serious like that. The teacher brought it up. This is one of my son's IEP objectives that the teacher counts him making good progress on. There are 5 of them and they are all pretty similar in regard to progress. He'd been working on the goals 4.5 months at the time the update was written. If they say there isn't sufficient progress there has to be an IEP meeting to address why which is why we think the school is trying to claim progress when there is none. Goal: J will stay in a designated area during circle time, he will imitate actions to songs and fingerplays, he will complete calendar/weather activities and other early learning activities, and he will take and wait for his turn. Progress as of 6/5: With maximum adult support, J will stay in our circle area during whole group instruction. He does not imitate his peers movements or action during familiar songs. His face does not reflect engagement or offer a reactions during the course of our circle time. His physical responses are limited with a high level of support required to complete a task. He seems very tired most days. We have just hired an education advocate to try to get some changes to IEP and hopefully more accommodations for ds. From observing in class they will have an assistant sit directly behind him that put his hands through the motions for him. This is the high level of support mentioned. They are basically doing it for him. We also do not think he is tired but tuned out. He is not a great sleeper but not generally tired most days. He goes in the afternoons and I let him sleep until he wakes up himself. He hasn't napped in a long time either. I'm wondering how to best deal with the teacher through all of this. I know she's not going to be thrilled when she gets our advocate's request to observe the class and I'm anticipating some pretty uncomfortable IEP meetings soon. I'd like to maintain the best relationship possible because ds will be in her classroom the next 2 years. She seems like one of those teachers that is really great with the kids but not so good with the parents. The couple times I've been in there during class time it really seems like she has it very well organized and lots of fun things for the kids to do. The only option for moving my son would be to put him in the severe Autism classroom which I really don't want to do. My son is considered moderate functioning and not aggressive. The severe class is mainly for children that are aggressive or other severe behavior issues which my ds does not have. The class he's in now seems set up for higher functioning kids than him. His current class is 5 NT kids and 4 special needs kids with 1 teacher and 2 assistants. He requires a one on one aide so I cannot afford any private options. I really do want to leave him in school right now. I do not think I could homeschool my other kids without him in school. He is so high needs and gets into everything (he figured out how to dump everything out of the freezer this weekend and then climbed in to try to get something off the top of the fridge). He does this kind of thing all the time. He's really smart when it comes to getting into things. We get so much done in the 3 hours he's away at school. I'm not looking to it as free babysitting either. I want ds to get something out of it.

I've been considering AWANAS for my kids even though we don't go to the church. I really feel kind of weird trying to get them into the program without being members. We've visited once and liked it but I'm not quite ready to join yet. AWANAS is pretty much the only Wed night program in my town at all. The Catholic church has a decent youth program but it is at all different times. I like that with AWANAS the kids could all go at the same time on the same night.

My 7 year old son is really enjoying the Mercy Watson books by Kate DiCamillo. My mom is a 1st grade teacher and brought them last Christmas and they are well liked by my boy/girl twins. I think there are 6 in the series. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0763645044/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d1_g14_i3?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0XGHT5SYMP9VCJBZRRGR&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846

Wo do a co-op but I would love to not have that interruption during the week. Our co-op day is Wednesday which is not my favorite day. I think I'd like it better if it was on Friday and our school week was over. Plus I have to teach each session so right now while I should be prepping my kids fall stuff I'm trying to put together a 7 week World Geography class for twelve 7-9 year olds. I couldn't do it if I was just doing it for academic opportunities. Our co-op falls more into the fun classes category which I don't mind much. We did take one year off from doing co-ops which I really enjoyed but it was also the year my older girls were begging to go to school because they were lonely. So we basically do it for social. We're looking for a new church now and if we can find one with a great youth program maybe we could drop the co-op.

We do both RS and Singapore for my 7 year old twins. We mainly use Singapore as I find it more open and go than RS. It will likely take us 2 years to do Rightstart B but I'm fine with that and right now I don't think we'll do C although I did already purchase it so may use parts of it. My son loves anything math related and is always asking to do math anyway. My dd seems to need a lot of review for math concepts so it seems to work out okay.

This is more along the lines of what we've heard. People act like the problems would magically disappear if they were in school. When I mentioned to mil that we did not have the funds to fly any of the children to visit her this fall because we had so many therapy costs she said the school should be able to provide that kind of thing. Never mind that the child who we are spending the most on therapy is enrolled in the PS. :confused: