My daughter is 4, will be 5 near the end of July, so she could register for public K, but she was born early so I guess technically she could wait another year as her EDD was after the cut off (5 years old by July 31). I may wait until next January to call it officially K. We are recording school records for our son currently Jan-Dec. I found a vintage K lesson plan book at a thrift store a few years ago. We'll probably do some of that. Poetry/scripture memorization with her brother. Lots of read alouds mostly all of the Ambleside Online Year 0 selections over and over and over. I want to keep this year as calm as possible for her. She is smart, but still seems just oh so little. She is currently swimming at our local Y. I want to continue that. I would really like to add in dance or tumbling for her. Continue with the weekly nature group on Fridays. Waldorf study of numbers 1-12 over the course of the year. I wrote about this when my son was little on an EFL Arithmetic thread. She'll join in all of the BraveWriter lifestyle activities. Begin her journal. I have helped her older brother keep a journal since he was 4. I think I'll get her journal as part of her official K start. She will do an art project and science fair exhibit for the local fair next year.

We received our exam. Who else is registered?

My son has been wanting to use a 3D printer for a very long time. As we've been preparing for his science fair project on wind energy he found plans online for a wind turbine he would like to print and test. How do you go about finding a 3D printer and what should we expect to pay to print something?

I would let her apply. Maybe if/when she is accepted she could ask them to defer her award until next year. What sparked her interest in herpetology to begin with?

So sorry to hear about your husband. That is a huge fear of mine. We currently have a large insurance policy that helps my fear, but only slightly. I live in MO and honestly it has some of the best homeschool laws in the country. I hear great things about homeschooling in CO though with their nice charter programs for homeschoolers where they will pay for some of your curriculum, etc. I do agree with above posters that living 2 hours away from family is not really near family. My mother in law is 45 minutes away now since we bought a house and honestly it is not like we are very close now.

I don't know if all the episodes are for young children in this new series. The first topic I saw listed was sex. Not saying this shouldn't be taught, but maybe not something to simply give free reign of the remote to for an elementary student if you are planning on addressing this topic a little later down the road.

Are there issues with their reading? Advice I've been given is once they are at a 3rd/4th grade level is just to read read read. Or are you looking for literature?

Any tips on doing this since most of Aldi's products are there own brand?

He is 7.5, but working at an advanced level in science. We have read the picture book and watched a few TEDTalks about this man a year or so ago. I didn't realize there were other levels of this book. Off to google. Today we watched a TEDTalk about a different kind of wind power: He then gave me a narration and drew a diagram of one of their prototypes.

My son is currently working on a wind turbine project. Not quite sure what it will look like when it is finished. He has been drawing diagrams of different styles of wind energy systems. I'd like to find a variety of articles about wind energy and try to read him maybe one a day that we could then discuss. He would like to visit a large wind turbine and also see Block Island in Rhode Island's offshore turbines.

I have three tall Billy bookcases in our basement for overflow of books. Hopefully we'll fill those and I can get more later because they are great bookcases for the price.

With church commitments during the last few months plus illnesses we did not have time to work on this ourselves. We have no tools for such a project. Since this is a new town and our first year in scouts we didn't know the people who were running workshops in their homes. I had to explain to our son that we weren't participating in this event this year. I thought he'd be sad. He simply said, "It's ok mom, I wait a full year for the science fair each year. I can wait for the next Pinewood Derby." So perhaps if it is overwhelming you can just simply pass this year.

I broke down and registered (just to do as a fun school activity) and also convinced another homeschool family to register two of their children (3rd and 5th grade students). I have read almost the first half of the required pages pages 1-69 or so to Robby. He is working on illustrating his narrations of the stories to practice. We are going to try to meet up a few times and do some activities to review for the test. Any ideas or activities you all have done to prepare in the past?

I'd love to hear how you recorded this and some of the course work you recorded from elementary/middle school. I also don't know exactly what a cover school means. I assume this is a charter program of some sort.

We just completed a battery of tests for my son--suspected dyslexia. They came back with exactly as you say a specific learning disability in basic reading skills. I am not sure if they gave him the CTOPP, but now I am very curious. Thank you!

I've never heard of this program. I was a Bonner Scholar in college which was a service based scholarship. I think if any one of your children were awarded this they would be a great applicant for a Bonner Scholarship come college applications. Something else to consider.

Robby is working on some wind turbine experiments. He has been sketching designs for months. He will submit something for our big science fair, but I'm sure his research will continue into the summer. He is still too little for a sleep away camp, but he might do a Cub Scouts day camp this summer.

Oh another point: Is she reading? (Not that she is expected to read at 4!!!!) My son is most probably dyslexic. The school called it a specific learning disability in basic reading skills. His processing speed and working memory were in the average/high average ranges but with other things so high. From the little I've read in the last few months this seems common with 2E children to have a "spiky" chart of scores. This could point to her ADHD, if she has that disability.

My son recently had a full battery of tests done. I would agree with luuknam that tests I think before 7 don't hold much weight. Anyways, my son had some really really high scores and then his processing speed was the upper limit for average. They told me that this makes him seem like he is processing things slowly, but that he is actually on the higher end of average (his was 109), but I don't have a bell curve for your test, but if this is in the average range I would not worry. I am not familiar with your test, we did the WISC V, but I think 130 is the high average range/superior/some schools' gifted program acceptance score so maybe you could call and talk with a psychologist for gifted students? They may be able to look at the subset scores specifically and tell you what exactly was holding her back. Was it an area where she had to write something? Was it an area of recalling pictures in order? Biggest take away--DO NOT worry about test scores at 4 or 7 for that matter. Sure they allow them to access different programs, etc., but they do not measure who she is.

Wordly Wise is online. There are also some good apps. One I do with my son is called Kids Vocab by Mind Snacks. My son is not reading, but has a HIGH vocabulary/comprehension level. He loves to do vocabulary. When we read a book aloud he used to ask what every word he didn't know meant. I had to ask him to stop. Now I will preread and make a few flashcards for words he probably has not encountered before. I will teach them to him then we will do the read aloud. I think this actually is better than any program we've used. You could put words into Quizlet or Anki style cards.

I have not heard of BARD. Also there is Minds Eye which reads newspapers and magazines. http://www.mindseyeradio.org/ What about Bookshare?

We are switching things up a bit too. We had gotten too lax. We were going through testing with the public school. That has been fruitless except for getting our testing done for free. My husband created a new record keeping spreadsheet in Google docs and we are feeling better seeing our current hours and YTD hours. Today they picked up a new book and read about Beebe-Barton Bathysphere. So interesting! I never learned about these things in school. For some people this is a season of slump but for us this is a season of renewal and productivity.

I am interested, but how does the payment work? Is this $10 for a full year? We are about to try Learning Ally for my dyslexic son. I will go ahead and download the app to do the free trial.

I think I might order the teacher's guide to D'Aulaie's Greek Myths.

Do they allow accommodations for dyslexia? Like could someone read the exam questions aloud to a student? We are not taking it this year, but just a question for the future. Robby might really enjoy these competitions, but he is still not reading well enough on his own.