Our community will include a one-room schoolhouse model logic stage group next year. What do you think would be the best Latin curriculum to teach that could accommodate 1st and 2nd year students?

That is exactly what we do. We live in a semi rural area and drive over 400 times a week frequently. My husband is hooked so we actually only listen when we're all together. In the past year we've gotten through volumes 1 -3 and are 2 discs into volume 4. We don't match it to our history. Just listen through. When we finish, we'll start over. Even my non-auditory learner has picked up "pegs" to build history knowledge on.

It's not a decision to enter lightly but there are a lot of newer resources that equip parents to handle kids from hard places (which include older adoptees) should you make the leap. These kids are very "healable" but it takes a lot of research and time. I also think knowing your motivation for adopting and expectations are key to how successful adoption relationships are. If you feel called to bring her into your home, everyone will need to make sacrifices and expect it to be HARD. If you go ahead, I would strongly suggest checking out the resources at www.empoweredtoconnect.org. They have revolutionized our house after a 2 1/2 year old turned it upside down.

Unfortunately OT was not covered by our insurance. We're using our HSA to pay for it but we still don't have a lot laying around since we're paying off three adoptions. We found a place that was willing to work with us. We paid for the eval which the most helpful. We did 1 session per month for a couple months so our OT could get to know our son and I could get my questions worked out. Now that I'm armed with a definitive diagnosis (different that I had thought after research), I can do more informed research. Our OT is happy to answer specific questions by email and we'll probably check in with her quarterly. It was definitely worth the cost to us even if we needed to cut back in other areas to make it work.

Unfortunately there's a lot of trial and error with Sensory Processing Disorder. In addition to the above suggestions, *the resistance of bike riding is the most effective for our sensory seeking son. *carrying a weighted backpack around seems to help a little bit. *sleeping under a weighted blanket has helped. *a body sock where he can get in and push against its resistance *being swaddled tightly and then rolling a therapy ball on him. *playdough *rubber band play Our son needs almost a constant stream of the above to stay regulated. Hope these help!

Try gum or http://www.nationalautismresources.com/chewelry.html for when he's playing with legos.

we love all the beetoven's wigs. Schoolhouse Rock are great too.

In CC, we memorize all the titles (all 161) over the year. It gives the kids "pegs" of information to hang more detailed information on as we study topics more in depth.

Last summer, my favorite was AllRecipe.com's carmelized turnips http://allrecipes.com/recipe/caramelized-turnips/detail.aspx?event8=1&prop24=SR_Title&e11=carmelized%20turnip&e8=Quick%20Search&event10=1&e7=Recipe%20Search%20Results

Even my boys loved the Little House series. Maybe start him with Farmer Boy?

Our kids are required to be respectful and that includes actions. If they don't do it with respect, we playfully ask them to perform a re-do with respect. If they can't at that time, they can have a time out to re-regulate and let me know when they're ready to do the re-do. It's exhausting sometimes but it really works.

My favorite christian fiction author is Karen Kingsbury.

Ok, So this fall we'll have a special needs Kindergartner (most pronounced is that he has visuo-, somatodyspraxia which makes him sensory seeking), 2 ESL middle schoolers (with basically no functional English), a 2nd, and 4th grader. If you have any tips for scheduling, schooling, and all around managing a situation remotely similar to this, please share! We're generally a classically educating family and our youngest 3 will participate in a CC community. Thanks in advance!

If you decided to move forward, I would highly recommend www.empoweredtoconnect.org/training. The ups and downs are intense but, for our family, our feeling of calling outweighs the challenges.

We've relegated STW to the car on audio book. It's worked very well for us as a back drop for CC memory work.

We just got 54oz from Vitacost. it's been great for hair, skin, and cooking! If you use this link, you'll get $10 off your first order so it's only about $15 for the big tub. i haven't seen a better deal. http://www.vitacost.com/Referee?wlsrc=rsReferral&ReferralCode=3385874

What about Great Latin Adventure for the one who loves it and Latin for Children or Lively Latin for the one who struggles?

I agree. If you're just in PK, relax! Whatever you get done will be great. Don't sit her down in front of workbooks just for busy work. Let her play. She'll learn way more that's useful that way at her age than anything. If you have some time to work on letter sounds or 1 to 1 correlation, sorting, etc, great! If not, no biggie. If you do nothing, just make sure to read (or listen to if you're not feeling up to it) great literature. She'll be fine :)

Spelling and Reading are closely linked. One is reading through encoding and the other is decoding. AAS will teach spelling. SS did not cut it for us.

www.handwritingworksheets.com allow you to create your own in a couple different styles.

We're a cursive family. I like that it's a gross motor skill and only needs 4 basic strokes to learn all 26 letters. It's worked for 2 of my kids who have vastly different development schedules and learning styles. We'll start my 5 year old on it this fall. Either way you go, I recommend starting BIG. Practice on a large easel or in a sand box. Then start practicing on paper using the entire sheet and then to multiple lines per sheet. For either manuscript or cursive, there are visual guides for vertical spacing like sky, grass, dirt, or the house visual (attic, main floor, basement), that are very helpful. We don't use a formal curriculum but I've heard Cursive First is a good one if you go that route.

Thanks for the kudos :)

UMBC in Maryland has Korean 1 through 3 I think and is close to a few Korean-American communities.

We love assigning work through www.myjobchart.com.

I would recommend the Brain Integration Therapy Manual. Do the therapy for auditory gate block.