My son has Asperger's, too. He just turned 11 and writing is a struggle. I think because he is a perfectionist. He hates his handwriting and he can tell when a sentence is written well. He wants his first writing to be a Novel. We are starting Writing Strands 3 this month. I didn't do any written narration with him when he was younger. So, we have slowly started to add them into his work. But, I try to make them fun. Like have him take pictures of a project and write captions for all the pictures. Sometimes I type his narrations for him and print them out for his notebook. Are you doing anything like that with him yet? At this point I don't think outlining is necessary for him. Perhaps when he is older. But, I try to keep in mind that he will be behind in some areas and that is why we homeschool. So, he doesn't have to feel behind. Plenty of children go off to college lacking skills in some areas and they do just fine. I know because I'm in the University right now. I've figured out when we are struggling that I need to create a sneak attack plan on him. It's been a huge struggle for us and I feel your pain. PM if you want.

We are learning German. It helped me to take a College course to get it down and I'll probably take a few more at this point. Resources are harder to come by. I had French in High School (german wasn't available). I like German a lot better.

I like Mindy's option! I have a 5th grader now, so I've had a bit of time to realize...you are going to have a few more cycles to go through history. This year you are just warming yourself up. Try to do too much and your going to burn up. Right now all you are doing is wetting her appetite. Have fun and make this and enjoyable loving experience.

Thanks. I didn't realize it was on Paula's. I feel like such a doof.

That's pretty darn cool. I'm filing that away in my brain in case we get to move back!

Well we have been using MOH/SOTW together for a over a month now and it works well for us. But, I have an 11 year old who needed a bit more to chew on. We felt like SOTW was missing something for us. I'm not strong in my Church History so it's helped me a lot.

I would do a full house cleaning from top to bottom. I would remove anything that they would love to live in. Big toy boxes, junk under beds, stuff under sinks. If the cabinet under the sinks is dark then paint it white so you can see in there really well. I would vacuum often. Black Widows hide really well and they make massive webs. You could put toys in plastic covered boxes in the closet and dump out when ready to play. Outside I wouldn't have anything stacked up where the children can get to it. Don't tarp anything, they love tarps. Keep your grass really short and always garden with gloves. Talk to your neighbors if they have a lot of stuff in their yard. It's so easy to let stuff build up. A bike here, a stack of wood from a project. I don't like chemicals but our house was infested in So. Cali. They were living in the walls. We did have everything sprayed. It was worth it to me because I couldn't get into the walls myself. They only did the outside and in the walls. I'm really sensitive to stuff and I did just fine. The exterminator that came out looked exactly like Beetlejuice when he is all little and has that really greasy hair. It was so hard to keep a straight face. He wiped his hair and nose the same way, too. And, don't be so hard on yourself. Black Widows are painful bites but if you go straight to the ER you or your child should be just fine.

I thought I saw a post and I now I wished I had saved it. We got a few extras about Greeks and since they are interested we are going to focus on them for the next month. But, I didn't want to have to figure out all the cultures that are related in SOTW/MOH. We use both and the guide from Paula's Archives. So, if I had a culture list for either book I could figure it out a lot easier.

We really like Math U See so I would be tempted to keep buying that. I use them for all the boys, so I only need one new level per year (free copier at our school program). But, we can get free Math curriculum through our school program. So, I could use that. Really I don't think I would have to buy anything because of our school library and the two public libraries we are a part of. If I didn't have those resources I would probably just buy the next set of MUS and figure out the rest on my own. If I didn't have access to the free copier I would just make them hand write all the problems. I had to do it, I'm sure they wouldn't suffer too much.

I love having it just because I can never pronounce things correctly. I usually read the chapter once and then they listen to it a few times during the week.

I don't know I think my dh might like the sound of it:D Heck I seem to know quite a few men who might eat their beans if they had such attractive names.

I'm not there and I don't have so many children. But, personally I would just pick the ones I was really interested in and read those. Your children just have so much more time than you do. I think books on CD would be great though. Perhaps if you don't have one already you can ask for a iPod or MP3 player as a gift for Mother's Day. I know our library know has audio books available for download (ours doesn't work for MAC/ipod though) and that would help for getting them on without having to add another thing to the library list. But, you should be able to finish some just while washing up and doing laundry.

Another prayer for him and his family. May he come home soon and safe.

I originally wanted to homeschool because I wanted my children to have freedom to learn and have leisurely days. I wanted them to be able to savor the books they read and have a say in how they learned. Where we used to live it seemed a lot of people homeschooled because of Faith (Christian overwhelmingly), but now we live right in the midst of a big city. We belong to a public program and there are all sorts of people with all sorts of reasons. Some of those reasons include special need children like Aspie, ADD who suddenly don't have many if any problems anymore, children who generally dislike school, dissatisfaction in the school system and it seems a lot of us have the first reason I mentioned. Letting children have some freedom and time to ponder. A chance to grow without everyone butting in. I answered that faith does have some say because my oldest does have some rather strong convictions and when he tried public school last year he felt hampered in his faith.

I'm interested, too. My 8 year old is finally reading without being awful to himself. He is reading Danny and the Dinosaur right now. It's a book with three in one. I figure I would just go through the Cat and Hat, Easy readers at the library. My oldest went from learning to short novels like Magic Treehouse, so I need some more ideas.

Mr. Ferrars. Sense and Sensibility's Edward Ferrars is soft spoken, but he is firm in his decisions and will always make good on his promises, even if he's changed his mind. His good nature might lead him into the wrong situations sometimes, but he's not as naive as you might think. And a perfect fit I might say! If my husband was anyone that would be him!

Enchiladas-make a pan to freeze. Just the tortillas and meat. Add sauce/toppings when putting in the oven. Put the roast in the crockpot with some powdered au jus and water. Cook all day and serve on toasted rolls. Fry corn tortillas and use it for the filling. Add a can of rotel when heating.

We really like the German ones. The colors are smoothness are amazing. We buy ours locally but here is an example of what to look for. http://www.artistcraftsman.com/lyraPencils/index.html I used to use Prismacolor, but I think these are even better. My kids use the triangular shaped ones which are nice because they don't roll AND the lead is really thick all the way through. My younger guy uses their crayons and we have markers, too.

I would do the Feral cats program. I would always tell her about the program but maybe after you do it. A lot of people do not ever realize this is available.

I have a ticked Border Collie. This means he has lucious long white hair that lives under everything. I try to brush often. But, that's easier with long hair. We have wood floors so I use the same type of stick mop. I try to sweep and mop daily. I have an old spray bottle that I put in some watered down Trader Joes spray cleaner in. I just spray a bit and mop the high traffic areas. It doesn't take too long and if I do it every other day then it's pretty tidy.

Before I plan anything I figure out what we can do together. We do History and Science together. While we do those I keep something handy for notes. That is usually a pad of sticky notes. I can then jot down those annoying bright ideas I have and not run off to the computer or various other corner somewhere. I only do 2 weeks at a time. Otherwise I feel so disappointed in myself if we stray. I just look ahead an order some library stuff for History/Science and fill in what we accomplish in Math. Language Arts is just do the next thing. One page goals are plenty for my guys. We are out of the house 5 days a week and we all need room to breath. I've accepted our limitations in this area. There are some academics that have taken us more time. (History is going to take more than one year.) But, we can make those up this summer when there aren't so many fun classes to be apart of!

We usually do it once or twice a week for 2-4 hours. We don't do much else that day. It seems to be working better for us. We take classes outside the home 5 days a week. I find if we try to do a little bit everyday it just doesn't work well with us. Since, we have started this we are progressing much faster. It's hard to wrangle 3 boys down all week. It's much easier to give them chocolate and hold them still while I can. I guess it depends on what curriculum you are using and what your expectations are for your children. My oldest is just starting to write more. He is an Aspie and it's been difficult for him. So, we are not doing outlining yet. We do SOTW/MOH together, read books, watch DVDs, SOTW student pages, activities (more since doing History in a big lump)...

I wonder what types of things people would change, but won't admit here:tongue_smilie:

We add them to pasta sauce, sloppy joes and chili. They give it a kind of meaty texture and a little boost of nutrition. But, after looking at all this recipes I think I might have to give a few new ways a try.

I would be proud of her! My mom doesn't shave and I've been known to boycott. My dh loves hairy armpits, so it doesn't bother him.