I will work on finding an audiologist first. Thanks.

My problem is that when the weekend is over, I can only remember the stories. ($5, Titanic, climbing the mountain, etc). I have to wait for the Ensign to come to really get into it.

I have concerns about my dd8, and I am not sure what to do, so I have come to the hive. Here are her issues. Will you tell me if she is within the range of normal or if I need to pursue other testing? She has a very bright younger brother who has always been stepping on the back of her academic heals, so I have never known whether she has an ld, or if she is just normal compared to ds. I realize that I am looking at the possibility 2E and not dealing with problems like some of you wonderful parents, but I don’t know who else to ask. 1. - Her ps teacher last year had her tested for gifted since my other dc were also tested. The difference between her verbal and non-verbal scores was 25 pts. Non-verbal was higher. I asked about the possibility of 2E in the IEP and the district rep didn’t want to discuss it. 2. -She cannot spell. We have tried writing, verbalizing, sand writing and every other sensory option I could think of and nothing is improving. (Here are some examples from her writing today: exsiding, choclot, presants, wile, opning.) 3. -Decoding skills are normal. Reading comprehension skills are low. Not as bad a spelling but she still struggles with this. 4. -When I tell her to do something, she repeats the instructions to herself and will often repeat them to me to make sure she has them right. Other things: Her handwriting is fine and she can write good stories. Her math skills are also on level. I know that I could take her somewhere to be tested, but I don’t know where to start, and I don’t want to spend the money if I am just an overreacting parent. Thank you!

You can use WTM for afterschooling. I always just choose my favorite parts and adapt them for part-time use. You could pretty easily do everything they list for Kindergarten in an afterschool environment.

If you try to print, it says "Owner has restricted document so that it cannot be printed."

I wonder if you want to consider private testing. Private testing would give you as a parent a better idea of how hard you need to push this, based upon how high she scores. Have you looked to see if your state has a gifted education organization? They may be able to recommend a tester and help you navigate the school system.

You may need to just choose the things that are the most important to you and afterschool in those subjects. You are already supplementing the Everyday Math with Singapore, so you should be fine there. As for the other subjects, you may have to prioritize, since you probably won't be able to redo everything that he is learning at school. You could use WWE for dictation a couple of times a week, give him library books about science to read, and find him better literature at the library or at home for his book reports. Good luck.

I bought Apples and Fractions to use as novels. My dc love them, but I am not going to buy more right now, because they are somewhat pricey when just used for entertainment. The problem with the elementary series is that by the time a child can read well enough to enjoy the books on their own, they could easily be well past the math that is presented.

My young ds hates Spelling Power, so I have to adjust it quite a bit to make it work for him. So while I agree that SP might be a great option for you in the long run, you might need to modify it now to make it work for a younger child. One thing is that SP has you test on a list of words every day, and my ds doesn't have the patience to do that yet. I have to choose words that I am pretty sure he doesn't know and then he works on those.

Our school has used this for the past few years. It will depend a lot on how the teacher implements it. A fabulous teacher will do a fabulous job. You could try to volunteer in the classroom during fundations time. Then you would have an idea of what is going on.

I haven't used them. We just use regular paper.

Writing! I feel like I am constantly trying to find something better than what we have.

We are loving TOG, too. I love having all of my kids studying the same thing and having everything there for me to choose from. But like the pp, I would not be as happy if I didn't have a D student along with the younger ones.

We are using Prentice Hall Science Explorer for science and it is working well.

I used Phonics Pathways with a kid about that age. The nice thing about PP vs. ETC is that there is no writing.

We are, because dd was in ps until this year. WWS is going fine. We had to work through the narrations a little bit during the first few weeks, but now things are going well.

Maybe you could have him do a writing assignment on his history or science every week to give him more writing practice.

I don't know about everything that you have questions about, but here is a start. Spelling Power has a placement test in the book. You find out what level they are out after you have the book. I like Mudpies to Magnets a lot for my little kids (preschool/K age). It is not going to be terribly exciting for your 4th or 6th. We are first time homeschoolers and using TOG and I love it. It lays everything out for me and you can determine the level of rigor that is appropriate for your family. I use STOW as part of TOG as a read aloud for all of my kids. It would probably be OK as a spine for your 4th and K but the 6th would need more than that.

This happens in my library, too. But if I just keep the book, eventually they fill it with one of the others from the system and then I can renew. We don't have fines though, so that might affect your situation.

Asking "What did you learn?" is probably a hard question for a K kid to answer. Have you tried to ask specifically about certain subjects, like "What did you do in math today?" If you have a couple of 20 minute blocks, use them on the subjects that you think are the most important and leave everything else until he is a little older and has a longer attention span. He will probably be less crazy at home as the year progresses.

We are using WWS and MCT Voyage. She also does science outlining and we alternate weeks between a science or history report and a creative writing assignment.

We use WWS, MCT Voyage, and KISS grammar.

I change books a lot. I feel like TOG is a jumping off point. They have already gathered so much information and put it together in a format that makes it easy for me to use. If I want to change books out, I am not going to lose much, because I am still using so many parts of the curriculum. If you are doing the LG/UG levels, you won't necessarily be able to use the Student Activity pages, because they are specific to the TOG book. If you have a D student, you may have to adjust the discussion/accountability questions so that they match the book that you have chosen. It is not terribly hard once you get into it.

You can have him run laps. At our house this means touching the back door and running up the stairs to touch the window and then back down again. They think that it is funny at first, but it quickly becomes annoying to them, which is my purpose. Plus, it burns energy and they are out of my sight for just long enough that I can feel better about the situation. Don't waste your tiny bit of sitting still time on a punishment. Save it for school time.

You could add in UG books easily, especially if you were willing to use them as more read alouds if they turn out to be too hard for your 6yo. I use STOW (a UG) as a read aloud for everyone, even my D.