Just thought I would update again. Got my new glasses last week and I am still adjusting to them. Its weird to wear glasses for the first time in 32 years! LOL But I can't believe how much I was straining my eyes at the computer, while reading, while driving. Wow. I am starting the HTS II computer program at home for myself and my kids and I am excited about that. I go into VT twice a week with my kids as well and my dyslexic daughter has improved in her convergence but she still has one eye that twitches and does not come in like its supposed to. So she is going to do a few more weeks of VT. I hope it doesn't take much longer for her! Thanks goodness my insurance is covering this or we would go broke! LOL Anyways, just thought I would let you all know what we're doing! How is everyone else doing with VT? Stephanie

Thanks everyone!! It is nice to take my kids to therapy where I feel that they are getting what they need and I am too! I start my vision therapy and get my new glasses on Tuesday. Changing our lives indeed, for the better! Thank you all for your help and suggestions! I so appreciate it!

I don't know if anyone remembers me, but awhile ago I came here whining and complaining about my daughter needing vision therapy and how expensive it was. Well we looked on http://www.covd.org and found a vision therapist that took our insurance! So my daughter has been receiving vision therapy there 2 x per week and I pay a $15 copay! So I had ALL of my children checked out {I have 6 kids} since it is covered and I now have THREE kids doing vision therapy 2x per week! I would never have been able to afford it if we had gone with the original therapist we were planning to see. Also, the Developmental Optometrist checked their eyes and did extensive testing {all covered} and found that each of their prescriptions were off {based on a previous exam from an ophthalmologist}. They all can SEE better and my daughter who is struggling with reading issues {dyslexia} can see better. She couldn't even tell us that she was seeing double while she was reading due to her expressive/receptive language issues. What a world of difference. Her reading has improved! We have been continuing her reading therapy with Seeing Stars with her private reading therapist who charges $60/hour and we are getting to a point where I feel like it isn't really helping her and it is costing us too much. I enrolled my daughter in AZVA {Arizona's K12 program} and the program here is providing Barton Reading for her which I think will be BETTER for her. I am going to use it with all my kids that are struggling, including my emerging kindergartener who is having trouble remembering sounds. {We just learned that my kindergartener has trouble hearing low sounds and failed her hearing test at the Pediatrician's office so she is being referred to an audiologist. If anyone has any ideas on what tests/things I should ask for when visiting an audiologist, I would appreciate it!} Thanks. So, I had my eyes checked yesterday. I haven't had an exam since I was in elementary school. :001_smile: I am near-sighted in my left eye pretty badly and my right eye just a little bit. I have trouble seeing at night when I drive and my eyes blur and I have trouble converging! Sometimes i see double while reading! Argh. I am getting glasses for the first time in my life and I am doing some of the vision therapy as well now to help with my convergence issues!! Who would have guessed?! :001_smile: Anyways, at least 3 of my kids have perfect vision and no problems and no need of glasses! YEAH! Thank you everyone here for the recommendations you all made for me and my kids. I will update more as we move along with Barton. Stephanie

Oh my goodness!! 9 months .... 22 months??! EEk. LOL {we just started and I can not picture myself driving there twice a week for that long! I hope after the 8 weeks we are done and that it works!} I am so glad you had great results with your daughter!! That's awesome! Congrats to your daughter!! That is a cause to celebrate! :)

Not only was her behavior worse without the glasses but also when her eyes were dilated. She was all over the place and trying to overcompensate for her blurry vision. Even the optometrist saw it! I admit I am surprised that we are looking at vision therapy for two kiddos so far... but I think its helping already which is strange to say. My daughter who started VT already is already making improvements! :) For my first daughter [8] they are giving us an estimate of 8 weeks and then we do the reassessment then. For my daughter [7] that was tested this previous week is also going to do another assessment for her visual motor skills first and then they'll have a better idea of how long she'll need therapy for. Either way they both got updated/better prescriptions {even though their glasses were only 4 months old- argh!} which is helpful because neither one of them could see very well. :glare: On another note, I am taking my 4 year old in to be evaluated also. He had a head injury when he was 2 and I didn't realize that could affect his vision so he is getting checked out too.

So I have had two of my other kids evaluated by the Optometrist. I really like him and the vision therapy is going good. My daughter is exhausted. :) And this week she got her new prescription/glasses that are much easier for her to see with. Her prior prescription was way off. My 5 year old was checked and her eyes are great. My 7 year old {ADHD} was evaluated too and her eyes are worse than we assumed and she has some focusing, convergence issues, and needs vision therapy also. Good thing we have insurance coverage! :) I don't know how she is able to read so well with some of her vision issues and she taught herself to read too! She does skip entire lines when she is reading however and her hyperactivity seems to be much worse without glasses. She got a new prescription too! So anyways, we are very happy with the vision therapy and the optometrist.

Thanks Linda!! Those are some great ideas!! Aside from it taking too long, I am frustrated that it will be many months before we get to reading real books. That is NOT what I expected from a learning to read program. I am having my 11 year old practice the file folder games with my kinder and that is working out good for now. We do ETC workbook and AAR Pre level right now, the sped up version. But that's it. And I think the AAR pre level is more for my prek level child than for my kinder. LOL There is way too much writing for her and I may just opt out of the writing lessons altogether for her and just do that part with the older girls instead. Ugh.

Yeah I am considering getting OPGTR or going back to my tried and true Sonlight LAK program for her since I know it works and I am comfortable using it. I really think Pal is not for a kindergartner at all and it is frustrating that it takes so long to get to actual reading books. Kinders want to read RIGHT AWAY. Ugh.

If you go to You Tube, you can type in "Timeline cards hand motions Classical Conversations" and you will see a ton of different ways to memorize the timeline cards in order. There is a handmotion that your child can memorize to go with each card and go all the way through the timeline from beginning to end. My kids are memorizing them through CC but as the Director I found the hand motions that I liked on You Tube and we are using those as a group. I model the hand motions and teach the titles of each timeline card and they have memorized 4 weeks worth already and they love it! At home we will go over a card or two in depth at home reading from some of our history books and they love it!

I have used Sonlight for a long time. I taught four kids how to read using Sonlight LA K and 1 program. I loved it. One of those children ended up being dyslexic however and we have had to do something different which totally threw off my confidence in teaching my kids how to read so this year I caved and bought a new and better program... to teach my 5 year old how to read. I am using PAL Reading/Writing. It is very time consuming, not open and go like Sonlight which is not a big deal since I expect to spend time planning and doing this correctly. However, what I have found in the difference between PAL and Sonlight LAK is that Sonlight teaches one sound/letter per week starting with the short vowel sounds, reinforcing those with letter sheets/phonics readers {love the Fun Tales books!}, and handwriting practice as well as other multisensory ideas. PAL starts off teaching phonograms like ee and ow and ar in the first lesson and without my daughter knowing any other sounds of the alphabet! I think PAL is good for a first grader, definitely not for a kindergartner who doesn't know any sounds yet. And PAL is very fast... teaching 4 and 5 phonemes in a DAY. My daughter is confused and does not/can not remember all the sounds she has learned. While the games/folder stickers and such are there to help reinforce the sounds, I am not happy with the way this is taught. And, putting all these sounds to reading books does not happen until the 3rd half of the book!!! One reason my daughter wants to learn how to read is so she can read books! This is one benefit to Sonlight LAK. They are reading the Fun Tales pretty quickly, while continuing to learn new sounds each week. One sound a week with review on other previously learned sounds. I have stopped doing PAL with my kindergartner now and instead have been using AAR Pre Level and I have sped that up... so instead of doing one capital letter per week... we do two lessons per week like this.... from the first section we do Capital Letter A and LowerCase Letter a all in the same lesson as well as the short vowel sound of a from the back of the book. I have to flip back and forth from section to section but the lessons are too slow otherwise for her. So I have had to improvise and that's fine. I am not happy at all the money I spent on PAL for her. I am sure she can use it later. I am using PAL with my 2nd graders with great results as its just at their level. :) I admit I have shaken my head that I sold my Sonlight LAK. I wish I had kept it. I have ordered the Fun Tales at least though so my daughter has something fun to read while learning her sounds! :)

I find this whole line of thinking weird for a homeschool co-op. Every homeschool co-op we have ever participated in {with the exception of one and we didn't stay there long} had kids broken up into groups of ages... so for example... Nursery: newborn- 36 months Preschool: 3-5ish Then... 4/5-7 year olds 7-10 year olds 10-12 year olds 12-14 year olds and so on... And the parents always had the final say of where they wanted their child to go, regardless of age {this allowed parents of kids with special needs to put them with younger children if they needed to and advanced kids with older children, etc} But there was no grade level separating. Strange. Even in our CC group right now... the kids are separated based on non-readers {emerging readers} and strong readers. It just so happens that the age ranges for those classes are: 4-8 year olds in one class and then 8-11 year olds in another class. My daughter who is 11 is making friends with the 8 and 9 year old girls in her class! Which is not a problem for us! :)

With my special needs kiddos, exposing them to the material the day beforehand {not for mastery as was posted above, but so they are familiar with it} would definitely help them in class. My Aspie daughter and son often have glazed over eyes {one of them is dyslexic and can't read well} so all the reading and trying to learn the songs to the words at the same time is totally tiring and overwhelming. My daughter will crumple on the floor and lay down for the last hour of class because her eyes can't handle anymore. this would really help her! My kids would not say 'Oh I already know that' because they are used to repeating and reviewing all the memory work in class. I think it would help them to be more confident as Megan was talking about and be able to stay up with the rest of the class.

Oh I love this! What great ideas, guys, thanks!! :] As it turns out I have a son in Essentials class who really needs his hand held with me sitting with him in class, and not tutoring. I have prayed about it and had an epiphany yesterday. The mom in the class that I thought of asking to tutor is not going to tutor Foundations next session as another mom stepped up and asked if she could tutor Foundations instead! So I asked her to tutor Essentials and she said yes right away! What a blessing! We have such great moms in our group! :) The ideas about sharing the week's memory work a day ahead is a great idea and I wish I had thought of doing that first. With my special needs kiddos, that may really help them. They get a little lost during the memory work time and its frustrating for them and the tutors. I will definitely be utilizing the car more often, thanks everyone!! I feel much better!!!

Oooh I didn't know there was a new level! Now I will have to go check it out! LOL We are already using IEW though so I doubt I will get it but I love that she has new curriculum!! :)

What is WWS? I keep seeing this over and over and would love to know what it is! LOL Hits for us: Right Start B for my dyslexic and ADHD daughters. Saxon 6/5 for my 5th grader { a huge shock because she has used MUS since forever and I always balked at using Saxon!} LOL SOTW 3- using it with all the kids together makes history sooo much easier! They color their activity/color sheets while they listen to the CD or to me read aloud. Easy. And they remember the stories! Classical Conversations: This is by far the biggest hit for my kids... the memory work, the geography {their favorite}, the science and art projects that we never get around to are getting DONE and they are learning so much! Even my 4 year old and my daughter with a language based learning disorder is memorizing and learning and having fun!! LOVE LOVE LOVE! AAR Pre-Level: My kindergartner loves this and loves Ziggy the Zebra! She is learning her letter sounds and the lessons are short and easy and multi sensory! We love the books too! Misses: Math U See for my son. He has struggled for awhile and I've resisted switching programs because you shouldn't jump around so much in math, but we are switching him now to Teaching Textbooks. PAL Reading/Writing for my kindergartener. She is learning some of the sounds but struggles to remember them all as they are introduced way too fast! The pace is great for my 2nd graders but for her she is lost!! Essentials: My 4th grade son {who may also suffer from dysgraphia} is struggling in CC Essentials class. Aside from his writing problems, he has Aspergers and the class environment can be difficult for him. Copying grammar charts and writing key word outlines are torture for him! He loves the mental math games in the class but that's about it and even then he needs more time than some of the other kids to figure out the problems. Trying to decide whether to keep him in that class or pull him out... Right Start B for my kindergartner! The plan was to have her learn with her sisters, but she is lost and it is too much for her. We are switching her to Saxon 1 instead.

So I have checked TT site and also Sonlight... $119. for TT4. I have checked ebay and amazon and a few online sites as well. I am NOT finding many homeschoolers selling this used and I just can't afford the $120 right now. Is there another way to purchase TT without forking over that much $$ that I am missing? Thanks!

Wow. I came back here after our CC day to more posts of encouragement!! Thank you, this is definitely what I needed! I felt like our day went really well today, even though I was up til almost 1 am preparing last night. :) I really try not to do that but can't seem to stop. I prepare all week it seems like. I don't know if there is a mom in our group that would be willing to tutor Essentials. Only 4 moms are in Essentials this year and there really isn't a lot of time to train. The one mom that I think would be great at it is currently tutoring Foundations and I believe would be overwhelmed with doing both! We are a small 6 family community this year. We do have a six week break coming up and then we break after Dec. 9th all the way until Jan. 13th so that will be a much needed rest. :) Thanks for the suggestions about trimming the Latin and the DIVE CDs. My daughter loves her Latin and would hate it if I took it away. Thankfully she's totally independent with it and I gave her the workbook, the DVD and CDs and she does it all on her own {Prima Latina}. She uses the DIVE DVDs for her math lessons and I just check her work and have her make corrections. She is doing great with that and we just switched from Math U See and she is doing much better and much more independent with Saxon! :) As for the car, our CD player is broken and we can't use it in the car unfortunately. However, I will get our portable CD player and put that in the car I guess instead? I have tried keeping memory work under 30 minutes and I can't! LOL We do the timeline cards, the bible memory verse with sign language, we review and practice the Latin, English grammar, Math skip counting and we use the whiteboard for that {that takes an easy 10 min. or so}, and we do the geography last. My issue is that I have special needs kiddos who would NOT do well with just hearing a song once in awhile in the car. I have to spend extra time with them helping them find each state to trace on the map every. single. time. Go through a song over and over again repeatedly using hand motions and pictures. I have to do the whiteboard and song with the math memory work and I have to use pictures sometimes to help them keep those numbers in their heads {with different processing disorders they have difficulty memorizing but this way is working, its just time consuming!} Because they are each so different and have different learning issues I teach a lot of one-on-one lessons and I think that takes up a lot of time. I am not complaining about that, I am grateful for that time with my kiddos! I LOVE that I have the freedom to homeschool them so that they can learn in the way that's best for them! It's just exhausting for me! As I said earlier, only one of my kids is pretty much independent in her work and I am thinking that at LEAST three of them NEVER will be. Sigh. This may just be the way my kids learn and that's how it is. Can't I just get that extra 24 hour day that I want?! I'll put in my order right now! LOL

Sounds like your plan is great! My daughter has HFA and she is 8, 3rd grade. We loosely use Dianne Craft's Phonics {for reading practice} as well as her Writing 8 Exercise. She uses HWT also. She struggles with reading as she is also dyslexic so she also has reading therapy 2x a week using LiPs and Seeing Stars. She also has vision therapy. We are doing Right Start B for Math and so far I am supplementing that with Math U See. She does well with math problems but often flips the numbers backwards. Has trouble memorizing facts as well. We also use Dyslexic Games workbooks http://www.dyslexiagames.com . Its also advertised as workbooks for kids on the spectrum. My daughter loves them and I use them with my HFA son who is 10 and he loves them too! I am not too sure how great Right Start is yet though it seems like in the first 7 lessons we haven't really covered much although it has been fun. I am debating about whether to use Saxon with her because of the scripted lessons and repetition and wondering if that would help her? My daughter LOVES to be read to! We read a lot. We are reading SOTW 3 aloud and she colors the pages while she listens. She loves to draw and color. We are reading aloud a book about American History to supplement and also Desperaux since she picked that out for read aloud this time. For science we use CC and we do CC's memory work and geography which I was surprised that my HFA daughter has loved! to my complete shock she has done well with the memory work {something she struggles with}. We are learning how to skip count each week using a familiar song and she can remember all the songs and all the numbers, even when I forget!! She knows how to skip count by 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s and 6s. This week she'll learn how to skip count by 7s and 8s.

Great ideas for the meals, thank you!! If it was cooler than 100 degrees I might be more motivated to take out my crock pot! It's still 80 degrees in my house though! Yuck!! Maybe in a few weeks.... :) I didn't realize it was CC's policy for me to not tutor and/or direct at the same time. I don't remember reading that. I'll have to go back and check out my contract. My SM never said anything to me about it and encouraged me to tutor and direct. The director that was kind of my "mentor" also tutored Essentials as well so I just assumed a lot of directors did both!! Goes to show just what I know which isn't a whole lot! LOL :) That's a good idea to have someone else tutor, though right now we don't have anyone else that could or that has the training. We are a brand new community!

Elizabeth, that would be very interesting to look into!! I'll have to search online and see what I can find in our area for house grooming. I bet he would love it and so would my daughter. I know what you mean about how that would improve schoulder, wrist and finger strength. I used to ride horses so I see that. Hmmmm

Thanks Pam!! Yes, we are not using a separate science although I thought about doing Apologia. It looked very enticing! :) We have Kingfisher Science encyclopedia and a bunch of usborne books on the Human Body so i am fine with CC being the spine for that! We listen to SOTW three times a week, beginning with SOTW 3 and hopefully we'll get through most of that and some of SOTW 4. We read the Sonlight readers/read alouds that go with American History. Not in any particular order so I feel very haphazard in my organization with that. My kids don't seem to mind. Right now I'm reading aloud Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims and The Sign of the Beaver to them nightly. {We're also reading Desperaux for recreation and they LOVE it!} :) My biggest problem is I have only ONE child who is pretty independent in her work and the rest need their hand held, their work checked, and that takes up a huge amount of time in my day! I am switching my 10 year old to TT to hopefully help him be more independent in his math and more confident with it since he has trouble writing out the answers/problems. That 'MAY' free up some time. We'll see! That's why a mother's helper would be sooo nice! Oh if only money were no object... [sigh] And we eat a lot of spaghetti, tacos and pizza!! My kids don't complain but I am getting so tired of it!! I think if I had enough money I would hire myself a cook and house keeper... and then I would be the most efficient and amazing homeschooling mom ever!! LOL

Wow thanks for the suggestions and hugs! I do appreciate it!! :) Also, Lynn, for curriculum at home we are using... CC as the spine... this drives our history and science choices. We supplement with readings from SOTW and Kingfisher Encyclopedia and other readers from Sonlight that correspond to American History. Our main focus at home though is Math, Reading, and Writing right now. With my kiddos that looks like this... Oldest, 11 1/2, Essentials grammar, IEW writing, Saxon 6/5, LOF, Sonlight readers, Latin Next one, 10, Writing 8 Exercises, Essentials grammar, IEW writing, MUS Delta {moving into TT}, Sonlight readers Next child, 8, Vision therapy exercises, Writing 8 exercises, Math U See Alpha and Right Start B, Seeing Stars, PAL Reading/Writing {only some of this that she can handle}, HWT Next child, 7, Sonlight readers, PAL Reading/Writing, Math U See, Right Start B, HWT, ETC Kinder, 5, PAL Writing/Reading, Math U See Primer {getting Saxon 1 for her spine and supplement with MUS}, HWT, ETC The 4 year old, a little of this and that! These are great ideas about CD in the car. I should be doing that!! I do a good hour of memory work/geography every morning with the kids. We start with pledge, prayer, bible verse memory with sign language, timeline motions and cards, review the weekly memory work often with the whiteboard and CD. They get out their geography notebooks and trace the states, capitals, the world, draw the continents, sing our geography song. It can take anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half just for that portion alone.

That's awesome!!! What curriculum are you using?

I should have prefaced this with... I am ALWAYS exhausted!! LOL But this is different... its a physical and mental exhaustion. I do get up early every morning and exercise so that I am doing something for me. But even that is tiring! LOL I need an extra 24 hours a week that are kid-free for planning lessons, preparing things for our weekly CC meetings, and lesson planning for our lessons at home, as well as time for me to eat, and then I'd be good to go!! :)

From those who have done Classical Conversations before, I need some encouragement. This year we are new to CC and I am both a director and Essentials tutor. I am new to Essentials also. I have 6 kiddos, all in Foundations with two in Essentials. Two of my kids are known special needs with HFA, dysgraphia/dyslexia, and {with one suspected ADHD/sensory issues}, with a very hyper active 4 year old who is LOVING school! :) We love CC and we love Essentials and Foundations so this is not a complaint against CC at all. I am LOVING LOVING LOVING the wonderful families and new friends we have made, the tutors are wonderful and go above and beyond to help our kiddos and my kids ARE LOVING school this year with the CC memory work and geography especially! This has been our most organized year so far. I love that I have some accountability and I feel like our school has more flow to it. However, we are only going into week #4 tomorrow and I. AM. SO. Exhausted. I feel like something has to give but there is NOTHING I can give up with what we are doing. Two days a week I drive my special needs daughter {HFA, dyslexia} one hour to her reading and vision therapy appointments and an hour home. Two hours for her appointments, so we are gone for about 4 hours. I feel these are very necessary for her and not able to be stopped at this time as they are helping her. However, that means those days we only have half days of school at home. Which leaves us with only two full days at home for school and then our CC day. It feels like we are over scheduled but I feel like nothing we are doing is not necessary. I need a mother's helper or something but can't afford one!! :) I cancelled ballet lessons and guitar because we don't have the time or money for it at this time but don't feel like we can cut anything out. I am worried that we aren't getting enough school time in with the other kids and with some of my special needs kids, they need one-on-one time and their hand held through all their lessons. It's a little overwhelming and although I love what we are doing, I am worried about my ability to keep going at this pace. Is there something else I can do to keep me from burning out that I am overlooking here? I feel like I am always on here asking for help for something but you ladies have always given me such great advice, that I hope this is ok to ask here! Thanks!