We used SL last year with dd who was 7 then. We didn't buy the whole multi subject package, but did do the core plus LA. I hated the LA. I see that they are revamping...I’m curious what it will be. If the LA was good, I would have totally kept going with it. My dd still loves the books and grabs them off the bookshelf on a regular basis to read. She did Core 1+2 with advanced readers. Now, I'm wishing that I could combine my girls and do more of the SL stuff. Unfortunately, dd2 is almost 7, so not quite old enough for the next core package. I'm thinking I might wait a year and then combine them on Core D. They both really love to read and I can see that it would be a great program for our family. I would probably stick with WWE & FLL for LA, unless SL LA gets intensely better. I just couldn't figure out where they were going with the LA and the examples they gave for paragraphs were things I'm not sure I know a lot of adults could put down on paper coherently. I wasn't sure whether dd was massively behind or if my expectations were totally off. Now I know better, reading reviews, but I was a little terrified there in the beginning.

Just got their catalog in the mail and am intrigued looking through. I have a partially used K set a friend gave me. Next year, dd2 will be in 2nd grade and dd1 will be in 4th grade. So....tell me about it and what you like about it. I also have a 4 yr old who is currently learning to read (and was thinking of doing MFW K if I buy the activity sheets) and a 3 year old.

I've seen a bunch of references too it, but I don't quite get what it is. I saw the samples online. I want to get an idea of how it's used. I think it could really appeal to my girls who LOVE stories. I have a 9 year old dd who is a little behind in writing. We are currently using WWE2 and FLL3 and I just bought WWW3. She doesn't struggle too much with grammar, just the actual process of writing. So, how do you use MCT? I'm assuming that she'd be in Sentence Island. Is it a daily lesson kind of thing or is it more of a wing it type of thing?

We have get it all done in the morning. Some days, we get started around 10 and get one kid done before lunch...but most days, I don't start until after lunch. I am not a morning person. It's enough for me to get up with them and get breakfast into them... I feel good when I do get started early...it's just really tough for me. I feel like I'm setting them up for failure and for procrastination (I am the world's worst procrastinator). But, I also have to do what works.

WE always do them, but that's because that's one of the places that dd9 is a little slower (3rd grade, doing 2nd grade math). She did timed tests in PS in first grade and has since had a huge aversion to math facts. This makes it much less stressful. However, dd9 tends to get hung up on them...her brain just has to be int he right mode or she will get significantly less. I figure it's really good practice for her. Both of my girls love doing them. I love how CLE 2 has the graphs so they can see their changes.

I have the TG's, but don't use them anymore. I probably should, but dd's just don't want to spend forever on handwriting. They'd rather get it done and move on. I will use it more with dd 4, who is just now learning to write.

We are currently using Apologia Zoology, but it's just not getting done. I need to find something that is a bit more structured for me. The Apologia is great for my 9 year old kid with asperger's. She just devours the facts in it and will take the book up to her room and read for hours. She copies down random facts from the books. We'll probably keep the books, but I just need something a little easier to implement, not to mention that Apologia seems to be over dd6's head. We love science and are talking about it all the time, but I would like to do a set science curriculum at least twice a week. I also have a 4 yr old and an almost 3 yr old.

Good idea about the neighbors, except both our neighbors have dogs and I'd just be a little paranoid about the poor kittens getting traumatized.

DH and I have finally decided to get our girls kittens for Christmas. We already have one cat. So, how would you pull it off? Would you try to get kittens to have on Christmas day? Would you just tell them and let them help you pick out the kittens? I'm a little concerned that it might be hard to find kittens. There's plenty right now, but obviously I can't get them right now and keep them hidden until Christmas. So...how would you pull it off? I'd love to have that surprise on Christmas morning, but I'm not sure we could do it. They aren't getting much else, though....so I think it would be awesome for them to have the kittens to play with on Christmas day.

Oooh, thanks for all the help. I never checked back and now I see that everyone left lots of info. I have no doubt that dd is dyslexic. She has asperger's as well. She has so much to say, but putting it down on paper has always been very tough for her. That's why I'm really loving the WWE program. I love how it breaks up the thoughts and the actual writing into two separate components. She's not so hesitant about writing now. Sometimes I think she's not getting enough writing. It's hard not to compare her with her 3rd grade peers in ps who are writing paragraphs. DD is still doing wwe 2 and is just now writing decent sentences. She is a phenomenal reader, so sometimes it's hard to believe dyslexia is involved, but I've seen lots of signs in her math (maybe dyscalcula) and in her writing (switching letters around...she typically gets all the letters in a word, but will switch them). Today she was writing the word "slot" and wrote "solt." So, she's already had a neuropsych eval by a psychologist who specializes in autism. Should we be looking into something else too? She has so much trouble paying attention sometimes. She struggles to do work with any noise going on and then we have these mistakes (which seem like careless ones, but I know they are a product of something deeper). She has so much to share with the world, but it just gets all jumbled up when it comes out. So frustrating for her, I imagine.

I've got 9, 6, 4 and 2 year olds. It's nearly impossible to get the older kids stuff done because my 4 year old is always wanting me to do school with her. I'd love to, but I have no idea what to do. We are doing Reading Eggs some and she's enjoying that. She knows her letters and all of that jazz. She probably knows most of the sounds. Counts well up to 20...probably ' wouldn’t take much to teach her further. So where do we go from here? I pretty much need things laid out for me. I can teach on the fly for everyday life, but she wants to do "school" with her sisters. What works? We don't have a large budget, but could probably spend some.

We are planning on buying the pages from the website after dd1 is done. We had the 4 yr text, but I just needed something to open and go. I just can't do all of the planning that was required, not that it was that much planning. I just feel like I’m terrible at picking passages. We do both WWE & FLL. I feel like WWE is more about the thought processes behind writing. I love that it breaks up the thoughts and the actual process of writing. My dd's have really needed that. FLL is more about memorizing/learning the grammar rules. We do some of the dictation/writing in the FLL because I feel like WWE isn't quite enough.

I don't think you have to do FLL2 before FLL3. We are doing FLL3 with my third grader this year and there's a decent amount of review in the beginning.

We are using FLL3 for dd9 and it's quite easy for her. DD6 is doing FLL2. I can see her doing quite well in FLL3 if I wanted to. However, she loves the poem memorization, as does dd9. dd9 is totally into memorization. She memorizes the definitions the first time they introduce them. It's helpful for her to be able to pull up when she's trying to do something. FLL3 has been pretty easy so far, but again, I'm working with a 9 year old who reads like crazy. What is MCT? I guess I should be thinking about what we'll do when we are done with FLL.

Question about the money jar idea. Do they get $1 each day with the chance to earn another dollar for good behavior each week? I'm a little confused. It sounds like they get $1 each day. They get a warning if they complain/refuse to do work. If it happens again their sibling gets it, but they can earn it back. If they try to sabotage their sibling, they lose all the money in the jar? Even from months ago? Sounds interesting. I don't think it's a bad idea at all. It's how the workplace works. If you are a hard worker, you earn more money. I especially love that they save their money until the end of the year and then can use it for something. Delayed gratification. I think I love all aspects of it, actually. I'll have to talk to dh about implementing something like this. It may really help with our work avoidance issues with dd9. Of course, I just might go broke, too.

SaDonna, We do pushups too, mostly because dd9 is very weak and sometimes needs heavy work to recenter her. We had it out the other day and she sat at the table for an hour. I typically sit with her, but she just wouldn't focus, so I left and she was so mad at me. Tough cookies, kid. She does have asperger's, so I know it can be very difficult to focus sometimes, but she has to learn how to do it. She won't function well in the real world without it. Once she stopped screaming, she did her work calmly and finished it really quickly. She just had to get over that emotional hurdle. I should have just made her do pushups, though. She would have done much better, I bet. DH mostly makes her do pushups and it seems so military to me, but it does work.

You've gotten lots of good info about Asperger's from others here. I agree with the person who explained that the blame shifting is more than likely truly what the boy saw, from his perspective. We often have issues b/w my 9 yr old and 6 yr old where the 9 yr old (w/AS) truly doesn't see why what she did was wrong. Or, she gets so hyper-focused that she just can't see anything else. She's not very materialistic, but if she feels like something is hers or she was wronged somehow, she can't really process through everything to make an intelligent decision on how to handle it. She just sees red and wants to make it the only way she thinks it can be. Or sometimes, there was a complete misunderstanding. She has a heart of gold. Often, her sister will get upset and I turn around to see dd1 hugging her sister tightly. Other people don't like it, but dd doesn't get it. She's just trying to spread the love....she just doesn't know how to read others. Sometimes she's so focused on what she is doing that I almost think she can't hear what others are saying. So, when she was PS, she was labeled as a bully. But, she wasn't. For instance, she would pull this one little girls long hair. Other kids saw it as bullying behavior, but to dd1, the hair was just flowing and begging to be pulled. It wasn't with the intention of hurting the other person. She just couldn't help herself. Then the other girl would react and dd would laugh...her wires are just crossed in that emotional area of her brain. She laughs when she's in trouble. It's just a reaction and she tries hard to stifle it, but she just can't yet. So, she was labelled a bully. Then the teacher's would come down on her and the rest of the day would be all downhill because she got in trouble. Then they wanted to put her in an Emotional/behavioral classroom (full of kids who were manipulative, etc...which is about the worst place a kid with AS can go). And now, we are homeschooling.

9 year old dd is terrible with this and I have no idea how to help her fix it. She knows the capitalization rules, but she randomly capitalizes certain letters, especially if they begin a word. Most words that start with T and D, she capitalizes. She also capitalizes many L's, even in the middle of words. Yet, at the same time, she forgets to capitalize the beginning of sentences and proper nouns. She knows she's supposed to. It's just like she can't think through so much at once, so she just can't do it correctly the first time. We always go through and edit and she can pick out the ones that are wrong, but I sometimes have to remind her to look at her capital letters. Any tricks to help her with this? It's driving me crazy!

I need some recommendations. We are using Sequential Spelling with dd in 3rd grade, but it's way over my first graders head. She is a very phonetic speller. We haven't done official spelling yet, but I think she's ready for it now. What do you like?

We are using FLL3 with dd who is 9 and it seems to work quite well with her. Of course, we are really just starting. Just finished lesson 10 today. I'm loving it though, because it's laid out so nicely. It's mostly review so far. We just did verbs today, but she's known that for a long time. Nothing wrong with a little review. I'm excited to get to the meat, though.

I let my 3rd grade dd read through the passages independently sometimes. She remembers more that way. She is a visual learner and not an auditory learner. We do some of both, reading to her outloud and her reading them. Sometimes I do both for the same passage because she struggles with pronounciation, so I'm hoping it helps her figure out how to say those words she can read, but doesn't pronounce correctly.

DD is 9 and has been a struggling writer. We have been using WWE 2 from the textbook this year, but I'm getting ready to order the workbook because I'm just not good at picking passages. She's doing really well with WWE, but I'm wondering if I should move her up to WWE 3 because she is in third grade and is doing really well with WWE 2. I read somewhere that WWE 3 is different in that they have to read their own passages. Is that the only thing that's different? Is it significantly more difficult, or just another baby step in the process? I know she could do fine if the main difference was just reading their own passages instead of being read to (in fact, that might be easier for her). If the reading content is more difficult, that's fine. How much are they expected to write in WWE 3?

We switched to CLE for a struggling math kid. She is technically 3rd grade, but we did 2nd grade for CLE and she loves it. She doesn't fight math nearly as much. It's much more to the point, imo. She is also a visual learner and loves to read. If she reads it, she knows it. I love that CLE has the little sections that the student reads and figures it out. She almost doesn't need me to help her.

Yoga DVDs? I'd be very interested in those. Any suggestions on where I could find them?

We live about an hr from Ellijay and go every year, but I'm going to say it's probably too late now. Plus Ellijay is about an hr and a half north of Atlanta, so it's really not that close to FL. It's going to be at least 6 hrs up I-75. I had a friend that went to one of the orchards this weekend and she said it was pretty much picked over. They are still selling apples in the store and you can got a lot that way, but if you want to pick your own, there probably isn't much left on the trees. We usually go late september/early october.