Wow! You all answer fast! Thank you for your input. If they could just go outside and play, that would be great. This other family lives at the far end of the block around the corner, not on our street, so it isn't a matter of just going outside to play together. I think I'll have to go over there and ask the mother. It's not something that I find easy to do. I wish there were kids mine could play with where we live. They get bored riding their bikes back and forth on our block by themselves. There's only one family on our block with children but the mother is very verbally abusive. I've had to call the police to do a welfare check on the kids before. I have to schedule play dates or go to organized activities so my kids can see other kids. We did a lot of organized activities/classes last year and found that relationships didn't develop from them. It seemed like everyone was there for the class and didn't want to be bothered beyond showing up for class. It's hard to schedule enough play dates for my very social, outgoing, extroverted daughter. My son doesn't have a single friend of his own. I'm at a loss of what to do to help them find friends. If I could move I would but our house has so dramatically lost value that we're stuck here for the time being.

My daughter, age 8, met a girl her age who lives right around the corner at the end of the summer. She hit it off with her and wants to be friends. However, there seems to be a problem and I don't know what to do about it or how to approach the family about it. Here's what's happened so far over a period of about a month. We stopped by on Sunday to see if she could play. They said no because they have family time on their Sabbath (their Mormon). However, they also invited us in and mom and I had a nice chat about kids, home decor, etc. They seemed really nice. Before saying goodbye, they suggested their daughter could come over on a specific day a couple of days later. My daughter was looking forward to the play date but when the time came, the girl showed up simply to say she couldn't play, maybe some other time. Another day, my daughter saw the girl outside when my family was out riding bikes around the block. She asked if they could play some time and was told maybe later in the week. My daughter waited every day, hoping to see her friend after public school got out and even declined going to park so she'd be home just in case. The friend never showed. Another day, my daughter asked if she could go over and see if the girl could play. I let her run over with instructions to come right back home if she couldn't or call me if she could. She came right back because she was told she couldn't play. This has happened on two more occasions since. Today, she saw the girl outside and asked if she could go see if she could play. She was told that she had a cold and that she couldn't play. My daughter was hurt by this because she's been turned down so many times and because the girl was outside playing with several other children their age. What would you think? It feels to me like she's not being allowed to play with my daughter. If that's true, I have no idea why because we've had little contact with them and my daughter is generally very friendly, kind, and well-behaved. I've never been socially adept or graceful so I'm at a lost as to what to do. What do I tell my daughter? Do I talk to the mom and ask if there's a problem? If I knew they didn't want our daughters to socialize, I could stop my daughter from asking to play. If I do talk to the mom, what do I say? Thanks for you help. JoAnn

I can see getting enough back to pay off credit cards, especially if they aren't the kind of debtors that have a lot of credit card debt. I doubt they are paying off their mortgage, maybe just getting caught back up. I have a friend with 6 kids and their return every year is up around $6,000.

My husband was recently given a copy of it to review. I'm currently going through it. I've only gone through the intro CD and have the other's to listen to as I have time. Shoot me an email and I'll let you know what I think when I'm done, or at least further along. (If I have an email from you, it will be much easier for me to find you and email you about it.) My email is fortheloveofshiny at gmail dot com.

I totally understand that twins would be so much more work! However, when my daughter was that age I was wishing she was a twin. LOL That way she would have had someone other than me to play with. She demanded constant attention so much so that she thought every visitor was there to see her. She even managed to keep a landscaper at our house an extra 30 minutes (after he was done giving me a quote) just playing with her. These days, she very social and loves being around other kids of all ages. Hmmmm....who would have guessed she'd turn out that way! I don't envy you now that I know how much time early elementary can take.

My 18 month old is looking to start school early too. He knows a couple of his letters, several colors, knows all of his basic body parts, and attempts to repeat any word or word combination you tell him (ie. naming things). He can very clearly communicate his wants and needs with combinations of verbal requests and pointing. Once his articulation catches up with him, he'll have a complete vocabulary! He also likes to be in the action with school. I try to give him coloring pages most of the time. When the older kids made sugar-cube pyramids he wouldn't leave us alone until I helped him make one of his own. Really! Go play! Oh, and now he's bringing me diapers after every bowel movement and demanding that I change his diaper. I'm guessing he may potty train early. What do you think? So, with that in mind...what "school" can I do with him to keep him happy?

LOL My sitemeter showed me that ya'll were talking about me. LOL I'm still listing things weekly to do in the area. I involuntarily took a few weeks off. Between an overfilled schedule followed by a couple of weeks with major crisis, I just missed a few weeks. During the fall, winter, and spring months, the low cost events are much leaner. If you follow my "field trips" category, you'll find all of the field trips I've posted about. That will give you even more ideas. There's quite a few homeschool co-ops in the area, including one on base. I think you'll find Washington a fun and easy state to homeschool in. Drop me an email (fortheloveofshiny at gmail dot com) and I'll be happy to help you with any questions you have. JoAnn http://blog.homeschooldistractions.com

I NEED your doctor! The last time I went in to try to get help for my cycles, it was a total waste of time and money.

If it is ringworm on her skin, it will be fairly easy to get rid of. It will just take some anti-fungal cream to get rid of it. Tea tree will work too. Ringworm on the scalp (will look like a thick, scaley, round patch with hair loss) is very difficult to get rid of because the fungus gets into the hair follicles. My son had it the end of last year. The doctor gave us pills for 2 months plus cream to put on it. The cream actually ended up making it worse, covering a larger area. I ended up treating it a couple times of day with a very strong tea tree solution. It took 4 months to get rid of it.

We've had laundry issues here but I'm still the one doing it. I do not, however, iron. Hubby complained about how I iron the creases on his pants so he does his own ironing now. He irons the creases flat and says that makes them crisp and neat like they are suppose to be. I've always wondered why most of his pants don't have creases anymore. :confused: The other issue we've had was him running around looking for work clothes one morning, telling me he has nothing clean to wear. I looked in his closet, there was 4-5 pairs of pants and 15-20 shirts (he has more clothes than I do) so I did other laundry the day before. When I mentioned he had plenty of clothes in his closet, he told me that they didn't fit. Ah, why are they in there then and how was I suppose to know that? My kids do this to me now...either the clothes don't fit or they don't like them. Ugh!

My daughter is younger than yours but I've started thinking about this same thing already. I've been thinking of doing at least some of her high school classes with college texts bought at a local college and have her test for credit in lieu of going to college early. Besides, it costs less than enrolling. I'll still keep records and create transcripts as if she were in regular high school. That way, when we think she's ready to head off to college, she'll have both transcripts and college credit for admissions. Our local state university also has a program for early entrance. They only accept about 15 fourteen (I think) year olds each year. The kids attend a transition program that prepares them to enter regular classes. Then, the next year, they enter as regular students. Perhaps you have a college near you that has a similar program.

Thank you for all of your insight. I'm off to look at some of those links. I'm thinking I'll mesh the two together and use the dates I want to use.

I'm new to SOTW this year. I was hoping to merge SOTW with Biblical history but have already run into a problem with that idea in Chapter 1. I was just looking over the story book when I saw a note saying the stone wall at Jericho dated to 6800BC. That seemed kind of old so I looked it up and found archaelogical references to Jericho falling sometime between 1350-1325BC and the Bible dating Jericho's fall at 1346BC. Was this just an error or will I find more inconsistencies with dates? Does anyone know of a reference that matches up SOTW chapters to sections of scripture? Just wondering how to make this work.

While Saxon was misery for my daughter, it did do something that I thought was neat in teaching multiple digit adding and subtracting; it used money. Pennies equalled ones or units. Dimes equalled tens. I'm sure you could use dollars as hundreds. Then you build the problem with the money. So 75-16 would have you putting 7 dimes and 5 pennies on your work surface. Then you would try to take 6 pennies away except that you can't so you have to exchange a dime for 10 pennies and add them to the pennies pile. After doing that, you could then take your 6 pennies away. Finally, you finish up with subtracting the dimes and find out what you have left. The act of physically exchanging the dimes for pennies and removing what you are taking away works well for understanding what you are doing and why. After getting used to working problems that way (orally with mom helping), you move onto doing the problem on paper while moving the coins around so you can see that writing this represents doing that. It really covers all learning styles because you are working the problem physically, hearing it in the discussion, seeing it done, and writing it out all at the same time. Plus, using money gives math meaning.

My 8 year old did the same thing. When given something to write about, she would write the bare minimum to answer the assignment. Most assignments would produce a single sentence or two. I backed off and didn't do any formal writing this year. Instead, I gave her reasons to write. I gave her an email address and approved contacts (family friends and kids we know with email addresses). Our family friends have been very nice to humor her. I set up a blog for her and taught her how to upload photos. At first, emails were very short. Now, she writes more. She recently started taking creative photos (we gave her our old digital camera) with toys set up doing something. She uploads those and writes about them. Completely on her own, she's also started writing stories so she could post them to her blog. Occasionally, when she posts something particularly good, I email everyone we know and ask them to visit her blog and leave her a comment. The feedback motivates her. She started out writing a few paragraphs and has moved to writing pages. I think she needed to mature a little, have a reason to write that she could relate to, and be given the freedom to write what she's interested in. We just started IEW SWI to teach her to write more formally for school. She enjoyed the first lesson. She happily typed up her final draft and asked if she could email it to her teacher. (We homeschool through a virtual academy.) My 6 year old also writes email and has a blog. He's recently started trying to write stories a few sentences long to be like his sister. This is what has worked for us.

Thanks! I knew you would have some ideas. I'll look at the Michael Clay Thompson stuff more when I have a free moment. It looks interesting just from the glance I got at it this morning. It never occurred to me to call Rod and Staff for placement ideas. I'm hoping they'll be at our homeschool convention in June so I can take a close look at it and ask about placement. I've thought about adding a foreign language. My husband would prefer I teach Spanish, if we add foreign language though. I'm not sure if I could get away with doing both with my daughter since she's so use to having to put forth so little effort. I don't want to overwhelm her by both doing harder work and more work. I've been thinking about Spelling Power. I'm stuck between a higher level of Spelling Workout, Spelling Power, and Vocabulary from Latin Roots as a spelling/vocabulary combo. I hate being so indecisive. I need to find out what is going to be at the convention. I really need to be able to see and go through stuff to decide. But you've given me some great places to start. Thanks!

I've been researching and thinking and trying to figure out what to do for my 3rd grader next year for language arts, which is her strong subject. I'm looking for suggestions on what I should look at...both what curricula and what levels might work, if you could, please. I'm worried that I advance too high, she'll have gaps but she also hates having to repeat everything she knows. I think she learned 2 whole things this past year in grammer with everything else being review of things she didn't need to review. So, here's what I know. She's 8 and is finishing up 3rd grade. She correctly spelled 286 3rd grade spelling words out of 300 without so much as glancing at the word lists before I tested her. Her standardized tests results (it was an adaptive test) put her at a 9th grade reading level and above 10th grade language usage level. She loves to write fiction and is currently working on a story that is 14 pages long so far. Her writing is not typical 8 year old writing. I have never taught her writing, she just naturally gets it. She's never been taught outlines, character development, forming paragraphs, persuasive and expository writing, etc. I have IEW and SWI for next year. But what would you recommend for spelling, word study, grammar type stuff? Thanks for your suggestions!

Thanks for the replies! I agree that we need to be more scheduled. That one's a hard one for me because I am VERY ADDish and get off track constantly with my own things. Every schedule I've tried to create has failed. I'll have to keep working on that. When you schedule subjects, do you do it by time or by number of pages/lessons? If by time, do they just do as many lessons/pages as they can complete in that time period? How long do you schedule for each subject? Do you count all language arts as one or break it down into it's different parts? My daughter turned 8 this year and has been working on 3rd grade curriculum. It took my daughter about an hour a day to do her spelling, phonics/word study, grammar, and reading comprehension work combined. She has already finished for the year so she doesn't have any formal language arts to work on until Fall unless I buy new curriculum before then. She started Math-U-See Gamma in late January and will finish it mid-June. It only takes her about 15 minutes a day but I expect that to get harder as she advances through the levels. We do history, science, art, music, and literature as a unit study together. She likes this part of school. I have no idea what level we do this at since we just read library books on our topic and do related projects, experiments and field trips. I need to find a language arts curriculum for next year. Her MAP assessment came back with a reading level of 9th grade and language usage level above 10th grade (the scale stopped at 10th grade and her score was higher than that). However, she hasn't been exposed to things like diagramming and various terms like metaphor, hyperbole, and past participle. Our teacher contact at our virtual school suggested scrapping any repetitive workbooks and just teach her in context but I'm not sure I can do that well. At the very least, I need some kind of reference to refer to. I have Institute for Excellence in Writing on its way so I can figure out how to help her edit her 12 page stories and teach her the other forms of writing. I'm hoping it works well.

I think that nothing will turn a bright kid off learning faster than having to "learn" something they already know or intuitively grasp." I read that quote in another post and can definitely identify. I've managed to kill my daughter's interest in school. I've been pretty much clueless and done everything wrong. I hated struggling with her every day to get her to "do school" and all of the tears. So I backed off, quit teaching, and required only a minimum amount of work to be done each day on her own. Our philosophy has been, "Well, if it only takes her an hour to do all of her language arts and math, then that's all she needs to do." It never occured to me to pretest , give her more challanging work, or accelerate her grade. She's a grade level ahead because we started kindergarten when she was 4. She still hates school but at least we aren't fighting and crying every day. She's very lazy, always tries to get out of doing anything she thinks is school, and would never do extra pages like some of your kids do. How do I go from requiring practically no effort, just a small amount of busy work each day, to accelerating her to the level she's at which will require more time and effort? Will the fact that it is new material magically translate into willingness to learn and do the work? Is there some way to ease her into putting in more time and effort? Am I even making any sense?

Saxon was horrible for us. We only used it for one year and that entire year was resistance and tears and created an "I hate school" attitude. Singapore had her in tears also. She's finally tolerating (no tears, no complaining) math with Math-U-See. It's only taking her 4 months to complete her Math-U-See. My son is working his way through Saxon 1 (he's 6). I quit teaching the meeting and lesson altogether. He works on the daily practice sheet and one side of the daily lesson practice sheet on his own. If he has a question, he asks his sister or me for help. There aren't many questions being ask. We're switching him to Math-U-See too. JoAnn

I just found this thread searching for something and look forward to reading the other messages on the forum after I've gotten some sleep since it is 1:30am right now. But I have the answer to Heather's question. The MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) assessment is what you are describing. It is a computerized adaptive test. If the student gets a question correct, the next question is more difficult. If the question is answered incorrectly, the next question is easier. It is designed so that the student will get 1/2 of the questions correct and 1/2 wrong (which can be frustrating for some students). They have two tests: one that covers K-2 and one that covers 3-12. The results come back with a raw score and a percentile for your child's grade level. The score can then be compared to a chart that shows you the median scores for each grade level (2-10), the scores for gifted children at each grade level, and the scores for at risk children adn 1 or 2 standard deviations below each grade level. I don't know if there is a way to access this test as a homeschool; we took it through the virtual academy we are enrolled with. JoAnn