Evaluated for what exactly. When he was three he was evaluated with a heavy eye towards speech. Barely made it into the special education preschool at the local school since only one problem would not let him qualify but since his speech was so bad they couldnt tell where he was developmentally was it he didn't know how to say it or did he just not know. When he would have gone to kindergarten they said he no longer needed services. We moved that summer anyways. During all this we did go through doctor/insurance but they said they didn't think anything was wrong with him. Granted the only thing I knew to ask about was autism.

Is it bad I want to go looking through my Shel Silverstein poetry books and find the poem about the girl who yelled "Me First." Who wanted to be first on the bus and ultimately got to be first to be eaten by the cannibal? Or are there better stories or picture books that would cover the topic better? Lol

Our second child is rough around the edges. Stubborn, spirited, and strong willed could also be used to describe him. He is five and will be six in the fall. I know wanting to be first is normal to some degree, I'm starting to think this is going towards out of hand. Not everything is a race but randomly he will seem something to be (generally when he isn't first) and things go south. Most dangerous situation was when I told the boys to go upstairs to brush their teeth and he nearly pushed his little brother down the stairs when little brother got to the top first. I was right behind them and was there to prevent an accident. But tantrum did ensure. Today I went to a little Q and A. Parents were in one room and the kiddos running around in the gym with the teens watching them. Someone brought snap circuits for the kiddos to play with as well. When the Q And A was over I told my kids to put the snap circuits away. Eldest 8 skipped across the gym to put them away and 5 was right at his heels and then started screaming that eldest needed to let him be first. At this point eldest has already put the snap circuits away and is back to watch us. Five year old is now on the floor screaming that eldest needs to get the snap circuits he had and go back to the other side of the gym so that five year old can put his away first. I do my best to tell five year old I understand he is upset but he is being unreasonable. (Punishments and rewards have no affect, waiting it out has been my best option at home but it's awkward in public) Parents start sticking their heads in. Some ask if everything is okay. Things get really bad when the owner of the snap circuits ask for the pieces back. Five year old has no intentions of letting go of the prices not that he actually wants them but because he firmly now has it his mind that he should be the first to put them away and in order to achieve it eldest needs to go get the prices he had. I spend the need five minutes prying the pieces one by one from him. That black piece with the wire was a pain. Once the prices were free I just walk away. Giving him as much space to just scream it out and to get his sibling out of eye sight. Over hear the owner of the snap circuits saying so quickly put them in the car and I clarify that five year old isn't made because he had to give back the toy but because he is mad his brother put them away first. Now five year old is yelling about how eldest was bad. That eldest should not get a present. That Eldest is in trouble for not listening to his directions. I recall trying to turn his attention asking if he wanted to be my special helper and go get my purse. He declined. Asked if he wanted to be my special helper and get my keys out my purse. Also declined. Reminded him what our plans for the rest of the day was. More grumping. Went and got my purse. He was still on the ground of the gym. Me and the other kids just stood by the gym door waiting. He eventually relucatantly got up and went to the van with us. So any advice because I know this problem of not being in first will come up. Not this exact situation but definitely his mindset. Being upset is a very hard emotion to work through. I guess the hardest part for me is it occur in public. And while I did stay calm, with everyone around looking on I very much felt judged.

Following the five in the row preference not so much the fancy science, look at Memoria press second grade enrichment

First: contractions started around 9 in the morning. Didn't go to the hospital till after dinner 6 or 7. Baby born right before 6 am on his due date. Second was stillborn at 38 weeks. contractions started in the morning. Called the labor and delivery in the evening but they said contractions were to random and erratic to come. Hour later went in because I was just so uncomfortable. Delivered in triage. Cord was wrapped around his neck seven times. Third was induced at 38 weeks due to prior history. Went in around 7. They did an amnio to check his lungs. Started pict and foley tube around 9. Sometime in the night when I was 7 cm they realized he had gone from head down to frank breech. After much debate they opted to do an inversion which worked and broke my water and had me sitting up for the rest of labor. Born before 6 am. Fourth was also induced at 38 weeks. Arrived at 9. Started pict and foley tube. Born sunny side up right before 6.

Cleaning is not something I enjoy. Hubby is very understanding that my cleaning occurs in random waves that most days the bare minimum of a load a dishes maybe a load of laundry gets done. He tolerates this because when I get in a cleaning mood things get very clean and lovely. These cleaning moods can last a few hours to a few weeks. The last thing I want to do when the cleaning mood strikes to proctor lessons. Most of the curriculum I have is teacher intensive so continuing without me isn't really an option. Eldest is 8 and reads at a Boxcar Children level. Middles is 5 and now his letters and sounds but hasn't started blending and reading youngest is 2 and is a tag along Hit me up with your favorite workbooks, apps, websites, amazon/Netflix shows, anything. Just don't say let them play lol.

I've used the very lowest levels. It's very oddly written kind of in a script format. But we enjoyed the creative writing sections and the safety lessons. We didn't use much.

When my eldest was born I had a semester left of college. When I went back for the last semester my neighbor watched him with her son that was the same age. She set the price of $3 an hour. I accept her offer with the caveot of rounding to the next 20 since the ATM only gives out twenties lol.

All the programs available to my preschooler is either a mother's morning out or a half day. Both are only three hours long. The closest one to our house is 20 minutes away. Even if there was a park or library near the location where I could school the other kids at I'd lose so much time getting him there and getting going. You might want to look into a mother's helper: someone who comes in and entertains the kiddos you aren't directly supervising while you work with the middles.

Hugs I use to feel that mass text messages for big news was a no no till I was the position and realized it was the best route for the situation at hand. For me the incident at hand was taking up all my attention. I didn't have the mental resources to talk to everyone individual and constantly give everyone their own update. I got flack. people complained. but I valued them enough that I wanted to keep them in the know.

With my oldest I exclusively pumped for 9 months. My mentor exclusively pumped for 4 years I figured I could get a year in, but we moved and life happened so 9 months worked out for the best with us. With middle, I started efforts to wean him when he was eighteen months because it was driving me bananas. When he was a little over two I got pregnant and he self weaned. With littlest, I started efforts to wean him when he was two, but he is showing no signs of stopping even though I'm pregnant. With middle it was a battle and a struggle and lots of tears from him while trying to wean, but by the time little was born he had no memory of nursing.

I know there a couple who prefer to hold off doing grammar till later and start talking about nouns and capitalization at the very get go of kindergarten and first grade. For those who do that, when do you start grammar and what curriculum do you recommend. What do you do in the years prior? Copywork?

We go to a once a week co-op that's forty minutes from our house. There is another co-op that meets just minutes from our house but i do t use them. For $200 a year they get presentation, Spanish, ukele, history, art, PE, and science. A bit more for the activity book and memory work cds but still very reasonable in my opinion. Now there is a fancier higher priced version of the same thing a little further north that has a drop of ability. With mine I'm required to stay on campus the entire time, and I teach science every other week. Next year I'll be doing nursery since we are having a baby in the fall. I like it because with mommy mush brains I tend to only hit math and language arts. so this lets us hit everything kind of Charlotte mason style. some families go all out and incorporate the lessons into their lessons, others don't. Some memorize everything, some just the Bible verse or history. I like that I can do as much or as little at home depending on our week and the kids experience at co-op doesn't change. Only downside is we live so far. There is definitely a core group that hangs out on non co-op days. But we do meet up with one family out side of co-op maybe once a quarter.

Craftsy has a class on it https://www.craftsy.com/crocheting/classes/shuttle-tatting/35685 I've done needle tatting before. And tried to do shuttle tatting with just a book year ago without much luck. MIL gifted me the tatting class I listed above recently, and while I've watched the video and things make more sense I have not been able to gather supplies and try again.

well free is free so while only covers two you listed Character First education has a very very slowly growing collection of free guides: http://characterfirsteducation.com/c/curriculum.php My favorite things about them is that it list five "I will"s for each guide because I feel that with my kiddos they need really simple tangible "what does this virtue want me to do?" might be worth trying before shelling out for something else or at least give you more time to find tune what you are looking for.

Don't have time to answer properly at the moment but for reference http://www.layers-of-learning.com and http://www.jennyphillips.com/history/ are two that appeal to me. I've looked at lots of family style curriculum out there and didn't like them. Hopefully I can chime in again later today.

I have low energy and a laid back passive sort of personality. Causing conflict is not something I do. But parenting wise is starting to take its toll. Eldest turned out well with my laid back ways the occasional spanking and time out when he was toddler was enough that the threat of one still holds meaning till this day. The current preschooler I realize very quickly did not respond to spankings, time outs were to much of a struggle for me to enforcer to the lack of consistency meant it was not a threat. The toddler is starting to get defiant disobienence is running rambient. I have to pick my battles because the effort to create conflict with them and to discipline them completely drains me and more mischief then runs rampant. Are their any parenting styles / methods of discipline that could help me?

Oh wow i didn't realize we just missed Hurricane Matthew when we went camping at Hunting island last fall. We went in October. Anyways the website says all the hunting park is closed except for the nature center and some of the pier. Says a lot of the ocean side campsites were taken out and renovations on them won't be done till December 2017 so I assume the beach itself was hit hard.

Okay before I get my head bitten off I require very little from my Kindy. A page of math Mammoth, a page of plaid phonics, and a page of handwriting 2-3 times a week. As well to sit and listen to a story daily. However the only way we were able to him speech therapy at the time was to enroll him into special education preschool. the preschool he went to got him use to doing three worksheets first thing in the mornings. It's a habit/routine deeply ingrained into him. It was a page of handwriting with out tears, a cut and paste sort of worksheet and some sort of coloring worksheet. Some where mathy, some with letter of the week ish, others were holiday based. I very much regret them doing the HWOT because it was unsupervised and he picked up some very bad handwriting happens so I can't let handwriting be unsupervised. He's done all the kumon books. And done all the freebie cut and paste worksheets I can find. Any other totally awesome worksheets I can set him loose on that he can do independently. Free or paid. Bonus points for cutting and pasting.

Simply convivial has a free homeschool audit https://www.simplyconvivial.com/2016/audit-results Pam barnhill has something called plan your year but the first thing you do is create a vision https://edsnapshots.com/plan-year-planning-kit/ if you get the basic and later wished you got the fancy you can email her and just pay the difference

If you don't want accounts avoid the latest PlayStation and Xbox. I can't remember about the Wii U... I think you have to make an account at the very beginning but I can't remember because once you do it you have use it again well I do since lots of little kids and they destroyed to many disc and we opted to digitally download games instead of buying discs now a days. Honestly if you like you wii I'd get another. They are good systems. You could upgrade to a Wii U, it has backward canabulity and you be able to play all your wii games. My dad has his Wii U not hooked up to the internet ( my step brothers are just two years older than my eldest) I would say some of nintendos games have some internet required multiplayer aspects however the games are perfectly playable as a single isolated console. Our favorite game for the Wii U is pikmin three the main game is single player but hubby and I play either with each other in the unloackable missions or against each other in the bingo battle.

We seem to go in seasons we are at our worse in the winter when it comes to screens. With spring and summer the kids go out more and are less glued to screens. Also we started a don't refuse but don't offer. the don't offer us really the big thing. We got in the habit of just handing out iPads at waiting rooms, car rides, restaurants, etc we still bring them but we don't go handing it out right away we wait till they request. Same with the tv I don't realize how much of the tv in the morning was because I suggested it.

for our upcoming romantic getaway we are planning to go to crystal river in Florida to swim with the manatees. We had consider a trip to Orlando to visit the theme parks without kids Or a trip to the Biltmore

For level 2: I have a copy of the first edition and second edition. The first edition had reading challenges: recommended book series for your child to try and read a few. Second edition that since came out with a reader but it not schedule or referenced so I opted to keep using our pathway readers and just follow the recommendation of have kid read from for twenty minutes. Time commitment can be deceiving. It's recommended to work from the corse book for 40-60 minutes per day however for our first week in twenty minutes we got one or two lessons done. So maybe as we get further in the lessons might get longer when it get harder but I don't know There is a Facebook group called the good & the beautiful community if you don't get an answer about history here you could try there

We are a week into language arts level 2 and I'm waiting for the history to arrive. Will be starting the k level soon and probably the pre-k in the summer.