I plan to give my dd the "honors" label for Advanced Biology this year, but will specify an unweighted GPA. My kids go to the CC first and then transfer, so the weighted GPA really isn't necessary--I just think she'll be doing honors work and deserves the recognition on her transcript. Lee Binz used Clep tests to verify "honors" for her kids.

Yes--I usually have projects for a couple of hours per day, typically 4-5 days per week. We've always developed the culture that we all work together and help out. We've let our kids know for years that they are welcome to live here as adults--after college, they would be expected to have a job and help with household expenses (pay something for "rent."), and both before and after they would be expected to help with general upkeep. Our student is going to college locally the first two years, so it's probably easier to keep up that sense of "helping out." If a student was home for only a week or so, I wouldn't do jobs, but if you're going on 3 or more weeks, I'd have a discussion about how he/she could help out. My ds was hoping to get a job but ended up with some injuries that limited his activity (he did a combination camp that involved service, some missionary outreach, and Bible Study--tons of walking etc... Good experience overall despite the injuries!). So, we've done some things around the house instead. He helped with getting our whole downstairs ready for painting (patching, scraping, sanding, taping...), and then he took dh to dh's sister's 4 hours away (dh has chemical sensitivities and couldn't be here while we painted, and since ds couldn't stand a lot for painting, that was the easiest for both. He got to swim there which helped with his rehab.) When he came back, he power-washed our house, and will be working on landscaping the next week or two (trimming bushes, edging the sidewalks, weeding etc...) He also did a big clean-out and reorganizing of his room, which really needed it. DD is in high school, but she helped paint our downstairs, waters all the plants daily, also did a big room clean-out (we repainted her room as well as the downstairs--everything was in sore need of painting and repairs here!), and this week will be working on cleaning out all of the kitchen cabinets, washing them out, reorganizing etc... Both also continue their weekly household jobs and help out around the house as needed.

Yes, exactly. I blogged about APD and how I sometimes hear on my blog: Forgetting Plates and Auditory Processing.

If you have other Sonlight stuff, maybe you could back way up with the "read-alouds" aspect (my kids listened to some of those prek books over and over--I think they were 8 and 10 and still loving them!) Some of those may still be too wordy though. Maybe with non-history type stuff, you back up to something easier and kind of make up your own "core" and gradually build up some of his listening ability? But I love the idea of putting some on audio and letting him listen over and over too.

Agreeing with others--get the full screening. Seems like such an odd thing for a neuropsych to say. Also, while there aren't a lot of interventions, there is quite a bit you can do to accommodate (some strategies in this article), and also a lot of self-accommodating the child can do--I think understanding, as best we can, the full scope of what's going on with a child, and helping them to understand so they can self-accommodate is helpful and important. (I was that child saying "what?" all the time when I grew up--I learned to self-accommodate quite a bit, but didn't understand anything about auditory processing disorder until I was an adult. It has made sense of so many of my struggles and helped me help my kids too.)

I used letter grades, no + or -.

Essentials in Writing could work well.

I find it helps me to think about my priority subject with each child and their passion--what's a subject THEY really want to do? Usually if I can get going with these two, I can make the others fall into place. I wrote about this on my blog about Priorities and Passions. Then I look at Creating a Workable Routine next, and after that Implementing and then a Typical Day.

I'd say it depends on why they don't finish--ie, was the work too long or hard, or did they dawdle? The "fix" for each is different. For dawdling, assigning any remaining work as "homework" (completed at the kitchen table while other sibling was free to play) kept dawdling to a minimum. A couple of times of that & they wanted to stay on task! Also, I used some other strategies (such as "racing" to see who could get done first--them with their math or me folding a couple of loads of laundry--I made it so they could win if they tried). Sometimes sitting with them for part of the work helped them to refocus and get back on track--really depends on their needs, the subject, etc... If the work is too long or too hard, then obviously cut back some.

I think a chapter per school day seems reasonable, so 4-5 chapters would be good. (I'm not sure how you could teach a class at only 1-2 chapters a week--you'd discuss a book for 2 months or more! Ugh!)

If you have Time Traveler, I would pull that out and see if it would work. Keep the reading short (like you said, just do a 2-page spread). If it did, it seems like there are lots of books with that kind of ratio of pictures to text that you could use for him. (Some might even have more picture/less text). What is his reading ability? Could he read things like Pompeii Buried Alive (from Sonlight's Grade 2 Readers)? Or could he listen to it (even if you had to break it down and just read part at a time)? There are other history books around that level--Titanic Lost and Found, Hill of Fire, Wagon Wheels. Originally I wondered if some of their supplemental history books would work for you (like Peter the Great, Good Queen Bess etc... from Core C, or Tut's Mummy Lost and Found, Archaeologists Dig for Clues, Great Wall of China--Core B), but while they have big pictures, there's more than just a line or two of text. Still, you might take a look and see what you think.

LOL, for me that sheet was the only way I could remember to do everything. When I was trying to work off of various guides, I always forgot a subject!

You may want to check out All About Reading. It uses a multisensory approach which is really helpful for kids who are struggling to get going with reading.

Prealgebra does review fractions and decimals. What I did with my oldest (who placed into pre-algebra, but did need some brushing up on fractions and decimals) was to get the DVD's from those two programs so we could watch lessons that went with the review if he struggled at all. That worked pretty well here. If a student places lower though, I'd just start where he places and work through however quickly he can, laying a solid foundation. MUS for Pre-alg on up has been a good fit here.

Hopefully they will have one at some point! In the meantime, you can look into Whizzimo. Through the settings you can change the tile colors to match the AAS tiles. It’s not an exact match, but all the basics are the same. HTH some!

That's what I did choose to do for mine when he went through vision therapy. We continued with AAS but relaxed on some other areas of LA (which were a bit easier for him after VT. Sadly for mine, spelling never really became easy--it was hard work all the way through but it did pay off for us). It's hard, but I tried not to get hung up on testing. Most standardized spelling tests are multiple choice, which are geared for the natural speller, and can be very troublesome for students who struggle with spelling. They see the multiple possibilities, and suddenly each one looks like a good possibility, and it gets confusing. Their mind tells them that logically “fusible†and “fusable†can both say the same thing. I tried to focus on improvement over time in daily work, and taking joy in notes having fewer and fewer errors over the years, things like that. I think it takes real guts to teach students with learning struggles, and my hat's off to anyone who takes on this challenge!

I would look at Sonlight for extra book lists. Core 200 would have some that would go nicely with World History, plus includes some great authors. You could pick and choose what to add around what you are already doing, to make it very doable for you.

I always use a "week at a glance" type of planning sheet. I needed to see what each child needed to do for each subject on one page (If I have to flip pages, I tend to forget or miss something!) You can see a copy of one I made several years ago in my Teacher Binder blog post--click the link within that for the "current week's schedule." At that point in time, my kids were separate for everything except for Bible, so I showed everything for both kids separately. When we had together topics, I always put those lines up at the top, and then the individual topics for each one underneath. I keep tabbed dividers in my Teacher Binder for each subject, where I might have more detailed plans to refer to as I made up my weekly page (though most of my subjects were "do the next thing" and I simply wrote down what we did each day), grade sheets (for high school), checklists of books to read or the TOC from a history spine etc... where I could check off or record projects we did if I wanted more detailed information on a subject. HTH some!

Aw, that's so cute! Love her excitement!

You can use a different program. However, it sounds to me like he may have some auditory processing struggles. I would check out this article on Auditory Processing for information and tips you can use. Also, it's not uncommon for kids to struggle with short vowel sounds, especially short E and short I. If those are the main ones he struggles with, check out this article on the pin-pen merger. There's also a short video here.

Sure, you can either use them just for demonstrations that you do, or you can not use them at all. When my oldest outgrew the tiles, we just wrote on paper or a white board, and underlined to show when two or more letters were working together as one phonogram--it doesn't have to be hard at all. We used a long slash to divide syllables, and just said verbally what each syllable type was when labeling syllable types. Here's what it says on the AAS FAQ about this. HTH!

Good for you! Use what's working, no "grass is greener" syndrome!

Ah, that makes sense. If you're curious what we did, here's a link to my history posts (4 of the 5 are about combining MOH and Sonlight).

If what you already have is working, I probably would pass on it. Having said that, we really liked MOH here. I wouldn't like it as a supplement, but enjoyed it as a spine to build a course around (we always added on some biographies & historical fiction because we like that approach).

I haven't always loved every homeschool year or every homeschool subject. It's okay. It sounds like you've all been through a lot. I think if you can get math in a better place, that will really help with the tension. My oldest had lots of struggles, and sometimes I had to remind myself that my relationship with my kid was more important than the academic subject. I know it's hard. Does your dd like sitting in on history with your son? If not, it might be worth separating for that. I'll third the APD question--it's worth looking into, and it can look just like ADD-inattentive. (And, kids can also have both...oh joy!)