That is interesting about the fruits. I will try that, fruits are actually one thing he seems to like on a fairly regular basis. Also interesting was the part about low oxygen. He tends to be stuffy often, lately I've noticed him mouth breathing more. I hate to take him to the dr, they just want to give us antibiotics and send us out the door. I really feel like my kids have taken too many medicines, KWIM? Maybe I should ask for a referral to an ent? For clarification - he didn't have the evaluation. My oldest son did, five years ago. The only reason I mentioned it was because that was such a struggle to find him for my oldest and now even he has shut his doors. I kind of don't know where to start looking for my eight year old. My kids are 12, 9, and 8 btw so the one in my OP is the youngest. Play? Mmm, if he ever gets out toys to play he does do some imaginative things with them. He doesn't like anything "fantasy", no dragons or even dinosaurs, etc.. He only likes realistic looking people figurines (the new imaginext are fine, he won't really use the playmobil people, and flat won't touch the old imaginext people that my 12 year old had from years ago, they look less real) that may be neither here nor there. But, yes, he has finally started to use toys with a storyline he makes up. That is pretty new, until recently he wanted nothing to do with that sort of thing.

Heh, I had the same problem with a long reply. Then, I split it into two and it didn't post the second one! The first reply from me (above) is the first half of what I was going to submit...oh, well. I can't even remember ALL of what I had in the second one :001_huh: I do know that I was going to address the testing.....I have been wanting to take him to a COVD. He has one eye that sort of doesn't "line up", I can't imagine that isn't causing some issues with his vision/focusing. I have had TWO eye dr's tell me they "can't see" his eye drifting a bit. His ped when he was a baby DID see it, though. We may have to go back to him...I really like our current family doc, but I haven't talked with him about anything like that. Anyway, point being - I looked on the COVD website but could only find 1 person anywhere near us, it seems like she was lacking something - are there different rankings on the site? IIRC, it was like the difference between a therapist and a psychologist....she appeared to have less training or not hold some certification. I could be wrong, maybe I can dig her qualifications up and ask then? I would LOVE to find a neuro-psych to test him. We actually had ODS tested at 7. Our family doc reviewed the files from that test and he said it seemed thorough and the doctor seemed very knowledgable. I can say I was underwhelmed. the NP told me that ODS was "mild/moderate ADHD and normal IQ. Have him sit close to the teacher so she can give him cues to stay on task..." I don't know, maybe that was all anyone would have turned up. I would take the eight year old to him but he had to close his practice due to funding. Finding him was like finding a needle in a haystack, I don't know where to start looking for someone now. Any ideas? FWIW, we live in "the sticks" and it's hard to find people with obscure specialties nearby (like anyone besides a GP, dentist, or Optometrist LOL) We are also in the process of switching health insurances. I was the one who carried our family up until I quit at Christmas to homeschool. DH will be picking us up, but my insurance will run out the end of January so his won't be effective until then. I kind of don't want to start with a dr on my insurance and then find HIS to not cover that dr (we've done the health care swap before and had that happen as his insurance is based in Illinois...however, this is a new provider so we shall see.) I totally agree that we need to go with a basic curriculum, and he may need to deschool more than a month......OTOH, he is my youngest. I have 2 others (9 and 12) that ARE ready to do some stuff. If he would play quietly or SIT quietly by...but he doesn't. Leaving him un-occupied is asking for a disaster *sigh* He doesn't play alone and is afraid to be outside alone or in a different room of the house from where we are. I have no idea why, he goes through these stages, sometimes he will wander off by himself for an hour or so. Right now he is in his under foot stage, literally, I have turned around and fallen over the child :glare: He is doing MUCH, MUCH better with being "around but not part of" some of the lessons, though. He is sitting through read aloud time (mostly) without interruption and the older ones and I are doing Life Of Fred and he shows some interest in the story, though he isn't doing the arithmatic at the end. I'm just thrilled to see him finally show some spark of interest in ANYTHING. He has, up until recently, been totally uninterested in being read to or playing with toys. The only things he liked were "ripping and running" type stuff like climbing trees, riding bikes, etc.. and "passive entertainment". He all out resisted anything that would require him to "visualize" like being read to, or anything that would require developing a story line on his own (like playing with toys.) Within the last few weeks I have noticed him actually picking up Imaginext and Playmobil people to play, listening when I'm reading aloud, etc.. I'm hoping we are headed for a breakthrough in that area. I think those skills would be helpful to him. Pen, do you have more information on off-gasing of materials. I think his headaches were mainly caused by a combination of mold in the classroom (his unit flooded fairly regularly and the air conditioners didn't function at full capacity), poor lighting, and the fact that he eats like a bird which probably causes blood sugar issues. He does have allergies, though, and is super sensitive to stuff - it wouldn't suprise me one bit for him to have a sensitivity to something being used in class.

I am sincerely hoping this statement will prove true for my own kids. We brought them home at Christmas. Having worked IN a public school, let me tell you......you DO NOT want your kid modeling what a vast majority of those kids are doing. Even with only a month away from PS under our belt, I have seen my kids more calm and imaginative than before. I've also seen less of the "diva 'tude" from my 9 year old. I have always been told that my children were well behaved in school and in public, I'm hoping for even better form from them now that they aren't witnessing the insanity that was filling the hallways of public school (vomiting on cue, smearing poop on the walls in the FOURTH grade bathrooms, talking to adults like they are idiots.......)

Technically, they appeared to be following the correct procedure. I had begun asking about therapy/intervention when he was still in the preschool program, but he was enrolled as a "neuro-typical" peer so he wasn't eligible for any of the services. At the end of K, his teacher got me some paperwork together to sign, giving the school my permission to start the process for testing HOWEVER they don't test until they fall behind in 1st grade....so I had to wait until he had been moved through all 3 tiers in 1st (a minimum of 27 weeks) before we could even start testing. My problem with that was that 1st grade was marching grandly on without him. They were reading 3 page stories, taking spelling tests of up 15 words, and had moved on from basic introductory arithmatic (3 apples + 2 apples is 5 apples, I have 5 apples and eat two of them so now I have 3 apples) into doing things like borrowing for subtraction. It was maddening and we were doing reams of workbook pages each night that he hadn't completed in class as he couldn't move as fast as the other students. Thanks, I have visited your blog and seen the JUMP math mentioned. I had checked out their site and registered, but hadn't located the workbook samples. Yes, we're in TN. Above, I explained my frustration with the tier thing. It wasn't that I didn't get it........just was at boiling point with him falling further and further behind, and we couldn't get ANYTHING done for him in the meantime. Also, as a tier 2 he went to an interventionist daily, along with having another interventionist pull him aside in class. The problem with GOING daily was that he missed his snack time to do this. He has problems with having to eat small meals regularly, if he doesn't he winds up with a horrible migraine and vomits for hours. Many a day, I took him home throwing up and screaming with his head only to find out that he hadn't eaten that day because "I was in intervention and I didn't have time for my snack." He is 8 years old and under 40 pounds, I didn't feel like we could keep losing what little he HAD managed to consume to the vomiting. FWIW, they wouldn't let him eat his snack in intervention because it was done on computers and the school has a no food/drink at computers policy. That's understandable, but it put us between a rock and a hard place - either continue intervention and migraines OR pull him out of intervention and then we couldn't proceed with moving through the tiers. In tier 3 he would have had yet another (a third) interventionist work with him at some point during the day. They managed to "squeak him in" to some of her classes, when his regular teacher could turn him loose from the lesson in her room. THEN we had even more workpages to complete at home, tier 3 intervention was during grammar. It was getting to be too much for him to be in a seat 6.5 hours a day, working on worksheets, then come home and do the six pages of regular daily homework AND 2 or 3 packets of make up sheets that he'd missed. I felt like if we were doing all that at home, we could drop the school....KWIM? I have to take TONS of breaks for him, he is probably ADHD and, if he gets regular breaks, he focuses much better than trying to push through hours of work at once. He was never enrolled as a non-typical child. Our SpEd did a program where they did 1:1 peers. For every SpEd preschooler, they started out with a neuro-typical child as their peer. Supposedly, this would help the non-typicals socialize with the typicals, and pick up positive work traits. Anyway, he was enrolled as a typical because the teacher said her non-typicals would be children with down syndrome, or severe delays and medical issues. The non-typicals could recieve speech, OT, and PT. DS couldn't because he was considered typical. As a favor to me, the therapists did observe him in class and declared they didn't find him in "enough" need of their services. He was sort of in limbo, not quite typical/not quite severe enough to be "not typical". You have no idea how much better that makes me feel. I know that we may never be "on age level", or it may take years to get there.... there are times, though, that I wonder if I'm doing "enough" to help him. I think the bolded applies to all my kids. They seem to have a harder time "holding" things in their minds as we work on them. The older son has gotten better over the years, and my daughter has either worked it out on her own or it never applied to her.

I am really floundering for where to start with homeschooling my 8 year old. He was in first grade this year (we did age 3-6 in a SpEd preschool program, but he was considered "typical" and so received no services... he was able to be there an extra year - until 6 - because of how his birthday fell.) Let me tell you what he CAN do first: He can recognize letters and tell me their sounds. He can sound out short words (CVCs mostly, he can also do CVCCs most of the time I've tried them.) Our "can't" list: Anything with a silent e stumps him. Phonics wasn't a big part of school at our old school, they taught letter sounds in preschool and some in kindergarten. By after Christmas of K, though, they were doing sightwords almost exclusively. He will randomly read words, but if I ask him later to read the same word he tells me he doesn't know it. Even simple readers are too much for him to read aloud to me. Okay, math is another big stumbling block. He CAN recognize numbers, "read" number words 90 percent of the time, and he can count items and then write the number for me or tell me the number. He CANNOT add or subtract. This was HUGE for us in PS because they were already doing subtraction with borrowing by Christmas :confused: This kid couldn't even tell me 2+2=4 without counting it up and they wanted him to tell them 17-9=8!!! I was in the early stages of having him tested for an IEP or 504...as in we had been at this (observations, charting his grades, etc..) for 2 years and we were ALMOST able to give him an actual test :banghead: It just got to be too much for me. He was falling further behind daily, I could almost SEE it happening before my eyes, and they were saying "We are going to move him from Tier 2 to Tier 3 and, THEN, in 9 weeks if he hasn't improved we can look at testing." The woman who was the "interventionist" for his grade level was VERY nice, though, and did a few of the tests on him "unofficially". She did a RAT (I guess that's the acronym, that is what she called it.) I think she did another one, as well, but I can't recall a name. She wasn't conclusive with anything. One thing she commented on was a part where she read him a word and he gave her an association. I can't remember what she told him, something like pickle, and he said "falling glass". She said he didn't seem to be making the connection and then verbalizing it, but was either making the wrong connection or was verbalizing something different than what he was thinking. She also worked with him, in the classroom, on math this year and said he didn't understand the VALUE of numbers. He doesn't get that five is always "XXXXX", but rather has to count it each time "one, two, three, four, five". FWIW, this kid can hold a conversation with adults. He can remember driving directions (You need to turn left up here) when we've only been somewhere once, long ago. So, it isn't that he isn't functional AT ALL. I'm just at a loss for what to do with him. Where do I start? Any recommendations for programs/curriculum we might use for those subjects? His fine motor skills aren't good, either. That makes anything with a lot of writing very hard. It also makes doing a worksheet sort of beside the point, because when he looks back at it, it is filled in with chicken scratch. My oldest DS was very similar in that regard and has finally gotten much better with his writing (he is 12, it has improved in the last year or so!) I know that may come along on it's own, but I'd like to do somethings that incorporate strengthening his fine motor skills to help that along. We have been doing playdough, and he has been tracing words/letters/numbers I've written. I had to correct his grip, they had him using a pincer grip (index and middle on top, thumb on bottom) His hand does seem steadier using the tripod grip I taught him. They also had them doing some weird thing where they never took their pencil off the paper when forming a letter/number. His 4 ended up looking like an incomplete w, so I've taken him back to basics on that. We are re-learning it the way I learned it, small L shape and then the stick. It looks much improved when he does it that way. Where do I start? Do I go back to preschool type stuff with him? I know this was long, if you stuck with it.....Thank you!!:tongue_smilie:

Your post made me smile :001_smile: I have a DS who is 8, his writing is atrocious. Actually, all three of my kids have pretty awful handwriting. The oldest's has improved in terms of spacing and size. He does still randomly capitalize letters. He says it is because he doesn't like the way some of his letters look (all his b's are B's and all his R's are r's.) My daughter CAN have really good handwriting, but it takes some concentration on her part. The youngest, though...... it is a daily struggle. We are working on it, though, a little at a time. I'm working on correcting his grip, now. For whatever reason, they allowed him to use a pincer-type grip in PS :glare: He also does the "nospacebetweenwords", all of my kids did. In fact, DS 12 has only overcome this in the last couple of years. Hopefully, one day I'll be making a "breakthrough" post of my own about my son!

Not a funeral director, but I did date a mortician. I might be the only person here whose husband lives 9 hours away due to work, and we started homeschooling so the kids and I could split our time between there and home?

Then what's the point of a membership? I hope that didn't sound snarky, I just truly want to know :) I've been kicking around the idea of audio books for the kids.

That's funny, I was going to say that it sounded like something my husband would say. He has, though, been amazingly peppy about homeschooling. I'm always floored when people use the "good enough" arguement for anything. I know what they mean when they use it, but it sounds so stupid. When I hear it, what I'm thinking is "I won't let my kids have it even a little better than I did. If something was awful for me, by gosh, it's going to be awful for them!" I don't think you can compare schools now to schools from years ago. I went to school in the 80's/90's. It wasn't fabulous, but there was more discipline. I do agree with the poster who said they had 3 recesses and it made a difference. My stepdad said they had 2 recesses until they were pretty big kids. We are new to homeschooling, but I'm hoping that breaking up our day with play breaks will help my youngest focus during work time.

I can relate. DD has several American Girls, and we have a few rules about them. One covers the hair brushing. I simply told her this wasn't a cheap doll, it was special and the hair brushing needed to be limited. She got her first ones at 7. At that point, she could brush the hair IF she let me help her. I gave her a few demonstrations on correct brushing (don't start at the head and jerk the hair down into knots, start at the bottom and work your way up to the head in increments....do small sections of hair, don't try to do half her head at once..) We also do have a couple of the AG wig brushes. We have the little sprayer bottle, too (the curly haired ones do better if the hair is misted a bit before brushing. FWIW, we had a lesson on THAT, too. I didn't want her soaking the doll's head or spraying the eyes.) She plays with them every so often, more often if a friend is here. I will say that her dolls look MUCH better than one of her friend's dolls - that girl is allowed to do whatever to them, and she has put lipstick on them and their hair is a rats nest. I, personally, don't go for the "we'll just pay someone to fix her up after you destroy her." I want her to learn to take care of them, especially since she is 9. A couple of weeks ago DD learned to french braid on one of her dolls. They ARE well made, and the DO hold up well. You just have to use some common sense (or teach the child to - my DD needed some guidance in that department LOL, obviously.) Oh, and about the dressing - they ARE kind of a pain to dress. I still end up dressing them quite often for DD and her friends. It's like the clothes are *justthismuch* too small. My advice would be to put her up for a while if your DD still thinks she doesn't want her. Just tell her it was a gift, and you won't be returning it. Tell her you will pack her away, and if she decides she wants to play with her you'll give her back. I totally get what you are saying about the emotional game thing. DD does that, too. It's an attention getter (she is the only girl, middle child.......sigh) Side note: I didn't know that about putting a cloth on their head. We might try that. DD loves to sleep with toys, but doesn't sleep with her AG because of the potential for the hair to become a rat's nest. She has been picking her Bitty Baby or Twins instead. We might try that trick on one of the bigger dolls :)

We would like to do this as well. I have a 9 yo and 8 yo. I was being a little hard on myself yesterday about having brought them home and they would miss their class parties. I think getting mail would offset that ;) I'll be happy to do 2 sets, I have TONS of Valentines that I stocked up on last year (they ARE all cartoonish, though......do I need to have an ethical anxiety attack? LOL I can do that, too, just add it to my other anxieties about homeschooling!!)

I have tried to teach DD the "right" way to brush her AG doll's hair. We talked about holding small sections, brushing below the hand she was using to hold, working from the bottom up..... in the end, though, I also put a restriction on how often she could do their hair. I think every couple of weeks is plenty. DD is 9, though, so I can see a younger girl be very into "doing" doll's hair. FWIW, to the poster with the OG doll - I don't think you will need a wig brush. AG dolls have wigs, OG have rooted hair, I think.

My DD has one at home, she got it last Christmas. I'm not sure if we still have the tracing pictures. We're out of town right now, but I can check when we get home if you still need some. Have you checked the Crayola website? They might have some that you can download.