I am also interested if anyone has aligned the Drive Thru Series with MoH.

I have a 10 yo son who seems to be going backwards in reading comprehension and spelling. I would like to get him tested to see if he has an LD. My dd was tested twice by a Neuropsych in 1st and 3rd grade because she was having so much trouble in public school (always got As but had so much trouble with writing and spelling). Since homeschooling, everything has resolved itself except for letter and number reversals. I found the Neuropsych test to be very long and stressful, on my daughter and on me. It was nice to get such comprehensive results but it was a long drive, long test and she never tested in any category to need special services. My 10 yo ds has really been struggling in language arts since I pulled him out of public school after his second grade year. He started reading at 3, always took tons of AR tests and did well on them, could spell like a champ and no on eat the ps ever gave us cause for concern. It seemed like the moment I got him home two years ago, language arts has been a huge struggle. He actually seems to be going backwards in reading comprehension, writing and spelling. I have a woman at our church who is an LD teacher in the public school system and does the Woodcock-Johnson testing and evals for a lot of the homeschoolers that go to the church. She is willing to test him in mid-March. Should I just have my son meet with the woman at our church and have him tested and evaluated by her or should I go back to Neuropsych to the same place my daughter did? Will the WJ test give me enough information about ds's backwards slide and specific problems with spelling, letter reversal, reading comprehension and writing? Any advice would be greatly appreciated, Jen

I'm sorry everyone for not replying right away. This has been a terrible week for us: lots of crying, depression, tension, and more pain. We have really been pushed to a limit emotionally and physically. We have done lots of prayer and reading posts by people like yourselves and talking to family and friends and more doctors opinions. We decided, after 4 hours of crying and pleading by my daughter, to finally try the medicine the rheumatologist prescribed. So far the side effects have been bad, but she wants to keep on trying. I just keep praying that I am making the right choices medically. I also did talk to dh and just said we are not doing school until we get this under control. Praise the Lord I am homeschooling. I am so blessed that I chose to pull them from public school a couple years ago. If she were in ps right now, she would be stressed with packets of school to finish. Right now I am putting no stress on her and letting her do what feels comfortable. If that means laying down, sitting in her hammock chair, standing for little bits or taking a small walk, we try everything. Ugh. It is SO heartbreaking to see her suffer more each day. I really hope this med works!

No injury. Started months ago with just a small pain at the spine on the bra line then has spread since then all over her back, shoulders and neck. We have seen an orthopedist specializing in the spine, a rheumatologist, pt, etc, etc. There is no pain management specialist anywhere near where we live.

We have thought of postponing school longer but we took time off this summer and are worried of her not finishing her grade. My dh is even more worried than I am. If it were just me, I would give her more time off but dh says I have learned to completely live my live in pain (with the occasional small break) and chronic illnesses so she can, too. I thought letting work while resting on the heating pad or working orally while her lying down to ease the pain. We also cut any sport or extra-curricular activity that could make her feel worse, but that makes her sad. I feel so awful about this whole thing. I have recently been put in a wheelchair to get around and I feel like my illnesses have made her so tense that I am causing her back pain.

I also posted this in the K-8 forum. My 11 year old daughter has chronic back pain. She has had for months now but in the last three weeks it has gotten so much worse that she can't concentrate on her schoolwork. We have taken the last three weeks to try to get the pain under control with a variety of specialists, PT and meds but its just not getting better. We really have to get back to school. I have pared down her agenda to the basics: math, science, history, and language arts. I have cut out Spanish, geography, Bible, s*x ed, typing and music. What y'all think? Anyone else in a similar situation? Any advice?

I thought this might get more coverage in the K-8 instead of just special needs. My 11 year old daughter has chronic back pain. She has had for months now but in the last three weeks it has gotten so much worse that she can't concentrate on her schoolwork. We have taken the last three weeks to try to get the pain under control with a variety of specialists, PT and meds but its just not getting better. We really have to get back to school. I have pared down her agenda to the basics: math, science, history, and language arts. I have cut out Spanish, geography, Bible, s*x ed, typing and music. What y'all think? Anyone else in a similar situation? Any advice?

My 9 and 11 year olds do math, science (except labs), Spanish, geography, typing, music and reading on their own. I discuss reading with them but I don't read to them. Language arts (we use LLATL) is done with me and part independent and history we do together with the exception of age appropriate historical fiction and encyclopedias, etc. We do Bible and family education individually. Here is what we use: 4th grade: INDEPENDENT Spanish (Rosetta Stone on computer) Geography (Globalmania on computer...I just linked their resources as bookmarks) Typing (Typing Tutor Platinum) Math (Teaching Textbooks 5) Science (Science Fusion 4 - all online except for labs) Music (a dvd series for teaching piano on his keyboard which he does himself) 6th grade: Spanish (Rosetta Stone on computer) Geography (Globalmania on computer...I just linked their resources as bookmarks) Typing (Typing Tutor Platinum) Math (Life of Fred) Science (Science Fusion Module A - all online except for labs) Music (a dvd series for teaching guitar which she does by herself) TOGETHER WITH BOTH History (SOTW 1 - listen and read chapter on mon, wed do review questions, mapping and test, thurs is independent reading and fri is a video) INDIVIDUALLY WITH ME Family Education Bible Learning Language Arts Through Literature (Yellow for 4th and Tan for 6th) Discussion of independent history readings (4th grader is using Usborne and 6th grader is using K12's Human Odyssey) Science Labs (usually done with their daddy on saturdays) Our school day lasts about 2 1/2 to 3 hours at most. HTH, Jen

I have one ds in grade 4 and one dd who is almost done with module A. Here are some of my thoughts: The pacing guide for 4th grade is ridiculous. To get him to finish the book he would almost have to do two lessons a week and that was way too much for him. I just schedule one chapter a week. I do spend the time assigning lessons (which I must say is slow and a pain but once I got used to it, it has been fine). I just go to the Teacher Edition online and go to lesson level and then start with assigning the digital lesson for monday, the quiz for wednesday (which he has to review in the book and there is a helpful printout as well for kids with reading comprehension issues), and then the inquiry flipchart on friday. He has a scientific notebook which we use for his experiments. For my 6th grade dd, who is doing module A, I assign the lesson for monday, the quiz for wednesday (using the book as review), and we do experiments on friday and saturday. We have had to really pare down on the number of labs because it was TOTALLY overwhelming doing 3-5 labs per chapter. My husband is a scientist and we just sit down and pick one (maybe two if they are short and very interesting). She loves microscopy so we have done quite a bit of that and stayed away from the labs that take over 1/2 hour. Some last over an hour! Ugh. I think the interesting thing for us is that we do it almost 100% online. I do the assigning (and printing if necessary) and they do the work with no help from me. They study for the tests and I look at the results on ThinkCentral. The labs I find to be incredibly time consuming and we have had to buy quite a few things or just skip labs due to costs. My dd has found that some of the Virtual Labs, in particular mitosis and meiosis, were scheduled wrong. She had only had the lesson for mitosis but the virtual lab scheduled by ScienceFusion to go with it was on mitosis and meiosis and she hadn't even studied meiosis yet. She was very frustrated. We have had that happen a few times. 1 pp said her kids weren't enjoying anything and that is where I am finding my kids. Science was SO fun last year (we did Apologia Human Anatomy and Physiology). I am not a good young earther and really wanted a secular science and thought ScienceFusion was going to be the answer to my prayers. It has turned out to be a little bit of a letdown. From the difficulty in scheduling to the monstrous labs and the lack of enthusiasm from the kids, it has kind of frustrating because I was so excited about it. I also think ScienceFusion has not really made any changes to ThinkCentral to help homeschoolers. You can tell it is obviously made for a classroom setting. My PhD husband really wants them to continue with ScienceFusion next year because he wants them to have a very solid science background. I feel torn because the kids don't enjoy it. Surely there has to be a secular science that comes with labs and materials. If so, I haven't found it. Jen

I would be interested in such a group. I have so many medical problems there are too many to list. My major problems are autonomic neuropathy which includes gastroparesis (paralyzed stomach) and postural tachycardia (heart rate too fast upon sitting or standing) and DM. I haven't been upstairs to our homeschool room in about a year. We have adapted and do together work downstairs on the couch. I just went yesterday to get a conversion van because I am now in a wheelchair. It has been hard on my kids since 2009 when most of this started but they have become resilient, compassionate, caring and independent (they are now 9 & 11). I am so proud of them and we have so much fun together. I have rides for them to a co-op but we have had to scale back drastically. I hope the wheelchair and van give me more mobility. I hope all of you with chronic illness take heart that homeschooling can be done with chronic illness with some tweaking. I would love to talk about this more. Jen

I love the Hands and Hearts Kit for Colonial America for that time frame to get an idea of life during that time. Fun, quality crafts. A lot of people also love History Pockets. http://handsandhearts.com/handsandheartsearlyamericanhistorydiscoverykit.aspx http://www.evan-moor.com/Product.aspx?CurriculumID=7&ClassID=183&SeriesID=65&TitleID=265

We do 42 weeks of history a year. We have so much fun spending a week on each chapter.

We don't supplement TT. It does just fine all on its own. I agree with pp that the novelty will wear off (or the review) and you will be at one lesson a day.

I like this site: http://www.historicalnovels.info/Young-Adult-Historical-Novels.html

We are in our last week of Amanda Bennet's Olympic Unit Study and it has been great! e don't do everything she says t do, but we have been learning about the Ancient Olympics, the beginning of the Modern Olympics and many of the sports involved. My kids love the videos and learning about important people from past Olympics like Jesse Owens. We have also studied how certain sports use certain muscles and laws of physics. It has been very interesting and enjoyable for all of us. I didn't read through all the posts here but here are our favorite two sites: http://www.london2012.com/ <---just pick a sport, go to about, and learn the history of that sport and how it works and watch a little video. Following is my favorite Medal Count: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/8660580/Olympic-Medal-Table.html I can't wait for this weekend for the games to start!

I'm using SOTW 1 with my 11 and 9 yo. I plan to use it all the way through volume 4. My oldest does extra work, including reading and discussing excerpts from K12's Human Odyssey made by Kate in Arabia here on the Hive: http://www.scribd.com/doc/60373372/SOTW-and-Human-Odyssey I think it is a fine spine for Logic stage and am happy with our choice. I love having the kids combined for history.

I love Notgrass' America the Beautiful. It is a one year US History. I love Notgrass!

Usually, when a pan balance is used in our science it is used to figure mass of an object. We just use a digital kitchen scale (which get tons of use) and do it that way. No wasted money here.

We are doing SOTW with my 11 yo. We have never done it before and she is enjoying it. She is also reading excerpts from K12's Human Odyssey made up by Kate in Arabia here on the Hive. She also reads a historical fiction every couple of weeks. We are doing a chapter a week. Day 1: Listen to audio (we do not like the silly voices but otherwise enjoy listening to it - my 9 yo ds reads along in the book), Review Questions. Day 2: Review Questions, Mapping, Test. Day 3: Read Human Odyssey excerpt and discuss. Day 4: Watch video about chapter. We used Sonlight for a year and a half and I figure if they use it for 6th and 7th grade, it should be rigorous enough for my 11 yo dd with all the supplements.

We school 4 days a week. It started a a couple years ago when I joined a co-op and tried a Sonlight 4 day schedule. We have stuck to it and I love it. I do pack 5 day curricula that I have into 4 days by just randomly adding one day to our schedule. I use Homeschool Tracker Online and just use the "spread evenly" button. We school M,W,R,F. Tuesday is co-op and then schedule a bunch of kids to come over and play. In the summer, the kids either take Tues or Thurs off and go to the water park and have friends over again. I really love my 4 day schedule :)

:iagree:

We were disappointed that after the noun jingle there were just chants for the rest that we did. We made it through about half of Book 3 before dropping it :( Maybe there are more songs later in the book. The adjective and adverb chant were almost exactly the same and my kids couldn't keep them straight. I am so over jingles!

I have read on the boards that they are extremely worth it and then you don't need Uncle Josh's Outline Maps. They came out the year after I bought the Trail Guide so I don't have experience with them. I hoped that helps.

I love Hands And Heats kits: Colonial and Westward Expansion. If you only got one set of each, the 3rd grader could do the bulk and the K could help so you wouldn't need the second child kit. They are absolutely awesome! http://handsandhearts.com/handsandheartsearlyamericanhistorydiscoverykit.aspx http://handsandhearts.com/handsandheartswestwardexpansionhistorydiscoverykit.aspx