Does anyone have any experience with occupational therapy for a child that has been slower to have neat handwriting and who take a really long time and/or cries when asked to write more than a couple of sentences a day? I'm curious...we were told that our son might benefit from this but I only have experience with severe delays at therapy. This child is great at art/drawing, manipulating legos, playing video games...

I just saw this and it is exactly what I've been looking for. Do you like the WP Children Around the World curriculum? I just glanced over the sample on their website and it looks great!

Thank you for that ... I do own all the books for Beyond as well. That is probably why when hubby heard the dilemma, he thought Beyond would be good because it is probably more at the level for both kids...without skipping stuff. To be honest, I'm still torn. When I look at what I've spent on books this year already - I don't really want to have to re-do what I've already done. I would also like a lot less stress ... still thinking this out. I will most likely be moving to SCM next year ... still thinking, though, if anyone else wants to give their input. At this point, I'm considering picking up with Beyond tomorrow and seeing how it goes. I think we could get Beyond done in 2 hours and still have some time left over to review phonics rules ... do some fun educational games. My husband thinks I'm stressing too much over the history curriculum for a 5 yr old, as well ... he thinks most kids won't retain a lot from that age. I know they won't master the material but I don't want it to be too hard for them to understand, either. ETA: It looks like on the poll Simply Charlotte Mason is winning by a lot!!! My vision is to pick up on our Bible reading where we left off ... so some history ... read through our science read aloud ... read another read-aloud and a small amount of copywork, spelling words, one day a week do composer and artist studyand continue our usual math. I'm thinking of going back to picking out my own things to work on...my big problem still is what history!!!

I talked to my husband and he thought we should try out Beyond because we already own it ... is it weird of me to not want to try it because the history seems rather boring. That is probably what really drew me to Bigger ... I like the biographical approach (of studying more of the famous people surrounding a time period). I guess, since we have the books, we can try a week of it and see how both kids do. I do not have any of the books for SCM Mod. 4 ... I looked over AO and got overwhelmed ... not knowing what to read and when. We did do SCM Mod. 1 for my son's first grade. Some parts I loved and other parts were just ok (I'm sure it was his age and he wasn't very motivated toward school work). I loved the Bible reading ... he has retained all of the reading ... it is amazing to see how much he learned from it. He remembers a little about Ancient Egypt. At that time we did a little copywork, and phonics and math as well. I like the idea of doing composer study and famous artist study (I was an art major/art history in college and love humanities and fine arts).

Thank you to everyone who has responded. You guys have been helpful! I'm thinking it is more difficult to use HOD the way it is written with a larger family ... especially when nobody is actually independent here yet. I'm still deciding either dropping it all together or trying to use Bigger without all the boxes being checked everyday. (Using LA, History reading, science reading and Bible Study for both kids and break off for math ... and don't do all the notebooking ... maybe one time a week). I loved the idea of Bigger because of the different people we'd be studying - it seemed very interesting and honestly, I still love that part of it. I may look into module 5 of SCM, too...

I've posted on here before and finally decided to try Bigger with my just turned 8 yr old (2nd grade) and LHFHG with my K'er. Much of Little Hearts is too easy for my 5 yr old ... so, I've been using the right side of Beyond and the left side of LHFHG for her and Bigger straight through for my 8 yr old. My 8 yr old is struggling with the amount of writing involved in all the notebooking. He has just learned to read (1st grade level) and is still slower to write ... he doesn't enjoy writing, either. He prefers oral narrations and read-alouds. He learns with this method ... he also loves math and science. I'm stressed, though. I'm having to do a lot of hand holding through the Bigger guide because of the amount of writing. I was thinking it would help him but it is burning us both out. Also, my almost 6 yr old really wants to do more and more school and using the 2 different guides is wearing me out (I have a special needs son and a toddler and a baby, as well ... I'm pulling out my hair). I'm about 5 weeks into our new school year and feeling a lot of pressure to fix this mess. If my 5 yr old were different or not as advanced I would just be low-key with her school ...but she begs to do school every day and she is very bright. I'm contemplating dropping everything for now and switching to SCM History 4, (keeping) CLE Math 100 (for 5 yr old) and 200 (for 2nd grader), A Reason For Handwriting for both kids, and a lot of phonics/grammar review that we did last year, we also have a science that it is CM style earth science that both kids like (I just started reading it to them). I will also keep doing the read-alouds that I bought from HOD. The other choices I've come up with is to drop Bigger (we just finished week 4) and move to Beyond which seems like less writing. Combine both kids in that and do spelling and LA as written (keep DS in CLE math). Both kids are in the emergent reader category and spelling list 1. The other choice is to keep going in Bigger but drop most of the notebooking (We love the Eggleston book that we've started reading and what I love is that DS is retaining tons of history this year - which has never worked in the past). I REALLY want the to both being doing the same Bible memory - I'm not liking the separate stuff. I think at this point maybe only math should be separate - they are similar ages with LA. We read the same biography to both kids already for the first 4 units (Helen Keller) and both kids learned a lot. They both do the same spelling list and emergent reader books. My 5 yr old has a short attention span for history reading, however... I feel like more needs to be combined. WWYD?

mommylawyer - I like the envelope idea because it is free and it would be easy to label them. We don't currently use wallets for the kids ... and I really want them to learn about tithing and giving to church along with other missions and charities.

Do you guys use piggy banks for young kids (10 and under)? Do you use any kind of special ones or a homemade one with a special section for savings, spending, donating? I'm just curious what others use ... we are thinking of implementing something like this and we're not sure what is the best option. Technically this would be for our 3 oldest kids at this point.

Don't risk it! I wouldn't even let my kids out of the house or around others for well over a week .. and that was if they were the last person in our house to get it (it went one by one each 1-2 days a part until we all had it). It was the worst flu/sickness we have ever had and the fever was very high, too. Some people have gotten even worse secondary infections (like pneumonia)... I wouldn't knowingly expose myself or my family to it.

Do you guys rest one day a week ... do you "remember the Sabbath"? I have begun to think more about this. I didn't grow up with this tradition ... although we didn't "work" on Sunday but we did cook and do basic things - we might also go to the grocery store or out to eat which would require others working...we weren't strict about it. I just got through reading the book of Hebrews and I've begun to wonder more about whether we should still be taking a day of rest in a more formal sense. I'm not even sure what it would look like. I've recently begun reading a book on this topic (the book is called: 24/6) and I'm still not complete sure what this would mean for me or what it would look like. Just wondering what other conservative Christians do and think about this topic.

Praying for your daughter.

I love most of the new songs/praise songs ... for a long time I didn't want to listen to any "old hymns" just recently I have started to like to sing them ... I grew up in church (every Sunday) and I'm not sure why ... but I've recently changed my mind about them. I now like both old and new...

Hi! I just saw this and thought I would forget to come back if I didn't post. :)

Our 4th was our smallest baby, too (just over 7 pounds) ... so crazy! I'm glad it all went well. Congratulations!!!

I've noticed it to - I only said we had it once I was tested (nasal swab) and it came back positive for Influenza A. Once I was diagnosed (I was the 3rd person to come down with it out of 7) I realized we all had it (all within 4-5 days).

Me too...had the same thing except prednisone helped me after a few days.

Stay home! We all had Influenza A at Christmas and one by one (one to two days apart) each of us came down with it ... except my husband who thought he wasn't going to get it. He went to a Christmas party and the next morning at 4am woke up with a high fever and chills. It hits so fast and so hard - I wouldn't chance it.

My kids all had it right at Christmas. The symptoms were exactly what you said your son had. The only one of us with a severe problem recovering was me ... and I have asthma and autoimmune disorders that can cause problems. The only person to try tp take Tamiflu was DH and it mad him very sick to his stomach. I hope your son feels better and that you avoid it...have you thought of wearing a mask? I wondered if that would have helped some of us avoid it this time...

No ... none of us got the shot this year and we all ended up with the flu. We have never all had the flu. There were times where I wondered if I had the flu (but the kids never have had it). I've been told by several doctors and nurses that they have seen so many cases where the patient has the flu and had the shot this year. I've also been told that several doctors in (2 different practices) came down with the flu after being exposed ... long after having the shot this year.

This flu (A H3N2) has that as one of its characteristics. I've had the flu before (maybe 2-3 times before) and never had this amount of nausea ... several of my kids and hubby were vomiting and I almost did and felt very very ill from the nausea aspect of this.

Congratulations!!!

Hmmm...maybe it is the flu but his body is fighting it off because of the flu shot? I'm not sure. We all had the flu and we all had fevers (pretty high - like up to 104). The adults also got the chills (for some reason the kids didn't - even with high fevers). The other symptom of the flu in our family was a dry cough.

I was told I could take the Tamiflu but I was bfing a baby under age 1 and then they told me I probably shouldn't take it. My husband did take it and got very sick (stomach) from it and wouldn't take any more. Apparently, for some people vomiting is a side effect of that drug. Only some people get that, though...

I was diagnosed with the flu ... I was very, very sick with it and they did a nasal swab in office. It was Influenza A.

We all had it over Christmas ... it was terrible. It got each of us - one by one. It seemed like each day another one or two of us was sick with it. The high fever was bad and lasted for probably 3 days (along with body aches) but the cough wouldn't go away ... it seemed like forever. It took me a full two weeks with tons and tons of prescription medicine to feel normal again. It was the sickest I've ever been. Several of my kids got pretty sick (one got it more mildly than the rest of us) but the cough lasted between 1-2 weeks for all of them -- most didn't need medicine for it. My asthma made it much more severe for me, I suppose ... but I've never had anything that bad.