Hi, I am looking for a way to make my own cursive handwriting pages for the upcoming school year. I would prefer something i could use in Open Office so I can download the pages as a pdf and print them later. Does anyone know of something that will allow me to do this? Thank you!

Thanks! That looks interesting. I’ll pass the website name on to my daughter.

Thank you! I will look through this. I had tried to do a search on the forum for this, but it didn’t seem to work right because I didn’t see anything that was appropriate.

Hi, Does anyone have recommendations for a hands-on engineering course for a high schooler? Thank you!

I'd say 1.5-2 hours between the lesson, problems, and corrections with me.

Hi, My son is using Saxon 87 for Pre-Algebra and it takes so long to complete. If you add up the mental math, lesson practice, and mixed practice problems, each lesson has between 50-60 problems. Since they are all different, you can't even choose to only do the odd numbered problems. What can you suggest that is more straightforward? I'm teaching a lot of kids so it has to be easy to use. He's a smart kid and catches on to math easily. Thank you!

No. I've not had that asked. Hopefully we will find someone who's willing to really look into things. Angela

She's quite uncoordinated. She runs awkwardly. We have to remind her to be careful a lot because she often falls. She fell outside and busted her nose on the house a few months ago (I know, who does that?). A week before she fell and busted her lip trying to show me something she learned in a ballet class. I looked at our Children's hospital website today and the specialists we would need require a referral. She is due for her annual check up with her pediatrician in November, so I will do my best to push for these referrals then. I can probably find a decent SLP locally, so maybe we can do that in the meantime. I do appreciate all the advice! Angela

I could speak volumes on her behavior, so I'm sure I won't completely represent it here. She was a low needs baby. It was as a toddler that we noticed she was different. My husband and I kinda figured that we had become lax over the years and lost our parenting skills or something. She was intentionally disobedient and then would smile about it (still does this). She never seemed to feel sorrow after being scolded like our other kids. The most consistent way my husband and I have described her is by saying, "She just doesn't 'get it'." We would tell her things (this still happens) and then she she responds as if she didn't hear you. It has been as her younger brother, age 5, has gotten older and acted as the others that has confirmed our suspicions that she is "different." With strangers she just smiles at them. Everyone says, "She's so sweet!" This is because she's quiet, calm, and smiles. She almost never speaks, though. She makes cards for nearly everyone she meets (another reason people describe her as sweet) - and I mean everyone - visitors to our house, teachers of classes she goes to (every week, not just once), the zoo, the doctor, the dentist, the public school psychologist who did her testing, etc. I know it's sweet, but to be honest, it seems a bit odd and immature to me. When visitors come to our house, she tends to monopolize them, bringing them bunches of toys and books, never imagining that they may NOT be there to play with her. Whenever we are at a gathering with other children, she tends to play alone, or flocks to the younger kids, usually 4-5 years old. Family photos- she's cooperative, as in, she doesn't act out, but she doesn't usually smile, sometimes has a scared look on her face, or just doesn't look at the camera at all (pretty common). Her go to reaction in response to something she doesn't like is whining, yelling, or a full fit. She doesn't do this in public, though. We've NEVER had a 7yo still throw fits. She throws fits if my husband or I leave the house to go on an errand and tell her that she can't come. What 7yo does this?!? Food...she's probably our least picky eater. But she's also our only over-weight child. She has no self-control, she eats super-fast and is asking for seconds when the rest of us have barely started eating (even though we all start at the same time because no one is allowed to eat until we've prayed). We make her wait now and try to limit her portions, but she whines and begs terribly. Writing...she can't write a 3-4 word sentence. I tried AAS phrase dictation from book 1 and it took forever, lots of reminding her of the word she should be writing, and lots of whining. Yesterday she was writing the date for us, as we do every morning after discussing the calendar. I got up to do something while she was supposed to do it, but I stayed in the room. I came back over to her after a minute, and she had stopped writing. I asked how it was going, and she said, "Terrible!" Her last three letters were barely recognizable. I helped her fix the letters and told her letter-by-letter, number-by-number the rest of the date and she completed it. There's more I could say, but I need to do some things now. Thanks! Angela

Thank you for the info on the OT testing. I think I will look into this next. Angela

Hi, I really do appreciate all the replies. There's so much good advice here. I'm going to read through it several times and talk with my husband. I like the advice to choose what to investigate instead of worrying about it all right now. All I know right now is that she's going to require a lot of patience and one-on-one work. My experience with the ps testing left me feeling like I'm on my own figuring out how best to help her. I'm focusing on giving her a lot of word exposure with read-alouds, discussion, poetry memorization, etc. The past week went well in that regard. The handwriting and math were still definite low-points of the week. Thank you again for all of your advice! Angela

Thank you for this! I do feel like the professionals are not taking me seriously. I have 6 other kids and none are like her. The ps evaluator told me that she couldn't say that she qualified for services because of the possibility of ADD (which she said she couldn't diagnose) and because she was homeschooled and therefore she could not say that she had so far received "appropriate instruction." I asked what I was supposed to do if she continued not to progress, and she replied that we might consider putting her in school so she could work on her social skills and participate in their reading intervention program.

I'm sorry, but I'm not familiar with the abbreviations you used: NVLD, DSM4, DSM5? Here are her WISC scores: Verbal - 98 Visual spatial- 119 Fluid reasoning - 97 Working memory- 74 Processing speed - 83 FSIQ - 95 General ability Index - 103 Cognitive Proficiency Index - 75

Personally, I've thought she might need to be evaluated for autism for a while. I mentioned it to our pediatrician and they gave me a list of local psychologists. We live in a small town outside of Pittsburgh. Needless to say, I haven't found much support from local people who are supposed to be helping us. I just don't feel like these psychologist are the right people to go to. That writing was done first thing in the morning. I wouldn't say it took too long. She sometimes does simple CVC word phrase dictation from All About Spelling 1. She can only do three phrases at a sitting with many repetitions of the phrase by me (Her 5yo brother can do 6 phrases and several single words in the same time).

I've tried to attach a handwriting sample from this week: new doc 45.pdf.pdf

Thank you for your responses. I had not thought to scribe for her during math. I may try this. There's so much I could say about this child. She had a difficult end of her pregnancy. She was breech with low amniotic fluid and was delivered early (38 weeks) via c-section due to signs of fetal distress. She ended up weighing 3-4 lbs less than my other children born naturally between 38-40 weeks. It seems that her cord was compressed for a while and I think this has resulted in her intellectual and behavioral issues. I'll write here the tests that were done and the percentiles. I don't know enough to know if these were the tests you were asking about: WISC-V Verbal comprehension - 45th Visual-Spatial - 90th Fluid Reasoning - 42nd Working Memory- 4th Processing Speed - 13th FSIQ - 37th General Ability Index - 58th Cognitive Proficiency Index - 5th WIAT- III Early Reading Skills - 16th Math Problem Solving- 27th Alphabet Writing Fluency - 13th Numerical Operations- 14th Spelling - 23rd "Portions of" the CTOPP-2 test were given: Elision - 25th Blending Words - 50th Phenome Isolation - 16th Composite Phonological Awareness - 25th The evaluator also had me fill out the BASC-3 which showed many problems. She acts immaturely for her age. She still throws fits like a 2yo. She has self-control issues. I'm not sure if I can upload a picture sample of her handwriting. Her handwriting has improved, I think, but I would say it is still below age level. I haven't paid attention to whether she moves her head or eyes when she reads to me. I'll try to pay attentions to this this week. All of her siblings are developmentally normal. One of her older sisters does have concentration issues at times, but nothing like I'm seeing in my 7yo. Thank you for your help. Angela

Hi, My daughter is 7yo, but is at least a year behind academically. She has been tested through the public schools over the summer and shown to have poor working memory and slow processing speed. She scored VERY low average to below average on reading accessments. It was recommended that we have her tested for ADD, but we haven't yet. My biggest problems this week as we started back to school are math and her pencil grip. First, math...we have been using Rod & Staff all of last year and continuing now. She is in Grade 1, book 1 (near the end of this book since it is continued from last year). I like how easy R&S is to use and how it includes review, but she hates it. It takes her forever to complete a lesson. Each lesson includes two workbook pages and I sit with her as she completes one early in the morning and the second later in the morning after at least an hour play break, or after lunch. But it's still painful for both of us. Any recommendations? I have 7 kids (8th due in Jan), and all the others have been above average, so this is my first experience with learning challenges. As for her pencil grip...she puts her fingers in the right places on the pencil, but continues to hold the pencil very close to the tip. I remind her constantly to keep her fingers back on the colored part of the pencil. I've also put a rubber grip on the pencil with curves places for each finger and she still puts her fingers in front of the grip on the tip of pencil. I just feel this is a problem because it's difficult to see what you're writing when your fingers are that close, and your fingers continue to slip down the pencil because it's angled there. Should I continue fighting this battle (literally reminding her every 5-10 seconds, which is seriously testing my patience) or should I just let her be for the sake our our sanity? Any handwriting experts who know if this is actually a problem? Thank you for your help! Angela

I've been following Homeschool Connections for a couple of years and I've never known them to offer a coupon code. They do give 10/15% off (I can't remember which) their live classes until a certain date (July 15 for Fall classes). The discount is automatic and you do not need a code HTH! Angela

The most important thing she needs to go over is punctuation, especially commas. I know that understanding clauses and phrases is essential for proper comma usage, so this would be necessary, too. Thx again!

Thank you for the replies. I'll take a look at these.

Hi, I have a daughter who will be in 8th grade next year. She's always been quite strong in grammar, and I'm tempted to just say that she doesn't need it at all, but one last book for her to use in 8th grade that would make sure she is truly solid on everything would probably be a good idea. I would like it to be the last grammar she ever needs to take. She would need something independent and something that doesn't take much time. Ideas? Thank you!

He has been using MP's FSR as we primarily use MP for our curricula. He has enjoyed it and I will let him continue with it. But it's so slow-going for him since he still struggles to hold a pencil correctly. So, I'm looking for a simple read-only program so he can advance in his reading as he's ready to do.

Thanks again for your supplies. My son is behind on his writing skills and I don't want that to hold back his reading. He still struggles to hold a pencil correctly. I may need to get an OT Eval for him. I'm still working on his writing, though. He has started the first Spelling You See book. He's very fascinated by words right now and asks me how to spell things often.

Thank you for all the replies. My library has several of these so I can check them out to see if they might be what I'm looking for.

I'm looking for a simple book/program to teach my 4.5yo how to read. He's already reading CVC words. I don't want something with half-a-dozen components nor do I want to cut things out or apart and I don't want any writing. Is there anything besides "Teach Your Child to Read..." or "Ordinary Parent's Guide..."? I found those pages so cluttered. Thanks!!!