We love it. My nine year old son listens and follows along to books daily. Most of the books we have needed have been available on LA. It is a must for us. He tried Bookshare, but he didn't like the computerized voice. It was much harder for him to listen to. All of the books on LA are human voices, which we love.

We ordered one from Weight On Me. You can pick from a large variety of materials and they made it pretty quickly. They are a not for profit company and their prices were really good. Here is the website...www.MyWeightedBlanket.com

Thank you for the advise. They decided to move him to fourth grade starting next week!

Thank you for the advise. They decided to move him to fourth grade starting next week!

He is old enough for fourth grade legally. We decided to hold him back because we live where red shirting is very common for boys and because we thought adjusting to a school setting was going to be tough for him. Thank you for all of your comments. I am going to ask for him to be moved to fourth. I just hope the a Dean hasn't been influenced by the teacher's thoughts. I think the teacher is a little anti homeschool....I was thinking I could make a folder with some of his work. That might show them what he was doing when he left homeschool? It might also help the Dean make a better decision without the test being the ruler of placement too. What do you think? Good idea or no?

I asked the Dean of the school if moving to fourth was a possibility. She agreed that he should be in fourth from what she had observed in the classroom. The problem is the teacher doesn't agree. Whatever assessments she gave him the first few days of school showed grade average for third. She said his handwriting is horrible and his grades on LA worksheets are poor. He misses LA for fourth grade math though. He is basically doing the LA on his own with no instruction. She said his fluency was high though. I am calling the Dean back in the morning. I am just not sure what to ask for when I speak with her. Should I ask for him to take the fourth grade assessment tests? I explained to him tonight that if he wanted to be moved he would have to prove to her that he could do the work. No more sloppy work. He said he understood.

Our son just turned nine and has been begging to try a brick and mortar school like his friends. We finally found a school we were comfortable with and he started third grade last month. He is a smart kid who catches on pretty quickly for the most part. We listened to the suggestions of a few friends that are teachers and decided to have him do third grade, even though we were starting fourth grade this year at home. We thought adjusting to school and learning with 30 other kids was going to be a big adjustment for our easily distracted child. He started school and was loving it, until last week. He told me he hates school and he wants to quit. He said it is boring and he isn't learning anything new. He said the dean lied when she said he was going to learn a lot of new and exciting things. He is having trouble with some of the other kids too. He is frustrated when they are not following the rules and he keeps trying to correct them and "help" them make better choices. Basically he is bossing them around and not making friends. He is also doing subpar work. His handwriting is awful and he just isn't trying. The teacher tested him in math and decided to send him into the fourth grade class for that subject. He is missing all of the LA work because math the math classes are not at the same time during the day. He is doing the LA on his own while his class does third grade math. He is frustrated and doesn't want to be in third grade anymore. I emailed the teacher with the concerns and the Dean of the school called me. She agreed with all of my sons concerns. She said he belongs in fourth grade. The teacher disagrees though. She said his testing shows grade level for third. I am guessing his inexperience with tests could be part of the problem. He has really never taken tests for anything other than math. What should I do? He is trying to finish his work as fast as he can because he thinks if he finished first then the teacher will think he should be in fourth grade. He is getting some problems wrong because he isn't reading the whole question in his haste. Silly nine year old logic of course but it makes sense to him. My concern is my son isn't trying at school. He doesn't care anymore. We are only 6 weeks in and he has given up on everything but math. So she thinks he isn't capable but I know academically he is capable of fourth grade work. We thought being older in a new classroom setting would be better for him, obviously we were very wrong. We have no experience with the school system. He is at a charter school. For those of you with experience how do I fix this? Do I pull him out and HS again? We are still HSing his little brother.

What would you use to teach writing with an 8 yr old boy? I have done dictation and copy work but no writing of his own yet. I feel like we are way behind but I don't exactly know where to start. He is a great reader and he has decent handwriting. We are using Tapestry of Grace this year but the writing portion doesn't have enough help for me! What can I use that has a lot of help for the teacher?

I need help finding a math program that will work for my son. There are just so many options....We have tried a few different ones the last few years. We started Horizons and used it for K-2. The pages were so colorful and distracting for him. He has ADHD and has trouble focusing. I supplemented with MUS but he hated the manipulatives. I probably should have moved through the MUS faster and moved on to the third book... After we finished Horizons 2 we used Saxon 3. He loved it because the pages were plain. Nothing to distract him. The beginning has been mostly review but he has done really well. He was starting to get bored and hated all of the review of stuff he said he already knew, especially the stuff you do before the main lesson. I finally just skipped all of that and went straight to the new information each day, he did much better. We are about halfway through Saxon 3. He is great at memorizing but I am not sure he really understands the concepts. Anyone else have a kid like mine? What do you use?

He is probably around a fourth grade reading level but he wants to keep reading books that are easy to read. I would like to push him a little this summer. He loves mysteries.

I am trying to decide what to do for next year. We started with core P4/5 for Kindergarten, Core A for first and core B for second. My oldest, who will be 8 in July, has loved almost all of the read alouds but he has not enjoyed the history books. He wanted more of a story than the pictures and captions style of so many of the Usborne books. I used SOTW Ancients with him this year and he loved it. We added in many of the extra books and history was more of a story. We used the IG for B as a weekly assignment list instead of daily because he did better with a larger chunk of less books each day. He is finishing up the readers 2 this month and is devouring a lot of library books too. He told me he wants to study American History next year. He is really interested in George Washington, the beginning of our country and US geography. I was thinking of skipping core C and trying D. I think he would like having the read alouds tie into the history. I am not sure that being at the younger end of the core is good though. I also thought about using Tapestry of Grace, year 2. I ordered Unit 3 and looked through the first few weeks. I love that it is a weekly schedule and the books we have looked at so far have been great. I feel like we are going to miss the read alouds though. I do like the idea of having both of my boys study the same part of history at the same time. My youngest just turned 6 and so far he has just been listening to whatever his brother is learning about. I know he hasn’t picked up a whole lot though. He has not quite been ready for much until the last few months. All we have ever used is Sonlight but I have been disappointed with the history books in the early cores. So here I am trying to decide if I should keep going with Sonlight and try core D and hope that it is different or try TOG and add in some read alouds from D? If I stay with Sonlight I don’t think I will combine my boys. Even though they are only 19 months apart, the little one is not as eager to learn as the big one. He will probably do the read alouds from Core A this year and listen to as much of his brothers history as he can handle. If we do TOG they can probably both use the lower grammar books. I asked them both what kind of schoolwork they like the best and they both said the reading. We do not mind a lot of reading each week, it is the best part of our school day. The oldest also said all of his workbooks, he is a workbook loving kid. Any suggestions?

Hi, I have been using Sonlight for the last two years (P 4/5 and A). My oldest ( 6 1/2) does not care for the Usborne books much and I do not like the way the schedule jumps around so much. I know it is supposed to be an overview of history but he just isn't connecting or enjoying anything but the read aloud chapter books. My boys are close in age (19 mo) but not anywhere near each other academically. The little one just turned 5 and he just wants to dig in the dirt and play army guy! I am trying to decide if we should try SL core B but I am a bit afraid that it will be like core A with more Usborne books. I have read on other forums about the beginning of the two spines and the evolution material. I guess we would skip that part. I haven't seen the books yet to know how I would handle that. I really like the biblical worldview of TOG. I got the three week trial and have been pouring over it. I like what I have read but have been nervous to jump in because of some of the posts I have seen about using it with littles. My oldest loves to read stories and do projects. We already use the SL schedule more by the week than by the day anyway, so I am not too concerned about having to plan the week schedules.TOG seems a bit confusing but I am sure it is something that will just take time to get comfortable with. Does anyone have experience with either or both programs? Advice on what they really liked about either one? If I do decide to go with TOG, do I get the DE version or a used print copy? Some sellers have the loom CD others do not. What is on the loom and is it a must have? I know I have a lot of questions and I appreciate your time to help me make a good decision for our family.