I'm totally slacking this year. We usually bring a lot to my parents but I'm opening 2 cans of corn and bringing it to their house this year.

This sounds a lot like my 7 year old. She does have SPD too and meds plus behavioral therapy has been extremely helpful for us

They have combs that shock the lice. I have one called a robi comb. It kills them quickly and you can use it to make sure there are no living ones when your family comes. I had lice once and with crazy thick hair it's hard sometimes to make sure u have them all. I think I got it at walmart. It was a life saver for me :)

Wow, this describes me in a nutshell. I would definitely attribute some to the ADD :) I actually have HOD and Sonlight going because after so many weeks I can't handle it anymore and need to switch up stuff or I go a little nuts ;) I have found that I can go longer with HOD than any other program. The only way we get through our SL stuff if because ds is old enough to do it on his own so I just pass him the stuff and he does it.

We're having #5 and have a regular 7 passanger van and know we will fit...but will the kids kill each other :)

Have you looked into the ICAN group on facebook for your area. They were able to give me some good options to VBA2C. I did have to drive an hour but it was worth it. I am usually late by over a week with my babies, but I did actually go into labor and deliver my 2nd on her due date, so you never know. VBAC for me has a lot quicker recover than a section and it doesn't hurt so much if the kids jump on you after ;)

I love that you guys were eating ice cream :) That's what we were doing. I have had terrible headaches and real anemic lately, and truthfully don't feel like doing anything other than staying in bed because of this pregnancy, so just wanted to say you are definitely not alone ;)

We've done FLL 1-3 and a year of R&S and I think I prefer R&S because it seems more to the point and not so long and scripted ;) I plan on using R&S for both kids next year.

DS 3rd grade loves SOTW and SL SCI C. No real misses with him, but those he loves. DD 1st biggest hit is Time4Learning. She likes doing things on her own at her own pace so this has been a true blessing.

My dd has SPD/ADHD and is on meds too. We talk about it with her. She does know about ADHD especially since there is an older boy that goes to our church that has ADHD and he likes to talk about it a lot and he has a harder time controlling himself. We try not to make a big deal out of it because I don't want her to feel "different". Talking about her meds and how they effect her has helped with getting the right dose for her. For her it helps her feel more in control of herself knowing what is going on I would say.

I would probably lean more to B than B/C but you could do B/C. I say that since we are using C right now and it is good for 3rd grade but I think it would of been somewhat challenging for 2nd grade, but it would really depend on how well you think your youngest would do. It should be no problem for a 4th grade though. Yes they do still sell separate guides for the readers 1- 4/5. here's a link http://www.sonlight.com/search.html?search=readers%20guide

My ds is the same way. Have you had his eyes checked? My ds reads a lot so I never thought to have his checked until this year when he started doing longer math problems and really started to struggle. Turned out our problem was he needed glasses for reading and it has helped.

This year I have noticed with my 3rd grader I have had to reorder the subjects that I do school in. I like to do LA and math in the afternoon when the littles are asleep but usually by that time my 3rd grader has more problems focusing and falling out of his chair (he's not ADHD either (maybe ADD though)) I have also used extra copywork or taking away privileges and that has helped for us. At times I do have to separate my 2 during school because they will play off each others attitude and then I will separate them and have one work on something independently and work with the other and then switch.

I said kindergarten because I know some moms who boast of homeschooling their kids and then send them to public school for kindergarten but still want to be considered homeschoolers. i mean truthfully all of us teach our kids at home either full time or part all the time.

Thank you :)

I let my 2 littles ones roam the house and play with their things while I do school with the 2 older ones. I don't try to do activities with the littles ones while doing school with the big ones because it causes too much distraction for the older ones learning and makes me overwhelmed. :) When I did Kindergarten and had 2 little ones I did a chunk during quiet time. Ours usually lasted 2 hours so I worked with ds for an hour and left myself an hour for me to have a break :)

I read TWTM before starting to homeschool the whole way through, got a little overwhelmed but have found myself drawn to most of her recommendations anyway :) A few years later I reread the parts that were relevant to my kids age group and found we follow a lot of it already, probably mostly because of what I have found on this board :)

for a 6 year old I just have them narrate back to me. You can find notebooking pages to go along with it. I just keep a folder with their coloring pages, mapwork and narration pages. I have 2 doing it together. My 3rd grader does his own writing for narrationsThis first link is some notebooking pages you could do http://www.homeschoolhelperonline.com/notebooking_history_geography.shtml I just like the link to the 2nd and also if you do yahoo there are some nice resources on hannah hs helps http://runofthemillfamily.blogspot.com/p/story-of-world-resources-for-volume-one.html http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hannah_hs_helps/ (hopefully link works :) )

mine went Frog and Toad to Nate the Great books and then Magic Tree House

Anyone notice a difference with their child's SPD when going on meds. DD is on Concerta 18 for the last month and it has been wonderful dealing with her ADHD, but I've really noticed some of her SPD issues coming back up, especially her clothing right now. I was just wondering if this is normal (poor dd is wrapped in a blanket right now and wont put on any cloths :( )

So ds has done well with AAS till just recently. I'm not sure if the rules are confusing him or what's going on. All of a sudden he wants to add in all these extra vowels to words, we're not even at words where they are 2 vowels combined yet (about half way through book 2) and then he will throw in some strange consonants that make no sense, he doesn't have any hearing problems either. He has always done pretty well with the program but all of a sudden he is probably spelling correct maybe 2 out 10 words correct He also tends to be very visual so I'm wondering if maybe I should let him study the words prior to doing the dictation exercises? Not sure...any help would be great :)

I would say that is fairly normal for that age at our house. My oldest really was able to get into it at about 2nd grade. We tried Apologia for 1st and finished Astronomy his 2nd grade year and it fit a lot better then. If you are having trouble with SOTW I would also suggest adding in picture books that the AG recommend. Those really help my dd. She will sit in on the SOTW reading but really gets more out of the extras :) We also had a little trouble with WWE and narrations at time. Some of the stories my kids get into but others don't hold their attention that well so they don't remember as much. We actually are going a little slower with WWE so my 1st grader is using WWE 1 but I probably will stretch it over the 1st and 2nd grade year. WWE 2 has been a perfect fit for my 3rd grader this year. I would suggest spending a little extra time reading really easy books and then just have them tell back to you some of the story and you can ask questions so they get use to narration. I did this more with my 2nd dd and those skills have been easier for her to pick up than my 1st had because I never had him do that.

Exploring planet earth and The Story of Thomas Alva Edison are for the science. We have the first one book and it looks good though I haven't had time to add it in for us yet :)

have you tried adding the extensions for the science that they have scheduled in the back of the book?

We have 1st and 3rd this year. And then I have my precious 1 and 3 year old that like to tag along :)