Ok, thanks, I have been trying Ebay and Amazon and no luck so far and I did email Gander Publishing and I have not heard anything. But thanks for the thoughts on the merging of material. Renee

Hello, I am looking for Drawing With Language for Handwriting by either Phyllis Lindamood or Nanci Bell. I'm not sure which one is the author. I believe it is out of print. Does anyone know how I might obtain a copy of this? I posted on the Wanted board but have not heard anything? Any ideas? Thanks, Renee

Matryoshka, I have seen Lindamood Bell materials on Amazon.com and on Ebay at some great prices! Just an fyi

Hello, I have seen on this forum that the Lindamood Bell Centers have a rather intense reward system in order to keep things moving during their 4 hour sessions. I was wondering if anyone could tell me what type of reward system they use and what makes their reward system so intensive? How do they structure their reward system? We are just starting Seeing Stars at home and would like some ideas for structuring rewards. Thanks so much, Renee

Hello, I was wondering if anyone has used the LIndamood Bell's Visualizing and Verbalizing? And if so what was it useful for? Thanks, Renee

Hello, What am I excited about this year? Well, my 8 yr old son is actually enjoying his school so far this year! A huge accomplishment from last year. I decided to take the summer off. I think that made a huge difference. Something I haven't done in the past. Renee

As far as the park goes we are in the middle of an arctic freeze right now and the last time we went to an indoor playspace he got strep throat:).... Also, I would not take my son to a park/playground with the intent of solely meeting strangers for friendships....i.e. stranger danger from my sons perspective would not be a good idea to reinforce..... Just some thoughts......thanks for the other ideas....I'll keep watching for possibly more posts.

Hi, I homeschool an only child, boy, who is 6 yrs. old. I am interested in hearing from others who homeschool an only child about ideas for meeting their social needs. We do a coop that meets every other week. Beyond that it is really hard to get other homeschooled families to commit to weekly social activities. I have a highly active social child who has daily needs for social interaction. It just seems that other families do not have the desire to commit to weekly activities or they are sick a lot or whatever or they pay for classes which I'm not willing to do nor does my son want to go to classes. He just wants healthy play. Any ideas? Fields trips tend to run out after a while. Thanks.

A little more about Making Math Meaningful... My husband and I went to a math seminar taught by Tom Clark, the author of Video Text Interactive, http://videotext.com/, about 3 years ago. Tom Clark wrote curriculum for Harcourt Brace for quite a long time. He said he could not write math curriculum for HB the way he wanted too because of what the school districts wanted and were telling HB what they wanted. All along he knew it wasn't good curriculum. He said that classroom teachers should be explaining the 'why' to math and that is why the text books don't have the 'why' in them because the classroom teacher should be doing that and adding that in their instruction. But, that does not happen. So finally, he started his own independent curriculum called Video Text Interactive. His curriculum starts at Algebra. In the math seminar he listed 3 elementary math programs that explain the 'why' to math operations and prepare children for Algebra and beyond. The 3 are as Mr. Clark stated..... Making Math Meaningful(MMM), Mathusee, and RightStart. He said that MMM is affordable, gets the job done, explains the 'why' and it works! He did say that the problem with MMM is that David Quine, the author, does not set up at homeschool conventions and so very few people know about. But he said it is good. And, this is now coming back to me...... Rightstart does not use age appropriate manipulatives and tends to not relate well to children because of that. So he said if that comes up the other two MMM or Mathusee are just as good. He also said that Rightstart is very expensive and not necessary but it is good. I can't remember the specifics about Mathusee other than that he recommended it. Just some background on how I hard about MMM.

Hi, I'm sorry but I wasn't able to figure out what all of the abbreviations were for:) First, I would have to say that RightStart(RS) does not use any manipulatives that are age appropriate for 5 and 6 year olds. I started using RS for my 5 year old last year. He was fighting me on RS. In a year and a half I realized that we had only done 4 lessons. I finally realized that something's not right .... this is not for us:) So at 6 1/2 years I switched his math to Making Math Meaningful (MMM). We started MMM and he loves it! And it suddenly, dawned on me as to why..... Why because the manipulatives are ones that he can relate to and can hold his attention at a 6 year old level. The RS manipulatives are boring for 5 and 6 year olds.....at least from my experience. RS doesn't use anything that a 5 and 6 year old would like or use. There are other math curriculums that do use manipulatives that are interesting for 5 and 6 year olds and likewise with 7 year olds. MMM is just one of them. But for example, MMM had him making a race track with spaghetti noodles or straws and using matchbox cars, he was putting red unifex cubes on green construction paper and pretending that there were red barns on a green pasture, etc...... all with the intend with teaching a math principle. Those are things that a 5 and 6 year old can relate to. My son is rather stubborn as well and strong willed but after switching the math he put his arm around me and said, "I love you mom". Sometimes we write stubborn and strong willed off as just that.....but actually, sometimes those little munchkins could actually be trying to communicate to us if we would just stop being so thick headed and just listen..... I'm sure there are young children that like RS but from what I have heard from a few others their children don't like math either. I know a 13 year old that was put through RS the whole time and at 13 she still does not like math. In my opinion RS just doesn't relate to children on their level. But just my opinion. So, I commend you for sticking with this for so long and dealing with the tantrums.....but at this point if he is still fighting you at 6 1/2 I would put the math away and take a break for 4 or 5 months. Let him rest form all of that. And then pick it up with something that he can relate to....whatever that would be. Mathusee also seems rather age appropriate to me as well because of their decimal street story. As for the phonics.....likewise I was using Rod and Staff and then Learning Language Arts Through Literature(LLATL). After my son fighting me over that I just switched to Alphabet Island Phonics (AIP)......and once again..... I had the same 'epiphany'.....this is something that he can relate to and this is why he loves AIP so much!!! He loves the stories and do you know what he said to me at 6 1/2 .....mom, "Those letter people are sooooo much fun!" Now he looks forward to phonics and math. Really we are talking about 5 and 6 and 7 year olds.....get down on their level. And, you are having some physical challenges right now. If you're son loves to be read to like my son does....I would encourage to read some Five In a Row type books to him and some interesting chapter books for young boys to him......knights, castles, frontier life, Daniel Boone, Abraham Lincoln, Lewis and Clark, etc....... and just read to him and relax for while. I have been reading to my son for hours daily since about 3(prior to that just short chunks of time) but at about 3 he would sit for 2 or 3 hours and listen to books being read to him..... the funny thing is we only did 4 RightStart lessons in 1 1/2 years and he can do math at a 6 year old level......funny hugh? So really.... just relax give him a break for a while and take care of yourself for right now. It will be a breath of fresh air.... Hope this helps or sheds some light on things. But if not that's OK. Blessings, Renee

We attended a math seminar given by Tom Clark the author of Video Text Interactive, http://videotext.com/. His curriculum starts at Algebra. At the seminar he told us that Making Math Meaningful(MMM), Mathusee(MUS) and RightStart are the 3 that prepare students to understand math and handle Algebra and above and get them ready for his program. I tried RightStart for the K level. At 5 it didn't work so I waited until 6 and it still didn't work. After a year and a half of only 4 lessons, I decided it wasn't for us. I purchased Making Math Meaningful and it is going well. I'm also attracted to Mathusee. I realized that after I bought Making Math Meaningful I liked MUS's decimal city idea. Although I don't know if they would work together because the MUS's rods are different colors than MMM's unifex cubes. Because I don't know anyone who has used MMM I'm not sure about the long haul. However, Mr. Clark approves of it so it must be good. Perhaps time will tell as we move along. Any thoughts.

Has anyone used Making Math Meaningful by David Quine? If so, what do think about it? Thanks Renee

Hi, I just tried to post on the for sale board and it said that I needed to have one post on a forum. However, I have already done 30 posts on previous forums so I'm not sure why it said this but hope this works for that. Thanks, Renee