Thanks for the suggestions, I'll look into them. I really believe she's just strong willed especially because she is a tiny version of me in pretty much every regard. Today when I decided there was just no point in trying to do anymore school, I calmly told her that we were done for the day and we'd try again next week unless she decided she wanted to some more later. She immediately told me she would like to and sat down and worked with my joyfully for a good 30 minutes. It had been all a control issue. Everything is a control issue with her and we fight as few battles as possible. This is actually why I was worried about HSing her. She went to preschool last year and she did awesome there. She typically is only in "high needs" mode when she's around dh & I. It takes weeks of being around someone constantly before that side of her will come out. I think my mom is the only one who even believes us because she's the only one who's seen it for herself (and yes she said it was like she'd gone back in time 30 years and dealing with 5 yr old me). The rest of the grandparents are usually only around her for a week at the most. She does great in group settings. At girl scouts, which she loved once I got her through the door for that first meeting, she's quiet but interacts with the other girls, will answer when called on, and follows the directions her troop leader gives her. When the leader is teaching something she'll sit quietly and listen whereas if it were the same material but just her and I she would most likely cover her ears and get angry with me. We are not an authoritarian household. I feel like we're pretty laid back but we have definite structure and boundaries and always consequences when those boundaries are crossed.

That makes total sense regarding the cost in terms of how many hours they put in. I did not realize it was that involved. Thanks so much for the answers - that helps a ton especially because previously I was thinking it would be more like $5-600. Now I just need to decide what to do. How do you find a place that does evaluations? Since we're moving to a new state I don't have any friends/acquaintances yet. I googled the area we're moving to and "neuropsychologist" but not much came up.

I just posted a thread asking about the costs of evaluation and now I'm even more on the fence! How often is it that a child may have many signs/symptoms of dyslexia but end up out growing it? Ds, 8, has a lot of the signs on the Barton list. Honestly, for the most part, it was like reading a description of my kid. However he reads above grade level, he can spell slightly above grade level, and I don't really feel like we'd change much school-wise. His writing, both handwriting and composition, is definitely behind however he's grown leaps and bounds this school year. He learned cursive and it's made a HUGE difference. He also has developed much more writing stamina. He'll actually write 2-3 sentences without tears now whereas last year anything more than 1-2 words ended in tears and frustration. We're working through WWE1 and he was able to formulate a complete sentence on paper without help for the first time on a geography worksheet. This will prob sound horrible regarding my dh but I feel like a dyslexia diagnosis for ds would be most helpful in our home life. Dh gets so frustrated with ds for his "quirks." I think dh would be more understanding on why ds is so intelligent but then can't get some really simple concepts or follow directions (or know his left from his right). How hard is it to get a dyslexia/learning disability diagnosis later on in life? For instance if ds went to regular high school and we discovered he needed some accommodations would it be harder to get an IEP? His quirks don't seem to affect his school work much, except for the writing but like I said even that is getting much better. Also ds says that sometimes his brain thinks in reverse and letters switch around on him. He'll often write a word, reversing 2 of the letters, realize what he did right away, erase it, and then write it backwards again, realize it immediately, and usually he'll get it on the 3rd try. However it doesn't happen with numbers at all? Is that typical? He's really good at math although he couldn't memorize anything by rote until this school year (more of that leaps and bounds growth I'm seeing). He used to reverse his numbers when writing them but I haven't seen any of that this year and he can do more mental math than I can (and I was a math minor in college). Do you think it's ok to wait another year and then re-evaluate on how he's grown this year and decide on evaluation? Or wait til high school and see if he even needs it? I'm not convinced he'll need accommodations in school since at home he finishes his school quickly & easily for the most part and is able to do most of it independently. Thoughts? And FTR, dh is not against the evaluation at all. We just have a bunch of expenses right now (moving in 1.5 weeks and just sold our house at a loss) and like the title says I'm conflicted because I feel like academically nothing would change for us at the present since everything we're doing is working.

I know this is going to vary by region but I'm wondering if there's a rough estimate? We're moving in a few weeks away from the middle of nowhere and to a city so we can finally get ds evaluated (thinking dyslexia and dysgraphia). I'm trying to get an idea of how much an evaluation may cost us. I know insurance won't cover it but our FSA should.

I don't suppose there are any good books out there about HSing high needs kids are there? Or online resources? My dd is only 5 but if the past 5 years are any indicator, and I think they are, then I also know this isn't going to get any easier. She's been difficult since the day she was born. Sometimes I feel like she'd be better off in public school but then I worry because A) we move around a lot and she does NOT deal with change at all and B) I feel guilty because I feel like my ds will get a better education than her especially when combined with the moving around. She doesn't like to be taught anything. She doesn't like people talking directly to her. She doesn't like to answer questions. She doesn't like to follow directions either for games or coloring or any activity. It's not that she's trying to be rebellious in those instances, it's just that she wants to do things her own way which in general is OK but there are times when directions need to be followed in order to socialize and in order to learn, you know? Changes drive her up a wall and make her freak out. She threw tantrums for a week before her first Girl Scout meeting. We're about to do a huge move so you can imagine the freak outs right now if a Girl Scout meeting (where she knew most of the girls already) threw her for such a loop! She's known for a long time that I really can't force her to do something she doesn't want to. Sure I can take things away, I can take away activities, I can put her in time out, but in the end she still "won" and didn't do what was asked. I have no idea how to school someone like her. My ds, 8, is a super easy laid back kid. HSing him is easy and fun. Dd just exhausts me. Oh and she's a mini-me. She acts exactly like I did and you'd think I'd therefore know how to work with her. I have no idea! I remember noticing my mom change tactics with me often and nothing she did worked either. As I got older (like 6th grade) I remember my entire room being stripped to nothing but a mattress and I still thought about how I'd won and successfully made my parents super mad. I did purposely manipulate people, even in some of my earliest memories, and dd seems exactly the same. I'm at such a loss. My only consolation is that I did eventually turn out ok! I don't even know what I'm asking. I guess I'm just wondering how others deal with their high spirited kids when it comes to school.

Our neighbors just moved yesterday & they did a thing where the moving company left the trailer, then the neighbors packed and loaded it up themselves, and then they came with the semi & picked up the trailer. I think she said it was about $2k and they're going about 800ish miles. We're moving in 1.5 weeks - this is our 5th move in 3 yrs but thankfully dh's company has always paid for it where the movers pack everything, ship it, and unload it for us. We do however always give away our boxes on freecycle or craigslist once we're done with them.

If I only run and don't do any other exercise I don't lose weight at all. In fact I eventually start to gain. When I was running 5-10 miles 4-5 times a week and not doing other forms of exercise I plateaued and then began to gain weight. For me, if I'm not doing weight/strength training then I will not lose weight nor will I be able to maintain my current weight. When I added in 3 days of weight training my weight/size went back down. I could do cardio all day every day and I prob still wouldn't lose anything. It's all about muscle for my body. When I started doing at least 3 days a week of strength training I dropped from a size 12 to a size 2.

We're MUS fans here. Granted my ds is already a mathy kid but it's amazing how well he can apply all the concepts he's learned. Yes it's mostly focused on only 1 topic throughout the year but as long as you do the review pages other things will be brought up. I think when it comes to a mastery program it's integral (pun? ha!) to stick with that program for the long haul.

The LA I picked this year was a total fail for us (MCT) so I'm in the middle of re-vamping it. Some of it we've already started, some of it I've just ordered and I'm waiting on and some I'm still saving up for. Writing: WWE1 (currently doing, I started with level 1 because he has dysgraphia and his writing skills & stamina are way behind) Grammar: FLL3 - we haven't started this yet but it's in the mail Spelling: LoE - haven't even ordered yet but I'm using the kindy program for my 5 yr old and my 3rd grader loves it and has actually learned a lot just from dd's curriculum. His spelling is actually pretty good already though. Reading: I pick books where he reads a chapter to himself and then I read outloud, then we discuss it. Right now he's reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Next we're doing Mary Poppins (read an excerpt of it in WWE1 & got interested). Before Alice we did Harry Potter. Oh and he's already done multiplication. We use MUS and he's in the delta level doing division, however he's pretty mathy and he goes though 1.5-2 levels of MUS per year so he's ahead math-wise. If he were on track he'd be doing multiplication this year.

OP, I'm in the same situation: an 8 yr old and a 5 yr old. This year I started an independent work folder for my ds and it's actually working awesome for us. I put a week's worth of independent work in his folder at a time with a checklist for each day of exactly what he needs to do. It includes: daily reading, cursive practice, math (he's very mathy and doesn't typically need my help at all), geography workbook pages, and sometimes a few random other things like working on a history project or reading a particular book for science or history.

My ds is currently reading this book as part of school-work. He does not like it so he's only doing the required one chapter a day. He's 8 yrs old, 3rd grade, average reader and it takes him about 20 minutes or so to read a chapter.

Most it's just her food. 60 lb dog, low-energy, about $42 every 6 weeks on dog food (we buy grain free food). Other than that not much. I can only really bathe her in the summer and I just use the kids' shampoo which seems to work ok.

Thanks! My library doesn't have either book unfortunately but maybe I can find them at the bookstore.

Dh is starting to worry it'll affect their sleep because they say reading in bed makes it hard for many people to sleep. For the last few years they go to bed and have a certain amount of time to read before they have turn off their lights. We're moving in a few weeks and in the new house we are going to get comfy chairs (bean bags maybe?) that they'll use for reading before bed.

Both my kids (3rd grade and kindy) are using LOE and it's been one of our biggest hits. My ds was in tears whenever he was asked to write anything until he learned LOE Cursive. No more tears now and his handwriting looks really nice.

"Late" advice is still welcomed! :D That way if (when?) FLL ends up being a total flop I won't have to ask on here again. ~Sigh~ I just feel like we've jumped around like crazy for LA since kindy & I'm at a point where I just want something consistent, kwim? He says he doesn't like WWE and yet he never complains about it when I bring it out and he takes pride in how his copywork looks. I usually don't just randomly pick a new curriculum so quickly. In fact usually I over analyze to the point that I get overwhelmed and it takes me forever. With our move on the very near horizon though (leaving in 2 weeks!) I just decided to make the leap.

See, I don't even agree that the story is engaging. It's boring. My ds thinks it's boring. OP, I don't know what to tell you except that loads of people told me to get into Sentence Island and then re-evaluate. So I would at least suggest the same for you. (and to be honest, we're halfway through Sentence Island now and we've decided to ditch MCT).

Thanks everyone. I went ahead and ordered FLL. We're moving in 2 weeks and then I know we're going to be really disrupted for awhile looking for a new house so I just wanted to grab something and honestly this looks like something we could work on during our moving process (ds has requested we continue with school during the move). Oh and once he knew I was looking for a new grammar curriculum tonight he started going on and on about how he likes to write his own sentences (pretty much never lol) and then sat down and wrote a "book" to prove his point. :lol:

It's hard for us to put our finger on exactly. I just asked ds why he doesn't like MCT and he told me it's not interesting at all to him. I honestly thought he would love it but clearly I was completely wrong. I have to say that I agree with him - I don't find it interesting at all and it all just seems too "out there" for us to grasp. He's actually brain dumped a bunch of the grammar that he used to know since starting MCT. I will say the one thing he doesn't mind doing is Practice Island. If it helps any he's a very science & math oriented kid. He likes to know a lot of facts. I just asked him what he would like and he told me something fun with games would be better. I think he's saying that because dd is doing the LOE Foundations kindy beta program and she gets to play a bunch of games (which he gets to join in on often). He also said he hates copywork because he likes to make his own sentences but....well, he doesn't make his own sentences. He doesn't write at all outside of school-work except very rarely. I think it's gotten to the point where I have to give up on ds liking language arts and just focus on making sure he learns the things he needs to know in a tolerable way. WWE1 has gone pretty well so far so I think I'll check out FLL. One question though about FLL: we have begun to suspect that ds is dyslexic. We plan on getting him evaluated soon but we're moving in 2 weeks so we're waiting until we're settled to get that sorted out. He reads very well & he's done well with the WWE1 copywork. Does anyone foresee any major issues that would come up with FLL if he truly is dyslexic?

In a nutshell: ds is 8 yrs old, 3rd grade, and we excitedly started MCT Island this year but it's a huge fail for us. We forced ourselves through grammar island because I was told sentence island would be much better. We still don't like it. It's not working for us at all. This is what I'm looking for: something that has a good teacher's guide because I'm terrible at grammar & was never taught to diagram sentences nor anything beyond nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns. I've learned quite a bit myself from MCT but I definitely still need hand holding. Something secular. Something that is not too far advanced as I'm finding that ds is still having a problem remembering basic grammar like capitalizing proper nouns and the first letter of a sentence. He's currently going through WWE1 and that's going well. He has dysgraphia but he's learned cursive this year and it's made a HUGE difference. There's no more tears/sobbing with writing! That being said his stamina for writing is most definitely at more of a 1st or lower 2nd grade level. Help? Please? I'm at a loss. Oh and we did k12 LA independently last year and it went OK but ds didn't like it, it was a bit too "schooly" for us, and it's way out of my current budget.

Hits: LOE Foundations (kindy beta program) LOE Cursive handwriting for my 3rd grader (first year he hasn't sobbed through writing) WWE1 for my 3rd grader - he doesn't love it but he's not crying which is a HUGE improvement. BSFU has been a hit since last year Misses: MCT Island. It's a huge fail for us. We haven't even done it for the last few weeks because we just don't care. Everyone seems to love Mud and we just don't. The vocabulary is OK and that's about it. ETA: Another miss is Life of Fred. My kids are totally uninterested in it.

When I was making coconut milk yogurt they didn't have it like they do now next to the almond milk and other alternate milks. I used the coconut milk in a can and yes it had a coconutty taste to it. I've never had the stuff they sell in the refridgerated section though so hopefully someone else can answer that. Make sure you look up a recipe for making yogurt with a non-dairy substitute. I'm trying to remember and I think I had to add potato starch to mine to make it thick but it's been years so I can't quite remember.

Really I'd still eliminate ALL dairy for about 6-8 weeks then re-evaluate. You sound like you're trying to rationalize the dairy :) I get it, I've totally BTDT. However if you never totally eliminate something (something that you know you're allergic/intolerant to anyways) you'll never get an actual answer. You can easily replace the yogurt with coconut milk yogurt. You can also make your own using almond or rice milk. I used to make my own rice & coconut milk yogurt all the time using a non-dairy yogurt starter. Or you could buy dairy free probiotics and take those daily.

My 3rd grader said "3" but we use MUS so immediately he thinks of building the number with the blocks. When I told him he could also have 43 tens he said that wouldn't be efficient (his words lol) because it'd be quicker to use 4 hundreds and 3 tens.

Perhaps focus on one thing at a time? If you try to go GF, cook every single meal at home, cut out processed foods, etc., you're probably going to get overwhelmed and just throw in the towel, kwim? Personally I'd cut the dairy completely first. You say you're OK with cheese & milk in your coffee but you also say you've had the worst sinus infection ever among other things. Dairy absolutely could be causing those types of issues. I used to be totally DF back when dd needed to be and I felt soooo much better. I don't seem to be allergic or lactose intolerant but I barely eat any dairy anymore just because it makes me feel bloated, constipated, and just gross. After that I'd cut the processed foods. Do you have a crockpot? Loads of great recipes out there (that do not require a can or packet of something). Check out http://www.crockpot365.blogspot.com Not only are they great recipes but as an added bonus they're all GF. MEAL PLAN! Meal plan for the next week, make your list, then do your shopping. I group things together to make it a bit easier. For example we'll have roasted chicken one night then the next night I'll make chicken enchiladas and those usually last us 2 days. Finally after all that if you're still feeling sluggish & like something could be "off" then I'd go GF. After cutting out processed foods, and getting used to cooking that way, it'll actually be pretty simple to go GF.