Happy Birthday, Sarah!!! :party:

My 18yo has taken Tae Kwon Do lessons for the past 3 1/2 years (she just earned her Black belt today!!). She also teaches swimming with the Special Olympics. My 15yo has high functioning autism and he's very involved with the Special Olympics. He plays baseball in the spring and fall and basketball in the winter. There's also a weekly homeschool swim at the YMCA in our town. My 9yo also takes Tae Kwon Do lessons (he's a Red belt) and he also takes part in the homeschool swim at the Y. My 7yo plays baseball in the spring and fall, and she's participating in the swim team with Special Olympics. Do you have a Special Olympics chapter in your area? My kids LOVE it.

Here's my youngest daughter's school supply list: We bought everything at Target yesterday, because it's one of Virginia's tax-free school shopping days. 1 pack of water color paints - $1.00 4 hardback composition notebooks (black & white speckled) - $4.00 2 large boxes of tissues - $2.00 1 pencil box - $1.00 1 box of 24 regular crayons - $1.50 1 pair of safety scissors - $1.00 1 backpack - $10.00 1 lunchbox - $5.00 1 pack of number 2 pencils with erasers - $1.00 1 quart size box of Ziploc freezer bags - $2.00 8 jumbo glue sticks - $2.00 1 dry erase marker - $0.50 1 hand sanitizer - $2.00 So we spent around $35.00 to equip our youngest for her upcoming school year

After 3 1/2 years of hard work, our 18yo earns her Black belt in Tae Kwon Do this morning!! :w00t: Wish her luck!! She has to break 10 boards and a cinder block! (I'll be watching it through my fingers!!)

We've learned to adapt our lifestyle to accommodate our youngest daughter, who has a fairly severe form of autism. We can't go out to most restaurants because she doesn't like crowds at all, but we've found that she loves Denny's! But we have to get there early. So we go there a few times a year. We can't take her to movies, so we wait for the DVD to come out. She likes to go shopping (grocery store, Wal-Mart, etc.) but she doesn't like shopping malls -- I guess they're too overwhelming. So if one of our kids needs something at the mall, either I'll go or my husband will and the other one will stay home with our youngest. Vacations have been fairly easy to accommodate. We always rent a condo because we violate fire codes in hotels, seeing as how there are 6 of us! We always get one with an indoor pool because our youngest loves to swim. Our two boys love seafood, but our oldest is allergic, so we always go out to a nice seafood restaurant and leave our 18yo with our youngest. (Then I take my oldest out shopping at those souvenir / T-shirt shops and she has a ball!). My youngest can't tolerate museums or aquariums, so we'll divide and conquer (I'll take the other three or my husband will...the remaining parent takes our youngest downstairs to the pool). We've made numerous friendships with other parents of special needs children, so THEY are our friends. And they understand what it's like and where we're coming from. I can't say that we've lost friends because of our youngest daughter, because we moved to another state right around the time she was diagnosed...we just happened to have made friends with the folks we have the most in common with.

Yes, Beginning Algebra is Algebra I. Intermediate Algebra is Algebra II. Answers to the odd exercise problems are in the back of the book. Also included are all the answers to the reviews and tests.

We're on Week 3 now and we're starting at around 9:00. When my youngest goes back to public school next month, it'll be around 9:30 (that gives me time to take her to school and return back home).

No...they numbed it with the equivalent of novocaine and that didn't hurt at all. Hope you feel better soon!

Sounds like a sebaceous cyst. I recently had one behind my left ear. It sounded just like what you're talking about! I ended up having to go to the urgent care after six months to have it lanced because it just kept getting bigger and more painful. The doctor had it cleaned out and bandaged within 5 minutes and it healed up in no time.

My 10th grader is using: Sonlight Core Alt 7 Phonetic Zoo Spelling Level B IEW Student Writing Intensive Level B English from the Roots Up Volume 1 Prentice Hall Biology Teaching Textbooks Geometry Artistic Pursuits Junior High Books 1 & 2 Little League Baseball & Special Olympics Basketball (He has high functioning autism and dyslexia, so his language arts abilities are below grade level....but he's progressing beautifully!!!)

My boys have already started! We'll begin Week 3 on Monday. My oldest daughter returns to the community college on August 25th. My 7yo doesn't return to public school until September 8th. They'll all finish at different times, too! My boys will be finished by the middle to the end of April...my daughter finishes her college classes the 2nd week of May...and my youngest doesn't get out of school until mid-June.

My oldest daughter read both series...my 15yo son? Not at all interested! He prefers biographies and history books. Made up stories are just NOT his cup of tea! From the time he was a wee little tot, he's preferred to read about real people and real events -- he loves historical fiction as well. But we don't have any personal objections to either Twilight or Harry Potter. *I* read the whole Harry Potter series and have seen most of the movies. I haven't read Twilight. Vampire stories hold no appeal for me. My 9yo has expressed an interest in Harry Potter, but hasn't read any of them...even though they're on the library shelf downstairs.

We begin Week 3 on Monday and hope to wrap up the school year by mid-April. That way, we're finished by the time baseball season gets into full swing for my boys and by the time my oldest dd finishes up her college year. :D

My oldest daughter earns her Black belt in Tae Kwon Do a week from today!! :party:

No co-ops here this year. We've taken advantage of them over the past few years for art only...but the art teacher decided not to do it this year and no one else has stepped up to the plate. (I draw stick people, so I wouldn't have made a good substitute!) I'm actually getting school accomplished in a more timely fashion now that I'm not running out the door every other Friday! (My kids are heavily involved in sports, so that's where their friends are).

I'm by no means an expert...but my original thought was this: Take our current President....when he was elected, numerous other Democrats won their respective offices in the House and Senate. That tipped the scales in his favor. (I think that when the opposite is the case...say that despite having a Democratic President, we had a Republican majority in the House and Senate, then you'd have a 'lame duck'...meaning whatever bills and policy changes he would want to make wouldn't likely be passed because they wouldn't have any congressional support). So he influences policy in the bills and legislation he signs. If he were a Republican with a Democratic majority in Congress (as happened with President Bush many times), then what he wanted wouldn't make it out of Congress). If he were a Democrat with a Republican majority in Congress, then he'd likely refuse to sign anything they sent to his desk with a veto. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong ... but that's the way I understand it. My oldest son is the political junkie / expert in our house, but he's asleep! I'll have to ask him his opinion in the morning and see what he says! :D

:thumbup: This is true for our youngest daughter as well!! It's the only fast food she can eat. We don't have one in our rural area, but there's one 30 minutes away "in town"....so we always stop there when we're doing our weekly shopping.

It surely will and I've felt the same way!!! I've been a homeschooling mom for 15 years. She's the first child we've sent to school - ever - and I still feel guilty about it! BUT...my daughter LOVES school. She loves her teachers and her therapists and her friends. She's a very high-maintenance child. And that's to put it mildly! She's the type of child that I have to watch every minute or she's into something. She's in the body of a 7 year old, but it's like still having a toddler. When we tried homeschooling for Kindergarten, I couldn't accomplish anything with my older ones. If left unattended, she's been known to empty all the bookshelves, color on the walls, empty the litter box, pour all of the salt out of the shaker, overflow the bathtub, and turn the faucet on the hotwater heater in the basement!! :willy_nilly: She needs to go to school for her mother's sake! It's the only thing that saves my sanity. But...I still feel guilty! Knowing that she's in a good school with a great teacher really does help!!

I'd definitely ask to meet with the teacher beforehand. She'll likely attend the IEP meeting, but that's such a "formal time" to meet with someone. I'd contact the school and request a visit. Even though there aren't any students there over the summer, you could likely meet with the teacher and view the classroom. My daughter's autism class sounds as small as the one you describe! There are 4 full-time students in the class (with several others who are there for certain periods throughout the day). There are numerous aides present, since just about every child in the class has a one-on-one aide, and the therapists are there as well. I knew, just meeting the teacher and seeing the classroom, that it would be a good fit for my daughter. Even without seeing the other students in the classroom.

LOL! This happened to us last year!! :lol: Just about every elementary school class required those black and white composition notebooks! You couldn't find one within a 50 mile radius of our county for weeks!! :willy_nilly:

Does your school have a back to school night? Every school in our district has one a few days before school starts and each teacher will have a list of school supplies there for the students. Doesn't help much with shopping beforehand, but you'll know what they need before the first day of school.

Have you enrolled her in school yet, or are you hoping to homeschool and still receive therapy? Every school district is different. I homeschooled my youngest for Kindergarten and she received speech and occupational therapy at the public school (I had to take her to the school, twice a week, for her sessions). The services were free, but not all school districts offer this -- it depends on how much they receive from federal funding and how many homeschoolers request therapy. (We were also considered a special circumstance -- she had an IEP, with a one-on-one aide, but they couldn't find anyone to fill the position. She couldn't attend school without an aide, so the homeschool / free therapy situation was an agreed-upon-compromise, if that makes sense). We ended up enrolling our daughter in her current school in 1st grade (and we LOVE it!!!!!) So it may work out that way for your daughter. Here are my suggestions: 1 - Visit several elementary schools in your school system if possible (we have 3 elementary schools in our area. 1 is where most of the children with special needs are enrolled. Therefore, they tend to have the teachers with the most experience at mainstreaming...they have the best therapists, etc.) Because of my daughter's special needs, she was immediately approved to attend this elementary school, even though it's not in our district. It's in our county, but not the one most of the children in our neighborhood -- and the surrounding neighborhoods -- attend. It's not an issue for our daughter because special needs children have their own bus set-up. 2 - Do some research on your daughter's special need and find out the general consensus as to appropriate physical therapy (how many hours, days, etc.) 3 - Make sure you bring any relevant medical reports to the meeting. For my daughter, I had evaluations from private speech and occupational therapists, listing goals, therapy hours suggested, etc. 4 - Find out if there is a parent or disability advocacy group in your area. We contacted one in our area and one of their advocacy coordinators came to our IEP meeting free of charge. This was very helpful, especially since you're new to this! IEPs are full of 'education-ese' and rather hard to understand at first! 5 - Get involved in your daughter's school! Join the PTA. Volunteer in her classroom. 6 - Don't sign the IEP unless you're happy. If you're not satisfied, feel free to call another meeting and re-negotiate.

My boys spend around 5 hours per day, doing school. We start between 9 and 10 in the morning and wrap up between 2 and 3 in the afternoon (with a lunchbreak somewhere in the middle).

When our oldest son was diagnosed, the psychologist explained it this way: The difference between a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome vs high functioning autism is in the area of language development. If they have language delays, then they're diagnosed as having high functioning autism. If they don't have language delays, they're diagnosed with Asperger's because individuals with Asperger's are typically very verbal.

I have a 4yo niece named Charlotte! It's such a classic name! I have an Elizabeth and a Kathryn (we call her Kate) .... so I have to toss those names into the ring! ;)