One thing to look into at the YMCA is swimming!!! I can't tell you how much swimming helps my youngest daughter, who has autism. She LOVES to swim!!! She just feels better in the water. It helps with her sensory issues, coordination, confidence, etc. Her family nickname is "Fish" because she just really took to swimming!! So I would try to find a Y with an indoor pool!! (Our county *just* opened a YMCA this month...so no more driving for 30 minutes to find her an indoor pool! Yippee!)

My 14yo son did vision therapy last summer. We first sought it out because he was having trouble reading, once he started reading regular books, for lack of a better word! He was having trouble reading books that didn't have spaces between the lines, if that makes sense. I remember asking him if he had trouble reading and he said, "I do okay, until the words fall off of the page and onto my lap." So I took him to a developmental optometrist and they determined that he was terribly farsighted, so they gave him reading glasses and recommended vision therapy (he had the visual tracking skills of a 4 year old -- at the age of 13!) He did vision therapy for 10 weeks and they assigned things for him to do at home...and the exercises are different for each child, depending on where their weaknesses are. My son did a lot of visual puzzles, hand-eye coordination exercises, etc. His reading level improved at least 2-3 grade levels after vision therapy. He needed to have bifocals added to his reading glasses, because it will help with his visual tracking skills. And his confidence *really* improved!! That was the best pay-off of all! He no longer felt "dumb", as he put it. And...that's the only therapy my son has ever had (he has Asperger's / high functioning autism). He's never had OT or speech therapy -- we couldn't afford it when he was younger....and he was too high functioning to qualify for help from the county system...and, when he reached school age, the state we lived in at the time didn't offer therapy to homeschoolers. So I worked with him at home a great deal. (He's always been a very easy going child, so he was easy to work with -- now my 6yo, who also has autism, is a different story!! She's as stubborn as the day is long and has a very 'short fuse'...she's been doing speech therapy and OT since she was 3) Hope this helps!

LOL!!! That was awesome!!! :thumbup:

My three oldest are definitely Democrats! -- my 17yo heard about Obama first when she took a history class at the community college last spring and they had a political discussion in class one day -- my 14yo has always loved history and politics in particular...he loves learning about the presidents and has memorized all of them, including the dates they were in office...so he watches C-Span, Meet the Press, The MacLaughlin Group, etc., and listens to NPR with a passion -- my 8yo likes Obama because his big brother likes Obama ;) He fell asleep during the DNC while his brother watched every moment of it As for my hubby and I .. we were registered Republicans during the 10 years we lived in Maryland. We moved to Virginia 3 years ago and the registrations aren't limited by party (meaning, we can vote either Republican or Democratic, even in the primaries)....but we have found ourselves leaning more and more to the left with every passing year....and the discussions we've had with our children (especially our 14yo), have had alot to do with that!!

We homeschool in our dining room!! I have a big china cabinet that's perfect for storing my homeschool stuff and, if company's coming over, I can throw a tablecloth over the table. I prefer this to schooling in the kitchen, because I can just leave the books there when it's time for lunch without feeling like I have to finish school so the table is empty for eating. Also...we rarely use the dining room at all, other than for school. At least I'm making use of the room! :) We also have our computer desk in the dining room, too, to make it easy for the kids to access it. For reading, they go to one of the couches, either in the living room or the family room.

I agree with Sen. Biden's response on Meet the Press yesterday (if anyone happened to see it). He said that he believes that life begins at conception...however...what gives him the right to dictate morality? To dictate right and wrong? The decision is between the woman, her doctor, and her God, whoever she might believe that God to be. He has no right to push *his* personal religious beliefs on anyone else.

I give my 1st grader transition breaks between 'seat work' and 'hands-on work'. She finishes her math and language arts (which consists of phonics and handwriting) first -- which takes about 45 minutes to an hour .... then there's a break .... then we work on art / history / science (I don't do all three every day; I vary it from day to day) - and that's about 30-40 minutes... then we take another, final break (because I usually have to clean up *something*, especially after art and science! ... then we sit down on the couch and do our reading (I read to her / she reads to me) - and that takes about 45 minutes to an hour.

Thanks for the update!!! Awesome news!!!! :)

Yahoo just reported that she's agreed to sit down with Charles Gibson from ABC Nightly News, but they didn't give a date or time (that I could see) ....... Here's a link to the news story -- says that Palin will sit down with him sometime this coming week in Alaska http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080907/pl_politico/13227

I may have to look into getting a potty chair (we had one, for years, but finally tossed it because she was using the regular potty...until the incident in the spring) She has sat on the potty two more times today, but she hasn't done anything. I'm praising her anyway, just for trying...and she seems to be fine, as long as I keep the door open all the way. We'll keep trying!! (I *know* she can do it...she's just afraid.)

POTUS? What's that? .... DUH....I think I figured it out! PresidentOfTheUnitedStates? :blushing:

You and me both!!! :thumbup: (Well..except for the last one. I was told those seven terrible words: "There is no time for an epidural". :willy_nilly: Thankfully, it was only 20 minutes from then until she arrived.)

Mom to Aly....I sent you a PM!! :)

My youngest daughter is 6 1/2. She has autism, and I've been having a terrible time potty training her! A little background first... We had some success when she was in a special education preschool. She would pee-pee on the potty and wait until she came home to poop. The same thing happened in Kindergarten, until they took her one-on-one aide away. For a month and a half, we waited until another aide could be found. They found a good one, who happened to know my daughter's special education preschool teacher. After a week on the job, the aide came back from her lunch break unexpectedly early and asked the special education teacher where my daughter was and, after stammering an answer, explained that, every day, during the aide's lunch break, she was locking my daughter in the bathroom!! For 30 minutes at a time!!!! The aide called my daughter's former preschool teacher, who called me and told me what had happened. Needless to say, that was my daughter's last day in public school. (The teacher has since been fired). That was around the 1st of May and I completely laid off all thoughts of potty training, because my daughter was terribly afraid of bathrooms (understandably). Well, we've had a great summer...and, for the past 3-4 weeks, my daughter has been changing herself. After she wets her Pull-up, she goes to the stack, gets a fresh one, and puts it on. If she's messy, she'll bring me a clean Pull-up, and the diaper wipes, and ask me to change her. I feel that she now completely understands what she's doing and what her body is doing, too. So today, I presented her with some Dora the Explorer underwear (she loves Dora) and I put a chart on the wall for her to fill in with happy face stickers when she uses the potty, and my daughter has had a knock down, throw herself on the floor, red-faced screaming temper tantrum ever since!! As I type this, my 17 year old has her in the bathroom, with the door open, and she's reading her a story while she sits on the potty.... So my question is this...what would you do? What have you done, if you've been in a similar situation? Does anyone have any advice for me? Thanks in advance!!

Does anyone know if she's adding a section for those of us homeschooling children with special needs? I know SWB had a post about it a few months back.

Yep...GameStop is where we go! EB Games is another store brand that sells new and used video games. Amazon also may have it for sale used.

I'd love to see those!! (Maybe I'll suggest them to the local library!)

In our local library, they had a large book sale and, when I asked why they were selling the books, they said -- and this is a direct quote! -- "Because books are going out of style and we want to make more room for videos, DVDs, and books on tape" :glare:

That's why I think computer areas in libraries should be designed better. In our library, they're in a circle, right in front of the check-out desk, so whatever someone's looking at could be easily viewed by children. I don't care what they're viewing -- that's their business -- but I *do* care if children can see it just because they happen to be standing at the check-out desk. I wish they'd line the chairs up against a backwall, have the computers facing the users, and then no one could see what they were viewing unless they went up directly behind someone's chair.

I don't support banning books in any way, shape or form. If anything, banning a book, or trying to ban it, will only increase its popularity...and more children / teens / what-have-you will be wanting to read it *because* they've been told they can't or shouldn't.

88. Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary :blink: Why would a dictionary ever be on a banned books list?? Unless they're bad spellers? ;)

Well...I've been doing this for 13 years, and I will continue to do it for another 13 years (or thereabouts!) because I've seen the results in my own children!!!!! My 17 year old is awesome (if I do say so myself!). She's intelligent and well-grounded. She has a sense of self that I NEVER had at that age. So I have no desire whatsoever to put any of my children in school.

We're done!! I'll be 46 this month, and my hubby is 50, and we're sending our oldest off to college next year. Our youngest will be a 2nd grader. No desire to start all over again!!!

The following books were hits at our house: Master Cornhill The Great & Terrible Quest Leonardo da Vinci (Landmark) Hittite Warrior

Duh! I thought it said what day were *you* born! And it won't let me change my answer, so I'll type it here: I have two Thursdays, one Friday, and a Wednesday