For just five tiles you could probably just make your own replacements with adhesive magnets from the big box or craft store-- or gluing to old magnets you have in the house. OTOH, I bought a second set of tiles when we ordered level 3 or 4, because my ds was annoyed that there weren't enough of some letters to spell certain words (like puppy which requires 3 p tiles)-- including a word that was in one of the lesson examples (which annoyed me:)). So, I think you could go either way and be fine.

This will probably be the least helpful reply you'll get, but here goes... I just load the web page and let my kids watch his videos. That's it. They're supervised on the computer so I know what they're up to, and I let them pick and choose and explore whatever they want from his site. My ds adores them and has learned an insane amount from them. He speaks of Sal Kahn as if he's his hero/personal mentor. And he enjoys comparing the way Khan does something to how Prof B does it, or Fred does it, etc.... That's the real reason I replied-- while I haven't done anything formal with it, I think the videos are an amazing resource. They're great reinforcement for what is being learned/taught and they can also introduce new ways to approach the same material/concepts. So, if I was going to be more structured about it, I'd probably just target them to the child's interests, and/or the curricula they're using. HTH a little, anyway, TaraHen

Can't speak to MEP questions, but writing reversals are still pretty normal at age five. You could demo, or gently correct, and maybe try some of the little reversal tricks to get her writing in the right direction. One of the tricks I remember is for b and d and it's making the word bed (because it looks like a bed if the letters are properly formed). My dd got them down by remembering that the d comes after c, so you start by writing the c, then add the stem. But I really wouldn't worry much just yet. So tomorrow at 7am, you're off the hook for this one :001_smile: HTH, TaraHen

I'll try to answer this one for you. Even though you'd be joining late in the game, your child shouldn't feel rushed because he is working individually, not trying to "keep up" or "catch up" with anyone else (ah, and to answer another question, yes the LAW is self-paced like the math, too). And speaking to both the issue of pacing, and your question about placement level, you can always move him up or down in grade level to meet him where he is-- or move him where he needs to be if he's beyond the level of the work. In the program, once you login, the parent can adjust the child's grade placement by half levels. And in the OE group, like the one we're in organized by Melissa, she can help you with the placement. EPGY has been really fabulous for my son. I'm so glad we joined Melissa's open enrollment group this year. I intended to only use the Math course for him (he's only PS K age this year and Math is his area of strength-- but apparently not the only one :)). But, he saw the link to the LAW course on his student page and wanted to try it, so we let him. Silly me for thinking we wouldn't want to use it. He loves it and has really amazed us with how far he's gone so far. My daughter, who doesn't work well on computer screens in general, decided she didn't want to use EPGY. Even though we paid for both kids, the OE was still less than we'd have paid for one course if we applied through Stanford. And it's been well worth it just for what my son has been getting out of it. HTH, TaraHen

Mine has amazing visual memory, poor auditory retention, too! For a while I was baffled-- assumed her an auditory learner b/c we had such great/deep conversations, her vocab and general grasp/use of language is astounding-- and she has some nonverbal weaknesses. But alas, I was wrong... Things are easier now that I've figured that one out!

RVA/Chesterfield, really? Well, hello, neighbor :)

we do, but we're poets :)

Kathy, thanks so much for your response. Our dd also started thinking she wasn't "good" at math, but she's got a real knack for it. Speed and rote just aren't her game. As a prof, I'll take the student who gets the concepts but doesn't memorize over the rote recall whiz who lacks the conceptual understanding/abilities any day. I frequently remind her of this. I love what you wrote about separating the "arithmetic facts" class from the "math" class-- that approach is right up my alley :) We also try to incorporate things into our days that aren't part of our regular program math-- games, activities, projects, books, like Penrose, Number Devil, etc. This is the stuff that gets both of my kids on the same page, and we all enjoy it. They're very different little birds:) Dd is artsy, literary, history/social justice, very creatively inclined. Ds is math/science boy--seems to have a rhizomatic brain- info/systems machine crammed into his little boy head. We already can't keep up with him on some things and he just turned 6 last week. Your Richmond isn't in VA by chance... we sure could use a nearby mathematician- lol! Also, great to hear that all of this will eventually lead to memorization. Good to know there's a light up ahead! Anyway, thanks again for the response- much appreciated! Cheers, TaraHen

Thanks for the replies, everyone! I'd forgotten all about Calculadders! I remember making a mental note of it way back-- thinking we might want to check it out for dd someday, and it totally slipped my mind til I saw your posts. What would I do without the hive mind? And thanks, too, for your thoughts. My gut was to work on the facts on their own, and otherwise forge ahead with our plans (unless we hit a wall), so was nice to hear from others with similar thinking on that. Cheers, Tara

If you had a child, who has some difficulty with fact retention/memory/rote stuff (has always gotten math concepts in a snap, but due to LD has always done the processes for every problem) and who spent a year in PS and learned/retained nothing, so you now realize you'll need to do some serious remedial work, AND, you have LOF for her and know she loves it and it seems to work for her... what would you go to for the pre-LOF review/catch up stuff she needs? We've never had good luck with the standard programs in the past. She's a really smoking smart-- but creative and artsy/verbal/narrative leaning quirky learning style sorta gal :) TIA Tara Hen (home recovering from surgery AND finally got our schoolroom makeover wrapped-- in the nick of time!)

My kids had fun with this: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/tech/cloning/clickandclone/'>http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/tech/cloning/clickandclone/ From their main genetics site: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/ Tara :)

Hi Denise, As a veg since childhood and a cook (writing my own vegan family cookbook in my "spare" HAHA time), here's my 2 cents about your picks... I think Vegan with a Vengeance and Veganomicon are great cookbooks, BUT...these books' usefulness to you will depend heavily on: 1) your overall cooking prowess 2) the amount of time you have to spend cooking and 3) well stocked pantry/accessibility to lots of ingredients. I always hesitate to recommend these to people I know are new to cooking/veganism and to people who have really busy lives (like me!). The authors cook. For a living. They don't have kids and they're not homeschooling moms. The recipes rock. The food is delightful. My fav vegan restaurant seems to use a lot of their recipes-- for good reason. For once in a while special meals or indulgence, or for the person with a lot of time to spend on meal prep, these books are fab. But for day to day use, novice cooks or new vegans, I think these cookbooks will be too impractical for everyday meals. You might check out the Post Punk Kitchen blog and try some recipes from the books to see how you feel about them before buying the full books. I actually don't have Vegan Planet- haven't even looked at it. So sorry, can't comment on that one. But, it looks pretty good-- you might have prompted me to add to my Amazon cart :) One other note: the Madison cookbook that was recommended is not vegan-- pretty sure it's ovo lacto veg. The "Garden of Vegan" and "How it All Vegan" books are okay. Simpler than VWV and Veganomicon. But, not terribly original and pretty redundant (definitely avoid la dolce vegan). But they've got easy to pull off recipes so might be an okay resource. Also, there are a lot of vegan blogs these days. Tons of recipes to be had- free and at your fingertips. And, I always find veg cookbooks at used bookstores. Feel free to PM me if you ever need a recipe for something particular :) Good luck! TaraHen

We're vegan, so can't help you with the chicken-- but we mummified an apple and it was fine. So, if you hear back that the chix mummy is a stinky project, you could always try the apple to keep good relations w/ the neighbors :001_smile:

It's not a book, but my little guy loved the card game "Chomp" when he was interested in food chains. It's a sea creature card game, like the game "War." The sea creature higher up the food chain takes the pile... I also found some online printables for him about the food chain-- maybe from Enchanted Learning, but it's been a while and I can't remember exactly which site(s) they were at now. Fun stuff!

I second or third the nonfiction suggestion. My 5 year old (who's also an advanced reader) loves nonfiction right now-- prefers it to fiction (though I suppose he prefers nonfiction, anyway). My dd, 10, was in the same boat at 5, though. She really enjoyed biographies--written for kids a bit older, but perhaps b/c they're fact based they gave her enough to chew on without content that felt too mature. I'll list some books I remember one or both of them enjoying, but I'm in the middle of an extreme homeschool room makeover right now and almost all of our books are in boxes, so I can't look them over to see how good a fit they'd be for you. Guessing some of these will be below the level you're looking for, some maybe above. Mr. Putter and Tabby Amelia Bedelia Catwings Mr Popper's Penguins Mrs Piggle Wiggle My Father's Dragon also, dd loved some of the Usborne books-- large type/illustrations: like Stories from Around the World, Greek Myths, etc. They also put out some thin paperbacks for young readers that might fit the bill-- really wish I could remember some of the titles... And she loved Aesop's, Just So Stories, etc. Little guy LOVES the Magic School Bus books. And things like: G is for Googol. Q is for Quark. I agree with the suggestion to seek out picture books meant to be read by adults, too. Some in not so distant past: The Incredible Book Eating Boy, Do Unto Otters, Jan Brett books, Frances books (Bread and Jam for Frances). There were loads and loads of picture-story books out when we were younger-- we have all of dh's from the book club he was in as a kid, such as: Little Bear, Frog and Toad, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, The Magic Pot, The Fire Cat, Hester the Jester, etc. etc. Reading books at all different levels is pretty normal. For mine, the books all seemed to fit some need: whether it was just for pleasure, or challenge/further development, developing fluency (usu a bit below challenge level), etc. Also, some 5 year old advanced readers need bigger or less print b/c their physical ability to read chapter books lags behind their actual reading level. And some, like mine, are also highly sensitive and bothered by content (sometimes even content that others her age are ready for). We keep out house stocked with lots of books, on lots of topics, in lots of genres, at lots of levels--- at all times (used bookstores where you can swap for credit are great for this). We're all like walking collections of miscellany. And my maniac kids read the weirdest stuff. The history of snowmen. Cookbooks-- my kids both LOVE to read cookbooks! Also, for free, or random/weird/old etc reading, you can find loads of public domain texts online for download. I just (accidentally) found Hodgson Burnett's Little Lord Fauntleroy... you can start here: http://www.archive.org/index.php The good thing about this is you can adjust font/print size if your young reader needs it bigger... The early/advanced reader thing does present a challenge for a while, but it works itself out eventually :) Tara

I would agree with the replies you've gotten so far. He could be mislabeled. He could be twice exceptional (both Aspie and gifted). There's a saying I see often in the ASD community that's really quite accurate, "If you've known one child with Autism/Asperger's, you've known one child with Autism/Asperger's." Asperger's (and Autism), like giftedness, sensory perception/functioning, personality traits, etc. are all on a spectrum. So while there are commonalities: kids with Asperger's have impaired social interaction, persevarative interests, etc. it's not going to manifest the same for every child-- it's all along the spectrum. Some areas may be on the "normal" ish side, some may fall more significantly on the "symptomatic/diagnosable" side of things. It's really just like personality (think of the range from extreme shyness to extreme extroversion) and giftedness (think of the range of giftedness, and even within one child the often-associated asynchronous development). And there just so happens to be a lot of overlap between the characteristics of the gifted and the characteristics of Asperger's. I would certainly recommend seeking more info-- to help you help your child. But, I'd worry less about the actual labels you get, and more about the issues that are identified and what you can do to address them. My dd needed the same OT (etc.) for what's, at one time or another over the years, fallen under the diagnostic labels of: global motor delay, SID/SPD, NLD, mild Asperger's, dysgraphia/apraxia, giftedness (with increased sensitivities), etc. My ds, diagnosed HFA at 2, now gets a sorta-Asperger's label paired with characteristics of the hg/pg (per our most recent evals this spring). He's a more extreme case, though-- it's taken two years hard work to get him here. But still, the therapies/interventions he needed were the same no matter what his actual diagnosis was at the time-- we started most of them under other diagnostic labels while we were waiting to get him evaluated. Anyway, all of this is just to say: even the experts working in these fields don't fully understand this stuff. It's still being researched, and the diagnoses continually shift and evolve. It's not been firmly decided what exactly is what, why it is, or what its relationship is to other related or symptomatically overlapping things (like giftedness, attention, anxiety/OCD, tourette's , SID, etc.). But it has been noted that a) there are lots of overlapping profiles/conditions and b) it's all a spectrum and everyone falls on it uniquely-- no two of us are wired exactly the same. So, my personal advice, having btdt, is: as you get evals and dxs and are doing your research, etc.-- focus least on the actual labels you’re given and focus most on what your child’s unique needs are and how to best meet them. Just use the labels if/when they’re helpful: to point toward further research, gain a better understanding, get access to services you’d be denied without the label, etc. HTH, Tara

My son, 5, is a Chess fiend these days! He's mostly been playing with my dh, but I bet he'd love to play a either correspondence or online game with another child! We're home and about settled after our summer travel-- and (other than the mad dash dh and I are making to give the schoolroom a head to toe makeover (woohoo!)) we're laying low. So we'd be happy to pair up with any of you for a game. We'd be fine with playing by correspondence or online. Just give a shout. Now-- off to finish painting the schoolroom... Tara :)

I haven't used it or really looked into it myself b/c we don't have the dyslexia piece, but I remember a program that was highly regarded on the boards a while back called AVKO-- (might have had one called sequential spelling or something like it). Anyway, I think it was developed for dyslexic students and I remember there'd been a very positive buzz about it. Pretty sure it's the same one my friend used with her dd w/ great success (I can check if you;d like me to email her). My best Lit professor in college was dyslexic-- and he ended up making his living reading lit all the time and publishing articles, papers, and books of his own :001_smile: Anyway, hth. Tara

We're an eclectic wacky bunch at this house, so our homeschool style vacillates between total unschool/freestyling and school at home. We try, and are making renewed effort, to land somewhere in the middle-- like an earlier poster mentioned-- unschool for some content areas and more formal stuff for skills, etc. This year's been mostly unschool freestylin-- especially while we let our dd unschool following a stint in the district's center based gifted program. And like others mentioned, lots of good interesting books, mags, etc. around, even if they haven't asked for them. My dd is on and off with taking initiative, though, and sometimes she'll also request more "school." So sometimes we'll tell her to make a study plan for something she wants to learn/do. Then we guide her in developing her plan and offer feedback on the work as she goes. She's writing a novel right now, and researched related subject areas and read other lit on similar themes, etc. There are predetermined goals, benchmarks, etc. Example: we'll read and crit the writing every ten pages. Still pretty self-guided and unschooly, but also feels like it has more structure, support/schoolishness to it... That said, we're gearing up to launch into a bit more school-y existence again... but with lots of wiggle room:) HTH Tara

I actually ordered both 1 and 2, because I thought it might help to go over a couple of the lessons from one-- since he's had no "formal" curriculum yet (still scratching my head how he's gotten quite so far :). And, I thought of using later part of 1 and through 2 for remedial work for dd, who hasn't always clicked with her math instruction, and what she's had so far in ps hasn't stuck. Glad I did it this way-- because we just decided to bring her home again, too, so now I'll have plenty to start them off with. And we'll launch from there... I am considering LOF, too, especially for her because she's such a verbal/language sort. I think she'd enjoy it. And my son is into anything math. So I'm glad to hear another recommendation for it. Thanks for your help!

Ah, been offline a bit-- nasty viral spell in the house! Thanks for the suggestions! I'll definitely check those out. I just learned that my daughter's PS program will be using Hands on Equations in 4th grade this year. But you're right, it doesn't seem best for my son. And likely the PS program won't prove best for dd-- I'm already thinking of bringing her home :) Thanks again! TaraHen

Hi everyone, I haven't been on this forum in a long long while (maybe 1-2 years? yikes!) because we took a homeschool hiatus out of necessity. My dd, now almost 10, who was the reason I was on the AL board back then, currently attends the PS center based gifted program. It's great for her, so she'll likely remain through at least next school year (when it's time to move to middle school-- then I'm not so sure). We're now homeschooling our younger child, who just turned five this week. He's his sister's opposite-- her strengths/passions are in language/creative areas, while he is our systems, facts, Math guy. I was planning to use a lot of the materials we have from his sis for him, and in everything but Math it seems to be working. But we already need to do something else for Math. He's blown through her old programs, which end in the 2nd-3rd grade ranges. His ability, understanding and intuitive knack for Math is pretty wild. Some of the things he understands and does include: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, negative numbers (with all 4 processes), exponents/roots, factorials, primes, some pre-algebra stuff (e.g. 4a= 100, 23+x= 37, x squared + 3= 84, square root of x + 10= 22, x cubed divided by 4= x-- he loves these!) and it goes on and on... And he seems to get numbers/math in a way that's just astounding to everyone who encounters it. He can also apply systems to non-math things (ex add/subtract the planets based on their order from the sun, he added and subtracted letters of the alphabet-- correctly-- when he was 3, etc.) So I really need new programs to use with him. And it is crucial that we do a lot of Math-- not just b/c he's a gifted kid who craves it (he's stumbled onto almost everything he knows by himself-- and we just give him the names for what he's doing or show him extensions of it), but because he's 2E and when he is engaged and learning, especially Math, he has far fewer issues (all day long) with his spectrum-ish behaviors. It's been a while since we've chosen math programs and my daughter's needs were very different, so I did a quick browse on the board to see what programs people here are using these days. We've done some Singapore with him. I like it as a supplement but based on our experience I don't think it is best as a main program for him. I looked into both Prof B and Hands On Equations b/c of posts I'd seen. They both look interesting. I tried a sample Prof B lesson with him yesterday and he loved it-- is asking to do more Bee math today. The website isn't great so it's hard to get a sense of what day to day use would be like in that program. I assume you'd just buy the CD and all books/materials for the level-- b/c they don't seem to bundle it into full packages? Hands on Equations also looked pretty interesting at first peek, though I haven't explored it in any depth. Any thoughts on either program? Or others I may have missed? Would it be beneficial to use both-- or could it be redundant/confusing? Or are there other pairings that might be good? He would do math all day if we allowed it-- and since it does so much for him (and I use it to sneak other things in-- he's so happy doing it that he doesn't notice the therapy and language type stuff I'm doing with him while we're at it), I'm inclined to give him a hefty chunk of it each day. He does love to encounter different presentation methods for the same/similar concepts, and he spends much of his free time playing around with different ways of manipulating numbers. I appreciate any advice or suggestions you can toss my way! Glad to be back on the board-- I've missed it! Cheers, TaraHen