:grouphug: thinking of you and your family :grouphug:

done!

MEC sells thin merino wool long sleeve tops and leggings. My skinny guy loves them. Wear as a base layer with fleece over top and wool socks. He will be toasty warm.

We bought a Celestron digital microscope imager to attach to our Brock and it works really well. Best of both worlds -- use the Brock, take it out and about, easy for kids to be independent; and digital imaging for display on a big screen. Ds won a photography competition at our summer fair with a photo he took using the Celeston and Brock. It is of live plankton. It appears to be on sale. I paid $66 for ours! http://www.amazon.com/Celestron-Digital-Microscope-Imager-44421/dp/B003DVP7CE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1446869634&sr=8-1&keywords=celestron+digital+microscope+imager

We have the Wonder Workshop robots (Dash and Dot) and they sound like what you are looking for. They are adorable robots, no assembly, and have several apps that allow you to control them using a tablet. The apps range from simple (like using a remote control) to programming in Blockly (similar to scratch) and their own visual programming language, Wonder.

Both dh and I take the kids out trick-or-treating, so we leave a bowl of candy on the stairs leading to the front door. When we returned home last night we found our front door wide open. Not just unlocked, but all the way open. We had been out for almost three hours, on the one night of the year when we expect several people to come to the door, and we had apparently left our door completely open. Again. We managed to do this last year or the year before (can't remember which). In all the hustle and bustle getting the kids outside, lighting the pumpkins, taking pictures, somehow the last person out didn't shut the door. Luckily, it looks like no one went inside. Nothing is missing. We are fortunate to live in a good neighbourhood.

We use, and really enjoy, All About Spelling. It has review built in for added retention. It is teacher-intense, but very thorough.

:grouphug:

He would have read it in the 70s. It is possible it was an illustrated juvenile novel. It is the pictures he remembers more than the story.

Dh keeps talking about a book from his childhood and how much he wishes he could share it with our dc. Maybe it sounds familiar to you and you can help identify it? He says it is a picture book about a boy. He goes on a conveyor through (possibly) a mine. He avoids the crusher machine and comes out the other side covered with powder/dust. Can anyone think of the title?

done

Hi Jerome, Thanks for joining our discussion and providing beta access to several of us. I spent a couple of hours playing Numbers last night, and it is a really fun game. I will provide most of my feedback through the beta channels, but I will address the colours issue here as it pertains to this discussion. It is extremely confusing to me having essentially random colours for the Nooms. Even after two hours of play I kept thinking the red was two and the green was three. I successfully learned one, five and ten, but six through eight I still have no idea. I do remember nine as my husband immaturely referred to it as the "poo Noom" (long brown rounded shape) and I now can't think of it any other way. I would be very reluctant to let my children play the game at this stage as I don't want to weaken the memory bonds they already have regarding the colours corresponding to numbers. Fortunately, if colours rendering is the issue, then we are in luck. The problem as I see it isn't that the colours get matched exactly. I personally don't care what shade gets used. What is important is that the number doesn't get assigned a colour that we already associate with a different number. Here are the colours you use: purple, yellow, red, green, grey, orange, blue, pink, brown, black Here is how I would assign them: 1 - grey 2 - red 3 - green 4 - purple 5 - yellow 6 - dark green (or pink if you cannot change any colours) 7 - black 8 - brown (and the 8 is a much better shape for brown) 9 - blue 10 - orange As you can see, the only colour you are not already using is dark green. Although I would prefer it to be the correct c-rod colour, if all other colours were correct I would allow my children to play because overall it would not be confusing. I understand you have a rapidly-approaching deadline and some changes aren't possible at this stage. One issue I see with changing colours is that the face for seven does not show up for black. You won't want to move ten's face because it has ten eyes and ten teeth. I would recommend switching the faces for seven and nine. That way, seven moves to nine and will still be blue with the same face. Nine's face moves to seven and becomes black. Most of the facial features would work with black, except the furrowed brow when the mouth is open and when blinking. May I suggest making those lines the same colour as the mouth. Thanks for coming to hear what we had to say. We are a passionate group, and we truly love your games! I think Numbers is wonderful already, but would be amazing with the c-rod colours.

Found him! I sent a PM.

I applied to be a beta tester and have sent them an email about their colours. Didn't they have someone from their company create an account at WTM one time when we were discussing Dragonbox? I'll try to look them up. If we can contact them through PM maybe they can read this thread and we can discuss the colour importance with them.

We love that one too! I was so happy it was reprinted.

For Canadians there is also an Allerject recall. We are only able to replace 1 per person as they are worried about a shortage of epinephrine.

We love it too! We now own all the FIAR books that are still in print. I look forward to doing them all again with my youngest. If you want to try doing lapbooks, most of the FIAR books have free lapbooks at homeschoolshare: http://www.homeschoolshare.com/index_lapbooks_master_list.php If there isn't one for the book itself, there is often one for the country or theme (China for Ping). They aren't necessary, and I wouldn't skip FIAR to just do the lapbook, but they often help my ds have more retention of what we have learned for that unit.

How wonderful!

I use potato starch, tapioca flour, or rice flour as a thickener. I would replace cutting boards and wooden spoons (I got silicon ones instead). Clean out your cupboards of anything containing wheat or corn and wash down the shelves. Wash out drawers and your cutlery tray too. I would consider getting a new toaster or toaster oven, but I would keep using your pots and glass/metal bowls.

Here is a semi-crazy idea if you have a gaming system such as a Wii (I don't know which other systems work with this...). What about the Rock Band game? It obviously is not the same as getting an actual instrument, BUT it does have a drum (yay!), several children can play/sing together, and it is really fun. For a personal instrument I would go for a few ukuleles so they can play together. They are easy for beginners but can become complex if you want to advance.

I got my copy of the Music Mind Games book in the mail yesterday. It looks good. I still think I need just about everything to go with it. Since we are in Canada it is better to order in one big batch rather than find out we missed something and have to pay shipping and duty again. So I think I need the base (puppy) pack, rhythm bingo, melody bingo, the foam puzzles, and the real rhythm cards (the ones that are different sizes based on note duration). Even though I own a lovely glockenspiel and metallophone, I am thinking of getting the xylophone because each note is separate and they are in the matching colours to the other materials. Then I probably don't need, but think it would be useful to have, the advanced set of blue jello cards and music symbols, the notes and rests cards, and the paper pianos. All for kids who don't play any instruments yet... Although ds says he is very interested in learning.

Thank you. I wish we had tried sooner!

Does anyone know why ds would now have access to spellodrome and the science app? We have a paid subscription to mathletics, and when ds was playing today he clicked on spelling and discovered he could do all the activities. Even during the four days of WEG he only had access to the live portion. Now he can do everything. Are people automatically signed up for a trial after WEG? Does anyone else have access now when they didn't before?

I am so thankful for this forum and all of you. Asynchronous child fatigue sums it up perfectly. And it is something no one else around me experiences or understands. It is truly wonderful to be able to come here and read stories that sound exactly like ours. Something I have discovered through this journey is that I have many similarities to ds that I never knew were "not the norm". It has been revelatory to read articles about various traits and realize that not only do they fit ds, but they perfectly describe me too. I am finding that the more I learn about my own quirks, the easier it is becoming to teach and parent ds. I am also learning that flexibility is so key in being able to deal with asynchronicity. And I am NOT flexible by nature. Ds experienced a huge shift in behaviour when we started officially schooling. I feel like I have had a lot of practice for the teenage years now. It is so difficult to not know at a given moment if I am going to be dealing with the rebellious, independent teenager or the little boy who needs a cuddle from Mum. I recently got ds a few books by Julia Cook. We started with "I just want to do things my way" and "thanks for the feedback". Ds loved them and requested others that were listed in the back of the books. We now have several of them, and they have made quite a difference in how ds handles some situations. I think with asynchronous kids, we can sometimes think of them as more mature than they really are. They still have areas that need to develop even just to reach expectations for their age level. For us, these books have been helping to grow those areas.

Ds enjoyed:If You Were a Writer http://www.amazon.com/Were-Writer-Joan-Lowery-Nixon/dp/0689719000/ref=pd_sim_14_27?ie=UTF8&refRID=05SQ0TTMA9QJP2288985 The Best Story http://www.amazon.com/The-Best-Story-Eileen-Spinelli/dp/0803730551/ref=pd_sim_14_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=0A9HTA54VVTT58JHA0Q4 Max's Words http://www.amazon.com/Maxs-Words-Kate-Banks/dp/0374399492/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1445611728&sr=8-1&keywords=Max%27s+words Aunt Isabelle Tells a Good One http://www.amazon.com/Aunt-Isabel-Tells-Picture-Puffins/dp/0140505342/ref=pd_sim_14_20?ie=UTF8&refRID=0C0AGWVGCGWH7YAB07ZW Words I Use When I Write http://www.rainbowresource.com/product/sku/026340 Ds had no interest in writing things out himself until he could make his own books. Somehow getting to use the stapler himself turned him into a writer. Lol.