I haven't used it, so don't know if it's teacher intensive, but what about Jousting Armadillos?

What happened to Moskaluk?

Thanks, OE, for your thoughts. I don't want to give you the impression that I'm ignoring your advice. Ronen has been evaluated by the SLP who qualified him for EI, his EI SLP (who had level 1 PROMPT training), the school district's two screening SLPs (who qualified him for an IEP), the SLP at Kaiser (who qualified him for private therapy -- which I sought because of the suggestions in the last thread), and his two current SLPs (one with the school district and one with a private clinic, who has level 1 PROMPT training). Everyone has agreed that he has a phonological disorder, and none have said apraxia. I'm not sure at this point what else to do. He's becoming resistant to therapy, refuses to make sounds he can do, and I'm struggling to find ways to help him. He has improved tremendously. Perhaps, my expectations are just unrealistic. Also, because of the last thread, I did hire an advocate, who was helpful in formulating the IEP. He's currently getting therapy from the school district twice per week for 40 minutes. There are currently no other kids in his time slot. His weekly appointments with the private clinic are also individual.

Yes! I forgot to mention that he has those and loves them. Thank you.

My youngest DS (turned 3 in August) has been in speech therapy since he was 2. He qualified for an IEP for speech with the school district, as well as for private therapy through insurance. He currently gets therapy for 40 minutes 3 times/week. He also attends a very high quality preschool M-F from 9-1. He talks nonstop (!!!), and has a ton of expressive and receptive language. The only issue is intelligibility. He can produce many sounds above age level, but still drops a lot of middle and final consonants and puts sounds in the wrong places. He is also an incredibly stubborn/strong-willed personality, and is becoming resistant to working with me/his therapists on sounds. He enjoys using the iPad, and has been playing around with Reading Eggs and Teach Your Monster to Read. He says that they are too hard for him, and I would tend to agree with him. He doesn't seem to be picking up phonemic awareness as quickly as his older brother. How can I help him? He doesn't want to work with me to produce sounds, but he will use the apps. Are there some that would be more appropriate for him, given his phonological disorder? Other than the Leapfrog videos, anything that you recommend to build these skills? Thanks so much.

It's pretty humbling to be stumped by a 3rd grade math curriculum -- happened several times last year with Beast. I don't even want to think about how hard full blown AOPS is going to be. :scared:

Gotcha. Yes, I scribe when Sacha narrates. But, in the middle of WWE2, they also add in dictation. That's what I was thinking. Thanks for clarifying.

Coming from an overthinker (who also needs a plan for a security blanket, so I say this gently and in all type-A solidarity), I think you are overthinking this. You really don't need to tie your history period into grammar. Just go at your son's pace, and seize the interesting rabbit trails as the opportunities present themselves.You are going to touch on this stuff over and over again. And while I understand that you want your DS to see all these great connections, it doesn't have to be bundled up neatly in the first pass. One final thought. I think there are very few Kers for whom dictation would be appropriate -- at least, dictation as we have done it in WWE2/3. I attempted spelling (AAS1) with my son when he was 4.5. He could do it, but it just wasn't a productive use of our time, so we stopped. At 4.5, he was still learning to form his letters with automaticity. Throw in learning to spell on top of it, and it was a lot of stress to his executive functioning skills. Again, he could have done AAS1 had I pushed, but in hindsight, I can see that we made the right decision in stopping. At 7.5, he has blossomed into a pretty decent natural speller simply from all the advanced level reading. We started doing dictation towards the middle of WWE2. He was 7. By that point, he could form letters in manuscript with automaticity, he could hold sentences in his head without difficulty, and he could spell and punctuate almost all the sentences without too much help from me. He is now in WWE3 (in 2nd grade), and I am shocked by how well it is going. I can hand him a 2-page lit passage, have him read it, give me a narration, and then write a dictation without any stress. My two cents is to do HWT K, or some other handwriting program. Once he can form his letters with automaticity, move on to copywork in WWE1, ELTL, etc. As you can tell, I am a big fan of the incremental skill building in the WWE series. ELTL is even more incremental IME.

I can tell you that Island level is fine for an accelerated learner for 2nd. We did it in first, and it was fine for my STEM kid. I will mention, though, that CE is in the Town level, not Island.

Oh my gosh. I am so very sorry for your loss. May his memory be for a blessing. :grouphug: :grouphug:

I know that F is younger than S, so this all sounds normal from my perspective. S went through the exact same things a few years ago. We tried Percy Jackson around age 5, and it was too intense. He asked me to stop, so we did. I don't think it would bother him today. He also was averse to reading anything that couldn't be finished in one sitting, even though he had listened to me reading chapter books for years. In time, he just moved past it. I kept introducing longer books, would read him the first few chapters to get him hooked, and then told him that the rest was up to him. Eventually, he did it. Then, he was intimidated by the size of some books, like Harry Potter. He eventually moved past that too. She is still really young. I think it's normal.

I love to see what everyone is reading! Sacha is reading Shiloh for lit, Sign of the Beaver and History of US (audio) for history, and is finishing up the 39 Clues series for his pleasure reading. I don't have much tme at the moment for pleasure reading. :(

We are the same. I never know the "right" answer re screens. I basically say that if you do your school work, get some exercise, play time, and reading time, then I am not going to regulate your free time very much. If you want to spend it with screens. so be it.

I have always loved languages in much the same way that your daughter does. Yes, it is nice to be fluent, or at least conversational, in a language. That's certainly useful and fun. But, there is something about how they all fit together in an anthropological way that I find even more fascinating. I love learning the history of certain words, how they evolve from other languages, why some words die out or spread to other cultures, why some languages don't have words to describe certain feelings or events. It is very telling, and collectively reveals a complex story about how and why communication has evolved; a story that gets to the very core of our humanity. Having said that, I agree with you that I wish I had learned more about other things. I am woefully under-educated in science, and could have gone much further in mathematics (I was just starting to enjoy it when I stopped). But, there are only so many hours in the day. I don't have any wisdom to provide. Only empathy. The generalist vs. specialist debate is always a difficult one to balance.

I am still in complete denial that we are "officially" starting school tomorrow. I don't want summer to end!!!! It's only been since Memorial Day. Come on, what's a few more weeks? Starting after Hanukkah isn't so bad, right? I was completely unprepared for the fact that Athena's classes started a few weeks ago (oops), so Sacha and I have been kinda half-a**ing them because we felt like we were still on summer vacay, which we technically were. And, even though tomorrow is our official start day, our charter is having a 'back to school' picnic at 11, so it's going to be a shorter than normal day for us, which is going to make it even worse. I won't even want to bother starting. Gah!!! I hate transitions!!! Speaking of sounding like a child, my threenager has really been grinding my gears lately, :smash: and the thought of ever adding him to our homeschool sends me into panic mode. :willy_nilly: (No matter that I have already decided to red shirt him for a year., so this isn't going to happen for 3 more years anyway.) TBH, all I really want to do is send him to preschool M-F from 9-5 for the next year, so that I can magically wake up one day and have them return a sweet, compliant, eager to learn child to me. Man, I suck at parenting. :leaving: I am also freaking out because, as both kids are starting to do extracurriculars, our schedule is packed so full, I have to consult my handy dandy excel spreadsheet/schedule anytime anyone wants to do something with us. And, did I mention that we are moving in two weeks? To a 5th wheel! And we haven't started packing at all! Denial: it's what for dinner. I just want to curl up in a ball. :nopity:

Yes!! Where is Gil? I miss reading his posts. Welcome, OP. I'm Monique. I homeschool my 7 year old son, Sacha, in most subjects, but coax my husband into handling a lot of the science and programming. I'm a humanities girl, who cannot put together IKEA furniture, with a STEM kid. Dh is a mechanical engineer by training.

He read it and knew the answer in about 5 seconds.

They don't need to speak French to go to college in Canada for cheap. They just need to be residents to get the discounted rates. So, a few months with grandma beforehand will get you there. Also, McGill and U of Toronto are English language schools, as are most of the rest of Canada's more selective schools. But, yes, cheap is good! :) ETA: https://www.mcgill.ca/legaldocuments/quebec/situation8

My Quebecois husband has zero desire to teach the kids French. Even his parents have given up on it. My husband doesn't feel any of the connections to his culture that Regentrude described. I'm always the one pushing it, and without his help, I'm really just spinning my wheels. My kids are also citizens of Canada. My husband just feels that it is useless to learn French, and he doesn't want to put in the effort to speak French in an otherwise English speaking home.

Technically, she is our EF. But, she is obviously a credentialed teacher. Sometimes, I will say, "Sacha, your teacher is here," and sometimes I say "Susan is here."

Mine is just starting 2nd, and I will test him tomorrow, but I'd be shocked if he couldn't do it.

We have been using Behrman House materials, and have been very happy with them. Handwriting Without Tears also makes a Hebrew script practice book, which we found helpful.

Thank you!

Wow! That's awesome that he enjoys it so much. :)