Click, Spider, Ask, Cricket- all those magazines are $16.98/ year today. But you have to go through ebates to magazines.com in order to get it. Then you also will get 52% back through ebates for each magazine too. I renewed all four of our subscriptions. The only catch is that you will need to cancel at the end or it will autorenew. They said they would send an email before, but I have never used it before, so I'm not sure. If you do decide to sign up for ebates, and if you click on this link http://preview.ebates.com/rf.do?referrerid=yUoQk4gXumnUcP9P1IG then I think I get points or $5 or something. But I haven't done that before. Or you can just go to the ebates site and sign up without me getting the credit, and that works too :) Just wanted to share. It's a great deal!

My kids enjoy poetry, so we have been doing some informal poetry this year. Last week we were studying Japan for history/geography, and we wrote some haikus. I read two picture books to them (Wabi Sabi and Zen Times). They both had examples of haiku. Then we just tried a few on our own. It was a great success! Wabi Sabi is a really nice book. The pictures are beautiful, the message is lovely, and there is a haiku on each page. I think this is how we will continue to study/write poetry.

My kids are 21 months apart, and I do combine for grammar. But I don't do much for grammar! We do The Sentance Family every now and then, but other than that, we don't do a whole lot with it. I also combine for science and history.

I let all school work go when the kids are sick. I will read a lot to them. I will put on educational tv (and by educational, I mean Wild Kratts, Schlessinger media dvds that we rent, Magic School Bus, Bill Nye, nothing too achedemic!) They can play quietly if they are up to it. But really, my goal is rest and recovery. Hope you all are feeling better soon.

Awesome, thanks!

I really like using place value discs. We make numbers, do addition and subtraction with regrouping and borrowing.

That's great! My dd is in phase one now. I just found out that ds will need phase one in the next 1-2 years as well.

It was brief, and if I had been reading aloud, it would have been easy to skip. But my kids don't miss a thing, and they were shocked!

My daughter is loving poetry right now because of the little incorrigibles in The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place. She is starting to memorize The Tyger by William Blake. It's her own idea. She chose the poem and that she wanted to memorize it. We have also recently enjoyed The Wreck of the Hesperus and The Raven, again, because of the incorrigibles. We listened to readings on YouTube. That was fun because the readers did a nice job of it. We love the Caroline Kennedy book. Also, we all adore Shel Silverstein.

The kids and I just started listening to the audiobook in the car after seeing it recommended here several times. My kids are only 7 and 8, and maybe I should have read more about the book, but I was totally blindsided when they talked about a woman getting murdered by her husband with a pitch fork! Wow, that kind of seemed to come from out of nowhere. I turned to look at the kids after that part of the book, and they were wide eyed with jaws dropped. I stopped the recording to explain, best I could. Anyways, just thought I'd mention that. Otherwise, the book is fantastic. I really love it. Calpernia is a sweet, funny girl, and the relationship she develops with her grandfather is really nice. The parts about nature and Darwin are very interesting for all of us as well. And the history is interesting too. But that little part about the murder was kind of a surprise!

Oh, and they were way less expensive than a large board.

Someone here recently posted a link to a set of five blue magnetic boards on amazon. I bought those. They are perfect for us. We leave the tiles in place and have an empty board for spelling the words. At the end of the lesson, I can stack them and put them in a drawer with the books and boxes.

We love AAS. Singapore The Sentence Family SOTW audiobooks

He's definitely making progress in many ways. I'll look into working memory.

Motor planning and executive function were Both mentioned by OT. She knows him well after all this time. He can hold it together when he needs to, for a while. So the eval didn't show a lot more than fine motor. Then she got to know Him more and more things came to light. She started seeing what I see each day! If I tell him to do three things before we leave- potty, flush, wash hands- he might do one. He will run in, wash hands, and then get in the car still needing to use the bathroom. I'm very simple with instructions, get on his level, get confirmation that he understood, etc. Still he misses at least one step. It drives DH crazy because he thinks ds is lazy or careless. And ds isn't at all. I can't seem to get it through to him. That is one reason for the eval. I want it spelled out for DH and the judo coaches.

Thank you for all the replies. I can write more when I'm at my computer later. For now- yes to OT. He has been going for three years, but we only get 30 visits a year. So he just finished for this year. He is not currently in PT, but we may start again. He does speech. He is enjoys judo so much that we are letting him do that 2-3 times a week. But the cost of judo is high, so we don't pay for the extra OT after the 30. We had to choose. I will start looking for a vision therapist. What exactly do I need? Covd? One thing that seems so odd to me is that he never can find his side of the car. He is behind the driver. Dd is the other side. But it seems like just random luck when he gets it right. He always knows when it is in our garage. But if it is anywhere else, he doesn't know. He almost always uses the easel for AAS. He writes on a flat table for math. I have scribed for math so far, but last week he did a day where he wrote for math. He did well compared to last year. His OT said it is hard because he uses his whole arm to write, not just his wrist and fingers. That's why he fatigues. I'll read through the comments again and see what I need to read About more. Thanks. :)

I'm not alarmed. He's getting the testing done soon so that we can help him learn in a way that works best for him. He reads on grade level- no trouble learning. He spells well. He is bright and articulate and driven. And if he needs a different way of learning, that's fine. I may have to tie his shoes until he is 18, but I'm certain he will succeed in life. I am kind of sciency, and the brain and human differences in general just fascinate me. I'll check out the book, thanks. Part of me feels it's more an attention thing. He puts his clothing on backward, inside out, all the time. He doesn't care if I tell him it's backward. He just leaves it. Body covered? Good enough. So I do wonder. His other letters are facing the right way almost all the time. It was the J. The one he uses all the time, that stumped him. Numbers are iffy. Most are getting pretty ok now. Three and two are all squiggles and lumps. I'll update in December when we get the results.

So my son is 7. He has some things going on, and we are having a neuropsych eval in November. He's a joy. Really an amazing kid. He is sensory seeking, super high energy, impulsive, and he has hyper mobile joints, a weaker core, and fine motor weakness. We are able to manage really well for school because I can make all sorts of accommodations and adaptations for him. Totally fine. But he has a very hard time writing. He can write a couple sentences and then gets tired. His writing is impossible to read. We have done HWOT for three years. We have done a lot as far as learning correct letter formation using all sorts of sensory and movement, etc. So today I decided to show him "j" again. We only have done capitals, per his insistence. His name is AJ. He almost always has the j either lying down or facing the wrong way. Even when he is copying one that is right in front of him. So I showed him again and explained how you make a line down and hook to the left. So he says "ok, but what about when I'm facing this way?" And he turns around! Then he asked if it goes the other way if he's facing the other way. ?????? Wow. He really didn't know. He can read. He sees letters all the time. And he really didn't get it. So I helped him write j's facing north, south, easy, and west. Later in the day I had him write some j's without looking at a sample and without reminders, and they were all correct. Is that super interesting, or what? I am so amazed at how his mind works and what he sees and hears and everything else. So we already had an appt for a neuropsych eval. Depending on how that goes, a vision eval might be in order too, I guess. Thoughts? Chelsea.

If you are north of Boston area, NSHL is a great group to join. They plan many great get togethers and activities. PM me if you are interested in joining us for the not back to school picnic next week. I can let you know the info. The YMCA in North Reading does a swim class for home schoolers on Thursdays. The Stone Zoo and The Franklin Park Zoo both have home school programs. The aquarium also does home school classes, but I don't know anything about them. MOS is great- They don't have a home school discount, but they do allow home school groups of 9 or more to form field trips and take advantage of the field trip rates (which are really great). They also have science experiments set up on Tues and Thurs ams (usually 10a-12p) The Real School of Music in Burlington has home school classes that I hear are really good.

poppy- That's where I live too. We just tried Salisbury beach for the first time the other day. It's a DCR park, so it's free with the $35/ year pass. That pass also works for Walden Pond too. I've never heard music at Walden, and it's really lovely there. Salisbury was empty both days we went, but that was after labor day. I bet it's packed during the season. Anyways, now is a great time of year for the beach. A lot still charge, but Salisbury was free even with out that pass. No bathrooms though!

Smoking at the beach is super annoying because it always seems to drift right at us. And my poor dd feels awful when she is around it. We just end up moving our stuff or taking a walk when that happens. It's not illegal here, although even when it is (like at water parks or wherever) people still do it. What's worse is smoking on a playground.

We play music at the beach. We don't sit close enough to other people that anyone can hear it from their seats though. I know because when I get up and move even a little off our blanket area, I can't hear it at all. I guess we are just lucky that our beaches aren't that crowded? So, yeah, we play music and we aren't jerks.

We are on the 4th book of the Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place. I'm not sure that anything in it would be controversial. They are hysterically funny, and we all adore them. Really great books. Peter and the Starcatchers- the whole series-Read by Jim Dale. I hear the Birchbark House is good, but we haven't listened to or read that yet. Trumpet of the Swan read by the author is really nice and gentle. The Anne of Green Gables are good and nice and long, as are the Little House books.

I don't know. But I'd love to find out! My kids flew through their lollipop logic too, and I can't afford to keep buying more. :) I use to love those types of puzzles when I was in school. I'd love an app or website with some for my second and third graders.

Thanks, I just ordered them! I was waiting on a large magnetic board because they are so expensive, and I have no room for one. It never occurred to me to use more than one smaller board!