I had her evaluated but we are trying a different place for a few reasons so we will see what they say. I'm just running into therapy overload here. If VT is 2x we are up to eight a week. Thanks for everything.

What is a good age to do VT? I ask because our OT was surprised they evaluated my six year old.

I thought she meant the wayfarers pre-program but maybe I'm mistaken

I would like to find this too. It's not all old fashioned books though.

My drawers are too shallow so I roll them too.

I majored in anthro so I definitely want to do prehistory.

Thanks everyone! Those will help a whole lot. Jen

Hi, I have the bob books however I'm not convinced my daughter is actually decoding or just treating them all as sight words. She has a remarkable memory but I was wondering if anyone had any other set of readers that they had found that they liked.We use LOE for phonics if that helps. Thanks, Jen

I really do like the look of it. I'd be interested in it if it the teachers materials weren't quite so pricey. I have a bunch of LA curriculum already, although we do LOE. Jen

Thank you so much:)

I'm curious too. I bought a book to use for science based on the amazon reviews but it hasn't arrived yet. I've been looking at unit studies/themes to guide fun reading and handle a lot of the science/geography aspect. However I could be totally off base. This is our first official year...and I've bought so much that it's a great big eclectic mess;) I'm just not sure what my kids will find engaging enough to actually do.

My uncle didn't start talking until he was 3. He's now a judge:) Those are fantastic ideas. I usually do our reading at lunch and bath time. We also do it in my room in the afternoon. I'm going to try giving her things to fidget with and see how that goes. We've also been rotating activities, it's also amazing to me how much we can get done in a short period of time. I've seen E really blossom in the past couple of weeks too. She went from saying "Elke Hungry" to "I'm hungry and Ian is too". So definite improvement. I did make an unfortunate discovery though....Maryland has no provisions for the public schools providing anything to homeschooled students. They can't sign up for one class, do sports, get therapy or anything. I think the exception is standardized testing. Also the health insurance mandates exist only for Autism. I do have two years at least before this becomes and issue and hopefully my other house will sell in the meantime but that was kind of disappointing.

Hi, Sorry for the delay in responding but I've been really sick for almost a week now. However hopefully I'm finally getting better. Also hopefully I'll be able to finalize my curriculum decisions tonight so I can order it. We've been doing school already but new books are always exciting. We've also seen some progress on the potty front which is nice. I finally spoke with the coordinator about her too. We'd been playing phone tag for a week and they're moving offices right now. Anyway she felt it was too early to do the neuropsych evaluation which may or may not be the case. Anyway I explained that the IEP was completely ridiculous considering the fact Elke has been speaking in sentences for quite a while. So the tentative plan right now is for her to get speech here or at a school (I'm waiting to hear from the actual therapist) and probably also take part in some sort of pre-k social group they have once a week. Then in a few weeks write a more appropriate IEP. Elke has been doing so much better in the past few weeks with her speech I wonder if she's gotten to the point where she'll be above the threshold to get any therapy from the county at all. She still needs help though, and while I'd love to be able to just send her to a private therapist but until our other house sells I just can't afford it. OhElizabeth: Lots of kids are 'late' now. My friends son had issues with it until he was 6. Same reasons as your son...not slowing down. I think Elke can sense since she will go off to do it. She went to preschool last year. She hated it at first then she loved going but I know she didn't learn much of anything academically. Which was fine since that's not why she was going. She was supposed to go to a reggio style pre-k this year also more for the socializing than anything else but the potty issues meant she couldn't. So she'll be home with me this year. She can concentrate when it's something she's interested in but she's always very squirmy. I have two mini-tramps I'll have to find space for them up here. This house doesn't have a singe closet on the main floor. I was actually toying with moving school to the basement once I shift the furniture down there since I thought the lack of non-school toys might be less distracting and they love it down there. I have puzzle mats I exercise on so they can tumble and jump. We have a swing set in the back and usually go out for 1-2 hours a day. You're right about parks though, there is a homeschooling drop in playgroup on Fridays we're going to go to. That Skychair looks fantastic. I'd never get her out of it;) You're right and it was better this past week. So hopefully I can get things narrowed down and ordered today. JamieCCLA: When we had success was with reading potty books too. Then we moved. I recently got her a doll too and she loves sitting the doll on the potty so it's helping. We're also trying the making them clean themselves up approach too. It all helps:) She's doing much better now that I've pretty much pushed it on her. Thanks:)

Thank you all so much:) Crimson Wife: Those are definitely going on the list. I'm in the process of making up a 'presentation' to give my husband on what I'm interested in. That way he feels included.There are just so many seemingly good options...;) What I'm leaning towards now is a sort of umbrella program that both munchkins can do with add on's for the stuff Elke is asking about. Also probably something on the computer for when I want to do individual stuff. I'm going to start with A since I'll get to use it again in a couple of years;) OhElizabeth: Her early intervention screening didn't show anything other than speech. I want both evals to be honest although I kind of doubt they'll do a LD one at her age. Honestly her biggest problem isn't the speech or any other issue, its the fact that she simply thinks she only has to do exactly what she pleases. It's our fault since we let her get away with a lot before she was talking since we were unsure how much she understood. Her teachers and therapists had the same issue. I'm still not sure exactly how much of it is her exaggerating to get her way vs. how much is genuine. Her therapy at home consisted of getting her ready for pre-school. What happened is she really took to that sort of thing so when I met her teacher and asked about the curriculum she knew almost all of it. I like the games Idea...I bought some games last time I went to target to add in. It's really odd though because she's a total chatterbox with her brother, with me, with my mom, my husband...but put her on the phone and she clams up. We've been working on pronouns with her lately. She would say things like "elke's tired" instead of "I'm tired". She's gotten a whole lot better with it too. My dad seems to think because she's been in therapy for a while now she should be 'fixed'. He also sees her for 1-3 days every six months or so and thus has no idea what she's doing now versus at Christmas when it was all excitement and 2 sets of grandparents. She may have some sensory stuff going on and she may be a bit ADHD. Although she has no problem focusing on what she's interested in. The specific thing he's upset about is that she just refuses to learn to be potty trained. I held off since we were moving to another state and now that we're settled I'm actually making progress but it's slow. I think for her it's more about getting her way than any lack of understanding. Anyway thank you again for all the ideas, I'm expecting a call tomorrow from what will be her new SLP so I'll see what she has to say. Also Right Start looks to be exactly what I was hoping to find. Jen

Thanks:) That's what's so weird to me that she's already picking up reading, because I can see how speech and reading are related. I just wanted to find something that would help give some structure to our days. I'm leaning towards doing the fun stuff that's school but not seat work and continue presenting the math/reading in very very small bites when she's interested. Thanks again:)

Hiya, This will be our first year homeschooling, which of course makes me nervous and excited. I have a 4 yr old daughter who was a preemie and has had a speech delay along with an almost 2.5 year old son who has shown no issues so far. My daughter has had speech therapy and now is speaking in sentences and most of it is intelligible. She is very shy however. Last year she went to public school preschool so she could continue to get speech therapy and essentially refused to do much of anything. She knew most of the curriculum already and possibly was bored. Her teacher said she had noticed that DD did best with one on one interaction which is something I have observed as well. My father is pushing me to have her evaluated again and I have decided that that's a good idea in case there is anything else going on. She has independently started asking for how things are spelled and attempting to write words. She also is picking up on some sight words. With math she can count to 100 and if it's presented as a counting issue she can do simple addition/subtraction. I'm just not really sure if I should continue to push her further along in the areas she is strong in or wait a bit and hope she evens out. She has made enormous strides but... She seems to really enjoy hands on learning so I thought about using Montessori type manipulatives as appropriate. I went to Montessori for pre-k through 3rd grade so I tend to explain things to them in that manner anyway. She will continue to receive speech and she is also going to take a dance class. Any thoughts or advice? She really has no interest in seat work so I'm sort of at a loss....Also it would be nice to find things I could include my DS in since they're joined at the hip. Jen Most of this was cross posted to another board... Sorry if you saw it twice.

Hiya, This will be our first year homeschooling, which of course makes me nervous and excited. I have a 4 yr old daughter who was a preemie and has had a speech delay along with an almost 2.5 year old son who has shown no issues so far. My daughter has had speech therapy and now is speaking in sentences and most of it is intelligible. She is very shy however. Last year she went to public school preschool so she could continue to get speech therapy and essentially refused to do much of anything. She knew most of the curriculum already and possibly was bored. Her teacher said she had noticed that DD did best with one on one interaction which is something I have observed as well. My father is pushing me to have her evaluated again and I have decided that that's a good idea in case there is anything else going on. She has independently started asking for how things are spelled and attempting to write words. She also is picking up on some sight words. With math she can count to 100 and if it's presented as a counting issue she can do simple addition/subtraction. I'm just not really sure if I should continue to push her further along in the areas she is strong in or wait a bit and hope she evens out. She has made enormous strides but... She seems to really enjoy hands on learning so I thought about using Montessori type manipulatives as appropriate. I went to Montessori for pre-k through 3rd grade so I tend to explain things to them in that manner anyway. She will continue to receive speech and she is also going to take a dance class. Any thoughts or advice? Jen