For my older two dc I've used WWE and WWS but with my 8yo ds I'm not sure this is the best match. He really enjoys creative writing and will write long twisted stories on his own initiative. He also tries to write songs. I feel really unprepared for teaching creative writing. I'm mathy and one of the reasons that I have appreciated WWS is that it's so linear and logical. This boy loves writing BUT his mechanics are poor. He basically doesn't use punctuation. His spelling is terrible. He mixes capitals and lowercase letters all the time. I'm working on the spelling with Spell to Read and Write and I've been doing some dictation sentences with his spelling words and insist on proper form. I feel prepared for tackling the mechanics so I guess what I'm wondering is how to encourage the self-expression and creativity with such a young one. It seems to me that years of narration/dictation will suck the life out of him. I do own The Creative Writer but it seems like it would be a little old for him unless I did every lesson completely with him. Thoughts?

Well, with my dd I've tried to be reasonably open with her about what normal sexuality is like. Of course the conversations are a bit awkward but my hope is that some day she'll feel comfortable enough to ask me questions when she has them. Just little comments here and there have opened her up to asking me some question already. Sharing news stories is also really educational.

I seriously thought your thread was going to be about condoms. 😆

Occassionally. I find it really hard to figure out where the boundaries are in these types of conversations. It's one thing to admit that hubby wants more or less tea then I want to prepare it's another thing altogether to discuss ways to brew the most satisfying cup or alternative but satisfying beverages. I just don't know where the lines are with any given friend so they make me uncomfortable to get into.

I've got one lefty. If your dc is a left definitely gently try to coach using right-handed scissors. It's just so much easier in life to not have to hunt for specialty scissors. It really is a right handers world out there.

Have you considered printing the geometry units from MEP's middle school books? At least they would be free to look at. Here's a link to their y8 course: https://www.cimt.org.uk/projects/mepres/book8/book8.htm You just need the practice books. All the rest is optional.

I was reading a Bible story the other day and I asked my little ones if anyone could tell me something about Noah. One of my boys said, "He's the man that built a boat and then said that even God could never sink it!" I guess we got our big boat stories a tad mixed up. 😁

It's life. My 16yo dd and my 15yo ds were very close friends as little children but they definitely parted ways in their preteen years. They've been coming together recently. Those preteen years are rough. I remember them bickering almost constantly at that stage. They would bicker over the stupiedest stuff and neither of them would even think about doing something for the other just to be kind or to keep peace. It hard as a mother because they're starting to seem like they should be mature but they're just not. They do grow up though. Just hold in there.

Thank you both for these suggestions. I'm really at the beginning of forming a plan. I guess you could say that I'm at the gathering information stage. I'm not good at the lots of modalities thing. My time is so short these days. A plan would help though. A few years ago I invented one mini-intervention that I wonder if I could rework a little. When he was nearly non-verbal at 2.5 I to took pictures of everything that I could think of in his daily life on my phone. I then would sit down with him daily and used the pictures as flash cards. I'd ask "what's that" and he'd attempt an answer. He loved that game. I wonder if I could do something similar but instead of asking what the item is I could ask him all sort of questions about the picture. For example, if I took a picture of the stairs I could ask him, "what's at the top of the stairs", "what are the stairs made of", "who made the stairs", "what is under the stairs", "do remember when you fell down the stairs", "are our stairs different than Gramma's stairs", etc. A few silly questions would probably keep him nicely engaged. I'm thinking out load here. I'm planning on call about an SLP tomorrow.

This is really helpful. I really have noticed lately that I haven't been giving him enough time to talk. It takes him a little bit of effort to come up with what he wants to say and usually someone else is interrupting him before he even finishes. I've been trying to correct that but it take a bit of effort to quite the other littles and the insure that they aren't answering questions for him. I've noticed with my older two NT children that when I introduced tests (at about jr high level) to their education I realized that my dd wasn't grasping things as well as I thought that she was. I now see that some sort of assessment is necessary, even if it's just verbal feedback, to really see if a child is grasping what you're teaching. It's really easy to assume that someone is understanding when they don't readily ask question that reveal their lack of comprehension. This is good. I can really see that without working on language knowledge acquisition will be stunted. Can you please explain what VB-MAP is? I googled it but maybe a layman's definition would be more helpful. I'm a little lost in this thread with all the acronyms but I am appreciating the feedback nonetheless. Thanks everyone. 🙂

I understand what you're saying but I think that there is another side to the story as well. When I was living in Mexico among the natives there in the mountains I nearly witness what I was describing. There was a lady there that had a baby with severe cerbral palsy. The poor little one was probably only 7 pounds at 6 months old. She could nurse well even though the mother tried. The grandmother would nurse her as well. They were not lazy about this. As far as I know they didn't have regular access to formula. Whether or not formula would have helped is debatable but it certainly would have been nice to have be able to try it. There are situations in life where no amount of bf'ing or wet nursing is going to solve a babies problem but formula might. There are also situations where wet nursing is simply not available. Babies lives have been saved and improved by formula. Many, many orphans would certainly have died without it. Yes, many have been disadvantaged by it well but I for one am glad that it exists. Really the demon isn't formula it's the evil marketing that the formula companies do.

I have had my share of bf'ing issues. I've also felt the pressure to nurse that others have mentioned here. I also should have supplemented one of my babies much earlier and more aggressively then I did. I think that sometimes the pro-bf'ing side inadvertently promotes the idea that every bf'ing issue can be solved with enough resolve. This is grievous to me. If we step back and look at the developing world in areas where mothers can't get formula it's plain to see that bf'ing issues can not always be solved with resolve. You can't tell me that all the mothers that have their babies die in their arms from a failure to thrive didn't have enough resolve. I'm sure they desperately tried to feed those little ones.

I just thought of another thing, certain religious groups that homeschool, like independent anabaptists, congregate in certain areas of the US as well. This undoubtedly ups the homeschooling numbers in those states. I know whole congregations where all the families homeschool and they are almost all LARGE families. One church that I know well in SW Missouri has at least 50 homeschooling children.

I think that there are a few factors involved. Firstly, there's a critical mass thing that gets the ball rolling. If a person has friends that already homeschool then they're much more likely to brave it out. Secondly, I think that areas that collect independent, anti-government sorts are more likely to have more homeschoolers. The areas of the US that are more regulated in any way, less so because the "give me liberty" types will avoid those areas. Thirdly, jurisdictions with more hoops to jump through to legally homeschool are obviously going to have fewer homeschoolers, either because people are discouraged from homeschooling or because homeschooling families will avoid moving to those areas.

I think that the title says it all. I just want to consider the way in which my 5yo's language delays might be affecting him that I could be missing.

I've got a little fellow that is clearly struggling with language. I had a thread up here recently that detailed his issues more thoroughly but I thought that I would just make a new thread to collect some preschoolish ideas for language enrichment. My little one clearly has a limited vocabulary and struggles with understanding us in anything but the simplest language. He also struggles with annunciation and forming his own thoughts into spoken language. I'd say his language is probably at about a 36 months level, maybe lower. His 39 month old sister is definitely past him by a good measure but I suspect that she's a tad precocious. What I'm thinking of is reading more simple picture books. Also, I was thinking of collecting all the simple nursery rhymes that don't have archaic or obscure language (like tuffet or curds and whey) and then trying go through a few daily without pressure to memorize. We sing as a family daily a mix of traditional hymns and Christian children's songs. What else do you think that I could add?

Thanks for the resources. I see a lot of the issues as language issues. I would like to have his cognitive functions evaluated mostly because I don't want to assume that he's cognitively impaired if it's really just language issues. The chicken and ducks problem shows this pretty clearly to me. He would struggle to identify his clothes from his brothers' if he couldn't tell if items were different from one another. He clearly intuitively understands same from different but he doesn't have the language to answer my question. His language is blossoming lately and his screeching is fading but there are certainly still issues.

He's been with us since birth. I agree with you about the diagnosis. I would like to do but to this point it really would have been quite a challenge because of social anxiety issue that seems to have grown out of to some extent.

In response to your first question, no it isn't mandatory to register him until he's six. Even then, because BC is so relaxed I really don't have any expectations on me. I can take him at his pace all the way through. I'm not likely to take advantage of service mainly because we're looking at spending large chunks of time overseas starting within the next few months. We also live very remotely so even if we are here the services are limited. We probably will see a speech therapist shortly for some advise on the enunciation issues.

If I were in your situation I would probably take a couple of weeks break and focus on geometry or something else. It always amazes me how letting a concept simmer can bring out the end result with less effort. Another approach that I like to take is to give a easy word problem like, "if you had 200 dollars and dropped two one dollar bills on the path to the store how many would you have left." Sometimes their young mind just need you to step back into the concrete realm. I've also found an abacus to be an invaluable aid in teaching place value. I let them answer any problem that they want with the abacus. They seems to absorb the concept of place value on their own just by seeing it over and over again. I'm currently using MEP1 and I've used MEP all the way through with my oldest two. I must say that some of the y1 problems are very hard. They jump into so much symbolic language so quickly. MEP1 is my least favourite MEP year just because I don't think that they are gradual enough in introducing symbols or problem types. I think that it's worth remembering with MEP that the workbook is mostly done in class as walked through assignments. When an exercise is difficult for one of my little ones I just go back to the teacher book and follow the walk through instructions. I don't stress any more about them finding everything easy. I know that they'll come upon it again later.

I have a newly five year old ds that will be kindergarten age in September. I don't have a specific diagnosis but he definitely needs an evaluation. We haven't up to this point because of travelling and because until recently his social phobia would have made an evaluation quite difficult and stressful. My guess is that he's on the autism spectrum. He's adopted from my sister. One of his biological siblings in already diagnosed. He may also have some degree of FAS. He definitely has some issues with language. His enunciation is very poor and his vocabulary is quite limited. His non-verbal communication is unusual. I have had his hearing tested and that came out clear. His self-regulation is limited. He's easily stressed. Sequencing seems to be an issue as well. Until about six months ago he would still try to put his underwear on before his pants. He still can't figure out how to turn his shirt right side out. I know enough about autism to be fairly confident that he would test positive, unless there is something more specific that I'm not aware of. Now to my questions... I'm really wondering how to make a school day for him. I live in an area that has quite liberal homeschool laws (BC) so that is going to tie me down but I still would like to go forward. I bought him the R&S preschool pack (I adore these books) but he can't handle the first book. Today we had a picture of three chickens and a duck but he couldn't tell me which one was different. He could tell me what they were but he couldn't understand when I tried to ask him which one was different. He likes the school books and the idea of doing school but I don't want to spoil that. He can't count five items and he can't recite the numbers to ten or say the alphabet. This so different then what I'm used to or comfortable with. I read out loud but I don't think that he's following most of what I'm reading. How do you start educating a child like this? I have brother with severe, low functioning autism, who is much more disabled than my boy, that was taught to read and do basic arithmetic in public school. How did they do it? I feel a little over my head but I'm committed to learning.

I thought of another job. Working in a plant nursery is also good work. You spend all day doing things like weeding bedding plants or sticking labels into them.

Chambermaid. I did this as a young adult in a high end B&B. You rarely have to talk to anybody. It's also good for summer work because they need extra help that time of year.

FWIW, I'm pretty sure all plants in the mint family are edible. Add it to a salad and you can make your money back by considering it a vegetable.

How about the old classics like a pinata (please forgive the missing accent--it makes me sick to look at) or pin the tail on the donkey or musical chairs?