I'm interested in hearing about different models for homeschool co-ops, as there is talk locally of starting something up. Does everyone have to teach? Are teachers paid? How frequently do you meet?

I'm sorry; I'm in Australia!

Welcome home! We bought our sensory tools at a little special needs toy shop down down the coast. Made an excursion of it and tried a heap of stuff out in store. DS had a great time.

Mythic Warriors videos on YouTube.

I actually splurged on a weighted blanket for bed, a weighted lap pad for seated activities, and a lycra body sock for extra proprioceptive input during movement breaks.

We did this week's lesson over three days, as we'll be travelling for the rest of the week. DS typed his assignments himself. Narration An ass was being driven along a road leading down the mountainside, and the animal suddenly took it in his silly head to choose his own path. He could see his barn. To him the fastest way to get there was to use the cliff. He went to it and the driver pulled and said "Stop you're gonna fall down and break your neck!" But the ass kept trying to get to the cliff. "You ass you're as good as dead see how long you last." said the driver and let go. The ass went bumping down to the cliff. moral Listen to good advice when thinking of taking the road to death Amplification A stupid ass wanted to take the shortest path home to the farm by going over a very steep mountain cliff. He pulled on his reins. His master felt annoyed and baffled. He tried to stop the despicable ass and grabbed his tail, but at last was forced to let go. The stubborn beast fell down the steep cliff to his death. Moral: Listen carefully to important advice and don't take the path to destruction.

Same here. We also use I Speak Latin.

My 8yo is halfway through third grade. Here's our daily schedule: Morning block ~1h Morning Time Fiddle History or science Language arts block ~1h Read in English Latin lesson Greek phonics and copywork Grammar or progym in English Evening block ~1.5h Mathematics Spelling and dictation in English and Latin

From last week. I typed the narration:A Fox one day spied a beautiful bunch of ripe grapes hanging from a vine twisting around the branches of a tree. He thought, "Yum. Those grapes look good." He tried to jump at them. He failed on his first attempt. He thought, "I must get those grapes. They are the sweetest and juiciest in all of Greece." So he walked a little way away from the grapes then took a running leap towards the grapes. He fell too short. Then he thought, "Fool. Why am I wasting my time on these grapes? They're probably sour anyway." And then he walked off. He typed his rewrite independently, then I sat with him while he checked for capital letters and punctuation at the ends of sentences. Once a meerkat saw a yummy scorpion but it was too far down the hole and it thought, "If only I could get that scorpion. It must be the yummiest scorpion in all of Africa." But the meerkat was too tired to dig it up. She tried grabbing it but she missed. "You know what? I can't get the scorpion. Well I guess its bad anyway," thought the meerkat. And walked off.

That's great, stephensgirls! I wish you all the best with it. DS' riding didn't work out, unfortunately. He developed really bad agoraphobia and couldn't attend, or couldn't participate even when he did manage to get there.

Too much: performance anxiety. Not enough: anxiety which manifests as boredom. Just right: he works hard during lessons, looks forward to his free time, and then enjoys it.

Link to previous year's thread: We are currently spending every second week on lessons from the fable book. We're just finishing up lesson three this week. Here's DS' work, which he typed himself. Narration: The weather was burning hot and the birds could find nothing to drink. Even the creek beds carried only sand. A crow found a pitcher with a little bit of water but she could not reach it because the pitcher was too narrow for her to get the water. "Surely I will die, as I cannot reach this water," said the crow. But then she had an idea and went to collect some pebbles. She plunked the pebbles into the pitcher and the water rose until it was at a point where she could drink it. Rewrite - amplification Once there was a black crow that lived where a bad drought was happening. It was so bad that the only water she found was a little bit in a clay pitcher. But the clay neck was a little too narrow for the crow. "I must die of thirst, I am too weak to survive this drought" thought the crow. And then she had an idea. She saw some rocks and thought "I guess I could use the rocks to make the water level go up". And she did it.. ... and it worked! the water tasted like a good meal in the crow's belly. Rewrite - summary Once there was a hare and a partridge. One day some hunting dogs came in the meadow and then the hare got eaten by the dogs. Later the partridge came out of hiding and teased the dead hare. But then a hawk took the partridge to its nest and ate it.

DS was partway through level 3 of the paper books, but I've put him back at the start of 3A, as he could use the confidence boost of a successful start. He's working on the first two chapters concurrently. We're still in the process of building up to a full schedule after a forced mental health break, but I plan to do 30min math on paper plus 30min math online every day.

I haven't read the whole thread, but I recognised some of my DS in your description of your son, so I'm chiming in on one point in particular. My DS used to be exactly the same with being able to read, but not choosing to. Decoding was not a problem. The first thing we did was VT. That paired with a new kindle helped his stamina, but he still wasn't choosing to lose himself in a book. Audiobooks, as with your son, have been a highly preferred activity for years. The next thing I did was schedule writing immediately after reading, and suddenly he learnt to read for prolonged periods in order to procrastinate (lol!). Finally, he became a reader after listening to 11 books in a series. One day he wanted the 12th book but I didn't have a spare audible credit, so I bought him the ebook. And that was it. Now he reads. Just sharing in case any part of this process pops out at you as something to try. ? I don't know anything about language testing or data points, but I saw some similarities in our boys and thought I'd share.

We use Sitting Still Like a Frog for mindfulness every day. Do you know it, M? The audio exercises are available for free here: www.shambhala.com/sittingstilllikeafrog/

Hi M. The anxiety preceeded melatonin use by years. It got much harder for him just a few months ago though, and he developed agoraphobia very quickly. The antidepressant is helping. I'm glad I didn't wait for years before trying it, only to realise that he'd been suffering in the absence of chemical support which really helps. It was a hard call, but I'm comfortable with my decision.

Yes exactly. It was a little slow and cumbersome at first, but now he has his most used words and phrases on buttons, and knows how to get to them quickly. He uses an app called "Speech Assistant" on an android device, in case anyone was thinking of trying it. I wish we'd started sooner - it's such a great tool for keeping lines of communication open. We did some AAC role play before DS had a visit with his other parent a few weeks ago, trying out possible stressful situations. I told DS, "Eat this slimy piece of fish." He replied with his device, "Why would I do that? You must be mad."

Wishing your DD all the best with her filter, PeterPan. ☺️

Oh and we started using an AAC app, which has been really handy in high-stress situations. Where verbally I'd only get monosyllables or no words at all, with AAC I get whole sentences, and sometimes even sass or jokes.

We're in Australia, so funding will be coming from NDIS. The updated diagnosis was provided by a psychiatrist, but I'd like to revisit evaluations once we're on top of DS' anxiety, so someone can actually run some meaningful assessments. He's actually had a language explosion since the anxiety meds started working. He's become very conversational, whereas before he was using spoken language mostly to make requests (some more reasonable than others).

We've been upgraded to ASD-2, which opens up a lot of funding opportunities, especially for ongoing psychological support.

It's used by many universities for mature age entry, but I just read the other day that my uni also uses it for early entry, and I bet others do too.

Chooky, you might also look into the Special Tertiary Admissions Test (STAT). It's an Australian university entrance exam.

My child prefers to read books he's already enjoyed as audiobooks or readalouds. That's been the key to helping him enjoy his independent reading time.

We alternate writing weeks with grammar weeks, using CAP's W&R: Fable on our writing weeks, and MCT Town on our grammar weeks. Latin is a short lesson daily. Mostly GSWL, with a bit of I Speak Latin to keep things interesting.