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daisyeyes

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    http://www.daisyeyes.com
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    momma of 2, wife of 1 and owner of daisyeyes handmade
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  1. Curious thoughts about MUS algebra for an 8th grader ... and also if walking into this MUS course as a first year MUS user would be challenging or not.
  2. We are bringing our rising 8th grader home from PS next year and I'm trying to figure out the best math program for him. He is in advanced math right now (essentially pre-algebra) and has placed into the algebra level for MUS. We use MUS with our current 4th grader and we've loved it - but I'm a little nervous about starting it fresh with my son. Does anyone have any experience with starting MUS at the algebra level... and/or using TT or Jacob's or Saxon? Which of these might provide the rigor that he needs for an advanced math student but also won't shake him up bc it's a new program and way of teaching?
  3. I just heard about Dreambox and I'm curious if you can give me some more info on it? Is it more of a supplement/games sort of thing or is there some instruction also?
  4. What is the Saxon 5/4 like? Is it scripted like the lower levels? It seems online to be more student led but I couldn't figure that out based on the samples.
  5. It's been a long time and I finally got back on here to reply to this thread... Last year (2nd grade) we started the process of having my dd tested. After lots of testing we found out that she has an auditory processing disorder. I don't doubt that there is some ADD that will show up at some point either - especially if we ever decided to jump back into PS. We kept her in PS through all of 2nd grade and decided to homeschool this year for 3rd grade. She is a totally different child than she was. All of the coping behaviors that we were seeing are completely gone. Her mood is so much more even - just typical 9 year old girl stuff. And we've decided to continue our course at home (well - almost 90% sure). I have a very sure suspension that putting her back in PS she will either fall through the cracks bc her IQ is high enough for her to compensate for misunderstood or missed info OR she the ADD that I know is there will become a real issue along with the APD. I'm a former SPED teaching so I'm honestly not worried about the whole IEP/labeled child etc process as much as I'm worried about her sinking back into the anxiety ridden behaviors. There is a very large part of me that desires to keep her home at least through 8th grade - so that we can work together to figure out ways to compensate, accommodate and handle the APD and then when she enters into high school she will have learned how to advocate for herself - knowing what works for her and what doesn't.
  6. We have been using TT3 this year with my 3rd grade daughter (this was our first year at home) and she's not super excited about it. I thought it would be a great fit bc it's on the computer and I loved it bc it was hands off for me. I will say that I'm not super impressed with the rigor of it and it hasn't gone as deeply into some subjects as I wish it would have (fractions for example) so we've been supplementing a little bit with just a workbook. I'm trying to decide what to do for 4th grade - do we continue with TT4 or change to something else? I've been looking into Beast Academy bc she loves graphic novels - but I'm not sure where to start with it bc it seems much more rigorous than what we've done this year with TT3. I'm curious how people feel about it and if it can be a stand alone or if I would need to find something else to use with it? I've thought about switching to Right Start, but I'm worried that the financial investment for starting it in 4th grade wouldn't be worth it. And honestly I'm not sure that I'm up for the intensity of that program.
  7. Thanks so much for all that. I am beyond encouraged with the idea of getting her tested. I think it will eliminate so many of our questions...even if we aren't sure of the answers.
  8. Thanks for all that. It's that niggling uncertainty that is such a bear. I do think that I feel very encouraged about pursuing testing. Just her being in counseling alone isn't going to give us definitive answers about many things going on. Thanks for the heads up on the podcast. I'll have to look that one up.
  9. My struggle with getting evals that I do not want to go through the school. Honeslty my background is in special education. Which seems silly of me to even wonder and question what's going on with her, but to be fair to myself I don't have experience with LD or ASP or even gifteness. I was a deaf education/multi handicapped teacher with emphasis with medically fragile children and profoundly handicapped children. A totally different ballgame than this one. But it's frustrating (and embarrassing) even to say I have this background and not even know what to do with my own daughter! But I do know the process. All that to say, the new RTI process with special ed is a ridiculous nightmare. And as much as I know the sped teachers at our school, I just don't want her going through that. I would rather go about it privately (which is in and of itself a crazy process) and go from there. It's that thing about not wanting anymore labels on her at this point or even the possibilities of labels. I do have the flexibility to bring her home. It changes my schedule and reduces what I can do at home, but it doesn't prevent me from anything except the complete control of it. Which comes down to selfishness. I appreciate the candor from all the replies. It makes me feel better about the need to get her officially evaluated.
  10. I love your honesty! That's why I opened up here anyhow. We just needed some sort of outside opinion/responses versus just bouncing off our own heads. I will be the first to admit that there is (and always has been) a huge desire to homeschool both my kiddos and we've kept them in PS because of the system we are in, because we live in the community (we walk to school, I have the freedom to show up at school and visit whenever I want, we have relationships with many of the teachers etc) and honestly because our son has up till this year had a pretty phenomenal experience. But he's a totally different kid than his sister. I appreciate the comment about different teachers being able to handle her potential ASP and others not. I think I'm really beginning to realize that last year was an anomoly as far as our relationship with the teacher, amount of communication and support she gave to us and this year and kinder is prob more typical. But that said, I'm crazy selfish and I know that bringing her home is a crazy life change for me. I work at home so it's really just a loss of my freedom to order my days and me having to become much more structured so I can get my work done. Isn't that horrible to say!!!?? But it's the honest truth. There is a huge element where I think that we are waiting for the problem to go away or for us to realize that she really doesn't have a problem. But I'm beginning to realize that that's not true. thanks again for your honesty and frankness and for the links.
  11. **this is somewhat of a repost from the general education forum... My DD is a 2nd grade in our local public school. Her whole 3 years has been a series of ups and downs. Primarily due to the fact that she is fairly advanced in most subjects and is a very fast learner. Kindergarten was a bust due to teacher issues and just her advancement. She was seriously stifled reading and math wise as she really was forced to go along with the group. She was reading at nearly a second grade level and the teacher kept sending home 5-10 word per page books. She ended the year with serious stomach related issues that eventually led to an IBS diagnosis. First grade was better due to a much better teacher, but she developed many coping skills to get her through the day (hair pulling, hair chewing etc). As far as we can tell, her coping skills dealt mainly with having to remain within the boundaries with her behavior etc when she was either done with the assigned work (very quickly) or having to pay attention during group instruction that was way below her level. Second grade has been much better as far as coping skills and she has a much more structured teacher. But, the teacher lacks greatly in communication with us and after our first conference we realized that our DD spends a lot of down time due to finishing her work quickly. She has struggled this whole time with large group instruction and the teacher has declared her to us as "that kid" that is hard to handle. She struggles with being a distraction to other students bc of her boredom. Our school system is very small and we have a good relationship with the administration and many of the staff from the elementary on up. It does try very hard to provide enrichment options for advanced children and has done so with our girl. She has an enrichment group that she attends (and loves dearly) for about 50 minutes during the day. Our concern is what is happening in the classroom and how much she is really learning. Based on the yearly testing that they do, she is regressing some and while I think a lot of that is due to the fact that she is not a good test taker. There is beginning to be a discrepancy between the assessment and what she is producing in class. Her teacher is willing to provide extra project based opportunities for her to work on that she can do after she completes her work in the classroom and she has also set up her as a peer tutor for a peer at her work table. I'm 50/50 whether I feel good about these "independent" opportunities for her. Her teacher last year brought up the "gifted" term and we are currently in counseling for her coping issues and her counselor is trying to rule out aspergers. She ticks about half of the boxes for aspergers in girls. I've recently been introduced to the term 2e and I'm beginning to think this is where she slants. All that to say I feel like I'm losing my mind with information and choices. I struggle with thinking that I'm overthinking or looking for things that aren't there. But my mother's intuition and gut for the longest time is that something is "off" about her. (off in the sense that she's not your average little chick). She is insanely persistent, can be explosive (verbally) at home and I think she holds that in at school for the most part. She has no concept of time or money (like none) and tends to give up and "explode" when she is frustrated with a task (for example...last night we were playing Othello and it is a game that she hasn't been able to find a way to cheat - which is something she tends to do with everything - when she realized that she wasn't going to win and couldn't find a way to make it happen she began to escalate. She was huffing and puffing, yelling, kicking and just getting really frustrated. She just wanted me to tell her the answer so we could just go ahead and be done. I was able to talk her down -and enticed her with a "reward" at the end for sticking with it and she was able to accept the loss. This is a very typical reponse to many things). We just aren't sure where to go. Is it worth it for us to get her tested? Do we keep her in PS (which she does love) even though we have a tenuous relationship with her current teacher and know that she is having significant downtime or do we pull her out mid-year, deschool for a while and then homeschool for 3rd grade? We have homeschooled our oldest in the past and I am a former teacher so the idea of keeping her home isn't out of our comfort zone...we just aren't sure the best step to take.
  12. Would love to know more about your youngest! Sounds similar to what we are dealing with. But that said, we have a HUGE homeschooling community in our small town and even more to choose from in the "big city" that is 15 min away. She would not be lacking in opportunities (just our financial capabilities to provide all those!) from our local zoo, museums, to a pick of co-ops and other groups to join. Not to mention a fair amount of homeschoolers in our church too. We would totally do some major de-toxing. Honestly probably do a very project based, unit study based spring.
  13. "that kid" actually came from her teacher. We know that she isn't the most supportive of our parenting and I get the feeling she feels very much that we are too intense which is why I feel like she withholds communication from us. I totally agree with you re: your last paragraph. That's one of the concerns that we have although 3rd grade in our district is going to be totally different as they open a new high school and go to a 4 school system. In 3rd grade she will not only move up to a new grade and new teacher, but a totally different building and classroom set up (currently they are in pods with 5 classes in one big room) and the intermediate school will be typical classrooms. Ahhh!!! All of this makes me crazy.
  14. She is in counseling due to the hair pulling that started last year. She isn't doing that anymore (thankfully) but she started chewing on her hair again (basically replacing one coping mechanism with another). We've kept her in counseling through the summer and into the start of the school year and she is in some ways trying to rule out aspbergers (which is girls presents itself completely differently). I totally agree that she has had more stress in school than a 6-7 year old ever needs, but to be fair she's also had some experiences and relationships that we couldn't have provided at home. And you are right, we do have a choice...but gosh it's so hard to figure out the best one!
  15. My DD is a 2nd grade in our local public school. Her whole 3 years has been a series of ups and downs. Primarily due to the fact that she is fairly advanced in most subjects and is a very fast learner. Kindergarten was a bust due to teacher issues and just her advancement. She ended the year with serious stomach related issues that eventually led to an IBS diagnosis. First grade was better due to a much better teacher, but she developed many coping skills to get her through the day (hair pulling, hair chewing etc). Second grade has been much better as far as coping skills (although we've been in counseling for 6 months) and she has a much more structured teacher. But, the teacher lacks greatly in communication with us and after our first conference we realized that our DD spends a lot of down time due to finishing her work quickly. She has struggled this whole time with large group instruction and honestly has become "that kid" that is hard to handle. She can be a distraction to other students bc of her boredom. All that negative to say that our school system is very small and we have a good relationship with the administration and many of the staff from the elementary on up. It does try very hard to provide enrichment options for advanced children and has done so with our girl. Her teacher is willing to provide extra project based opportunities for her to work on that she can do after she completes her work and she has also set up her as a peer tutor for a peer at her work table. I'm 50/50 whether I feel good about these "independent" opportunities for her. My husband and I are on the fence as to what to do with her. We don't want her to become "that kid", but she does love school and we are seeing very few of the emotional outbursts that we had previous years at home. We are pondering pulling her out in January to finish her 2nd grade year at home and then evaluate what to do in 3rd grade. We want to pull her out due to frustrations with the teacher, but also because of the amount of downtime she has at school and her struggle with what to do during that time (aka...not bothering others). I would love to know about anyone else's decision to pull out of PS and any advice.
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