Thank you! Do you know what leather substitute you used?

I am also wondering about the text pointing.  I've done it for so long now and have thought so highly of it, I can't imagine not doing it!  Are they only talking about when there is one sentence per page?  With longer books, do they advocate pointing to the sentence (instead of word) you are reading?

Another thing I'm curious about - are you doing anything differently in your home regarding a physical program after having gone to the class? 

Thank you so much again!

I agree!  Thank you SO much for the update!!!  I just came back to reread everything!

This is my third time around looking into crawling tracks.  I never ended up buying/making tracks for my other children.  All the options seemed toxic and/or expensive.  Is there any new information or products out there?  Any good mats that aren't considered toxic? Thank you for any information!

Yay - Good to hear!

Yes - those are the studies that I keep reading and keep thinking about! Thank you for the encouragement !!

Basically....I hope someone can share that they had a child born at 39 weeks via csection and they are just as brilliant or more than their other child who was born later....please . I am really trying to push my date back and keep thinking about the long term impact of both being taken early and by csection! Any personal experiences?  (And no...can't have a  vbac...I've researched for years ...) Thank you!!

I've been eager to hear an update about your experience! I hope you had a great week and learned a lot!

Please share about your experience after you attend!! Have a wonderful time!!!!

Awesome story! I would love to hear more about your PE. Are your children on classes for all those sports you listed, or do you do them yourself? If they are in classes for each of those, is there anything you do additionally at home?  Also,  I'm curious how much your 8 yr. old writes. Did you go through a formal writing program and did you study spelling, grammar, etc?  Thank you so much for sharing your experience!!

The supply is already dropping. I still don't have any of the algebra books or the calculus book. Not from lack of looking...just a bit harder to get a reasonable price PLUS shipping to Australia. I will probably have to use newer ones if I don't get some soon.

Am I wrong that the editions recommended (in the earlier post - copied by Poker Dad) are easily available new?  Besides being more expensive, what am I missing here? For example - here's the third edition of Algebra 1 by John Saxon.  Obviously, I really must be missing something because there's lots of talk about the editions... http://www.rainbowresource.com/product/sku/000628/ebd11c79070f21c0909c1575

Also, I did buy the 7/6 hardcover 3rd edition book and now I'm regretting it because I can't find a solutions manual anywhere.  Was it called something different? I can't find any listings for one on Amazon (or anywhere else).  Does anybody have a link??   Thank you!

I picked up Nurture Assumption from the library after reading this thread and I've now read most of it.  It really got me thinking because I had pretty much dismissed the big socalization "fear" after reading so much on the topic when choosing to homeschool.  It seems to be the expected question from non-homeschoolers....and homeschool parents just laugh to themselves because they've heard it a million times, right?  Anyway, it really made me think about what type of group my sons will clasify themselves to in their elementry years...and will they be accepted or rejected??  Right now, many of their friends are not homeschoolers (they have many neighborhood friends and also friends from sports) and I'm wondering what will happen in a few years.  They could easily be the odd ones out, right?  Even in church, they could be the odd ones out as advanced homeschoolers.  Is this the time to seek out a homeschool co-op (I already emailed two over the weekend! Lol) or some sort of club so they can see kids very similar to them on a regular basis and identify with them??  I  really hadn't planned to join a co-op because, frankly, I just thought our time and money could be better spent doing other activities.  Am I wrong?  And is it better to connect with other homeschoolers in general or with other advanced kids who may be in school?  Where do all the smart EL kids hang out?  Lol.  It's unfortunate that our piano lessons are solo because I know my oldest son could really relate to some of the other kids taking lessons.  What else is out there? Ideas??

Of course, I love the idea of the family being the main influence...but I don't have five boys (yet...) and I'm wondering more about what "requirements" are needed to make that work.  After reading the book, it seems that just (suppose..big suppose) the neighborhood kids "rejected" them for whatever reason...the damage is done and their personalities would be different.  I would think they wouldn't even need to spend much time with them at all for that to happen, right??  If that's the case, I might not have any control over it? Is something like that still as meaningful if they have another group that they're connected with?  I don't like that this book has me back to thinking about peers - LOL! I thought I had that covered .  I'm looking forward to reading the other two books!

Thank you, Tamsyn and Skylark!  Thank you so much for reviewing the book! I really appreciate your notes! It does kind of make me nervous that both of you said that you haven't really used the the materials much after owning them!  That's one of my orginial reasons for wanting to reduce the purchase price - the fear of buying it all and not fully using it...eek!!  However, both of you praise it and are happy with your purchase.  I've spent the last two days searching on the web for examples of the different "steps"/exercises - I'm pretty pumped up to jump in and use them.  I really think my son would enjoy the exercises a lot.

Skylark - Would you might sharing an example of a type of Right Brain exercise that you realized you were already incorporating into your routine - that you didn't realize was Right Brain!  Just curious if you don't mind sharing !  

Tamsyn - I know my son would love to watch a dvd like that before bed too !

Thank you for your responses and suggestions!

 

There are many many early readers who take to speed reading automatically. Since they are never taught to say each word as they point to it like school kids are they have freedom to develop a faster and more stable, flowing eye for reading which in turn allows for faster reading. They also have more practice than your average kid at actually reading copious amounts of material! Now that is just my personal ideas based on the examples I see among Early readers. There is no science studies to back it up yet. There is never any science studies for EL though......

This makes a lot of sense to me.  Thank you very much for explaining this  and pointing me in the right direction!  And it was great seeing the Memory Magic software in action!   I'm excited  to finally dive more  into  some right brain activities!  I'll look for some more resources and look forward to hearing about the book , Skylark!

Thank you for your response!  My son is 5 1/2.  The guide book is "Wink Program Overview and Guide. 
http://store.rightbrainkids.com/component/page,shop.product_details/flypage,shop.flypage5/product_id,152/category_id,30/manufacturer_id,0/option,com_virtuemart/Itemid,26/

I'm not really familiar with all the wink exercises (such as silly stories) - so it would be nice to read some sort of detailed instruction.  I don't know if there's a good online source for this?  Or if the book is the best source? 

I

If you have an early reader you could definitely hold off on the speed reading section. They generally start to speed read almost automatically at some point.

I'm very curious about this.  My son is a pretty fast reader.  For example, he can read a Narnia book in an evening.  I haven't given this a ton of thought - I assumed that it's not the photographic reading (that Wink teaches) since I haven't done anything at all to teach him that method. I guess I just don't understand early readers and speed reading??  I would be very eager to hear your thoughts and suggestions!