7 Quick Takes Friday

Well, it has been forever since I did a quick takes-but since I should be doing any number of last minute things before leaving town, quick takes seems like something I should be able to accomplish.

1-
As soon as hubby is done with work this morning (hopefully in the next 30 minutes or so) we are off to the Rocky Mountain Catholic Home Educators Conference for our 36 hour retreat (gotta love farm life!) I'm looking forward to buying some more school books and hearing some talks - not to mention getting away from home and staying in a nice hotel.

2-
The girls are staying with their aunt for two nights (we will be getting back pretty late) and they are super excited about it...although they are a little worried about the whole "Aunt doesn't have TV service" thing.

3-
In the "I don't actually take care of my kids anymore" department, the beginning of this week the girls stayed with my parents in the mountains. I had MIL take them up to the front range and meet my parents, who had them for 3 days. They went to a day camp and had an awesome time (they are still singing all their camp songs!) and they pretty much exhausted my mom, I think, who seemed to think that they needed 20 different activities during their short visit.

4-
Eva had her first trail ride at day camp, and she was the only kid that had ever been on a horse before. When the counselors asked her if she had been on a horse before she said "Of course! I live on a farm!" They also had to go back and get her a medium sized helmet, since they assumed a group of going into 2nd graders would all need size small.

5-
Next week we have Totus Tuus, which the girls are very much looking forward to. MIL is DRE, so she is in charge of organizing everything (not her strong suit) and the local priest announced a few weeks ago that he was going on a long vacation, including the week of Totus Tuus, so MIL has called around to all the priests in the area, and we have some coming every day for Mass. The furthest are traveling 2 hours for daily Mass, which I think is really cool.

6-
My house is a pit - so bad right now. I really prefer to leave a clean house when we travel, but it is not happening right now. I have done a lot of cleaning (I did 7 loads of sheets yesterday, I just finally got around to washing the sheets in our basement from about a month ago.

7-
Hubby thought it would be fun to try to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 tonight at a city megaplex theatre. I looked it up the other day, and one theatre still had tickets available, but to buy them online, it would have been $11.50 EACH - I couldn't believe it! No wonder so many people don't go to the movies. I think our local theatre is $6 for adults, so for about the same price we can see it at home (I'm thinking maybe on our 12th anniversary on Tuesday!)

More Quick Takes at Conversion Diary!

Homeschool Speech Therapy

Charlotte, my 4 year old (isn't she cute?) has some speech articulation issues. Actually, I think it might qualify as a lot of speech articulation issues - I had her evaluated by the local school's speech therapist and she had 42 errors out of a possible 77. I guess it clearly could be worse, but I feel like I've got my work cut out for me over the next few years. For next year, she will be attending 2 -2 1/2 hour days per week at the local preschool, and we will be moving on to Kindergarten work at home (I did Eva's kindergarten over 2 years, and I am planning on the same for Charlotte.)

Obviously, the goal is to make as much progress as possible over the next year, as she will not continue to qualify for speech therapy services unless I enroll her in the school district (I am looking into alternatives like virtual charter schools, just in case I still need a lot of help!) So, I am looking for any advice or resources from anyone who has been there and done that with a child in speech therapy. Here are some things that I am aware of - I would love opinions or reviews of these, or any other programs/books/curricula/games you know of that might help with speech articulation issues.

Speech Tails - online speech learning program at a cost of $25 per month. Looks like it is mostly speech therapy videos, there is a week free, so it might be something I try, but at $25 a month, it could get pretty expensive to use!

Heads Up Now! - Has materials for all sorts of special needs. The speech articulation workshop was recommended to me at one point, but the shipping cost for just that is super high (workshop is $5, shipping is $12.58...seriously???) They also carry Speechercise level 1 and level 2, which are both significantly cheaper at Amazon. I'm never very sure about the whole CD with printables thing, so I wouldn't buy those without a firm recommendation.

Super Star Speech - These look the most promising to me, books to give me ideas of how to train speech that don't cost an arm and a leg, and don't have a monthly cost.

Speech Buddies - These look pretty cool, as most speech problems are related to incorrect tongue placement. I like the idea of something to help feel where the right placement is, but at about $300 for the professional set (includes all the speech buddies, and with Charlotte's speech issues, we would need all of them, plus would need to work on other sounds as well) it is quite a bit more money than I would like to spend. It is cheaper than a private speech therapist, though (and since we don't have any of those in our rural area, more convenient, too.)

Thoughts? Recommendations? Thanks!