Hello again: Just an FYI that if any of you are grade school teachers, Bonnie Plants had a wonderful vegetable contest in which school teachers could apply and Bonnie Plants would send out some free cabbage plants to the class. When my daughter was in 3rd grade, I got her teacher on board with this program and it worked well. The kids took the plants home in April and posted pictures of their results by the end of August. It would be nice if the school gave a prize to the child with the biggest cabbage! My wife is a 2nd grade teacher. I will repeat her story so any teachers out there will not repeat her mistake. Her class did a science segment on plants and then planted seeds using "a science plant kit" that the school had on hand. The kids were so excited but then dismayed when all was a failure. Nothing came up that they planted. Other teachers at the same school had the same result. I was asked to find the problem. It turned out that the "kits" were 8 years old as they had been saved in storage. The seed was no longer viable but the teachers did not realize that. I felt sorry for the students.

Britta - I think you need to include tea and cookies in a shape of the leaf/flower, yeah - you are right - make them draw plants on a big roll of paper - like a wallpaper, if you still have time - may be you can order some dvd/slides from AVSA through your club or directly - they have nice materials. May be you can talk about Africa - what animals share the habitat - mountain forests - some rare mountain gorillas? The disappearing habitat in a wild - because of the humans cutting forests and turning the land into the fields - so no Avs can survive in a sun... AVSA encourages people to keep AV species at home to save them and invests in preserving habitat in a wild. Tough... Irina

Good suggestion Pecan - but I tried it early on! And they can only exempt the most severely-disabled kids. For kids whose disabilities are more moderate, there's a 'TAKS-M' modified test. That test covers grade-level material but in a modified format. He just took the test last week and said it was 'easy' -- which unfortunately, could mean anything! However, if the reading TAKS-M is any indication, the test probably WAS easy. But we will see... What I was thinking is that since he's already taken the standardized test, how about we change gears RIGHT NOW to go back and cover 3rd grade in the remaining one month? I know it's not much -- but to my way of thinking, he can either learn multiplication and division now, skipping adding and subtracting fractions with mixed denominators (how's he supposed to learn that anyway without multiplication and division?) Or he can continue to 'skip' multiplication and division. Either way, there's a 'hole' in his education -- But which is the better topic to skip? Incidentally, I also asked them to teach him during summer school and got NOWHERE.

"I think I'd take the summer to observe, make notes and then review come the first of August as to what you saw, when you saw it and revisit the idea of whether it is ADD/ADHD and if meds would be helpful. It's a shame BM told SD what was going on with the eval, but on the other hand, if SD is faking it I think over time and with observation you'll be able to see if there is a consistant problem or one merely for the attention it gets her." Unfortunately, she will be spending the summer with her mother and since her mother is not on board, there is no way to observe her or get input. Besides, her mother lies & has her own agenda so anything she might tell us will probably not be very helpful for SD. What was decided is that they will try medication when she resumes the next school year. At my suggestion, it will be in combination with therapy to deal with the other issues. To be honest, my biggest concern at the moment is that DH is not fully aware of how much work might be involved and it will fall on me. Her mom doesn't care to get involved to help & she would take custody to get out of paying her child support, but then SD would be there doing what older sister is doing... anything she damn well pleases, wearing make up, & staying up all night. She already does that on weekends & during summer. This summer may be another eye opener for SD as well, now there is a baby there. Will BM send her off to stay with other people again? or will she want her there to help take care of the baby? and how will that make SD feel? Last summer, SD had grandiose ideas of all the great stuff mom was going to do with her during summer & she ended up staying with grandma in another town & seeing mom one or two days a week ~ grandma (who lived by us) would drive SD to BM's the day before we got her... thus making us drive an extra two hours to go get her. By the end of summer, SD was thinking she was going to start school over at BM's because grandma & her sister moved to the town where BM lives... then she was shocked & upset when we came to get her at the end of summer to get ready to start school here. That is the kind of mental anguish BM does to her... she doesn't seem to care how much her daughter is struggling or how miserable these things make her, she doesn't really want her daughter living there with her, but she does want the child support off her back. So, what happens this summer & how it impacts SD will probably affect how she feels at the end of summer. SD's counselor told us to keep telling SD the truth, but doing that makes BM angry... she even called the counselor & told him off. Actually, both of her counselors have had to suggest that, that we tell SD the truth about living here because BM continues to tell her lies about going to live over there. She also continues to lie about getting married to BF. SD just told DH that they are getting married next month. BM is still married to older sister's daddy, she can't marry BF... but all of the kids are supposedly all excited about it, including BF's kids. But that is one lie we don't tell SD the truth about... how do you tell a kid that her mom is still married to DD14's BD, but now living with & claiming to be getting married to BF? But, she fills those kids' heads with her fantasy & make believe they are the 'Brady Bunch'. So, I hope the medication helps. SD leaves in two weeks for summer. One of her teachers has raised SD's grades from D & F to a B- & C+. Unfortunately, we believe it is because DH has mentioned retaining SD in 5th grade because all her grades were D's & F's. (plus her handwriting looks like 2nd grade, she can't spell, and consistently, her teachers write "not grade level work" on her papers. We discussed retention because if SD isn't able to do 5th grade level work, how will she do 6th grade level with many teachers?) While I understand why the teachers & counselor oppose holding her back (I see that as a last resort also), it is a great disservice to SD if they are fluffing her grades to help her look better to us so DH won't hold her back. On the other hand, maybe SD will get some sort of pride out of seeing a report card with a B on it & maybe it will inspire her to work harder next year to get B's.. or at least better grades. All I know is that she has not improved from doing D level work to B level work in two weeks... and her other teacher has noted a few times how SD has given herself an A on papers that she got 5 out of 10 right.... which is 50%~ an F. At this point, all we can do is wait to see what happens when she goes to her mothers.. and when she comes back, see what her attitude about it is. Then when she starts school again, we will try the medication & she will go back to therapy. Thanks everyone for all the input. I am going to research it more. I know my nephew was ADD, but still don't know much about these disorders/conditions. I will also need to educate DH.