You don't need to follow the schedule exactly as written, but we did. I thought SL did a nice job of scheduling the books so that the challenge level varied. A more difficult book seemed to always be followed by an easy book, etc.

:bigear: My 9.5 yo dd has asked for the exact same thing! I'm looking forward to seeing the responses.

We are doing Saxon 3 this year and it takes us 1 1/2 hrs a day to get it all done too. Thanks to all the posters who said 5/4 is less intensive - I was wondering that very thing this morning. Here is how we schedule our math day to make it easier. DD1 does the meeting strip the night before as part of her independent work. First thing in the morning we review her meeting strip and then go through the skip counting and other teacher-led activities. Then we do the lesson. After the lesson we do the flashcard review and she is on her own for the fact sheet. The worksheet is added to her pile of independent work and is generally done much later in the day. I check her work at the end of the day. Any problems she misses she needs to do on the back side of the sheet. Moving the meeting strip to her independent work has really streamlined our math lessons. We still get the benefits of the meeting without me needing to sit through her coming up with those sentences for the number of the day! Hope that helps.

I think you can just keep moving forward with the curriculum and maybe add in more fact practice. Instead of just doing the review that Saxon instructs with each lesson do one or two other sets of flashcards as well. We have used Saxon 2 and are currently 3/4 through Saxon 3 and there is a ton of review. She'll get there!

Another Nancy Larson fan here! We are doing Science 2 this year and loving it. We just finished lesson #57. My kids have been relating the science they learn to thing we are doing around the house. It is quite neat to see and hear. We are looking forward to the next level.

:iagree: We are using level 2 with a 9yo and 6yo. The level is right on for the 9yo and the 6 yo is keeping up with modifications (I do all the writing, we do the lesson worksheets together & she does no assessments). I am a science person and this is the type of program I have been looking for. We'll contine with it next year, most likely splitting into two different levels (level 3 for the 9yo and 1 for the 6yo) I have heard that their customer service is excellent. Give them a call and ask for their opinion on your situation. Alexandra

We brought our daughter home after her K year as well. She was reading well but I had concerns about stopping phonics too soon and causing problems later on, so for her first grade year we did OPGTR. We started at blends, knowing that it would be very easy for her, and flew through the book. Some days we did one lesson and some days we did two or three. We easily finished before the year was done. We did WWE 1 and FLL 1 at the same time. We then moved on to AAS 1 & 2 in her second grade year. She was reading well so it was easy to get the first two levels done in one year. I hope our experience is helpful! Alexandra

My DD is also having issues with b / d. I think this explanation will be perfect for her! Thank you!

Looks good to me. My DD just finished second with a very similar set of courses. You are right in thinking you'll probably get through AAS level 1 easily. We finished level 1 and level 2 in second grade very comfortably. You guys look set up to have a great year!

LOL! I wish I had a photo handy, but I don't. I can link you what we use. They are from Ikea. Here is the magazine file: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30159507 This is the bookcase we keep our school stuff in: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/40047675 Three of the magazine files will fit easily within each "cubby" section of the bookcase. They are the perfect size for workbooks and keep everything tidy and not flopping over.

We use magazine files for all workbooks, readers and small notebooks. Each child has their own file, so when school starts for the day they just grab their file and head for the table. It minimizes the amount of stuff that gets "lost" between the end of one school day and beginning of the other!. I keep all of my things in files as well so all of the guides I need for a school day are in one place.

I just got an order of 20+ books from BetterWorldBooks for about $60.00, shipped free. The shipping wasn't fast (it took about 1 1/2 weeks) but everything was as described and I'm pleased. http://www.betterworldbooks.com/

Nicole - I started my DD (almost 8, 2nd grade) in AAS last year. We easily finished level 1 and 2 during the school year. Some weeks we flew through the work, some weeks we didn't, but all in all it went quickly and smoothly. We didn't use the readers because she was well beyond their level. We are both looking forward to starting level 3 in September.

My oldest is currently working through the Transition book and enjoying it. You can see a full sample of both the cursive and print alphabet on the "A Reason for Handwriting Desk Card" at Rainbow Resources. I'll see if I can add a link. You need to click "back view" to see the cursive alphabet. http://www.rainbowresource.com/pictures/011097/b/1280538521-260201

My 1st and 3rd grader will be using this for the upcoming school year. We have a great library system which I plan on using for most of the extra books but I'd love to invest in a few good, general ones to keep at home. Which ones did you find the most useful and worthy of purchasing? Many thanks,

Our top three for K were: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz The Story of Dr. Dolittle My Father's Dragon We'll be re-reading them this year for dd2's K year.

We used the meeting book daily and found it to be a great resource. You don't need to use the book but I do think you need to do the meeting regularly. We always did new meeting topics daily until they were automatic and then I'd rotate them so they were only done once or twice a week. We just completed Saxon 2 and will be starting Saxon 3 next month.

I stumbled across a 3-pack of Disney songbooks with a 3-piece recorder by Recorder Fun! yesterday in the book section of my local BJ's wholesale club (MA). The package was $7.99. I figured it would be a fun addition to our upcoming recorder lessons. Happy playing!

I didn't even think of giving her the placement test. I was so focused on where to start her I overlooked a resource people who are switching curriculum use all of the time. Thanks for mentioning what should have been obvious! Thanks to everyone who took the time to reply. It is good to know plenty of others have either skipped K or started it early with success. I'll give her the test and start her where she places.

First, a big thank you to all of you who post here. This board has been, and continues to be, a terrific source of information as I move into my third year as a homeschool mom. I lurk here more than I should! Today I actually have a question. From all I've ready the K level is preschoolish. Can I safely move my dd, who will be 6 on Friday, into Saxon 1? Will we miss anything? I have not used anything lower than Saxon 2. She has completed several K level math workbooks (Spectrum and the like) over the last year. This will be her first "official" year joining our homeschool and I'd like to keep it more like a K/1st year. I'm guessing that Saxon 1 will be just fine, I thinking I'm looking for someone to tell me it will be OK! Thanks so much for reading!

This is my first post after a looooooong time as a lurker..... We were having similar issues with DD1 in Saxon 2. We made two changes and things have been going much better. First, with all drill sheets I set the timer to see how fast she can complete the sheet NOT for 1 minute which always caused her to freeze up. Second, I wrote up a task list for the meeting strip. She does all of the meeting work independently while I work with DD2. She comes and gets me when she is done. We then quickly review what she has done, do the counting and then move on to the lesson. Both of us are enjoying math much more with these simple changes.