I have a friend who runs a Jr. FIRST Lego League for 6-9yos, though not in a co-op setting. She's told me that the kids (all boys) LOVE the experience, but the lesson plans seem a little weird. Also, my 13yo son participates in FIRST Lego League, and he's had a great experience. Tiffany

I can't remember too much about the pace of Zeta and Pre-Algebra, other than to say they were probably faster than Epsilon. I can definitely remember that we have NEVER used the algebra inserts (except when my 5yo decides they are fun to play with). HTH, Tiffany

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Thank you so much for suggesting this thread. It looks very helpful. Tiffany

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This is very helpful. Thanks! Tiffany

My 5yo still sometimes reverses numbers, but only a couple of months ago, she needed to be reminded of what certain numbers look like. I wouldn't worry about it with your daughter, although I'd personally not give her more writing and spelling until she's more solid with numbers and letters. She's obviously doing well for her age. I'd just give her lots of opportunity to practice letter and number formation, whether it's a handwriting workbook or copying numbers or short words. Since she's only five, a few minutes a day should be fine, but it's important to keep it fun and light. And, of course, she should be allowed to see actual models of letters and numbers. HTH, Tiffany

My 7th-grader does these subjects: Religion Math Spelling Grammar Writing Science History Literature Drawing Latin Logic P.E. Piano He's also in Scouts, on a Math Olympiad team, and a FIRST LEGO LEAGUE team. The Lego team will be slowing down its activities soon, and in January, he'll join a Shakespeare class/production. Just writing this makes me tired, but I can never figure out what to cut out. HTH, Tiffany

Thanks for the tip, GardenMom, not to mention the anecdotes about the different editions. I ordered a copy from your link. So glad to hear about the spelling. T has been working on NNN. Fun, fun, fun! Tiffany

Hi, GardenMom! You always do such a great job explaining your teaching process. Thank you for explaining in such detail. Could you tell me which Kingfisher edition you use? Copyright date? I believe I read somewhere that there is an older version and a newer version. Thanks, Tiffany P.S. Hope the spelling prep is going well!

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I've used IEW for about four years, and I've never heard mention of these styles in the program. (I have not watched every minute of the Teaching Writing with Structure and Style DVDs, but I have used several different levels of IEW.) Tiffany

My kids love TOPS! Last year, we did Cohesion/Adhesion, and they are begging for more. They were 10 and 12 at the time, but even my 4yo loved to join in. Have you checked out all the samples at the TOPS website? http://topscience.org/ HTH, Tiffany

I haven't used First Form Latin, but I can tell you that LfC does have DVDs. They are goofy and fun, and my kids like them. All in all, I recommend LfC highly, though my husband convinced me to switch to Cambridge Latin this year. But that's another story ... Tiffany

I've used Key to Fractions and some of Key to Decimals with two of my children, and I found it very convenient to have the answer books. They're not very expensive, so they're worth it to me. I use the Key to ... books in two ways: 1) as a summer math program (very portable and self-teaching), 2) as a way to help a student approach a topic from another point of view than his or her regular math curriculum. For the most part, I like to let the student work through it on their own, helping only when needed. Considering you would be in a tutoring situation, you'd probably want to have a different approach. I ordered a big batch of books late last spring, and the best deal I found was just ordering directly from the publisher. HTH, Tiffany

If you don't get much response on this board, you might want to consider posting your questions on the High School board.:) Tiffany

When I started our homeschool group's spelling bee a few years ago, I just called the local sponsor (a newspaper) to ask if we could participate. They were very welcoming and treated us as if we were any other school. My first suggestion would be to figure out who the nearest sponsor is. If you can't figure it out easily, let me know, and I'll try to find a link to last year's list of sponsors. Sometimes, they are newspapers, but not always. And regardless of whether you find a nearby area or regional bee, you could still set up your own homeschool bee. Check out spellingbee.com, and let me know what questions you have. I can explain how we run our homeschool bee if you'd like ... Tiffany P.S. Love your blog! We traded in a crazy Connecticut life (commuting to Manhattan and along the southern shore) for a calmer and more boring Indiana life, and we love it. Most of the time anyway.

It's unfortunate that Hexco doesn't show sample pages or offer some kind of preview. You should know that their spelling products definitely do not look professionally published. We do find them useful, however. Hope your son continues to enjoy spelling bees! For the right kind of child (my son included), they can be lots of fun. Tiffany

My son is currently using New Nat's Notes, by Hexco: http://www.hexco.com/Hexco/HPL/nnn.html I'm not sure it's worth the money unless a student is actually trying to compete at the national level though. One free resource you could check out would be Spell It!: http://myspellit.com/These are the words that competitors at the school and regional spelling bee levels would be studying. You could download the free pdf and see if you think the words would be inspiring and interesting to him. Unfortunately, not many definitions are included, but he could get a lot of dictionary practice ... Tiffany

Love the LoF bedtime story idea. I'm going to try that. Tiffany

I'd say that, in your child's case, not teaching spelling rules would be fine. The English language doesn't exactly follow its own rules very carefully anyway. My two older children are very different spellers, though they're both excellent readers. We started out with Spelling Workout, then tried Spelling Power briefly before I decided it was too teacher-intensive. We've used the Phonetic Zoo most recently, both the basic and advanced levels. My oldest, who is 13 and what I would call a natural speller, started winning spelling bees when he was in 3rd grade and went to the National Spelling Bee last year. He now studies huge lists of obscure words, looking for patterns and becoming acquainted with words he may never encounter again. My second oldest, who is 11 and has struggled with spelling, has found success with the Phonetic Zoo. Spelling rules are mentioned in the program, but the main focus is on aural repetition of words. You can check it out here: http://www.excellenceinwriting.com/page/getting-started-excellence-spelling Hope this helps, Tiffany