We love Spelling Board here too!

I second R&S. We love it here. Very easy to use independently as well.

After all this discussion on these board about c-rods. I went out and bought some. My 4 yr old DS has been playing with them and actually getting a very early understanding of math (unlike my previous three DC I have homeschooled). Anyway, My DD has been using MUS for the last couple years because it was the only math she totally understood, but the mastery approach is apparently not working so well for her. I had to come up with SOMETHING to pull her away from MUS because eventually it just isn't going to work. She has done Alpha twice and Beta twice and she is STILL forgetting her facts after having completely memorized them!! :confused: She had every fact through 9 memorized addition and subtraction and then started resorting to her fingers again! Two weeks ago she was forgetting concepts (rounding to the nearest 10 for example) that she just learned the day prior. Just getting her to understand it this time around was extremely frustrating for me because she just was not getting it. Well, someone here had suggested going back to CLE last week which I already had on the shelf anyway. A year ago we used it and she was teary-eyed because she kept forgetting to watch her signs (i.e. + and -) hence getting a lot of incorrect answers. The 4 pages of math was also too much for her. I pulled out the CLE and had her try it again. Boy did it help her self-esteem with math. I am so glad I went back to it! We started last Thursday and she has already completed more then half of one light unit. She pulled the book out yesterday night (yes, on a Saturday) and insisted she do a lesson. Well, she kept going...and going ....and going.... She completed to Lesson 9. NOT ONE TEAR IN SIGHT!!! I am praying it keeps going like this. She is actually begging me to do math right now on a Sunday! She has reminded me like 5 times that "we NEED to do math tonight before she goes to sleep". Is this my child??? I even told her I thought she was a bit ill. :lol: She thought that was the funniest thing ever. So now for my c-rod question. Have any of you who have used MUS retaught your child using c-rods? I use Singapore twice a week as well which I added in the beginning of this year and would love to use the c-rods instead. The linking cubes are about to drive me bonkers and I refuse to take them out again! I am praying that using CLE for our main math and using Singapore twice a week or whenever we have time, will catch my DD up to where she needs to be and fill in the holes she has from using MUS. At the same time, she is getting two different understandings of math. For some reason, she also loves Singapore and the other day when I asked her, "How much is 10 100's?", she was able to respond "1000". I thought I was going to pass out! I am beginning to think that it has been a mix of not using the right curriculum as well as just not being ready this whole time. I am praying we are on the right track now.

I just added in some Singapore with my very non-mathy DD. I started with 2A and plan to keep at it twice a week at least. It is unbelieveable how she is grasping concepts with the use of the manipulatives as per the HIG. I always though MUS was the one and only math she would ever understand because we had tried everything else under the sun. The other day I asked her what 10 100's was and she responded, "1000" immediately. I about fell out of my chair! This is a child that would had previously looked at my dumbfounded even with the MUS manipulatives using them the way Dr. Demme teaches. She eventually got it with MUS, but she is learning so much more with Singapore.

If your looking at BJU, then I assume your not picky secular or not. I would suggest looking at Apologia Elementary Science. We are doing Botany this year and my children are having so much fun. I bought the kit to go along with it from Rainbow Resource. You can also purchase the same kit from Christian Book. Science is actually getting done this year. Everything you would need is in these kits including even paper towels, scissors, and a ruler.

All this talk about c-rods....makes me want to order for my DS4. He saw them yesterday when I was exploring a blog and said, "Mommy, I want those!" Where is the best place to order?

Did you leave it on 24/7? I don't want to start a fire! Lol

We felt the same way. My DS hated MM, but loves Singapore and is doing extremely well with it. I like how there is a lot of white space on the pages. Come to think of it, this is probably why my non-mathy very visual DD is doing well with Singapore.

I have never even thought of taking her to a nueropsych. I hadn't thought that the seizures may have had an affect on her until the PP had responded to my post. I also have a DD who is 18 and has always responded the same way to math. She even only completed Algebra 1 by the time she graduated having to take it 2 years in a row (the last year with a tutor) and still not completely understanding. I just assumed she was like her older sister and that is the way their brains are wired. I never understood math completely until I was in highschool myself. I knew it well enough to get it done but needed a ton of handholding. I just really need a curriculum that will work. It doesn't help her self-esteem when her younger brother is bypassing her. Everything is a competition for them. I'm thinking I may have to work with her on math without her brothers at the school table. Maybe that would be less distracting for her. We have used CLE so I still have it. She completed 201-205 last year and then got frustrated with the amount of problems. I took it away and went back to MUS. She is getting literally nowhere with MUS though. She understands eventually what is being taught but soon forgets and has to be retaught. I got the CLe out to try again tomorrow after reading over some old threads from this board. I think I'm going to figure out a way to where she can skip some of the same problems if they are review as long as she understands the concept. Maybe this will motivate her. She does have good days where she just "gets it", but they are not often.

What is your main math curriculum ? My DD has had 3 siezures. Always after vaccinations coincidently. I never thought of this, but before the few seizures, she was fine with math.

Am I the only one with a child that has to constantly relearn what they previously learned? This is really not our only issue. It's one of many. My DD just will not remember what she has previously learned and isn't progressing in math much at all. We have repeated MUS Alpha. We are now repeating MUS Beta. Most of what we are learning in Beta right now (we are on Lesson 10 today), she should remember from doing it previously. She acted this morning as though she couldn't even line up numbers in the correct columns to add them together (it was a very simple story problem). We have not gotten to multiplication yet AT ALL. She is 9! I am worried. Her brother who is in 2nd grader has caught up to her and is bypassing her in Math. She was counting dimes and knew she had to count by "10's", but counted 10, 9, 8, 7..... by mistake making the same error all this week and part of last week. It took going over it 3 days for her to understand how to round to the nearest 10. She finally understood it. Today I gave her some review work. When she saw it, she was lost. Her 7 year old brother understood it completely after looking at the video just the first time. I added in Singapore 2a and am doing it twice a week along with MUS Beta only because I am so worried about her, don't want her to get anymore behind than she is already, and I don't want her brother to suffer since he is insistent that he does MUS with her. I don't think MUS is enough for him. I only use it for her because it is the ONLY math she has ever understood. To my surprise, she has done better than her brother in the first 2 lessons we did in Singapore last week. I definitely don't want to switch her again. I used Singapore for her when she was younger and it started moving too fast for her. I would love some advice! She couldn't write $ .67 this morning like that when the problem instructed her to use the decimal system. She has learned over and over what a decimal is and place value over and over and over...

We tried CLE last year. I loved that it was spiral and she had lots of review. It was nothing but tears for her though trying to get through 4 pages a day. I, on the other hand, loved CLE.

Am I the only one with a child that has to constantly relearn what they previously learned? This is really not our only issue. It's one of many. My DD just will not remember what she has previously learned and isn't progressing in math much at all. We have repeated MUS Alpha. We are now repeating MUS Beta. Most of what we are learning in Beta right now (we are on Lesson 10 today), she should remember from doing it previously. She acted this morning as though she couldn't even line up numbers in the correct columns to add them together (it was a very simple story problem). We have not gotten to multiplication yet AT ALL. She is 9! I am worried. Her brother who is in 2nd grader has caught up to her and is bypassing her in Math. She was counting dimes and knew she had to count by "10's", but counted 10, 9, 8, 7..... by mistake making the same error all this week and part of last week. It took going over it 3 days for her to understand how to round to the nearest 10. She finally understood it. Today I gave her some review work. When she saw it, she was lost. Her 7 year old brother understood it completely after looking at the video just the first time. I added in Singapore 2a and am doing it twice a week along with MUS Beta only because I am so worried about her, don't want her to get anymore behind than she is already, and I don't want her brother to suffer since he is insistent that he does MUS with her. I don't think MUS is enough for him. I only use it for her because it is the ONLY math she has ever understood. To my surprise, she has done better than her brother in the first 2 lessons we did in Singapore last week. I definitely don't want to switch her again. I used Singapore for her when she was younger and it started moving too fast for her. I would love some advice! She couldn't write $ .67 this morning like that when the problem instructed her to use the decimal system. She has learned over and over what a decimal is and place value over and over and over...

mistake post

We use R&S spelling and we have finished it in 3 days this week. Last week we used Day 4 for our test. We use GWG which follows a 3 day/week schedule. We do also use FLL2 and have completed up to 4 lessons a week.

Im using it with my 2nd and 3rd grader. I would say they are having fun and learning a lot! They understand most of it and can answer most of my questions, but the big words and scientific terminology they struggle with. Despite that, they are still learning and having fun. Is it for a K'er? Nope! Definitely not!

Maybe I shouldn't had used the word "struggling". I know that many here would probably consider him struggling reader since I hear all the time that most here have 2nd graders that are reading Harry Potter and other such chapter books. Maybe he is right on target, but he still complains about it when he has to read. Any excuse not to read, he will use it. He was doing very well at the end of 1st grade. I admit that I have been very lax with him over the summer time since I was so burnt out from school. We quit early and took a very long extended summer break. We just started this past week back to school. It seems now as though he is having some trouble sounding out certain words that he used to just look at and know. If it is a 2 - syllable word, he will not even TRY to break apart the syllables and sound it out. He will make up sounds and put them where they don't belong within the word. I really think he is just being lazy. He did great last year with McRuffy Phonics and I thought that he didn't need much more phonics so I changed it up this year and am using a mix of things. I am starting to wonder if we need to go back to McRuffy.

how long do you make them read each day? My DS reads one-two chapters in a book such as Frog and Toad Monday-Friday. Is this enough?

I'm out and left my list at home. Can someone please tell me what the supplies are for making the Nile river and also the crown (I think?) Thanks!

My DD18 has moved out before I believe she was really ready. I think she is ready to admit that now. I miss her tons and it doesn't help that she moved 40 minutes away from us. She does call often though (probably 10 times every day). Bah! I miss her! I can't wait to see her tomorrow night and give her tons of hugs and kisses!

We just started Botany this week and my children are loving it. They were shoe taxonomists this morning. It really helped them to understand how botanists classify different kinds of plants. They learned bout vascular and nonvascular plants this morning. They glued leaves to their journal page, watched a Youtube video so they could see what moss and lichen actually look like and then drew their own drawings in their notebooks. They have retained so much this week that its unbelievable. I am really liking it. They are looking forward to making their light box next week.

Mu DD had a lot of trouble with memorizing her facts so the end of last Winter we did Alpha all over again. We finished it the last 6 weeks of school. It's amazing how much more she understood doing it at 8 years old than she did at 6 years old. We just started our new school year today and completed the first 3 chapters of Beta. This will be her 2nd time through Beta as well so we are probably going to fly through it. My DS7 is keeping at her pace, but he is very mathy. I'm hoping to have started Gamma in the next 8 weeks and have completed it by the end of the school year.

I absolutely love this! Thank you for posting it.

I am sure some may disagree with this, but I gave up on trying to teach telling time to both my DS7 and my DD9. Instead, at the end of our school year last year, I just started applying it to real life stuff. If we had to be somewhere, I would let my kids know what time we had to be there. I would talk about how many minutes it was until we had to get into the car and how long it would take to drive there, etc. They FINALLY started to get it! I always make sure I let them know what time they have to be in bed and keep reminding them and make it a point to say things like, "You still need to get your reading in before bed so you need to start that at 7:30 so that you can get 30 minutes of reading time in before you need to have your lights out at 8:00." This has worked so well that I am just amazed. My non-telling time little girl whom everything comes hard for can now relate to the clock and the time of the day when certain events are supposed to happen. She will even now remind me by looking at the clock if we have to be somewhere and tell me how long we have until we have to be there. I am now a happy mama! I thought my DD9 would NEVER get it. We went over the same MM telling time lesson with lots of tears. That is when I gave up and resorted to relating everything to real life time telling. :001_smile:

MUS is the ONLY program I can use and get absolutely no tears. We love it here! Even my mathy son begged to switch to MUS.