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bltex

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Everything posted by bltex

  1. For a one-stop curriculum, I would head straight to Memoria Press. I would do the 2nd grade curriculum with the Read-Aloud and Science Supplements. (You can also use the library to reduce the cost of the read-aloud and science supplement books and then purchase only your favorites if you wanted.) https://www.memoriapress.com/curriculum/second/
  2. I like Singapore Kindergarten Essentials. It's rather easy, but DD enjoys it and everything I've seen at the "kindergarten" level has looked VERY easy. I would also add the Kumon addition and subtraction workbooks as well as do a gentle start with math facts if your child enjoys them.
  3. Another recommendation for Leapfrog Letter Factory!
  4. Thank you for all the suggestions! This really helps!
  5. I feel I am in a similar boat with DD#2 (age 4 3/4) so I'll share my experience in case it helps. For DD#1 we started with BOB books and then started AAR1 when we were somewhere through Series 2 of the BOB books. Because she had already mastered blending (somewhere early on in her BOB book experience), the AAR1 lessons were quite easy for her. I am currently teaching DD#2 to read. I tried to start her straight away at AAR1, but with no prior blending practice the lessons just seemed a bit too much of a struggle. She was enjoying them, but I was worried she would ultimately get discouraged. She could sound out each phonogram just fine, but really struggled with hooking them together into a word. Yesterday (after a long time off from reading lessons) I started a different approach--just focusing on VC-ending word families. For example, I sounded out "at" with her. Once she knew what a-t said, she very easily mastered blending all the CVC -at words. (I called it "hooking the consonant to "at" and that seemed to resonate.) Today, I reviewed the -at words and introduced -am words. I followed up with her reading a BOB book that contained -at and -am words. I plan to continue this for -ad, -ap, etc. After that, I will retry AAR1 and see if her blending skills are established enough to continue with it..
  6. I don't have any suggestions, but am encouraged to hear that you have been successfully combing Saxon and Singapore (and others). My children will be attending a university model schedule school that uses Abeka Math through 3rd grade and Saxon Math for 4th grade +. I am not a big Saxon fan, so we are planning to also continue using Singapore Math to provide a well-rounded math foundation. (DD1 was already using Singapore at her prior full-time classical kindergarten.) A friend of mine expressed concern that using both Saxon and Singapore will confuse my children. (She didn't seem concerned with combining Abeka and Singapore in the early grades.) To me, a strong math student should be able to solve problems from multiple sources, not just one familiar curriculum. Has your DD experienced confusion from using multiple curriculums?
  7. I'm looking for a simple workbook that contains activities for identifying beginning and ending sounds of words. I can find workbooks that have exercises about beginning sounds, but I think DD2 would benefit from extra practice identifying ending sounds. Any suggestions? Thank you!
  8. Has anyone used the Grammar Minutes workbooks before? Opinions? I've never heard of them, but saw them on Amazon and was thinking of using the Grade 1 workbook for my rising 1st grader. I was looking for something that would be simple to implement and easily portable so DD could do it while waiting at sibling activities.
  9. Thank you everyone for your replies! I will just let her do a few pages each lesson and save extra teacher instruction for times she truly needs it. She will technically be in her prek year, so Essentials will probably be a good fit for where she is and have a solid foundation for 1A.. She will also be getting a bit of math at a twice a week university model style school, but she is ahead of their curriculum and will want/need something more for homeschool days while her sister is doing 1st grade math.
  10. For those who have used the Kindergarten Essentials workbooks, how many pages per day did you cover? Also, did you always present the present the lesson as described in "Introduction" or did you just let your child do the worksheet for topics that your child already knew? A lot of these lessons appear to be review for DD#2 (who has followed along with a lot of her older sister's math) and could easily be done without additional instructions, but I don't want to skip teaching the "Introductions" if it means she will miss out on the "Singapore Method." Thank you!
  11. We haven't used it yet...but we plan to use the Memoria Press logic curriculum when the time comes. Actually, I somewhat lean towards enrolling the kids in the Memoria Press online class since logic just seems like something that would be ideal to discuss/practice in a group setting.
  12. My rising 1st grader reads on a 3rd grade+ level. I provide a variety of (non-babyish) picture books and chapter books. She reads aloud to me (as well as her younger sisters) each day, although it's not truly a requirement. She probably averages about 30 minutes a day. She loves it and would probably read more if our schedule wasn't so busy.
  13. Off the top of my head...Just So Stories, The Wind in the Willows, E.B. White's children's books
  14. Interesting...We still love of our Jim Weiss cd's, but after listening to Story of Civilization, the Jim Weiss cd's sometimes seem just a little bit "flat" by comparison. Don't get me wrong, we still love Jim Weiss and will continue to buy him too. I think a lot of it is the background music in Story of Civilization. For us, it lends a bit of dramatic tension and excitement I suppose. They're both great products though! I like to supplement the more comprehensive Story of Civilization with Jim Weiss cds since the scope of the individual Jim Weiss cds is much more limited and they sometimes contain more detailed stories.
  15. You might try the Learning Leapfrog "Letter Factory" dvd to help her learn her letters. Maybe she could watch it during snacktime to make it seem more fun (but it's pretty entertaining for most preschoolers). I'm not usually one to outsource teaching to the tv, but it really is the fastest and easiest way I've found for kids to gain mastery of their letters. It also introduces the main sound each letter makes, so she would get a gentle headstart on phonics.
  16. The print in My Father's Dragon is slightly larger than the print in Magic Treehouse.
  17. My oldest daughter's first chapter book(s) was the My Father's Dragon trilogy at age 5. For her, it was the right amount of mild challenge without being overwhelming for a first chapter book. I originally used The Courage of Sarah Noble and The Bear on Hemlock Mountain as bedtime read-alouds, but she later chose to re-read them by herself. They also dovetail nicely with colonial America studies. I would consider them more challenging than My Father's Dragon. It can be tough getting the right amount of "challenging, but not too challenging." One thing I've noticed is that it's helpful to be within earshot when she reads something a bit challenging so I can catch possible mistakes.
  18. We do! Well, at least we listen to more than one. While the TAN audio dramatizations are our family's favorite, we regularly rotate in CHOW and some of the Jim Weiss cds. (We spend entirely too much time in the car!) We're going to use TAN as our spine, but we also really enjoy supplementing with history picture books.
  19. I love AAR! It is easy to use, fun for the kids, and effective.
  20. If you are interested in Connecting with History, another Catholic created history curriculum you might like is TAN Story of Civilization. We're waiting to really "do" it until next year, but we have listened to the audio book in the car and it is very entertaining and educational. It has been our favorite of the history spines we have looked into and has all the supplementary activity books, etc. like SOTW. It only has Volume 1 (ancients) and 2 (medieval) out so far though, so not sure if that will help you if you're looking for a later time period.
  21. Have you tried the KUMON math workbooks? I wouldn't consider them a full curriculum, but they are something that can satisfy fairly long periods of time with minimal parental direction. My 4 year old daughter is somewhat mathy and she also loves their maze workbooks (which require no parent instruction at all).
  22. Another vote for TAN Story of Civilization. We definitely enjoy the Child's History of the World audio cd, but we recently purchased Volume 1 (Ancients) of the TAN Story of Civilization audio cd and we LOVE it. My kids enjoy all history audiobooks, but Story of Civilization is their favorite. After enjoying the cds so much, I decided to buy the textbook, activity book, and teacher's manual that go with it. I didn't purchase the test book because at this age I'm just looking for a captivating history curriculum filled with storytime, activities, and basic comprehension "oral testing" and the tests didn't seem necessary for our purposes. So far we've only used the audio cds (since this is really for my rising 1st grader's next year curriculum) but the activities look fun. I plan to supplement with a few children's books about ancient China, etc. to get a little more coverage in those areas, but overall it has been our favorite history "spine" we have seen, with CHOW being our #2 pick. I think SOTW is good, but not quite as engaging for our family as either CHOW or Story of Civilization.
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