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MamaHill

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Everything posted by MamaHill

  1. I have one that absolutely adores the busywork, workbook-y type of learning, too! What about CLE? We did the first LightUnit together in the mornings for Grade 4, however, we switched back to BSGFAA after that (my fave for family learning). My rising 4th grader is going to work through the rest of the LUs on her own in the coming year. The first LU has stories of a Jewish family and their various holidays and customs. My kiddos and I ALL learned a lot from those simple little stories! I thought they would be silly, but they were very informative and my children remember all of those details! Here's the link to CLE Grade 4 Bible: https://www.clp.org/store/by_course/20 CLE Grade 5 circles back through Creation through Moses, so you might not be interested in that one. Also, what about the Explorer's series? A mom mentioned that in a recent thread and it jarred my memory that we completed the Luke/Acts book in that series several years ago. It was excellent! Recall questions, thorough but simple mapwork, a review for the chapter, etc. My son (4th at the time I think), did the Discovery level: https://www.christianbook.com/bible-discovery-promises-fulfilled-student-workbook/9781889015132/pd/1513X?event=Homeschool|1005597
  2. That's so encouraging to hear. My daughter has done well with AAS but she wants to move on to something different. She loves workbook-y type learning, and enjoys doing her own thing. I realize that MW isn't totally hands-off for me, but I think it will be a better balance for her.
  3. Thank you all! So very helpful. ?
  4. Thank you! That's really helpful. ? I've googled, but can't find the answer to this: Is Megawords designed to generally be used as 1 level per school year?
  5. Yes, the Key To ... series. I always forget about that one! Thanks! Right after his school year ended, he took the placement test for Alg 1 (thanks dmmetler for that suggestion!). I identified what he needed help with, and I've pulled those topics from MM 7. He's working on it a couple of hours a day and doing great! I really appreciate everyone's help in figuring out the right course for him. But that MM 7... yes, it is definitely rigorous. Wow. But he's loving the challenge!
  6. My 6th grader is not a natural speller, and she's completed through AAS 4. I am switching her to Megawords 1 for her 6th grade year. In reviewing the curriculum, I'm unsure how many pages per day I should schedule. Spelling is one of her 5x/week subjects, as she needs frequent repetition. What do you think is a realistic daily goal for a 6th grader? (I'm not a schedule-every-day-for-the-year type of planner. I'm just trying to get a feel for how long it might take us to work through the first book.)
  7. Is your oldest first grade? All of my suggestions are probably too old. ? When my oldest was in 1st (and I had another 5, 3, and baby), I copied a dot-to-dot page out of the books like the one I'll link to at the end. They colored/dotted while I read the Scripture out of the Bible or a children's Bible that is referenced at the top of each page. It was beautiful and perfect for the ages of my kiddos at the time. Just throwing that out there if you need another idea! ? Here's just one of the many books that we used. They're all from the same publisher, which is Carson Dellosa. Fruit of the Spirit, parables of Jesus, OT stories, etc. Lots of options! There is a Prek/K level and a 1-3rd level. https://www.amazon.com/Dot-Dot-Bible-Pictures-Grades/dp/0887242200/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1530208787&sr=8-2&keywords=dot+to+dot+bible
  8. This isn't curriculum per se, but lesson plans or a schedule to go with every single curriculum out there. Also, those schedules would need to have multiple options for those of us that would use the curriculum for 1-5 days/week. "If you will use this 2 days/ week, look for the schedule on pg. 20. If you will use this 4 days/ week, look on pg. 22 for the schedule." etc. Some of my favorites don't have a lesson schedule/plan, and yes, I do create my own but it would be nice not to have to do that with a bunch of kiddos. ? Time is in short supply!
  9. Oh I forgot about that study! We did the Luke Bible study and it was excellent! My oldest was 4th grade at the time, and we read the Scripture aloud, went over all of the questions together, and I chose 1-3 questions for him to write answers. Their mapwork was great from what I recall.
  10. We've used Bible Study Guide for All Ages on and off for the past 8+ years, and only use the family guide (the one in the binder). I copy the graphic page for my kiddos to color while I read the Scripture aloud and then we discuss. I used the kids' pages for awhile when they were all elementary, but it was just too much for us. The Family Guide has great review questions, extra info about the chapter, a list of activities you can work on together, memory work if you want to use it, etc. It's SUPER comprehensive. We've also used CLE by using only 1 level at the time. We used Grade 4 this past year, even though I didn't have any kiddos in that grade at the time. I chose grade 4 because that's the particular part of Scripture I wanted us to work through. We all took turns reading the narrative portion or the Scripture and then answered the questions together. It was a good study for us! I've never used MP's Christian Studies with my kiddos, but I got a used copy to look through. I LOVE the map work and comprehension questions. It's also one that we would all do together and answer the questions together. I would possibly have my older kiddos write the comprehension answers in complete sentences after we'd discussed during Bible time.
  11. Yes, my feelings are exactly yours in that there is plenty of math work with MM each day, but my 4th grader (especially) needs a quickie one-page spiral review. So according to the online samples, Math Minutes is very similar to Simple Solutions...except HALF the price! And I just ordered the Simple Solutions this morning! Too bad. They both have a similar number of problems on the page, with the same type of variety. My girls will need the next level books in the coming months, so I will just give Math Minutes a whirl then. I really appreciate you suggesting it!
  12. Holly, I'm sorry it's taken me a few days to get back to this. I can't thank you enough for taking the time to share your plans! I have a much better mental picture now. My rising 8th grader isn't in the homeschool picture because he will go to a cottage school this year. So I will only be teaching the rising 6th grader, 4th grader, and 2nd grader. Plus the 16 month old tornado. (Mercy...he's destructive.) My 6th grader will be doing FMof Rome, States and Capitals 1/2 of the year and hoping to start one of the Geographies after that, First Form Latin. My 4th grader will be doing either Greek Myths or FMof Rome with my 6th grader, States and Capitals for half and then one of the Geographies, and Latina Christiana I. We will be doing Zeezok Music fairly indepth 3 days/week and NC state history 1 day/week. I'd love to add in Biblioplan to that, but I just can't fathom adding one more thing. We are finishing up BP Year 3, and I can't figure out how to streamline it any more than we already do. We just read Remember the Days as the spine, do the mapwork and coloring pages from SOTW if they coordinate, and I assign a book for lit most weeks to be read independently based on ability. Maybe we could only do Remember the Days together. Hmmm. Just thinking out loud here. I'm intrigued (and impressed!) with all that you can accomplish in the morning! As hard as I try, we just can only get to 2-3 subjects max each mornign. My rising 4th grader isn't that independent yet, and my 2nd grader isn't reading well at all (testing her next month). We do history altogether when the baby takes a 1-hour nap in the afternoon (he's not much of a sleeper). I sure do wish we could be as productive!! Thank you again for sharing your thought process! Very, very helpful!!
  13. Thank you for that suggestion! Yes, they are definitely easier to obtain (L-O-V-E that Amazon Prime...plus I see that you can download a digital version from the Evan Moor site). Yesterday, the Simple Solutions people were so nice and willing to help until we go to the part where I actually pay. Now, I'm having some trouble getting a response. So we shall see what happens there. The Evan Moor is a better alternative than my taking the CLE pages and using just the review portion. I'll make this my Plan B. ? Thank you!
  14. Yes, I understand not wanting to switch! I just don't want to give up the critical thinking aspect of MM. It's infused into every lesson, and my children need that. The MM Skills Review worksheets will work just fine for my younger girl (1st grade). But for my rising 4th grader, she needs a different type of review. She needs money, time, multiplication facts, etc in front of her every single day. Just a problem or two of each will be plenty for her. The Skills Review worksheets just need a bit more variety for her. Don't get me wrong, I think they are wonderful, but for this particular child, she needs something else. I even thought about cutting and pasting the parts I wanted to create her a new worksheet each day, but that's just way too much work. I've spoken with the Simple Solutions people today, and they were extremely helpful and very willing to work with me. The books are $23.75 each (eek!), which is pretty pricey for a daily review workbook (imo), but I'm going to get it for her. I really appreciate fourisenough's suggestion and testimony of how well it's worked for her kiddo. So we will give it a try! I'll report back here once we've used it a bit. We're finishing up third grade next week, taking the week of the 4th off, and then starting back early July. So I'll be able to report back here hopefully at the end of July/beginning of August! ?
  15. Oh wonderful!! I will definitely call tomorrow and inquire. As a last resort, I thought that I could order CLE and only use the spiral "We Remember" portion of their curriculum. That would be a bit pricey, but if all else fails, I could do that. I can still use MM on a daily basis, and then use selections from the We Remember section each day. Thank you for your quick response! ?
  16. So the sprial-ness (is that a word?!) of the Skills Review Worksheets from MM isn't quite what I need. I looked at the Simple Solutions Math and it is exactly what I had in mind. It's very similar to the spiral portion of CLE. But you can't order them individually, as they're only sold to schools. I've looked on Amazon for a used copy, but the prices are outrageous. Where did you purchase your copy? Any ideas where I can find a workbook for Level 3?
  17. Holly, I saw you reference this in a different thread, and I'm so glad you brought it up here again. I just cannot wrap my brain around how to implement the MP Classical Studies with BP/SOTW. I would absolutely LOVE to do this, but I don't know how practically implement it. How do you choose the topics from SOTW and from MP so they line up well? Or do you just schedule topics separately? I just don't know where to start with this and would love to hear what your thought process and planning process look like. Pretty please ?
  18. I really appreciate you asking these questions. Wow, this thread just keeps getting better and better as I catch up. So much for me to chew and think on!
  19. Thank you so much for linking to that thread at the MP forums! So much food for thought there. An audiobook of some variety or genre is almost always on at our house. It would be easy to add a scheduled title in here or there. Thank you for that suggestion!
  20. As I understand it from studying the MP site, Christian/Classical/Geography all constitute their history curriculum. They add in supplemental American history books until 7th grade, where they add in the 13 colonies and 200 Questions books. Have any of you ever used ONLY this for history? The Christian/Classical/Geography studies? I started a thread a few weeks ago about altering the 4-year history cycle, and I'm still really undecided over history for next year. It consumes a LOT of our time. We all love it, but we'd also love to study other things - composers, our state history, etc. If we switched to MP for a year, it would give us time to work those things in without overburdening us. I'm considering using MP's history, but it's so ... different from anything we've done in the past. I loosely used TOG for 5+ years and we're currently finishing up BP Year 3. So MP's history seems fairly foreign to what I'm used to. If you used only MP's classical studies (and didn't supplement with something else), did you find it was truly enough? Did your kiddos retain it? In hindsight, are you glad you chose it?
  21. Oh you very fortunate soul!! 5 days alone would be glorious! In past years when I didn't have a nursing baby, my husband would haul all of our kids to the inlaws for 3-4 days for me to plan school in peace and quiet. This hasn't happened in 2 years now, and I can tell an enormous difference in how I homeschool year ran. Hint: it hasn't been good. After years of squandering time due to ignorance, this is how I plan our homeschool year in that big chunk of time: 1) I spend hours and hours in the evening researching and pondering curricula in the months and weeks BEFORE my actual planning time. Then I go ahead and order everything so it's right here and ready for me to read through and plan. 2) During the actual planning time, I first pray over each of my children and our homeschool and determine our individual and collective goals for the school year. I evaluate whether this needs to be "a year of ___". For example, this year there needed to be a heavy focus on writing with my two older children. This coming year, I'm probably going to have to do a heavy year of science because it was waaaaay light this year. 3) I make a loose schedule/routine of what our days and weeks will look like. I pencil in online classes, outside classes, violin lessons, etc. Everything goes on a grid so I can see where the "holes" are. We are not schedule people at all as in 8:00-8:30 we will do math. But with a bunch of children, I need to see how much actual teaching/school time I have to work with. This part always takes me a long time, but is crucial for my mental sanity. Ha. 4) I start to plan the subjects we will do together. History always takes the longest since I have to choose books, determine writing assignments, maybe craft projects, etc. Since it's always the biggest headache, I try to knock it out first. 5) Then I start with the oldest child and work my way through her subjects, starting with the hardest to plan (usually one without an available guide and I have to start from scratch.) 6) Rinse, repeat with other kiddos. I usually get up pretty early on these days - 6ish - and work crazy hard the whole day. My parents live 5 minutes away and my daddy supplies me with ample Americanos to sustain me throughout the day. I call it quits around 7 in the evenings. Then I eat ice cream and binge watch something fun. ? I never finish all of the planning for the whole year, but I can put a good dent in it using this format. Best wishes in your time off! ?
  22. We've used R&S English all the way through 6th grade and part of 7th (so far), and my kiddos have zero trouble using R&S with Latin. I think they dovetail beautifully, with one reinforcing the other! In our home, we start R&S English in Grade 2 and Latin in Grade 3, if that makes any difference in our scenario.
  23. Kareni, it's incredibly helpful for me to read how others choose to sequence their studies. Thank you so much for taking the time to list yours!
  24. Thank you! I'll tuck this away just in case the spiral from MM doesn't quite work out like I think (hope) it will.
  25. OH MY I am so excited about those new spiral workbooks from Math Mammoth!! We've used MM exclusively for the past 2 years, and I had no idea they were in the works. I just purchased and downloaded and I think they are going to be the perfect fit. Now keep in mind that I haven't put this into practice yet...but my plan is to go through and break up the sections and do just a few problems each day. 3-4 at the most. Then there's a little bit of spiral each day without being overwhelming and without adding a ton of more time to our math portion of the day. I feel so positive and hopeful about this solution! And I know that CLE plus Fan math is still there should this not do the trick. Thank you for all of your replies!
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