I would look at the cost of the older guides for HOD. It is much more pricey than MFW in the older guides just for the history economy package alone. The younger guides are much more economical, but starting from CTC on up...it is hundreds of dollars just for the history and Bible.

The neat thing about the TM for the K book is it implements science for the coloring side of the pages. I found it really neat that the coloring pages were all about animals and there was science tidbits in the TM for each animal as your child was coloring the pages.

My ds just finished his k books and we are waiting for his 1st books to arrive. We started doing Reader Rabbit 1st grade on the computer. He got his library card and has been checking out level 1 readers. I had a spare handwriting book and he is working on it. I get the not wanting the 2 to be working in the same books. My older girls are 13 months apart and it was drama when I put the younger one in the same math and language arts as the older one. I would recommend Jump Math at Home's 1st grade b/c it is a bit different than Abeka's approach and cheap. I like the computer games b/c he can do them himself. I like the Jumpstart and Reader Rabbit for their grade level. There is a site called head of the class that you can register and it is free. All you need is the ink to print things out. http://www.theheadoftheclass.com/

I have never used MFW, but it is my understanding from this topic coming up from time to time that it is a totally different take on the history. Bigger is more of a study through the people of the time. Like a biographical study through history. We used HOD for many years and Bigger is the one guide that I really like. I think it is a really good 3rd grade year.

Go to jump math's website. They have a free printable fractions chapter that is great. I just printed it out for my ds last night. The teacher's instructions are all about helping the child feel good about their math abilities.

I actually found them to be really good to do a page at a time. It helped me to see if he had really learned to form them properly when he was writing in words and sentences. I wasn't going for perfection on the lines though. I was watching and making sure he was starting at the top and forming them properly. I ignored whether he was perfect in the lines. We are waiting on our 1st grade books to arrive and I have been letting ds go back and do the A Reason for Handwriting K pages he never finished and it is similar with letters on one side and a picture to color on the other.

Mostly I go with their grade level if they were in ps. I have kids that are doing higher math and science than their grade level and I have kids who are doing lower language arts than their grade level. I normally go by their age for ps. I do have one child that doesn't meet the birthday cutoff and he is working a grade level ahead. We just call him the grade level work he is doing.

We are required to test yearly starting in 3rd. They are very particularly about 4th and 8th grade test scores. I don't know what the minimum score is but I have used both a CAT and an ITBS for the 4th grade test and my kids did score poorly in math computation both kids both tests. I thought something might happen about them not being considered their grade level or what not by the state, but they apparently weren't low enough for that. I faxed them in that year and just received a reply of we got them and your child is considered 5th grade now. We are with an umbrella school this year so my 4th grader will have to take the state test. It is my understanding that if he doesn't score well enough that he will have 8 weeks remediation test prep and then retake. If he still doesn't score well enough then he will have to be considered a 4th grader again next year. I asked what that meant in respect to if he finishes and passes all the 4th grade curriculum from the umbrella school. I wondered if he would have to repeat the 4th grade material. I was told that it was up to me. He can move on to 5th grade material and retake state test next spring then they will consider him a 6th grader after he passes or I can have him repeat the 4th grade completely with the same curriculum as well. So basically all it means is the grade that they consider him would stay 4th and he could work 5th grade material and retake the test next year. It is less of a big deal than everyone made out doing it with the umbrella school. It was also less of a big deal than everyone made out when we were just registered homeschoolers not seeking state approval.

I don't mean that HOD is manipulating a relationship with God. I mean that I was really turned off by telling my kids exactly what to pray and believe without explaining other POV's to them. I mean that my personal goals for my children with respect to them forming their own relationships with God do not mesh well with HOD. I was not saying HOD feels that way for everyone. I will word this more carefully. Now that I have used HOD, I realize that there is really high and low skills in each guide. My children fit into the guides I placed them by the brief descriptions on the placement chart at the time we began homeschooling. They were actually always mid to low age range for the guides. Looking back, I can see that my girls had already gained all the skills that those guides were working on the first 2 years with HOD b/c they were very good writers at the point we took them home from public school. Now that we have homeschooled for close to 4 years, I have the benefit of hindsight. You know hindsight is 20/20. In hindsight, I would have made the changes I wrote of earlier. The first 3 of our years homeschooling using HOD and this year using something more traditional has given me room to reflect. The children being involved with peers that were using other educational paths than ours gave me pause to really observe the difference in abilities and exposure that the other children had received when compared to HOD's education. At the time we started, I could not see where the guides were going and how it would evolve for middle and high school. Now I have seen the upper guides and I know why they won't work for our family. It may be perfect for your family. I still like the storytime books as a list of read alouds, we enjoy DITHOR as well, and I truly liked BHFHG. It just really didn't work for us from Preparing on up.

My kids were 10 and 11 (just turned 10 and 11) when they used it. And yes we used it with extensions. The extensions just added more reading not any more depth. We were hitting the guides about a year after they came out. So to clarify I was using it with a 10 yr old 5th grader and an 11 yr old 6th grader with extensions. 4th and 5th here are separate from the lower elementary school and more like a mini-middle school for upper elementary. We then separate to 6th, 7th, and 8th for middle school and 9th-12th for high school. I am comparing to the 5th grade expectations with science in CTC not 6th with extensions. I am comparing CTC to the 5th grade GLE's. Just so no one thinks I am talking about 6th grade and 7th grade in comparison to CTC. My children were withing the age ranges without extensions when we did CTC.

I have only used certain Apologia Science books. We mainly used them to add more science to the younger guides of HOD. The science I was comparing to doing without being in a HOD guide was Zoology 1 from Apologia. We were using it then with a 2nd, 4th, and 5th grader. I do think it is elementary science and not middle school science. I agree with the PP that children with experience writing will be going back steps with HOD's incremental skills approach. My 7th grader would have had no problem doing CTC as a 4th grader had it been written at the time we began homeschooling. She had the skills required for it coming out of 3rd grade public school. If I could go back and do it again not based on the placement chart but based on my knowledge of the actual guides and skills with my dc, I would have placed my ds in 1st at the time in Beyond, my dd in 3rd at the time in Preparing, and well I would have had to find something else for dd who was in 4th when we began HOD b/c she was above the level of their highest guide at the time. We are doing secular science right now and well it is just the breadth and depth of it all. We aren't young earth and that became a problem with HOD and Apologia to be honest. Having done CTC with a 5th and 6th grader and now doing Physical Science with K12 with a 6th grader, they are just worlds apart. I don't mean in point of view only, but in the actual work and science and thinking involved in the science. The amount of writing, exploring, and explaining required for the secular science at grade level is just double or triple what they had been exposed to with HOD. The science knowledge, terminology, exposure to multiple theories and POV's is just such a change for the children. I don't think CTC's science could be considered middle school science level GLE's. I know a lot of people don't ever look at the GLE's when homeschooling b/c that isn't why they homeschool. My reasons for homeschooling have changed and evolved in the past 4 years. I have a child that will go into veterinary science. The life science course that she is taking right now in 7th grade is wonderful. She did not get this in-depth study of science with HOD. The sheer amount of labs to understand science with science tools and not household items is such a vast change. I have had to correct her several times with her answers to this years work b/c she just doesn't have the science vocabulary background in her answers due to HOD's lack of working on that exact skill. She understands the concepts but her answers are in layman's terms b/c that is what she learned with HOD. My 4th grader's curriculum is more academic and enriching compared to what we did last year for 5th and 6th grade with my girls. I would have to say science (throughout HOD) was probably my biggest concern behind language arts (younger guides). Don't get me wrong, I chose HOD for some of the very reasons I no longer do HOD. Our paths changed along the way with our goals with homeschooling. We are religious, but I felt the religion outweighed the academics in the later guides when children should be thinking for themselves and learning multiple POV's in order to develop their own POV. I feel with HOD that you really have to agree with HOD's POV and religious perspective or it will get hairy in the older guides. My goal isn't to tell my children what to believe or follow. Our beliefs shouldn't cause us not to explore other POV's and learn from them. I did not like the scripted prayer and Bible study either. At those ages, children should be questioning, exploring,and coming to their own conclusions about their beliefs and prayer to me is something between one and God. I believe my children's relationship with God is their's to nurture and develop. It is not mine to cultivate and manipulate. Sorry for rambling on and on. To answer your question about the science criteria, no. No it did not meet our GLE's for the children's grade levels. You would have to look up your state's GLE's and compare them to see if they meet yours.

If your child is interested in following a science career later in life, then I would strongly suggest secular science. I also love K12's History-Human Odyssey books. They are really good and my child is learning a lot. You can get them by themselves from Christianbook.com. I have even found schedules that line up SOTW and the Human Odyssey books.

There is really no way to keep up with all the reading with multiple children in so many ranges. There is these long, drawn out explanations of how CM is supposed to be open ended so your child has to really think and so you aren't just looking for a specific answer. Sort of like thinking outside the box, but these are science questions in CTC and well they had a specific answer and you had to look them up to find them yourself b/c HOD didn 't use the actual questions that had answer key in Apologia. That really made me irritated and I quickly told my dc to use Apologia's questions and then I actually could check and correct them and help them to learn from the science. We had done Apologia science without HOD and I will tell you it is much better done Apologia's way than the quick skim through reading with HOD. I did not feel prepared from skimming quickly to really know whether my child gleaned a lot from the reading. My problem with adding other resources to get it to grade level is that HOD is so full with all the history tidbits and activities that it makes your day overwhelming to actually add in grade level work. Everyone has different goals and their journey will be different. I have a child who is gifted and who will get scholarship offers. I didn't see HOD doing anything for us in the long run. Yes, they would have been educated with a religious overview...but I couldn't see it ever helping them in their college pursuits. I couldn't see the science as anything more than getting the bare minimum done. I saw the history as learning from only one POV and not really exploring and discussing it from a historical aspect at all. I can add religion to my child's day but I can't take a curriculum whose POV with every subject is religious and add in grade level expectations from each subject for 4 kids realistically. Disclaimer-this is the first time I have tried to multiquote on this board.

CTC is mainly a huge study of the Old Testament. It comes from one POV-Biblical History. I want my middle schoolers to have more than one POV at that age/stage. The small projects broken up over 4 days drew things out that could have been done quicker. The amount of boxes and resources did not bring an in-depth study as much as more work. It was not challenging to my middle schoolers. It was more busy work. No answer keys. Everything was open-ended. The guides essentially become self-study with no parent/teacher input or direction. It is independent work so the lack of answer keys and direction meant that the girls were just completing work and moving on...it felt disjointed to me as the teacher to be listening to narrations and reading narrations that I had not read books for and did not really know what answer the curriculum was looking for...in a nut shell my children tended to answer things to the nature of ...b/c the Bible direct us to...the character followed the Bible...they really knew they just had to say Bible in the answer no matter what subject with HOD and they would be on the right track. Science is too light. I actually looked at what their grade level counterparts were doing and had been doing for the last few years....it was eye opening. We joined a scout pack at a local Catholic school and I wandered around while ds was doing scouts. There was work posted everywhere and on the doors to the grade level classrooms. DS was noticeably behind his grade/age level peers when they did written work. It was a game changer for me to see that ds was probably a grade level behind his peers and it showed. This made me look up what the middle schools were doing here and the requirements for high school. It is not tried and true. No one has finished through high school with it (it is still being developed to those grades). Most of those using it aren't comparing it to anything different or age/grade level peers. So when you ask about it, your replies come from those that are in it for the long haul, but really no one can say if it prepares for college and heavy science/math degrees. Every one has different goals and their children have different pursuits, but if you have a child that already knows they wish to pursue something like veterinary science...it helps to make sure that they have the science background for it in high school to prepare for the science required in college.

Sorry that your grandmother had such an eventful holiday. Hope all is well soon. We had planned to school all week and only take off Thursday due to getting behind for a family emergency over the last month. We schooled last Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday very hard and caught up 3 subjects. We played hooky Wednesday. Thursday was the holiday. DH was off today and we played hooky, took the kids out to eat, went shopping for a few hours, and really just enjoyed "our" family today. This means we will have to crack the books Saturday and Sunday, but it was worth it to have the day and just enjoy spending it together.

You are supposed to buy a new workbook and up the reading level of the books each year to go along with the teacher's guide.

My magic wand would magically build the wall to my homeschool room, tear out the room's current contents, refloor said room, build the greatest storage closet for said room, move all school items to said room, and well...that is pretty much it. Can you tell I really want a homeschool room?

hmmm....We aren't doing Abeka this year, but my k'er has seat work with k12 and we have done Abeka before in the past. I think some kids really take to it off the bat and others don't. We sometimes do some of the seat work on the chalk board. I have a small chalkboard (think 2' x 2.5') mounted at his height on the wall and my k'er loves writing answers on the board. We did his worksheets together at first with him writing the answers on the board (I would fill in his sheets) and us talking a lot. Then he wrote answers on the board b/c he loved it. I try to add stickers and such. We do a timer to see if he can beat the timer and finish his page before it goes off. I also used the timer as a tool for me to say he had had enough for the day. Even if he didn't finish the worksheet and the timer went off after 20 min. or whatever the suggested time was...we put the paper away. I have a melissa and doug teacher stamp set and he likes to get his papers back at the end of the day/week (whatever works for you) and see the stamps and show them off to Dad. Now he doesn't want my help with his worksheets. He will tell me he can do them himself and has really taken to them. So I guess just try to make it fun at first and slowly move towards her doing it without you. If something had a lot of repetitive style questions on a page, we would do a lot orally and only leave a few for ds to finish on his own. We have been working on seatwork for about 4 months now and ds has really gotten better about it the last 2 months. I would say that you will have a little bit of a transitional period and to just try and make it fun. Stickers, stamps, grades or check marks or smiley faces, and a treasure box can really turn it into something fun.

We used CLP with my ds9 when he was 1st. I don't remember it taking very long, but he was schooling around all of his older siblings as well. So it wasn't all at once schooling. I think Math and Phonics were about 45 minutes. The rest was 30 minutes or less. I did not like their penmanship books though. They did not give a lot of instruction or direction and a dollar store handwriting book would have been just as good.

I would keep the dental unless you know you won't need any dental before the braces. I say this b/c we were sent for several oral surgeries before dd could get her braces on which included sealing some teeth as well. You also sometimes need to go to cleanings every 3 months with braces depending on how well your child can clean their teeth with the braces. We had expenses equaling almost the cost of braces for dental work the ortho requested before braces.

rodandstaffbooks.com is always where I have bought R&S from and they do have a used section that they resell from their buy back program.

We are really enjoying this year. My oldest is really thriving with the order of K12 and the schedule. She is my "advanced" kid so she thrives no matter what. She really enjoys it though. My middle dd enjoys it but not in the same kid in a candy store gleefulness as my older. We finally found out ds9 has dysgraphia but is really smart. It is one of those he doesn't have dyslexia...in fact he is advanced in reading and vocabulary...but his spelling and writing is ...well, have you ever heard of dysgraphia conversations with the evaluator? So after a long night reading on the web, I feel better about ds9 homeschooling than I ever have. He is learning keyboarding, cursive, using click n spell, and Diane Craft's Brain Therapy book alongside his 4th grade work. My k'er is having a great year. He is about to start some 1st grade work after Christmas break. :) We did have a family emergency and a death in the family followed by a stomach virus and now the cold from Hades. It has put us from being slightly ahead to almost very behind. So if we want a Christmas break, we are going to have to school Saturdays and all of Thanksgiving break except Thanksgiving. Overall though, with 4 kids in school and 2 middle schoolers...going with a straight curriculum that can be pretty independent for the olders was the best thing I have ever done. :D

I try not to compare to others on blogs and such. They aren't necessarily representative of the peers my children would have at the local school in our area. That said, school students do focus on writing early. I wouldn't feel behind unless this is one of your goals for your 1st grader and you are struggling with it. I will say that I have come to the conclusion that it depends on your future plans. If you don't know that you will homeschool through to middle school or high school or well past 2nd grade, then I would keep a tab on your local school's website and the grade your child is in currently. I wouldn't compare to pinterest or random teacher's blogs, but I would compare to the standards in your area and your local school website and teachers sites at the local school for your child's age/grade. I will also second that blogs are deceiving. I have a blog and I definitely don't post the bad stuff. lol. I may comment we had a bad day during the week, but my pictures are of the things that went well. My blog is my encouragement that we made the right decision and the kids are thriving here. I love looking back on what we have done. I used to look at a lot of blogs and feel inadequate with what we were doing or second guess myself. It wasn't productive and it didn't help our homeschool learning.