It must be hard to be in school with an older sister who always knows more then you. She needs to find her "thing". Once she has found her "area of expertise", she'll hit her stride. My 8yo says that he hates school all the time. He really means "I'd rather be playing video games". Then I, too, say "suck it up". :)

My 8yo LOVED the Smells Like Treasure series by Suzanne Selfours.

I posted this by mistake in the gen. Ed. board first: This is our first year with Math Mammoth, which is aligned to the common core. Before we used CLE, which is not aligned to the common core. We're using it for 1st and 3rd. The texts go on and on with different strategies for doing the exact same thing (in the case of 3rd grade mental subtraction, TEN strategies were presented). My kids are so frustrated at having to learn over and over different ways of doing the exact same thing. My son told me that he doesn't want to bother with the other strategies, he just does them how he wants and gets the right answer at the end. In my mind, consistently coming up with the correct answer is really all I want when it comes to arithmetic. I wonder what my kids aren't learning because lesson after lesson goes on with different ways to do the exact same thing. So...is it MM or is this a common core thing?

Whoops, wrong forum. Shows how my day is going. And I can't figure out how to move it. So I'll go ahead a cross post in he k-8 curriculum board.

This is our first year with Math Mammoth, which is aligned to the common core. Before we used CLE, which is not aligned to the common core. We're using it for 1st and 3rd. The texts go on and on with different strategies for doing the exact same thing (in the case of 3rd grade mental subtraction, TEN strategies were presented). My kids are so frustrated at having to learn over and over different ways of doing the exact same thing. My son told me that he doesn't want to bother with the other strategies, he just does them how he wants and gets the right answer at the end. In my mind, consistently coming up with the correct answer is really all I want when it comes to arithmetic. I wonder what my kids aren't learning because lesson after lesson goes on with different ways to do the exact same thing. So...is it MM or is this a common core thing?

We did this: http://www.classicsforkids.com/ Today and it was great. Well, we're in the 17th c. In SOTW and this week's podcast is on Aaron Copeland so we're not synced chronologically. But the kids listened and did the quiz at the end so I called it a day. My 6yo takes an art class at co-op so she's good with the hands-on creation of art. My 8yo boy would rather do just about anything than create art. I'm good with that. I would like him to learn art history and appreciation though. The search continues...

I was just wondering this, this morning! My son started third grade yesterday and is acting like basic addition is new to him. I know some of that is coming back from six weeks off. It might be time for an intensive review.

Huh, maybe there isn't one. Bumping...just to be sure!

ah..."chronic disease"...it sounds so glamorous... :coolgleamA: I was diagnosed with MS last March. Things have gone pretty much straight downhill for me since. My hands are pretty iffy nowadays, they go in and out with feeling though I still have pretty good movement. My eyesight is getting worse too. I'd love to connect with someone else who is health-challenged and homeschools. We can't afford private school, don't live anywhere near a Catholic school, and are completely afraid of the local public schools. I've always wanted to homeschool but, even if I didn't love it, we really don't have much of a choice.

We did HFA last year. I liked the content but I found it tiresome to have to pull everything together from various spots in the pdf and then visit other links, print some stuff, figure out where the broken link moved to, etc. Also, by the time we do all the "have tos", I'm too tired to deal with high maintenance "shoulds". Has anyone ever seen a music and art history program on dvd? Or fully online (just press play?) Ideally, it would correspond to SOTW.

Just wondering how other people print their downloads. Do you print them all at once and use a three ring binder? Get them spiral bound? Print on demand at home? Any idea who has the best prices for printing? I'm trying to figure out if I should get the Math Mammoth download or just buy it printed. In the past, I've tried printing HFA on demand but it got overlooked a lot because there wasn't a book in the stack (and not one of our do-or-die subjects either).

Yes! I remember we had a whole year dedicated to "needs and wants" in my PS education. The information is good, it is much more effective (and easier) to teach in real life!

I happened across our local public school's "key concepts" for each year. Looks like they don't start history until fifth grade. Instead they have Social Studies. I feel confident that we are hitting all necessary concepts by doing SOTW. But it got me thinking...what is Social Studies? Why is it a separate, competing subject? Is there any value to studying these concepts in the abstract? I don't see it, but there must be great argument for studying these things outside of the context of history. Anyone know?

I just retread that, hope it makes sense. I'm holding a newborn and trying to type while being interrupted by a 2 yo. You've BTDT, right?

Last year we did Apologia astronomy. We finished it, but I'd like to try a new curriculum this year. DS is very enthusiastic about the subject. He works best with work text books with concrete lesson beginnings and endings. If I can find something to use with my K'ner too, that would be perfect. I enjoyed the religious aspect of Apologia but we are not literal 7 day creationists so it didn't exactly fit with our religious beliefs. If I can find a science curriculum that works for us in format whether or not it has a religious aspect is secondary.