My oldest will be in fourth grade when we pick school back up this summer; we've homeschooled since K. Last year, for third grade, we did part of FLL 3, and she seemed to really enjoy it--I didn't make her memorize every list of conjunctions or whatever, but it got so repetitive..and then we moved stuff around and started working on Latina Christiana from Memoria Press. Latin was my favorite subject to teach, and my daughter really enjoyed it and worked hard on it and did quite well. I've been looking a lot at MCT and reading tons of reviews on it, too. I like the whole program and the in depth analysis you get into, but I am hesitant on the cost and the whole premise that you cannot write without explicit training in grammar--I've also heard that the upper levels get quite confusing and pile up with minutiae. So for fourth grade, i see our options as 1. FLL 3 2. Latina Christiana plus the simple grammar program from Memoria Press 3. MCT (whole progam) I will only have time to teach Latin if we do option two; I don't think I can swing FLL, All About spelling, Latin, literature, and a lot of writing (we follow WTM for creating our own writing) for a whole LA program. Maybe I could, but FLL + Latin seems a bit overkill, too, for this kid who is intuitive with English (though not with spelling lol). I certainly can't do/ don't want to do MCT and Latin. I am leaning to LC + MP Grammar recitation program, but any thoughts and ideas are appreciated!

I think that a "true" CM approach would not transition well back to public school. I learned a lot from A Delectable Education, and Karen Glass's Know and Tell is helpful, too, and we did a semester of Ambleside Online, and realized that CM isn't for us, though I do love many of the principles. Mostly, while my seven year old could do great narrations, she really wasn't able to recall the specifics (she could tell about Washington crossing the Delaware, for example, but couldn't remember any names, dates, or locations whatsoever) and after much searching and trying out of many different curricula, my husband and I are in agreement that, frankly, there are just some things we want them to know, plain and simple, before they graduate. CM was a little too "take what they will from this" for us. Everyone has many, many, many different opinions; I just wanted to share our experience. :-)

I wouldn't. We stopped at the end of AAR 2, at which point DD was reading at a solid fourth grade reading level with fantastic comprehension. I had read that once they are reading fluently, start a phonic based spelling and it will set them up for success, and have them keep reading out loud to you.

Oh that's brilliant! Tucking that in my brain for next year! I like doing the math lesson with her, so I'm happy to keep doing that! At first we skipped part of the "drill" with flashcards and such, but I now see that for her, at least, she does need all that direct instruction, immediate feedback, and drill/review!

Reading that R&S matches up with other curriculum in fourth grade greatly relieves my anxiety! I know that when we have our annual (required) homeschool evaluation in August, my daughter will be considered "behind" but I also trust with R&S that she will be solidly grounded in arithmetic, which absolutely makes everything else easier later on!

As an update we have embarked on Rod and Staff 2, with good colored pencils! She continues to insist that math is her least favorite subject, but I counter that she has to have a least favorite! We are going to stick with it. The interactive part of the lesson is blessedly shorter than Saxon but still worthwhile and we like that. Sometimes I sit with her for the worksheet part, sometimes not. She gripes but eventually gets it done. Thanks for all the support and recommendations!

These are the ones we got. We found the Crayola ones to be a bit "waxy" but these Col Erase ones get a good sharp point and act like pencils. https://www.amazon.com/Prismacolor-Col-Erase-Erasable-24-Count-20517/dp/B000089DCH/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1543458705&sr=8-1&keywords=col+erase

Thanks! Yes, I have definitely come to see that in many of our school subjects, I'm switching because of ME, not necessarily because of my girls, and that is a disconcerting but ultimately helpful (I hope!) realization. If I "believe in it" (and they don't absolutely hate it!) I will be able to teach it and I think that I am finally honing in on what that will be for us. And for sure on the tutoring aspect of math at this stage--both of us like both of us doing it together. I bought my daughter high quality erasable colored pencils and they have helped her enjoyment of math, too.

That was illuminating, thank you. Yes, I keep thinking...ok, those kids raised on the math of the 1940s are the ones who put a man on the moon using slide rules and paper trig tables...right? :-) I do think that manipulatives have a place...and I really do like base ten blocks and learning addition with the little unit blocks. But I do see how they are overused.

Oh me too! I was in an M.Ed. program and quit after we took the Classroom Discipline class. I knew even then that I could never discipline my children this way, and so I could never discipline someone else's kids that way, either.

I think BA would be fun for us to try as "puzzle" math once a week, or over breaks. Thanks for reminding me about it! I know some folks use it for their main curriculum but for us it would work best as a fun addition (haha).

I have a friend who refuses to use manipulatives for math, and I always thought that was strange, but then I now have a kid who feels like the manipulatives slow her down, and another who uses them for art arrangement (seriously...she matches all the teddy bear counter colors, turns them to face the same way, arranges even the little unit cubes into shapes, etc) so this no manipulative strategy has some appeal! I actually ordered Rod and Staff through Memoria Press yesterday. At the very least, I want to look through it all really carefully and take my time. I figure I can return it, or use it, at that point.

Neat I've never looked into Rod and Staff or CLE even though I've seen them mentioned. Price is certainly right for both! I looked briefly through the teachers manuals online for both but couldn't quite tell how much hands on stuff with manipulative there is scripted in? Though I've got bunches of manipulative and it's easy to add in when needed. I love the streamlined aspect of Rod and Staff and she would love all the little animal pictures. We actually gave MEP just a few more days before I had to call it good effort and go back to the drawing board/decision matrix. I wanted to love MEP but I continued to feeel flustered teaching it and DD felt very rushed and uncertain, likely because of me but she likes all the activities with Saxon and I'm just going to have her do one side of the worksheet. Basically I need to find a math curriculum that I feel confident teaching, as a previous poster on this thread pointed out. I did the math curriculum questionnaire that was suggested and the secular one came out as Saxon being the best choice for us by a long shot. The Christian one said Horizons or Rod and Staff thought not as strongly as Saxon. My husband has said no more math curriculum purchases this year! Haha smart man. We are going to finish the year with Saxon. However the local homeschool resale shop has bunches of Rod and Staff stuff so I will definitely look into that for third grade.

Have you considered Artistic Pursuits? We do it all together, and it involves art and history and art study. If they like to read, maybe grab the Sonlight Catalog and pick books from there? A lot of their stuff is history, but some of the read alouds for the younger grades would be good independent reading for your older ones. Kildee House, for example, has some fascinating stuff about forests and animals; Understood Betsy is great; Red Sails to Capri and Adventures with Waffles made me laugh so hard I had to stop reading, and all these books are good jumping off points for sea exploration (Capri) or Vikings and European festivals (Waffles).

I really appreciate everyone's input and thoughtful responses! I talked with my mom and she asked, "So what, exactly, is wrong with the program you have now?" And I stumbled around with well it's cobbled together, not colorful, teacher intensive, etc., but really came to see that MEP is fine for at least the rest of the year. I just need to reformat our day a bit to accommodate it, and make sure that we keep up with the flashcards and drill sheets from our Saxon 2 program and maybe buy some more, or use XtraMath, or something like that! And I ordered a box of the Prismacolor Col Erase erasable colored pencils for DD so that she can make things colorful. Definitely going to keep Horizons in mind, too! Now, I will see if I can actually start and complete an entire grade of a math curriculum :-)

This is the guide I used; it doesn't tell how to teach it, just has review and stuff on there. I made it as hands on as I could. Because there's no instruction help, I'm not sure how useful it would be once you get to multiplication, say, unless you find other resources or are comfortable teaching that. https://littleschoolhouseinthesuburbs.com/kgrd-abeka-math-drill-plan/

I can't imagine my almost 8 yr old doing RSO on her own. We are doing Earth and Environment 1 this year, and frankly, some of the stuff we just did regarding hardness charts for testing minerals and transferring that information to a formal chart (provided but still parsing down our findings to fit the chart) and then comparing our findings to the given chart...one of the reasons I love the program is that it's a stretch for her! She might be able to do the "Life Sciences" one on her own at this point, but I'd still have to help her set up the lab. Maybe just some Janice VanCleave books? We did the biology experiment one a bit and those labs were pretty simple but still showed good information, but you'd need to get some supplemental books from the library. It does seem like all the "amazing" programs require a lot of mama input!

I'm glad to hear that comparison between Abeka and Horizons. I liked Abeka, or could have if I'd played around with it and not been scared of it, but needed a bit more in the way of an instructor's guide that didn't teach to a classroom, so I like that Horizons is made for homeschooling! I've printed off the Readiness Assessment and we will work on that and see what we think. Thank you so much for your help!

haha I know it seems like I'm searching for a unicorn! :-) I'm looking at Horizons on Rainbow Resource. I don't know why I haven't before...it seems really, really good!

Interesting. I see myself as more important than the book in other subjects but math seems so critically text dependent. And I’m less confident in it. Frankly I excelled at math even at higher levels in AP classes in high school but it wasn’t natural for me the way Language Arts stuff was. We tried Singapore before in first grade but it was just a few days 🙈 because the convuluted language of number bonds and such was confusing. Abeka and Saxon used number sentences and that made more sense to us both. Sigh. I know if I keep looking for Perfect!!!!! I will end up looking and switching forever.

Yikes all my dirty secrets lol. We did Abeka K without the teachers manual but with a supplemental guide made by another woman for 5 months. DD was 6 and she learned a lot! We did the new math from Simply Charlotte Mason for a few months last year. We did Abeka 1 for a few months at the beginning of last year but it was too much writing for her at that point and I didn’t know how/that I could adapt that. It was also a bit tedious and I didn’t know what if anything I could skip. I find blowing off entire lessons or problems in math hard bc you might be missing something that ends up being critical.

I am a chronic math curriculum switcher. DD1 is in second grade and a bit "behind" in math due to my inability to stick with things. I won't even list everything we did in K and first but for,this year, Math u see was a disaster. Saxon 2 has been ok; she does well with the one on one tutoring aspect but she doesn't like the lack of color and frankly it's so incremental that it's killing us both and she isn't being challenged at all. We have done a few days of MEP 2 and I like the level of thinking she has to do and that there is some review built in. It's just a different format; I think we'd both prefer a more distinct lesson followed by her doing problems on her own. She wants more color. And the drill has to be done separately. I'm strongly considering the new Singapore Dimensions math but it's just so different from how I was taught that I'm unsure about it. I used Saxon when I was homeschooled and loved it! I think Saxon could work for DD1 but I can already see that DD2 will not tolerate it. Basically I need to find something and stick with it through till 8th grade because the constant switching is stressing me and holding her back from where her true ability is!