I got asked at one of the local events if I would be interested in putting my kids in a science coop course on essential oils! My background is medical science and research so just a bit of a mismatch for me. I don't really want to get kicked out of our local homeschooling community because we do some great classes (drama, swimming lessons, etc.), so I just have to keep my mouth shut in real life and give polite excuses for some of the offerings.

She always asks for more of the BA honeycomb puzzles and I bet she would enjoy math crosswords if you have them🙂 She really likes games and puzzles.

She was doing just fine with vertical subtraction with regrouping in Beta, but we haven't got to the horizontal subtraction in BA yet. I'm going to sit for awhile with the addition until she is fluent before I move on. I shouldn't have worded that comment to imply outsourcing is bad. It is not a bad thing to be aware of and accept our own limitations. I don't want outsourcing to be my default. I have no one really to discuss these ideas with in real life. The homeschoolers in my area that I have met this year are mostly radical unschooling or just not similar to me in educational ideals. They often suggest doing coops for things like science but I really don't get the concept of pulling my kids from school (because I don't think they are getting a good enough education) to then put them in a coop with a parent I don't know very well and assume they are going to get a good education from them. My kids do primarily get socialization through other means so a coop wouldn't serve that purpose either. I am very thankful for the great feedback and advice here, including the advice calling me out:) I think I need to go back through the thread and take some notes. It did sting a bit to hear it suggested that I'm not nice to my DD7, but I needed to hear that. I've been thinking about it and this morning talked to her about math. I think I may have pinpointed the issue she is having: anxiety. She is very eager to please me and she feels like I'm angry with her when she doesn't get something. I'm not, but I do get frustrated sometimes. She perceives any slight sigh, look on my face, even a slight change in my tone as me being angry. So, I've apologized and promised her that I am not upset and that she can take all the time she needs to work things through. She wants me to sit right next to her while she is working so I guess she just needs extra reassurance. Changing my demeanour seemed to make a huge difference this morning. We went through some more horizontal addition and I do think she mostly understands but lacks fluency and it is not a good combination with her worrying the whole time she is working. I have to mindfully stay very upbeat and avoid giving her the perception that I'm upset with her. She did much better today when I stayed very lighthearted. Her anxiety has gone way down since bringing her home and I kind of brushed it off thinking it's not really a problem anymore. It seems to be wired into her though. When she was just a toddler she would have complete meltdowns if the corners of her blanket weren't perfectly straight and in the exact right position over her body. I have brought it up to the doctor in the past and she told me that DD isn't trying to be difficult and that her fears are real to her so I should just reassure her. Reassurance seemed to do a lot today during our math session. I don't want homeschooling to be negative for my kids. That is the exact opposite of what I want so I need to be more mindful of giving off the impressions I make in my kids, especially DD7. I probably will break for summer soon, but I don't want to end on a sour note. I just need to shut down the math if I can't give her what she needs on a particular day. I feel those of you who have discussed the issues with girls in school. My girls are very compliant and people-pleasers. My oldest DD would just be on the iPad or chrome books when she was done her work playing mindless games and didn't seem to care whether or not she was challenged. She is very social and cared more about seeing her friends. My DD7 would let all her anxiety out on me when she came home. When I talked to the teacher about her anxiety she was shocked to hear that she was anxious as she was always 'perfect' in class. They were always seated at the back of class. Whenever I would ask what they could work on the answer was always "Nothing. Just keep doing what you are doing." It is hard to complain about teachers because I know they have a lot to deal with. Both of my daughters classes were around 30 kids and there were some serious needs among some of the students that took up a lot of the teachers' time. How could I expect them to spend extra time on my girls? I have two younger sons and I can see how they might be totally different. I could see my DS6 acting out in school rather than being compliant. I sent him this year for kindergarten and he did not enjoy school at all. Right now during the shutdowns it is like pulling teeth trying to get him to do the work sent home from school. I have Miquon and started doing that with him. He begs me for "Mummy Math" rather than what got sent home from school. So, most weeks we have been reading and doing the Miquon and being very selective about what he does from school. He will be homeschooling next year along with my daughters.

Thank you. How do you do things when your kids move past your abilities? Are you doomed to outsource things?

Thanks that made a lot of sense to me. What do you do if your child says they don't want to improve anything? That is what I anticipate my girls saying.

This makes a ton of sense to me. My daughter's main struggle with vertical addition was lining up her numbers when writing them which caused errors. She knew which numbers went under each other but her penmanship would often lead to them being skewed to the side causing her to add ones with tens accidentally.

To be honest, because I worried about my abilities to teach these concepts. I know I can do better than what they were doing at school, but I want them reach their full potential. Rant here. When I was searching and reading trying to figure out what was going on (math) with my DD10 before I pulled her from school I found some very interesting studies and articles. It seems that one of the main reasons for the wage gap between men and women is math. Math acts like a great big filter. Meaning that women tend to avoid higher education when math is involved which leads to lower paying careers. This is found even in education. Women tended towards elementary and men more towards high school and the difference was largely related to a fear of higher math. So this leads to elementary teachers being quite weak in math skills and this passes on to kids. I don't want my girls limited by a fear of math. If they choose careers that don't require university math I want them to choose based on preference, not a fear of math. Does that make sense? I can spout out the algorithms all day long but I didn't want to teach my kids that way. I am brand-new to homeschooling this year and I liked the idea of video lessons as a crutch to help if I was unable to explain concepts to my kids. I watched an example video and the way Steve Demme explained addition (9+5 as making a 10 so needing to take from the 5) seemed like a great way to learn. I wanted a curriculum that was mastery and straightforward. After using it, I felt like the problem-solving skills weren't enough alone. My province is very weak on math. I took my oldest out for her grade 5 year and she tested in at a beginning grade 3 level on Math-U-See. She was able to complete Gamma, Delta, Epsilon and part of Zeta this year. She went from hating math to loving it. I have her doing BA (behind grade level) now and she is doing very well with it. So I guess I don't really know where to go with any of my kids. I have an upcoming grade 1 student. He doesn't have the memory abilities of my girls but he just seems very intuitive with math. So I am using Miquon with him right now and think I will transition him into Singapore for grade 2. I also feel a lot more confident than I did at the beginning of the year. I just don't know if this is too many different curricula to use as I have a fourth (only turning 4).

I appreciate all the feedback. I will try and explain my reasoning. I have an extremely good memory. I don't know if photographic memory is a real thing or not, but I have the ability to read extremely fast and memorize easily. I still recall science notes from high school and picture the words on the page like I am reading them. I was able to do extremely well through high school and university because of my memory. The problem with this was that I could get by without understanding just by memorizing how to do problems. I was able to skip classes in university and then read the textbook the night before an exam and do very well. This made me academically lazy and did not work well for classes that required conceptual understanding (linear algebra for example). It was not ideal to have to relearn things I should have learned when I was younger at the same time as I was trying to complete challenging classes in university. I would have been much better off had I learned problem-solving skills earlier in life. Both my daughters seem to have the same memory abilities as me. As an example, we've been doing IEW poetry memorization this year and both my DD7 and DD10 can memorize a very long poem in one sitting in under ten minutes. It does take them reciting it for several days after to commit it to long-term memory however. Because of this, I worried with math that they would do what I had done. Both girls were pulled from school last year so have one year of homeschooling under their belts. In school, they skirted by easily at the top of their classes with zero effort. I found out that my oldest got through grade three multiplication by memorizing the times tables they were tested on immediately before the test, but she only put it in her short-term memory. She would ace each test and then forget the facts usually by the next day. The reason I have added BA in (as a supplement) is because I want to ensure that they cannot skirt by memorizing algorithms. I don't know that I would have discovered this issue with my DD7 if I hadn't been doing BA. She did every test in MUS with 90+ %. I don't think I am at the point where I should throw in the towel with BA yet. She thoroughly enjoys reading the guidebooks and does so often for fun. She loves the puzzles she has been doing. The frustration has just come out in the current chapter with the horizontal addition. She is an anxious child but she also has not had to overcome challenges in schoolwork until this year. I do agree that I don't need to follow every topic or have her complete every problem. I don't know if we should stick with MUS because it is 'working' because I'm not convinced that it truly is working the way I want it to. I think I need to get her to understand horizontal addition to ensure she has a full understanding of place value. Just because she can break a number like 137 down no problem into 100 + 30 + 7 doesn't mean that she can use that understanding to add or regroup at this point. I am aware it is marketed to gifted students, but I had read many reviews from knowledgable people that the results with BA can be very good with bright students. I don't want her frustrated, I want her challenged, but that seems to be a tricky balance. I'm not opposed to giving up BA at some point, I just don't necessarily agree that because we've hit a wall that I should throw it away.

This would probably work well with coins and kill two birds with one stone:) Now I just have to get my hands on some pennies (Canadian here). Also, it is a much more complex skill than it appears to be at first. I have a really good memory and I was able to do very well with math without fully understanding some key concepts. I want better for my kids.

I think I'm too much of a list checker and I probably moved on to the shortcuts too quickly just because that was the next thing in the book. I need to remember what Lori D told me in another thread about me controlling the curriculum and not the other way around.

Thanks I will have her work on more horizontal addition. I let her use blocks and I usually suggest it when she's struggling, but she gets upset and acts like I'm punishing her for bringing out the blocks. I was reading on the BA website and they seem to really emphasize doing addition horizontally and discourage adding vertically and carrying the one. Should I avoid teaching the vertical way to do addition in the future? I have two younger kids and if it is better to avoid teaching it that way I will from the start. Or is it good to teach that way once they have a firm understanding of place value? I really thought my daughter understood but now I'm wondering if she was just able to memorize how to do the questions without internalizing the concept.

Thanks so much for your help. Breaking it down to goals first is incredibly helpful. I would love if you could discuss more. How do you decide what to correct and what to let go?

She can do it the MUS way by lining up vertically. She can do it with blocks. But I want her to really get horizontal addition too because I feel like by learning to carry the one she doesn't really understand why she is carrying the one. Does that make sense? Or am I being overdoing it by not letting her stick to a method she gets?

I will try even though I despise Monopoly lol.

It is usually on the horizontal addition when regrouping is involved that she messes up. So for example, she will rewrite 194 + 153 = 200 + 14 + 7 instead of 200 + 140 + 7. She can do it no problem if there is no regrouping. If I get her to add 194+153 vertically she can carry the one no problem. Now if I get her to do 194 + 153 the second way BA teaches, by having her make it 200 + 147 she really struggles with taking away what she has added to the first number. I have explained it multiple times the BA way and also using blocks and she gets it then, but isn't retaining it. For most things she has a freakishly excellent memory and part of why I am having her do another curriculum is to make sure she isn't just memorizing algorithms. I want her to understand the concepts.

I have a 6 year old in kindergarten this year. I've been going through BOB books and Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. I haven't found a curriculum I want to use with him for grade 1. I don't have a clue where to start in making my own but that is what I'm leaning towards. Should I just focus on reading out loud, narrations, and copywork? Do I need to do more phonics with him?

Hello, I have a daughter (just about eight) and finishing grade 2. She did MUS Beta this year and did extremely well with it. She was able to get 90% and above on all the tests. I have had her working through BA 2 since she finished MUS Beta and I've run into problems. BA teaches horizontal addition and in addition it teaches addition by finding an easier number to work with. For example, 46+118 = 50+114. She is having trouble retaining this concept. She ends up messing up her place values. I've gone over it again and again and she will get it by the end of the lesson, but when we come back to it again the next day she has forgotten. I admit I have gotten overly frustrated and lost patience with her over it. I've had to apologize to her. Should I just keep moving forward or is there a concept I've failed to teach her well enough? I don't know how to figure out whether we just keep marching forward and if it is just a development issue that she will understand when she is a bit older or if I need to back up and reteach something.

Math: Miquon and Singapore 1A/1B Language Arts: Zaner Bloser 1, The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts level 1 History: Joining in with his sisters for some of our Tapestry of Grace work Geography: Looking at the MAPS book and activity book Science: I've ordered a bunch of honeybee books and he will observe/help with beekeeping at our new hives. He wants to be an astronomer so I would like to put together a unit study. I'm welcome to suggestions. French: Not sure yet. Art: Artistic Pursuits K-3 Book 1, Drawing with Children, maybe Children's Choir? P.E. Soccer, swimming lessons (hoping it starts back this year)

Thanks again for all the help. I’ve been simmering on the advice in this thread. I have decided to dump Latin for all but our DD10. I think this will give us some breathing room. My BIL moved a hive of bees into our property so I’ve ordered some good bee books for the kids and I’m hoping for science we can study them all summer and then help process the honey and wax. My BIL has a child size bee suit so they’ve been taking turns suiting up and watching as it got moved on and now as we are trying to get the hive to accept a queen. I’ve been thinking about math a lot and then I came across all 6 miquon books and annotations for a very good price on a used curriculum group so I snatched it up. I started with DS6 today just to try it. It did take us about 20 minutes to get through the first page so I might have to figure out the pacing a little better, but I could see him already making some connections. The annotations is going to be necessary for me as I never would have thought of the different ways to use the page in my own. Lori, I know you mentioned you did it by topic through the books. I am going to go searching through threads, but is there a compelling reason to go through topically rather than book by book? I did find a chart that lines all the topics up with Singapore so I’m thinking I might use Singapore 1A/1B as the spine this coming year and then use Miquon to introduce the topics before we do them in Singapore.

-window writing pens: your grade 2 child could have a list and them would write current spelling words on the window and after checking, you could have a cloth and spray bottle for him to wipe the window clean. Your dc k could practice writing her letters on the window. -have a container of homemade play dough and letter stamps. Teach them to roll out the play dough on a tray. Kids do their lists by stamping out words. -Math- get a game like balance beans or a sum scale (not sure what they are called but you hang numbers on either side to balance equations. -geometric pattern boards and pieces -Audio station with earphones. You could have them record their (maybe just gr2 child) spelling words by saying the word and then spelling it out. Then they could listen to all their words. -string and alphabet beads. Have them string spelling words with something between them

DD7- will be turning 8 this summer. She is my stubborn child. She loves reading and will often finish chapter books in a day or two. Bible: Tapestry of Grace History/Geography: Tapestry of Grace Science: Undecided. We just got some honeybees so I'm thinking about just getting a bunch of books for her to delve into and also study the bees in the hive. We might also do astronomy as her younger brother loves space and we could do this together. Language Arts: Michael Clay Thompson Island level for Grammar, Poetry, Vocabular, and Literature (along with a book list I have for her). Writing & Rhetoric for writing. Spelling Wisdom for spelling/copywork/dictation. Zaner-Bloser 3 for cursive. IEW Poetry Memorization level 2. Math: We will use Math-U-See Gamma with Beast Academy 2. P.E.: Figure skating (if everything opens back up) and swimming lessons, maybe homeschool gym time. French: Duolingo Art: Artistic Pursuits, TOG projects, Nature Friend art tutorials Extra: Choir, Burning Cargo for typing, MP Greek Alphabet, MindBenders, cooking/baking, sewing, and I'm still debating about using Simply Charlotte Mason Enrichment Studies for some of this. Goodness, this sounds like a lot. I fall in love with the idea of specific curriculum and cannot figure out what/if to drop.

I didn't know one was coming. One more for my never-ending purchase list.

Thanks for your help. A problem solving supplement is probably what we need for this year. I need to figure out the best way to help her struggle a bit through the problems. For both of my kids I think I'm too quick to help or show them how to solve the problems. The FAN books seem to show the process for figuring out how to do the problems. Have you also used the Challenging Problems sets from Singapore Math (are they similar to the FAN books)? Do they teach the process or just provide problems? Is it really ok to not have done much geometry before high school? She doesn't even know what a protractor or compass is. I think I might supplement some geometry for my own peace of mind. Also, jumping in at level 3 is best for Singapore? I might have to consider that for my DD7 going into grade three this year so I don't have the same problem as with her older sister. She has completed Beta MUS and I have her working on BA 2A right now. What are the best methods for helping kids learn problem-solving in math? My daughter has never had to struggle through school and it seems we always waiver between too easy or too hard. How do I help my kids learn this very important skill? Does it come with age (logic vs grammar stage)? Can someone walk me through how they help their kids figure out a challenging/multi-step word problem?

We really enjoyed DK The Elements Book: A Visual Encyclopedia of the Periodic Table. My kids love the DK encyclopedias. Cleopatra: Diane Stanley

Hello, My daughter is 10. I pulled her from public school last September, mainly because of weaknesses in our public school curriculum. I started noticing trouble when I was helping her with some long division during her grade four year. She completed grade four math and she tested at a beginning Gamma level using the Math-U-See curriculum. This was despite her always being at the top of her class and her report cards indicating that she was at the highest level of math. So she began homeschooling last September (grade 5 year) and I started her with the Gamma level. We moved quickly through it as she didn't need to learn everything but there were some large concepts she had missed or not been taught. Then we did the entire level of Delta moving at her pace. She then did Epsilon. Now, she is on lesson 5 of Zeta. Math-U-See was exactly what she needed. The mastery concept helped her to gain confidence and took her from hating math to loving it all in this school year. But now she is racing through all these levels attaining near-perfect/perfect scores on the curriculum and I'm worried she isn't being challenged enough. At this point I think it is beneficial to complete Zeta as the sequence of concepts doesn't align well with other curriculum. I am 95% convinced that I want her to use VideoText Algebra/Geometry for high school math. Out of curiosity, I looked at the Beast Academy and Singapore placement tests and it looks like there are several things that won't be covered in the Math-U-See curriculum (like a lot of geometry) by the time she has finished Zeta and she has not had to face as challenging problems. Going by those placements she would be behind grade-level in either Singapore or Beast Academy. I had initially thought we would do Math-U-See Pre-Algebra and then move to VideoText. But now I'm wondering if I should have her do either Beast Academy or Singapore (5 levels? not sure on which) for a year before moving to VideoText. So I could do any of these options with her. 1. Stick with Math-U-See and do Pre-Algebra (maybe even the Algebra I) before VideoText. 2. Place her in Beast Academy 4/5 or Singapore 5/6 before VideoText. If I choose this option how do I go about deciding which level? There will be things she hasn't covered in BA 4 and 5, but much that she has; there would be the same issue placing her into Singapore 5 or 6. Would I just go ahead and start at the beginning of BA 5 or Singapore 6A? I'd prefer not to have to go back much further and skip through. 3. Something else??