:lol::lol::lol: I had never heard of it either until someone's child brought their set to church. My ds didn't even see it, but I knew when I investigated a little more this was perfect for my ds. The rest of the kids are interested too, but my 7 y/o is the one who is really actually quite good even though he just started. BTW... as a side note... for anyone who has a child that needs "breaks" before doing sit down work... these work great! I give my son 5 min. at a time and it gets some of that energy out before he needs to concentrate.

Well, we're close, but not close enough! (So. MN) My dad lives in Woodville... near Baldwin though! WTG finding all of that used! It was a pretty penny for that silly mat... but without the mat it's really hard to time yourself! That's what motivates my ds.

Here is the official website. And is a youtube video showing someone doing cup stacking If you do a search on "cup stacking" on youtube you'll find a ton of things.

Good idea! Thanks!

Thanks! I have gone out to the main website, but there are no clubs for our town, nor is there anything close. Not even competitions... I'll do some more searching for the closest competition, but I think at this point I'd be interested in starting a club... I'd be very interested in the info your ds has on his club! We are a pretty major city so I'm surprised there is nothing here.

We just got Rylan stacking cups (and a timer mat just came for him today). He LOVES them! There are no clubs around here though and I'm thinking about starting one. Does anybody belong to one? How is it set up? What does the time together look like? I'd love to get something started here...

I use R&S with a 3rd and 4th grader. I can't speak a lot to retension because this is the first year we've used it, but it's a solid program that comes highly recommended so I don't doubt it will fare well in that area. There is lots of review both within the level and throughout the levels. I think in general, the older the child, the easier it will be for him/her to do it on their own and retain it (I would say this with any curriculum.) My 3rd grader I sit with and go over the lesson with her first. She probably could do it independently, but doesn't want to. :001_huh: We read the text together, do some samples and once I'm clear she understands I give her the work I've assigned her to do independently. This works well for her. I would say it takes about 10 min. of my time. With my 4th grader he reads his lesson and does the work I've assigned independently and it's been working well for him. We do not do the writing exercises as we are doing WWE. Next year, when my oldest goes into Grade 5 R&S and once he's finished WWE4 he will do both grammar and writing for a full writing program.

Some things my 1st grader does independently: read listen to audio books (with headphones) plays spelling games with his words on spellingcity copywork online games with math facts (we like the games on hoodamath) work puzzles Also, if you've done history/science already in the day your 1st grader could do a picture to be narrated later. You also may want to consider talking to your 4th grader and explaining to her your need for your 1st grader to do science in the AM. Ultimately, it's more important that your 1st grader gets done what she needs to do and you are sane, than the 4th grader being happy about what is done when. I understand though... it's a tricky line to walk.

We usually just pick up where we left off. I'm not married to a 36 week school year as we school year round. I only plan 6 weeks at a time on paper so I can easily adjust if needed. I have a habit of highlighting everything we got done in my plan books and circling anything that needs to be moved to the next day. In history or science I may combine things to pick up what we missed... or depending on the topic we may just skip it.

I'm not sure what I think yet. I tested both my youngest and my 7 y/o and I will only try it with my youngest. My 7 y/o read the highest reading test perfectly. I ran through a couple lessons and I'm not sure it's our style. We've never done formal reading programs here, but I thought for the price, I'd give it a try with my little guy. One problem I'm having is that he knows all his short vowels very well (can read anything with a short vowel), but doesn't really know any long vowels due to the sequence of Phonics Pathways which we've been using (he's only done 2 long vowels). I'm not quite sure where to place him.... I'm taking a guess at lesson 16. He tested into level 60, but I just feel like there will be too many holes if I only do the critical components. He's only 5. I'm planning on doing 2 lessons this week and see how it goes. If it doesn't go well I'll just get rid of it. My other kids learned just fine without a formal program so I'm not heartbroken if this doesn't fit the bill. I'm interested to hear others' responses... especially placing kids who read some, but are young yet. :001_smile:

We don't do a lot of projects in history.. just ones that strike my fancy. We do weekly science projects, but they are always simple ones taken from Janice Van Cleave. I think it depends on your kids. Some kids just love projects... most of mine don't. Mine are the type of kids that refuse to use math manipulatives... I have one child who HATES projects so that factors into my decisions as well. Truth be told most of my kids would rather snuggle with me on the couch with a book than do a project. That's probably why I don't go to the trouble of putting together a bunch of projects... it's just not worth it for my crew. Now... my bf's daughter is completely a project girl! I think she'd do a project for every subject if she could! She'd die in this house! :lol:

I'm not on an email list, however I subscribed to Maria's newsletter. In there she told of the updates to grades 1 and 2 with more writing space. I emailed her to see if I could get a free update and she said just email her once the updates are out and she'll take care of getting me an update. She was very nice about it. I'm sure if you did the same she'd take care of it!:D

I think it's a great curriculum, but a "boxed" curriculum is just not my style. I need to have control.over.each.and.every.thing. :D I would have to admit it would be a lot easier on me if I could do box...:lol:

:iagree:

We use AAS here. My suggestion would be to cruise through the things he knows, but to stick with AAS. The lower couple of levels are pretty "easy", but in my opinion Level 3 will get a bit more challenging. It's only gotten better as we've gone along. Since he struggles so with spelling it might not be too bad to have things be a little "easier" for him up front to gain some confidence. Also... I wouldn't underestimate the power of AAS. Even though the early levels have easy words... there are still important spelling concepts to be learned! :D Oh... and as for your question... I would just move forward in each area (writing/reading) as your child is able. Writing and reading are two different skills. Let your child read and read at the level he is able and provide spelling instruction at the level he is at. Nice thing about being in charge of his schooling... you get to decide in each and every subject where to place your child based on his strengths and weaknesses.

Kids are usually finishing up breakfast or if I'm lucky their main chore they are supposed to get done before school! :001_smile: I'm usually cleaning up breakfast or frantically getting things in order if I didn't do it the night before. Usually I do it the night before though... The kids pretty much know they go right from breakfast to primary chore to school... if the younger two boys snuck off to play before I could catch them our transition is me yelling up the stairs for them to come down and start school! :D

Does anybody have the PDF for the student workbook? I can't get it to work... it's the one for the first part... I so want to start this tomorrow with my little guy, but I can't get the workbook to download... I got the teacher manual fine. Please PM me if you could send the PDF file to me... I'll give you my email in the PM... Thanks! ETA: ARgggg... now I can't get the first part to install... 2nd part does though... grrrrrr.... I have the file now! Thanks so much! I have yet to open the program, but they all installed! Hopefully this is it!

Why did you choose it? My kids were crying every Friday they didn't make 100% on their spelling test. They hated spelling. I knew there had to be something else. A friend turned me onto AAS and we haven't looked back! (well, okay once, but for a good reason I'll get to later) How long have you used it? 2 years (I have one child just starting Level 6 and one in Level 4) HOW do you implement it? I pretty much just open and go with few modifications. I only do spelling about 15-20 min. per day with each. We just pick up where we left off the last time. We use a mounted magnet board with a small white board next to it for them to write on. We don't use the tiles a ton anymore. I pretty much just use them to teach the concepts at this point. Both children prefer to write on the board over using the tiles. In the lower levels we used them all the time though. Have you used anything else? I kind of did my own thing and used Spelling Power cards to develop a spelling curriculum when we first started hsing. I looked at someone's SP, but didn't like it much. Like I said, my children absolutely HATED spelling when we did it more traditionally. What do you like about it? It teaches the "why" behind spelling for those kids who knowing that works for. I see this program as kind of the "conceptual spelling" program like the "conceptual math" programs out there. The words aren't always the hardest, but the concepts you are teaching come through easier when the kids don't have to focus so hard on learning the spelling words. They can apply the concepts when they first learn it to easier words that then will carry over to tougher words later on. The best thing for me though was when my oldest exclaimed one day that he LOVES spelling and can hardly believe he's actually learning to spell because it's so much fun. That right there is worth all the $$ and time. What do you dislike about it? Because of the nature of the program it's teacher intensive. I'm not all that sure that spelling needs to be that teacher intensive at our house. I have very good spellers. However, the kids like it so much I don't want to give it up and of course I'm seeing huge dividends in my older two... they are very good spellers. What do your kiddos think about it? The older two love it! Never a complaint about spelling. My 3rd child did not do well with AAS. He has some learning issues though and for him... the conceptual approach just does not work. He is unable to make connections and apply general rules to multiple words. He doesn't learn that way. Honestly, the best thing for him is to give him a list of words and let him memorize. Because of the issues he faces this is the only way he learns. His issues do not involve the "normal" LD's so I'm not speaking on behalf of all special needs kids.. just mine! :D I switched him to SWO and that is going much better. Let me stress... for most kids, including most LD kids, AAS is wonderful! Our case is very unique!

The program is 2GB for anyone wondering...

Here's a blog post with my picts. The white board is hung (it wasn't when I took the picts) I'm also adding this contraption, from Ikea, to the wall with the maps to hang the maps from with these clips... my hubby just needs to mount it.

We use a chore chart system that I fashioned myself after one I'd seen. They have chores on circle disks that get turned over when they've done the job. This blog post has our job chart... Before school they are to get up, eat breakfast, brush teeth and get dressed. They each have one "primary job" to get done before school. (Jayden... laundry in washer and sort clothes from dryer, Kylie... empty and load dishes in dishwasher, Rylan... empty garbage, and Bryson... feed and water the dog). Then we start school. As soon as they finish their school work or while they wait to work with me they finish the rest of the jobs on their chart. They need to have all their jobs done by the appointed time that day or they do not get their hour to play video games/watch TV. That is enough motivation for most of them! ;)

Another idea I've done to help my kids through dictation is to write down for them any words I would not expect them to spell on their own. This helps them to be less anxious about knowing how to spell something and allows them to concentrate on keeping the dictation in their heads. They know when they get to the trouble word/s they can just copy it. I would stay at Level 2. Any dictations that are particularly hard (the ones meant to really stretch them) I give lots of help through. In the book she makes it seem like you can't give them any help and you can only read it so many times. After I watched the video of SWB with her son I learned I can be a lot more helpful during dictation! It changed the whole way we do dictation. My kids don't **love** dictation, however they do it. When we get through a tough one we celebrate! It's tough stuff!

I also would encourage you to find a way to mount them somewhere. We started without a board and quickly moved to a board. I bought a smaller one and that lasted us a bit, but I eventually moved to the 2x3 board. It's just easier and spelling gets done! It doesn't have to be mounted on the wall, but I think you'll be happier in the long run with the tiles stored on something.:001_smile:

Oh! I like that! I will have to remember that! It would be nice to add a photo on there too! :001_smile: We take birthdays off. We start our day with each child getting to chose a Schoolhouse Rock to watch. This gathers them together fairly well! Also, Fridays are reserved for more "fun" things such as field trips, videos, art/music, history projects and science projects if we didn't get to them or if they are bigger in nature.

I decided this year to not try to do music and art at the same time.... we've been doing art this past semester, now we're going to start music. I got the kids tin whistles and I know they are excited about that! Got me to thinking it might be nice to introduce something "new" and fun each January that we could all look forward to! :001_smile: I hope you all have a good week. We've had 2 weeks off and that first week back is usually a killer! Plus, my almost 7 y/o's bday is Friday so he's totally off his rocker! This positive thought thread is a good idea! :D