Growing With Grammar :D

Thanks for all the input Ladies! I think I'm going to give it a try next week. I like the idea of actually looking forward to Mondays! :001_smile:

Argggg.... Mondays SUCK at our house! Kids can't get rolling, everyone is bickering and work doesn't get done. I'm thinking about making Monday our "light" day instead of Friday. I'm concerned though that Tuesday will just become "Monday". Don't need that! Do you do a more relaxed Monday? How does it work? Does it make the rest of the week easier? Honestly, once we get past Monday we're fine. I have a crew that hates transition. Thinking maybe if we slowly got into routine for the week it would be better. Thoughts? Experiences? Thanks!

We have this one and we love it. Not too expensive and works really well!

I would agree with this! Two of my boys don't have the time of day for Fred. My dd did some of them and will take them out occasionally, but my youngest ds who is like the pp's dd LOVES Fred! It's the first thing we do at math time. I have to limit him to a chapter a day 4 times a week! We use MM as our main program and Fred is an added bonus!

I stopped AAS with my older two last year. The younger two were doing SWO and I just put everyone in it to get one subject off my "work with mom" list. Well, after selling books 1-5 last year, I re-bought the entire series 2-7 this year! My kids HATED the spelling workbooks. They started fussing and crying again about spelling and I noticed they weren't retaining things as well. It was worth it for me to re-buy everything this year. The kids are happy again and love spelling. Yes, it's another hour in my day, but I've found it's worth it. I have fairly good spellers and an average speller. It works well for all of them. We don't do everything as the book says, but adapt it to the kids. I won't stop now until everyone is done with level 7! (My oldest will be finishing it this year!) :001_smile:

I have 4 kids and none of them enjoy writing. They are all very writing phobic. (How that happened I don't know as I enjoy writing! My dh doesn't though so that must be a dominant gene!) Anyway, my 6th grader is on lesson 29 of WWS1. He is not independent at all, but I still find it very valuable for him to be studying this curriculum. We work through it together until we get to a point he can do it himself. Sometimes I guide him through a whole lesson, sometimes I can set him free to finish on his own. I don't see this as a problem. He is learning a ton and by sitting with him I can help him relax about writing. He's very independent in other things so I know writing is just overall tough for him. I almost always use any prompts that are given unless we're working on narration or outlining one level which he can do well. That's what they are there for! Think of using the prompts as teaching your child how to think through the question. It's giving him/her an idea of how to approach it. I think children who are natural writers (or at least aren't afraid of the pencil) can be expected to do this independently (if they have enough maturity), but honestly, no matter how much narration and dictation we would do (he's very good at both and completed WWE through level 4) it won't help him not be afraid of writing. He just is. Some days he's confident and does well on his own... most days I help him along. My hope is that by high school his confidence will be built and he will be independent. I think some kids just need more hand-holding for a longer time. And bonus is... I'm learning a lot too! :D

I have never taught to a test and never will. Everything I choose for my children are chosen for them not the masses. Honestly, I really don't care at this point how they do on the tests. We keep an eye on reading/math, but beyond that I don't care. You just need to decide which is more important... that your kids do well on the test or that they are educated well. Oh, and we are required to test and my kids have always done above average.

Yes, I have. I bought my Photoshop that way several years ago. I would think you could just come up with a letter of intent. I was pleased with my purchase. Fully functioning, but do keep one thing in mind.... in the future you cannot just "update" your educational version. You have to buy the whole new version over again. If you buy the regular version you can just buy updates in the future, but with the educational versions you can't. Just keep that in mind. For me it really didn't matter.

My 6th grader uses History Odyssey, but my 5th grader uses MOH. I like both for different reasons. MOH has lapbooks with it which is great too because my child who enjoys "stories" for history also likes to lapbook. I think MOH is a good choice for what you're looking for! Easy to implement and I love the Biblical worldview!

They've never looked the same from year to year! This year so far they look like: Bible Library trip Quick grocery run at Walmart Lunch Art park/health club (trying to get in science experiments but hasn't worked so far)

I just thought I'd repost this neat tool. I have a mildly asperberger son and he struggles a lot with writing. He's in 3rd grade this year so he's beginning to diagram sentences. I wanted to find a computer based diagrammer to make it easier for him to learn this skill. I did a search and came up with a thread on this board with an excellent free tool found here. The original thread was from 2 years ago so I thought I'd just put it out here again for anyone this may help. I am so glad to have found it! Download the II version and you'll have all the features you need! :D Just to note... this does not provide the completed diagrams. It's a tool to use for the purpose of building the diagram. And unfortunately it's a Windows only platform, no Mac.

Has anyone coordinated HO Level 2 Middle Ages and MOH 2? I really would like to add in a Biblical viewpoint to HO. I really don't have time to sit down and try to line things up. Anybody do this already that I can steal from? ;)

Well, a lot depends on how you plan to carry out Language Arts. There are many options... basically you need a reading plan, grammar and writing for LA. Spelling if needed and vocab if you desire. Maybe you could give some more details as to what you are looking for. Do you want to follow WTM recommendations?

Heh, heh... that's more than I do with my young ones! Really... I don't do any "formal" lit. eval with anyone until they are in 6th grade. Before that my kids just read, read, read. When they hit 3-4th grade (depending on maturity) I start giving them a selection of "school" books to read. Before that they can read anything that isn't a comic book or trash book. I make sure they are books worth reading at school time, but for the most part they get to pick them out. On their own time they get to read the comic books. We also do lots of audio stories and read-alouds. This year I am just starting to do some discussion with my ds in 6th grade. He reads a book and I ask him the basic questions in WTM for beginning lit. analysis. He's doing well with that. He's never done a book report and likely won't. Although, we've done narrations all through our schooling. My main goal for the elementary years is to help my children develop a love for reading. If they were made to discuss every book, write book reports, etc. they would HATE to read. Three of the kids enjoy reading on their own and the 4th is just young... he'll get there! Now that my oldest is in 6th I'm finding it worthwhile to do more analysis, but we'll save the heavy analysis for High School. There's plenty of time! :001_smile:

My ds's all use MM, but it didn't work for my dd. I switched her to MUS this year and she's doing much better. Still hates math, but at least it's doable for her. :D

We are not a sciencey family here. We're more history orientated so take this with a grain of salt! We started with Noeo Science. I thought I would love it, but didn't. Kids didn't love it much either. I just felt there wasn't enough meat. We only used Level 1 though, maybe 2 is better? Book choices are good if you're looking for lit ideas to add to another program. We then went to ES. We are still using it and science gets done! It's simple and straightforward. We aren't bothered by only one experiment a week. It would be easy to find some extra experiments for a science loving child. We've done all the grammar programs and used Logic Bio last year and are using ES Logic this year. We have only done a couple weeks, but I'm sure it will live up to my expectations as we've enjoyed ES thus far. Paige also has a new series out and the first book is called Sassafrass Zoology. I've heard GREAT things about it. I would have gotten it, except that I needed to get my dd OUT of bio for awhile! The only books she checks out at the library are animal books! Maybe I'll look at it for an "extra" for her when I have some $$$. In the end, what gets done is good here. ES has fit the bill for us. WTM science already put together for you! It doesn't get better than that! :D

You've gotten a lot of good advice. If you want to continue SOTW this year I would focus less on the readings and more on the extra literature. I tried using the recordings, but my kids would tune out... even though we listen to audio books every day! When I read I can stop and discuss something along the way or emphasize something. Sometimes with my 7 y/o I emphasize something he'll need to know for the questions while I'm reading. That helps a lot. My 7 y/o is like yours. He rarely gets the questions right (this is new for me too...) and he daydreams during most of the reading. I do let him color the color sheets while I'm reading and sometimes that helps him to focus. I usually help him come up with a one sentence narration. That's all we do. Heh, heh... you should see him try to do WWE2. He's my 4th child and I've never had one that couldn't answer 75% of the questions! At first I was frustrated, but that's just him. I don't think he's an auditory learner.... maybe your dd isn't either. :001_smile:

:grouphug:

We've been using MM for a couple years now. My boys all do very well with it. While none of them are independent, it makes it easy for me to teach and then set them loose on what they can do independently. I add in our MUS manipulatives when necessary for the younger two as they really match nicely with her drawings. I have one in 6A (I believe I started him in 4A) and he'll finish out the series. My other two are in 3A (almost done) and 2B (just started) and will also finish out the series. It's the best all around program I've found that's also easy to teach. I do not supplement at all, except for my youngest does LOF because he loves it, not because we really need it. Just to be totally honest, my math HATING dd is not currently doing MM. It was just too much for her. She went back to MUS and is even struggling with her attitude toward that. She can do the math, she just hates it with a passion. MUS is most certainly a better fit for her though. She needs everything simplified and as concrete as possible. ETA: The only improvement I could see right now is more space to do problems. I print out MM single sided so they can use the back of the page before it for scratch paper. There is A LOT on each page. When my boys were in Level 1 and the first part of Level 2 I printed more pages with bigger print for them. They just couldn't write in the small spaces. Even though there are a lot of problems, most of the time my boys do all the work. For one of my boys who struggles with writing I do some of the writing for him or we do it orally if there is too much on the page.

Thanks for this idea! I always forget about the co-op! I'm thinking about maybe doing the rental. I can see my ds buzzing through and then being done with it!

Hmmmm.... lots of opinions! Maybe we'll just do multiplication and see how it goes... I see you can rent it for a year for cheaper... maybe that's the route to go! Thanks for the feedback!:001_smile:

I use Homeschool Tracker so I make a checklist for each child through that, but here's an idea for you.... Write the subject on a 3x5 index card and laminate it. Then use a vis-a-vis pen to write the specific assignment for that day on the card. Only give your child the cards for assignments that day. You can put them on a metal ring or have a container. If your child likes to see his workload "go down" then you might keep the cards separate and let him turn them in as he completes them.

My 8yo LOVES Timez Attack, but he's already beat the few levels the free version offers. He hates drill and this game has been great for him. I very much dislike they make you pay for each different operation.... so I can spend $60 and only get multiplication. Has anyone bought it? Is it worth the $$$? Our school district used to have it, but I can't find it anywhere.

Thank you for sharing your great find! :001_smile: