Somehow I thought that OPGTR was something people used INSTEAD of 100EZ?? I guess I've never look at it, though! We are finishing up 100EZ - afterwards, I plan to start AAS level 1 (to learn how to actually put the words together, as well as learning how to read words you don't know) and just continue with reading, reading, reading! We also have the Scholastic Phonics books & workbooks from his older brother - I am already going through those with him, and I love that the books start at a very basic level but eventually work their way up to pretty complex. Any set of books that does that would be great!

I am using WWE 2 for my 2nd grader this year, and we are really enjoying it!! He loves the snippets of passages from various books (he even stops to listen to the passages in his brother's WWE1 work). He generally has been doing very well at the writing and the dictation work. The passages for dictation are definitely getting a bit more difficult as we go, and so earlier this week I came up with a potential "trick" that really seemed to help him. I was so excited that I really wanted to post it here, and to hear what additional tips & tricks people had for both WWE2 and WWE3 (for next year, which I've heard gets harder!)!! It was for a dictation sentence in week 10 that had a big list of things the nanny told the kids to do in the morning. While repeating the sentence back to me, my 7yo kept mixing up the order of the things and sometimes dropping 1 or 2. I realized that I, myself, had to keep looking at the written sentence to figure out the order (apparently my memory is not very good for those things anymore!). I wrote this on the white board as I read it again: 1/2 (she gave them half an hour to...) u (get up) d (dressed) w (washed) tb (teeth brushed) pf (pajamas folded) btb (bed turned back) ..... and he NAILED IT! No additional assistance needed :) I think I'm going to start doing that more often, at least on the ones that have those long, drawn-out lists that are so hard to keep in order.

I have 1 in WWE1 & 1 in WWE2, and it really is pretty painless & enjoyable. I wouldn't do them in the same book, myself - the 7yo would have found WWE1 waaaaay to easy, and the 5yo would have found the extra writing and dictation in WWE2 pretty tough. Where they are is perfect! WWE happens to be one of the subjects that my boys seem to truly enjoy, so doing each in their own book is actually fun for all of us. The older likes to be in the area when I do the passages for the younger, so that he can hear the snippets of books (he will almost always stop what he is doing to listen & comment!). I do "day 1 & day 2" and "day 3 & day 4" grouped, so we do 2 days of WWE - each day takes about 15-30 mins per child. If I just did the lessons over 4 days like they say, I'd be spending a maximum of 30 mins per day TOTAL doing both WWE1 & WWE2.

Too funny - but so true!!! I want to add my voice to the people telling you it CAN WORK - I've lived with my MIL AND FIL for the last 11 years (ever since I got married), and I love them both to bits. Originally, my hubby was living with them and helping on their farm - so when I married him, it only made sense for me (and my horses!) to move into their big ranch-house on the farm! :) That house burned and we moved into a smaller house, then had 2 kids - shew, that got tight for awhile, but we made it through. Eventually, my hubby wanted to move to a different city - and they came with us and moved into the house we bought! This was all pre-planned, though; we got a house with 2 master bedrooms just so they could come. They are older, and I wanted our kids to have as much time with them as they could (and we can then take care of them when they get to the point of needing it). It works. In fact, it works so well that when we bought out house we considered & rejected the idea of buying one with a totally separate in-law house! I really felt like they were so introverted and unwilling to stray far from home that we'd probably hardly see them - and we wanted them around :)

I'm so glad you shared this! My boys are 2 years apart and get along reasonably well during the day, but they STILL stay up late and chitter chatter at night. If it sounds like fighting, or wall banging, I'll go give warnings & turn nightlights down, but otherwise I try to just let them be. This makes me feel so much better about just letting it go! I hope these are the times they cherish :) I never had that and never really thought about it - my big brothers were boys & older (3 yrs then 3 yrs or so) and never in my room, so I don't really have a reference point. People ask me if I'd split the boys up if I had the extra bedroom, but I really think the answer is just NO - it can be a hassle, sometimes, but I'd rather have them together!

So, he's in 8th grade and you are doing 5.5 hours a day? Sounds reasonable to me... my oldest is only in 2nd grade right now and we are doing 3-4 hours (although only 4 days a week), so I would figure by the time we get up to 8th grade he'd likely be doing double that. Of course, I'm also figuring that the stuff he'll be doing would be mainly independent work & a lot of it interest-based (he'd easily spend 1-2 hours on science alone if I let him, as it is!). If you are really concerned, start with all you have planned and order them numerically in order of importance to you & to him at the exact point in time. Actually try out the work and see if it really takes way less or way more time than you anticipated and how readily he is able to do it (pushing himself rather than blowing through it, but not straining under the weight). Then drop the bottom level if needed...

It'd be a lifelong benefit to you (and you kids!) to learn to use a simple accounting program like Quickbooks Online, since you have access to a computer. Or use a free version of Excel (Open Office) and a spreadsheet format to record. To do it on paper efficiently, I'd recommend you get one of those General Ledger books (like they sell for businesses who are still, sadly, doing bookkeeping manually). There, for each given month you list the vendors down and the amounts across in the appropriate columns (ie groceries, schooling, etc) and then total at the bottom.

This is the one where you mix the liquid into the powder? Do you still have the container available to see how much powder may have been left behind?

I am really a "dictate the content" type, but I like to leave a little room in there for student-driven content as well. For instance, today we sat down and did school and I had left science up-in-the-air. My RealScience4kids book showed up at lunch - YAY! - so I let him choose which one to look at and then we read 3 totally random topics that interested him (this is a series I got for a science lover and I plan to let him get through all of it however he likes). Then we did an experiment. THEN he immediately wanted to open up a science experiment kit we've had waiting for a future lesson... :rolleyes: We weren't very far along in our schoolwork, so I told him that he could do it at the very end (after everything else was done). He managed to get it all done (and done well!) in record time - so we had Science #2 at the end of the day! Anyhow, I try very hard to force on myself more flexibility to allow for things like that. I'm a check-the-box type, though, so I have to seriously take a breath and say "what are the reasons I won't let him do this? Is it just because I don't have it planned right now? No time due to something else? Not everything else done?" and work from there!

Right Start - just use it w/o the manipulatives.

Excellent point!! I was reading my own list last week as I typed it into a post and thought "WOW, that's scary" - but although we have a ton of things on our list, we truly only work about 3-4 hours a day, 4 days a week (although we do have a 45 week school year). Most of the subjects take like 15-30 minutes a day, maybe 2 or 3 days a week... (1st & 2nd graders)

At 13 I'd let him read it if he wanted - as long as he knows in general what it is about & wants to! Some of the stuff I read as a youth could get pretty "interesting" (I'm sure my parents didn't know a lot of it, as my big bros let me read anything they had) - but I think it helped me expand my mind!! <g>

12 books in the series - 4 years worth of schooling - 3 books per year - 1 month per book - 3 months of math work a school year??? Huh...

I couldn't help but laugh at this picture - since just this afternoon I sat in my school room ticked off yelling "This is why I hate science experiments!" when the kids got overly enthusiastic and made a mess... it's good to know I'm not alone! :lol:

Doesn't hurt to try! Also, I believe there are companies that do a deep, formal appeal and get paid a percentage of whatever they save you - a win-win if you are not comfortable appealing yourself! FWIW - I did an appeal a couple years ago and ended up in a big fight with the Tax Assessor's office & had to implement a letter-writing campaign to go "up-the-line" to a superior. They came out once to do a check, but DIDN'T TELL ME (and so obviously didn't go into my locked back yard and see the area they really needed to see) so they turned me down yet again. I finally insisted that they come out while I was there & take a tour to see that I really met their qualifications - at which point, he basically said "oh yeah, it is different now - I guess we can lower that". Yay, but AAARRRGHHHH!!! Before, they kept telling me "oh, the lady who used to own the place fought & we came out & she didn't qualify" - HELLO, what does that have to do with me?? Anyhow, if I had known what a big battle it would be I likely would have tried to get someone else more in-the-know to fight it for me - even though I won :).

"Ma" is an open syllable - long a. I can see why people would always throw in the extra d - the English language rules are drilled into us from an early age (in fact, we're working on this particular rule this week!!). If my son spelled it Madie I would tell him that he should split it up and see that this would then be "Ma (long-a) die" and probably not how you say the name... just to commiserate with people who get in trouble spelling it wrong <g>!! FWIW, I used to absolutely completely HATE that my name (Laura) couldn't be shortened into a cute nick-name like all my friends... I was devastated that I couldn't be a "Jennifer - Jenn" or a "Christine - Chris"! I even went so far as to have all my "true friends" call me by a completely random name that I decided I liked in high-school - and even then, I preferred it when they knew that the name was "Morgana" but I went by "Morgie"! Crazy, huh? I remember when I first met my hubby, he introduced me to his SIL, Jennifer. After I knew her for years and years I eventually started slipping and calling her Jenn - and one day she flat out told me that she hated it, and her name was JENNIFER. I was flabergasted - really? truly? THAT was a big deal?? After all those years that I'd have given an arm & a leg to be a Jenn? laff! I tried to straighten up after that and not shorten it, but it was honestly very difficult to me once I'd gotten the nickname in my head...

My then-6yo and I both found Elem grammer biology to be quite dull & it didn't teach what I had expected. For instance, I figured mammals would go into great detail as to what made a mammal a mammal - instead, it went into great detail about LOTS of mammals. Read 2 pages on zebras, color a bunch, write a little. Read 2 pages on elephants, color a bunch, write a little. Repeat. Again. Again. We finally got fed up and quite - too much like busy work, with all that cutting and pasting and coloring! The "experiments" also didn't tie very well with the material at times and they were kind of lame. We switched to using Young Scientist club kits, living books recommended by Noeo Science, and just recently I bought Real Science 4 Kids as a more "spine" like contribution (but we haven't received it yet, so I'm waiting anxiously to see how it goes!).

Adobe Professional lets you do this - we also have a program at work called "Nuance PDF" that is way cheaper and allows you to do a lot of that as well (but a bit more buggy). Both, however, are pretty expensive!! As far as I know, you would need a software program of some sort for sure. There may be cheaper (perhaps free?) alternatives, but the above I know definitely do it!

Don't bother getting them. We're on RS B lesson 85 or something and we've gotten the fraction chart out to play with a couple times and don't even own the wood blocks (and haven't missed them). The fraction chart is just a "fun extra" - you could totally do the same with a piece of paper.

Makes me glad I stopped with Singapore right away and didn't get this far <evil grin>... ETA - Singapore really did drive me nutty! We used Kinder for awhile, but I got so irritated when the textbooks taught one thing and then the related workbook pages did something else (and I usually couldn't quickly or easily explain WHY or HOW they were doing something else!). So really, I am SO GLAD we got rid of it! hehehe

Elemental Science - Biology (grammar) - boring for both of us, and not very informative. Total flop - bought all the pieces and did it for maybe 2 months (or less). Math Mammoth - it's actually not a total flop - I really like it as a supplement to RightStart, and I'm going to keep using it, but he definitely doesn't like it that much. However, it is the only worksheet like math that we are using and I feel that he needs the practice (the actual learning we do in RS, which we both enjoy). Any sort of lap book - turns out we just don't do well with those (starts of great, then peters out). :=)

We're pretty far into RS B & used A last year and have hardly touched it for an actual lesson. That being said - my kids LOVE it!! It is one of the few "mathy" things that they actively ask for and generally spend extra time beyond a normal math lesson playing with. The tiles & the Geoboard they also really like, and those are used extensively throughout the A&B books.

I think that SOME school work should definitely be fun - I try to keep the core subjects fairly serious but the outer ones very enjoyable. :) I'm hoping that as they grow older we can do a more interest-led learning, and I would anticipate that they would consider this more "fun", although I would make it fairly rigorous.

My first thought was - will he mess up the magazine?? Usually my 7yo only has troubles sharing with his 5yo brother when he has concerns about things getting messed up in some way (we had this today, in fact, with a toy I thought he was stingily not sharing but that turned out to be something that the younger almost immediately did the wrong thing with!!). So, I'd get to the bottom of WHY before I became hard-core about MUST. BTW - I actually ended up taking that specific toy away from BOTH of them, because as I was going to talk to the 5yo about not messing with it, the 7yo found it necessary to jump up from the school table and rush over to join in about how he was "messing it up" and "I told you not to touch it!". Since I was already handling the issue, I became irate with said 7yo for being rude and they both lost the opportunity to play with the toy... Sigh.

Awesome!! Don't you love how things just "click" sometimes?? :)