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Colleen in SEVA

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  • Biography
    Doula and homeschooling mom to 5 young men, member of WTM boards since 2003.
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    VA - Hampton Roads

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  1. Any other thoughts? Perhaps from someone who has used it recently? :) :)
  2. I'm looking for input from those of you whose kids did The Rainbow Science for middle school. My oldest DS has completed the red physics section, and is just getting started with the yellow chemistry section. All of my younger boys are doing life science this semester (at home, and 1 in a class at co-op). I am also teaching a life-science-themed memory class, so it would be helpful to have all my kids on the same general topic. Would it be ok if we put the yellow chem section on hold and he completes the blue biology section now? (I did e-mail them directly, but I'm still waiting on a reply.) Thanks in advance for your thoughts! :)
  3. ?? :) I hope to find some as well! :)
  4. THANK YOU (yes, I am shouting that, tee hee) to all who have replied. I have been reading with open ears, as high school looms on the horizon in this house. PS -- I had to giggle at the comments of "Well, I *only* have five kids..." -- only in wonderful places like this can I feel like I have a *small* family! :)
  5. Depends on the kid... The first year my oldest son (the Mythology lover) took the test (he was 9), he chose to do take several of the additional ones (the basic 30, the extra 10, the African 10, the Norse 10, and the Native American 10). He ONLY missed ONE question on the Norse section (!!!!!), but because of that he got a silver medal instead of a gold. He was THRILLED with the silver medal, and was proud to tell the grandparents that he had completed the sections of the test "for teenagers" tee hee. I didn't point out to him at the time that if he had only done the required minimum then he would have won a gold medal, but the following year he reached that conclusion himself and only did the required minimum. My 3rd DS will be taking the test for the first time this year, and I am limiting him to ONLY the first 30 questions. He tends to get upset when things don't go his way, and I could see him feeling stressed about wanting to do well on ALL of it if he tried to do more. Getting the gold medal will be more important to him than being challenged. So... I guess it depends on the kid. You could always present it as an option and see how they respond (explaining that it would affect their overall score).
  6. :iagree::iagree::iagree: The math snob in me turned my nose up at certain programs for YEARS because if their non-challenging, drill-and-kill, etc. reputation. And then out of desperation during pre-algebra, I took my oldest to a homeschool store and told him to pick whatever one he wanted. He chose Saxon. At first I was embarrassed to even tell people we were using it. LOL!! It has made SUCH a difference in his speed, confidence, and overall preparedness for algebra! I had written off the constant daily review as "too much", but now I can see that it was exactly what he needed to internalize all of the things needed before he jumped into algebra. My third son is good at math, but he has 2 older brothers who greatly excel in math, and one day he told me he was "dumb at math" because he was struggling with something in the Singapore 2nd grade book. After talking with a respected friend, she told me how her son who was frustrated in another program really blossomed with Teaching Textbooks, so I gave my DS the placement test for the 3rd grade book, and he did fine. He is SO PROUD of the fact that he is doing THIRD grade math even though he is only in 2nd grade, and he is getting 20-21 correct out of 22 every day. It isn't necessarily that the program is so much simpler, it just explains it in a way that he totally gets, whereas he just didn't with Singapore. Yes, I agree that the scope and sequence is not as advanced in Teaching Textbooks as other programs... but that is not always a bad thing. He is still learning all of the things he needs to know. Not everything that he COULD know, but everything that he NEEDS to know. And... he is motivated to get to 4th grade math before the end of 2nd grade (both of his brothers did 4th grade math when they were in 2nd, but with different programs), so many days he CHOOSES to do a second lesson, and since the lessons are 100% independent, it is totally fine with me (doing 2 lessons per day in another program would NOT work for 5 kids LOL). A long way of saying... don't base a decision this important on what does or does not work for someone else. If the level 5 Singapore books are that frustrating, it's most likely because something isn't solidified from one of the lower levels. Switching now (but sticking with a program, not continuously jumping ship when it gets hard) seems like it will bring a peace to your school day that is needed. Saxon and Teaching Textbooks are both really solid programs, it just took me a few years to admit it. :) MUS isn't bad either, but you would have to add things to it to beef up the word problems and fill up the time (just my personal opinion, of course, but my son was spending about 40 minutes PER WEEK when we tried MUS, and that just isn't enough time spent in math mode).
  7. A friend of mine is thrilled with membean, but her kids are a little older.
  8. FYI: Don't read about it on Wikipedia if you don't want to know the twist at the end. :/
  9. I don't have kids old enough to give any advice on what you should do, but I beg you to please not take a year off. I did this with my oldest, and it took a year and a half to catch him back up. Please learn from my mistake. :)
  10. The dates on the Mythology page are not correct. I was hoping someone else would point it out. :)
  11. So... it seems that my estimate of around 2-4 hours would be reasonable? Obviously there will be outliers on both ends of that, but a "normal" (gosh I dislike that word LOL) late elementary student can reasonably read it in that amount of time, though not necessarily all at once. Agreed? :)
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