I am not sure about challenge, we are just doing foundation this year. But, my kids love it. Our "community" is still improving as this is our first year together and we have a lot of families that are new this year to homeschooling. I think that contributes to some difference than other communities. I do love what my children have learned, they retain the information and the way they pull it out to use it is amazing. I'm sold on the approach. Plus, they find it fun! I'm tutoring and I'm not sure I want to tutor again, but at this point with just starting up I had to. I find it easy to use at home, or to just listen to the CD's in the van (I highly recomend getting them). We will begin Essentials next year with my oldest, I'm nervous for him but I know we will start slow. It is very pricey, but we are planning on buying less in other areas to compensate it. Idealy, each of my children would do foundations and essentials and once they are challenge age we will reevaluate what we want to do :)

Thanks! And the great part of MFW is the extra day for nature study, guess we will use it for cc instead :) I just feel like I am finding things that would go with both programs that I want to add in and I know I will overwhealm myself :) I am doing my weekly file folders right now and adding in sheets. My kids love to color and do sheets so I figure it can't hurt and I can just hold them back for the next cycle with the ages I have if we don't do them.

We are beginning CC this fall and had already planned on using MFW before joining (purchases were made). I attended the parent practicum and they said not to use another program because it would be too hard... so has anyone used both before? I'm not sure what to do at this point. I guess I was thinking of just doing some of the geography mapping with the kids, the memory work, and maybe a few lapbooks that went with CC as we had time and just use MFW and do what I had intended because CC history moves so fast and my kids are young. Even folding in library books with CC would be too much at this point in time!

My son is still struggling with reading and math. I'm going to bite the bullet and do Barton, although the thought of running through another phonics program with him makes me sick to my stomach :( Math is still a struggle as well. I have tried Math U See and it didn't even help. The plan for the first half of the year is to play games, practice facts, and enjoy numbers. Right now he hates them and struggles. Any other ideas or thoughts in the math area?

If story problems are a weakness you can always add in Evan Moor or Singapore word books for practice in that area. The best part of testing is that it shows us homeschool parents the ares we need to improve in. Every child will do differently with the same program.

If you are on a tight budget I would look at MFW, it isn't just history. It has science, all your literature, and history. It also includes art and basic music. TOG is mainly just your history and literature. Also if you decide you want to change things it is much easier to do so with MFW. Just add in your LA and math and you are good to go (of course I should take my own advice, lol)

Why we are switching is because my son has been struggling so much. He told me after switching the colorful pages hurt his eyes and distract him. If a curriculum isn't working for a child, then how good is it? Find something that works and make sure you are teaching, not just giving busy work.

I have one entering K this year too and am trying to figure out what to do. I am planning right now to do OM K, MEP reception, and mid year possibly add in AAR pre She listens in on everything else with the older boys so just focusing on having fun and learning our alphabet :) I know I will be busy with them. I still also have my p4/5 sl core and I will read through those books again with the family. I actually started last night.

If she is struggling with her facts I would look into MUS. Also another option is RIght Start they have levels A, B, C, not grade levels. Also I do agree that Teaching Textbooks is a grade level lower, let her work through those. I might combine TT with either LOF books (not labeled grades either) or would try JumpStart and see how it goes.

I love the two resources listed, I may add them into the day for fun. The half hundered was too much for my younger kids this year. When we get back to cycle 1 I may actually end up using TOG and moving at it's pace and using CC as memory work to help with the pegs.

I already had plans for the next two years before one began in our area (I thought it would be a few more years). My kids are young too. We plan on using MFW adventures.

Now I'm confused again. I think I will start out and do SSL this summer. I will have K, 1, and 3rd. Then pick up PL for the oldest and my 1 son is pretty good at picking up. My husband and I both took Latin in HS so it won't be so difficult for us to teach :)

I agree, everyone has a 4 year old reading chapter books. So if your 2nd graders isn't reading novels you are a horrible parent. I know that I didn't begin reading small chapter books until the end of 2nd grade and I am a very advanced reader, I was actually pulled out early in a very small group in the seond half of 1st grade. It is funny to think the whole year of K was devoted to only the letter names, now they need to know those going into the begining of K. I am not that old either! It is scary to think how we have taken away so much creativity that is needed in order to achieve higher levels of thought. We will have a generation of children able to memorize and regurgitate information, but will not have the ability to apply it or think outisde the box. It is very scary! On that note, I remember asking to learn how to read my numbers when I was in elementary school. I know the librarian thought I was crazy because I insisted that the number was a code for something else.

Thanks, I may try the school song latin and then my K daughter can join in too :)

I am planning on starting Latin next year. I was thinking of MP Prima Latina for my boys, but know that it isn't the only Latin program. Any other recomendations? Also, if you started Latin in 1 or 3rd (I will have both grades) did you also run a grammar program? If so I was debating between Shirley Grammar or Rod and staff. Suggestions and recomendations would be wonderful!

Yes, k12 is a lot. I'm still wondering how and the heck we have survived! I think the only reason was having the accountability. However, I will say that at this point in time it was needed. I feel like I have a better handle on making time for school versus making excuses ;) I was good at that before and even the basics were a struggle for me.

I'm debating hard between it and rod and staff. I'm just not sure. My friend loves it, she said it is fabulous so I'm going to go check it out in person first.

My thoughts. Make your own cards with index cards and a marker. It tells you what to make in the teacher's guide. Use your tiles you already have. Sub in your own readers. Like OP said, they won't match up for letters taught. Get the student book if you can to do the activities and it will also have lots of reading and you can see what words are in the readers. Now with this said I have all of it and it is fabulous together and the boys are loving it. We just started and it is what they needed.

I block schedual so we don't do everything in one day :) However, I am finishing up k12 and it was the same way, each subject every day except for alternating science/history. I will be combining both boys versus running two different grades this year so it will feel like less, lol. I plan on running through CC memory work in the morning, nothing too in depth. I do not intend on doing memory masters, just exposing them for later down the road.

I really wish I had gone with my gut starting out with K and my older son. Too many shiny things. However, he is a boy so maybe it would have backfired (telling myself that). However, we will do Latin and the handwriting from them this year. I may pick up a few literature guides too. However, my daughter will do the JrK program this year, I am excited to see what it is. If you go to convention do you pick it up in person or do they ship??

So far this is what we are doing for 1st and 2nd grade: MFW adventures AAR 1/2 AAS 1/2 CLE 1/2 MEP add in Rod and staff grammar or Shirley (not sure on which yet) Apologia Zoo 1 (light notebooking) MP handwriting Confession composer and artist study Confession HS literature guides (some over summer) Prima Latin We are also joining a local CC that is joining up. I'm excited because it is a great group and we will start super basic My prek/k daughter will be doing AAR pre MEP reception MP prek program How does it look? I know some things we will go light on at times to get in the basics. I'm also starting some of these now because they have finished up some other subjects and we will go light over the summer with math and phonics/reading

Just be careful with trusting k12 placement. I know that we were told he could place in different grade levels, I could drop back in certain subjects. They also told me they'd test my K son into where he needed to be. Well, this depends on the state and if you are paying out of pocket. It took forever to place my oldest in a lower reading and he moved down in everything. It gave us a chance to make sure he had things solid, but some were boring because he just needed lower reading. My K son was never put in acclerated anything despit asking and him being way ahead of everyone. We were also told after moving my oldest 1/4 of the way through he still needs to be at 100% of class attendance and he's still behind because he completed so much 2nd grade work that didn't count. We flew ahead in many areas except the one we requested to move and it took a month and a half to process the request. If I had enough money to buy new curriculum at that point I would have jumped ship. They are very wishy washy on what they say when you call vs. when you are enrolled.

Singapore 1? Or look at McGruffy math, I'm thinking about it for my daughter this coming year. I can't decide between McGruffy and Right start. I'm not much help, lol.

So we have completed K12 math for k and 1st grade. Honestly this is the largest reason we will not continue on with K12. I love the LA program, but loat math enough that it just isnt' worth it. My kindergarten son was in tears because he was so bored. It was very slow at the start with counting, etc. He stil didn't feel like he really got into addition/subtraction up to his level. It did a great job of doing graphs, etc. But it was so repititious that we would do 3 lessons at a time just so he didn't revolt. If you have a slow learner it may work, but even my slow math boy in 1st had trouble. We never used the online part after the second month because it was confusing. I didn't like how they taught it online and it even made me confused. I also didn't like that in first grade it was mostly relying on counting objects, counting up with fingers, or number line. I felt that the use of crutches was overwhealming. Never once was it mental math. The story problems were thrown in right away after introducing add/sub without letting the kids really know their facts. I didn't like this at all. When they began teaching tens digit addition they had them use 10's and unit blocks to do the math rather than showing how to carry/borrow. It just didn't feel like a realistic way to do math. I guess if they allow a calculator next year they will be fine? I also do not like the workbooks. When my K student had to color on them the crayons beaded up and just rubbed off. They also wasted a ton of paper and space. Very colorful if that is what you are looking for. So overall it was a huge bomb. We went with it and made the best of it to complete the program and we will be using something else. My K son finished math at the end of March and I have been using Math Mammoth to finish out the year so he can move ahead a little bit faster. For "preschool" he did MUS alpha so he probably had a pretty strong base to begin with. I plan on using alpha with my prek daughter this year because I felt it gave them a very solid foundation to start in any math program. I'm not sure what we will use next year because my 1st grade son still dosen't have his facts down and I'm not sure if he ever will. We added in xtramath and still not much progress. He can understand every single other concept with flying colors, but even after a year of MUS beta he didn't have facts down and now redoing 1st grade math we are still stuck in the exact same place :( I guess we will plug foreward and just keep working on knowing our facts and hopefully one day it will click.

I would like to know this as well, I'm thinking this will be us next year. I know my younger son will probably be ready before him, but want to combine them.