My son has been plowing through the Sugar Creek Gang series. It's very Christian based if you like that. Another vote for Boxcar children and A-Z mysteries. Beth

We use Flashmaster also. 6 minutes a day for us - I don't need to be involved and it does the job very well. Ds knows his math facts with almost instant recall. At $50 it's a deal! Beth

They are co-ordinated to the science lessons Sonlight puts out. They go along with the "science activities" books by usborne. We have done these the past two years. Basically, you do the experiment in the book and then watch the video of the guy doing the experiment you just did. The experiments are very simple to do and the video is fun to watch. My ds asked to watch them one day when he was sick. It's not a stand alone DVD. What you don't need to do is the whole science program by Sonlight - just the coordinating Science Activities book. Beth

A little harder (maybe around or a little harder than boxcar children) is the sugar creek gang series. It's an older series, but you can get a reprint of them. The main characters are boys and they solve all sorts of mysteries. They are very Christian in nature. Ds has read through a bunch - there are 36 in all. Another mystery series that's easier is Cam Jansen. Beth

I like it because the learning is not a "fill in the blanks" type of learning that is seperated from sentence structure. For example, instead of just filling in "to, too, or two" into blanks, the instructions were to copy out the whole sentence using those words correctly. It helps with learning sentence structure and learning to write. I kept thinking that I needed a seperate writing program and grammar program. PLL does both in my opinion. It follows Susan Wise Bauer's writing plan for the elementary grades. PLL has copywork and dictation. We waited to do this program until ds was spelling on a 2nd grade level. The dictation is very much 2nd grade stuff and ds just wasn't ready. You also need to make sure they are comfortable writing and doing larger portions of copywork. I agree waiting until they are reading solidly. Beth

We use Singapore exclusively. I find that if ds needs more work in a section, I just make up my own problems on a piece of paper. Works just fine. We do daily drill with Flashmaster. It takes us 30 minutes a day to do the work. It could probably go faster, but ds either talks alot or gets spacy. We're on 3A right now. Beth

I would by another Flashmaster if ours broke. There's really nothing that can do better for learning math facts easily for both child and mom. DS knows his math facts down REALLY well. He has almost instant recall on all the facts he should know and this is only doing it for 6 minutes a day. I give "prizes" out for getting a certain amount right. Tickles, arm chills, etc. All free and non-sugary! Beth

I think if I had only one child, I might be persuaded to go with Sonlight. But, I have a 4 year span between two children that I'm homeschooling and Sonlight will not work for us because I refuse to do 2 cores at the same time. I think MFW is more family friendly- it can span across several ages and teach the various levels where they're at. We did Core K with Sonlight and MFW adventures this year. I can say we enjoyed our adventures year much better. I switched over because I was reinventing a Sonlight program to my liking - using notebooking and hands on projects. I think that MFW fits what I want out of my children's education better. I like that everything is included except language arts and math. I like that there are activities included for my ds who loves those type of things. I like that there are notebooking pages already scheduled for me where I don't have to think about it. I found MFW adventures to be rigorous enough for a 2nd grader. He's learned quite a bit about American history. I don't think it's a light program at all. Beth

All About Spelling! I have finally found a spelling curriculum that makes sense to me and ds is retaining what he has learned! It also plugs up some of those learning gaps in spelling I had as a child. Beth

I have a ds who's really on the edge of 3rd grade writing skills. I couldn't decide either (WT1 or WWE) and decided to give him a little test. We did the sample on the website for WT1. While he got the naration down and did the story well as far as telling it, his sentence structure and spelling were HORRIBLE! I thought a revision for him would just about do him in with the program and when we went to correcting all the mistakes, he just about lost it. So, I figured at least another year of dictation and copywork would get him ready (basically going the WWE route). So, maybe you could try that. See how she does. Beth

We did Adventures this year and it was a great year! We really liked it and yes, the $100 for a TM is VERY worth it. Besides, you can get back 60-70% of the cost by selling it used the year after you're done. There's a definate market for it and it would be easy to do. Beth

We're also doing ECC next year and the science thing was my concern as well. If I feel the need for more experiments or science, we'll just add experiments from Janice Van Cleaves Earth science experiment book. I think that will be plenty. Beth

We're using Adventures with just my 2nd grader. He's liked the hands on stuff and really knows his basic American history facts. I know a lot of people have not liked the state study part of it, but we actually look forward to it. I like that there is music study as a part of it. I like that the book basket books for this age group are picture books which he still likes and his little 3 year old brother can join in too without it going too much over his head. I like that it's all layed out for the teacher because if it wasn't, I would be all over the place with school. It helps keep me on track not going down rabbit trails (which in our case only burden ds not enhance his schooling). We do use Singapore math which I have found teaches a child to think mathematically and not just plug numbers into equations. We didn't use PLL this year just because he really wasn't ready for it, but will use it next year when we do ECC. I think the best recommendation I can give MFW is that we will be continuing with it next year and I'm a "grass is always greener on the other side" kinda gal considering curriculum. I researched around and felt that there really is no other curriculum that suits our family better. Beth

Adventures in My Father's World Queen Homeschool's Language Lessons for the very Young Singapore Math 2b/3a A reason for handwriting - transition Critical thinking - building thinking skills All about spelling Beth

There are volumes 1-3 of this series. VERY creationist though which we love. Good cinamatography and information. Beth

I understand dictation and getting it from quality literature, but what about words that are beyond spelling capabilities? For example, if I took a passage from Winnie the Pooh to dictate to my 2nd grader (he can read it just fine), the spelling would be WAY over his head. Do you just stick to dictation within their spelling level? How do you correct the spelling? This whole part of dictation has always had me stumped. Beth

There's a huge series although I think the first 30 or so are considered the original author. Beth

the program uses different lines than any other workbooks out there. I had to reteach my ds how to write letters on the 3 line spaces rather than the 2 lines that HWT uses. Not a big deal, but a bit annoying to me. Beth

I just posted this on the MFW forum because it just emphasized how well ds has learned the concepts this year: "Today, we were looking at some star pictures and ds said, "oh there's Betelgeuse". I thought to myself, "where did he pick up anything about that star?" You see, we're on week 28 of Adventures and ds learned about Betelgeuse in week 5! He remembered the lesson better than I did. It finally came to mind that we went outside and did a bunch of measurements comaring Betelgeuse to the size of the sun. Amazing. Those hands on lessons really make a big impact. " Ds has really learned who the people of American History are. He has learned a lot about the states and I find it VERY EASY to implement. It's really just open the TM and go. The only thing I'm not crazy about was the science. It didn't have enough for my science loving kid, but for an average lover of science, it would be enough. We're continuing the curriculum with ECC next year which is saying A LOT because I love to research curriculum and try to find the best thing for our family. So, knowing what's out there and still staying with ECC shows that we have really enjoyed this year. DS has even been caught reading a book on history in his free time - just because he wants to learn. It's been a good year. Beth

I am looking for a Language arts workbook my ds can do on his own. I have spelling, writing, and handwriting figured out, but I need a light approach to grammar instruction. I'm not real concerned about him knowing verbs, nouns, ect right now, but dictionary skills, antonyms, punctuation ect I would like to have. I need something that I can just give to him and have him learn on his own for 2nd grade. He can read well. Help? BTW, I don't like Queen Homeschool Language Lessons. There's too much copywork stuff in there. TIA! Beth

Today during a difficult math problem, my 7 year old burst out "call me a cab and get me out of here!" I have no idea where he got that phrase from! Beth