So I LOVE SM and so does DH and yet I also LOVE MM :lol: DH wants SM to be our main program which is how we have it now and wit the older kids we were using CWP and IP to supplement. I was thinking though of supplementing with MM instead in place of IPs. I got in on the HSBC deal so either way I now own the light blue series :tongue_smilie: For DS1 we are doing MUS primer alongside of SM EM K book B which is working nicely for now but I am wondering if next year when we go into 1A should we do MM alongside of 1A and MUS alpha? I should not that for DS at least he is very mathy and math obsessed. :D If he had his way we'd do math all day long. He is also very into workbooks in general so I don't think he'd burn out on too many workbook pages. my thinking kind of is if we do use MM alongside of SM and MUS we could move at a slower pace taking time to really get into the topics. If it ever becomes too much I think we'd most likely drop the MUS since SM seems to be his bread and butter program wise and the one he most enjoys doing. So if you have math loving kiddos would 3 programs be a good idea? FWIW we do MUS video on day 1 of the week then do the lessons throughout the week for SM we tend to blaze through one lesson per day then follow up with RS math games or something to that effect since DS begs for more math. As it is we are spending maybe 30 minutes on math lessons per day before you add in the time for math games. For the girls I am thinking of dropping SM altogether and going full MM because they are PS and we are only afterschooling them every other week and trying to help them and fill in gaps at the same time. ODSD is not very mathy but YDSD is but just hasn't really gained any conceptual knowledge of math from the program her school is using.

So I have some background and classical training from the years of piano lesson my mom made us take :tongue_smilie: She just bought DS1 a nice new keyboard for lessons and I am kid of torn between two programs. We have the Bastien piano books primer level book1 but I have just been looking at pianimals too which also looks fantastic for kids especially little kids. Does nyone have any experience or opinion on one or the other? DS1 is pre-k now and has been playing around on the piano since he was tiny and has been asking to learn to play like Mia (my mom) :D

I finally got myself a spiral binding machine and am now on the hunt for a place to buy the coils from that doesn't cost an arm and a leg :tongue_smilie: any ideas? Thanks!

I use velcro and lamination for a lot of stuff :tongue_smilie: I use both for file folder games, workboxes, chore charts ect. My favorite velcro are the sticky back dots as I hate cutting the strips.

I got the grade level books as well as the foundational book and am excited to look through them when they get here!

I get mine from museum shops. I have collected them for years :tongue_smilie: I find that you get the best quality and the cheapest price at museum gift shops.

I made one out of a presentation board but haven't gotten around to pics yet :tongue_smilie: One thing I did was to find some sequencing cards (free printable) and print and laminate them to use on the board for fun. We also have a calendar, weather and season charts and then a section for time. For the time section I found clock faces without the hands, printed them onto cardstock and laminated them. I can then use dry erase markers to put on the hands so we can do different times. I put everything on using sticky back velcro dots so everything can be moved around. The pieces not on the board like names of months, calendar decorations, sequence cards are stored in gallon sized ziplock bags that velcro to the back. I will try and get some pics up tomorrow at some point :001_smile:

thank you SO SO SO much!!! that is exactly what I was needing to help me wrap my head around this! :D

It's not so much that ETC moves faster as it is that there are an insane amount of pages for MCP which makes it move way too slow unless you do a ton of pages each day. ETC seems to be just the right amount and you can do just one or two pages a day and get a nice understanding without burn out. OPGTR was really dry and boring at first for my DS so I tried some other things trying to remedy his crazy desire to learn to read but also need to be engaged and not bored. We did a bit of hopping seeing at this was my first time teaching a child to read and quite the learning experience. We have since found that if we use OPGTR along with ETC and bob books it is a beautiful system! We do the OPGTR lesson first then we work on the ETC pages and read a bob book. I have a whiteboard that we write our OPGTR words on and DS uses a little magnetic whiteboard with letter tiles to better see the words as well. For blending we use a bit of 100ez lesson approach and draw a line with an arrow under each word and dots under each letter which seems to greatly help him in understanding how blending works and when to say each letter sound. I am also in the process of making books out of the little stories in OPGTR as recommended here. It helps DS way more to see the sentences in little books with silly pictures then to try and read them out of the OPGTR book. HTH!

we ended up with ETC. We had started with ETC but for some reason i shelved it for awhile and tried PLAID but after a few weeks of PLAID it just seemed to redundant and was boring to my DS so we went back to ETC which he is now loving! FWIW ETC lines up very nicely with OPGTR and IMHO they work very well together

I am on the MCT yahoo group but couldn't find a schedule for island level and am still kinda lost on the progression :tongue_smilie: TIA!

For the cheaper workbooks we buy multiples. For the more expensive ones like MUS we ether do the work on another paper or use transparency film with dry erase markers :tongue_smilie: Tis works out well for us at least for now.

we use the 3 week schedule with my 9yo although we are in level A since she needed remediation and are using it along with MCT. We afterschool the 9yo if that makes a difference though. We are really loving the program and she is beginning to actually like writing and reading now that she is gaining a better grasp on it :)

Liping Ma's book - I got this on a recommendation from here and man oh man did this ever help me see the light with math and how it should be taught. The well trained mind - This was a huge eye opener to me. it really helped me to feel confident in my choice to homeschool my kids and gave me a place to build off of.

there was a thread on this awhile back http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=107175 I ended up buying it for K next year and went ahead and got up to level 1. It really looks fantastic and I am excited to use it as previously I was unable to find anything similar for a younger kiddo. :) the me-centric thing makes sense to me because young children are naturally very me-centric so in a way this gets down to their understanding which is important to first address something the child can relate to before building off of it. I think the idea of exposure young children to something like philosophy is awesome and really provides the foundations for critical thinking and the ability to break out and think outside of the box.

I would get a laser for workhorse printing and an inkjet for color when needed. Reason being you can get toner refill kits for laser that take the cost of printing down astronomically. For instance in my AIO laser printer I can get 10 toner refill kits for 50 bucks shipped. Each of these refill kits are good for about 2k pages of printing. That makes each page (including the cost of paper) about .0105 each and you cannot beat that for printing costs. So if you are looking to be cost effective then that is definitely the way to go. If we need color we use our epson color inkjet printer and use ink refill kits for that too otherwise the cartridges cost an arm and a leg. However even with using inkjet refill kits the cost of the inkjet versus the laser is pretty big. So my advice is use a laser for main printing and an inkjet only when color is needed.

other than sam's club? I am up visiting my parents and my girls want to make fancy binders with scrapbook paper and 3 ring binders but I am having a heck of a time finding them for a decent prince :tongue_smilie:

I agree with PPs that both would be too much. There is a lot of reading in both and it could become quite overwhelming. We are on our third week of p 4/5 and will move into core K when we finish up in the spring or so. (we school year round) I know a lot of people use core K though even for first grade so it wouldn't be unheard of to hold off on it until next year.

gender doesn't matter as much IMHO like PPs have mentioned. I have a wide gap and various genders and really the older girls love playing with the little boys :D The youngest girl is 5 years older then my oldest boy and for the most part they get along great. Actually it is the boy who generally get sick of playing with big sis and wants her to leave him alone sometimes. :lol:

My plan for my 9yo is to get the basic package this year cause she will need more one on one anyway. Then for town level up I will get the complete packages as the kiddos become more independent and don't need me there 100% of the time to do the lesson. So this year for my 9yo I got town basic package and for my 12yo I got the town complete package (she needs remediation so we are starting small and working through at her pace) so from what I gather if you are ok with sharing one book with the kiddo then basic is ok but for more independent work get the student book too

was just about to post a nearly identical thread :tongue_smilie: :bigear:

I have used all about spelling for my PS kid who needed some phonics instruction. It worked good and now we've moved onto spelling power. ETA we have and also like hooked on phonics master reader which works well for solidifying the skills. We are still going through master reader with the 9yo right now.

thanks for the advice :) I should reiterate though that we are not making him do writing but rather it is something he has expressed great interest in and asked for. Personally I'd rather wait but he has other plans :tongue_smilie: I was already planning on getting a nice keyboard for the schoolroom so the boys could learn piano as I did when I was younger so I may try that approach as well as others to get him to understand that mistakes are a natural part of life athat we learn and grow from.

I use a spreadsheet and enter in all of what we are planning and the sale price on the cheapest place to buy it. Then I watch the for sale boards and ebay to see if I can get them cheaper. My spreadsheet auto tallies so if I find something I mark it off and it adjusts the budget from there. I have mine planned up to fourth as I have a DSD going into 3rd right now. When we buy text books that have workbooks for them though we buy enough copies for the youngers to use when they are old enough. Even buying multiple workbooks we are at about 1200 per year and that covers everything for 3 kids for that grade level. (it also covers our museum membership. )

I use them inside my cabinet for reading reward cards, on my files for book lists, spelling lists and my planner cards. I also have them on hand for lapbooking :) I love the darn things :tongue_smilie: