I tried to stay away from SL for a while mainly ecause of the price but really if you add up the cost of picking and choosing and the time involvement SL ends up the better choice in the end. So I finally succumbed and ordered my first core and am anxiously awaiting it's arrival! I have 3 boys that will be going through it so I figure it will definitely get it's money's worth after 3 runs through it. :tongue_smilie: Now add in the fact that the boys are are pretty close in age and I have two step daughters, SL becomes the best choice because my time is a precious commodity and trying to pull everything together from scratch and plan it was just exhausting and leaving me with very little time to do much else and that was with only 1 HSing and 2 afterschooling. When the other 2 boys get old enough to begin I would be going insane trying to get everything done and together without help so SL is a big blessing to me! I do use a different math(s), LA and science but they are all scripted and pretty open box as well so I don't have to do a insane amount of planning each day and I actually have time to myself or spend with DH :D so as some commercials would put it..... SL core 400.00 Time to relax or hang out without a planner PRICELESS :tongue_smilie:

PP was the first book I bought on phonics a year ago and well I sold it shortly afterward. :tongue_smilie: I could not wrap my head around how to teach it and it was way too unscripted for my taste. I loved OPGTR in that it had an order and scripting and was easy for me as a mom to teach but it was way too boring for DS. He is very much a media, hands on, visual learning kinda kid. He thrives on activities, songs, games and the like. He learned all his letters and sounds in one day just watching the talking letters factory and ever since then has been begging to read as he LOVES books. My mom just bought the kids a copy of SSRW and the more I read about it and such the more I am confident that it will be a perfect fit for him. I let him listen to some of the song clips on christianbook and he fell in love right away and kept asking to hear them again so we shall see and fingers crossed.

that is the question :tongue_smilie: We've been playing around sort of trying to find the right match for phonics for DS1. We did OPGTR first and he was good with it until about halfway then he HATED it way too boring for him. We got Mcruffy transitions and it's pretty nice although we really haven't been into too much yet to really get a feel for it. So my mom calls last night and says she picked up sing spell read and write for the kids! (OMGoodness) I am pretty sure DS will love it because he is a very musical kid and latches onto anything that has a song and memorizes them effortlessly. So my question is if SSRW works beautifully for him and he really takes off do I sell the Mcruffy and OPGTR or save them in case SSRW isn't as good of a fit for the next two DSs that will go through phonics and learning to read? This question kind of applies to multiple subjects though too as I am sure most people face finding the right fit for their eldest and whether or not to sell what didn't work or keep it for the younger ones.

so since I have originally posted we have completely redone our plan :lol: We are going to do sonlight P 4/5 next year and when he finishes up MUS primer (we just started) we'll go into alpha. But our K year will be held off by a year since he is pretty young even if he is ahead for his age. I am feeling mroe comfortable about the slower approach just as long as he still feels challenged and enjoys it. We've been using the McRuffy phonics part of the curriculum only but my mom got the kiddos SSRW so we shall see what happens there. Our K year will be MUS alpha - beta (depending on where he is then) SM 1A FLL AAS SL K with readers 1 McRuffy science HWT and lots and lots of reading and art projects. I did actually just pick up a pack of the literature pockets and the history portfolio junior but we'll see when we feel like adding that in.

we are doing a free form idea based off sonlight as we had many of the books they sell in their P 3/4 core. For math we do MUS primer and SM EB. We did OPGTR but he found it way too boring about halfway through so we switched to Mcruffy. Other then that tons of snuggling and reading and the occasional science kit here or there for fun.

DS mainly learned the basics through OPGTR and now into mcruffy. I still have a level of uncertaintiy as to whether I want to do that again or fork out the money for something like SSRW since it would be used a few more times before retirement :P OPGTR is a very complete program it's just kinda boring even fore me and after about halfway DS hated it LOL.

Every summer we go to visit my grandma in Cincinnati and go to the Museum center there which is super interactive and awesome! I also go up to PGH frequently since my parents live there and I have a carnegie museum membership. This summer the kids will be doing some classes there. My mom also told me about some kind of animal safari place in OH that we might check out. We also want to take the kids to several of our state parks to play, do picnics and maybe camp out.

I have more recently added MUS to our programs and switched RS out and just kept the games and so far it's a bit hit. Now granted they do the full SM alongside the MUS and the older use saxon workbooks for extra practice along with MEP if they feel like it or they are needing some extra help and MUS has been a favorite especially since we have a house full of very visual hands on learners. The olders like that they can pop their DVDs into their laptops and then go at the lesson asking for help if needed and DS1 who is mathy by nature though LOVES this program and picks up the concept immediately and will go around all day talking about them. I think all programs have their strengths and weaknesses which is why we supplement in the first place and don't move on until we are confident the concept is grasped. So I LOVE MUS :)

I'm reading liping ma's book now and we also read a lot of stuff on neurology and philosophy and well we juts read a lot here :tongue_smilie:

this exactly :) I got 3 cores worth of stuff for an awesome price and we are now set for quite some time!

how do you get the 15.95 price? I used the link this morning and then put the planner 8in my cart and it was 30 something all together with the base price of 29 dollars not 15.95

there are history portfolios that are fun http://www.homeschooljourney.com/aContents2.html more of a notebooking thing but still lots of activity. And the SOTW AG has a lot of hands on activities to go along with the text. I do both with my DSDs and they really enjoy them.

We have: BOB books HOP readers Leap frog sing a long readers I can read it beginner books McRuffy readers that came with our package and a couple from barnes and nobles that I forget the name of i do prefer the phonetic progression readers though as it makes my life simpler and my DS less frustrated :P

ok I've been over the site like a million times and I can't find them? am I blind LOL can someone help me out with a link or idea where they are hiding? I'll have 3 kids using this program at once so i need all the blocks I can get LOL

for my olders we put a sheet of tracing paper over the book so they can still see the print and write in the corresponding spot. I think I will get each younger their own copy of alpha and beta then they can do as the olders do.

do you all just buy experiment kits to use alongside of MPH?

do you let your kids write in the workbooks? I am trying to decide whether or not to let the kiddos write in the workbooks or have them use separate paper so I can pass down the books since they are more spendy then say SM workbooks. I am leaning towards letting the youngers write in them while the others are old enough to just use a notebook or something. what do you think?

I know of noeo science is there any others? Please list them if you know of them! :bigear: thanks!

first off thanks for the ideas and input! This is kind of a sticky topic here because DH has convinced himself that he can fix her speech problem and that it is just a matter of laziness. I think it is a situation of blind parent and that he does not want to admit that there may be another problem or cause. The thing that stands out to me is that she had 2 years of speech therapy (1st - 2nd grade) and that she improved a bit ( I met DH at this time and she still had a quite noticeable speech issue) then after the therapy stopped she began to decline rather then stay the same or improving. Granted in that time she had a palate expander for about 6 months and has braces now. Her speech is very garbled over all almost like she has a sock in her mouth rather then having governable issues like a lisp or a problem with her Rs. It is causing her confidence issues which is why their mom and DH are hesitant to do PS speech therapy and cause her further embarrassment by having her pulled out of classes. As much as I love how gung ho and do it yourself my DH is I have a strong lingering doubt that a college linguistics book from 15 years ago and him working with her only every other week (her mom would never keep up with it) is going to fail and frustrate both of them. One other thing I have noticed is when she is tired the speech gets even worse to the point where no matter what you just cannot understand what she is saying.

We started in OPGTR then went into Mcruffy and AAS and so far it has worked beautifully. DS LOVES McRuffy so IMHO it makes it much easier to accomplish his phonics and it really seems to stick with him :)

Is it possible to teach speech effectively at home and are there any good resources anyone can recommend for doing so. My DSD 12yo is having speech difficulties and has had speech therapy in 1st in 2nd grade and showed some improvement but still had some difficulties. The therapy stopped and then she had an expander put in a year ago for orthodontic braces prep and her speech has declined more. Their mom talked to her school about getting her back into speech therapy and was told in order to do so they would have to pull her out of classes and into learning disability classes which is out of the question for their mom and DH because my DSD already has pretty bad self confidence issues. So that brings me to here. Dh has asked me to look into if we could do at home speech therapy with her to improve her speech because it has gotten to the point where it is really hard to understand what she is saying and her speech is very slurred. I have researched TONs of homeschool stuff and just not come across anything specific to speech improvement. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

I have Mcruffy K so I may not be that much in ways of help there but we LOVE it and it is really complete and well thought out! We also have and use FLL to supplement my older DSDs and I don't find it boring at all. It is a very very solid program and I love that I don't really need to plan or anything :tongue_smilie: DS1 will be going into FLL this upcoming year (winter) and will stay with it and WWE until we run out of levels :lol:

personally if I were to choose between RS and MEP I'd go RS without a second thought. I like MEp well enough (we use it to supplement our girls) but I am not sure I like it as a stand alone curriculum at least for the younger years. But I have a house full of visual and hands on learners so programs like RS and MUS are the best fit. RS is fully scripted and each lesson will tell you what you need for that lesson and such and what exactly to do. In level A there is VERY little workbook work so it is friendly to kids who are not writing well yet and it is very very hands on. You can look on the RS website and see the stuff in the manipulatives packs and find a lot of them locally or on places like amazon. The games are fanatic alone if you don't mind the teacher intensive aspect then RS itself is a very strong and great curriculum.

we are very secular and I fell in LOVE with sonlight and just ordered my first core. IMHO it is very easy to just skip the bible portions of the IG and any books that might be religious. A few awesome mamas here pointed me towards a secular sonlighters yahoo group which has been a big help too :)

personally I am a MUS fan with RS games and singapore math using saxon for supplementing for more drill. I tried doing RS with my afterschooler and my pre-k but I have precious little time and it is way too teacher intensive for me and I like teacher intensive curricula :tongue_smilie: