My kids all loved and did well with Mango for about 2 years, but then our library stopped carrying it and the new program they used to replace it was not impressive (to us). I would definitely start with Mango if it's available through your library!

I bought all the HIG's (and continue to buy them!), but really haven't used them at all. We have completed year 1, year 3, and year 4 (with three different students). I have a good math foundation, was not taught the Singapore way, yet it has not been tough to grasp and has in fact been intuitive. This fall I am going to try and look at the HIG's in the evenings just to see if there is anything I need to add to the textbook explanations (since I already have them!) and I also want to do better about using the Mental Math practice at the end of the guides. I'm not sure I'm being helpful after re-reading what I have written! So in summary: We have the guides so I'd like to take advantage of them, but life gets super busy and they've been cast aside. The kids have done great with Singapore despite my neglect of the HIG. Best bet would be finding them to take a look in person and see what you think.

If you email the author, she'll respond with paypal info and email you the PDF. I just purchased the program a week or so ago :). Sholacebooks@yahoo.com Price I paid was $15 Hth!

I like this thread! We are getting through Bible time (reading, hymns, prayer,...), Reading for both boys (one with OPGTR and the other has completed OPGTR so we practice reading with expression), read alouds, piano, and math on a daily basis. Marginally consistently completing AAS and Copywork (basically handwriting for now!) :D. I am choosing to be okay with not hitting History and Science, art study, and whatever else we are skipping out on since I feel like we get plenty of elementary exposure to all of it just by living life and through reading good books... this was decided after trying to cram it all in for a while and falling flat on my face :tongue_smilie:!

I REALLY like the way you put this Merry! I am a newbie and we are actually school dropouts as of oh about the end of November :001_huh:. My eldest will be 6 next month and is a good reader so I don't feel too bad about taking an early sabbatical :tongue_smilie:. Over the past month or so I have done a lot of evaluation of our home/school life. My son, although performing well in the little we were doing of K, complains, sulks, balks, whines and absolutely makes me miserable with every school subject we encounter (and this is with not MUCH going on schoolwise!!) :confused:. I have researched curricula until my head has hurt, I have tried different schedules and presentations of material, I have spent tons on books for us to read aloud and enjoy as a family only to feel like it is all in vain. My younger children (ages 4 1/2 and 2 1/2) actually want to do school. My 4 year old will struggle through writing letters on paper (without any encouragement from me - he's an August birthday and i don't want to begin K with him until he is 6!) and do it with a great attitude and dedication despite the fact that he has absolutely NO fine motor skills whatsoever! The 2 year old constantly wants to 'do school' and is happy as pie to scribble on paper, paint or listen to me read for endless amount of time. I've had to come to the realization that even though I read tons of posts on this board about children using such and such curriculum and loving cuddling with mom and reading, learning new exciting things about our culture, exploring the world of science - it's just not meant to be for our little school. I've also realized that I have done a poor job of working on attitude as a behavioral problem around here which is what we are doing these days as we just work on being a family that is kind and serving towards one another and that maintains a clean home (maybe he will tire of scrubbing and mopping and realize that school was a better option someday :tongue_smilie:). Until we begin again (maybe in the Fall or next Spring), I will be :bigear: in the hive and continuing to try and assemble a workable schedule for our big family of littles.

Awesome! Thanks so much!

We are enjoying the book as well! And we also dressed up for Halloween - 7 month old Cowardly Lion, 2 1/2 year old Dorothy, 4 year old Scarecrow and 5 1/2 year old Tin Woodman :). The kids always say 'that's Olivia' when we're reading something about the Lion or that's Josh when reading about the Tin Woodman, etc. It is definitely a favorite book over here :)! I am starting to get the 'Kindle bug', but still don't know that I would be able to love it as much as reading real books (I like the feel of the pages, the smell the pages and the sound of turning pages:tongue_smilie:). Does it seem to work well when reading from it to children? My kids like to look at the book while I read (even when they don't have pictures!).

Thanks for the helpful replies! We are enjoying AAS so far and I didn't want to bog down my little guy with more writing. Today we did as suggested and just spent a the day on review, rather than continuing to the next step. I also let him choose which way to spell the words (he chose the marker board).

We are in Step 7 (maybe 8??) of Level one. We've been reviewing the phonogram cards, rule cards, and sound cards each lesson but today is the first day we are supposed to review the word cards as well. This is probably a silly question and maybe one that I could answer myself if I read the guide more thoroughly...just hoping this will be quicker ;)! What do you do to review the word cards? Do you have your child spell the words verbally, write them, letter tiles?? I think it would add up to be quite a bit of work if I'm having my son write or letter tile all the old words in addition to new :confused:! Thanks!

We are using OPGTR and ETC. My older boy began reading with OPGTR just after he turned 4 1/2 and the younger boy began just before turning 4. It's pretty simple/straightforward, no frills and very scripted so there is no pre-planning :). It's not the most exciting thing in the world, but my boys rarely get excited about phonics no matter which way I try to package it :tongue_smilie:.

:iagree: I wouldn't buy the guide just for the post test. Just make up a few short sentences using the words learned in the current book. Or you could just skip the dictation. My guy is 5 1/2 and about had a fit over it :tongue_smilie:, he was perfectly fine with remembering and spelling everything out but did not appreciate that much writing! We love ETC here, but there is a lot of writing if you're starting with little ones - my second son is 4 and can hardly write his capital letters on the lines :confused:! hth!

Thank you sooooooo much for the replies!! You all have helped a lot! I wanted to be relaxed for K and had convinced myself that the 'content' part of our curriculum would be for fun and anything they take away would be gravy, but then I keep looking at blogs and whatnot and question myself! Yes, my oldest is in K. Maybe I will try one notebook page every week or two in rotating subjects to see if we enjoy it. It will definitely have to be a coloring page or photograph as there is no drawing happening here. Paige - we are enjoying ES quite a bit and look forward to trying the higher levels over the next years! I do have the nature study handbook, just no time to look through it yet!

So I was feeling fairly decent about what we're accomplishing this year, but then I had to go and look at what other people are doing and now I feel like a complete slacker :glare:. This is our first official homeschooling year although obviously we've been homeschooling preschool type stuff since the beginning. My oldest is 5 1/2 (good reader, no idea what level but currently reading The Boxcar Children), then I have a 4 year old (reading short vowel words with beginning and ending blends), 2 1/2 year old (just trying to get the coloring thing down :tongue_smilie:) and a 6 month old (just to throw a wrench into everything!!). Anyway, aside from reading (phonics/spelling) and Math all we are doing is Bible (reading a story, memorizing a verse every couple weeks or so), History (reading a blurb from a spine, supplementing with readings from other 'living' books), and Elemental Science (so far just doing the weekly experiment and supplementary book or two). So if I type everything out it looks like a lot, but basically we cover most of our read alouds at breakfast and then spend about an hour or so on Math, Phonics and Handwriting. I'm just giving a lot of background info because I really need this notebooking thing s-p-e-l-l-e-d out for me :tongue_smilie:. Should I be taking narrations from my son on Bible/History/Science? Are we supposed to be hiking about the neighborhood gathering specimens for a nature notebook (keep in mind that none of this is my area of expertise - to put it extremely mildly!)? Is my 5 1/2 year old supposed to be able to sketch realistic drawings and label them and make observations at this time? Leading to...do I need to teach him how to draw now (as if I know how) since currently his drawing capability involves stick figures (maybe with oval bodies if he's really stretching himself)?? I am just so confused and feeling extremely overwhelmed at the thought of trying to fit anything more into our day, but at the same time I do not want to leave out an important element to my son's education. What age did you begin notebooking with your child? (I wonder if this varies with family size) What does a beginner's notebook 'look' like? How do you teach a beginner to narrate, draw, etc? How often and for what subjects do you notebook? I know this was long for a Friday night post, but I will not be able to sleep until I am sure that I am not short-changing my son on his education (exaggerating slightly here..). Thanks!!

:iagree:...at least I think I do as we are not starting AAS until next week (just got it!). We also have a Phonemic Awareness curriculum that we will do this year beginning Monday. It takes 10 minutes a day (about) and is done completely orally...looks like fun! My oldest began reading using the OPGTR/ETC combo just before he turned 5 and he is a very good reader (have no idea how to check his 'level'!). My second son began reading just before turning 4 using the combo. He wanted to have 'reading lessons' like his brother and quickly caught on after I tried doing the same lesson with him everyday as I didn't think he was ready:tongue_smilie:. I won't be using AAS with my second until next year or the year after as he is not ready for much more school 'work' at this point :001_smile:. I haven't read all the thread responses yet...and maybe I shouldn't to prevent falling for any more phonics curricula!!

Lol this is the story of my so-far very short homeschooling journey :lol:! I am on the prowl for the perfect curricula (as if there is such a thing!!), and will frequently purchase a program after researching it for weeks and hearing nothing but good things about it...until I've swiped my card and it's on the way in the mail that is :001_huh:! I just ordered (and received, they ship quickly!) AAS. I also ordered and received a Phonemic Awareness curriculum. So of course there will be millions and billions and trillions (can you tell we've been reading 'A Million Cats' - is that what it's called??) of threads on why AAS is not the answer, does not work, will result on incompetent nincompoops if implemented, etc. Seriously though, I've been looking it over, preparing letter tiles and it looks really good (we have level 1). In fact my 4 year old (who will not be using the program) saw my computer with the phonogram cd loaded and started clicking on the phonograms and ended up spending 30 minutes clicking on the sounds over and over and over and...anyway, looks like they will enjoy learning this stuff :001_smile:. We will like it. We will like it. We will like it. So will you. So will you. So will you. :D Does that help you any? :001_huh:

Check out this link: Phonemic Awareness My MIL who has been a private K teacher for 30+ years uses this with her classroom. It's a little pricey ($69), but it's a complete, fully laid-out, pick up and go curriculum. I was able to look through it last time she visited and have now ordered a copy to work through with my kids. The lessons are 5 days a week, done orally and take 10-15 minutes per day. They have little motions for the kids to do - like karate chops for word segmenting, etc. The Blue book is for Kindergarten and the Yellow Book is for 1st and 2nd, but their website says you can use the Yellow at half pace for K as well. You can look at samples on the website as well. It's funny because my MIL had shown me this book over the summer and I really had no idea what it was for...then all these threads about phonograms, phonemic awareness, etc and the little light bulb came on :tongue_smilie:. I thought I at least had reading down and knew how to teach it to my children :lol:! Oh and for anyone as clueless as me, the website talks about what phonemic awareness is and gives some other helpful info on teaching reading. hth!

I'll probably start a separate thread about this Monday as now everyone has me nervous:tongue_smilie:... *I* don't know phonograms. I am and have always been a good reader (though I tend to read too quickly sometimes and have to re-read for comprehension). I also do well with spelling. I have been teaching my 5 and 4 year olds to read using OPGTR and ETC. My kids would have no idea what a phonogram is, should I be worried? I am planning on adding AAS at some point in the future and my mother-in-law uses this program to teach her K'ers that I will now by buying (thanks to another thread on here about phonemic awareness!): Phonemic Awareness Are my kids going to be okay? Will we have problems down the line? My 5 1/2 year old seems pretty advanced in his reading and read's the OPGTR sentences without difficulty and obviously there are no pictures AND the sentences are often worded atypically or use low-frequency words as they are phonetically controlled so I assumed we were good...but I don't think my ds is looking at words with an 'ea' and recalling that it either says long a, long e, or short e, he just knows which way to read it by the way it sounds (I think anyway, I am getting so confused...:confused:) Thanks for any feedback!

Thanks for this thread! We have begun our first 'official' hs year as well and although it is going okay, many of my ideas have already been chucked by the wayside (narrations, nature walks, art, music...). It probably takes about 1 hour total for us to do a day's worth of school, but there are so many interruptions that it drags out forever! All of mine have recently come into a horrible phase of bickering, nit-picking, tattling etc and we are really having to work on those issues as a priority. And Heather was right about diapering/potty issues being able to account for an hour of the day :glare:...craziness. My kids are 5 1/2, 4, 2 1/2, and 6 months old. I had such a different vision of our daily lives after all the blog-reading, forum lurking, and real life socializing I have done but quickly came to the conclusion that sadly it is not going to be happening here. I have read numerous books on child-rearing and home schooling and never do they explain what to do when your baby is screaming at the top of their lungs while you're outside on a 'nature' walk with the kids trying to have conversation with the eldest, your 2 year old falls and has a crying fit because of the resulting scrape and your 4 year old is as always so spaced out he can't hear the many requests to please pick up his scooter and continue along so that mommy can keep pushing the stroller and get us the heck home. (Just a hypothetical situation...:D). All of the 'common sense' techniques and advice on schooling work great when you can completely focus your attention on one child. And even those who have many children closely spaced but older can't seem to remember how they handled the days of all kids being littles...they just say it gets better as your older children are more able to help, which leaves me to wonder how do I survive until then :tongue_smilie:?? Sorry for the length, this was just the right (wrong??) day for me to come across a thread like this AND I wanted you to know that it sounds like you're doing a great job AND you are SO not alone ;)!

Great advice, Merry!

:bigear: My oldest went to a pre-k program twice a week at our church. From that experience the impression he has of school is play with friends, have a snack, play outside, do a craft, eat lunch, play outside...definitely no negative associations with 'real' school :tongue_smilie:. Now it's more like calm the fussy baby, discipline the sassy toddler, referee 3 or 4 squabbles, read a little and repeat. It's pretty sad as every time I say the word 'school' in any context his little ears perk up and he says 'what, I'm going to school??' very excitedly :001_huh:. I can definitely use some advice on getting him excited about beginning the school year at home!

We are going to use LHFHG with my 5 1/2 year old this year. I'm nervous but excited, hoping the History isn't too much for him to grasp and that the Science is enough as he loves doing experiments. We are continuing with OPGTR and ETC for phonics and using Saxon 1 and Singapore (mostly just trying to figure out which will work best for us for math). The real trial will be keeping the younger 3 occupied during the school day!

I love your plan!! It makes a lot of sense and I like having 6 week folders to keep up with what's coming and what's needed. Thanks for the description!

Thanks Michelle. That makes sense and makes me feel better :)! Great job on organizing for all 4 kids!!

We are beginning Saxon 1 for my K'er who will be 5 1/2 when we begin. With all the work I've been doing filing weekly lessons I've got to know the material a bit :tongue_smilie:. I think it definitely looks very doable for a 5 or 6 year old. The beginning lessons are things like counting 1-5 and then 1-10, getting to know the calendar etc. It looks like a very slow and steady program that will cement the material before moving on. If there are any times the lessons become difficult, I figure we can stretch the program out over a year and a half or more and still be fine since we're technically 'ahead'. hth!

We will be using HOD's LHFHG. I'm really hoping for a light and fun year, but every time I see everything written out it looks like a lot! Bible - LHFHG (Family Time Bible, memory verses, devotional) History & Science - LHFHG Math - Saxon 1 & Singapore EB B (will begin 1A for 2nd semester) Handwriting - Handwriting for a Reason Phonics - last third of OPGTR, finish ETC 3 and continue through the next ETC books Literature - LHFHG list along with many read alouds that we own As of now, we're not planning on any narrations or other written activity for subjects other than Handwriting & ETC. If Science and/or History is not enjoyable, we will drop them completely and just work on the 3 R's along with some crafts. I'm going to work to keep some record of books that he reads independently and maybe have an activity or two to do with some of our favorite read alouds. I want to be done with everything by lunchtime so that we're free to play at the park and go on outings in the afternoon :)!