Place value cards!!! They really, really helped DD learn place value. You can order them from Rainbow Resource or Lakeshore Learning. One of them has colored ones that go up to the millions. I think that's Lakeshore. Let's see... RR has the plain white ones: http://rainbowresource.com/product/sku/025803/1301888284-625195 LL has the colored ones: http://www.lakeshorelearning.com/seo/ca|searchResults~~p|LL982~~.jsp We have two sets of the plain white ones and they worked fine. You build the numbers by layering, which helps a child really understand what place value is all about. So 12 would be a 2 on top of the 0 in a 10 - 1 ten and 2 ones.

I know Maria Miller recently redid the first and second grade levels of MM so there will be larger spaces for writing, fewer problems per page, and more white space on the page, so this might not be necessary for your kid. Lots of kids use the old format with no problem anyway. It just depends on your child.

:iagree: My dd couldn't read last year, but she was having no problem working through MEP Yr. 1. Now she can read at a normal first grade level, but I still have to sit with her anyway. Otherwise nothing gets done. :)

It is terrible, and that's exactly how I was taught in school, and I believe it's why I began disliking math so much by middle school. It just didn't make sense to me. Why did I need to put that "place holder" zero there when I was multiplying multi-digit numbers? What was happening when I "borrowed"? I knew how to do it all, but I just didn't get why I was doing it the way I was, and I wasn't stupid. I was always in the gifted programs, had a very high IQ, straight A's, etc., and after using Rightstart with my daughter and reading Ma's book, it's all so simple that I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't understand it 2 years ago. When I think about it now, I don't even understand how I never figured it out on my own - it's that simple. Quite frankly, I'm ANGRY that my teachers failed to explain something so simple to me. I would've understood it. I was actually very, very interested in a field that would've required a lot of math, and I didn't pursue it because I simply didn't understand math. It's awful that people's lives have been limited over something that would've been so easy to teach, because I surely can't be the only one. How many bright kids are out there who feel inadequate over math, when the real problem is that they just haven't been taught what they need to know? Ugh.

It's 3 or 4 days before we can expect the downloads, actually. Of course, maybe they will come early. :)

If you're interested in Suzuki, you might like Simply Music. They're very different, but both are playing-based methods. My daughter takes lessons from a Simply Music teacher and loves it. They do have a do-it-yourself package you can buy, but there are also teachers, and they have a teacher locator on their website.

I definitely wouldn't do B with a 4.5yo. It starts out slow and easy, but it's NOT easy by the second half. In fact, I think the second half of it is advanced stuff for a first grader. I originally purchased B for dd in K, based on the RS placement test, and let me just say that they were wrong. She was not at all ready for B at age 5.

Oh no. Now they're definitely going to suck me into buying more stuff. Their search function was too wonky before, so I often gave up, irritated.

I choose practically everything over cost: ease of use, effectiveness, enjoyment...I'll pay more money for any of those things. That doesn't sound like too much to me, but see the above and decide whether or not you want to be like me. lol I could do it for free, but it just wouldn't be fun for me, and I don't want to invest that much time into using free resources. I'd rather be playing. :)

Our daughters must be exactly alike, because not only is my daughter difficult (to put it mildly), she also owns a farting toy. It's a remote controlled teddy bear, though. She doesn't know of any other toy. If she did, she'd want it. She got the teddy bear for Christmas about 3 years ago. :lol: I'm reading this thread with interest, as I never know what to do when we have a bad day.

I really don't think there is, but I could be wrong. FIAR uses living books to create an integrated math, social studies, geography, art, and history program, but it doesn't have the worksheets that MBTP does. I have to agree that the drawings are horrible. Some of them are so bad I can't even tell what they are. There are also some spelling errors I've noticed in the two topics I've owned. I have to say that I have trouble seeing how the program is for gifted kids, unless they're gifted only in language arts. The science portions in the first 2 levels are so incredibly basic that my dd could've done them when she was 3, but at age 6 she still can't do all of the reading and writing, so for the two earliest levels at least, I absolutely disagree that they're for gifted children. Reading early is just reading early - a child who reads early may or may not be gifted. I don't see how a curriculum that asks 6yo's to put each animal in its proper habitat, when you only have 5 choices and they're very basic, is at all advanced.

We use it along with BFSU and we already have lots of extra books. If we were only using it by itself, it wouldn't be enough without tons of extra books. I do like it, though, and so does dd. It is too easy for her, but she's a very science-minded kid, and she likes that it's easy. lol Overall, it seems appropriate for first grade.

Do you really feel like she's learning anything in 10 minutes of an ACE PACE? I've commented on them before, because I switched from public school to private school in 11th grade, so that I could graduate early. The private school I switched to was using ACE and I completed 2 years of work in a year, only working about 2 hours a day or less. I'm not a super-genius. I just didn't need to learn anything to do ACE. Read, answer easy questions, take test, move on, retain nothing. I would absolutely NOT use ACE as the only curriculum for a child her age. It's definitely too easy. I don't want to comment on her personal attributes because I don't know her and she may really just love it, but regardless, it's too easy for that age.

I think that's a fine place to start PR. That's about where I started with my dd (although we didn't use OPGTR) and it did help her reading, IMO. I think where she is sounds perfectly wonderful for K. I know there are lots of kids who read very early, especially around here, but some of them have other gifts. (And it took me way too long to figure that out with my own dd.) It sounds like she's doing very well to me. :001_smile:

I'm just about to purchase the Add-A-Century Timeline: http://www.addacentury.com/ I don't want something that has to stay on the wall. We're moving soon and I don't know if I'll have the space then, but I do want something we can spread out if we want, so dd can really see how far apart in time things are. This looks like it will work for us.

If Miquon doesn't work out, take a look at the entire Rightstart level B program. It has only a few worksheets here and there. :) Phonics Road has spelling, writing, and grammar worked into one. There aren't any typical worksheets, but there are some sheets that do have to be filled out, so they would probably seem like worksheets to him, but there really aren't many of them. You do about 5 spelling words per day, just writing them on the lined paper in the student notebook. The worksheet-like pages are only for writing certain words to show different spelling rules and things like that. In level 1 I think there are maybe 20 of them for the entire year, and many of them don't get filled out all in one day - just a word here and there.

We go by the grade she'd be in for PS. However, if I had a very gifted child who was a couple grades ahead in pretty much everything, I'd consider adding one year for the purpose of outside classes that only allow kids in X grade, provided I knew my kid was not only academically capable, but mature enough for the class(es).

He's usually trying to sleep, as I do that while everyone's in bed (I get no peace otherwise). So he's trying to sleep, and I'm asking him what he thinks about this, that, or the other idea. Then he reminds me that he's trying to sleep and tells me to get whatever I need because he's not the expert. Every once in a while he'll surprise me with an opinion, but mostly he just wants to sleep. lol

My dd hated the look of ETC and we both hated how the pictures were sometimes difficult to decipher. I don't like anything with such bad artwork, tbh. It's one reason I also dislike Moving Beyond the Page.

They have to schedule us first. We're going to my husband's university for the testing, but they don't send anything until they schedule you, and they don't schedule you until they have an opening in the next few weeks. I guess if the forms are that detailed, I won't need to ask any questions. Good. :) Now hopefully we can finally sort out this reversals thing (which may be nothing) and find out about her other issues. Finally.

Sorry...nevermind. :001_smile:

Actually, we're on the waiting list, but I was told it's short and we should get a call soon. DD seems to be about on grade level for reading, spelling and math (slightly ahead in some areas, slightly behind in others, as per usual, I assume), but she's still reversing letters, numbers and whole words in writing, confusing b,d,q,p and so on all with each other, and reading numbers backwards. She's almost 7, so I think that we've waited long enough. I plan to have her vision tested, as soon as I can convince my DH (one thing at a time). So, what questions do I need to ask, what should I expect, and so on?

This is not a thread about choosing a curriculum (stating that up front for the people like me who drag their mouse over the title to see what the post says, lol). I am considering switching from Rightstart after B, but I'm not sure if I will yet. I'll have RS C, Singapore 2A, and Math Mammoth. The problem I'm running into is that Singapore 2A assumes we've already covered subtraction with regrouping, which we have not. Keeping in mind that I may decide to continue on with RS C (we're going to decide when we get there), would you: A. Skip ahead to the subtraction lessons in B&C and cover subtraction with regrouping (we're on lesson 77 of 107 in B right now), then finish B and go from there B. Keep going in RS B, but mix in a few lessons from MM 1B here and there to cover subtraction with regrouping C. Finish B, then take a few weeks to cover subtraction using MM1B D. Finish B, then take a few weeks to cover subtraction using RS C E. Finish B, begin C, then decide whether we're going to continue with C before worrying about any of this I have this suspicion, when looking over C, that we're not going to continue to use it for our main program. I do like the way it does 4 digit subtraction with borrowing, so we'll definitely do that at some point. I just don't know that we'll use RS C in its whole, but I can't decide that right now. Our lives are about to change a LOT, so we'll have to see in a few months. I just don't want to start another program without having the proper background knowledge, so we need to cover subtraction with regrouping somewhere if we decide to switch.

I think you could use Math Mammoth more as a spiral program, though. You would just pull pages from a couple different topics for each lesson. I know some people do that. I've specifically seen another poster (sorry, I can't remember who) say she pulls the first page from each of the 5 next topics and puts those in order, then the next page from each, etc.

I think you'll probably get a different answer from everyone. :) If he doesn't like writing, it seems like MEP Reception and RS A would be the best to start with, since neither will require much writing.