Well, I know it won't be long term, but I will seriously need a vacation myself from them staying here for a week without any downtime or personal space.

Yes, she was pushy and manipulative in her note. Perhaps it is not intentional, but she just does not know how to be courteous or polite. When she was invited to my mother's home, my mom always had tea, food to eat, and an inviting home to welcome her. When my mom went to my SIL's house, she never offered to make her something to drink, ask if she was hungry, etc. She just has very few social graces or understanding of proper etiquette, which is one of the reasons she drives me nuts.

Tent in backyard-- I'll have to check into that one. Would there be a city ordinance against that? They like to camp, but I have to wonder if SIL would be offended if I suggested they camp in the backyard. :lol:

Well, she wasn't nearly as polite as you. She did not ask, basically stated they needed to stay with us and it worked well for them in the past (citing examples with her grandparents, her sister (who was single with no kids prior to her wedding). And ending stating, "I hope this doesn't put you in a bind, but we feel we need to tell you how things are with us. Otherwise, we'll just have to go to ____ graduation and go home. I doubt we'd have time to see you guys with the driving involved." If I felt like being really passive aggressive I'd write back and suggest she stay at the relative that is graduating (obviously they don't have room for a family of 6!) and we'd meet up with them for some outings!! Sigh..... but that is only in my devilish imagination.

If you had no guest room available, would you be okay with this? My SIL wrote me a letter basically stating that they cannot (or will not) pay to stay in a motel for a week. So, either we put up the family of 6 in our living room for a week or they will not visit us, just go to her relative's graduation and then leave (they are out of state). My mother already lives with us, thus the reason for no spare room and cramped quarters in our home. She writes that she grew up doing this all the time with her grandparents and last year at her sister's wedding they camped out on the floor of the living room with full blessing. I love my bro, and I tolerate my SIL. I love my nieces and nephews, but the thought of them staying in my home for a week is.....:ack2: How would you feel? Would you just do it? Other thoughts?

I have a 1st grader who is half way through the book. We plan to get to the end at her own pace. I'm guess we will be done sometime in the middle of 2nd grade, and she will be at a 4th grade reading level. We started reading later than most on this board as I really like to allow a slower start to reading as it goes more quickly and is less frustrating (better attention span, etc). For example, she reads higher than the lesson we are working on intuitively because she is more mature and we really worked on those cvc skills for a loooonng time. Also, I think it's important to drill those phonograms to help with spelling, one of her weaker areas. For those reasons, we will do all the lessons thoroughly. Love OPGTR!

Yes, Voyages in English includes plenty of diagramming. Here is a link to Kolbe Academy's sample lesson plans for 5th grade grammar. They use ViE 5 in their curriculum. You can also enroll for just one class, such as Grammar. :-) http://www.kolbe.org/documents/fifth/English5Daily11Sample.pdf

There is also Voyages in English, which is one of the recommendations in the older version of WTM (I don't have the newer edition, so I'm not sure what she recommends now). There is an older version of ViE and a newer one, so you may want to compare those if you look into it.

Oh, also don't forget that OPGTR wants you to follow the "2 review, 1 new" format. She just doesn't remind you to do this on every lesson. With review and Daily Five, you can continue to progress to new lessons, just at a slower pace. Good luck!

I'm also using OPGTR with my 7 year daughter. We are working on long vowel sounds with vowel teams, lesson 90, and working very rapidly. She could be further ahead, as she breezes through the words, but I want to make sure the phonograms are cemented in her mind. We started reading at age 5 with a different program and she stalled after the CVC words for several months. . I think some kids, like my dd, just need time to let things gel and come together. One thing I "stole" from my dd's former school was a LA block called the Daily Five. It includes Read to Self, Read to Someone, Listen to Reading, Word Work and Work on Writing. So you could do this: 1) Have him read a reader of his choice to himself 2) Have him read something to you (this could be lesson or reader) 3) Use the words you think he needs to work on and do "Word Work"-- this could be making words with magnetic letter tiles, letter blocks, play dough words, use letter stamps to make words, or wikki sticks to form words. It's fun, but he still works on those phonics skills you want cemented without going over the lesson again 4) Work on Writing-- have him do copywork of one of the sentences from OPGTR lessons if his handwriting is up for it using the words he needs to cement 5) Listen to Reading-- You read to him a reader with the words he needs to cement, while he follows along silently looking at the words as you read.

Thank you ladies. Re Kolbe: Did your kids enroll in Kolbe in the younger grades? What did you think of the course work and lesson plans? Just right, too rigorous? Any other thoughts? Re STAA: How detailed were your lesson plans? Were you able to substitute things easily, say switch out Math U See for Right Start, etc? How was the pace and cohesiveness of it all? Any other thoughts about the program?

I would, especially for things like history and science, art or music appreciation. I pick the curriculum, and someone else schedule it all out for multi-level kids, in small do-able chunks.

Has anyone tried these programs? I'm looking into it them because I'm hoping to have the teacher planning off my plate and these programs are somewhat flexible in that they allow some substitution of curriculum. At Kolbe, you can even just buy one course, such as history or science. That is tempting right now! Would love to hear from anyone who has used them!

I have young kids, so I've only tried the copybooks (very nice) and Story Time Treasures. (We love this!!!) I'm looking forward to trying more MP products. Very tempted by this complete curriculum, but we will see. One note about Story Time Treasures-- it can be a lot of writing and initially, I thought it was not a good fit for my dd. BUT, that was because her fine motor skills just need to catch up. Delay the start of using them and they work beautifully!!! Even a 2nd grader can enjoy these classical, well loved children's stories like Little Bear, Caps for Sale, Blueberries for Sal and Make Way for Ducklings. And, being more fluent at reading just makes for less resistance in the writing portion since they can save their mental/physical energy for grammar and writing/copywork.

Katrina, Thanks for taking the time to share your experience-- it's helpful to see some of the same feelings I have about it. This is not an easy curriculum to implement, at least not at first. It does require not only teacher intensiveness, but teacher prep with the DVDs, plus investment of $$. Every once in a while I think, I should just go use CLP Building Spelling Skills. Cheap and a work book. That said, I'm pretty much sold on the OG method, so I really do want to keep at it and try to make it work. I don't want to chuck it, try something else, and look back and wish I'd stuck it out. :tongue_smilie:

Brianna, Thanks for your thoughts and experiences. Very cool that your dc learned to read this way. One thing I'm very tempted to do is buy this new book http://www.logicofenglish.com/products/uncovering-the-logic-of-english It's by a lady who is developing her own Spaulding spin off curriculum. I think she was a SWR trainer. Anyway, I think for a nominal fee for just the book (not the curriculum), I may have the "written" stuff I need to compliment PR.

Thank you! That was very helpful to read. I think I'm somewhat on the same page with regard to using OPGTR and not necessarily tying handwriting to reading. I'm tweaking PR in a similar way. You mentioned that she was beyond the readers in PR1 when you got to them. So, what did you do? Did you skip them all together, or was she eager to illustrate them as her own books? I'm thinking I could use it as "art". Not sure....

If you stuck to Phonics Roads, I'd love to hear from you. 1) How did you schedule in DVD training time? Did you ever have your child watch the dvds on a busy week? 2) Anyone do OPGTR first (or at least get half way throught OPGTR), then start level 1? I'm finding that is the natural approach for me. Doing phonogram cards via OPGTR then looking to start PR level 1. The readers will likely be more icing at that point. Did you do the readers just for fun if you did OPGTR? 3) How are you liking the lit studies and grammar portion? I really like the philosophy behind WWE, so would like to do that in conjunction (instead of?) or alternating with PR, but I haven't seen Level 2 first hand. 4) What grades are you doing level 3 & 4? Are you really getting through one level per year? 5) Any other comments or tips? For those of you who didn't stick it out, why did you leave and what did you replace PR with? Are you happy with these or still searching for the right program? Any regrets for jumping ship? If you were starting over with PR and told that you HAD to stick with it, what would you do differently to get through it? Thanks!!:001_smile:

I'm going to second the suggestion of Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. I've tried a few programs, and I'm sticking with this one! I did buy the pre-made flash cards as well as the magnetic board and magnetic tiles to make it more than just book learning. I also do some of it on a white board. The OPGTR book is systematic and thorough, and dd enjoys it as much as any kid can enjoy a phonics lesson. Good luck in your search!

We have it and we like it, but honestly, I'd wait to do it if I were you. It's perfect for my 7.5 year old, but my just turned 5 year old is only enjoying it for the stories and picture coloring, something I could do informally with picture books and free color pages online. I think it's much more valuable as a history curriculum when the kids can actually do some of the copywork and narrations in their own handwriting, which reinforces the learning. I'd recommend Adventure in America for around 1st-3rd grade, or even 4th if you add in enrichments and extra narration, dictation, and copywork for the recommended supplemental read-alouds, and have your 4th grader read them to you. Just my 2 cents!

Oh, and can't forget Margaret Wise Brown

That's a tough one, but I'd say for children's picture books Charlotte Zolotow Tomie dePaola Beatrix Potter

I think it's virtually impossible to have a completely biased free history curriculum. A Protestant curriculum will always view history through that lens when discussing and presenting historical fact etc. Even Story of the World has a bit of a Protestant Christian flavor to it. Here's a link to a Christian curriculum that is being produced through the Catholic Schools Textbook Project that I know a lot of Catholic homeschoolers have been pleased with: http://cstp.myshopify.com/

Here are my two cents based on our experience. I didn't use Prima Latina with a 6 year old, but I did start a barely 6 year old in CLAA petty school for a little over a semester. Basically, it's a Latin course for the younger set. Anyway, Mr. Michael encouraged us to said to stop all English phonics and just do the Latin, as it gets confusing for the little ones. Petty school starts with Latin and then switches to English phonics later. For a variety of reasons, we decided CLAA wasn't for us and now we are back to English phonics. DD is reading on target level, but we are still working through all the English phonograms and OPGTR right now, and I won't add Latin until next year. My advice is choose one or the other right now. Doing both while she is still learning to read English may be a bit overwhelming or confusings unless she is extremely gifted and/or able to sit through long periods of LA type work.