My dd's attention span has improved a lot and we're doing more in one sitting now but when we were working on first grade stuff our day was broken up. I did it in a set/scheduled way so she would know what to expect. It usually went something like this: First thing in the morning: Bible, Handwriting, Song School Latin for 10 - 30 minutes Lunch time: Math, Geography Songs, History for 10 -30 min Sometimes we watched our MUS video while eating and then did the work. Afternoon or Evening: Either mid-afternoon or right before dinner Language Arts (Spelling, ETC book, FLL, WWE) etc. 15-30 minutes. We didn't do everything every day. We just worked for 15 to 30 minutes and started the next day with whatever we left out the day before. She read a lot on her own so we didn't have a need for scheduled reading time. We varied what we did at each time slot by the day. We always started with Bible but the rest of it moved around.

I don't have an opinion on whether or not you should medicate your son because I believe anyone you love your son enough to homeschool and attempt to figure out how to best meed his needs so you will have to decide what is best. It does sound from your post that you are hesitant. I'm attaching a link to a book that might provide some practical solutions for dealing with some of the behaviors associated with ADHD. A little background. I have a family member whose daughter has been on medication for several years but it didn't "fix" the issues. Basically, she slowed down a bit but was still getting in trouble in school for the same issues continuously. She was pulled out of school last year to homeschool and her parents starting implementing some things from this book and her behavior has improved. She has now been able to stop taking the medication which wasn't their initial goal but kind of a byproduct of getting her emotional and behavior issues under control. I'm not implying that this would work for every child but it's worth a shot. For some children medicine works, for others it doesn't. Children are not machines, everyone is different so every situation requires an individualized approach. FYI, we are a Christian family and this is a Christian book and there are references to Scripture. http://www.bing.com/shopping/adhd-deceptive-diagnosispaperback/p/4A76D481B1255DF58631?q=deceptive+diagnosis+book&lpq=deceptive%20diagnosis%20book&FORM=HURE

I would also suggest trying sample lessons first before you buy all of anything. I bought 2 or 3 different curriculums for math and wasted a lot of money before finding what worked best for us which is MUS. We liked the manipulatives and the teaching approach on video, etc. If I were starting this journey over again I would get several samples & try out several lessons in each one before spending anything. MMj seems like a solid curriculum and lots of people like it but that doesn't necessarily mean you and your child will. There are pros and cons for everything.

It's probably easier to answer the question of where to "go back" with a mastery type curriculum than spiral. I only use sm as a supplement and don't teach from it so I'm not sure exactly how they work but you can probably look at online samples of the table of contents. For MUS each book has a primary focus and then reviews the previous topics. There is a level specifically for fractions and decimals. My dd is a fast learner so we have been completing 2 levels per year. I think MM is similar but I'm not sure. Another idea for filling in specific gaps for your older son as you find them would be to use khan academy videos online. They are great, it's easy to find a specific topic and it's free.

I'm not sure how long the idea has been around but I'm sure the AIG website has links to documentaries and/or position papers on the subject. I know it is the topic of a short video at the Creation Museum and there are some resources available from them. I'm also sure that anyone who doesn't have a YE pre-supposition is going to feel the materials are ridiculous. Personally I found the information very interesting and no less ridiculous that some of the theories that are passed off as scientific fact these days that are really just attempts to explain how man got here without a creator.

Placement tests can tell you some things but not everything. For example, when we switched to mus my daugher passed the alpha placement test. It wasn't until after I was a few lessons in to Beta that I realized she was "counting" in her head and didn't really know her math facts. It's a blessing to have a younger child in K. For my s-in-law she started with alpha because she knew she would use it with her younger kids so she didn't mind spending money on a curriculum she would finish in a few months. Her kids used the manipulatives and raced through the alpha material and then she moved on. You could use a similar approach to MM or whatever curriculum you choose. I prefer MUS but you should just pick whatever you think works best for your family and don't be afraid to start spend some time reviewing. For all subjects it's good to give yourself some grace and see the first year as a transition/discovery year. My friend's first grader goes to private school and they spend the first 6 weeks of a new year just reviewing stuff they learned last year. You will see/find gaps as you start working in all areas because it's just you and your children and you're paying attention to them and discussing what they are learning as they are learning it. This was not happening in ps. Also, if you haven't purchased it, OPGTR has a great section about remediation and the problems children who didn't have good phonics instruction start to experience in 3rd or 4th grade. This may or may not be a problem for your children but it will at least give you some things to look out for as you're reading together.

I'm going to office depot asap to find that bigger graph paper and I'm also going to play around with excel. I looked ahead and notice in a few chapters when we get to 3 digit x 3 digit they have vertical lines on the paper already but not horizontal ones so we might still need another option. We were also confused by the method of doing the regrouping on the bottom. I think it was confusing for me because it's not the way I learned and for dd because it added to her inability to distinguish which line to put answers on. When we went back and re-watched the video he actually teaches it three ways. With the regrouping on the bottom, the traditional way most of us learned with the regrouping on the top and splitting it in to two problems and then adding the answers. We did a couple the third way to solidify the place value concept but after that I let her pick the method and just like someone else said she liked the traditional method with regrouping on top because it's the way we add and multiply "usually" she said

My dd who is now 6 was a lot like your daughter. She liked doing "lessons" which for us meant ETC phonics, Bible, MUS, etc but she didn't like listening to me teach/read or stuff for more than about 2 minutes. I found that our day went best if we did lessons first think in the morning for 10 to 15 minutes (usually Bible & HWOT handwriting) then she took a long play break. The 10 or 15 minutes of phonics before lunch followed by a long play break. 10 or 15 minutes of math in the afternoon followed by more playing. We read books but I found if I said let's sit and read her attention span was shorter so it became learn how to obey mommy lesson time:001_smile:. If she wanted to avoid going to bed she asked to be read to and suddenly her attention span was endless. Once she learned to read on her own she did so for hours on end without being asked. She just preferred to be able to read to herself rather than having me read to her. I took her for Iowa state testing for K when she was 4 and she came out of it highly offended because the teacher insisted on reading the instructions on the test to her and wouldn't let her read her own book during story time break.

For math I switched to MUS when my daughter was 5 and she instantly started liking math more because of the manipulatives. I'm not familiar with math mammoth but if you aren't using manipulatives you might consider it or check in to MUS. For cursive you might try HWOT. My daughter has actually been asking for 2 years for cursive but I kept putting it off because I told her she needed to print better. We started a few weeks ago with cursive which made her very happy. I felt silly when I read in the cursive teacher's manual that sometimes the best way to improve sloppy printing is by learning cursive:001_huh: We go a little faster than the schedule in the teacher's manual but still not more than a letter or 2 per week which means we are meeting both her objectives and mine. We're learning cursive but all school work is still done by printing so we're practicing on our neatness there too.

I left that off my list of things we did because I forgot it but I also did a few days of just writing the problems on the board and letting her give me the answers orally. This helped me figure out that we needed special lines on the paper because she got the concepts but her sloppy writing was confusing her in the middle of the problem.

This answer applies to all your kids and not so much just the one good in math. My s-in-law pulled her then 3rd & 4th graders out of ps last year and found that she had to basically go back to the beginning. I'm not as familiar with MM as I am with MUS because that's what both of us use but I think they are similar in approach. Basically, she discovered that despite getting good grades in math (the older daughter did very well on placement tests) they didn't really know their math facts (they were still "counting" in their head when adding & subtracting) and they really struggled with word problems and knowing when to use what type of operations. She actually started with MUS alpha which covers single digit addition and they just raced through it. They completed alpha & beta the first year and will do at least gamma & delta this year and then work on epsilon in the summer and by the end of next year will be back on "grade level" so to speak. There are sample lesson videos on the mus website to review if you want to see if you think the teaching style would work for you and placement tests to see what level to start with.

I never let my daughter use a calculator for her lessons but she thinks it's fun & cool to use one so when she started multi-digit my multi-digit multiplication I started letting her use a calculator to check her answers when she's done with the whole page. She actually likes to "race" to see which one of us can type in the problem & get the answer first. If anything is incorrect we go back to working it out on paper. I don't think it's crossed her mind yet to use it instead of working the problem...she thinks the purpose of the calculator is to check her work.:001_smile:

:iagree:This is such a good summary of goals for the first year. I would also add that 45 minutes total for K sounds about right. For K we did about that amount of time but it was spread out throughout the day. We would do Bible & Handwriting for 10 or 15 minutes (not really much fun stuff...just straightforward lessons) and then she would play for an hour or so. Then around lunch time we would do 10 or 15 minutes of phonics. Then another play break. In the afternoon 10 or 15 minutes of math, etc. Eventually we added SOTW for another 10 or 15 minutes but we rarely did more than 1 or 2 things in a row. We gradually did more at a time as her attention span increased but it didn't happen quickly.

I don't see any Latin in your current curriculum list. You might also consider adding that as a challenge for him. Since he has such an exceptional memory Latin would probably come easy to him and there's a lot of value in knowing it if he's going to pursue any field of science. I use Latin for Children from Classical Academic Press and my daugher loves it. She just asked if we could start Greek from the same company.

It sounds like your son and my daugher are a lot alike. I believe she remembers everything she's ever seen, heard or read. It's crazy and hard to keep up with. I don't see any harm in continuing to do the SOTW together. My daughter read the whole book the first few days after we got it but I still go through 2 chapters a week and do the narrations and the tests. It gives us a chance to discuss what she's learning and I know she needs work on writing, narration, paying attention, turning in neat work, etc. There's no way any curriculum is going to keep up with a child that reads several hours a day and I know she's not ready to do detailed writing assignments or focus by herself on schoolwork for hours on end yet. I accelerate the skill areas (math, grammar, etc) but for history I see the SOTW has an outline for her to use to place all the stuff she's reading about inside so it makes sense chronologically when we get to more detailed writing and analysis in the future. We also recently started an actual timeline from Homeschool in the Woods for her to use to organize the people & places she's learning about.

I was so excited my daughter was reading early...and quickly realized it opened up a series of challenges for us. After a hurricane in our area the local waterpark was shut down for an extended period of time which allowed me to tell her after being asked a million times that we couldn't go because it was closed down. Several months later we were driving on the freeway and she said "Mommy, that sign back there said that Schlitterbahn had a grand re-opening in May and it is June so I think we can go tomorrow"

I did several lessons a day in FLL1 and moved through it very quickly and then ended up skipping FLL 2 and going straight in to FLL3 this year. I still find it a bit slow so we sometimes do more than one lesson at a time and we supplement with the MCT Island series. My dd loves the Island books and the 4 level analysis helped with her understanding of the parts of speech. I don't think I would feel comfortable with the MCT by itself because it feels a little unstructured for my taste (I know others would disagree:)) but I find it's a good companion to the FLL which is a bit overly scripted/structured for us.

I like the MUS dvd's and manipulatives better than Saxon but I'm sure others would vote for Saxon. I found an old mathusee vcr tape on ebay for $10 and used it for learning stuff my dd didn't get in another program. That along with their manipulatives might be an inexpensive option to meet your needs. I find the explanations on the video to be very clear and easy to understand and so does my daughter. We used the vcr tape to review the alpha level then completed Beta. We are currently using Gamma but will start Delta in a few weeks.

I meant to add this to the earlier post but I got distracted! The next chapter was really easy for us so you might take a break and do it and then go back to chapter 25 to reduce his frustration level. Chapter 25 was taking 30 or 40 minutes to complete the first side of a worksheet but we started 26 yesterday and after she watched the video she did 2 full worksheets in 15 total minutes. Sometimes I think it's good to mix in a few easy days to rebuild confidence! I also sometimes use the singapore workbook for the same reason.

My daughter was stuck at the same place. Usually she breezes through the lessons so it was a suprise. Here's what we did: 1) I had to make lines on the paper for her with columns and rows...her writing is too big for graph paper 2) We re-watched the video several times. 3) We worked several problems out as 2 problems. In other words if it was 175 times 17 we worked out 175 times 7 and then 175 times 10 and then added the answers together to better get the place value idea. 4) We watched the video again and discussed the different ways Mr. Steve worked the problems and tried all the ways to see which one she liked best 5) We had to greatly reduce the number of problems we were attempting per day. We started doing 1/2 a worksheet instead of the whole thing and all of the problems together (so that I could correct on the spot instead of after the fact). Finally, after several days of doing that she just "got it" so we were able to move on. It was great character training and we spent a lot of time discussing that you only get good at things by practicing.

I don't know what kind of manipulatives you use with Singapore but I know the MUS blocks really helped us with the making 10 concept as well as regrouping. The ideas for teaching that Bill mentioned including place value, making 10 and regrouping are covered on the MUS instructional videos. I think most people let their kids watch the video along with them & then discuss it. In the math fact learning stage they use the blocks and I always asked my daughter to teach the concept back to me before we move on. As I mentioned before, if you don't want to buy a whole new curriculum you might try ebay for one of their old vcr tapes. I paid $10 for mine & it covered a lot of the alpha, beta & some gamma info on it. I emailed the local sales rep & they sent me a pdf that showed me how the old program lines up with the new one so I'd know where to start after the tape. I think the blocks were the best $35 I've spent in my homeschooling experience so far.

:iagree:One of the main advantages for us with HWOT was the step by step instructions for each letter. Her handwriting didn't get much better until she was well past 6 years old but she was at least forming the letters correctly. For some reason she just couldn't get it on the tracing sheets. She needed the specific step by step instructions and also did better once we moved to K with the HWOT 2 lined paper. The standard handwriting paper with the dotted line in the middle just didn't work either. Once she learned a letter on the 2 lined paper she could do it right on other paper.

I also don't find anything wrong with the Science in the Apologia elementary books (the only one's I have experience with so far). I wonder if those who think it's bad science are referring to the science or the worldview that is clearly evident in the material.

:iagree:Somehow I missed the time in the original post. More than 10 or 15 minutes is a LONG time for that age trying to learn new stuff. I would say if you want to spend 45 minutes on language arts/phonics 30 minutes of the time should be you reading good books to him.

I second the idea to put Spelling Workout on hold. You might also try Explode the Code workbooks. I wouldn't force more than a page or 2 a day. 10 to 15 minutes of total instruction time is probably enough total time for phonics until you build up his confidence. Just keep plugging along and reading a lot to him. I would also use this as an opportunity to do a little character training. My daughter gets frustrated if anything is difficult and tends to whine about everyone else being able to do stuff. I remind her that that isn't true and the only way anyone gets good at anything is by working hard and practicing.