I am using AAS and I really hope we will not still be doing spelling in 8th grade! :bigear: I own levels 1-4 currently. My first grader whizzed through level 1, but I suspect many typical kids that are taught to read with phonics will be able to do this, or in fact may not even need level 1 at all. It was nice to get used to the program, and for the writing practice. :) We are 4 lessons from the end of level 2 (25 lessons total) , and I am hoping to complete through at least one level per year following this, which would have us finishing in 5th grade at the latest, if we stick with it and actually finish the program. I do think that even owning AAS, it is nice to have a reference book like ABC's , for ME to be able to look up the rules for things we have not come across in the curriculum yet. It is nice to be able to do that, and teach things as they come up naturally, which I am sure will happen more and more often as he writes more in the next few years. I also have the SWR manual, which I like to use as a reference for the most commonly used words. One of my dislikes of AAS so far is that some of the most commonly used words do not come up in the manuals in the first couple of levels, because of the way the words are taught in groupings. So in some cases I have gone ahead and just taught these words out of order according to the SWR list, to have him avoid misspelling the same word over and over again for the next couple of years. :tongue_smilie:

These are good ideas. I have asked him if he would like to revise one of them and then rewrite it and do something special with it, but he doesn't want to so far. This is not assigned writing. The only assigned writing he has done is WWE and spelling, which includes writing sentences. Oh, and he writes notes to grandparents and thank-you notes. I do have him correct the spelling and spacing on these, because a letter should be a finished product and if we are writng for/to someone else, I tell him, we should do our best work. I am also not sure about the spelling. If it is a simple rule he hasn't learned yet I might mention it to him so he can fix it. And if it is a rule we have covered, I might remind him, "oh, look, you know that this should have a ck because the /k/ folows a short vowel. But he uses longer words that are beyond what he has learned in spelling, and he doesn't often ask me how to spell them. But as I said, it is mainly the hw and spacing that has me biting my tongue and not sure I should say anything. I get this very big feeling of fear that he is somehow way behind in this and that copywork and hw practice may not eventually cross over to other things. (is there a nail biting smiley??)

My question, in short -- should I correct spelling, spacing, sentence fragments, etc. in writings my newly-7 yo son does on his own? He likes to write down short paragraphs about the books he reads. :) He also occasionally writes "poems" that he likes to write down and then type into Word. My main concern is that he did fine with WWE1 and does fine with AAS level2 dication, so he's doing well. But the fairly neat and acceptable spacing and hw that he does with WWE doesn't translate at all into what he writes on his own. In fact, I can't even read some of what he writes because it is all jumbled together. :confused:

Interesting discussion. I have watched the demo from MUS and liked what I saw, but for some reason have steered away from it. Maybe it is my avoidance of DVD teaching for the early years, I don't know. I wouldn't base my decision on anyone's testimonials, though. I am sure EVERY curriculum has testimonials from people that like it. But they mean little. When someone writes that they got good standardized test scores from a certain program, I am not impressed, because I think standardized tests can be pretty dumbed-down, and it depends what test you are talking about. When someone says that their student is doing "fine" in college, what does that mean? Is that student a pre-med student taking many chemistry and physics classics, and two semesters of college calculus as a freshman, at an excellent university? Or is the student taking college algebra at xyz community college down the street? What was the math SAT score? etc. Even with that, there are some kids that will do okay despite problems with a program. And they may have a math mom or dad that can explain things and help them with problems from different angles. I appreciate the varying opinions on this thread from those that have used it to the higher levels.

Winners: FLL2 (continuing from 1) WWE2 (continuing from 1) SOTW2 (ditto :) ) Singapore math with all the supplements, continuing this Right Start math games are a recent addition which we plan to continue Not sure but not very excited after a look through: REAL Science- Earth and Space. I think the topics will be good, but it looks so overwhelming right now. And the pages are kinda blah. I'm going to try it out, though. HWT cursive-- hoping my son is ready for this sometime in the next school year. Don't love this cursive font, but he has done well with HWT so far, so we are sticking with it.

Nope, not with taxpayer money, they shouldn't. It should be for nutritious foods only. Otherwise, why not be allowed to buy a pack of cigarettes? Or a bottle of wine?

I've wondered this myself. I think if you can spare the food stamps for cakes and sodas, perhaps different criteria need to be used to get the aid in the first place. :( Personally, my grocery bill is so high that I, who am not receiving government aid, cannot generally afford to spend my grocery money on junk food.

This is what I have, but it just doesn't get done. :( We have done two lessons. I've purchased several other things, too, and finally realized that I can't have a mom-intensive program for an elective subject. I know many people don't consider language elective, but since I have a dawdler.... ;) it is, at this stage. I hope you have better success with Easy Spanish, it seems good.

Thank you!

Thanks! That is helpful. I'm glad to hear it worked for a second grader.

I got the okay from DH to get Rosetta Stone Spanish if I think we will really use it. Well, okay, I don't need DH's approval, but I know I will feel bad if $400 worth of software is on our computer and we don't get anything out of it. What I am going for is fun exposure that results in some retention. I do plan to do several years of Latin beginning in third or fourth grade, but I don't want to wait so long to begin a modern language. I have tried without success (yet) to integrate other Spanish learning into our homeschool. It just takes too long to do it myself when I have other small children. Is Rosetta Stone something ds7 can do by himself, and then discuss with me (I would look at what he is doing, on my own, after the little ones are asleep)? I know he would love anything that is done on the computer.

Thanks! I need something to take to a potluck this weekend. I may try this. :)

The Once and Future King is wonderful; it reads like a novel and is very engaging. As far as high school level lit., I don't know. I think of it more as "fun reading", if ykwim. I don't have a high schooler, but just remembering when I read it on my own. I think that Malory's book is on TWTM Great Books list for high school, isn't it? I actually have it on my nightstand right now (library copy), trying to catch up on some of the books on the rhetoric list, for myself.

I would call and tell them it is not you and to stop calling. I think according to law, even if you ARE the right person, they have to stop calling if you tell them to. I have been plagued off and on with these kinds of calls (for other people, not me) over the years. The most recent was a couple of years ago, fake calls from Bank of America. They would send a computerized call several times a day, and when I would call back to get them to stop calling, they'd say the only way they could unplug my number would be to give them my SS#.

That's funny, because I would choose one based more on personality-- all other things being equal and assuming that means the person continues to be on top of his field. I guarantee you the study of Latin (or not) makes no difference in the quality of one's doctoring, or lawyering skills, or really that of any other profession. JMO, now. :tongue_smilie: I DO think Latin is valuable for one's own education, for the reasons that any second language is very beneficial. And I believe one's inner mental life could be richer for the study of the classics. But outwardly, I don't think there is going to be a measurable difference between someone who has studies Latin in particular, vs. no Latin.

I use Singapore. Do you have the Home Instructor's Guide? It really lays out how to teach the concepts, and has additional games and mental math worksheets. We also use the Intensive Practice books, which provide more practice while kicking it up a notch with how the concepts are applied. They are great! There is also the Extra Practice book. Singapore assumes you will drill the facts on your own. I know there is no way my son would learn facts just from doing the workbook pages. I know some people just go through the text and then hand the wb pages to the kids, but there really is a lot more to the program than that.

I would say I'm an intermediate exerciser and I have to really beef up Leslie to make it a workout. I got her 5 mile "advanced" walk from Netflix to try. It was okay, but I used 3 pound weights the whole time and did some arm work while walking, and changed out some of the walking with jogging (without the weights) and a few squats. If I walked that quickly outside, it would get my heart rate up, but something about walking in place, just doesn't do much for me.

I think it depends what hw program you are used to. I think the WWE lines are too big for ds and we use different paper-- but I think that they aren't actually huge for standard 1st grade paper, are they? I've seen hw paper in our local teacher's store that is similar, and then some for the same grade that is smaller (I know d'Nealian, for one, uses the smaller lines).

I agree with the others about memorization in general, but in answer to this question, is anyone really doing this in first grade? You don't mean all 200+ bones, right? I can see it is good to know the names of the long bones and major bones of the axis, but are people really teaching every bone of the wrist, foot, skull, etc. to 6 year olds? I really don't think TWTM says to do that. The major bones, on an elementary school type chart, are a matter of general common knowledge, though, and should be learned.

We probably won't do as much as I thought we would, because we will have family visiting off and on and can't do much then, and there are some day camp programs ds is interested in this year, which will cover about 3 weeks total. Those are days where I can do fun things with just the littler ones. But my plan is to go through Artistic Pursuits and do the lessons we didn't get to. I know my kids will love this, having projects set up for several days of the week. This will account for about a month. We will keep up with math facts by playing games a couple of times per week. and a few word problems here and there. A bit of handwriting practice. Copywork maybe once per week, to keep up skills. I'm toying with the idea of doing the first Voskamp Geography book, which would be a great intro to our Earth Science for second grade. But realistically, probably won't get to that, unless we just read through it now and then in an unschooly sort of way. :tongue_smilie:

I agree that it takes more time to learn facts this way. But my son has been slow to get +/- facts cemented, despite flashcards, Calculadders, oral drill with me calling them out to him, and even te Flashmaster. We have done something almost daily for several months. The other day he cried in frustration over Flashmaster. So, back to the RS games it is (Sigapore is our main program). I have them on the shelf, but with a baby we just never sem to get to them. If you do buy them, I'd suggest breaking them out and learning several over the first couple of days. Then, wrap a rubberband around the cards, and keep them out in plain sight. I started doing this and now we just grab for them when it is time to take a break. When I just had the big blue box on the shelf, it seemed like too much work to get it out, look up the directions to a game, etc.

I got it! I have only been able to read a little here and there. I probably didn't need it, since with young children by the time my oldest is getting into logic stage, there may be a new edition in the works. But I'm still glad I got it. Even for grammar stage, it spelled out some things about using WWE vs. other writing programs, and how everything would be integrated. The only thing I was disappointed in is that the same two spelling programs were recommended, when I read on the boards that many kids don't do well with SWO. I was hoping for a short review of what she thought of a few other options. I was a little confused by the science rec. of RS4K, when there is not enough material for all 4 years. But it has inspired me to check it out.

My oldest has been wanting to learn guitar for a while; however, I know he does not yet have the patience to learn tuning and all of that, and so we are waiting a year until he matures a bit, and starting piano lessons in the meantime. He is interested in many instruments, though, so he is okay with the plan. If he had his heart set on guitar only, I might try it. Someone who plays told me 7 is the very earliest they would consider lessons, but I wasn't aware there was Suzuki for guitar.

Very interesting. We take cod liver oil in the winter and get lots of sun in the spring and summer. I always understood that if you live in a climate where you can get plenty of sun, you should be okay, and that the body stores up the D to carry you through. The cod liver is just my insurance method for the kids. Is there any evidence that the swine flu has the same effect as the 1918 flu, though, for killing via cytokine storm? I had read that microbiologists who studied the sequences said that the swine flu was not nearly as virulent. So there is no worry, YET, that this new flu is going to cause more problems in the coming winter.

Thanks! The germs kit is one of the two I was considering. Would love to hear any other opinions, too. :)