The day I "got" Fred was when my math hating son came and explained to me a fairly complex math topic while telling me about the story he'd just read. It's random, weird, and awesome. It's really not for every kid. But my boys love Fred.

Calming Tea, you forgot KONOS. :laugh: Ellie has fans.

I don't think they're necessary, but I like the Elson Readers. I feel like the controlled vocab combined with spelling lists organized around the readers gives children a chance to practice reading with KNOWN words. I also like all the old folk tales and fables that are included in them. There are other sources for those stories, but with the Elson Readers, I get to present them to brand new readers. And they're more entertaining to read (and listen to) than the list of spelling words. :-) :lol: I hate when that happens. I dreamed about grammar all the time when I was writing Level 3.

It's purely optional. The exercises and copywork are all listed in the text. For my son, I've printed out the exercise pages, but he does his copywork straight from my Kindle Fire into a comp book.

If you're happy with R&S spelling, there's no reason to switch. RLTL teaches spelling through phonograms and spelling rules, so it's just a different way of teaching. At this age, my opinion is that no other curricula is necessary. We don't use anything else. Once they're narrating comfortably, have them give regular oral narrations from their reading in all subjects; that's writing preparation. When you get to Level 2, recite the definitions and the lists; that's higher level grammar preparation. People can make Language Arts way more complicated than it has to be. :-) Different goals, different philosophies. Here are previous entries in this thread re: prepared dictation. There are other comments on that page from others as well. http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/495070-i-may-have-found-what-im-looking-for-in-a-program-that-truly-uses-literature-to-study-la-skills/page-3?do=findComment&comment=5363396 http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/495070-i-may-have-found-what-im-looking-for-in-a-program-that-truly-uses-literature-to-study-la-skills/page-3?do=findComment&comment=5363485

I would probably combine the two of them. I mentioned earlier, my sister did use Level 1 with 1st and 3rd graders her first year of homeschooling. This year, my niece is in 4th grade, and she skipped Level 2 and went straight to 3. Early grammar programs have so much repetition by necessity that they can be very flexible. Spelling is more of a philosophical question IMO. You can use RLTL for spelling, or wait until they're ready for prepared dictation, which is included in Level 3. LMK if you'd like more of an explanation.

Thank you, Hunter. That's a beautifully stated explanation of the "to supplement, or not to supplement" question. I'm probably going to steal it. :lol:

:hurray: :iagree: It's scary to be a new homeschooler, trying to figure it all out, and get smacked with that kind of drivel. I quit caring a long time ago about what other people think about the way we do things. Some agree, some don't; it's all good. And I have no issues with any company stating their philosophical beliefs on education. But from some sources, there's a little too much "YOU MUST" and a little too little "IMHO."

Did you join us in the Yahoo group?

That's lovely to hear. :001_smile: I'm glad it's working well for y'all so far.

Sheesh, I didn't even try Fly Lady. I read a sample of her book right after we moved off-grid. I decided she couldn't hack my lifestyle. :coolgleamA:

:lol: We've liked many of their book selections over the years. Their advice, not so much. The article I referenced was along the lines of "just because you stay at home, that doesn't mean you should sit around in your PJs. Get dressed because you DO have a job." And I do, and it's one I love. But someone better be signing a paycheck if I'm expected to wear shoes and put on real pants.

We've mostly done oral narrations in the past, but we've also added an album/portfolio kind of book. The boys have a nice sketchbook, and approximately twice a week, they choose something from our studies to add to the book. They draw a picture and add writing, either a short narration or copywork. It's definitely something I want us to continue doing. The boys are happy with the books, too.

I stopped reading their newsletters when one said I should get up and put on shoes every morning. :huh: That ain't happenin', either.

Here's my reading lists. It has both history and science, divided by time period / branch of science and also by stage. It has a TOC so it's easy to navigate. We've never used a science curriculum, though we have used RS4K books just as reading books. I started to use a "real" science curriculum once my oldest hit high school. He suddenly stopped liking science. I re-evaluated my goals, found "hatred of subject previously loved" was not on the list, and went back to a spine and lots of good science books. I'm always attracted to the actual science curricula, but in the end, the books always win.

Gary Taubes mentions the research in Good Calories, Bad Calories on page 325. I wish Amazon would let me loan GCBC. It was one of the shockers for me when I started studying Paleo/Primal/low-carb diets. Vilhjalmur Stefansson and Karsten Anderson and the study that was done concerning them is interesting reading. You can read Stefansson's own paper from 1935 here. (Note: I know nothing about this site except that they've reprinted Stefansson's paper.) Of course, all of this is tricky today because those people weren't eating CAFO animals.

We have this one. I haven't read it cover to cover yet, but I like what I see so far.

There's a grades 1-12 reading list in the link in my signature, divided by stage and subject. It has a TOC. :thumbup1:

You seemed to have been arguing that the level of education that would force one into that level of job is in itself abusive. That's circular. I just don't think we can call parents abusive for no other reason than their children needing to take a low-end job to start off. And really, the kinds of groups that you're talking about, the education is usually the least of the offenses. There's true abuse going on there, not merely educational neglect. We live differently. We're preparing our children to the best of our ability to be able to live like we do, or go live like we used to. Thankfully, I don't have to choose. But if I had to, I would focus on the way we choose to live. Our way of life teaches our children to feed themselves from their own land. The Western way would only teach them how to work for someone else. So, I'd be extremely opposed to any system that insisted that my way is of less importance, that the child's place as a contributing member of society is more important than his ability to feed himself without a grocery store. The Amish and the Mennonites aren't the only ones who have the right to choose a way of life, and to teach their children accordingly.

http://www.lulu.com/shop/kathy-jo-devore/art-level-3-language-lessons-through-literature-pdf/ebook/product-21158689.html :-)

But plenty of people have those types of jobs, and jobs that don't offer health insurance. Just because one has to take a low-end job when one is starting out, that doesn't mean that one was abused.

Some research suggests that the body actually needs MORE vitamins when eating a diet high in carbohydrates. Also, it's the other way around--some nutrients can only come from animal products, but I don't know of any that can only be found in grains. We're sugar free (with an occasional piece of dark chocolate), mostly grain free, and low carb. Most meals are just meat and veggies, right now in the form of soup. Depending on what we put in it, it equals out to $3-4 per meal for a family of seven. We also like eggs: scrambled, fried, green eggs (fried with pesto and feta), quiche, egg salad, and any other way we can think of to cook them.

My 7 and 10 year olds started using our new book last week. They both did fine, but neither of them tried shading or coloring. My 13 year old is interested, and he'll probably do more. I think it's just a matter of choosing a good stopping point for their abilities. My kids self-regulated.

My oldest son does. I started using Fred years back to supplement Singapore. I think Singapore teaches fractions and decimals poorly, so we switched to Fred for those topics. Then he found Singapore mostly review, and he hated it, so we just switched. He's been doing Fred ever since. He loves reading, and hates math. He think Fred is about as good as math can get. My second son has been doing Fred alone, too, but I'm about to switch him to MUS and just use Fred as a supplement, if he want to use it. He's my math kid. He's always been advanced in math, and he's not the reader his older brother is. Because of this, he's seems to miss some concepts which are buried in the story. For us, using Fred as the sole program has been from Fractions and up. I personally don't care for the new elementary and intermediate books, and I have books I like better for that age. I think it's like any other math program, which is to say it will be great for some kids and not so great for others. Not all of us have children who need or want AoPS type books, and that's okay. Not all of us believe it's necessary to always supplement math programs, even Fred, and that's okay, too. :-) I think this forum can give a distorted view of what normal math for normal kids can look like.

Hunter knows way more about teaching various ways of handwriting than I do. :-) My experiences are more limited. I suspect she's also more particular than I am. I focus on neat and legible; I don't worry about how close to the model they are as long as their writing is attractive. My youngest son (7yos) still reverses b and d sometimes (in italic, not cursive). I've tried explaining to him about making letters in the same direction that we read. He rarely reverses now when he writes. It happens more often while he reads, though that is also clearing up as he becomes more fluent. I haven't tried cursive first. I started with HWT way back when, and it was a disaster. I switched to italic and I've had excellent results with it with all of my boys, except the one who can write beautifully but doesn't care to take the time. A rant for another time, perhaps, and certainly not the fault of italic. The older three transitioned to cursive italic easily. Now, I'm teaching them regular cursive, the three youngest boys, and it's also going very smoothly. I'm going to continue cursive with my boys, and I am going to try cursive first with my daughter when she's old enough. I discovered the Peterson method, and it has just 4 strokes to learn to make all of the lowercase letters, and all lowercase letters start in the same place. Hunter doesn't like it because the letters are w i d e. I see her point, but for us, it's not an issue. The thing that has really convinced me to try cursive first is the way it can support reading and spelling, such as the muscle memory which comes from writing each phonogram as a connected whole instead of in tiny parts. But I still have a couple of years to go before I can try it. :-)