Hi, I thought I would mention about ecybermission competition.Registration is open until December 16th. There are few restrictions: all team members should be the same grade and from the same state. Here is a link to the competition site:http://www.ecybermission.com/ We have not done it before. It is our first time to do it. P.S. If you are in MO and have a 7th grade student who wants to participate but do not have a team, let me know. We have a room for 1 more team member. We are doing project in robotics.

Do what you think is right for your child! I did some simmimg myself because of my child's involvement with robotics this winter. She does pretty much only math, logic, Japanese and religion as the core subjects, and the rest she is learning as she goes designing/ sketching safety paper doll outfits, creating puzzles, doing some research and writing, working with boys on building a robot, learning how to program and use all big boys tools such as drills, metal cutters etc. She is having a lot of fun, so we keep it this way until the season is over and then she will be working on other things during the summer. I really want her to explore and try new things to be sure she likes what she is planning to do in a future-build robots.

Hi, I would tell her about it and let her decide if she wants to try it. I would warn her that ther application can be rejected because of her age. I also would try to contact the "authorized body" to check the requirements and ask about the possibility for your daughter to be an exception. Age thing is very relavant. One can be a dumb at 15 but another is brilliant and capable at 10. My daughter joined a FRC team where she is the youngest(12) among 16-18 years old boys and she is fine there. So, age is the milestone, nothing else. I hate when the child is restricted to participate in events in accordance with his/her age. It should be a fair game. You can tell her that you would try to contact committee(judges) to check if she is allowed. If she is, start the process of preparation. The worse case if you spend all your/ her time getting everything ready and it will fall through at the last moment. My child takes rejections very hard. May be your daughter deals with it better.

I think some parts you can find in other kits( my kids used one we have for Arduino projects) and buy other parts from electronic parts on-line store. His kits are convenient, but not proprietery:) My kids insisted on getting another resource, but it is not intended to use by really young kids (it has a magnetic ink pen). My oldest children paid with their own money to get it for Christmas (my husband was very skeptical about it). Anyway the name if the kit is "Circuit Scribe" We have not tried it ourselves but it should do what it says. :) http://www.amazon.com/Circuit-Scribe-Basic-Book-Silver/dp/B00OJYTV8A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418149659&sr=8-1&keywords=circuit+scribe

Hi, my friend has a bright son who just turned 7. She has been homeschooling him since he was very young. He was a late reader due to some speech (pronunciation) problems. Now he reads very well and do not have any speech deficiancy at all. At young age her son was extremely good at math and logic, and then he slowed down but still was very good ( He could operate with large numbers in his head without writing anything down; he could not write that time anyway). After he learned all his phonics rules and start reading fluently, his math fluency disappeared. Her son is struggling with simple operations trying to do them in his head and keep forgetting what he was doing. He doesn't want to write things down because he remembers doing simple operations in his head. I tried to help the boy encouraging him to write things down and he is slowly moving that direction but it still takes him so long to solve the simple equation. We asked him what was the problem. He answered that all those phonics sounds messing him up and he is very confused. He understand numbers but struggling with word problems. My friend is wondering if she needs to go back and repeat last year math with him. When we asked the child he told us he would rather not go over last year math because he knows it. His math curriculum is a combination of Russian math and Singapore math. He uses AAS/AAR for language art.

Hi, I am going to start this post and hope some people will contribute also. My second daughter is in a circuit building:) She likes SNAPS and few other available resources. I discovered EEME last year and my older kids really enjoyed their projects. Now my youngest daughers having so much fun so I decided to share info is somebody might be interested. EEME http://www.eeme.co/dashbrd There are free short lessons(even 4 years old can sit still for 15-20 minutes). You do not need any resistors, LED, wires unless you want to build a physical vs. virtual circuit. You can subscribe to their kits if you want all part to be delivered by mail (once per month). Otherwise, you can just complete projects (instructions are free to use) with part you have at home. According to my husband who has BS in EE, the information is simplified but I do not think you need to use complicated language with very young kids.

Hi, I am sorry to hear you are having difficulties with website. It is so annoying when your child does not fit the "profile". I hope the issue will get resolve quickly:). We should not spend our time dealing with such poor website coding. Good luck and Happy Holidays!

Hi, my 6 grader was doing at least 2 hours of math daily. We did SM6 textbook + IP6(A/B B) + Mathletics + Russian math + SM 6 Challenging problems. I found IP6 problems(especially more challenging ones) were more challenging than those I could find in AOPS pre-Algebra(challengers). Sometime my daughter spent more than 20 min solving 1 problem. My moto is "Dig dipper to understand it". I usually broke the whole chapter of IP in a half, so my child could work on it for 2 days and the third day she would be correcting mistakes or getting some help with problems she could not solve. We skipped some of AOPS pre-algebra avoiding redundance and busy work.

Hi, I just got an email from the authors of Mathletics(3p Learning). They are giving away copies of their "Halloween" version of math application for iPad for free. Please use the link/ claim your copy until November 1st. http://3plearning.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=b3595ed1cc174131d5db4992a&id=3782254ec1 There is another freebie: "Drawing Around the World: Europe" . http://homeschoolgiveaways.com/HSE/? I hope somebody will be able to use any of them.

Hi, I have a child who is dreaming about robots all the time:) She is working with Arduino and Raspberry Pie based robots.There are a lot of books related to the subject. When I have more time I will list some of them. You can go with LegoMindstorms or Bioloid( more expensive ones) or some cheaper kits depending on a platform. There is also a VEX based robot which is reasonably priced. Let your child to sign up for a Summer robotics academy which is free. Even she/he doesn't have a robot, Robot Virtual World will work just fine without having a physical unit. It is free for a summer session(good until September 1st). We haven't started our "studies there" because my daughter has been waiting for EV3 based robotics classes but they have not been released yet. We might just try VEX curriculum this year.

Hi, Is there a complete list of words used for each level of RLTL? I saw it was listed in a preview but none of the sample pages had it. Thanks.

Thanks for your replies and a link to an older thread.

As a 1st grader(7 years old in Russia) I was required to write 3 paragraph compositions( primary using a picture study or a particular topic), narrations, dictations (at least 1 page long),copywork etc. for a mother tongue. Reading program was separate from writing. I have a question for those of you who are trying to teach a really young child(3.5) on how to read and spell. I have SWR which I used for my oldest daughter at age 5. She entirely skipped all readers and started reading at 4th grade level in less than a year. She is 11 and read all recommended books for next few levels of ELTL(she reads at adult level), so SWR worked just fine for her but she did not like marking for spelling and her penmanship has never been very good. My son enjoys working with AAS and doing so well so I do not feel I need to switch to anything here. We use it to improve his spelling. He learnt reading using SWR also. My youngest is a bright child but I do not see her doing any marking if we use either SWR or RLTL curricula. Will you use it almost 4 years old child? Phonograms in both programs are the same (O-G/Spalding method) and I am making activity pages for her using Cursive First font with some modifications for capital letters. I personally like Spenserian font but it will be overkill even for my 7 years old son. I will introduce both manuscript and cursive fonts to be familiar but want to use cursive for most of copywork in the future. I am going to use letter tiles for her also to minimize the quantity of writing/copywork to do. I call manuscript as "reading a book" font so my kids will know when to use it. Any ideas or suggestions are welcome. Thanks.

Hi, I am intrigued:) What will be covered by the extra 200 pages added to levels 1 and 2 after you separate a combined 1/2 volume into two different books? Thanks a lot.

Hi, I have a question for those of you who used CW Primers or English Lessons through Literature from www.bearfootmeandering.com. I looked at sample pages for English Lessons through Literature books and they remind me a lot of Primers from CW which I used with my oldest daughter. She really liked them. If you used English Lessons through Literature books how did you find them? What did you like or dislike about them? I am thinking of combining CW Primers with CW English Lessons through Literature books because they complement each other( in my opinion, of course). CW primers are intended for 2 graders so I was thinking of using Level 1 of the English Lessons through Literature for my second daughter before I move to CW Primers. Thanks for your replies. :)