THIS baffles me! I agree, I'm looking at/for old fashioned curriculums for math and reading instruction. I love Don Potters site and may have to take the time this summer to print, hole punch and bind the various texts! I'm leaning toward Spalding method, but I'm not paying $70 per grade for LA when I already have the Manual (5th edition) I'm struggling with whether or not I sho I have no idea why publishers, educators and media have slowly but steadily been dumbing everything down, but I can't stand it. Even in my short life, they've accelerated the pace! This New Hooked on Phonics is the dumbest thing I've ever seen, I learned to read with the 1990 version which was black and white and 'dull' but allowed me to read adult text and materials when I was done.

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I just want to point out that the majority of the International Students at my college are multilingual. Of course they speak English (to some degree or another) since the college is English speaking, but most of them speak 2 languages besides English. From my informal survey I've found that the African students tend to speak the greatest number of languages, (4+ one guy speaks 8 FLUENTLY and 6 to a lesser degree.) with Europeans tending to be second, speaking Romance, Germanic and other types of languages. I'm finding many of the Asians are only bilingual, their native language + English, but there are a few Asians who speak 3+ languages, the majority are only bilingual. My schools ISO has 100+ students in it

These are all materials I use or have used in the past via purchasing them or borrowing them from the library. The ones with the 1 by them are the two books I'd get FIRST everything else is just gravy/reinforcement, these two books can get you up and talking in a couple of weeks. Spanish for Beginners comes with a CD in the back. Starter Spanish does NOT. Check your library for the Teach Me series, they could be hit or miss, but they are very musical and More Spanish and Even More Spanish are good, even if you find Teach Me to be too basic. I'll update this list again later to include more of my resources later :) Teach Me...Spanish, More Spanish and Even More Spanish by Judy Mahoney (http://www.teachmetapes.com) Spanish for Beginners by Angela Wilkes 1 Link to Amazon Play and Learn Spanish by Ana Lomba Link to Amazon | Google Books Preview Hop, Skip and Sing Spanish by Ana Lomba Google Books Preview and also available through Amazon.com I own these books: Complete Book of Starter Spanish K-1 and Starter Spanish Grades 1-3* 1 I wouldn't recommend K-1, as it focuses on "Random" Spanish that is cute but irrelevant and impractical; letters, shapes and numbers are about 60-70% of the book, then some vocabulary. It isn't bad, but I wouldn't BUY it. 1-3 is much better, it includes the same info, but more compact and touches on grammar but has ALOT more to offer.

I'm a ways off from having kids, but I'm always planning and researching for when I do...My reply is based on my own research, opinions and experience and research with child development, etc.

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Emphasis and Bold mine. I was under the understanding that spiraling focusing on introducing/familiarizing/improving skills each year. Like introducing Addition in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, AND 5th AND 6th AND 7th. Of course, each year it's more advanced etc, but I never mastered anything really. If Math U See is a "mastery approach*", I assumed that working on something a little, then jumping to the next concept within the same year is spiraling and as I've researched different models of math teaching, I have seen spiraling defined as thus; I've seen Spiral Approach defined that way in more than one place. I'm not familiar with any curriculum that spirals back on itself in the same month or anything. That sounds like a mastery approach, revisiting the same subject over and over within the same grade/level to be sure the student can understand it. *

Seeing as how offering my students a superior and rigorous math education from day one, is one of the major reasons I'm considering homeschooling. I'm leaning towards layering 2 or 3 programs as the years progress. I want to develop mathiness in myself and my kids, so living math is a must but also a few very very good. Its my goal to expend the time, money and energy to have my kids experience both the depth and breadth of Mathematics MOTL as a K-5 spine JGM1-8 as a K-5 spine LOF introduced in 4th grade as a supplement AoPS as a 6-12 spine LOF the entire series used as a spine in upper grades Its important to me that my children really GET math and enjoy and are able to appreciate math, since I struggle with it so darn much! I'm tempted to also use MUS during K-5, because that darned SPIRAL approach has me confused to this day! I hate^(100002) "spiraling"--makes me feel like I'm spiraling out of control! I haven't met anyone yet who liked it or really understood it in school. Everyone usually says the same thing, more or less, about the spiral approach. "Everytime we started getting kind of good at a topic in math, it was switched and by the time I saw it again the next year I kind of remembered, but...not really. I never really mastered anything....But I don't care, 'cuz Math sux, lol..." <_<. So far in my research and scouring the web, this is looking like one of the best sequences/plans but I'll know for sure after spring break when, hopefully, I'll have time to look at the scope and sequence of each and every one of these series. :). I'm also considering MEP as a supplement, we'll see though...

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