This is the first year I am not doing the lessons with him, that is, I do the warm-up with him, but that's it. We have the DIVE CDs and he does them entirely on his own. I have only stepped in when I knew he wasn't understanding the concept. It is only recently that he has been showing issues with the lesson itself. Most of the missteps have happened in the review/mixed practice section. We have used Khan Academy exclusively last year as BJU was a total failure. This is also the first year that I don't sit with him while he completes the lesson - in the past that was about the only way he would do it. But I have three other children who have needed more attention. We're planning on enrolling him in online classes next year, and math is one of the courses we are considering. I have looked on this year with DIVE as a way to transition him into being in a more class-like situation, having to follow a lecture, and having to take more responsibility. I do talk him through the solution when he just can't figure it out, by modeling or asking questions to help him think through the logic. But that doesn't happen as much. He is usually able to figure out where he went wrong himself. There's just a couple problems every now and again that he can't solve. This is also the first year I've forced him to go back and figure most of it out himself. I know, it's a lot of changes to have at once, but in spite of his frustrations he is learning to persevere.

Hey all, Ds (11) is struggling (as usual) with math. We've made the jump this year from Bob Jones to Saxon, because an online school we're considering next year uses Saxon, and I wanted to transition. It worked out BJU Math 5 was a disaster last year. We've been working through 7/6, 30 lessons in. It started out all right (expected since these first 30 lessons are review). But for the last ten lessons or so something is happening and I'm not sure what to do. Without fail he misses most of the problems - from the lesson set to the mixed practice - across the board he's lucky to get even half right. It doesn't matter if I only give him a handful of problems then let him take a break - he will miss nearly all of them. But here's the kicker - when he goes back to work them a second time (without consulting the solutions manual to see how it's worked, without me necessarily explaining how to do it) - by simply going back and reworking the problems, looking back at the chapter or re-watching the lesson (DIVE), he gets them right. He sees where he went wrong. I've been keeping track of the type of problems he consistently missed and then we went back and re-worked the chapters. The trouble is that the poor boy despises math - and after completing the worksheet the first time his first question is "Is it really bad?" - which it usually is. He doesn't see the value of going back and figuring out the mistakes - he just gets smacked with the failure and the agony of having to rework the problems - even though he is getting it right the second time around. The irony is that he scores 80-90% on the tests. Any insights? Should we press on? Tweak things a bit? thanks Leah

thanks y'all for your input! It helps to get some perspective and ideas! Leah

Recently, it's been long division. 5783/71, 42562/52 It seems to be different issues. Sometimes it may be a missing zero in the quotient. Or when he multiplies it will be too large - he should adjust the quotient down, but he'll just subtract a portion of it anyway and leave off there. Sometimes the quotient isn't high enough, he'll work it through and have a high remainder. We were having issues with fractions (equivalent fractions, reducing to lowest terms, converting an improper fraction to a mixed number and vice versa). I made up "math warm-up sheets" to continue practicing through and he seems to be getting it now. Is it possible the chapters just aren't giving him enough repetition of the material over a period of time to really solidify the information? Leah

Hello everyone! I need some advice. Math has been a sore spot with my son from the beginning. After a few years of real math heartache, we finally settled into BJU and had great success until this year. I don't know what the deal is, but BJU 5 has not worked out. It has been one heartbreaking failure after another. After a few chapters into the book we left off on it altogether, and I had him working again through the Math 4 book to try to shore things up. He improved, got some confidence back and we dove back into Math 5. But we've hit a snag again. The trouble started with the chapter on fractions and quickly snowballed into long division. He consistently misses half his problems. Ironically, when he goes back to work the missed problems he gets almost all of them correct. I'm at a loss for what to do. We have plans for him to begin an online program in a couple years, but they use Saxon. So, I will have to transition him to a new program. The hard thing is that even though he reworks the problem and will get them correct, at test time he still misses half - so something still isn't connecting. It worries me that he expects to fail, his first words are "How bad is it?" Thoughts? Leah

well I heard from my friend. She said that she and her son had always loved math and looked at it more like fun fun fun, but Math 5 was boring work work work. it looks like we're going to be all right after all :) Math has always been work work work for us, so we've got nothing to lose :laugh: It can be so easy to lose perspective, thanks for all the feedback! leah

I did write my friend to ask her what happened, hopefully I'll hear soon. It just unnerved me a bit. I don't especially feel like I want to rock the boat. We've really struggled in the math department. My son just isn't given to mathematics like he is to language arts. I guess what I mean about serious math is that BJU is pretty cartoony in it's presentation - it is visually more appealing than say a Saxon worksheet. I wondered if we were coming to a point when a kid doesn't need cartoony anymore, but can handle just getting the job done - but maybe that's expecting too much of a 9yr old boy who'd much rather be outside whittling something. When we settled on BJU I actually showed him samples of several publishers I was considering, and he chose BJU. When I asked him why he said it was because he could do it. For whatever reason the colorful pictures made him think it was easier. Getting a child to believe that he can really accomplish something, it seems to me, is half the battle. I don't really want to jump ship, because it seems to inevitably create holes. I can definitely see the value in sticking with it until it truly isn't working, instead of changing programs out of fear it won't work. Thanks so much everyone, it really helped to talk it through! leah

Hey everyone, I need some math advice. For the past couple years we've been using BJU math (after trying out Saxon and Math Mammoth). It has worked well for us, no more tears come math time. A friend of mine (the one who told me about BJU when I was floundering for something that would work for us) called me up to say that Math 5 was a disaster for her - which spooked me a bit. I had been reading through various reviews trying to get a feel for where BJU is going, and whether we need to be going there too (in light of the classical approach). I was also reading through WTM, which marks fifth grade as crossing over into logic. So, it got me thinking on whether we needed to be moving out of colorful workbooks and into "serious" math :) I had even considered giving Saxon another try, though we hated it in 1st grade and half of 2nd. And somebody's whispering "if it ain't broke..."

Thanks! Silly me, I didn't realize my signature is so off! My son is 9. We've got Latin for Children C planned for next year. I was thinking ahead to what would follow, he would be in 6th grade, 11yrs. Leah

We'll be finishing up Latin For Children (we've done all 3) soon, what comes next? thanks, Leah

I download SOTW and read them on the Nook. I download whenever I can, usually they're cheaper, and you can't hardly beat the instant gratification :) Also, my son thinks it's novel to read something on the Nook, so I have a hard time keeping it out of his hands and keeping enough on there for him. Sure, I still delight in the touch and smell of paper, the physical experience of page-turning, so not all of our books are e-text. HTH, Leah

For Literature: My kids are still relatively young (8, 6), so I don't have a whole lot of independent reading for history/science. I still expect to read most of the materials to them, and then they narrate back to me. Usually the books I choose from VP, etc I plan to read aloud to them. For my younger kiddo, I've scheduled (assigned) books that I want her to read, and I plan on using VP's literature guide. It has comprehension questions and activities. I will usually purchase books that are on their reading level and keep them on the shelf. My son took to reading like a fish to water, so I haven't had to push him in this area. If it's on the shelf it will end up in his room even if it's out of his league. I schedule quiet reading times for all the kids, even those who aren't reading yet. I was nervous too about dropping grammar (and <gulp> even spelling) this year. I didn't want the teaching of Latin to fall solely on me, so I went with the Latin for Children, the full DVD package. I'm really surprised at how easy it has actually turned out. My son (8) is able to do much of it independently. Do you have any experience with a foreign language? (Spanish, French, Italian) - if so, it's really not so bad, because you're already familiar with conjugating verbs. And of course there are so many ties with English vocabulary. We're about halfway through the first book, and starting on sentence patterns, labeling the parts. The first half of the book is largely learning vocabulary, but also introducing the whole idea of conjugations and declensions. We also started the history reader, and it's going really well. Since we're doing TWSS, it has afforded plenty of opportunity to work on grammar and spelling as well, but of course in the context of our writing. Are you on the IEW families yahoo group? They have a whole section on grammar, probably on the IEW website as well. Next year we plan to use Fix It. I think that they are getting enough Grammar from Latin. I can just hear my kid groaning to have to diagram sentences in Latin and English. Not that, anything but that!:D Take care, Leah

We use TWSS and Ancient History Theme Based writing lessons. Grammar - I skipped grammar this year (we'd done Shirley 1 and FLL 4), because we started Latin and I thought it would be overkill. Spelling - I'm not doing formal spelling with my oldest, it hasn't been necessary. We've used Natural Speller in the past. Reading - I keep a lot of books around. I have them do narration with whatever they're reading. Required reading hasn't been an issue. For my 1st grader, I do have scheduled VP's Vol. 2 reading guides, but just until she is a stronger reader. I choose books from Sonlight, VP, Honey for a Child's Heart and Book Tree. Literature - I choose read-alouds that correspond to our history studies. But also read good fiction that's completely unrelated. For history selections I use VP and also Christine Miller's All Through the Ages. Penmanship - I make up cursive worksheets for the kids. Lessons are done completely with pen and ink. It is the only time I hassle them about their handwriting. My son's brain moves faster than his hand when it's writing time, so I will often scribe for him, and allow him to type out his assignments. HTH, Leah

If I may chime in too, maybe this will help you some. I was really getting frustrated with my son just slopping through his handwriting pages, it seemed like a total waste of time. We moved into cursive this year (I went ahead and moved my daughter into cursive too although she just had one year of manuscript). Instead of a formal program, I just bought a traditional cursive deskstrip from Rainbow and a bunch of paper. They sell a paper that has the space between the mid-line and baseline highlighted, super cool. Anyway, twice a week (though you could do more) we have a penmanship time. We break out the archaic dip pens and ink. I bought a dozen different colors, what could be more motivating than writing with hot pink ink? Using the pen and ink makes them slow down because they run out of ink, it feels more like art class so they are a little more careful and they have some other incentives I've added to sweeten the pot. I have these little incentive charts that for every 3 letters/words that are extremely well written they get a sticker, and when the little grid is filled up, they get a mystery prize (and I make sure it's good, hiding out in my closet I've got some little toys that my kids are wild over). I also have the end of the year prize - if they work really hard in penmanship I've promised them a true Shakespearean feather pen. Anyway, I started this plan thinking it would utterly fail, but I've never seen two kids more eager to practice their handwriting, and I haven't seen this kind of writing out of my son ever. I'm hoping it will eventually find it's outlet in his other writing, I see it more in my daughter's work now. But I only critique their writing during that class, and let the other times go. Arris is super-active all boy, and Audra is tranquil pick flowers to make a daisy crown kind of girl. So, I'm really pleased to see it work for them both. HTH, Leah

I think you could do just TWSS if you don't mind teaching it yourself. At least that's what I did. I did spring for the Ancient theme based history writing thing - but just so that i wouldn't have to come up with my own assignments. There's a yahoo group too you might ask over there if you're still unsure. HTH, Leah