My five year old son is obsessed with numbers. He talks about math all day, but it isn't just math, he loves everything about numbers. He enjoys even just looking at numbers. We had to cover up the minutes on the digital clock in his room because if he woke up in the middle of the night, he would stay awake for hours watching the numbers change. He delights in reading the Bible because there are so many numbers in it. He even found a verse number typo in his Bible (fittingly in the book of Numbers.) He gets angry if I lean too far to the right in the car because it blocks his view of the numbers on the CD player. He loves everything about numbers. The way they work, the way they look, writing them, their names in other languages, making up new names for them, literally everything about them. I'm sure that some of you have kids like this. What are some things (DVDs, toys, art, anything) that your numbers obsessed children have enjoyed?

I like it. I won't for long because it will be captured by interest groups, and the core will be ruined. Until then, however, it means higher but doable standards for a lot of schools. And it means that a student can transfer from one common core school to another without gaps. For my homeschooling it means that I'll use the core standards as a checklist and try to make sure that we're roughly up to date with them. That's not because I think they're perfect, but to be prepared in case of emergency. (For example, if I died in an accident, my husband would have to put the kids in school. I'd prefer that that went as smoothly as possible.) Without the core standards, I couldn't be prepared in that way. (Lot of unexpected deaths lately, so this is on my mind.)

I had a Keurig for years and loved it. Mostly I used tap water and instant coffee. Recently it broke, so I took it apart for fun. Definitely worth the time! It is quite a little machine, all kinds of neat stuff in there.

I'm raising men, not products. I was raised to care about achievement for the sake of putting it on the app. I collected lots and lots of "achievements." What a bunch of nonsense. And what a way to socialize people into worshipping What Other People Think. I won't be repeating that. It's one of the reasons we homeschool because I feel like school is set up to engender that type of thinking. My hope is that my sons graduate from our homeschool having completed a rigorous course of study, having developed the judicious temperments of true scholars, and, most importantly, having become good men. I don't know what hobbies they'll be into, we'll see, but I'm not going to seek to add hobbies like one adds bullet points of features on a product's packaging.

We use a sheet of paper for each kid. At the end of the day, you get a star if you were generally helpful and obedient, another star if you had no potty-related accidents, and another if you were good after going to bed the night before (read: you didn't call us back to your room for nonsense, you stopped talking when asked, and you stayed in bed until the specified time in the morning.) We've been doing this for three years with one and a year and a half with the other, and it works like a charm. Works better than any other approach for behavior modification we've tried. They are exceptionally good boys. And they don't seem obsessed with the stars; I think they really like the formal recognition of jobs well done.

I would hate sharing an email address with my husband. I think he would hate it too. There's nothing secret in our email accounts, just the intrusion of the other person's things would annoy. It would be like if he started marking things in my planner or inserting his own pages into my notebook.

I'm a Christian, but I once saw a pretty hardcore militant sort of religious talk at a homeschool convention. I wasn't offended, it was just the speaker's opinion, a little crazy sue, but crazy opinions are hardly uncommon. He was on a tirade. I was all :lurk5: watching him :cursing::cursing::cursing:. I'd never heard anyone talk like that before. I was texting my husband with updates in real time.

Okay, sounds good. Thanks.

If your child already knows all about skip counting and multiplication facts, would you start with 3A or 3B?

Great info. I had no idea about which Chinese curriculum to use. Do I want the set called "My First Chinese Words Set (36 Books + Audio CD)?"

DS5 Kindergarten Math, MM, Kitchen Table, and BA Sonlight Core A Sonlight Science A Additional books from Ambleside and elsewhere Nature Study StartWrite Artistic Pursuits Religious studies pulled together from a variety of things CM style picture and music studies Piano Gymnastics Possibly Chinese school. He's obsessed with languages and wants to do French, but I don't have a native speaker to teach him.

I showed a sample page to my son, and he said he liked it, so I guess we'll give it a try. Thank you all for the information. And thanks for the information about broadening math curriculum. I've been a little stressed out the last couple weeks worrying about math, so this has been good. I am still a tiny bit stressed, but I'll get over it. :tongue_smilie:

Oh, these articles are perfect. Exactly what I need.

Thanks for the information.

Nm. Just found the placement test. If he passes this, he's ready? I'm trying to slow him down, and I've heard BA is harder. My son loves math, and I want to challenge him when we start school this fall, but because he's so young, I'm afraid a too challenging approach might put him off. But that's heartening to hear that it's working for six year olds.

I thought they had to know multi-digit multiplication. They don't? If my son can read well and knows addition, subtraction, and multiplication (not just the facts but conceptually), should I buy it now?

Good to know.

What happens when we run out of pre college level math? We as in all of us who have kids zooming through math. Our local university is pretty expensive.

If a child masters everything in MM 1-6, would it make sense to go back and do BA to expand upon what he's learned? Alternatively, has anyone used BA with a five or six year old? If a five or six year old were ready for that level of math material, would the program be a good fit or would other non-math aspects of it make it not work?

Sometimes I wonder if people aren't similarly needlessly harsh with the current Sonlight crew.

Sheesh. Sounds like it was really vicious. I think it's easy for people to forget that the person they disagree with is a real person with real feelings. Here's to hoping we all do better at remembering.

There's this: http://johnscorner.blogspot.com/2005/08/sarita-and-i-have-been-seeking-from.html

When I did P4/5, I just bought the IG and pieced together the rest. I put a little check in one corner of the square for each reading after accomplishing it. So if we sat down and did five days of readings out of one book, I'd put a little check in all five squares for that week. I used it more like a checklist than a schedule.

I enjoyed Stanley Lombardo's translation: http://www.amazon.com/Iliad-Homer/dp/0872203522 It was a page turner.

Many suggestions. Thanks, guys. I'll look into all of these options. :001_smile: (And I'll take another look at the Seek and Find too.)