A couple of thoughts on this: I think for a lot of kids it DOES hinder math ability. Some mistakes are careless ones, true, but I would argue that mistakes usually or at least often indicate an incomplete understanding of the topic. My dd did a subtraction problem that was something like 61-54, and when she saw the 1-4 in the ones column, she simply did 4-1 instead. That is not a careless error, that is a conceptual misunderstanding. If you don't have enough ones, what is a mathematically true approach to resolving that? We discussed place value and renaming again. At the high school level and college level, I would argue that mere algorithmic competence limits where you can go with your skills. I see evidence of mathematical illiteracy all of the time in newspaper or magazine articles, and I believe our society would be stronger if more people were comfortable with mathematical ideas. And really understood them. I think this topic could also touch on educational philosophy. We are trying to develop our kids' minds to the fullest extent possible. I want them to truly understand math, just as I want them to understand how to use the English language beautifully, or read Latin, or join the Great Conversation. I think one's life is richer to fully understand the beauty of any subject you are studying. Simply being able to do algorithms without understanding why they work isn't the level I'm aiming for.

Horizons does not develop ideas to the same degree that Singapore does. Double digit addition was introduced right after learning the basic addition facts. There was no discussion of regrouping first. The approach was more, "Well, now you can do 2+3 and 5+4, so you're ready for 52 + 43, lined up so you can see it is just 2+3 and 5+4. And you can't add anything that would go over 9, so you won't see those problems." That is a very different, and I think conceptually weaker, approach than Singapore, where you spend a semester making tens, adding ones and tens separately, and really understanding what is going on with the numbers before you learn the "line 'em up and add" algorithm. And I get very frustrated when Horizons throws something out there with no explanation like the cross products problems the other day. I'm not frustrated because I don't know how to do it, I'm frustrated that they don't show why cross products works--they don't prove it mathematically. If you don't explain the WHY, there are kids who will never master it and be able to apply it correctly. I have seen kids try to multiply a numerator and a denominator in a fraction multiplication problem because they confuse it with cross products. I would put the topic in a study of algebra when you talk about equations and keeping an equation balanced by doing the same operation on both sides of the equation. In a 5th grade book as Horizons presents it, it is just a magic trick. I do use both programs (Horizons and Singapore) and think that both have their strengths and weaknesses. For teaching concepts and learning how to think mathematically, Singapore is definitely the winner in my opinion.

I wish I knew how to multi-quote, but since I don't I'll be responding to a couple of messages sequentially here. We have not hit pre-algebra yet in our home school, so not sure if I can help much. I can explain what I think I will do personally but it might not be helpful or possible for someone who hasn't taught math. I know how to recognize and fill in gaps just because I've taught Algebra several times and have also seen the pitfalls kids fall into. In our house I would have another algebra source in the house and I would go through it myself. Horizons pre-algebra is brand new--no one has experience with it yet and no one can tell you where they are weak. There are well-respected algebra texts that are mentioned here frequently and it may be worth having one around. Dolciani, Foerster's are two--I recently ordered Singapore's NEM and Discovery Mathematics just to check them out. But then I like to have multiple sources around for many subjects--that's just how I teach. I have heard good things about the Khan videos but haven't watched them myself.

We use Singapore as our primary program and supplement with Horizons. Obviously I must think there is something good about Horizons if we supplement with it. I think my dds benefit from the constant review. If we only used Singapore, they would learn long division in 3rd grade and then never see it much unless it comes up in a word problem. With Horizons, I know that they will keep practicing the basic skills that they have learned. Horizons also has a good breadth of problems. They will encounter geometry, graphs and visual display of information, Roman numerals, time, etc. This is good preparation for the standardized tests we have to take. So I am very happy that Horizons is part of our math program here. As a former math teacher, I do have problems with Horizons that would prevent me from making it our primary math program. It does not build the conceptual understanding of math that Singapore does. And a conceptual understanding is not just mental math as implied in a previous post. It is really understanding what is going on in an algorithm and not just applying it as a magic trick. So first grade Horizons will teach kids double digit addition with what I call the "line 'em up and add" method. No discussion of place value, no "why" you just carry the 2 to the other column, no learning to do it in your head first like Singapore. This does not build any kind of real understanding of what is going on. My 5th grade daughter's text just introduced cross products yesterday with no explanation as to why or what was going on--it's just a magic trick. I also think Horizons pushes algebra too young with insufficient explanation. There is no reason second graders should be solving equations with variables. While they may be able to figure out the answer, they are not learning algebra concepts that will serve them well in the future (isolating a variable, order of operations, an equation being balanced, etc.). There is no discussion of these things, and really they are topics that will be understood much better at a later age. I talk my kids through some of the algebra problems so that they have some exposure to them, but mostly I cross them out. We'll cover those topics much more rigorously and thoroughly at a more appropriate age.

You could look into supplies sold for incontinent disabled folks. My disabled dd finally grew out of Huggies this year. We're using Tranquility slimline diapers, and I know there is an overnight version advertised by the same company (we don't need it, so haven't tried it). The thing that has saved me from tons of laundry is having a large pad on the bed. I made two by cutting a twin size waterproof mattress pad in half (after cutting off the sides that go around a mattress) and sewing up the rough edge. So the thing is at least 3 feet square. If dd's diaper leaks, the pad and jammies are almost always the only things I need to wash. I'll link NorthShore which is where I now have to order diapers. They sell pads too--just get one that is significantly bigger than ones sold in stores for babies. http://www.northshorecare.com/youthdiapers1.html

Kinkos used to sell old paper boxes for a quarter a piece. I liked them for books--not too big, strong enough, had lids that you could lift to just check what was inside! So maybe try any place that does photocopying.

My personal opinion is that Alice in Wonderland is not a great fit for little kids. It's just kind of bizarre. I had this assigned as a college text to study logic as a matter of fact. And it's still not a favorite with me. There are many more engaging books out there. As for age, I agree with others that you can start reading some classic books (kid lit) before kindergarten. You might check some of the many lists out there to find titles that work particularly well at early ages. We enjoyed the Little House on the Prairie series, My Father's Dragon series, Mr. Popper's Penguins, and Charlotte's Web around age 4-6. Check the Sonlight catalog, 1000 good books list, Ambleside, etc.

Fantastic! Let this good news fuel you for the next step. You can do it!

Oh that sounds lovely! We don't get cable and I wasn't actually planning to find the ceremony on the computer, but scones and tea really do sound nice!

Praying for you all. Your poor kids--this has got to be scary for them to have both parents go through health problems this year. Hang in there--take care of each other.

Praying for good news and continued healing for you.

Amalgam is the silver-looking one, right? We started out with those. My youngest has had the amalgam fillings pop out of her mouth while flossing two or three times. We now use only the tooth-colored ones, and for some reason they seem to "stick" better for us. Plus no mercury. More expensive though.

I have not really begun the search yet for pre-algebra and algebra texts. I know I will look at Dolciani, Foerster's, and Singapore's products based on what I've read here. I don't think Singapore is a true "pre-algebra" or "algebra" program--from what I've read they cover other topics like geometry also.

We have not done Horizons 6 yet but will next year (we supplement with Horizons--Singapore is our primary math program). Horizons does jump the gun with algebra and we tend to skip those problems. I would have no problem telling my child, "We will do this type of problem next year in pre-algebra" (or even wait until doing algebra with a good text). My 2nd grader has simple algebraic equations in her Horizons text--we've done a few just for exposure. In my older daughter's book I've seen problems with parentheses before there is any discussion of order of operations or what to do when you see parentheses. I used to teach high school math, so I'm coming at this with some experience in this area. There is no need to push algebra at this young an age. It will frustrate some kids and turn some off of math. It will be much easier to teach when they are a little older. We'll be doing Horizons 6 next year. I'm assuming the type of equations you are looking at are problems like 2n+3=15. A good phrase to use with your child is "isolate the variable" which means to get "n" by itself. An equation is like a balance scale--both sides are the same. You can add or subtract the same quantity from both sides of the equation and still have a true statement. Or multiply/divide both sides by the same quantity. To isolate n, you want to think about how to undo what has been done to n to get 15. In this case n has been multiplied by 2 and then 3 was added. Undo that, first by subtracting the 3 from both sides of the equation: 2n=12. If 2 times a number is 12, what is the number? Dc can probably answer this. Point out that you figure out n by dividing 12 by 2--you're undoing the multiplication step of 2n (division is the inverse or opposite operation from multiplication--they undo each other). n=6. A good algebra (or probably pre-algebra) book will explain this so much better than the non-explanation you have found in Horizons. I will probably talk my dd through these problems when we get to them next year. If they're easy for her, great. If it is at all confusing we will wait on these until pre-algebra in 7th grade. I bet there is a Khan academy lesson on you tube for solving equations. Might be worth looking for if you need a tutorial for yourself.

You can try AprilMail305 for free mail shipping for one item. Good through the end of the month.

We also read a lot for history using Biblioplan. The only thing that jumped out at me from your list was The God King. We also read it when my older dd was in first grade. I enjoyed it a lot and could follow what was going on, but in retrospect, it would have been better for my kids to wait for our second cycle for that one. I'm not sure how much they got out of it at that age. Dd also read Tirzah as a 5th grader. I have not read that one, so I don't know if that is easier to follow than The God King, but if you're pressed for time, it wouldn't hurt to wait on that one too.

I finished Pamela Aidan's These Three Remain, the third in her Fitzwilliam Darcy series. I enjoyed them all very much and probably this one the most. Also read Amy Chua's Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. I did not disagree with everything she writes, but I do think she doesn't realize what is truly important in life. And it's weird to me because she has had some of the same experiences that I have had that really made a difference in how I see the world. I have a child who is severely handicapped, she has a sister with Downs syndrome. My sister was diagnosed with leukemia last year, her sister battles a difficult strain of the same disease. Life is short. Relationships are a blessing. Why exactly is it so important that your child be the very best violin player out there? Why can't your daughter play the violin as much as she wants to, to the point that she determines that the benefits outweigh the costs, and no further? There are hints at the end that maybe Chua is catching on, but she doesn't really want to let go of being a tiger mother. I've picked up another from my pile of 10-20 year old books--Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes. I will definitely be making the lemon cake recipe at the end of the book (I peeked at the recipes first). And I'll probably see if the library has the DVD--would love to see their property in Italy. 2011 Reading List 23. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother-Amy Chua 22. These Three Remain-Pamela Aidan 21. Chocolat-Joanne Harris 20. Where the Red Fern Grows-Wilson Rawls 19. Duty and Desire-Pamela Aidan 18. An Assembly Such As This-Pamela Aidan 17. Left Neglected-Lisa Genova 16. Classics in the Classroom-Michael Clay Thompson 15. True You-Janet Jackson 14. The Samurai’s Garden-Gail Tsukiyama 13. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet-Jamie Ford 12. God’s Middle Finger-Richard Grant 11. Kristin Lavransdatter-I: The Wreath-Sigrid Undset 10. The Housekeeper and the Professor-Yoko Ogawa 9. A Lucky Child-Thomas Buergenthal 8. Three Cups of Tea-Greg Mortenson 7. Run-Ann Patchett 6. The Red Queen-Philippa Gregory 5. Agnes Grey-Anne Bronte 4. The Daughter of Time-Josephine Tey 3. Mythology-Edith Hamilton 2. Phantom Toll Booth-Norton Juster 1. Her Fearful Symmetry-Audrey Niffenegger

The university I graduated from has a career planning center. They keep reference letters on file for alums. I have no idea if I'll ever need it, but both my teaching supervisor from the university and my department head from my teaching job wrote nice letters of recommendation for me that are still on file at the university. If I ever need reference letters, I can have the university forward copies of those to prospective employers.

It's no big deal at all here. My dd is in the life skills class. She's not going to miss any important tests or academic work, she's going to miss life skills--which is really pretty much the same thing we do with her all of the time. I just let her teachers know when she's going to be gone. Probably happens once a year for a family vacation.

I think Liberty's Kids can still be enjoyed at that age. I know my dh and I learned a lot from them.

For us, the point of studying Spanish would be to communicate with Spanish speakers in the US. It would be helpful in certain future jobs to be bilingual (medical fields, teaching). For that purpose, I would only use a program that was Latin American Spanish. If you tried to use the language as spoken in Spain, you would sound "foreign" to local speakers. Some vocabulary is different and they use the vosotros form for plural 2nd person. It doesn't hurt to be familiar with that but it would be more beneficial to develop an ear for Latin American Spanish.

I taught math at an excellent public school some 20 years ago now. Not sure that had any impact on my decision to home school. I home school because I love living a learning lifestyle with my kids. We have decent public schools here. But they don't study Latin or Greek, they don't really study history in elementary schools, they don't necessarily foster a love of learning or build a foundation for life-long learners. They cannot even mention God in the classroom, and while I wouldn't say we home school for religious reasons, I do appreciate that my kids' education is shaped by their parents' values and not the state's values. My kids are likely to go the public school for high school. I am not anti-school. I just like what we do better for this time in our lives.

Our primary program is Singapore and we supplement with Horizons. I love the way that Singapore teaches concepts. Horizons is great for reviewing previously learned skills and preparing for standardized tests. My girls do one Singapore workbook exercise daily (we go through the text together first). When they finish a unit they then do the Challenging Word Problems section for that same topic--about 2 pages a day, so 4 or 5 days on word problems usually. Each day they also do one lesson in Horizons, but I cross out some of it to keep the total workload reasonable. So if there are 6 long division problems I may have dd do 3 of them. If she did multiplication problems yesterday I may have her skip them today. She does the fraction problems pretty much any time they come up and will continue to do so until she automatically reduces to lowest terms every time! You get the idea--I have her do the problems that I think will most benefit her but not waste her time. So I do not try to line up the two programs at all--we just move independently in each. Now for my older dd we also do Life of Fred (fractions this year) and that alternates with Singapore. After every unit or two of Singapore we switch and do a section of Life of Fred. She considers it a vacation!

We use Singapore and supplement with Horizons. My youngest finished Singapore Earlybird her preschool year and I knew from her older sister that I didn't want to start 1A with her until first grade. We used Horizons K for her kindergarten year and I was satisfied with that. I don't remember details at this point, but I thought it was a good fit for filling in between Earlybird and 1A. It would probably be just fine for what you want to do.

Regarding first grade math: We use Singapore and supplement with Horizons so I'm familiar with both programs. And I used to teach math, so am comfortable with the subject. I would not use Singapore 1A with a 5 year old. The real benefit of Singapore is how it builds mental math skills. To do that the child has to be able to hold information in her brain while manipulating it. I'm thinking of skills such as adding 27+6 by making a 10--"what do you need to add to 7 to make a 10? 3. If you take 3 from the 6, how much is leftover?" This is a really sophisticated skill and one that they would be teaching in Singapore at age 7 I believe. But it is also a very powerful technique that will serve your child well down the road. And she will never learn it in Horizons. We supplement with Horizons because it is great for review and has a wide variety of problems that is good for standardized test prep. But it does not *teach* how to think about math. It doesn't compare with Singapore for conceptual thinking. In your situation I would back off on math for your dd and wait until next school year for 1A. Or do Horizons K first, or play RS games, or check into other programs often mentioned here. I really don't like what Horizons alone does for learning double-digit addition in first grade--line 'em up and add with no discussion of place value or what you are really doing. Just my two cents.