Don't torture you son by redoing Saxon. My older son did Saxon 4 this year, after doing Singapore K-3rd and adding in Beast last year. He is in a school this year due to a big change in our life this year. We are thankfully returning to homeschooling next year. He is so excited to go back to Beast and Singapore. He actually does Beast on his free time at school and at home. He also is really good at math, but takes forever to get his Saxon work done. I think it is because he is sooo bored with it.

One more question. Can you view two pages at a time? When I downloaded the samples only one page at a time could be viewed.

Thanks again! Last year we used just the Teacher's Manuals, except Practice Island. We would sit on the couch and read through it together taking the time to stop and discuss the extra bits on the page. I really liked that. The iBook format for the student books is very nice. I was able to download a few samples. I'm sure my son will like the interactive features.

Thank you Eagle. Did you get the Teacher Implementation Manual? Does it indeed have all the Teacher's Manuals or just the extra tips, discussion, and stuff?

Has anyone here bought any of the MCT ibooks? I'm specifically looking at the Town level: Grammar Town, Practice Town, Caesar's English 1, and possibly Paragraph Town. I noticed that for the Practice book, the TM isn't necessary because of the interactive nature and "check" feature it contains. If you have used any of the ibooks, how have you and your children liked them? Did you also buy the TM for any of the student books you purchased? I live overseas and, therefore, the ibook format is very appealing. However, I would like to know that it is worth it and if so, which TMs I would need to purchase. My son loved the Island level and is begging for Town this coming year.

Thanks for your thoughts. The challenge I have is that where I live shipping is very expensive and not reliable. Most things have to be carried in luggage or come through a special shipment (which can take months, we just got stuff that left USA in July.) A big change from Amazon 2 day shipping.

My 4th grader did Singapore Standards Edition K-3. This year we moved overseas and I am a full time student. He is in a school doing Saxon 4. Last year we did Beast 3A-B and since he is bored with his math we are doing 3C&D at home. I am planning to buy 4 A-C as a Christmas present (for him and me). My question is for next year when we homeschool again. If anyone has used both Beast and/or Singapore 4-5 it would be very helpful to get your opinion. Do you think he will be able to move into Singapore 5 or are there some things in SM4 that won't get covered through Beast? Will he be missing important stuff in Singapore 4?

My 4th grader and 2nd grader have done Singapore St. Ed. from the beginning, my 2nd grader finished 2a last year. My 4th grader did SM 3 and Beast Academy 3 A&B last year. Due to moving overseas and being a full time student this year, my boys are both in school. The school uses Saxon. My boys and I are not fans. They are so bored. For one, it is nothing but review for my 2nd grader. And with the exception of a few concepts, pretty much review for my 4th grader. They both are asking me for the fun, harder math. We are finishing Beast 3C&D and SM Intensive Review as my time allows. My older son takes Beast to school with him and does it during down time in class. We go over it together at home. My son's 4th grade Saxon book is dry, tightly spiraled, and with the exception of a few problems lacks the inspiration and thinking skills that Singapore and Beast cultivate. I'm with Regentrude on desiring math curriculum that brings joy to my students. I never considered myself good at math and I actually always hated it. I wanted better for my kids than just a human calculator. I wanted them to think, understand, and enjoy. Singapore and now Beast has done that for them. MEP also was a great addition here and there. Every child is different and Saxon may be a good fit for some. But, my kids and I can't wait to get back to homeschooling next year and our old math curriculum.

My boys build a set, play for a bit and then it gets torn apart and strewn all over. I tried doing some sort of organizational system and gave up. They didn't care, so I don't either. Besides, when you're making your own creations you need pieces from any set you might have. As for storage, we did have them in a tub and plastic bags. But, I got tired of having them dumped on the floor and then not picked up for days because they were building something. So this week I built them a huge box that slides under their bed. Just plywood and 1x4s. It's about 3ft wide 6ft long. Works great. They can pull it out during the day and slide it under at night. Very little clean up. And anything they are building thats too big for under the bed goes on a shelf. I've always used legos for plural.

Just wanted to pop in and say that we are loving this program. We tried WWE and The Arrow/BW, but just couldn't get them done consistently or well. My ds (3rd grade) has really enjoyed Fable. He's starting to write on his own again, which is fun to see (and read).

My ds (6) was reading CVC, blends, and some long vowel words. However, he was a struggling reader and writer. Reading lessons were a chore and tear inducing for both of us. He was exhibiting some symptoms of dyslexia. I decided to change it up and go with LOE Foundations. Even though he really could have started in B, I decided to start from the beginning. I'm so glad we did. It brought back confidence and joy in learning to my ds. Also, it was helpful for some of the issues he was having. I'm not sure if your dd has any issues, but if not I'd say B is fine. Just make sure she knows the phonograms from A well. Also, the formation of the lowercase letters are in A, so you might want to check out the handwriting book if that's important for your dd. B covers the uppercase letter formations.

I bought the TM printed and The cursive workbook A pdf. I put the workbook into the notability app on my iPad. I only printed out the writing pages and any pages that had cutting. When we finished A I decided to try the printed workbook. It's fine, but honestly I think my son liked using the iPad. So, I'll probably go with PDF for the other workbooks. I prefer having the TM in print rather than pdf. Just easier for me. As far as cursive vs manuscript.... Whatever you prefer. The TM has instructions for both.

I haven't used AAR, but I am using LOE foundations. I used Phonics Pathways and Abeka handbook for reading before with my older ds and my younger ds. Worked great for my older ds, but my younger ds struggled. I switched my younger ds to LOE a couple months ago. We started back with A and we're almost done with B. It has changed his attitude and helped him immensely in learning to read and write. This program had to be made with super active boys in mind. The games are fun and the activities varied. It's a little pricey, but I'm so glad we switched to it.

I lived there for 5 years. Snow removal isn't a problem. My husband was late to work once in the 5 years as a result of snow and it was only about an hour or so late. The streets get cleared quickly. As far as your driveway: either hire someone, buy a snowblower, or find a place that includes snow removal. It does get cold there, but at Mayo itself you will have underground systems that help with avoiding some of that. I loved the community of Rochester. It's very diverse and a lot of friendly people. There are awesome parks and outdoor things to do. Douglas trail for running and biking, Quarry Hill for some in town hiking and a bit of biking. Not too far out of town in Byron area is Oxbow Park and Zoo, great little native MN zoo and some nice trails. Silver Lake is great for running and biking. Also, there are a lot of different support groups/ mini communities that you can plug into. Ice Hawks hockey is a fun activity in the winter. The library is fabulous. The Civic Center as well as Mayo offer a lot of events for the community. I don't remember the ages of your kids, but there is 4H, Christ Community homeschool co-op, Rochester Homeschool group, as well as a couple smaller homeschool groups. A friend of mine is teaching a Chem class for homeschool high schoolers, I think, but I can't remember what group that is with. The 2 year thing with local colleges is great and a lot of homeschool and private school students take advantage of it. And of course there is Trader Joe's. That's worth the move right there. ;) Let me know if you have more questions.

None of the levels of Foundations explicitly state that it teaches Grammar. I would be hesitant to start Grammar with a non-fluent reader. From the description of Foundations C, I would probably wait until my child was in that level or had completed it before adding Grammar. If you want to teach Grammar, I recommend First Language Lessons 1. Don't be afraid to combine or cut out repetitive lessons. They are very short and mostly oral which is perfect for 1st graders.

I'd check out Rod and Staff. It may use a " workbook" but it's so much more. I used AAS 1,2, and most of 3 with my oldest. It was helpful, but honestly it was more than he needed. He's a natural speller. We abandoned the tiles pretty quickly because they were unnecessary and time consuming. They also were a magnet for my younger kids and made spelling take even longer. We just used a whiteboard and dry erase markers. If you want to try a less intensive AAS, I recommend trying that approach before switching programs. We've moved into Rod and Staff 4 and he's doing just fine. The activities in the workbook make him think and understand the words. We also spend a few minutes twice a week breaking the words down into syllables and phonograms. Other than giving him his test and answering a few questions, that's about all the time I put into his spelling now. He's in 3rd grade, so you may want to look at 2nd or 3rd grade books. Just wanted to add, I recently checked into Logic of English and was thinking it might have fitted my son much better than AAS. But, I think he has moved past that as well. So, you might want to check into it, but it will take teacher time. AAS is a great program, just more than some kids need.

Thanks! It seems Elementary Greek has a fair amount of users based on past posts I've seen. It does seem like a reasonable pace, though I do like the idea of Greek for Children's DVD. That would be helpful here. But, I'm guessing there aren't as many users of Greek for Children? Anyone have any experience with that one?

Greek Code Cracker to start with. It gives a really nice foundation and is fun. And you'd be able to figure out if your child enjoys Greek enough to continue at this age, or if it should wait until later. I bought it for my 3rd grader as a fun extra this year. It's ended up being his favorite thing to do.

My 3rd grade son is getting close to being done with the Greek Code Cracker. He loves Greek. I really like a lot of CAP's products and was planning to move to GFC A. I contacted them about B and they said plans are being made to release B in late 2014. As I looked at the samples though, I wondered if my son might be overwhelmed with GFC A. It appears to move much faster than Elementary Greek. We could slow it down quite a bit, but EG seems to have it broken into more manageable pieces. I'm curious what others experiences with these two programs have been. My son will probably eventually have a tutor for Greek, as we know someone who is involved in translation work and will be living almost next door to us. But, that'll be in another year or so.

I think it depends what exactly your needs are, or what you are looking for with your son. I have started LOE Foundations with my son. Even though he'd been reading for a year, we started at the beginning. I briefly looked at AAR, but it doesn't seem as comprehensive to me and it seems like there are so many little pieces to it. I didn't buy every last thing LOE said to buy, just what I thought was absolutely necessary for my son: TM, student book, doodling dragons, and two sets of phonogram cards. We also got the phonogram app. He's been enjoying it so far.

I've just started using this with my ds 6. So far, I really like it. My reasons for choosing this were two-fold. First my son is exhibiting some possible tendencies toward dyslexia. I wanted something that was O-G based, but I didn't want to invest in Barton just yet. Secondly I've already started my son with cursive and wanted to also pick something that had explicit writing instruction as well as a manuscript that I could teach later. I really like LOE' cursive and manuscript fonts. They are similar to how I write, and I can't stand ball and stick type manuscript. I appreciate the phonemic awareness, segmenting, blending skills and explicit handwriting instructions. We're only on lesson 8 of Foundations A, and I can see a change in my son. I decided to start at the beginning even though my son can read cvc and long vowel words. So far, I really really like it and I'm planning to use it with my dd 4.5 sometime this school year. I think it'll be a great fit for her as well. The TM is fabulous and laid out so cleanly. It has ways to enrich through hands on or if you want to stretch the lessons out. You can add more or less depending on your child's needs. I do find it takes a little more time than what I'd been using before, but its so less painful for him and I. He actually is enjoying "reading time." I can't really compare to AAR. I have used AAS 1, 2,& 3 with my older son. I briefly looked into AAR, but it just wasn't something I thought met my needs. HWT is a good handwriting program from what I've heard. However, I can't stand the font. So I didn't even look into it. I looked at a lot of reading programs when I started noticing some of my son's problems with reading. I saw someone mention LOE and I thought I'd check it out. Essentials wasn't it, but I saw the picture of Foundations and decided to check it out. As soon as I saw the samples, I knew this was what I was looking for. I guess we'll see if it does the job for my son. It'll still be great for my younger kids and I plan to use it with them.

If your ds has done through AAS 4, switch to something more independent there. I switched mine at AAS3 to R&S4. He can work on that mostly on his own. He's more of a natural speller and while he liked AAS, he didn't really need it. Those first few years are tough because the kids need you for almost everything it seems. I'm struggling with the time and schedule too. With your 1st grader, I'd just concentrate on the three R's, and as the school year progresses add in other things. I'm not planning to start FLL 1 with my 1st grader until maybe halfway through the year, if at all. I'm more concerned with getting him reading well. I'm combining reading instruction, handwriting, and will probably progress to some spelling with LOE Foundations. We started last week and its been much better than what we had been doing before. For history and science, plan on it being light especially for your 1st grader. I have my 3rd grader read a small part of SOTW everyday on his own, and we all listen to SOTW audio once, maybe twice a week. We might read another book or do a map or coloring page, but that's it. Science is Magic School Bus video, which even the littles love. I have RS4K which we read once a week and do the one experiment. There is a free lesson plan that stretches it out over 20 weeks, so you could read one week and do the experiment the next week. I bought a microscope for the kids and we talk about science things a lot. They learn a lot just on their own. You could use copy work to keep your 2nd grader's grammar in his head. That wouldn't take much time. Here is what my 3rd grader does independently: read SOTW, read a chapter from a book, a section of spelling, math review/drill sheet. I still briefly go over spelling before he works on it. Pretty much everything else is with me. My 1st grader has nothing independent, except playing with his younger siblings ;) My 4yr old asks for school too, but I only do focused things maybe 2-3x a week with her. Numbers and sounds, that's about it. After talking to some other ladies with several kids very close in age, I've pretty much resigned myself to not being finished by lunch. Although we did ok today. My oldest just has reading left.

We lived in Rochester, MN for 5 years. My DH worked for Mayo. We loved our time there, minus winter time. The community is awesome, city is clean and beautiful. Mayo is a wonderful place for care. Now that we've moved I appreciate Mayo's system so much more than before. If it wasn't for winter, I would say it's one of the best cities I've lived in. We have friends who work for Mayo Jacksonville. It's a bit smaller than Mayo Rochester, but they still have excellent physicians (many who trained at Mayo Rochester). Our friends love the Jacksonville area. As far as housing, Jacksonville might be slightly more accommodating as weather is always nice. Most houses in Rochester have basements. This past winter in Rochester was unusually long, but winter can last from late October until Early April. Doesn't mean it always does. If you don't mind some snow and cold, I'd say go to Rochester. It's Mother Mayo. :)

Thanks. Is the Barton pre-test the student screening? At the University here there is a neuropsychologist whose research focuses on ADHD and Dyslexia. I looked her up yesterday and thought about contacting her for an evaluation. I have no idea the cost. But looking at the Barton program makes me think none of this will be cheap. :o) I don't think he has apraxia. At least not from the little I've read this morning from ASHA. He did have ear tubes at 2 because his speech was almost nill and his hearing tests confirmed a significant amount of fluid in the ears. Since then he has been a different kid. He is the talker in our family; we call it "diarrhea of the mouth." He hasn't had speech therapy. To be honest I'm more concerned about his younger siblings speech than his. His main trouble with speech seems to be mispronouncing r and l like a w sound. We practice the mechanics of forming the right sounds. It has improved. I did buy the Pencil Grip Crossover from Amazon yesterday. So, we'll see if that helps. I used a special fountain pen with his older brother to help with loosening his grip and right tilt. I might pull that out again.

My son turned 6 about a month ago. Last year was his K year and now we're moving into 1st. After a discussion last week with my mom about his reading/writing troubles, she felt strongly that he could be dyslexic. My older brother is dyslexic and we suspect my older sister might be mildly dyslexic. So, the problems I've noticed are: Writing: His fine motor skills are still coming along. I started him on cursive instead of print. He prefers to write print when writing by himself. He forms his print oddly (no surprise since I haven't explicitly taught it), but seems to do ok in cursive though he forgets from time to time how to form some letters. His cursive isnt pretty, but its legible. He prefers to write numbers instead of words when he writes on his own. Numbers are usually formed correctly, though 8 is almost always halfway on its side and 5s and 2 can be pretty sloppy. (Side note: he excels in math, has no problems with number recognition, though he tends to forget to put +,=, and - in his equations.) When he does print letters he will form some bottom to top, right to left, and sometimes confuses b,d and p. However, he rarely has this problem with cursive. I just figured this was an issue because I hadn't explicitly taught print. He also has a pencil grip I'm always trying to correct. Holds very tightly, often breaking lead, and with a three finger grip. His thumb likes to creep up almost on top of the pencil, but not crossing any other fingers. Reading: He has a very short attention span for reading. We do short segments interspersed because he gets worn out. It seems to help. I've used Phonics Pathways and A Beka Handbook for Reading. He prefers the A Beka because the pages are smaller and shorter. We've also used the K5 readers from A Beka, they seem to flow well with PP too. When he reads short stories, he reads quickly and not too shabbily. However, he will occasionally read a word wrong (grase instead of grass) or flat out replace the word with something that has similar letters (Bryan instead of Brad) or nothing close at all (the instead of a). This becomes more pronounced when reading words by themselves, like in a list. His reading speed also slows down dramatically. From my view he is looking at a couple letters or word shape and guessing at the word. When we slow down to sound out, he often wants to use a different vowel sound (i instead of e) or add in a letter (blees instead of bees), and occasionally use a different consonant (p instead of b, or vice versa). We go over the sounds and blends and after one or two more tries he gets it right. This isn't every word in a list, but maybe a third, sometimes more or less. Yesterday I did write some words (maybe 6 or 7) in cursive and he surprised me by only missing one. He had no issues learning his letters and sounds. We struggled a little with blending CVC but not what I thought was anything too unusual. An area he has seemed to improve on is replacing the beginning of a word with the ending of the previous word. He used to do this a lot, but hasn't been lately. I try to have him read in his math book (Singapore) and he surprises me. But, I wonder if he is guessing or figuring it out because of the picture and previous questions which tend to be the same with one or two words different. Speaking: He does still have trouble with r and l, though we've been working on it a lot. For the most part he does speak well, but has a slight accent (for lack of a better word) when he pronounces various words. Anyway, I'm not sure whether to seek an evaluation or just slow way down in our reading and maybe backtrack a bit and do some various blending and phonemic exercises with him.