Now at 30% with 149 people. 51 more people and it will be at 40%. :hurray: https://www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/the-critical-thinking-co-groupbuy/?source=108434

First off, i have bought through them a lot, and it has been a positive experience. Each thing is slightly different, so read your instructions carefully. For this one we will get a coupon sent to us worth 20%, 30%, or 40% by e-mail based on how many people buy. As this is the first day and it is already at 81 it should go to the 40% mark. Then you need to use the coupon by the end of June. It is good for 1 order only. It looks like it is for anything at their store for one order. You pay $1 to the co op. That is it.

Hi Linus, Thanks for chiming in. Just so you know. On this forum you can not start a thread peddling JA and the other books. However, our Queen Susan Bauer is very generous and you are more the welcome to come talk about the books and answer questions on threads that are started by other members specifically about your material. The abuse would be is someone was asking about Art of Problem Solving and you chimed in saying why JA would be better. :) We appreciate authors coming on here and answering our questions. We just started with JA this week, and so far ds is loving it. We are using it as pre, pre algebra. Then we will dive into AOPS Pre Alg and keep going. So far we have supplemented with LOF, but we are considering supplementing with the 2 Arbor books. DH said he could do it without the instructor book. Arbor is an awesome little school. We looked there for ds, but it would not have been a good fit for him. However we are strongly thinking of sending dd to Arbor around 4th grade. Just for other parents to know. I have been there, walked the campus seen the classes. It is a peaceful little haven of learning, all surrounded by Oregon trees.

My son is working through HWT can do cursive, and I got him the lined paper for older kids. It seems to be helping.

Yes we started Latin in 3rd and Greek in 5th. Both very lightly. He is going to do a more intense Latin in an online course next year. Then in a year or two we will add a Greek online class.

So we just enrolled in MP High school form Latin. Is Lukeion a better online option for Latin? My son is in 7th. Congratulations to all the medal winners on the NLE.

Good point. I have written to the High School Counselor that he would have and I am going to meet with her and hopefully the head of IB in June after the seniors graduate. She thinks she will have a quiet week during regular finals. I know a lot of people red shirt for sports, I will see what they think about doing it for academics. Luckily with homeschool his friends are already both younger and older than him and in a variety of different school districts. So he should be ok there. Thank you all for the feed back. Remembering that this is a marathon is good. There is enough of adult life as it is, having an extra year of being a kid can be a really good thing. My son is all for it, he wants to go to High School, but he is not in a rush to leave homeschool. He really does not like the idea that he is going to have to raise his hand and ask to go the the bathroom, or that he won't be able to walk into the kitchen to get a snack whenever he can. I could be wrong, but I am assuming that the kids in the advanced classes probably will be a little more serious, and the teachers might trust them a little more.

I think it is the right forum. If you look at a lot of posts there are way more views than replies. People tend to reply if they know about the subject. You could change the title to "Help me pick my writing curriculum for next year."

Thanks for the comments so far. I feel in my gut that it is right, I just wanted to make sure there was not some big glaring thing that I was missing. DH is still pondering, ds thinks it is great.

I know sometimes people hold back a year. Has anyone ever added a year? Here is the situation. We are sending him to a B&M school for High School. That decision has already been made as a family and we are happy with that. I am not looking to discuss keeping him home through High School (Although I have told him that I am happy for him to change his mind and stay with me through High School :laugh: ) The school we are sending him to is public, but it offers advanced courses and the IB diploma. (As well as a great drama department which is a big motivating factor to ds). His reading Comprehension is already at 12th grade, no problems there. Math, we are just about caught up, but we have struggled filling in holes. I don't want to speed through and develop more holes, I would rather we had the time to go deep with Math and get him very firmly to Geometry for freshman year. (which is the minimum he has to be at for the IB diploma.) Our big problem is writing. When I pulled him after 2nd grade, we just switched to doing a lot of our work out loud. We do a lot of discussion. We are slowly working through WWS and IEW. The other factor is his age, he is a young 6th grader. Sophomore year when everyone starts getting their licenses, he won't get his till summer. He will still be 17 when he graduates. Looking at the next 3 years, we are thinking of 7th, 8th, IB prep, 9th.... With what we have done, he could go in and do the regular pathway fine. He could possibly do the IB diploma, but it would be a struggle the whole way. I am thinking that if we spend one more year, it would still be advanced course work, but he would have more time to develop the skill set to handle it. Pros and Cons? Has anyone else done this? Is there something I am not thinking of?

It depends on your kids. My ds 11 just read the entire series on Narnia in 9 days. He is a fast reader and he reads on his own a lot. If you were doing it as read alouds and/or your kids are slower with reading that could be a lot. (By the way, my kid is not super kid, he has fought to get to average in math and spelling, he just devours books)

The Phonics Road was my most expensive mistake. I wish I could return it, but I waited to long to try it. I am hoping to sell it at the local conference this year and get some money back. Way back when we started I tried some Spectrum books, those were a flop, but not to spendy.

I have been here around 4 years, and the new boards still confuse me. :lol: My son was in 5th grade when he announced that he wanted to learn Greek. Hey Andrew is workbook style, I just handed it to him, and away he went. It was a nice slow start, with LOTS of practice on writing the letters of the alphabet. Using a different alphabet with a different language seemed overwhelming, but it wasn't with Hey Andrew. We are switching now for 2 reasons. 1. Galore Park has come out with a Classical book that I think will be a good intro before trying the Lukeion project online with Athenaze which I think he is still not ready for. 2. He is really starting to express an interest in majoring in Classical Studies when he goes to College. Latin Language, Greek Language, and the History. He thinks he wants to double major Classical with either History or Theater Arts. Hey Andrew is a great intro program for Elementary. Really user friendly. It is Koine which is good for roots and bible readings. We would stick with it, if it was not for the fact that he wants to continue Greek studies past the High School level.

Sorry, tired brain. I thought you were the OP and still looking for a program. It is not teacher intensive at all. This year in level B, I sometimes have to find him batteries to replace in his CD player, but that is it.

If you want a truly independent program, I would look again at Phonetic Zoo. It is not lessons in the same way. You would use the placement test to find out if your student should be in level A, B, or C. There will be a little jingle, but other than that a list of 15 words that use that rule and reinforce it. Think spiral math. The words for that lesson would just be words that follow that rule at whatever spelling level they are at. You would not be teaching the whole entire concept of the first vowel talks again. Here is my review if it helps.

You will probably get more responses about this on the k-8 board. We have used Hey Andrew, Just to get started, but we are thinking of switching from Koine to Classical. Here is a thread that talks about the different types of Greek. http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/87846-greek-koine-attic-new-testament/?hl=%2Bkoine+%2Battic

My son struggled/struggles with Math. We finally ended up with a mixture of TT and LOF and that has done really well. We still had some gaps from him just not getting comfortable with his basic math facts. I started my dd on Math reflex (1st grader) and with the 2 week trial thought, why not and put my 6th grader on there as well. He LOVES it. We have done a month of addition and subtraction and he is at the 100% mark, I am switching him to multiplication and division. It just gets those basics down pat and fast in fun games. Doing those basics, has shown an overall improvement in his Math. The other thing we started at the same time is Khan Academy. He does that for 20 minutes every day. It is filling in the holes, and he enjoys it. We also introduced Penrose the Cat. So, I guess what I am saying is maybe add some living Math Books, and computer remediation in and see if that helps. If you started that now alongside TT, he could maybe do Jousting Armadillos next year? It is not as rigorous of a Pre A as AOPS, but you could contact the counselor at your local school and see what he needs to have mastered to go into their 9th grade Algebra. Spend next year working on that list with a variety of resources.

Also, ask around. We found a piano teacher that is willing to travel to our house as we are out of school time. It is nice as she works with each for 30 minutes, which gives me 30 minutes of uninterrupted time with the other.

We are still switching at 6th grade. He does 3/4, 20 minutes sessions of math through the day. 1-2 of them is his spine, but when the timer goes at 20 minutes he puts it away for awhile. The other 2 sessions are more of "fun" or different math. We rotate between, Khan Academy, LOF, Math Reflex, Penrose, etc... But I find that even as an adult, my brain gets fried if I look at Math to long. :)

Here is a thread with what a lot of us are planning for 2nd grade. It might help just to see how different 2nd grade can look for everyone. http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/504075-what-are-your-2nd-grade-plans/ Sets can be a good option if you are feeling overwhelmed, however, they tend to include every subject and that can be scary as well. I would start simple and work on basics. Learning Language through Literature 1 Handwriting without tears Maybe Miquon with education unboxed as a start to math, or Right Start A Lots of picture books cuddled up with mom.

Here is a link to the Memoria Press page which has their Geography programs and grade ranges. Usually they have pretty good sample pages as well. I have just started Legends and Leagues with my first grader. We are enjoying it a lot.

Ok, I think I have finally finished planning. Math: Favorite and strongest subject Spines will be Singapore Math 2a/d and GP Junior Maths 1 Fun fridays will be: Miquon, LOF, and Froebel's Gifts We will probably keep doing reflex math as well. History: GP Junior History 1 (she will answer questions orally, not write them down at this stage) Lots of read alouds like D'auliers Greek Myths Science: Outsourced to local children's science museum Logic: Keep going with Lollipop Logic Latin: Either Song School or Prima Latina. I will see which she takes to, and probably start after soccer season is over. Language Arts/Writing: AAS MCT Mud Trilogy GP Junior English 1 (she will answer questions orally, not write them down at this stage) Learning Language Through Literature 2, We will do the workbook with this year, and that she will do the copy work with. HWOT 2 Reading aloud whenever we can. Memorization: IEW: Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization. Just continue level a, we are doing this super slow. Extras: Soccer Trapeze Trackers Piano Brownies

Here is my review on Phonetic Zoo. It is really independent and should be good for 3rd grade. It is not online, but if you watch the DVD that comes with it and set it up the recommended way, you don't even need to correct the words, your ds will do that.

We are in our 3rd week now of the Memoria Press Geography and we are loving it. It is open and go. So far, so good.

I took mine from 2. My family has deep grooves, missing teeth etc.... DS has my teeth. He has only been xrayed twice, but he has also had teeth sealed twice. It prevents cavities and is a lot less evasive than a filling. DD has dh's teeth. She has never had an xray as her teeth are perfectly spaced an our dentist says she has textbook perfect teeth. The other thing our dentist goes over with them is how to brush and how long. I find it helpful having someone other than a parent reinforcing this. When we had no insurance we only went once a year, except the 2 times the dentist wanted to see ds at 6 months, but he comped those 2 appointments. If you find a good dentist, and have a relationship with them, it can be a very positive and good thing.