Thanks, that was very helpful!

Thanks, that was very helpful!

Thanks AEC. I appreciate that input and will definitely try to mix up our presentation. Really good to know.

True :-)

Thanks so much Jenn! That does sound perfect, and I'm glad it doesn't take a long time, too.

How long do they spend on xtramath?

I did something similar but a little different. It's called Adiana. They insert little tiny silicone inserts the size of a grain of rice inside the tube. They don't poke out of the tube like the essure ones do, and I am allergic to nickel so I couldn't do the essure anyway. It was an in-office procedure. I felt fine the next day, and I just had my confirmation HSG and both sides are blocked! I haven't had any wierd symptoms or discomfort. I am very happy! Other points of interest: 1) it has been sucessfully reversed (not sure about essure i would google it though) 2) both procedures leave the tubes intact and the interruption in bloodflow through the tubes from Tubal ligation has been theorized to cause PTLS (also haven't found any cases of PTLS online with this procedure) My doc is a big fan of essure and adiana and has done tons of them with no problems he says...

Ok thought of another idea, but I don't know if this is age appropriate or would work, but FWIW: IF they really want to keep HSing and that is a good motivator for them, maybe you could have a jar or something that for every infraction (whine, argue, fight, snark etc...) they had to put something in (I don't know bean, marble, quarter....) and you tell them if that jar gets filled up then HSing will not happen next year. I was thinking the visual of filling up the jar might be helpful. You's have to make sure that a reasonable amount of items will fill it up, though, so they get scared after a few weeks of putting something in every day.

A Hug for you April. So sorry - it is not fun at all. I am not in the same situation with you as my kids are not as old as yours, but I can certainly relate to the fighting, the tears, the sensitivity. My Oldest is like your youngest. They both are pushing each others buttons constantly. I end up resorting to yelling when I get to the end of my rope, too. Not sure I can really help, but I know you aren't alone. The only suggestion I can think of is to try separating them. Can they be in separate rooms for any individual work, and then maybe try a new venue for together work like outside or something.... I would maybe think some kind of consistently applied consequence for not being kind to their sister might be a good idea, too. Something you can enforce everytime. Like 15 minutes of extra (something) or 15 minutes taken away of something they like. If you are able to do it every single time maybe you will see some progress. Dunno but I hope you can find some sanity for your day!!!

I hope so!

When do you do math facts work? Is it a part of math every day? Extra work outside of math lessons each day? I'm trying to figure out how to work this into our day. Do I include it in the 30 min we have scheduled for math or does it need to be its own thing?

I have purchased our curriculum, aside from a few things we will need later in the year. I know how many lessons we need to do each week and I made a weekly schedule to follow. I have read through the intros and at least week 1 for each subject. I just still feel unprepared and like when we start school next week I am going to flounder and not get everything done. Why do I feel this way?? Maybe it's because I haven't done this before. We did K last year, but it was very relaxed and not a specific curriculum, but goal oriented towards mastering basics. Probably also my perfectionistic and Type A personality that likes to have things planned to a T, but I think too much planning won't really help me and I want to be flexible as well as purposeful with our schooling. Also maybe the fact that I have a PKer that will be doing some things as well as 2 toddlers causing trouble... a little overwhelming! :blink: I don't know. Suggestions for anything I should be doing the end of this last week of time to plan? Or do I just need to chill out and when we start doing it I will feel better?

I have been contemplating the same question. I am planning on (i think) scanning in completed work as we go and compiling a PDF "binder" that has all their work for each subject each year to serve as a portfolio. It won't take up space, I can toss the paper but won't worry that I don't have adequate proof of what we've done each year in case that is ever needed.

OK, so this is my first time to Schedule our homeschooling year. We just did K last year and I had a general master plan and that's it. So, I'm getting a bit kerfluffled trying to plan our 1st grade year. I figured it would be easy, but having not done it before I am running into little problems that I'm not sure how to solve. For example: we have 34 weeks in our school year, but there are 42 chapters in SOW, so do we do 2 chapter for 8 of those weeks to finish the whole book? Skip some of the activities? Stop without finishing?

Thanks!

I had the same question. Also, do you start WWE at the beginning of 1st even if they aren't writing well?

We are starting the day after Labor Day, too! That's when I always started as a kid, too. (But I'm from the south...)

Which one is PP? There are so many I am getting confused :tongue_smilie:

Well, I wanted to give you an update on progress! We've been taking the summer off, so no pressure, but I downloaded the Progressive Phonics Book 1 yesterday to look at it. DS saw me looking at it and wanted to see it, and wanted to read it. We went through the entire book 1 in one sitting (46 pages), with very little trouble!! I could tell he was sounding out the words in his head and then saying them "right the first time" like the aforementioned twin :-) He was so proud and did really well. I think the nice thing about those books for him is that (in the first books at least) he wasn't having to read entire sentences, so he didn't get bogged down in trying to remember the sentence. I am going to get OPG at my library and we will start at the beginning and see how he does. If it seems like we need a different program, then we'll go from there. I am hopeful though, that with some work time in OPG and some less-stressfull reading assignments with Progressive Phonics and plenty of fun reading he will progress quickly now! Oh, I also got an appt with an Optometrist! Thank you everyone!

Thanks RahRah!

I difinitely will get his eyes checked. I've been meaning to for a while :glare:

We read lots and lots of books, without any attempt at reading; I definitely don't want to ruin that time :-) I would not say he is dependent on sight words, and we focus much more on phonics. Basically he likes the flash cards, and then we sound out the words. I'm not worried or stressed either, I just think I need a new approach for teaching phonics! So AAS and OPG would be the main two teaching explicit phonics?

So SWR and the Spalding Method were not helping, and hopefully Right Brain Phonocs will?

No, not reading frog and toad, he just loves the stories :-)

We did HOP level 1 (it's an old cassette style, so I don't know how it corresponds to a new DVD version). We didn't finish it either, because he was too frustrated I took a break and did different things. He definitely doesn't know all his phonics and needs more there. I just didn't know how to best move forward because he isn't confident/fluent in what we have covered so far.