I think this was critical for my son too. My dyslexic son is actually a pretty good reader. But retrieving the info and writing it down would have absolutely killed his love of history. And he really loves history. Things DS has enjoyed for history include Cartoon History of the World Horrible Histories and Teaching Company Lectures. He has watched/ listened to probably 10 of these over the years History of Ancient Greece History of Ancient Rome History of Egypt From Yao to Mao and just about every lecture from Kenneth Harl. More recently (he's 14) I found a pretty good text and he's read through it and I would just ask him to write something. I didn't grade or evaluate it I just wanted him to get in the habit of writing about what he's learning. Meanwhile we worked on writing away from the text. Next year I plan to more formally evaluate these writing assignments. He's ready to really write across all subjects but it took a very long time to get here. As far as the history sequence I am actually taking 2 years for ancients. DS really loves Ancient History and there are so many books to read. He started this year in the 8th grade with Ancient Greek literature. He is a very good reader though. If he wasn't, I'd have had him listen to audio books. But his reading is very good. It's the writing that is tough and slows him down. I would not hesitate to tweak the sequence to fit your child. If teaching American History first works for your child...then do it. It's all about cultivating a love of learning, by any means necessary. I find it interesting how many different ways we have come up with to modify the curriculum to each of our kids. Oh and do get Dyslexic Advantage.

DD also likes to alternate between "hard math" and "easy math" however she tends to devour the hard all in one gulp. She will be happy to take a break when she finishes and do some easy math while waiting for the next books to come out. :iagree: The terminology has consistently been the hardest part for DD. That and number sense with big numbers. She just said to me that many of the starred problems are easier than the ones without stars.

Yes! I like both. And you can easily accelerate ES. You don't have to follow their timetable. I really like the program. I have a second grader so I supplement with Spanish for Children because it doesn't have any formal grammar and dd is ready for that. But the teacher in this series is really good. It's different from Salsa. But DD has liked both.

How's it going, folks? DD has gotten to the part in 3b where you really need to know big numbers. She has hit a wall and slowed down a bunch. It's taken her 3 days to do page 55 of the guide but it's really quite fantastic to watch. She had some number sense issues to work out. She wasn't even quite sure what 1000 was called. "a billion?" Anyhow she is still singing a happy song and has figured out how to do 81,000,000-1 (took her a minute). I still kind of wish I had gotten 3a. Maybe over the summer... How are all of your little beasts doing?

What about using it as summer fun math? You could get one guide and one workbook and see how they like it. I think the workbooks could be awesome on their own. The only issue is that at some point the math gets hard without the practice that they get in the practice books. When DD did the sample chapter she read through the guide and then did the practice chapter. She hasn't been able to do this with 3B though. She got to a point where the math got really hard and she had to slow down a bunch (a good thing I think). So I think it depends on where your child is in math. Have your kids looked at the samples? Maybe that would help you gauge how well it would work. Kathleen, My DD was completely turned off by the monsters and after doing the actual math she totally turned around. Now she loves Grogg. So it might not be a big deal. I think to do the practice books with out the guide would also be OK for a kid who is sufficiently advanced. However I am pretty sure that my own child really needs both books. The guide gives hints and the story is kind of fun and motivating. The samples give a pretty good idea of how tough the math gets so if they look doable without the guide, then go for it.

http://www.beastacademy.com/resources/background.php?i=BG-GroggFall-1366x768.png And here it is. I didn't dream it.

When BA asked "What are some of your favorite images" the first thing that came to my mind is this image of Grogg on top of square dissections going on to infinity. But when I looked in the book, I can't find it. Am I losing my mind? Was it all a dream?

So what are folks plans for things to do while we wait. "What to expect when your expecting... the release of Beast Academy 3C?" Ideas, suggestions... Just thinking ahead.

Can I ask what you are using (for Latin) and to elaborate on the "language explosion" that you are talking about. I am on the fence about continuing with Spanish only or adding Latin. Only so many hours in the day and all. Still, I'm curious...

Yes but... I have seen this type of hyperbole in virtually every educational philosophy or fad. From Waldorf, Montessori, Enki to Unschooling to WTM to public school fads like Block Scheduling. I think a certain amount of searching for "the ultimate answer" or truth leads one to jump on a bandwagon of hyperbole as you get so excited about your new shiny thing. I, for example am head over heels with Grogg, Lizzie and his friends at the academy. I think we have to recognize that there are limitations to these pronouncements of love. Clearly no one curriculum or philosophy will change the world overnight. But if I find that I am not in love or infatuated with what I am doing, then it seems best to look for another path. I don't know, I can't get into the Circe lectures. I tried as I really saw some love over there. It's just not my thing. But a small part of me is thrilled to see folks connecting with their bliss.

http://www.classicsforkids.com/music/

Gosh I really want to be part of a crowd but I can't call myself STEM focused. I am not sure where the term came from but I just don't like it. I much prefer Math Geek. Actually the focus of my homeschool is music and I find that most college graduates are woefully illiterate in that field. Honestly if you can't play the oboe after 4 years of college then you were wasting your time. Kidding. A little. But in all seriousness, what is in a name. If we are teaching our kids to be awesome, super, well educated, soulful, connected, beautiful adults then isn't that just great. Whether they can play the viola, speak ancient greek, write like Shakespere or prove Fermat's last theorem. Aren't we all elitists. That is why I hang out here anyway.

Well I started DD in BA3b and I am glad I did. (Though I am pretty sure now that I will backtrack and get 3a since it is THAT good). 3b is just about perfect for her challenge level. What I mean by this is she got about halfway through the books and discovered that in order to complete the guide and understand it she really must do the practice problems. At first I would ask her to do a page or two of practice problems and then we'd read the guide. She was pretty much hanging in there but she's at this point when she really needs a little practice mutliplying large numbers. Anyhow I didn't have to convince her of this, she understood right away that if she wants to know what her little friends are talking about then she needs to go do the practice pages. So yay for that. I was not planning on making the switch over completely but now that I have that little puppy in my hands I am a convert. "poop, poop, the only way to travel. Here today and in next week..tomorrow" Must have that grogg t shirt and plushie! <zombie voice> "Beeeaaaaast Academmmmmy..."

Yes. BA is more explicit. I think the two programs complement eachother very well. I don't think I'll have too much trouble bouncing back and forth while waiting for the books. For example somewhere in MEP 3a they were having the student practice problems like 2x9 2x90 20x9 20x90 where the child was expected to figure out the adding a 0 trick. In BA 3b they explained it. I thought this was just about perfect for DD who basically had the idea of what was going on but probably wouldn't have been able to put it in words herself. On the other hand they also threw out 27,000,000,000,000,000 without telling the students what a quadrillion was. I had to think for a second. DD is pretty clueless large numbers so I had to clue her in and her dyslexic brain had a bit of a hard time keeping millions and billions straight. No big deal but it was a bit of a leap. Generally though BA is way more explicit. The other big difference is more tightly packed with challenge. MEP seems to scatter it freely so a more advanced student might need to skip around a bit. And since the problems are scattered so willy nilly it's not so easy to figure out how to skip around without missing some great kernel of learning buried deep within its pages.

Action figures!!!!!:001_wub:

I adapted Barton quite a bit to my sons learning style. Perhaps if you explain what the hand motions are supposed to help he with she might come up with an alternative or me more willing to try them out. I don't have experience with Wilson so I don't know the difference but I would imagine you would come across similar issues no matter what program you use. Susan Barton is a great resource and always eager to help folks with issues like this. Why don't you email her and see if she has any suggestions? I have taken my son through Barton 10. It is a fantastic program!

:iagree: Kilgallon! It's great for style. Word choice is a common problem with dyslexics. I am on the hunt for resources for this. However your DDs problems could be due to fatigue. I know my son has issues with fatigue when he is writing. You might want to use her work in Kilgallon to get picky about things like word choice and punctuation. If fatigue is really what is going on it will be much easier for her to work on these skills with shorter (ie. sentence length) assignments. Teaching my son to write is like teaching a cheetah in lead boots to sprint. It is so hard and yet it is completely necessary. And I have to be really careful, otherwise he might bite. Most of the time I just feel sorry for him. I am chipping away at the boots and helping him "walk the track" once I get the boots off, he will fly-I know he will. BTW thanks so much for bringing this up. I just popped into "The Lively Art..." This is a win. Love it. It was exactly what I needed today. I love Colleen's advice about grammar and diagramming.

Choosing curricula for my dyslexic son is a balancing act. On the one hand he needs high level challenge, on the other he needs very explicit skill based practice. Sometimes I find it helpful to separate the two. For example when he writes I don't really harp on spelling errors. I try to keep that separate. Lately I have been trying to figure out how to give him practice with word retrieval. This is a big challenge for him. During his last writing assignment he was using the word "devout" and he really meant "devoted" this small difference made his sentence sound weird. The funny thing was, I couldn't figure out what he was really trying to say until we checked a thesaurus. Anyhow, the point of all of this is I think it's generally a good idea to find what your daughters big challenges are and figure out ways to address these challenges separately. I found WWS to be really helpful for DS because one thing he had a super hard time with was summarizing information. Ideas are all swimming around in his head and he takes a very long time to organize them and get them out. I still haven't decided if he needs WWS2 for next year. I am toying around with Rhetoric level material at this point. On the one hand he isn't ready and on the other hand he has been ready for years. We have a big disconnect with thinking and skills. I am trying to build the bridge in both directions. If your daughter needs editing practice, maybe you can find an editing book. You know one of those books with a prewritten essay with errors that you edit. What other things does she need help with? I found Kilgallon very good. I also have MCT and though it wasn't explicit enough it did help DS with the big picture of essay writing.

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. You are the best. I got to be the "cool mom", giving my son awesome fun things to do on a sick day when it is raining outside. Big winner. Yay. I also found the class materials for anyone else who might be interested which has audio to go with some of the slides. http://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.042/spring12/class-material.shtml

Hi, I am looking for open courseware videos for college math courses that don't require calc. Number Theory would be good. Logic probably too easy Abstract Algebra too hard (unless it was an easier version of this course). Does anyone have any ideas or recommendations?

...or any dyslexics, I would think. My DS would have had a very hard time with BA. Though he probably would have loved it too, when he was in the right mood ...as long as I let him play with "fun math", he still doesn't see spacial stuff as fun, unless he can abstract it and reason it out ("I" strengths). DD is a little dyslexic too but she isn't challenged by it in the way that DS is. BA is a way better fit for her as it plays to her strengths. I think I would have still done it with DS if it were available at the time, though I might be doing it concurrently with AOPS prealgebra or even Intro to P and C.

Oh thanks!!!!! I just checked and my package is set to arrive on Tuesday.:party:

Holy cow folks. This game is fun. There is a strategy where the first person plays will always win. You can also play with any number to make it more challenging (pick a number from 1-12 for example). My 14 year old and I spent several minutes making up variations. Try it. Still not sure if this is similar to the original game but it is plenty fun.

Is it this game? http://www.mathgym.com.au/htdocs/japplets/start/start1.htm

Hi, My eager daughter came to me (before coffee) with the 100 game board this morning begging me to show her the game but I chose economy shipping (I printed several of the freebies on the site since most are pretty self explanatory). Anyone want to tell me how to play? It will make DD very happy.