Same boat here. My 6 year old does multiplication just for fun. It's crazy. He doesn't have all the facts memorized, but he's working on it. And he understands what multiplication means. We're still doing addition/subtraction in his Math Mammoth. Thankfully, even though we're still doing MM1A, he's enjoying it very much. We'd be doing 1B right now, but it looks like all of those chapters require a manipulative, and I don't have those yet... Christmas presents are planned! :D I have no plans to skip ahead to multiplication. Now if we just cruise through MM2 faster than a school year, that's ok! But I do want him to get the foundational concepts. It is hard to wait though... Like I want to teach him calculus NOW! :lol:

I know one family locally that uses it, and the mom told me that her oldest girl (3rd child of 4) seemed to do fine with it, but started public school in 9th grade and had to catch up. So apparently she hadn't retained with EG, even though she does fine with LA overall. But... That's one kid out of 4. The older two boys seemed to do fine in public high school English. The youngest girl is still at home.

For some things, like math, the programs you've chosen are all vastly different in learning style, thus you might just go with whatever works for your kids. For example, when I was looking at math, I knew my son was currently using Saxon at school and bored to tears with it. The incremental approach is overkill for him. He is way ready to move on. So I looked at programs that move quicker and have a mastery approach, like Singapore and Math Mammoth. I was going to use Singapore, but then I looked at Math Mammoth and liked the fact that the teaching is in the text - no separate teacher's manual. That was a big plus for me. So we tried it, he liked it, we're sticking with it. We don't need anything else (though other programs do look wonderful). We have a program that is thorough, moves quickly enough for my son, and he's learning from it. I used a similar approach to other choices I've made (but haven't purchased yet), looking both at the learning style of my son and at the teaching style of myself. What do I think we'll enjoy doing? When I do buy, I plan to use the chosen programs for one school year unless it just plain isn't working (ie, he breaks out into tears every time I say it's time to do xyz subject... and honestly, I can't imagine him doing that with any of these programs, as he's just not that type). At the end of that year, if I think the program is not a good fit for us, we'll try something else. But I want to give it a chance. Making a choice is hard though! I chose all my curriculum when my DH and I started talking about homeschooling. Then I changed my mind about 4 or 5 times on every subject except spelling. :lol:

Why don't you make this a K year for him? It's VERY common for parents to not put their boys into K until they're 6. My son has several boys in his class at school that are a year older. If traditional schooled parents do it all the time, why can't you? :)

Print out the MM samples and give them a try. There are several pages of samples so you can see how it works. It's similar to Singapore in method, but the teaching is all in the student text, so it's VERY easy to teach, IMO. The explanations are excellent. They do throw in review here and there, but it's still mastery. I've been really happy with it this year. Do a placement test to make sure your kids are in the right levels though (with any program), especially since they're behind in some areas.

I was taught to use the comma, and it grates on me to not see it. I will definitely teach it to my children. I didn't realize that it was considered legal not to use it, but it still grates on me, so I'll continue to use it. :lol: It's more clear to me if it's in there. :)

I'm not sure at what point you need the magnetic tiles, but I'm guessing that they're not absolutely required. I'm doing the lessons with my just-turned-4 year old right now. We did "qu" today, so still working our way through the alphabet lessons at the beginning. We have only needed the index cards and a pen so far. I also did 10 lessons in the consonant blend section with my older DS (very quickly, as he can already read all those words, but it was good to hit on the blends individually since he hadn't officially learned all of them for spelling and such yet), and we were able to do all of those orally with no other supplies, not even index cards/pen. I don't have any letter tiles, but I plan to get AAS for DS1 before next summer. At that point I can use them for OPG also. Until then, we'll just wing it. :) I did buy a 2'x3' magnetic white board from Sam's ($16) so we could use that for some of our lessons. Lessons on a white board are always more fun than sitting at a table with a book. ;) We've used our Leapfrog fridge magnets to play some letter games on the white board (like "vowel hockey" - my kids are hockey nuts... I just made up a game). Btw, I am loving OPG! :D This child had a speech delay, and he was not picking up on his letters/sounds at all. We started OPG about a month ago, doing about 3 lessons per week. He enjoys it (as long as I do the review as a game AFTER the new lesson - I don't do it as written as that's too boring for a 3-4 year old). Today, while going through the consonant rhyme as review at the end, DS was able to name several of the letters and their sounds, including ones we'd barely touched on last week! He really is picking it up! He knows his short vowel sounds really well (which is amazing because at first, he wasn't even hearing the difference between 'e' and 'i', etc.). And one of the best things for us... We worked hard one day on 'M' and 'N' because that is a big issue with his speech - he tends to use 'n' for a lot of 'm' words, but it's certain words that he just learned incorrectly (due to not hearing them properly when he learned them), not an inability to make the sound. So he often says "nouse" for "mouse", "nolk" for "milk" (or if I'm working on it, he'll say "mmmmm-nolk!" :lol:, though today he was trying to self-correct it and I was thrilled and doing a happy dance!). Anyway, we spent probably 15-20 minutes talking about the difference between 'M' and 'N', and giving examples of words that start with each letter. Today, he knew which one was which! And I think it will really help him figure out how to properly say those words, since he'll be able to see which one starts with which letter, plus now he has seen that they are separate letters. I think he had a hard time grasping that concept before, and now it's more clear. So anyway, I'm very happy with OPG so far. I don't necessarily do it exactly per the script. I watch my child and do what he needs. If repeating it 3 times isn't going to fly, I don't bother. I make up my own games to practice, but also use her games. I just make it work for us, and so far, it is! I feel very confident that we'll be starting to read in a few weeks when we get to that lesson! I can tell he's ready... as soon as he finishes learning his letter sounds!

That's awesome! My son has been reading well for a couple years now, but still won't do more than one chapter of a book at a time. I need to find something that interests him like that!

You might want to look at Biblioplan. It uses SOTW as a spine, but also schedules MOH and I think a couple history encyclopedias. It includes living books. There are reading recommendations for different age groups. TOG looks awesome though, and I drooled over it for weeks before deciding to go with Biblioplan so I can have the ease of SOTW (for my younger kids) but also have the ability to easily get more out of a topic if we have time. I think you can kind of do that with TOG... I have seen SOTW/TOG lists and there are SOTW/MOH lists. It'd take some teacher planning, but if you planned a unit out ahead of time, you might be able to make it somewhat open and go. I know I would rather use TOG for an 8th grader.

I don't have AAS yet, but I'm using OPG with DS2 right now (4 years old), and I plan to add in AAS whenever I think he's ready to start spelling. We'll have it for DS1, who is already reading. It looks like OPG followed by AAS would be a great progression. There are threads on the Chatterbee forum (on the AAS website) about using AAS as a reading program even without AAR, and it makes sense that you could use it that way.

I love Math Mammoth here. We're going through the grade 1. We're currently using it as an at-home supplement to the Saxon he does at school, but it's a standalone program, and we'll use it that way next year when he's homeschooled (he's doing stuff in MM before they get to it in Saxon anyway). I love that the teaching is in the text. I just go over the new concept briefly, then let him do his thing. Very, very easy to teach.

Wow, this thread just reminded me that I learned sentence parsing in school. I distinctly remember doing the single underline, double underline, parenthesis, etc. Then later we did actual diagramming. And I have to say, I always LOVED diagramming. :) I'm thinking I probably started diagramming in middle school?

A lot of people say "schrap" instead of "strap". I know I tend to, but if I were pronouncing it for spelling, I'd say "strap". In my area, I think most people say "chr" for "tr". We're just technically pronouncing it wrong. ;)

Use Google to search the forums. You'll get better results for the 3-letter abbreviations. Type the following in the google search box: mct site:welltrainedmind.com The above will get you a lot of good results (note that it will also get MCT in the signatures, but usually it gets the subject lines first).

My son is in Saxon 1 (at private school), and last year in Saxon K, they were doing skip counting with 2, 5, 10, and I think 20. This year, they're continuing that, and I think they may have added 3, but I'm not sure (I just see the homework sheets that come home... asking "What did you learn in math today?" always gets the answer "I don't know." :glare:). So they do skip counting of the smaller numbers way early in the program. I can understand starting with 7 in grade 3, especially since there are 7 days in a week, and calendar is done so much in the meeting time everyday. I think during meeting time, they've learned multiplication via money - ie, what 1, 2, 3, or 4 quarters is, etc.

Maybe now is a good time to do an inventory of your homeschool stuff for insurance purposes, taking pictures and such. ;)

We won't need it right away, but I figure during the 4-year cycle when we hit US History, I'd like to throw in a state history unit. I'm in Alabama, so I'll need Alabama state history. I know there are several important things that happened here (Confederacy, Civil Rights movement incidents, Von Braun's rocket team, etc.). For those who use a curriculum for these things, what do you use? I know I *can* put it together myself, but I don't want to miss something important that I've forgotten about. It's been a long time since I had AL history myself. ;) I've seen curriculum for states like CA and TX, but not AL.

I have no clue. It's been so long that I don't remember what was on the test! I do know I did well enough to get college credit, but it wasn't my best AP score. I liked grammar, but hated literature analysis. When asked what the symbolism of something was, I didn't care! Of course now that I study the Bible, some of that analysis would come in handy.

My son is in first grade at a private school. He could read that passage, but he reads well above grade level. I'd say probably a third of the kids in his class would be able to read that. I don't think you should worry at all. That said, public schools usually have kids reading and able to write sentences by the end of kindergarten. CLE has kids starting to read in first grade. So the beginning of LTR is like what ps kids get at the beginning of K, but CLE progresses *much* faster. I've looked at the I Wonder reader, and it looks inline with what first graders typically read in the second half of the year. I'll bet next year, there won't be any difference between your second grader and the other second graders.

I always say that I couldn't analyze a circuit to save my life. :lol: Well, you never know what type of language skills they'll need, even if they are in a "sciencey" field of work. Just this past Sunday, one of the guys at my church who is a EE did a sermon on "persuasion". He's very high up in a very expensive defense program, and his company sent him to Harvard for 6 weeks to do some crash course (I guess in management... I think baby was wiggling/fussing at the point where he said what the course was). It was interesting that the topics he learned were exactly the things that SWB recommends for high school, including rhetoric. His company sent him to this course so he could write better proposals, communicate with government officials better, make persuasive arguments to politicians on why his program should continue to be funded, etc, etc. So while he is an engineer, he still needs to be able to communicate in a variety of ways, not just write technical manuals.

One thing to remember is that sometimes what you learn in school isn't necessarily applied exactly in life or work. For example, I too am an engineer (electrical). Much of what I learned in EE courses I *never* used in the workplace. My dad has been a EE for 30 years. He had to learn things like Fast Fourier Transforms and such, but even though he still designs circuits and does actual EE work (unlike me who did software :tongue_smilie:), he never had to use FFTs in his work until a year or so ago when he knew that that would get him a type of signal that he wanted, and the software he was using to design the circuit had an FFT thing that you could drag and drop and make everything just work. So he didn't even have to remember how to do an FFT. He also has not had to use calculus in the last 30 years, yet he had to learn it in school. FWIW, I did lots of diagramming of sentences in school. No, I've never had to diagram a sentence since leaving high school (didn't take any English courses in college, since I got AP credit and just had to take one technical writing course to get my degree). I did enjoy diagramming sentences... probably because it seems very math like. :D I don't know that I realized at the time why I was diagramming sentences, but now I do have a pretty good understanding of proper sentence structure... usually. I won't say this entire post is perfectly written. :lol:

I think part of it will also depend on how well they're reading and writing. If they're still learning how to read, I wouldn't bother with spelling yet, and would probably go light on grammar if doing it at all. I think I would stress phonics/reading/handwriting most (my son is in first grade now, but not homeschooled yet... those are the things I'm most concerned with for LA right now though). If your daughter can read, definitely continue with the phonics. A lot of early readers don't have the phonics down as well as they will need later on. My son is a good example of that. He was reading at about 2.5 grade level when he started Kindergarten last year, but he didn't know a lot of phonics beyond the basics taught in starfall.com. He was doing a lot of sight reading, even though he wasn't taught whole word reading or anything like that (he just went from not reading to reading very well in a very short period of time all on his own). Now in first grade, he's learning a lot of phonics, and it's very very helpful, especially for spelling! Next year, I'll continue that via AAS, and I might see where he is in OPGTR, which I'm using for phonics instruction for my 4 year old right now (we're still learning the sounds of the letters - haven't gotten to reading yet). OPGTR takes you through 4th grade reading and seems to be very thorough. I don't do it completely as written (ie, sitting down with the book alone), but I use a white board and make games with the letters. DS2 and I just got done playing vowel hockey on the white board. :D

I think at some point it just morphs into spelling. They're very similar, but used differently. My son is in first grade now, and doing phonics for reading and spelling at school (he already reads very well and knows how to sound out most words). He could use some more advanced phonics still, but they'll be the same things that are taught in the spelling program I plan to use next year (AAS), so I won't be doing a separate phonics program. He'll get phonics/spelling in one subject.

I'm pretty sure she says in the book that if you have multiple kids or start late, just jump in where you are and have everyone do the same time period. The important thing is doing the history chronologically. I can't help with your grammar question, as my oldest is only first grade, and we'll be starting in 2nd grade, so not too far off the path. I'm doing Ancients next year and Biology. I plan to keep my kids on the same history/science topics at least through the elementary years, and I'll try to keep them in the same history time period throughout. Don't panic! :)

I'll be starting in 2nd grade just because that's when we'll start homeschooling. I have 3 kids, so there is no way they'd all be on the "perfect rotation". The nice thing about my oldest starting in 2nd? My third child will be on that "perfect rotation", so *I* will end on modern history. My older two children will still do all 4 years in high school, and they'll both be doing history chronologically. They'll just end on different years. I don't think it will be a big deal.