Completely agree. I'm hoping to get interested emails from other sale sites like homeschoolclassifieds.com since I don't seem to be getting replies on the things I listed here yesterday and I thought at least one of them would go quickly. :(

I'm so happy to hear this!! Thanks all!

Has anyone bought anything from Horrible Books? I'm looking to get Beast Academy/AoPS items. http://www.horriblebooks.com/artofproblemsolvingbooklist.htm I'm thinking I might try ordering from them to save on shipping...but wanted to hear if anyone has had a bad experience ordering from them before. Thanks! Nikki

I agree with several things said above. I currently teach piano. Tried to teach my very headstrong, independent, strong-willed, likes-to-learn-everything-herself oldest child. Did not go well. She always interrupts me no matter what I'm teaching and likes to tell me about how she thinks it should be done or how it reminds her of this other story or song or "look I can make up my own song that starts just like it!"... Has a hard time respecting my authority due to other issues I think. Needless to say, the last lesson I taught her I ended up giving her the method book for now and said "you're smart. you know all the main notes now. finish the book yourself and ask me if you have questions." Not ideal at all...but I just don't think at this point that she's willing to learn from me. She's also a perfectionist, and wants to be able to play like me without putting in the years of work. So I have not found a good way to teach my own child who is like this. My little guy though, loves to have quick lessons with me and he is teachable. So I think it depends on the child. We also do not have money right now to put my daughter in lessons with another teacher. But I have been pondering on trading services with someone to get her in lessons though. (Like I'll babysit for free for you during a few lessons in return for free piano lessons for my daughter.) I have piano students who are similar to my daughter in personality who are wonderful students for me but would be the same with their parents... If you think it will work for you to teach your own, my favorite method for gently guiding you through and providing a great foundation in case the child wants to go somewhere with it is Piano Adventures. I REALLY like the My First Piano Adventures for ages 5-7. There is a CD that walks you through the songs and they're really fun. It's larger print with fun characters and teaches some composer study as a part of the series. There is some finger numbering at the beginning but this is because they want to start ear training and reading directionally (up, down, stay the same) but since the finger numbers don't always stay on C the brain doesn't get stuck in thinking your thumb is always C. There are cute songs to teach you the lines and spaces without having to use the long sentences. For an older student (10+), I like using the lesson and theory book for Piano Adventures Older Beginner then supplementing with online songs (like popular stuff on musicnotes.com). Finger exercises I end up teaching by rote: 5-note scales at first, then eventually full scales after all the 5-note majors and minors are learned. Whatever you do, if you're teaching your own child, I would limit lessons at the beginning to 15-20 minutes tops, then just let them explore or play on the piano by themselves for a few minutes. Inevitably, my daughter and I would end up getting frustrated with each other in that last 10-15 minutes and usually because I was so thrilled with how quickly she caught on that I wanted to have her just do one more thing... Much better to teach two 15-minute lessons a week than one 30-minute lesson where you get mad at each other. A wonderful resource for piano teachers is http://pianoadventures.com/guide/index.html. Complete videos showing teachers how to teach the primer level. You might even be able to watch these with your child to let Nancy Faber teach them. I haven't watched enough yet to know, but I've wondered this. I feel your pain! Good luck!

Just a couple observations: 1. Skip counting teaches the reason why we do 'fast adding of the same kind' (multiplication) so we can see what the numbers mean. 2. Skip counting helps if you forget a certain times table fact you can skip count to the next one if you remember. (i.e. If you need to know 7x6 and forgot, but you know 7x5 is 35 you can skip count up from there to get to 42.) 3. Skip counting helps if you need to count multiples of something that's hard to see the times table fact. (i.e. Counting a ton of pills is faster by 2s or 3s but you don't know how many groups you have total to use a times fact, counting quarts in a gallon or pints in a gallon may be easier with skip counting than a times fact, etc.) However, memorizing multiplication facts is still the goal. So if your son doesn't need to see concretely what the times table facts mean and is asking to do multiplication, especially if there are learning challenges, then maybe it's okay to not drill skip counting to death. Just my thoughts. Hope it helps.

It says to look in the instructions where you selected it...I know, I missed it too the first time. Go to your 'my account' on HSBC and click 'my subscriptions'.

I got the Critical Thinking joke book. My dd loves jokes so this will be perfect!

Thank you all. After hearing your feedback I think I will wait and start this in 4th grade. I can tell myself it's okay to wait--although it sounds so neat and so exciting it's hard not to think I need it now! :)

Thank you so much, Beth, for this. Just what I was looking for. Yes, the bathroom and shower times (or I should say sponge-baths) have been akward but we've ended up laughing over it so much. I know we'll look back on this time and be stronger because of it. And everyone's advice...thank you. It's great to have people to bounce ideas off of.

My dd broke her right arm (she's right-handed) almost 2 weeks ago. She's in a soft-cast for another 2 1/2 weeks since she has pins in her elbow. She can't write or draw. I'm finding it hard to work out schooling, but this is what I'm doing or will do tomorrow since we just can't afford to take any longer of a break. (We have a possible long vacation coming up and need to finish strong since she may return to private/public school next year.) Math--If she tells me what to write, I can write in her answers on her worksheets. (But this is time intensive for me and I have a 3yo who needs lots of attention too.) Grammar--read our text and talk about it. She can tell me how she would diagram/analyze practice sentence. (Again time intensive but we mostly already do this.) Writing--NO IDEA what to do about copywork and dictation. We could still do narration though. Spelling--try typing words and phrases on computer. (She can only hunt and peck with left hand so I wouldn't want to do this for sentences though.) History/Science--just read and talk about it. Reading--stories on ipod/cd. She can't hold a big chapter book open very well and still turn pages, so her normal hours of pouring over books isn't working. Music & PE--obviously piano and swim lessons are out. She is really bummed about the latter. If your child had a broken right arm, what would you do differently?

I'm afraid I don't know much about Beast Academy yet, and I've looked through their site and samples, but want just a couple quick answers from those who are using it... ...can it be done independently by a strong reader nearing the end of 3rd grade who is ahead in all subjects except math? (We're using MUS Gamma right now.) It sounds like something she would like, but I don't think I can add on another curriculum that is heavy on parental involvement. She needs to start doing more things independently. (She is fairly mature for her age and likes to teach herself since she is very strong-willed.) ...if it's a supplement, as in we'd do it for the summer, you'd want both the text and the practice books, right? Thank you all! Nikki

We're reading Eat Cake right now. Last month was A Year on Ladybug Farm. That was a nice easy book with some great reflection in it. Some other recent month's books: The School of Essential Ingredients Beautiful descriptions of life and food. Committed Interesting viewpoint. Makes you think. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

double post :)

The Complete Writer will give you the big picture from 1st thru high school, with outlines for 1st thru 4th. It helps you teach writing in general. If you want day-to-day specifics the workbooks are great. You can use the workbooks without knowing the big picture, but for some this helps explain why the program is set up the way it is. You could also be referring to the teacher pages in the workbooks, since maybe you saw someone selling the teacher pages only without the student pages. I own levels 1-3, but haven't started using 3 yet, so someone else chime in if I'm wrong...Level 2 is mostly like level 1. In levels 3 and 4 the passages are included in the student section so the student can read them to themselves. So in levels 1 & 2 you can get away without having the student pages if you want to make your own on regular paper or type them into a different size handwriting computer program. In levels 3 & 4 you need the student pages so you can have the passages to read. Maybe this helps? Hope it clarifies things.

But for me, as the type of learner who likes to know the why of everything and is constantly looking for patterns around me to understand how things fit together, I find this key card in AAS to be very helpful. We just know it doesn't apply all the time, but most of the time. We don't memorize lists of words at all, just concepts that can be applied most of the time. Although English has always been my first language, I find it very frustrating at times, and like having some kind of framework to help me understand how to pronounce and spell most words. I think AAS does a fantastic job of breaking the English language down into pieces that are manageable for understanding. Just my two cents.