My girls don't like them either. I still have them do it, especially my DD who has troubles with spelling for the tactile learning. Like another said, later on the vowel teams and sounds of er, etc. can really be visualized for the visual learner, as they are together on one tile. Trying to hit all those connections. I don't make them manipulate the tiles all the time, though. They often will spell the word with the tiles and I put the tiles back or they spell it out loud and I'll do the tiles for them. Spelling out loud is a worthwhile endeavor also. It will oftentimes take them a bit longer to spell, as they are visualizing the word in their head before speaking.

ENORMOUS! :tongue_smilie: My 3rd grader writes in the bottom half of the wide lines and still doesn't fill in the space. Plus, there are so many lines to write on when the question requires only a tiny bit. Weird. It seems they woudl have to write one word per line sometimes. :001_huh:

We have used 4 cores, and doing Core C now. We love it, and I plan on using it at least through Core F (Eastern Hemisphere). We love the base of good books that I can stretch out from. I do add notebooking at least 2 to 3 times a week with foldables. We occasionally do an activity that I add here and there, but not every week. I am more likely to use the notes now that they are behind the schedule, and I don't find them messy, but easy to use. We combine our children (3rd and 4th grade) and do another core for our K'er. I tried other things for a year, but I come back to SL for ease of use and excellent books scheduled in a cohesive manner that would take me hours upon hours to do myself. I have also done 3 of their sciences and am currently working on Science D. I loved them all except Science C, which I won't repeat with my youngest. I disliked the book Usborne Book of Knowledge, whcih was the base of nearly all of the year, but did like the other books. I had not used their LA up until this year, when I chose LAK for my youngest, but I will not continue with that. I don't really like it. It makes no sense, even though the problems in years past were supposed to have been fixed, there are still strange assignments and skipping around in books that makes no sense. For first grade, we're going to use FLL, WWE, OPGTR, ETC, HWT, and SL readers.

This Squidoo lens has very helpful insight into lapbooking. I don't make lapbooks, but I use the foldable 3D things for notebooking.

Thank you, I will have to think about this to hopefully flesh it out.

When you say not knowing a number, what exactly do you mean? She doesn't recognize 4 as a 4. When she counts objects, she will tell you there are 4. Does that clarify? I'm a little confused to as to what to describe. Thank you all for your help!

She doesn't have delays in doing chores, listening to books, interacting with peers or physical activities. She can listen to chapter books with active engagement. She asks questions and she'll bring things up later on that she remembers from the book. She does lots of chores such as putting silverware away and emptying trash cans. She is a social butterfly and warms up to people and is not shy at all. As for physical activities, she does these things best. She is very active, moving all the time. She does quiet down for storytime, though. I hope I'm making a mountain out fo a molehill! She is very different from our first girls, and I'm having a hard time pinpointing how to reach her. I've been researching different ways to present material, and we just keep trucking along. She easily identifies visual images of anything. We have been working on AAR for a year, and we are now into the sound portion. She did the rhyming within a few lessons, and now she rhymes all the time. She did pretty good on the other activities, though it took a few lessons to understand what was expected of her, but she did very well in catching on. I truly thinks she tries her hardest too. If you show her an F and have her pick the other F's out of a line of other letters, she is fine with that. If I ask her what the first sound in the word monkey is, she says mmmmm, but she doesn't relate the letter m with mmmmm (yet?). Maybe she just takes a long time to process information? I'll try to look into the neuropsych test.

My 5yo has had problems with recognizing typical schoolish things through the years. It started with color and shape recognition. We would work for months that turned into years, and she never understood. We thought she was playing games with us and she actually knew, but I really don't think this is the case. She now knows her shapes and colors after 2 years of doing things with her in everyday life and focused activities. We're doing K work now, and she is doing the same things with number and alphabet letter/sound recognition. The curriculum keeps adding new numbers (up to 13 now) and she only knows 3 of the numbers. She can recognize an A. This is after a year of work with all of them when she was 4. We took a break, and for just this year, we've had focused activities since the beginning of July. She just doesn't get it. I know she is young, but I have a "gut feeling" that I hope is wrong. I am thinking of trying to get a developmental optometrist to check her out, but what in the world do I do? I plan on mentioning it to her doctor at her yearly physical in December also.

I would move onto SOTW3. If he can remember bits and is aware of the many different historical periods, that is all that is necessary. You could use the cards in the back of the AG to review throughout the year, but going over and having him re-read sections sounds like a bit of overkill. :001_smile: Just move on and know that in later year he will hang more items on these pegs that you are installing now.

I'm thinking about doing this next year with our American history studies. Glad to hear some advice from someone who has used it. :001_smile:

I went on a spree too. Now to figure out where to start going through all the pins. :001_huh: I wish Pinterest showed what I've already pinned and dates that I pinned things so I can see where to start! I recognize your picture, and I had already started following yours. ;)

You are going to keep me busy for a long time! Er, okay, just today, as I'll probably go through them all in my spare time. Mop? Nah! I've got some pinning to do. ;) I forgot to list mine. Here are my boards.

I work from home, and I have an arsenal of things for my children to do while I work. First of all, they have a quiet time of 1 hour. This is when they read to themselves for at least 20 minutes and play by themselves just to unwind from the day. Then I have a bunch of independent activities including (but can't remember all of them now) drawing, Flashmaster fact practice, coloring books, craft box with a small book to choose crafts from, half an hour of TV (which they don't usually choose). My newest thought was to compile a "safe" list of websites (educational) that they can visit without direct supervision. I haven't compiled a list yet, but it's on my to do list.

Do you have homeschooling Pinterest boards you would like to share here. I'm enjoying getting so many ideas on Pinterest, but I'm not sure how to access more. Care to share your Pinterest board link?

Could you do something like the following for as many months as needed until he is ready for WWE4? You could possibly use selections from read alouds or readers that he is using and use WWE3 to highlight certain parts of speech. Also ask questions during history readings without narration just to sharpen his listening skills. Day 1 - narrate and copy Day 2 - dictation Day 3 - narrate Day 4 - dictatation from the narration on day 3 I would be interested to know what others say too. :lurk5:

Your list is making me sweat! :lol: I have so many ideas on Pinterest, it's not even funny. I've told myself I will try one thing from my "Elementary Math" page a week with my K'er. I'm not sure I'll do so hot. I've got MCT Building Language for DD9, waiting for me to make fun "hands on" notebooking componetns for her, and it's still sitting there, waiting for me to make those. Sheesh. I need some help. :001_smile:

bump! :lurk5:

The dry erase boards are relatively cheap right now. I just a large board to fit all the tiles. While the tiles aren't necessary in level 1, they really become necessary in other letters. The reason I think they are necessary is because of the visual aids. Vowel teams are one color, consonant teams another. When the "oa" is together on the tiles, the child starts thinking of it as one sound. Ur, er, etc., etc. are all on one tile, aiding in memory and visualization of the words. There are other tiles too, including syllable tags, which could be made if you want. Now that I'm typing it all out, as you look through the program, you should be able to make up a set by using Excel or something of the sort to create equal-sized cells with all the phonograms, etc. The scope and sequence may help to create everything you need. Then you can laminate them and put magnets on the back. It may be easier to buy the set, though.

How about Usborne Quicklinks? I looked for history book links, and there are some printable pictures, not colorable, though. Here is the link to the first pictures. Use the arrow keys above the quicklinks to see more printable pictures.

Does she narrate and then copy or narrate then write it? Maybe to transition her more smoothly into straight writing it from mind to paper you can do it WWE style and write while she narrates without her seeing you write, then dictate it to her for a while.

I like the Usborne Book of World History (not internet linked) for first grade. The Usborne Internet-Linked one is VERY good, but the text is a bit more advanced. What I have done is use the links in the SOTW AG on Usborne Quicklinks and pull up the Usborne Internet-Linked version and look at the link that way. When you're doing chapter 1, it will show which pages of the Internet-linked version to read, so the links are good and mesh wonderfully even while using the non-internet linked. What a mouthful! I hope you can understand my rambling!

Sniff. Wait until DDs start having a few small changes here and there puberty-wise. Sniff. :toetap05:

LOL! I was scared and did an apple.

What is a vocab map? We are doing MCT Building Language this year with DD9, and I'm interested in expanding with visual charts and things like that to help her retain more.

I think she meant 1/3 of the books with asterixes.:001_smile: