This was our schedule this spring (2nd & 4th grader): 8:30-9:00 Bible, alternating elective (Health, Art, Music each 1x per week) 9:00-10:00 Math and Logic 10:00-11:00 Language Arts (Grammar, Phonics/Writing, Penmanship, Spelling) 11:00-12:00 Geography (daily) and Science/History (alternating days) 12:00-1:00 Lunch 1:00-2:00 Spanish and Latin It helped us for two reasons. First, my children knew that they had a time limit and everything not completed by that time was homework to be done after school (during their free time). Second, I had to keep myself in check and ensure I was not giving too much work each day. They really did not need to spend more than an hour on any of the subjects. This fall the schedule will be similar, but closer to the ones in the MP curriculum guides.

I know you asked for things that would constitute an emergency, but here are some set amounts that need to be included and set apart from the rest of the emergency fund: - the amount of your homeowner's insurance deductible, plus enough to live in a hotel and eat out for a week or two. Don't wait until your water heater (in the center of your home!) bursts and you have 60 gallons of water on your floors to try and figure out how to pay your deductible and pay for a hotel and food! (ask me how I know :D) - the amount of your auto insurance deductible plus enough to cover whatever car rental amount your insurance does not cover.

:iagree: This is basically what we did for 4th grade this past year. Except that I found that I really needed the DVDs. The student book does not have grammar explanations in it, and the TM did not offer enough help for me (there is no explanation of declensions, it just told me to look online for resources so that I could understand and teach them). The grammar explanations in the DVDs are excellent. I also appreciated the recitation portion of the DVDs; I struggled with getting that done on my own each week and ensuring that I covered everything.

Because while the packaging is different, the content is the same (in the skill areas). There are only so many ways to spell the long "a" sound. There are only so many number pairs you can add to get the number ten. No matter which handwriting curriculum I use, the letter "b" that my child learns to write is going to look like a "b." Curriculum hopping and getting bored with what I am using won't change any of that. No matter how many phonics curriculums I buy, I (myself) still have to teach my child the different ways to spell the long "a" sound. And it doesn't matter which book I choose to do it with, when you get down to it, it is the same thing. It may be accompanied by farm animals, little ditties, magnets, whatever...it is still the same thing, with the same end goal. Different paths, each with a price, but the exact same destination. I could theoretically take any phonics curriculum and use it to teach my child to read; I may have to modify the approach a little (my oldest learned to read just from oral reading lessons, my second child needed to play around with letter tiles to solidify the lessons), but it can be done. Now, the big draw with some programs is the amount of help in the TM - I like the R&S TM's, so I stick with a lot of R&S products. I need a step-by-step outline of how to teach each math lesson, and to be reminded to limit the problems I assign to what the student needs and what the student can do in a reasonable amount of time, and the R&S math TM's do this. I narrowed it down to what I could teach from, made the decision, and stuck with it. I can't afford to curriculum hop, so I modify/supplement as needed for each individual child, and I continue with what I have. If my child is having trouble with a concept, it is not the fault of the curriculum - it is my fault. And if I am bored with a curriculum...well, I am teaching elementary skills, how exciting can it be? :lol: As far as content subjects (history, science, art, etc.)...I believe that the elementary years are just for exposure, so as long as your budget allows it, then switch it around from year to year if you so desire (after using what you have purchased, of course). We went through the first three volumes of SOTW (it is sequential, so it made sense to stick with it), and now we are switching to MP...but my youngest will go through the first three volumes of SOTW as well, once he starts school. We like Apologia science, so until it is time to make the decision for middle school science, we will stick with it. The grass is not always greener on the other side. It just looks that way because whoever is planting that grass is putting in the hard work it takes to grow it. The same goes for curriculum.

Rod & Staff grade 5 math begins at the spot where you describe she is currently, and introduces all of those topics that you listed in an incremental, easy to understand manner. And the TM has very thorough (almost scripted) instructions for teaching the lesson. It may not be a quick easy fix, but it will provide a solid understanding. The book primarily focuses on the topics that you listed. The first two chapters are review, then the chapters are as follows: 3. Fractions 4. Measures 5. Division With Two-Digit Divisors 6. Multiplication by Three-Digit Multipliers 7. Factors, Multiples, and Prime Numbers 8. Adding and Subtracting Unlike Fractions 9. More Division by Two-Digit Divisors 10. Decimals 11. Ratios 12. Multiplication and Division of Fractions 13. Bible Measure and Metric Measure (I skipped the Bible measure, it isn't useful outside of recognizing that they are units of measure when you read the Bible, lol) 14. Multiplication and Division of Decimals 15. Geometry and Square Measure 16. Graphs and Scale Drawings 17. Review

Microsoft Office resume templates...easy to use, look professional when they are finished. I can't remember which one I used, but it must have looked ok because it got me a job!

I'm not seeing the same thing that you are...Texas A&M awards credit from dual credit hours taken at numerous colleges, all the student has to do is send the transcript from the college where the dual credit classes were taken to A&M (and there is no limit to the number of credit hours they will accept). Here is the page for incoming freshman with dual credit hours; the link on the page to the equivalency website will let you search by institution for transfer course equivalency. For example, if I want to know which courses transfer from my local community college, I select that institution and then select any of the course prefixes (ENGL for English, for example) and it shows me the transfer equivalency for every single English class that is taught for credit at my community college. If you can find anything different, please let me know! My oldest is still young, but dual credit hours at the community college is in her future, so if the universities here in Texas are not going to take dual credit hours, I would like to know now; if she needs to graduate early in order to take higher math and whatnot at the community college, I need to start planning ahead of time!

I taught my children , and we always sing it on the way to the pool. Just doing our part to NOT contribute to that problem :D.

I am using the 3rd and 5th grade levels with a bit of tweaking. We all like Apologia for science so we are going to continue with that, I like R&S English so we are going to continue with that, I am using a different writing program, and I am not using their classical studies on grade level. I think I am going to wait a year to have my 3rd grader do the Greek Myths (and Christian Studies I) and she will just do R&S Reading 3 this year (and no history/classical studies...I think...not sure yet). Since we are starting in the middle with my 5th grader, she is going to do Christian Studies I, FMOR & FMOMA (at an accelerated pace in order to complete both books in one year), and she is not doing Latin at their pace; she is starting FF in 5th grade. I think one of the beauties of their packages is that they can be tweaked and adjusted so easily. They are so easily customized to each individual child.

One of my curriculum purchase regrets for the same reasons that you listed. And I bought the download, so I can't even recoup any of my money. I have tried numerous times to use it as a supplement, and it just doesn't work for my children. I don't get the magic that it has the reputation for. Not at all. If I had tried to teach my children from this exclusively, they would be in public school by now, no joke. 1st grade would have been an utter failure.

Hits: Evan-Moor Daily Geography Practice - quick, painless, informative, and a good way to learn/practice basic map reading skills (used 2nd & 4th grades) Didax Daily Mental Math - I cannot praise this little practice book highly enough. It is the best source I have found to teach mental manipulation of numbers (calculation) and objects (mentally viewing from different perspectives). I am going to continue to use this series on grade level (even with my advanced older child and mathematically challenged middle child) for as long as the series lasts. Latina Christiana I - it works well, but the DVDs are vitally important unless you already know Latin!!! We were totally lost this year until we ordered the DVDs. The TM does not explain important things like declensions. Did I mention how necessary the DVDs are??!! The instruction is thorough, the chants are so very, very helpful, and my daughter enjoys the videos each week. (On a side note, I will personally deny the rumor that Ms. Lowe speaks with any sort of southern accent that makes her difficult to understand - I have lived in Texas for many years and have friends from West Virginia and Georgia - believe me, she does not have a southern accent! In all of the Prima Latina and Latina Christiana videos she drawled not ONE syllable. Every single syllable was...well...one syllable in length.) Wordsmith Apprentice - we did not finish this book yet, but we plan to at the beginning of 5th grade. It got my writing-hating daughter writing, and taught her the value of a thesaurus. Her writing has improved immensely. I really like how the assignments are broken down into small sections so I can assign a lot or a little, depending on the day. She likes how the assignments are interesting and varied. First Step Espanol (on knowitall.org) - free immersion lessons that teach through conversations, stories, and songs. My daughter and I have learned more Spanish than I thought was possible from a free program. My daughter loves it so much that she actually asked to continue with the next level (Next Step Espanol) over the summer. Jump at Home - I credit this math workbook with providing my daughter with the incremental steps that she needed in order to develop a conceptual understanding of arithmetic and numbers in general. She went from a K level of understanding to a solid early 2nd grade understanding in a few short months. R&S math was great for teaching math facts, money, time, word problems, etc., but Jump at Home taught her basic things that no explanation of mine could convey (like how to count on from a number to add, and the pattern that our base 10 system has). It was probably a failure on my part to explain these basics (my older daughter intuitively gets math concepts, so she understood basic explanations), but this inexpensive workbook saved me. I am going to get the 3rd grade workbook for next year and save myself the frustration that my explanation of multiplication will cause. :D place value chart - not a curriculum, but it works well for teaching place value and one-to-one correspondence of numbers. Misses: Spanish For Children A - maybe children can learn if they have the DVDs, but without them I don't see how (and they shouldn't market the program as complete without them). I still don't understand the logic behind not having a TM :confused:. The CD tracks were incomplete (so we couldn't learn the pronunciation of the conversational Spanish phrases provided each week) and the lady spoke extremely fast, the explanations in the book were convoluted and I kept having to read over the grammar portion and summarize it in my own words, and the program as a whole was a very, very poor introduction to Spanish. It looks like it might be easier to do next fall, after doing the free Spanish program mentioned above, but I would rather do almost any other Spanish curriculum than it. Every other program I have looked at has clearer, more concise, and more thorough explanations, and looks easier to use. Really, this program should just be thrown in the trash, and I hesitate to say that about most curriculum because almost everything can be modified to a usable state. C-rods - not a curriculum, I know, and I am going to get nasty PMs over this, but they really do not work to explain math for every child. All my daughter got after weeks (months?) of playing/working with them was that 2 rods=one rod so 2=1. She totally could not understand that the different lengths represented different amounts that added together to create a larger amount. A place value chart that had straws of equal length that could be bundled together to make ten (and deconstructed to borrow back a ten) taught her more in fifteen minutes than those hours and hours of play with c-rods. C-rods work well for explaining concepts to my oldest and my youngest, but not for my middle child. She is just different :001_smile:. CLE Reading - it just didn't work for my oldest. She retained nothing; apparently she requires some sort of interaction to learn new concepts. Good, thorough instruction, but just not our style. (4th grade)

A couple resources to give her ideas (along with some guidance for you) are The Write Stuff Adventure and The Magic Pencil. I have both of these on my shelf to use with my younger daughter over the next few years...my older daughter is like me, fine with research and reports, but no interest in creative writing. My second daughter, who I always thought was allergic to pencils (we do most of her schoolwork orally), will happily sit down and write (by hand!!!!) a story several pages long. Or pages of poems. So I have been searching out creative writing resources for her, and trying to come up with ideas to put her desire for creative writing to good use as a part of school (i.e. instead of writing a report about an animal, writing a story about the animal that includes a certain number of facts).

Give it time; my second child only figured it out toward the end of 2nd grade (and she does not have special needs that I know of). It just took a while for the pattern to click for her. Playing with this place value chart helped quite a bit. I'm not recommending dropping math, but keep helping her recognize her numbers during the lessons until she can do it on her own.

It depends on what your goal is...if they grasped the concepts and just need some supplemental review/practice, the Key to... series is great for that. If they need more instruction because they didn't quite grasp the concepts fully, then definitely the MM topical workbooks.

Sit together at the table, stack up the school books for the day, and nobody leaves the table until everything is done (except for potty breaks and a lunch break if school isn't finished before noon). It won't take long until he realizes that: #1 you mean business, and #2 it is in his best interest to do the work so he can have free time later in the day. He can still call you "Mom," hugs are available on an unlimited basis, rabbit-trail discussions are always welcome, high-fives and a "You are AWESOME" are offered every time a difficult concept is grasped...but he will have no trouble seeing you as both teacher and mom.

If you are just looking for a supplement, I highly recommend the Jump at Home workbook. My daughter struggled a LOT this past year (2nd grade)...in January she was still barely operating at a 1st grade understanding. We have been working on the Jump at Home 2nd grade workbook (a page or 2 a day) for the past two (three?) months, and her understanding has grown immensely. I haven't seen the 1st grade workbook, but the 2nd grade one is broken down by topic; we have been focusing primarily on the number sense sections since that is where she was lacking. The lessons are extremely incremental, with the student practicing each itty-bitty step and showing mastery of it before moving on to the next step. For example, today's page was about skip counting by 5's. After coloring and discussing the pattern and practicing it starting at different numbers, to show mastery she had to count backwards by 5's. My daughter surprised herself as much as me when she realized she could do it! The program is very visual, and it teaches things that most children seem to intuitively get (like counting on from a number to add, i.e. to figure out 7+4 they teach the child to start at 7 and count up 4 more...with pictures of a hand and fingers to illustrate, no less). And they teach it really incrementally...counting on from a number to add was not taught out of the blue, it was after pages and pages of practicing frog hops on a number line. Everything slowly leads into a deeper concept. I don't know if I would recommend the 1st or 2nd grade workbook for your son; the 2nd grade one starts at the beginning (circling the nine in nineteen, for example). It would be worth a try, though, for as inexpensive as it is.

The way LCI is set up, the student must #1 take profuse notes during the lesson (define verb conjugations/endings/noun declensions next to the words printed in the lesson, write down all the derivatives next to the vocab words, anything to get involved with the lesson) and #2 practice the chants often (preferably daily). If the student does not have -o, -s, -t, -mus, -tis, -nt memorized at the beginning of the program when it is introduced, it will be extremely difficult to learn (and understand and remember) present tense verb conjugations, and even more difficult for future tense endings like -bo, -bis, -bit, -bimus, -bitis, -bunt. But if the -o, -s, -t, -mus, -tis, -nt endings are memorized and can be recited in the student's sleep, they will glance at something like -bo, -bis, -bit, -bimus, -bitis, -bunt, see the relationship, and know what the personal pronouns are immediately. There are no definitions, translations, etc. in the student book because the student is expected to be writing all of this down during the lesson, which will give the student a reference to look at during the homework and future lessons.

Love, love, love Wordsmith Apprentice here (in conjunction with the composition lessons in R&S English). We tried numerous writing programs before this, and they were all like pulling teeth...this one is not only painless, but enjoyable. Before we start something heavy like WWS (perhaps in 7th grade?) I wanted to make sure that writing was not seen as a chore, that it was not something to be dreaded or despised. Wordsmith Apprentice makes writing fun, while improving the quality of the writing in small, easy increments. My goal is for writing to come naturally, for words to quickly and effortlessly be put down on paper, then we will tackle the harder programs. My oh-so-vast experience with my eldest child shows me that 4th-5th grade is the perfect time to do this, YMMV. :lol:

He does does not get me a gift, I am not his mother, lol! He has a mother, and he gives her a gift every year.

:iagree: All of the "hype" about the book came from the very people that have classified the program I was taught with (Abeka) and the program I teach with (R&S) as "procedural-only, algorithm-only, plug-and-chug only," so I read the book prepared to find what I had been missing conceptually. Errr...nothing. So I think the real issue is not what curriculum we use, but how we teach. I can sleep much better now knowing that I am doing a fine job teaching math to my children without the Singapore curriculum. :tongue_smilie:

Crockpot Mac & Cheese 2 cups of macaroni, uncooked 2 cups of cottage cheese 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese 1 stick of butter 2 cups of boiling water Grease the inside of your crockpot. Put in noodles and cheeses in the order in which they are listed. Slice the butter over the top and pour the boiling water over everything; do not stir. Cover crockpot and cook on high for 2 1/2 hours. Stir before serving.

I had a similar experience recently in the shower. I was blithely shampooing my hair when I glanced down and saw this scurrying around madly in circles on the shower floor. I now shower with my eyes wide open the entire time. I can endure the searing pain of shampoo bubbles flowing across my wide open eyes, it is a small sacrifice. I also don't sleep. Love your blog, BTW!

I first taught my children to read without any workbooks (just 100 EZL and Nora Gaydos readers and the like). When they began 1st grade, though, after they had learned how to read, then I used R&S phonics (with the workbooks) with them. The phonics instruction was the basis for spelling instruction, not primarily for reading instruction.

It was a huge letdown for me, as well. I was taught math with Abeka and I teach my kids with R&S, both accused of being hugely algorithm-based. I expected to gain all sorts of "conceptual" knowledge and finally learn what math is all about. Nope, apparently I had good teachers and the R&S TM's give instruction for teaching conceptually, because I already had math all figured out! I spent money to learn nothing except that the author found some spectacularly horrid math teachers here in the US and I should be thankful that they aren't teaching my children math. :lol:

I answered the poll with what I am doing this year. My 4th grader used CLE reading this year, and learned nothing from it - it was busywork and learning answers to fill in on quizzes and tests and then forget. This isn't applicable to every child, but my child needs interaction and discussion to actually learn something. The MP lit program is designed to be interactive, so I think it will be a better fit for my child.