I want to use the Blue Series to get my dd's caught up to wear they need to be in arithmetic. Would it be best to complete one "subject" workbook at a time before moving on to the next, or should I have them going in 2 or 3 workbooks at a time? For instance, I want to use Add/Sub 3, Place Value 3, and Multiplication 1. Should I have them complete the books one at a time , or should they do Add/Sub on Monday, Place Value on Tuesday, etc?

Where do you find the 20% discount?

I go outside almost daily (except in the summer - too hot and humid) so my girls can run around and play but I usually just sit and read or chat on the phone. I exercise in the house - T-Tapp and Callanetics.

What a timely post! I'm going to a "cookie swap" party in December and your Chocolate Covered Cherry Cookies might be just the thing. Here is a family favorite cookie recipe, that was given to me by my MIL. She used to make these for a bakery. Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies ¾ cup flour ½ tsp baking soda 1 cup oatmeal ½ cup each butter and peanut butter ¼ cup white sugar ½ cup brown sugar 1 tsp vanilla 1 egg 2 Tbl water ½ cup chocolate chips Mix dry ingredients with whisk. Cream butter and PB together. Mix sugars, add vanilla, egg, and water. Add butter mixture, then flour mixture and mix it all up. J Stir in chips. Bake at 375 for 10-15 minutes. And here is another one that I love: Soft Ginger Cookies 2 ¼ cups flour 2 tsp ground ginger 1 tsp baking soda ¾ tsp cinnamon ½ tsp ground cloves ¼ tsp salt ¾ cup butter, softened 1 cup sugar 1 egg ¼ cup blackstrap molasses 2 Tbl sugar Oven: 350*. Combine dry ingredients, set aside. Cream butter, add sugar, beat until fluffy. Add egg and molasses, beat well. Stir in half the flour mixture, then hand-stir in the other half. Shape into 1†balls, roll in sugar, bake on parchment about 10 minutes. Note: I prefer to break the 1" balls in half after rolling in sugar to make smaller cookies.

I highly recommend ElizabethB's online phonics videos. My girls are watching one a day, and we are only up to lesson 5 but already I've seen tons of improvement with each of them. Today we will start with the Phonics Concentration Game.

Elizabeth, I just have to tell you thank you so much for the online phonics videos. We've been doing them this week and already we are seeing so much progress. My girls really enjoy them! I can't tell you how excited they all were when they were able to sound out "ESTABLISH" on their own. :hurray: My oldest daughter, who is 13, told me that the videos are really helping because, in the past, when she came to a word she didn't know she would just skip it, but now she is sounding it out. Last night my 8 yo dd read Hop On Pop to me and when she came upon a two-syllable word she told me where the divide would be! I am thrilled with how well this is working. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

I just ordered both the add/subtract and the multi/divide/fractions workbooks! They should be here by the end of the week and I'm excited to get started with them.

Blumenfeld says: This book was originally written in the 1970's. He goes on to say that while we use a great deal of arithmetic in our daily lives, few of us ever use the algebra, geometry and trig that we were taught in school (I never made it to trig...). He does not argue against learning those things, but says that arithmetic should be taught as thoroughly and systematically as possible in the primary grades. He explains that arithmetic is "the tool of economic man" - helping him deal with quantity, money, and measurement, all which we need for practical every day living. Arithmetic is necessary for economics, government, taxes, accounting, business management, etc. Mathematics is used in physics, chemistry, engineering, astronomy, philosophy, metaphysics, etc.

I have just decided to do this as well! I've been reading the book How To Tutor by Samuel Blumenfeld and he makes a strong case for teaching "arithmetic" as a strong foundation and leaving "mathmatics" until later. I didn't even know there was a difference between the two. So we are going to do addition, subtraction, multiplication and division until we have them down cold. I'm planning to use the lessons from How To Tutor, supplementing with MM's blue books.

We use Chore Packs from Managers of their Chores. My 8 yr old dd has a morning and evening chore pack with each set taking around 20 to 30 minutes. These include personal chores like making her bed, or cleaning it off at night, getting dressed, brushing teeth, etc, and also chores like folding towels, making ice, cleaning the table and loading the dishwasher.

I found this very interesting and thought it might be helpful to some here. Hand-Clapping Songs Improve Motor and Cognitive Skills, Research Shows Children's Clapping Songs: http://funclapping.com/List.php http://childstoryhour.com/gamesclapping.htm Some of the songs include bad lyrics. I was disappointed to find that my favorite clapping game as a child - Ronald McDonald - is not one that I want my girls to sing, but there are some good and cute one. Youtube has some good videos of hand clapping games too.

My dd is 13 now, but when she was 10 she spelled like that. We started using Spelling Wisdom, book 1, and she greatly improved. Now for the most part she has very good spelling. The main idea behind Spelling Wisdom is studied dictation. My dd copies the passage as part of her copywork, and she studies and identifies any words she does not know. She is to look at it, spell it, close her eyes and visualize it, etc. If she feels ready by the next day, I dictate the passage to her while she writes it down, then she corrects her work. If she feels that she is not ready she gets more time to study the words.

Elizabeth, I have a quick question about the tests. My 13 yr old daughter took the Reading Competency Test and was able to read through all the groups on both parts 1 and 2. it says group 6 of part 2 would be equivalent to high-school level reading today. On the Wide Range reading test, she scored a 66 - so grade 6, 6th month. So, how do I tell her what grade level she is reading at?

We use ours for school and LOVE it! I formatted these readers from Harriette Taylor Treadwell for use on our Kindle 3 and my daughters who are learning to read love to have their "own" books on the Kindle. :) I use OpenOffice, which can export to PDF, with a page size the size of the Kindle screen, to make PDF's for the kindle.

I took typing in high school and my teacher did not let us look at our hands. She would walk around and hold a sheet of paper over our hands to make sure we couldn't. I'm so thankful today that I can type without looking. I'm not sure if one would stop looking on their own over time or not, but for my own daughter I don't let her look.

Is Sheldon's Primary Language Lessons intended to be used alone by the child or orally with the parent? I notice on Lesson 1 that initially the font is large, and then it gets small, and I wondered if the smaller font was for the parent to read to the child. Also, should these Language Lessons be done daily?

Thank you! I understand now.

I'm not quite sure how the Wide Range Reading Test works. The notes at the bottom say "Seven consecutive failures indicate Frustration Level." - what if they miss some but it's not consecutive? I was reading through it myself, and about the twelfth line down (raw score 88) I did not know a couple of words, but in the next line there were several that I could read. It was that way from that point on. I'd miss one or two and then I knew several. Are there points taken off from the Raw Score for missing one or two?

Could you tell me how you go about doing the memory work?

I'm using MEP this year, and supplementing with MM. My 8 year old is in Year 1 and my 10 and 13 year old dds are in Year 2. Yes, especially my oldest is behind in math. But she told me she felt that she learned more in 2 weeks of MEP than she has previously, and they all love it. But I do want her to move more quickly to where she should be so we are also working through Multiplication 1. My plan is to do MEP 3 times a week, and MM 2 times a week.

Thank you so much Elizabeth! The pdf links are not working for me either - they say 404 not found. I opened your website in a different browser to try the links there and they still did not work, however the link you just posted opened. ETA: The links at the very bottom under your summary are working fine, but the ones found within your article are not working. I printed out your game yesterday and have the cards all laminated with contact paper and cut out. It looks like fun! :) What do you think about my cursive question?

Bump. :) Wow, this board moves fast!

Hello, I'm new to this forum, although I have read posts from here off and on for several years. I have 3 daughters who are 13, 10 and 8, and they have always been homeschooled. All three of them have been late readers. My oldest picked up reading when she was about nine, and she reads A LOT with books ranging from Hank the Cowdog to Journey to the Center of the Earth. She was taught with a hodge podge of phonics lessons ranging from 100 EZ lessons to Alphabet Island to Rod and Staff. I started trying to teach her when she was about 6 and during those years it often seemed to be "2 steps froward, 1 step back", til she finally just picked it up and ran with it. She tries to sound out longer unfamiliar words, but usually sounds it out wrong. Last night she was reading Nancy Drew and came to the word "foreign" and she put in a hard "g" sound and said "forgen?" So I'm thinking she needs more phonics/syllable instructions. My 10 year old also used most of 100 EZ lessons as well as a few lessons from Word Mastery several years ago and some lessons from A beka's New Blue-Backed Speller. She is beginning to read the readers by Harriette Taylor Treadwell. I formatted the stories for the Kindle and she is having a great time using that, but again, she struggles sounding out new words. My 8 year old has *just* now been able to remember the letter sounds. She got about halfway through 100 EZ lessons but it became too hard for her and I was having to tell her most of the sounds anyway so a few months ago I just put it away. I bought the Leap Frog Letter Factory dvd for her and she watched it a few times and it really did seem to help! She has read a couple of stories from the Primer written by Harriette Treadwell, but she doesn't know how to sound out words on her own. I did buy into the Phonics + Sight Word idea, teaching them letter sounds, but when they came to a word they did not know I would just tell them the word most of the time. Okay, after that long intro... I recently came across Blend Phonics on Don's page, and research led me here to read Elizabeth's posts, which led me to her website. I've been reading about reading until my eyes wanted to pop out of my head. I dreamed about words and letters last night. I wrote to Don yesterday and he was so very helpful and suggested that I do Blend Phonics with all the girls, but that I could combine that with Elizabeth's Phonics Lessons for my older two daughters. I can't figure out how to combine them. Or should I? Should I just do the Phonics Lessons with my oldest daughter, and Blend Phonics with the younger two? I also want to use Webster's with all of them. If I use both Blend Phonics and the Phonics Lessons, do I just to Lesson 1 and Unit 1 together and stay at it like that? Blend Phonics is supposed to take 4 months, while Phonics Lessons is supposed to be short - 1 month or 2. Some options I've thought of: Blend Phonics with all 3, then Phonics Lessons with my older two, Word Mastery with my youngest, then Webster's for all? Or skip Blend Phonics for my oldest and do Phonics Lessons, or should I go straight into Webster's with her? OR, is Blend Phonics too young for all of them and I should go with Phonics Lessons? One last thing, (I think) I want to teach the girls cursive now, after reading an article about teaching cursive first on Don's website. Should I teach them how to write in cursive before starting these phonics courses so that their writing and letter sounds and all that is consistent?