The only place to order MUS is from MUS. They have sales reps for regions of the country. At least, the last time I ordered that's how it was set up. I'm not sure how Gamma would be unavailable. Are you sure you're on the official website? http://www.mathusee.com I just jumped over there and in my region the gamma set is available. Maybe you should call them because I did notice that the block sets are on backorder. I guess I would call so you know what it going on. Hope you get it straightened out.

My Father's World recommends Singapore up through 6B and then Saxon 8/7.

She took the instructions to be instructions not suggestions and is therefore, hesitating to do anything that doesn't follow the "rules" they have set forth. I have encouraged her to use her knowledge of phonics and teach the kids as she would want her own kids or her brothers/sisters taught in the situation. Wouldn't it be something if she could affect a change of a system that has been hurting so many kids for so many years? How exciting of a possibility, but if she can just help one struggling kidlet it will be a great thing. It just hurts my heart to realize how many of the kids at our school are being taught this way -- I've seen the results in a family at our church. They have a twenty-year old still struggling and a fourteen year old who also struggles... all because of these so-called expert methods. Such a waste . . Thanks for all the encouragement for my dd, I'll pass along the advice.

My 16yodd has accepted a wonderful opportunity to tutor some first through fourth graders several times a week at our local ps. She went to orientation last week, came home with a bunch of information and was floored at the techniques she is to use in tutoring. She was told that if a child is having trouble reading a word, she is to verbally spell out the word and then pronounce it for them. The example given was "the". Spell out "t - h - e" and then pronounce it for them. She was amazed that she wasn't to tell them, th together says "th" and then to pronounce - no - just spell the individual letters. The other technique that was encouraged is that if a child is having trouble reading a word to get them to guess at the word from the pictures. My daughter was horrified! It's been so funny hearing her reaction to all of this because my 18yods learned to read at this school and I struggled for years to undo the reading techniques that are used there. For years, he had difficulty reading any word that was new because he had been taught "high frequency" words and that's what they are still doing! The controversy we've had is whether she can respond to any problems with any phonetic instruction at all. She learned from Phonics Pathways and has helped with, and heard me teach three more kids to read that way so it's very difficult for her to seperate that teaching from what she's going to do at the school. I might have to laugh if she gets dismissed from the program for teaching <gasp> phonics!

I know it's so hard to know what to do in those situations. Let me share what we've been doing, just so you have something to compare. My 13yo did MUS up until last year when I switched him into Saxon 87. He hated it. We used the DIVE just as you are and I'm telling you the truth when I say it was a hard, hard first half of the year. He struggled with making silly mistakes, not wanting to do the work but I really wanted to make the switch (longer story involved there with some of my older kids experiences). If he got below an 80% on a test, he had to go back eight lessons and begin again which happened several times. We finally finished that book about a month ago but he has thanked me for making him stick with it. So, my advice is . . . that if you made the decision to switch over to Saxon in a thoughtful, reasoned manner (and it sounds like you did), stick with it for at least half the book and see how it goes from there. I think there is a huge learning curve in going into those middle grades in Saxon.

I've used First Form Latin from Memoria Press for that age. It's really designed for the middle school years - maybe a bit young for seventh grade, but for my seventh grader it was just right. I will say that one of the first chapters is on pronunciation and it was the first time I ever learned, after years of teaching, how to properly (is there really a proper way?) to pronounce Latin. We really enjoyed it.

We're using My Father's World. The high school level is written to the student so as to be as independent as possible. The younger grades combine 2 through 8th grades. It's working well here.

I think we must have been typing at exactly the same time. So how do you determine if someone is dysgraphic. It sounds like I need to do an internet search because I don't even know what that means.

This is the issue I struggle with, he is a stuggling speller, but a lot of times the words are right there in the chapter or are such common words that he knows how to spell them! So, sometimes I treat the issue as laziness or lack of attention to detail but then I wonder about the fact that he IS an inherently poor speller and if he just plan cannot recognize the incorrect spelling as incorrect at which point it becomes pure torture to him to have to correct it. You would think by this time I would have him figured out but this kid is always throwing me a curve. I feel like I need to identify the issue - is it lack of attention to detail or just the lack of spelling skill before I can adequately decide on a tactic. Or maybe I'm just over thinking this completely . . .

Merry - Thank you so much for these ideas. That's what I've told him - I'm trying to get him to take all the wonderful ideas he has in his head and clearly convey them to others in writing. I really appreciate the idea of having him dictate with me writing.

What I mean is, how do you handle the issue in his other subjects. We are working through PR now, so I feel like we're making really good progress but he still spells so sloppily in his other work that it's completely frustrating to both of us. If I am continually correcting his spelling he gets annoyed (and so do I), but if I ignore it he continues to get sloppier. He just completed a study guide for his science text which was just awful in the spelling department - the spelling is also handicapping his ability to express himself clearly because he writes as little as possible which leaves his answers so vague that they become almost meaningless. I think that's a seperate issue though that we're working on. Not sure about how to handle the spelling issues - should I just correct them for him, flag the errors and have him correct them, ignore them (I don't like this solution very well so you'll have to sell me on it) or something else? I'm leaning right now towards just using sticky notes to flag spelling errors for him to correct and saying nothing about it directly, just expecting corrections. Does that sound reasonable? There are some days where every other word is spelled incorrectly! Last week's notable error was "need" spelled "nead" everyday! :blink: Today was "exhail" instead of "exhale". I guess I should take some small comfort that he is at least picking mispellings that make sense :) Thanks for any suggestions.

I don't know if I'm doing it right, but I give a spelling test over any words I think may be a problem before we start the lesson each day. Usually I've been testing about 5 - 10 words, but I've got some older kids doing the program. When my little K'er starts, I'll probably test the four words given the previous day and keep some kind of list to retest problem words. I'm planning on adding extra review days into the program if we need them.

I'm on my second year of using it and I love it. It keeps me on track. I haven't been as successful keeping up with it lately as we just finish a remodel and soccer season started (keeping track of three different teams involving five of my kids is just about killing me). I find myself using Friday afternoon and Saturday afternoons to catch up on the longer jobs like cleaning the bathrooms (I just have to mop the bathroom floors every week and she only schedules it once every three weeks). I've been neglecting a lot of the little things that I really like to get done (like the clutter spots and drawer cleaning) because of time factors but every week when I replace my old sheet I always feel renewed hope that this week I'll do better :)

I absolutely agree - I wonder if she did that on purpose. The last few lessons I've been putting her on a bit of fast forward which raises her voice a pitch. I don't notice it until I switch it back to slow then I realize that her voice tone is a lot lower - LOL. It probably doesn't speed it up too much but it makes me feel like I'm spending less time at the task.

Ahhh - now I understand. Since I have youngers coming up and actually three kiddos in different parts of the program I have them on my shelf continually. I also completely understand about the switching around. Sometimes my kidlets are getting completely distracted just switching from the spelling list to the building code. I'm trying to have them get everything they need out of the notebook before we start - same with me. I'm always hunting for the words to the songs - LOL. Usually the kids start sining without me.

When I was going through Phonics 2 (just to familiarize myself with it, we're not quite there yet), I thought that those instructions meant to get the pages out from Phonics Road One - the Building Code Pages and just go over them to review the rules and the word examples. If there is a song - like the silent final e song, we'll just sing it as we go over the page. Maybe I missed something??

We've had chickens who have done this (maybe not quite as enthusiastically as yours are). What we've done is we send someone out every hour or every half-hour during the day to collect the eggs. It seems that we catch them quick enough then that they don't eat the eggs and break the habit. Can you let them free range during the day? We've also done that when we're having trouble and it gets them interested in bugs and such and distracts them from the eggs.

Lesson 8 (which really ends up being later than that since you have the two weeks of creation study and then there are six days for each letter). On Day one of the "D" week it says look at the book as an introduction to Dinosaurs.

:lol: That's probably exactly what mine would say.

Mine does this when it's overcrowded. Usually when I have company and have done lots of extra cooking or shopping and have tried to cram too much into it - maybe try to spread things out a bit if you can. Another thing I've noticed is that if the top shelf is too full it tends to freeze more things than if the top shelf has some air circulating.

I would say that my husband is not nonsupportive of our homeschooling but frequently makes comments that make me realize that it probably wouldn't even be on his radar without my participation. I have to be careful of complaining about the kids attitude or behavior during school because his response is "Put them in school". I've explained to him that it doesn't really help and seems dismissive but he sees it as an option to solve my problem so I've just decided to be careful as to how much complaining I do :) Another thing he has told me in a joking matter is that if something happens to me the kids will be on the school bus the next day. At one level this is part of a joke, but I have no doubt that he would make no effort to continue the homschooling even if it was possible without me. All that said, we are starting our 11th year of homschooling so it really is our lifestyle and the above conversations are so infrequent that sometimes I forget that he's not quite as enthusiastic as I am.

Thought I had this already scanned but I only have 2 and 3. I "think" I remember seeing the meeting strips available somewhere on the Saxon website (maybe under 'resources'). If no one comes through, maybe that will work. I would help you out but my scanner isn't functional (i.e. I don't know how to use the new one - LOL).

I'm using PR1 with my 13 yods, 9yods and 7yods. My 13yo and 9yo are doing the spelling lists at a rate of about 1 week in one day. My 13yo will continue using the spelling lists only as we go through the rest of the levels. This year I'm using "The Bridge to Latin Road" with him to give him the good grammar base he needs. Not sure we'll do Latin next year or not - I'll have to decide that later. My 9yo will move into PR2 and do all the grammar and comp that is built in - I'm hoping that he'll be able to finish a week's worth in 3 days so that we can continue into PR3 at a quicker pace. My 7 yo is doing approximately two days worth of work every day so he's going faster than recommended also (he's an "easy" child to teach in that he's always been a bit advanced). I'm explaining this to show that you can use the program at all kinds of different rates and in different ways. My 13yods was a bit resistant at first but this week I've been seeing the light dawn and heard him singing rules under his breath! Last night he even thanked me for making him do this! My current K'er is not using PR1 yet. I'm using MFW K with him but I'm teaching him all the sounds of the letters as we go and I'm going to start introducing the vowel teams and consonant teams in the spring and just roll him into PR1 at a rate which is comfortable for him. He's a young K'er (just turned 5 in July) so I am still reluctant to have him doing a "lot" of writing too quickly. HTH - we are loving PR here.

I was wondering the same thing.

I would say just keep plugging away, keep encouraging him and if he bombs a test, back up, redo the lessons involved and retake. My seventh grade son switched from MUS to Saxon 8/7 last year and it really took him about 30 - 40 lessons in the Saxon book before he got comfortable with the amount of work. He learned over time that he really needed to concentrate during the math lesson (we use the DIVE CD) and then work diligently to complete the lesson. One thing that helped him at the beginning is that when it seemed like the 30 problems were overwhelming him, we broke it into 10 problem sections. He would do the first 10 and then I would check them and we would correct together. Then the next 10, etc. We sometimes broke it up throughout the whole school day and it seemed to move a bit faster for him - didn't allow him to get bogged down in the middle. I was tempted to reduce the problems but I didn't and I'm glad because I can see how the repetition helped him as the problems got more complicated. The correcting the mistakes together seemed to be a big help to him. I would recommend also that you be very picky as to the correct answers. Make sure the labels are correct and the answers are in the correct form. I always had to actually have his book in front of me as well as the answer key because he would sometime answer in a fraction when a percent was required or vice versa and I didn't catch that for a while which set him back when I started requiring the correct form. Also, another big thing later in the book that I missed was requiring him to show his work on each problem - my ds was doing a lot of the work in his head which was fine except as the problems got more complicated, he kept on trying to do the "headwork" and couldn't, and then I had to back up and show him how to show his work. I really think that a lot of my son's problems just came from a lack of discipline. Math had been too easy for too long for him and Saxon requires him to work hard and pay attention to the little things. Sorry this got long - since I was having the same issues last year at this time, it was near to my heart :)