Sometimes I draw the tree models that Singapore used; that helps my son figure out if he's looking for a part or the whole. I also taught him to look for keywords like "how many more" and such. But for him, using smaller numbers (like his age and his brother's, for instance) really helps him visualize what it is that he wants to find.

I'm going to try CWP with my third grader next year, but you might also check out the Franklin Institute's website -- they have a lot of free word problem sheets. Might be a bit above your student, but there are a lot on there.

Another vote for GSWL -- very user-friendly, and lessons are short, so it's easier to make sure it gets done. :)

I am not having luck finding the iPad app -- any suggestions?

We moved to level 3 of Latin's Not So Tough after GSWL and like it too. Level 3 doesn't have much (any?) new grammar in it, but I opted to use it because it has quite a bit of new vocabulary. DD found it to be an easy transition; she finished Level 3 easily and is now on to Level 4 and loving it.

Thank you for getting it running again so quickly! I was able to order the PDF the other day, and I am a satisfied customer.

I have her do all lessons, just so that we make sure there are no holes, nothing skipped. I just mark what is wrong and hand it back to her; she lets me know if she doesn't know why it is wrong or otherwise needs help, and in that case, I help her. But 90 percent of the time, she figures it out herself. I also encourage her to look back at the lesson for a problem if she is stuck, because often, that helps her figure out th e problems herself.

I happen to love GSWL like nothing else, because it was a very good fit method-wise (okay, and in price too) for my daughter and for me. I do not yet know if it will be a good fit for my son, but we will try it next year. But I really felt like we got some very solid Latin instruction from it, and it was fun, too.

Yes to this.

My fifth grader is finishing up Saxon 7/6, and there has been very little new material for her. She tends to make lots of careless mistakes, however -- adds wrong (and it's not that she doesn't know her math facts; it's that she's not always paying full attention), only does half the problem, substitutes radius instead of diameter. . . I mark which ones are incorrect on the problem sets, but I don't give them a grade; I just have her go back and redo them. Most of the time, she goes, "Oh, I did something silly" and immediately knows what she did wrong; once in a grand while, it's something she forgot how to do or didn't understand all the way. Our deal on the tests is that if she gets 90% or better (and again, she only occasionally has one wrong because she really didn't know how to do it; it's almost always a careless mistake), on the next five practice sets, she only has to do 15 problems instead of all 30. If she doesn't get 90%, she has to do all 30 on the next five practice sets. She doesn't enjoy having to do so many problems, so this has given her incentive to pay close attention and to go over her work again to make sure she didn't make careless errors. I do have her redo all incorrect or skipped problems, with my help if necessary. The lowest she's gotten on a test has been 75%, so I don't feel that putting her back a level would help at all.

Can you get one or two things that are especially for the younger children? My 4yo was so thrilled to get a set of workbooks that are just for him (each of his older siblings had the same set, but since they're consumable, each child gets his/her own set at the appropriate age). Around here, it helps that we didn't start WWE until this school year, so WWE3, which DS1 will use next year, is something his older sister never used. Also, they have different skills, so their math programs are very different, so DS1 gets new stuff (actually, in that case, *he* gets new stuff because his Singapore is consumable workbooks, but DD gets used because she uses Saxon, which is not consumable). I remember lamenting this fact, though, back when I had only two children -- it didn't seem fair that DD got all the really cool toys new, and the younger one(s) would get to play with hand-me-downs. Our second is a boy, so the toys were a bit different, but a friend reminded me that second and subsequent children may get some hand-me-downs, but they also get parents who are broken in a bit and more relaxed (not to mention older siblings), so they're getting the good end of the deal in a different way.

I would learn about taking your temperatures and observing fertility signs. If you're breastfeeding, your cycles may be very irregular, but watching your fertility signs (and using a barrier method) should help a lot. I would recommend the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility. (And also, even if breastfeeding has given you a nice break in the past, it may not every time. I've breastfed all of my kids well past a year, and we have a variety of spacings -- from 3y8m down to 25 months.)

"Just as He said!" Hallelujah! Happy Easter!

I couldn't get it to work yesterday either. I have one thing I need to order from next year, the WWS1 student book, and I want the PDF version, so it has to come from PHP. I guess I will wait. :)

You sound very wise to me. :) He could just need a few years to mature a bit, or maybe he's just a very laid-back person who doesn't believe in pretending he's not tired when he is. I might not mention some of those little things to your DD quite yet, especially since he seems to have passed one big hurdle -- getting along well with other members of the family. I think I'd give it the summer, or at least a few weeks, and see how it goes. That should give you a better idea of whether there are serious issues (ie he thinks women should do all the cooking and cleaning, so he didn't offer to help), or if it's just a matter of family/cultural differences (ie his mom happened to do all of the cooking and cleaning, so it didn't occur to him to offer, but he's not opposed to doing so). I'm relatively certain that my DH does things that bug my parents, and I probably do things that bug his parents too. I'm also sure that I do things that bug my own parents, and I know DH and I do things that bug each other! But when it comes down to it, they're generally small things, and the big things are okay.

My kids love Yahtzee, Zeus on the Loose, and Sleeping Queens. And poker.

Right now, my son is working in 2B. I typically go over the textbook section with him, and I have him do (orally) a handful of practice problems to see if he understands it. Right now, he's working on basic multiplication and division; he understands the concept thoroughly, so we might cover several parts in a day (ie several of the workbook markers in the textbook). Then I hand him the workbook and have him do the practice problems in it; it's currently about four pages a day, which is about two workbook exercises. We go back to the textbook when he runs out of workbook exercises that we've covered (like, I might go over, on Monday, enough textbook parts to cover workbook exercises 14-17, so Monday he'll do WB exercises 14 and 15, Tuesday WB exercises 16 and 17, and Wednesday, I'll go over the textbook parts that cover WB exercises 18 and 19). Honestly, at this point, we don't even need the textbook; he just needs to build his fluency with the basic facts, but we go over the textbook to make sure there's nothing crucial that we missed, because Singapore sometimes does things differently from the way I learned. (But it's generally pretty intuitive for both my son and me.) I do have him do all of the workbook problems because writing the answers seems to help him remember the facts. We did smaller portions at a time in 2A when we were discussing addition and subtraction with multiple place values, because it was new to him, and I expect that we'll slow down when we reach more new stuff, but he understands the concepts, can figure out how to set up the word problems (I don't have the CWP for this level but will start it in Level 3), and gets the answers right, so I'm comfortable going faster right now.

My DH is almost that size and drives 45 miles each way every day. He drives a 2004 Ford Focus, manual, and finds it to be pretty comfortable. When we first got it, it got around 30 mpg on the highway; now that it has 187,000 miles on it, the mileage dropped a bit, but we just replaced the engine, and he says the mileage has gone back up. A newer one probably has even better gas mileage. It's been a very good car, very comfortable and pleasant to drive. (He had a Honda Civic for a while and liked it too.) (A hybrid would be even better, but the gas mileage is still not quite good enough to offset the cost of a car payment.)

Yes, very much like a white board. The stylus isn't quite as easy to use as dry erase markers are, but it does the job. :)

Notability for the win! She just creates a note and names it with the day's math lesson; it acts as an electronic paper, with a stylus (the ones that are like $3 for 10 from amazon work fine for this). It's not really any different from writing on regular paper, except that she can choose pretty colors for the writing and the background, and it's easier to do corrections. I'll just print out the few I need for her portfolio. Nooooo piles of paper! Also, I scanned her Saxon math tests into my computer and made them PDFs, so she can write directly on those with the stylus via Notability.

I love my iPad (also a second generation)! It's so handy for, well, everything. I use it for keeping notes and lists and grocery lists. I have curricula on it (and would have more, but I didn't want to have an issue with too many people needing it at the same time). I love being able to watch something or surf or do e-mail while rocking the baby or sitting in bed. I find it easier to hold than a paper book while nursing a baby. I love that I can be planning something and make notes on the PDF (go Notability app -- worth the money). I love that I can look something up quickly online without having to get up or go to the desktop computer. I love that I can take it around with me; it's a computer, GPS, notepad, book, emergency kid entertainment, knitting book, cookbook, etc. all in one device. My daughter finds it more exciting to do math on the iPad, and she likes reading on it too. (I love the Kindle app because it's so easy to use, and it bookmarks so nicely.) I have a case like this for my iPad: http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-Keyboard-Folio-Retina-Display/dp/B0079TOG82/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1364513816&sr=8-1&keywords=belkin+ipad+case+keyboard The external bluetooth keyboard really makes the iPad useful. The on-screen keyboard is nice, but the bluetooth keyboard makes it more like a small laptop. I'm typing on it right now, actually. I hardly use my desktop computer anymore, seriously (and the Dropbox app makes it easy to do stuff on the iPad and print it via the desktop, if you don't have a bluetooth or whatever it is printer that can print right from the iPad).

DS2 just started 2B. Usually he does about 4 pages in the workbook every day, but I may or may not do the textbook with him. It depends on the topic. Right now, it's just multiplication and division, which he understands completely, so it's just practicing the problems in different ways to help him learn the facts (which I like about Singapore). Going through the textbook doesn't always add anything and sometimes just wastes time. But for just the workbook, it takes him around 15 minutes, depending on how much he's staring into space. It really isn't much of a challenge for him right now, but he's not needing a challenge in concept; he's needing to cement the facts in his head. A new concept might take more like half an hour, depending on how many ways I need to explain it. We do textbook problems orally, workbook ones on paper.

Thank you, BugsMama -- your review on your blog was really helpful. I'm going to give the program a shot and see how it goes. It looks like the lesson plans for each level are $29.99 each, but I could buy them a bit at a time, as needed -- correct? Also, where would you recommend starting an 8yo and an 11yo with very little to no prior music knowledge -- Year 1, or a bit higher? How about an adult (DH and I want to try it too)?

I just checked, and our keyboard is indeed a MIDI keyboard, so I'm considering the monthly subscription to this program. Will one subscription work for several children, or does each child need his/her own subscription?

That's good to know; we could check about that. Although I wouldn't be surprised if someone didn't average 10K miles a year; I know I don't. But that would be a good thing to ask. That's my concern; the current one is paid for, but the question becomes: at what point are we sinking too much money into it? I wouldn't replace it with a similar vehicle/vintage, except for the good things I've heard about Siennas and Odysseys lasting forever.