I am about 9 "lessons" through WT1. So far, I like it. I need to rework it (but haven't yet) to make it into a 4-day week instead of five. (Someone else sent me a WT2 schedule for a 4-day week, but I haven't seen one for WT1. If anyone already did this, please chime in because I'd love to not do this myself.) My kid likes it and seems to be learning things, but still hates any "writing" portion - which happens once during the first week (of the two-week cycle) and twice during the second week. I think it is helpful and interesting at her stage. She's a young fourth grader who has always hated to write. FWIW, we hope to go to Classical Writing at some point - either after WT1 or after WT2.

I'd like to try colored transparencies for my dd7 for when she reads. Where is the best place to buy a selection to try? I've seen some people suggest just hitting an office supply store, but I've also seen caution against that because of the glossy/glare of that type. Anyone have a source that is either better quality (stands up to some abuse) or more inexpensive than what I've been seeing?

Horizons also has an easy-to-use & short workbook. Check the "health" link at the bottom of the page & choose by grade level. I just make note of books we've read on the subject & any hands-on stuff we did that year. I have a baby about every other year which covers a lot of "child development" and on 'off years' I'm usually potty training which involves a LOT of hygiene. We tend to do at least one "nutrition" discussion, so I include a drawing of the food pyramid (done by the children, of course).

I plan on doing a US study next year using Portraits of American Girlhood and various booklists (including SL 3+4 & BF Early American). We'll be between SOTW 3 & SOTW 4. I'm not sure if we'll skip SOTW 4 or not.

Our state asks for hours. We only do formal subject-work four days per week. I have roughly 34 weeks planned most years, not counting "summer school."

If you know your child is really struggling with school work and your vision assessment showed strongly that your child has issues, I would spend the money on VT, if only for the "minimum" they will let you do. At that point, you will be able to assess how much benefit you have received and most likely, IMO, you will be very glad you did it. And this is coming from someone who had her oldest assessed two years ago and decided NOT to do VT. (I do not regret not doing it then in the slightest. We may re-visit the issue in later years but not with the VT-therapist we originally saw. If you want to read about my daughter's VT assessment and our decision not to do VT, choose the Category "Vision Therapy" on my blog, listed below.) Most people that I know who have done VT do NOT regret it. They were almost all amazed at the difference it made for their dc. Good luck!

Missing the extra Primary Learning Log I thought I had pre-purchased last year & saved to use this year for Child #2. Ordered today. Just arrived today via UPS - Child #1's piano lesson book.

We have a longer day. I school two. My kids will have to get a lot more independent before I can add in #3.

I've found that reading (and teaching a child to read) is a path similar to learning to control one's bodily functions (potty training). Some kids "get it" early, some parents (teachers, child care workers) bang their heads against the wall repeatedly for a long time "teaching" the child to "get it," and others set the foundations, show examples, and wait for the "readiness signs" to show up before the child "gets it" on their own. Until the kid is ready, all the pushing I do is for naught. Telling the kid that they are "too young" to potty train or read if they are ready and able is rather silly, IMO. If they aren't ready, all the different techniques out there won't work to make it click in their head. But once it does click, you are off & running!

http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/201008230.asp "At this time we do not believe it is necessary to make any more phone calls to MATHCOUNTS."

I didn't find "Notes to Teachers" much help. I did think "First Grade Diary" was *essential* to understanding what the heck Miquon was all about. We have the tray. They are currently in the tray. However, they probably won't stay in the tray when we are using them everyday. I foresee a shallow Rubbermaid container of some sort being where they "live" once school starts. It doesn't help that there are too many of certain colors to fit into their specific "home" on the official tray and not enough rods to fill up other sections. Good luck!

I saw it at an Usborne party. It would definitely not be for my kids - neither of whom like math. Another mom was looking at it because her son "teaches" himself math and learns better by reading something than being taught by someone else. IMO, it wasn't for really young kids (under 7). If the child likes numbers and figuring out things themselves, maybe. See if your local Usborne consultant has a copy at which you can look.

My two older dd have enjoyed SOTW 1 & 2. We only do the activities that I think they would enjoy & that I can handle as far as the mess & planning. :tongue_smilie: Some kids don't like it, some do. I'm not sure it is gender-specific, more like kid-and-parent specific.

My kids have "grown out" of this for the most part. My older two were obviously & painfully shy. They are still reticent to talk to those they do not know - even with me there. They eventually warm up to most people/kids given time. Now people who knew them when they were younger marvel that they are as independent as they are. I let mine be "shy" as long as they wanted. Some kids might need the gentle pushing to get beyond their shyness. Mine did it with age. Good luck.

:iagree: I can tell you my oldest two "styles" a la Cathy Duffy's "types" (social sue, wiggly willy, perfect paula). My oldest hates writing and couldn't sit still (unless being read to) for very long. My #2 kid loves to be around others, loves to have a pencil/pen/marker in hand all the time (very artistic). I figure them out as they come to "school age" and I agree completely that they change as they get older. Good luck! :-)

Gosh, I figured I messed up my oldest dd for good because she does this. :blush: In trying to correct this (and keep it from happening as much with dd#2), they are reading out loud to me every day. My oldest reads very quickly (now) and she doesn't take the time to figure out the word pronouncement because she knows what it means from context. She does this REALLY often to people's names. I used to call the "Wii" a "WE." Caused no end to giggles from my techno-savvy friends. My DH & I are neo-Luddites. :D

I have a dd who I consider very "bright" who will be turning 5 in January. Unlike most of those who posted here, she is not at all interested in or ready to do "K" work. (She can't tell you written numbers or letters yet. She has just barely started to be interested in writing her name. However, she has always been one to figure things out on her own quickly when interested. She figured out where I kept the hard candy in the van (locked in the glove compartment), got the keys to the van, crawled in through an open window, found the correct key & opened the glove compartment -- at the age of just-turned-2. She's the type who at not-quite-1 would push a chair over to an object so she could climb up and get something she wanted.) Anyway, my advice is to let school be child-led. If he wants to work on "school" stuff, you have the stuff there. If you start on a lesson and he wants to quit before it is formally "finished," don't push. Let it drop, even if you have only one or two more "things" (problems, activities, letters, etc.) to do. If he doesn't want to do something every day, just do the stuff on the days he is interested. It will seem really disjointed to you. You may end up doing some things multiple times if he doesn't retain the info, but you won't hurt his love of learning. If he wants to do "school" every day, go ahead. IMO, tagging along with older sibs is great stuff. Just be ready to help with things that are beyond his level or provide him with a slightly simpler version of older sibs work if he wants it. (This might mean more work for you of course.) I wouldn't care about labeling yet. I also would keep only samples (stuff you like) of work rather than everything. If he can do higher level work next year, that shows he knows the prior stuff, yes?

Since I live in such a small town, there are very few school options. For those who don't know I homeschool, they sometimes ask my kid(s), "Who is your teacher this year?" or "What grade are you in?" I let the kids have the first option to answer. My second oldest just pointed to me for the first question when asked at the pool this summer. It stunned to silence the questioner. (Not sure I'd ever seen that particular person at a loss for words before.) My third child isn't yet of "school age" but looks like she could go to K this fall. She gets a lot of "Are you excited about Kindergarten?" questions when we are out and about. She isn't interested in school at all, so she usually flashes them a smile and starts talking about something completely different (like her cute little brother). Thick skin is helpful when homeschooling, but it is not required.

I agree on WWE - if you have the workbook, it is all planned out for you. Lesson planning in general - I look at what I'd like to cover for a time span (a school year or a month - whatever). Gage how many lessons or how long the chapters are, etc. Divide the # of lessons/chapters by the time. Determine what you'd like to do for each chapter & then put that on a schedule. Specifically for SOTW, I start by going through the AG and marking with a pencil which books and activites look promising. -I have girls who like to color, so we generally do the coloring pages. -About 70% of the time, we do the map. If two chapters have basically the same map or we just did that map a few chapters ago, we might either use the same map as before or skip the map that chapter. -We like to cook, so we did several of the cooking activities in SOTW 2. We might not have an activity each chapter. We might have two activities in one chapter. -The crafts are sometimes waaaay too involved for us. We hardly ever did the craft activities in SOTW 2. Now, with the SOTW text in hand, I gage how many pages we can read in one day's lesson. On something like Donna Young's Quarterly Planning sheet (http://donnayoung.org/f10/planner-f/f-school-pdf/quarter_v1.pdf), I write down the chapter, page numbers of the text, activity guide student pages (coloring, map, etc.) we want to do each day, and then a maximum of one activity per class time. We do history for an hour twice per week, so I use that as a rule of thumb when planning. Separately, I check my library to see if they have the books I marked. For the ones the library has, I make a list on the computer with a blank column (to be filled in later), the chapter number from SOTW, the title of the book & author, the call # (which I need at my local library to find the book), and a blank column (to make a check mark when we are done reading the book). I go back later and fill in the blank column with the "day #" from my planning sheet that I will need the book. We don't always read a book during the exact time we are studying it. I use a rough two week timespan before & after. We don't read these during History school time, but during assigned reading or as read-alouds at night. With these sheets, I can figure out what AG student pages need to be copied, what I need to prepare for a lesson (getting materials together beforehand), and what books I need to pick up from the library. I generally plan history (SOTW), science, and religion. This year, I'm planning spelling (SWR) and not planning science (as we're doing mostly hands-on stuff and I don't know how quickly or slowly we are going to go through my kits). As many others have pointed out, SOTW doesn't always get done during one school year. I don't hold myself back by trying to cram everything into a certain # of weeks with SOTW. Hope that helped!

I don't hardly ever make my kids write their full names and date on pages. SOTW coloring pages & maps must have initials on them because I can't tell them apart otherwise (anymore). We don't tear out pages in our math workbooks, so writing one's name over & over again at the top would be silly at our house, IMO. I think you should have your own rules in your own house, so the fact that others have their kids do this won't influence me and I hope my opinion doesn't influence you. :)

I don't have time to address this right now with the MathCounts board, but perhaps next week I will call. I competed in MathCounts when I was in school and am now a registered Professional Engineer & active in NSPE (the group who started MathCounts oh-so-many-years-ago). I can understand them not wanting to have "enrichment centers" (etc) registering as homeschools, but if homeschools are only 1-2% of the participants, that would mean the cheater "tutoring/enrichment" people have to be much less than that. Why punish the homeschoolers for the cheaters? Keep spreading the word on this, guys. Make sure to be gracious but keep pushing to be treated equally with the public/private school types. Us Engineers are sometimes very structured and only logic (not feeling) gets through our thick heads. :tongue_smilie:

http://bienfait.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/spell-to-write-and-read-swr/ Here's the post I wrote earlier this year about SWR at our house. It might give you a better idea what it is all about. You can use it with "any" age (from 4 to adult, I'd say). It is time intensive, IMO, for the teacher for sure and depending on your child(ren), also sometimes for the student.

I'd go by time. I might also stipulate that any problems that are incorrect will need to be redone outside of the required time.

In my "master" binder, I have my notes from when I'm planning the year (these are some of my rough notes from when I'm trying to decide what to cover for each child or what TWTM says for for each subject, etc.) and a rough calendar for the school year. That's my 1st "Planning/Scheduling" tab. Then I have a "Math" tab - placement tests, extra worksheets that I've printed from the internet for extra practice, and all tests from their main program. I put a little "post-it" colored tag on the first page of each child so I can find their section quickly. I have a "spelling" (Language Arts) tab. Into this goes spelling tests, placement tests, beginning/end of the year writing samples, and loose sheets (not in child's notebook) of any copywork. I have a "religion" and "art" and "poetry" tab. Finally, I have a "group info/field trip" tab for outside activities. I make sure to include a couple of empty clear slip cover sheets in this section as there are usually a few "mementos" from field trips that these keep safe. I have a separate & very thin "lesson plans" book that has book lists for reference & my lesson plans. When the year is done, these pages go into my master binder in the schedule/planning section.

The question on "spiral" vs. "mastery" is a good one to ask yourself. Also think about how your oldest learns best (if you know) - auditory, visual, hands-on, etc. A spiral program will introduce a concept (or part of a concept) and have a few examples for the child to work on, then there will be review of previous concepts from past lessons. If your child tends to forget things they haven't seen in awhile, you'll want to make sure your program has sufficient review each lesson. A mastery program will introduce only *one* concept at a time and work on it until your child has "mastered" it. (Some mastery programs include review. I believe MUS has some review built-in, but I'm not positive.) My kids (so far) do best with a spiral math program because of the frequency of review and the fact that they get the new concepts in chunks they can easily digest. However, I know some children get VERY frustrated by spiral programs because they don't seem to get enough practice before moving onto something else or they can't see the "whole picture" before getting something else thrown at them. (A Beka might introduce carrying to the tens place, then measurement the next day, then add counting by 25s, then geometrical shapes, then carrying to the hundreds place, then money (quarters), then halving shapes, etc. It can be frustrating for the child.) Once you have in your head "spiral / mastery," you narrow down your math choices some. How does your child learn best? How much time do you have to teach? Do you want a "scripted program" where it tells you how to teach your child at each step of the way? Does your child like color/flashy workbook pages or is that distracting to them? Etc. Everyone has their "favorite" math program - the best one for you is the one that fits your way to teach and your child's way to learn. Try to answer these questions and then come back and the Hive Mind can best help you narrow down your choices based on what fits your family best. What SWB said in TWTM might not be the best choice for you. (And, honestly, if MCP worked fine, you might not want to switch. If it ain't broke & all that ....)