I'm at an all-time low energy level in my home-school now. I'm pregnant and exhausted most days. We manage to plough through the cores each day since it's all set out and very little preparation is needed. However, I always wanted our school to be a little more eclectic, a little more exciting, a little less 'school-like' (right now we are looking more like school than the schools). I would love to know of any low maintenance ideas with little preparation for a low energy hs mum. Something fun and eclectic (I guess I'm not a fun-fun person by nature) to add on?

Seems many would love Singapore Math. I actually DID SM as a little girl, the very exact standard edition you see now. I hated it then :D . I only remember Math being a very competitive subject. The textbooks are the very fundamental for passing those exams. I remember having work cards with challenging word problems that get progressively harder but everyone loved it. Maybe it's only me. I ace Math all through high school but I still hate Math:S

Thanks for the recommendation. Galore Park does look interesting. However, what goes beyond Junior English 3? I could easily keep them for reference till he turns 7 next year end :D Singapore scraped its grammar teaching for some years, only bringing it back these few years. I'm really trying to look for something quite similar to FLL, teaching digramming, but with more practice (ok, busy work). Will look at other recommendations too. Thanks.

I am presently doing FLL1 with my nearly 6 year old. He does his WWE1 independently (reads the passage and we work on the oral questions together). That is abut all to his language lesson. I plan to start more written exercises with him on grammar. I was looking at GWG, but I notice the spelling convention is mostly in American English. It is not really a huge problem as I can correct them any time. I am just wondering if there is another programme that is much like GWG (or more akin to traditional grammar for lower primary/grades - think David Crystal, Greenbaum and Quirk in the traditional sense), but written in British English? I am also concerned that some grammar convention, especially prepositions, that vary between varieties. Also any programmes similar to Explode the Code written in British English? Again, not actually a huge problem, just nice if there is one. Any advice is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

I am not so sure about 'milestones' but you might want to take note of ... 1. Reading convention - books are held right way up, pages are turned from right to left, attempts to trace the sentence with fingers as they pretend to read. 2.It is useful for children to learn phonics as it helps them with spelling and writing, beyond reading. Yet, it does not always HAVE to start from phonics. Some kids pick up whole words very fast. I try to make sure both skills are in place before i start My ds started to blend at 3.5, but i waited till he read whole words before I started him on formal instruction. It was slightly before his 4th birthday if i remember correctly. My dd on the other hand, read whole words at 2.5, but I only started her on reading when she could blend CVC at 3. So yes, my girl seems to read earlier? They are both not gifted, we just started early :D but do it real slow...,,,,

I posted the exact question sometime last year. My ds5 didn't even write his name then. He didn't enjoy drawing, painting, colouring... I tried letting him doodle, use brushes, do sticks-writing-in-sand... Then one day he decided to write. I think it's developmental. Like your ds, he reads very well. He was doing ETC4, but struggled with the actual writing. I gave up, and waited out. In the meantime, I gave him single word writing practice, just to keep those muscles working. I think the trick is to keep writing very short and manageable. Words, or tracing, something he can accomplish with flair. He reads well so one day all of it will come together, and you'll be amazed. Does he enjoy Maths? My ds loves it and wrote his equations without any problem, so that could be a starting point. My ds recently wrote a complete 'restront menu', with 'meet rolls' and 'rise'. He will turn 6 end of this year. You'll be surprised how much can change in a couple of months.

For those who are doing SM beyond 6B, there is an online living repository of work solutions to questions found in the textbooks. You can look through http://www.openlysolved.org/index.php I think it's meant to be an ongoing update on various solutions, and approaches to solving textbook questions.

Hi we use 四五快读 too. We like it a lot! Where are you living? The shipping is exorbitant. Did you try dangdang? Have you heard of SAGE? It is a good complement to 四五快读.

1 m + 1p = 4.7 If 2m and 5p cost 13 1m + 4p= 8.3 So 3p cost 8.3-4.7= 3.6 1p costs 1.2 So 1m costs 4.7-1.2=3.5 Is that the answer?

Hi there, My children are still very young so I can't be much help here from the teaching point. However, I went through Singapore Discovering Math when I was a child :) and I must say the approach to Math is very different from the Primary Math. Students doing Primary Math aim to do a Singapore exam the year they turn 12. The focus of SDM however is the British GCE/GCSE. If I remember correctly, the focus is no longer on problem solving but mathematical application. The standards are still pretty high I supposed. You get to do trigonometry, algebra and the usual introductory college level Math but I would not exactly consider that 'mentally stimulating or challenging', it's rather 'formulaic'. It may or may not be difficult for your dd, but I don't remember it was 'fun' like SPM. If you can get hold of Singapore schools exam paper, there will be many interesting and fun concepts that the SPM textbooks don't do at all! :)

:iagree:

We start the school year here in Jan. He is considered a K'er here (Jan 02 - Jan 01 the following year). I live in the country where SM comes from :P Frankly it is rare in my country to have any child NOT writing anything at 5. Most schools start the children in writing at 2.5 yo (shock?) by simple drills, other children follow suit when every other child is doing it. I just didn't want to go down the drill-kill way in writing. I was hoping it will develop naturally. Then I got impatient :bored: (Ok, ok I got worried really. To be frank, he is the ONLY child not writing amongst his peers, whether in school or homeschooled). I think I must have also missed a step seeing he reads well, and yes he needs more time to fine tune his fine motor skills. So pipe cleaners, branches, ice-cream (popsicle) sticks will work fine for now. I like the idea of writing on different surface, and in different medium. I think he will enjoy it. Blackboards? Clay? Sounds fun! O yes, we are here for the long haul. I'll hate to see him writing without comprehension (dates, days and year, names etc) now and develop aversion to learning at a later stage.

Thank you all for your comments! It really helps. Yes he is going on 5, and K'ers here are sent for 'assessment' if they are not writing by 5 (if they are in school, but he isn't), so I guess I panicked a little :P I will try letting him off a little (LOL, I'm sounding like a Tiger mama here), and use the white board for doodling. We use the whiteboard for Math and he doesn't seem to mind writing out numbers. That will save us both the agony :D Homeschooling is supposed to be fun :chillpill: His fascination with volcanoes started with a museum visit. There was a roving exhibit on Pompeii then. Shortly after was the Japanese tsunami. He hasn't seen any natural calamities saved those on books, and I do not think he will anytime soon unless we move out of the country :)

Or you can use both concurrently :) It works well together.

RS has a lot of manipulative for the children. It is a fun, games-filled way to learn Math. The children also understand and visualise quantity a lot better. RS introduces the idea of base ten in a very visual way, so the children understand place value without any struggle. I like RS, especially at preschool level. There is no labourious counting, but a lot of visualisation. SM is good I supposed. You will get many HSer who swear by SM. In my opinion, SM is not fantastic at preschool level. It gets better at Primary 2\3 onwards when they introduce bar diagrams and story sums. I did SM myself as a child, and find it only gets more rigorous at a later stage. HTH