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

My DS5 (He will turn 5 end October) is the MOST reluctant writer. He hated drawing and colouring even as a toddler and only began drawing volcanoes, tornadoes and earthquake faults recently (Don't ask me why). I know he is young and I shouldn't push it but he really HATES writing. He won't even learn to write his name! Just the other day over a playdate, he ran out of the room in a huff and I wondered why. It was only when his younger sister (DD3) came out, proudly showing off her 'writing' that I realised they had been writing and drawing inside the room. He refused to go in and just sat in the hall, pouting :( I do not think (I hope not!) he has any special needs. He is reading at Grade 3 level in English and elementary level in Chinese. He also does Math at Grade 1/2 level. However he neither draws nor writes ANYTHING (except volcanoes and earthquake faults). I tried to make him at least write his name. It worked out rather badly. Two months down, he still refuses to do it. I tried using a writing programme that is heavy on reading. We started on Explode the Code 1 and he was already struggling with the writing. I thought perhaps I should peg it at his reading level to pique his interest, so moved on to Level 4. He did the reading worksheet at amazing speed, but just will NOT write out the answers (copying single words!). He could segment all the compound words but just refused to fill in those blanks. It became such an agony for me, I stopped. He simply has no concept of 'copywork', and the only writing I could force out of him was in the form of dictation (he will sound out everything). I am sorry if I am beginning to sound long winded. This is getting very frustrating. Do you know any 5 year old who refuses even to write his name? His pencil grip seems fine, so I do not think that is the issue. Question: 1. Should I try another writing programme? 2. Or should I just 'wait it out' (until? 10? 20 yr old?) 3. Should I just, ok 'force' him to write at least one sentence a day? (So far his record is three words a day in dictation) 4. How do I go about making him write his name? (the first word he ever wrote voluntarily was not his name, it was 'Japan', after the Tsunami incident :() In other words, how should I intervene?

Country girl, Yes those are the books I was talking about. If you are in China , Amazon.cn is a better choice? I love getting Chinese books from China :) . Those illustrated and written by their homegrown artists and writers are really beautifully crafted!

Thank you all for you replies. Will look into the suggestions! Grover Yes I was looking at AAS, and am concerned if it is a lot of trouble teaching BrE spelling using AmE set? We are using ETC and I am getting tired telling him, "O this is an exception.":001_smile: Stripe I am in Singapore but I am looking for a separate spelling curriculum and cannot seem to find it here. The spelling programme here is largely drill and kill, and involves long spelling lists, which I am not sure if I want to subject myself to :(

Hi there, Is anyone familiar with any spelling curriculum that follows a largely British spelling convention? We are in a country that requires us to take a national exam, and that is the standard form used. We are following through with Jolly Phonics and Jolly Grammar, but a more thorough spelling curriculum would be great! :)

Hi all Forgot about my post! Apologies! By 'Classical' I really meant 文言文, not 繁体字。That is really the study of Chinese classics. For Chinese characters I grew up learning 简体字. I just teach my children that since they do have to take compulsory national exam when they are 12. Yes I fancy Latin more as 文言文 seems slightly more daunting. Btw, we are Chinese :)

Greetings from Singapore :001_smile: We are beginning our HS journey and we do both English and Mandarin. English is still the main language of instruction and we do Chinese as an independent subject. There is a set of very good material from China called si4 wu3 kuai4 du2 (you don't do pinyin in Taiwan? I have no Chinese character here :(). But it teaches word recognition in a very fun way :). What about a Chinese penpal for your child? I am mulling over whether to do Latin at all now. We are keen to do more than just basic conversational Mandarin and looking at classical Chinese too. Doing two Classical languages seem a little too much. Just wondering if anyone attempted doing two classical languages, or will it be too much?

My ds does both English and Mandarin(Chinese). We are fortunate to live in a country where we acquired both languages rather effortlessly. However we are thinking of starting either Latin and/or Classical Chinese. This will involve some work now :001_smile: Can anyone share any experience you have of either? I studied Latin for a while but not Classical Chinese (which is very very different from Chinese). Both are classical languages and I do not think I can handle two languages (yes it is me). Latin seems more straightforward at this point, though Chinese could be, well, practical :D Can anyone share your views on this?