Rosie
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Posts posted by Rosie
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Thank you! A couple questions about Sonlight:
how much time would it take a day? I really like the idea of combining cores. My 6yo could read independently and that would save a lot of time on my part!
How much of SL is consumables and how much is re-usable? I know they have a strong literature base and that appeals to me. But approximately how much am I going to shell out per student each year for individual workbooks?
Sonlight is pricey but if I can re-use a great amount of it then it becomes a lot more manageable long-term.
Also, does it have scheduling options? Can I do a 4-day week, or shorter days 5-day week? If we wind up putting things off until another day is it pretty easy to track where you are with everything?
it?
Core A took us about 30-45 minutes per day (that's not including the LA) and Core B takes us a bit longer, maybe up to an hour (though it's kind of hard to tell because I just take the week's schedule and read what I want to each day, making sure I get the whole week done but not worrying about whether I'm doing the specific day's readings or not).
I wouldn't suggest having your 6yo read independently unless he is reading TO you as the topics in the Read Alouds and History can be pretty difficult at times and really are meant for the parent and child to do together (which is why many people use one Core for 2-3 children). Sonlight's LA has readers that go along with the LA package and that is what the child is supposed to read by himself. I've heard that the difficulty of the topics (death, war, sexuality, etc.) steps up in Core D and that's where you especially need to make sure you're having discussions about the books with your kids. Make sure to read Sonlight's 27 reason's NOT to buy Sonlight. That will help you make a decision.
Most of Sonlight is reusable. You would have to buy LA worksheets for each child and I think they are around $11 per set. There are a few workbooks in a few Cores (Core P4/5, Core D and Core E are the ones that come to my mind) that would need to be repurchased for later children, but the vast majority of Sonlight is just good books that you can either keep forever or sell to get much of your expense back.
Oh, I also think their Science has worksheets. We used them one year and didn't like them at all so now we just read the books from their Science Cores without doing worksheets.
Yes, there is a 4-day and a 5-day option and as of this year they are now interchangeable - meaning that you can do 4-day for a few weeks and then do 5-day for a while and then switch back if you want. There are specific books that are only put on the 5 day schedule so that you can pick and choose what you want to do.
Also, you don't have to follow the schedule exactly as it's laid out M-F. You can just "do the next day" in the schedule without worrying what day of the week it is. Or you could do what we do and just try to get the week's worth of reading done in a week and don't worry about the order you read everything in. (We like to read large chunks out of one book instead of small chunks out of many books so this way works better for us.)
HTH!
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Sonlight may be what you're looking for. It is Bible, Literature, History/Geography, Poetry, Language Arts - and you can also add their Science, too. The only caution is that their LA seems to have a lot of writing, but it could be done orally if it is too much actual handwriting for your child. If you go with Sonlight, you will most likely want to put your 6/4 yo together and eventually your 3/1 yo together in a separate Core. Core A would probably be a good fit for next year for you, possibly even P4/5.
As for Science, we just read a bunch of books for the elementary years. (See if your library has the Let's-Read-And-Find-Out series for starters!) I'm sure there are people who wouldn't think that's enough, and maybe people who think it's too much, but that's how we do it here!
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I love all these replies! Thanks for taking time to chat with me. I was debating getting the three cores because my son (will be 5 in October) has always loved school. I'm not sure what level would work best because he is advanced in certain areas and wasn't sure which would fit him best. My daughter (you know...the gold medal acrobatic gymnast, haha!) is 2 so I thought she'd love the 3/4 set, which would def. be too young for my son. It's a challenge to keep things interesting for my son. He just soaks up learning, as does my daughter. We have several different curriculums I use just to keep things new for them or they get bored. RS4K, Language lessons for little ones, etc. of course several blogs that have printables (1+1+1=1, confessions of a homeschoolers, etc). My son has mastered addition already and is starting subtraction, can read bob books without help, is writing, etc so the age appropriate stuff us appealing to him, just super easy. My daughter just turned 2 last week and counts to 15, know the abc's and their sounds, and we are close to mastering shapes and colors but she's stubborn and it's going to be on her terms haha! I'm hoping between all the advice given I can come up with something to help me out.....like I mentioned before, free time with this 4 month old is just not happening so I'm not as creative as I was with lessons! My kids both beg to do school, they really are sponges at this age and soak up so much...I just hope I can deliver for them!
There is something that many people find very confusing when first starting to homeschool or first using Sonlight...
Academic skill level has nothing to do with read-alouds.
Good books are good books no matter what age you are. My oldest dd was reading at 3, doing 1st grade level math at 4... we did Core P4/5 when she was 5/6 and Core A when she was 7 and it was perfect. She is now 8yo and doing Core B and it is still perfect! She gets much more out of Sonlight than my 6yo (who still gets quite a lot out of it, I must say).
Think of Math and Language Arts separately from the Sonlight Cores. The Cores are more about maturity level, not academic level. When choosing a Core level you should think more about the length of time your child can sit still, whether he/she is ready for topics such as homelessness, death, war, etc., whether he/she needs books with pictures or can listen attentively with few pictures.
So, my suggestion, if you are trying to save money, would be to choose ONE of the PreK Cores to buy and then get a bunch of books from the library. Or just get as much as you can from the library and buy the rest from Sonlight. I just looked at the P3/4 list and my 8 and 6yo girls still love those books. If you want to combine your kids in a core in the future, you might think about doing that one instead of P4/5 next year for your older. Go into any Kindergarten classroom and that is the level of books they are reading. You won't be "holding your 5yo back," and if you really want to, you can add a few easy chapter books into the mix for him.
Basically, Sonlight is a great book list with a helpful schedule for busy moms (moreso in Core B and up, I think, though). Math and LA are separate from the Core. Keep that in mind when choosing....
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He excels in math, but is a visual type who would love to see colorful videos, interactive games etc. He wants "fun math." I looked into Bob Jones dvd and that is not going to work for us. He watched the sample for Teaching Textbooks and deemed that "boring" too.
Do you know of an interactive, on-line, or video type curriculum? Do you have a supplemental computer game that you could recommend (for a 9 yr. old)?
Advice Please!!!
If I were in your position, I'd seriously look into Beast Academy. It is colorful, fun, and challenging. The level of thinking involved would not make it a step back even though the books say 3rd grade. After their 5th grade level, children should be ready for their Pre-Algebra book. There is an online component for their Pre-Algebra and up and they will eventually have that for BA as well.
And I'd add in http://www.coolmath-games.com for fun, maybe Khan Academy if he likes that and some of the other online suggestions already given.
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Some of you talked about early readers that mostly memorized words and are poor spellers because of it. That is one of my worries. I learned to read at 4 memorizing word with no phonics whatsoever, and I am also a terrible speller and I can't pronounce new words that I've never heard before. And I am afraid of the same thing happening to my kids. Thankfully ds-turns-3-tomorrow learned his letters and sounds and putting them together is how he's reading. But he is also memorizing some words. I'm studding up on the rules I never learned so that I'm ready to explain when he comes across a new words.
-Anya
He sounds like my oldest dd at that age. By 3.5 she was reading Dr. Suess level books so that is what I call her "official" reading age, but at 3 she was definitely sounding out short words. I was worried, too, about her memorizing words and then hitting a wall at some point in the future because of not learning phonics well enough.
What I did was use OPGTR as a guide to know what order to teach. I would make up sentences for her that had to do with her life, using words she knew and words I wanted to teach. That was our actual "teaching to read" time. But the other thing that really helped was to have her read books to me and when she stumbled on a word I would point out the phonics that she needed to know. So if she was trying to read the word "boat" I would say, "When you see OA you usually will say OH. The A is silent." That way I was sure that I was teaching the phonics that was so important and I knew I was teaching at her level.
Also, there ARE some words that actually need to be taught by sight. THERE. TO. THROUGH. COUGH. ROUGH. LOVE. The words that don't follow phonetic rules need to just be memorized. Using OPGTR will help you know what the phonetic rules actually are so you know which words don't follow the rules.
I remember being in your shoes, being worried, not sure how it would all turn out, and of course not having anyone understand why on earth I would be CONCERNED about my dd reading EARLY. My dd is now an excellent reader (reads phonetically) and speller. I don't know if it has anything to do with how I handled it all when she was 3 or if she would have turned out this way anyway, but I just wanted to reassure you that it IS possible for an early reader to learn phonics!
I hope that helps!
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So what are folks plans for things to do while we wait. "What to expect when your expecting... the release of Beast Academy 3C?"
Ideas, suggestions...
Just thinking ahead.
We'll be doing Primary Grade Challenge Math and CWP 3. I also have Singapore texbooks up to 4B, so we might do those. And I'm considering buying Math Mammoth Blue books if I find skills that need more work when we come across them in BA. Oh, and maybe Khan Academy. And iPod/iPad math/logic games. And math journaling. OK, I think that's all!
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Is anyone planning to scan the workbook pages and do them on the iPad?
We'll be doing this. It is actually part of the reason I relented and let my dh buy the new iPad. It will enable my dd to redo the pages if she needs more practice, plus my younger two will use it eventually, too. We just need to figure out how our printer/scanner can get scans to our computer! I wish BA sold a PDF version. It would make my life simpler!
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I just got the books yesterday and have been looking through them. I think if you were to hand over the books to them it would be very likely that they would fly through the Guides and hardly touch the Practice books. The Guides are cute and fun. The Practice books are hard - specifically the starred problems. I don't think most kids would have the character or stamina on their own to work through it without an adult guiding them. At least, mine wouldn't!
I plan on working through the books exactly as the authors have it planned out (certain pages in the Guides go with certain pages in the practice books). My dd will not be allowed to read ahead in the Guide at all. This will hopefully keep excitement high and be a motivator to do the hard work required in the Practice books.
I think that people who want to use BA as a supplement will most likely just end up buying the Guides. I really don't think there are too many kids out there who would put forth the effort to work through the Practice books alone once they realize how hard many of the problems are. Though, I suppose you could tell them they don't have to do any starred problems. But, IMO, those starred problems are one of the things that make this curriculum special. The reason I'm so excited about BA is because of it's potential to make my kids use their noggins. I think you'd be missing a major component to the curriculum if your kids don't attempt the starred problems.
Of course, we haven't actually used it yet so I could be totally wrong! Just my 2 cents!
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I've seen a lot of good comments re: miquon, but don't feel like I can figure out exactly what it is. Is there a Miquon website that explains it better (a google search only gave me places that sold it)? What do you like about it? What does it look like in your home- time spent/how the math is taught, etc. What all do you think is important to purchase (money is not a concern, although it seems relatively inexpensive from what I can see).
Thanks.
I guess what I am trying to understand is why is it so different? What is it teaching that makes it difficult for others to grasp/figure out?Sonlight's website explains it very clearly. You should check that out.
To purchase: Lab Sheet Annotations, Orange and Red book to start out, Small group set of plastic C-rods. Also, some base ten hundreds flats are helpful as well as the First Grade Diary and Notes to teachers, but they are not exactly necessary.
What I like most about Miquon is that it develops number sense. My kids are not just memorizing the steps to add or subtract large numbers or to multiply fractions by whole numbers. They ACTUALLY understand the concepts because the C-rods create a geometric visual that they can refer back to mentally for the rest of their lives. I've found Miquon helpful in creating an intuitive understanding of number bonds (as opposed to counting strategies), the commutative and associative properties of addition, the commutative and distributive properties of multiplication, multiplying numbers greater than 10 mentally, and multiplying fractions by whole numbers.
I like that Miquon teaches you to say "of" for the multiplication symbol and "haw many ____ are in _____?" for division. Those two things have made math so much more clear!
We use Singapore along with Miquon for the early elementary years and I really like the mental math strategies taught in Singapore, but if I could only choose one program it would be Miquon. (OK, maybe I'd add in the Math Mammoth add/subtract blue books so we could learn the mental math, too!)
We've mostly just gone straight through it. Sometimes we do it every other day (with Singapore on the opposite days), sometimes every other week, sometimes we take a break for a few months and then pick it up and do it exclusively for a few months. My girls can often do it without my help but I'm always available if they need me.
Yes, it is very different from any other math curricula out there. First of all it teaches in a different sequence. It doesn't get around to teaching about "carrying" and such until the 5th book, I think, but you'll find multiplication and fractions in the first book (maybe division, too? can't remember right now). It is supposedly for 1st-3rd, but we started successfully at 4ish years old and there are topics in the later books not usually covered until 4th, 5th, or even middle school in other textbooks. (squares, graphing, sets, multiplying fractions, etc.)
It also uses a different method of introducing topics and skills. Instead of stating explicitly how to do a certain type of problem and then having the student practice more of that same type of problem, Miquon usually will have little or no instructions on a page but will do the first problem or two for you to give you enough clue as to how the rest of the page should be done. You basically have to figure out what you are supposed to do. My girls find this frustrating, but I think it's good for them. They don't like to turn their brains on sometimes and Miquon makes them do so by presenting them with something they've never seen before and making them figure out what to do. (Caveat: sometimes neither they nor I can figure out what to do and that's when I check the Lab Sheet Annotations. That's about the only time I use it.)
This is not a scripted program. You kind of have to have faith that it will work out. Maybe doing Singapore along with Miquon helped me to have that faith, I'm not sure. But I've seen what a clear understanding of number concepts that my girls have now and Miquon was a big contributing factor to that.
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Yep, clear contact paper. I used that to cover our MCT books. They are still "paperback" but feel more sturdy.
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Then I hear 99% of the people who bought it have 7 year olds, so I begin to wonder. I'm assuming this program is drawing the gifted crowd?
Lisa
I think you're probably right. I'll be using it with an 8.5yo (who, if she even is gifted, would be more so in the LA type stuff), but my 6yo should be ready for it within a year, I think, so that would put her at 7yo when starting it. And she definitely is "mathy."
I have a feeling it will be used as a full curriculum more often by gifted kids and the guides used as a supplement more often for "average" kids. Just a guess.
I'm also wondering if this will pull from the Life of Fred crowd. People seem to like LoF because of it having a storyline and being so different from any other program out there. It looks like BA takes it one (or several!) step further by adding better graphics, more characters, and what looks like it will be a more engaging story. It also will absolutely be a more complete program than LoF elementary.
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My 8yo will finish Miquon and Singapore 2B in the next week and then we will start immediately on BA. I plan on doing Primary Challenge Math one day per week and adding in CWP 3 at some point. We also have Singapore 3A-4B if we need it. And Khan Academy.
I'm going to let my dd decide if she wants to do BA through the summer or not. I have no idea what she'll want to do, but that will for sure affect how far we get in the program before they release the next book(s).
I think we have enough to keep us busy while we wait.... but hopefully we won't have to wait!
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Did you order from the AoPS website or from Beast? :confused:
I got my shipping notice today, too. I ordered through the AoPS website and it is coming via media mail.
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We'll be guinea pigs!!!
I just ordered all 4 BA books along with Pre-Algebra (for me!) and we will begin as soon as they get here. DD8 still needs to finish Miquon purple and the mental math pages in Singapore 2B before I let her start BA. I have a feeling they will be done in the next couple days! Hehe! She asked if she could go do math tonight and it was already 30 minutes after bed time so I had to tell her no, but I'd bet anything that she'll be up at 7am doing math while I'm still in bed sleeping tomorrow morning!
I did the assessment with her and she had a hard time with the odd/even basketball problem, but everything else she got right. It looks like it should be a great fit! I'm so excited about this! And I feel like such a dork!!!
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Is right start similar to miquon in that it helps them have a conceptual understanding but without counting using manipulatives?
Yes. From what I've heard that is a big focus in RightStart.
I like something that tells me what to do and say and I will have money from the state to use once she is officially old enough.I'm pretty sure RightStart is scripted. Miquon is not.
I know she need some work on memorizing the facts too and I don't know the best way to do that.If you use a conceptual program with emphasis on mental math then she only needs to memorize the facts to 10. She can do that through lots of games. The facts to 20 will be taught in Miquon, RightStart, or Singapore through mental manipulation of numbers so they don't need to be memorized. They are actually "figured" out.
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I see you're using Singapore Earlybird. Those problems will come up again in Singapore 1A. You will know if she has it memorized when she doesn't use manipulatives anymore. You will know she understands it if she is using the manipulatives correctly.
I agree that Miquon would be helpful. We use both programs. The Cuisenaire rods encourage understanding of number bonds without counting. Counting is good to know at the kindergarten level, but once you move forward it is much better for children to be able to visualize quantities and mentally manipulate numbers in their heads. They do this by using manipulatives with programs that encourage mental math (Miquon and Singapore, for instance). Cuisenaire Rods and Base Ten Flats are the best manipulatives you can buy IMO.
You're right that she could do any add/sub problem as long as she can count that high, but, no, it's not the best way because it could take forever and does not rely on an understanding of place value. It will become more clear to you once you start Singapore 1A. It sounds like she is doing fine for now, though!
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http://www.thinkingblocks.com/index.html
They would do these online. They are not worksheets.
Also, Singapore's Challenging Word Problems books. You'd probably want to start at level 3 as they really are challenging. Singapore uses the bar model which is the same as the above link.
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I think I would be comfortable not doing a *curriculum* per se, but I would like to find an outline of things to study or list of goals...so I know what to work on and know what he should be able to do by the end of the year.
This one looks good (except for using fingers to count)...
http://www.utdanacenter.org/k12mathbenchmarks/elementary/k.php
You can find more if you google it, but they should all be pretty similar. It shouldn't be too hard to come up with ways to teach these concepts without worksheets/curriculum.
Even if you don't use Miquon, Cuisenaire Rods would be good to get. They are my absolute favorite manipulative and I use them all the time even for advanced concepts. It would be good to get a small group set to play around with together. They encourage understanding of number bonds without the temptation to count.
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Well, I could tell you what works for us, but I think the important thing is that you think through what you want and what you are comfortable with...
Do you want a conceptual math program - one that helps your child understand the math concepts and not just memorize the steps to solving specific types of problems?
If yes, then are you willing to learn along with your child as you go along?
If yes, then what style do you and your child like best? Colorful? B&W? Workbooky? Lots on a page? Little on a page? Manipulatives? Discovery? Lecture? Mastery? Spiral?
You may not know the answers to these questions, and that's OK. In that case, read, read, read what other people like and see what appeals to you. See if you can get to a convention or borrow someone's books to actually sit and look through so you have a better idea of what each curriculum is like. And eventually make a choice. And if it doesn't work out, try something different until you find one that works.
Now, if you're actually interested in what's worked for us....
We do Singapore and Miquon and LOVE both. Singapore is strong in mental math and word problems. It is more traditional in it's style of teaching and it's sequence of topics. My kids have strong mental math abilities because of this program. Miquon is discovery based and probably looks like nothing you've ever seen. It is very plain looking, but that plainness hides a true gem. My kids "get" math because of this program. They understand fractions and number bonds and the distributive property - things that would have scared me to death several years ago! I've learned along with my girls in most programs. I always got good grades in math but never understood why I was doing what I was taught to do. These 2 programs have made the lightbulb go on. I'm so glad we've found them!
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Would you be comfortable not doing a curriculum for his K year? Just count things all day long. Have him jump rope and see how many jumps he can do. Play with pattern blocks and Base 10 blocks and legos. Talk about greater/less than, more/fewer, equal, bigger/smaller, etc. Measure things around the house. Sort laundry or buttons or anything you can find. Work on number bonds... "How many people are in our family? How many are girls and how many are boys? How many are children and how many are adults?"
If you really want a curriculum, I'd go with Miquon. Let him choose the page he wants to do. Set the timer for 3 minutes and have him stop when the timer dings. Slowly work up to 5 minutes. Then maybe more. Maybe do it 2-3 times per day.
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Just by looking at MCT samples it seems like it would be a good fit for her. I do have to consider the $$ though. I notice you use the MCT Island which is the one I would choose for dd. Do you like the layout and think it "worth it" so to speak? I am considering WWE also. Thanks for you help!
Hmmmm.... Well, most people seem to be "in love" with MCT and I'm just "in like" with it. This may be partly (or maybe mostly) because I don't think grammar is as important as the author of the books or the majority of the people on this forum think it is. I do want my kids to learn grammar, but I'm not convinced it needs to be every single year or even that my kids wouldn't be able to write without grammar instruction.
So, with that said, my response to this may be different from the majority here so you might want to start another thread about it. But here is my opinion and experience...
We just started in December, so we are not even halfway through the program yet. We finished Grammar Island and are about 1/4 through Sentence Island. We are also 1/4 through Music of the Hemispheres and have started on Practice Island. I didn't get the vocab book because I kept reading that it was the weakest book in the series and that the later vocab books were so much better.
It is definitely creatively done. It's not a workbook program like every other one out there. I like that it is in story form. The story is not great literature, though. It reminds me of Life of Fred, which I have mixed feelings about, too.
I bought it specifically for my 8yo, but my 6yo is tagging along. Actually, my 6yo seems to like it better than my 8yo. She takes Grammar Island and Sentence Island into bed with her at night to read before lights out! :lol: My 8yo definitely gets the concepts quicker. She's always seemed gifted in LA areas, though, so that doesn't surprise me. Her sister is more of a mathy/artistic kid.
For some reason they always get kind of wild when we read MCT books. I'm not sure why. You might not have that problem since you'll only be using it with one child.
The layout is... OK. I kind of like that they don't have much on a page, but wish the words were smaller with more margin room instead of the words being so big and filling up the page. They also need to hire a better graphic designer. There are just little things that bug me, sometimes. I think there might have been pixelated pictures and some things overlapping that didn't look right in some of the books. My husband is a graphic design artist, though, so I'm sure I notice these things more than the average person. I wouldn't not buy the curriculum just because of those things, but it would help if they were improved.
It is sometimes hard to know where to stop in the book. Sentence Island is just one long story and there aren't many natural stopping points. It is most definitely the opposite of workbooky!
I like the 4 part sentence analysis. It helped me understand some things better than learning diagramming in middle school did. I'm not too hot on the sentences so far in Practice Island because they all seem to be about fish. I understand that is the theme of the Island series. It's just not my favorite theme in the world, so it gets kind of redundantly repetitive....
As far as whether I think it is "worth it" - well, if I didn't have the money for it I still think my girls would be getting a complete education without it. It is nice to have, though, especially since I felt like my 8yo could use more LA so it has provided that. But, again, remember I'm not big on grammar and Grammar Island, Sentence Island, and Practice Island are all about grammar. The poetry book is very advanced - again, nice to have but not necessary IMO at this point.
If you just want enough grammar to cover standardized tests than a workbook curriculum would suffice, but it certainly wouldn't be as fun.
WWE covers totally different things than MCT. IMO, what WWE covers is more important than what MCT covers for a 3rd grader.
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How many hours a week would you say you spend on the following related to homeschooling:
staying organized - 10 minutes
I put all artwork that is not being displayed and our completed weekly schedules in a cupboard and every few months I separate the artwork into the appropriate boxes (each girl has her own huge box) and file the schedules in a folder so I can look back and see what we did all year. I make sure the girls have put their schedules in their folders at the end of the day. I make sure all books are put away each day.
gathering materials - 5 minutes
Everything is easily accessible so it doesn't take long.
researching topics for subjects you don't have a set curriculum on - 10 minutes
We don't have a set curriculum for Science. And we have a bunch of curriculum for LA, but I still often like to come up with my own thing. For Science, I just choose a book from home to read out loud or, if my dds have expressed a certain interest, I get books on that topic from the library. For LA, I sometimes get ideas for writing topics from here or one might just pop in my head. I don't really go looking for them.
tracking down books in the library/ordering through online catalog - 10 minutes - 1 hour
I don't do this every week, but when my girls express an interest in a particular subject (dinosaurs, volcanoes, etc.) I do on Amazon and find books that look promising then see if my library or interlibrary loan has them. Any ordering I do online is rare, though I will research to death before deciding to buy a particular curriculum so that takes a lot of time, but it's fun for me. It's my down time.
surfing web for related activities/worksheets - 5 minutes
We don't do much of this. Every once in a while we'll look up a picture of something or a definition of a word. For instance, we read The Wheel on the School and needed to look up pictures of dikes because my girls couldn't picture what it would look like. It took all of 5 minutes. We don't really do a lot of activities or worksheets. We sometimes watch math or science videos online for fun, but it doesn't necessarily go with our curriculum.
planning out your lessons - 1 hour
I do this throughout the week, a little here, a little there. I made a tablet in Microsoft Word that is 5 columns x 8 rows. The top of each column says the day of the week, Monday through Friday. I list what I want them to get accomplished each day. So, under Thursday there might be - Rosetta Stone Spanish, Primary Grade Challenge Math & Mental Math, Sonlight Worksheet #7, CWP page 145, #17-18, Reading Time with Mama, Read science books for 30 minutes, Chores, iPod - Fling. Each would be in its own box. On Sundays I verify that everything is how I want it to be for the week, print out the sheets and put one in each girl's folder.
I also sometimes have to look over what's coming up in Singapore so I know whether and when I need to teach new concepts. Most of my curriculum is open and go, though.
etc., etc., etc., :ack2:
Honestly, my most productive time regarding preparation for homeschooling is my time spent on online forums - this one and Sonlight's. I've learned SO much over the years from just reading a bunch of threads. It is what I do for fun so it doesn't seem like work. I do it throughout the day while I'm waiting for my girls to finish something or while they are reading, etc. I'd guess I spend about 2+ hours per day online. Yikes!
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Math Mammoth for math.
Real-Science-4-Kids for Science.
I'm not sure if Math Mammoth is front and back for each day since I don't use it, but it sounds like what you are looking for.
RS4K has a textbook that you read from, but it's not a bunch of books like Sonlight's Science or something similar.
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Yes, they seem very expensive. I'll consider using them when all three of my girls are old enough for them to be of use to them (because I think I remember the site saying you could pay the one price for the whole family) but I won't be using them until then. It just doesn't seem worth it.
The Writer's Jungle is expensive, IMO, too, but totally worth the price. I use that thing over and over and will use it for years. I bought the PDF of Help for High School at HSBC and will be using that for all my kids, too.
Suggestions for a 2nd grader?
in K-8 Curriculum Board
Posted
There are discussion questions/answers in the Instructor's Guide as well as vocabulary/definitions to look out for when reading the chapter/pages. I'll be honest and admit that we gave those up pretty quickly. It didn't feel natural to have to ask questions from binder and I'm too lazy to look at the vocabulary before we read. I just tell them the meanings of words I don't think they know and I have them narrate afterwards in either the CM way or the SWB way. Usually for science and history, I'll ask them to tell me 3-5 things they remember from the reading. For Read-Alouds (or History/Science in narrative form) I'll ask for a retelling.
There are also maps that go along with the daily readings. They were black and white and I had photocopied them and had my kids color and label the places we were reading about. This year they have redone the maps to be in color and supposedly clearer so I guess we won't be coloring anymore! I think color maps will be nice, though!
Sonlight has a Timeline book that you use for all Cores. They sell Timeline Figures which you cut out and have the kids stick in the Timeline book when you are reading about those particular events/people. This has helped my kids get a better grasp of when theings happened in history in relation to other things. Actually, it's helped me, too!
I believe that for the lower level Cores they each come with a CD of tips with hands-on activities for those who need them. We don't do much hands-on stuff here so I don't use the CD and can't comment on its usefulness.
As far as workbooks, P4/5 includes Developing the Early Learner workbooks which we found helpful, though I don't think you'll actually need all 4 - probably 2-3 would be fine. And I know Core D and Core E have 2 workbooks each about American History, on about Canadian History, and one about South America. That is in addition to the Core reading. I think some people just read through those workbooks and do the questions together orally. We haven't done those cores yet so that's all I know right now.
Hmmm, favorite results in my kids....
I really love that my kids love to have me read to them. We go through the Read Alouds faster than scheduled because they always want more, more, more! That makes me happy.
I also really appreciate what a good grasp of History and Cultures that they have so far. They actually KNOW about Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece and Ancient China, etc. whereas their peers may have heard the words "pharoah" or "myth" or "Roman numerals" or "silk worm" before but only have a dim idea of what they mean. I love that they are interested in peoples form other places in the world. They are very interested in China right now and asked me if they could learn Chinese! They understand a lot about India from our past readings and from some videos that Sonlight put up last year from a missionary who went to India. I do add in library books on the subjects we are studying and they listen to The Story of the World 1 Audio CD when they play sometimes so I'm sure those things help, but Sonlight is our foundation.
My kids are curious about the world and that is in large part because of the quality books we read. I would never want to go to a textbooks curriculum after our wonderful experiences with real books.
The other thing I really love about Sonlight is that it truly is open and go. NO PREP. Sometimes I like doing extra things but many times I just don't have the energy to plan and that's when I really appreciate that Sonlight is there with a plan all ready to go. I don't have to worry about anything. I just open the binder, find the books for the day and we're off.
I agree that there is SO much out there. And there may be something you end up liking better, but sometimes you just have to start with SOMETHING before you know what fits your family and what doesn't. You certainly could do worse than Sonlight!
(I sound like an infomercial, don't I? LOL! Make sure to read the 27 reasons not to buy. It really is important that you know what you are getting when you buy Sonlight so you aren't disappointed by certain things later on - things that I find a blessing but that you may not.)