A bit about us: I think that math is an area where different children (and teachers) will need different curricula. I'm a fairly math-oriented person; my eldest is more language-arts, while my youngest seems to gravitate towards math. So far the Miquon / Singapore combination is working for us. Saxon K: I used Saxon K with reasonable success with both my girls (at 4 yo for my eldest; at 3yo for my youngest). It's a fine early (K4?) math program. Saxon 1: With my eldest, when I pulled out Saxon 1, we hit a wall. It was drudgery for her (and for me). It felt like she was required to write so much so suddenly. I was frustrated with the layout because I couldn't really accelerate or go deeper easily. We ditched it after about 3 months. Miquon: I'm using this right now as a weekly math lab with my Gr. 1 student and as a challenge program for my K4 girl. They enjoy it; I enjoy it. It has kept math fun and has enabled them to grasp topics that might have otherwise been big leaps for them. Love it. Singapore Essential Math: This is a great kindergarten program. Book A is fairly easy for my 4yo, but not annoyingly so. There are some additional activities that can make it meatier. She begs to "do her math book" all. the. time. Singapore 1A/B: This is our Gr. 1 math spine right now. My eldest, who had suffered through half-a-year of Saxon 1, started to enjoy math again after we switched to Singapore. I love it that we can accelerate or go slower at will; that there are lots of supplemental books to add in as appropriate; and that the HIG is just so handy. Love, love, love this program. Math Mammoth: Had I known about this before starting Singapore, I may have used it instead. I like the layout; I like the explanations. Right now I use it as a supplemental program for tricky areas that I think need more review. MEP: I opened it. I liked it, but it wasn't open-and-go enough for me at this point. Every once in a while I use teaching ideas from it, but haven't used any worksheets. It seems like an excellent program, though. I think that's about it ...

Thank you, thank you, thank you for starting this thread. I feel much better knowing that I am in good company with my overloaded math shelves. For the record, I have: Math Mammoth (all 6 years) Miquon (2 copies of all 6 books) Singapore (1A - 2B texts, HIGs, workbooks, Intensive Practice, Extra Practice, and CWPs) Saxon 1 And I wonder why math takes up so much of our homeschool day ...

Our first day went well, too. We actually got in most of the planned subjects (I think that "most" is pretty great) and had a blast. All of our curriculum choices are good fits for my girls right now, which makes things easier. Happy to be homeschooling ... for now, at least!

My kids are only in Gr. 1 and JK, so take this with a grain of salt ... My feeling is that at the stage your children are in, the basics (math, reading, writing) are the main deal. Doing a math placement test and going from there makes a lot of sense. Other subjects are a wonderful and important part of learning because they broaden their horizons and give them "mental pegs" on which to hang information later on. But students don't need to master a particular history or science topic before they move on to a different topic. So in your shoes, I would just follow on with the history and science you've been using, starting 2nd grade and not worrying about what may have been missed the year prior. My 2 cents ... :)

We start tomorrow - Gr. 1 and JK. We're all looking forward to it right now.

Thanks for sharing these! I've downloaded and printed them in mini-form to use on our timeline. Now I'm excited to use our timeline again ... I had been stalling because I was dreading making our own cards. You've saved Ancient History for us! :001_smile:

I've found that AAS steps can take as little as one day, and as long as 3-5 days. (I aim for about 15-20 minutes of spelling each day.) We're in AAS 2 now and it still applies. I've heard that many go through AAS 1 faster than subsequent Levels. That has been our experience so far. I wouldn't try to make a level last a year, but just fit it to the child.

The plans seem to be well-hidden on the Gravitas site! I found some here (scroll down to Lesson Plans).

The Standards Edition was aligned to the California standards, from what I understand. For homeschoolers, I think that the big difference is that the HIG for the Standards Edition is superior to that of the US version. At least, that's what I gleaned from these forums before I purchased the SE -- I haven't directly compared the HIGs from both versions, but I can say I've been very happy with the SE HIG.

The very generous WWS sample that was sent out inspired me by giving me a glimpse of where we'll end up if we keep up with WWE for 4 years. Impressive, really, to see what Gr. 5 students (or thereabouts) could be working with in writing skills. It's inspired me to become even more excited about WWE as well ... which my eldest will only start this fall. :-)

I can't comment on McRuffy, but I used Saxon K with both of my daughters. In both cases they used it in their K4 year. I appreciated the daily calendars, which did lots for learning about patterning, sequencing, as well as days / months. The lessons were short and sweet and used manipulatives. That said, by the end of Saxon K with my youngest, I saw that we were going to have to switch gears because the spiral approach was driving both of us nuts by that point. I've moved into Miquon with her and will soon combine it with Singapore Essentials K. Similarly, when I moved from Saxon K into Saxon 1 with my eldest daughter, the leap to writing a page a day was visually overwhelming for her (even when I helped to write the answers). With her, too, the spiral approach started to discourage her. She soon started to hate math and I ended up switching part way through. All that to say that even if you do Saxon K and enjoy it, you may want to try some samples of Saxon 1 with your student before automatically going to the next level.

:iagree:

That's a great idea -- thanks for sharing!

See, this is brilliant stuff. I, too, am working in our dining room ... Our room that was supposed to be dedicated to schooling was in reality too far away from the kitchen and the dog and the door and life in general! Thanks for sharing this. (Off I go to buy dish racks!)

I think that you're right in wanting to shore up his math skills before launching high-school level science. It's difficult to tackle subjects at that level without having solid math skills and early algebra. You could check out RS4K science Level 1 to go through all of the branches of science. Depending on what you've done with him, working through a curriculum may solidify and organize what he's learned already (or it may bore him to tears!) Or you could keep on using science as you have been, exploring topics as in-depth as he is able with his current math skills. The beauty of science is that you can go wide as well as deep ... ETA: In case you're looking at my signature and wondering why on earth I'm even commenting when my students are so much younger than yours ... my undergrad degree was in Chemistry and I ended up teaching high school science in a small school for a year. I'm remembering lots of math ... :-)

Glad to help!

This posted today should answer some questions ... The sample alone has several weeks of work, which might keep students busy until it's actually released in January.

Wow. What a very cool idea!

If I were you, I would buy Primary Mathematics Standard Edition 1A and 1B at once. For each level, I would get: - Student Text (one each for 1A and 1B) - Workbook (one each for 1A and 1B) - Home Instructor's Guide (one each for 1A and 1B) A supplement that I value is the Challenging Word Problems. There is only one book for the Gr. 1 level. I hope that this helps ... ETA: I think that you can just jump to 1A without going through the SM K materials (my eldest did), and especially so since you're using Miquon already.

Growing Up Wild DVDs are pretty good. I don't remember any predator scenes, and they're very informative. My girls enjoyed The World of Baby Animals, too.

I'm only 2 units into RS4K Biology, so bear that in mind ... I'm planning on going through the program in fairly short order as an introduction to our first year of Biology, and then will follow the WTM recommendations for the remainder of the year. The best supplemental reading I've found thus far are kids' science encyclopedias (I have a couple of general ones here). We read a chapter in RS4K and write / draw one interesting thing that we've learned. Then we follow up with some encyclopedia reading. We did the first unit experiment, which was a whole lot more fun than it sounded, and then just looked at pre-prepared slides with our microscope for the second unit. My girls have developed an absolute passion for all things fungi because of the first unit, so I'm going to try to dig up some extra reading for them on that. So far it's easy, fun, and still challenging enough to be interesting for them. ETA: Just realized that you're talking about Level 1, and not Pre-Level 1. Sorry -- my comments are probably useless, as I'm dealing with Pre-Level 1!

EM = Essential Mathematics, another SM K program. (And the one that seems to be favoured in this forum.) MEP = Mathematics Enhancement Program available for free here.

Uncle Wiggily is a favourite here (any book). Trumpet of the Swan was also popular.

:iagree: (Boscopup, I think you might be my twin. It seems that every time I show up here, I agree with everything you say!)

I love math, too, and was taught it very differently from the Singapore approach as well. That said, I'm using Singapore and Miquon right now with my rising Gr. 1 student. I think that if you go with the Standards Edition and use the Home Instructor Guide, you'll find it a very solid, even easy, program to use as an instructor. I am using the HIG, Textbook/Workbook, and Challenging Word Problems right now. I plan to begin using the Intensive Practice book in a couple of months as a below-level review. So far the Extra Practice books haven't been necessary. I don't think that your student would find it difficult to transition into a public school having used the Singapore program. In fact, I suspect they may find it a very easy transition. Thanks to a suggestion from this forum, I read Liping Ma's book, and it helped me enormously as an instructor teaching math in a style different from the one in which I learned. I hope that this helps a bit ...