Thanks for the suggestions. I wasn't really wanting to invest in a new spelling program or a phonics program. :confused:

My youngest is third grade. He hates reading out loud! He does enjoy reading and reads alone a lot. I get him to read a little to me during science or religion (not very often) when I pretend I'm losing my voice and ask him to take over for a paragraph. He is missing words and not paying attention and saying other words than what's written on the page. I have him stop and try again and he usually picks it up the second time, but I can tell he has forgotten some basic phonics. I'm wondering if I need to do some more phonics with him? If so, what? Right now my plan is to have him read to me just 5 minutes a few days a week to review phonics. If I do this, what book(s) would you recommend we read? Is this all we need to do? We gave up doing this last year because the readers I had for him he didn't enjoy.

Same here!

:iagree: This has been our experience too. It works for us.

Ok, I was wrong. There isn't a first grade book. It starts in second grade with book A. :001_smile: Yes, 5th grade would be book D. I haven't even look to see what I will replace it with yet.

I have used this program up to the 6th grade level. It is good, but not perfect. My youngest can do it alone, but my oldest always needed me to read the instructions to him. I really love the 1-4 grade books! The 5th grade was a bust for us though. The book had some advance grammar and didn't explain it too well (he wasn't ready for the advance stuff yet). This year my oldest is using the 6th grade book and I haven't decided yet if I like it. :confused: My youngest will end the series next year with the 4th grade book and we will do something else after that (unless I decided I really like this 6th grade book). The books are written by a different person starting at 6th grade. My only complaints are there is very little review pages and some pages have way too many exercises to do. A way to get past this is to have them do only half and then for review go back and finish the page in the future. It would help if I remembered that there are examples of activities to do for review listed in the front of the books for grades 1-5. :tongue_smilie: The books do have writing including, but keep in mind it is the mind set of waiting until older to do much writing (this worked for us) and the grammar in the early books are basic (which is also good for us). Bottom line-I would recommend it!

We have a regular grammar program and he knows basic grammar, but he is a kid who need constant review to get it in long term memory. Our current program doesn't provide review. We will be doing sentence diagramming too to help.

Highly recommend books by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka! I haven't read her spirited child one, but seen numerous recommendations. I have read Kid's Parents and Power Struggles and I learned so much about my kids. I don't have high needs kids and my kids aren't too spirited (but some days are close), but it was still helpful too read. There isn't anything about homeschooling in there, but understanding your child better will help with homeschooling.

We've had a good year so far. Better than our last two years, and only with our cirrculum choices. Just getting into a routine was extremely hard this year! New hits this year: RightStart Math-his was on the miss list a couple years ago, but it's working great for us now. Sequential Spelling for my oldest-first spelling program that he likes! Cheerful Cursive Misses: HOD Bigger-didn't even use! Set down and tried to plan it out but couldn't make it work for us. Too bad I didn't do this before the return policy expired! Tried to use a couple pieces of it, but it was all dropped. I don't understand as I thought about this purchase for 6 months and it seemed perfect fit for my youngest. :001_huh: Faith & Life series-we have used this every year, but this year the kids were just tired of it. We made changes to our history, but more just tweaking to make it run more smoothly.

Daily Grams or Daily Language Review from Evan Moor? This is for my oldest.

I think you could combine your kids for spelling. Keep in mind I haven't done this so I'm just playing it out in my mind. But, it is what I would try if I was in your situation. :D Every child studies the same rule, but you would have a different list for each kid (words that follow the rule but on their spelling level). Get your list by searching the internet or Spelling Power or Spelling Plus. Play spelling activities together and just adjust the activities to make it work for both spellers. If you want an actually program to buy I suggest Spelling Power since it's short and sweet and will only take about 10 minutes of your time per kid and they do their studying/activities on their own. Sequential Spelling has a CD (separate purchase) so the kids can listen and test and check their own answers. Spelling Plus is pretty kid directed too. These last two programs lack activities.

Very similiar problem here too! My son was loving LOF and asked to do it every day. It was just suppose to be a weekly supplement. Once he hit the bridges he couldn't complete them. Since it was just a supplement for us, I put it away for the time. We will pull it out to do over the summer instead. Hopefully at that point it will be all review to help keep it stored in his memory. There is no way we could use this program as a spine as there isn't a much review that my ds needs for math retention.

I know it's extremely hard, but you have to learn to say no. Find free activities or low cost or meet with our families to arrange sports in someone's back yard. :001_smile: You can do it! I think freedom in educating your child will outway the extra stuff.

I hate to admit you are not alone! I have HOD Bigger sitting her completely unused! I also bought MFW packages last year and didn't use it. Here is what I have learned from my mistakes. I have to see, touch, read, and think over the material. And I have to get this done before the return policy expires!! For next year I won't be buying the material until 2 weeks before I am ready to sit down and plan our year. It will be returned if it's not going to work. Waiting to buy will be hard for me. I usually buy in March, but I don't start my planning until May/June. I am sure this will be a challenge this year. Best of luck to you!:001_smile:

RightStart! We have been using it for 3 months and my struggling math student is making improvements. His mental math is improving and the biggest improvement is his attitude towards math. There is daily review and the lessons are short.

We started Righstart recently with older kids. It is very hard (hoping not impossible) to break the counting habit. You want to encourage the RS way and make that a habit instead of counting. The RS way is so much better anyway. Now, you do want to avoid battles, so gentle encouragement is the key. No idea on how to do that, but you know your kid best and I am sure will come up with something. :D When I see one of mine counting I just remind them how to see the number instead of counting. If they are having a "bad" day I wouldn't bring it up to avoid a battle as I don't want to fight over them learning this method. That doesn't help at all. Mine are older and understand why it's a better method, but breaking them of counting has been a challenge. Don't be like us! :lol:

She is still young and her fine motor skills may not be ready for much writing. Work on activities to use her hands to gain strength. Writing may just hurt her hands at this age. Cut out all writing except for daily handwriting practice. Just require one "perfect" letter and stop. Add on how many letters you can get out of her, but no more than 5 minutes. Once you've gone through all the letters, try very short sentence. Best of luck! I think it will get better. Go easy, but don't give up.

Just a FYI, I am on the mailing list and I don't always get an email for the sales. So, watch the boards too.

My boys are hands on and my goal for spelling was to get a list of spelling activities for them to work on during spelling time. This should be easy since one of them uses Spelling Power and there is a ton of activities suggested in there. But, I find many boring and I don't get the point. (I still haven't gone through all of them yet. :blushing:) We will have a container with sand or corn meal to write spelling words. I also have tiles they can use to build the words. Anyone have any other suggestions?

The book is in color. There are 6 sections: Intro to map and map skills, US geography, US regions, N. and S. America, grid maps, global geography. It is pretty typical workbook with mostly fill in the blank work. There is a couple cut/paste projects. Each "lesson" is 1-2 pages long. There is several pages for each topic. They start easy and get harder for each topic in the sections. Haven't used it yet, but really looking through it to get ready to use it.

I have the new edition. Agreeing with the bolded above! I really just needed some others to agree with me before I make my final plans. I will be using this with my third grader and 6th grader. I will have to make separate plans for each to make it fit for both of them. I guess it will last three years for the youngest, but my oldest will completely most of it this year. Thanks everyone!

I have a question about The Big Book of Maps & Geography. It says grades 3-6, so is this book is intended to use more than one year? We will be putting off the US Geography sections until next year. But, I am looking at the Introduction to Maps and Map Skills and there is several pages on each topic (for example: floor plans, map keys, map routes, etc.). Is it intended to do them all at once or do a few each year? I know I can do it which way I want to, but I wanted to see how everyone else is using it.

I'm a fan of CHC LA material. I've tried others, but always come back to it. But, it isn't for everyone and it's not perfect, but I can't find anything that is perfect. ;) Only changes is Spelling Power for my oldest as he struggles with spelling and needs a little different approach.

The list works fine for my youngest. He is an "average" speller. I've been happy with the program. :001_smile:

Thank you for this thread! It is great to see what works great for others. Our homschool has been going down hill for a few years. I have some how sucked the joy of learning out of my boys (and myself). When I first saw this thread I couldn't come up with anything, but I felt encourage with all the responses. Trying really hard to be positive and came up with two things. 1. Spelling Power! Been looking for over a year for the right spelling program for my oldest and we finally found it. 2. Rightstart math (I think) is the math program I decided on after I realized (way too late for my oldest) that our current program was the wrong fit. We just started it for a few weeks before we stopped school and we are looking forward to this. I now have a a game plan for math until high school.