Please add me too! To give a small reply to the original topic...I feel like I take quite a bit of consideration to my kids' preferences in choosing a curriculum for math and considering making a switch when needed. My oldest is much less "into" math than her younger brothers and tends to get more anxious about it (even now, as a teen!). So in the upper elementary years when RightStart was no longer working for us, I let her try samples of a few different programs before we settled on something new. In Pre-Algebra we tried one textbook she hated, before switching to another. But none of the switches were due to boredom -- more due to things like format or visual presentation. All three of my boys were super happy to do BA for as many levels as possible (3-5 for the older, 2-5 for the youngest). Older 2 moved straight into AopS, but youngest will probably need to do something else in between due to dyslexia and just lacking the same level of maturity since he will finish a year+ sooner than his brothers did. I will definitely take his opinions into consideration as we figure out the next step. We've re-arranged chapters in BA several times or just skipped around a bit when something wasn't clicking - especially for the youngest since the language challenges with dyslexia sometimes trip him up and we need to let a concept rest and come back later.

Mine is 1985 ISBN 0-395-35987-2

Here's a few from mine:

Which year? I have a 1985 Dolciani pre algebra.

We have two Aldi stores in my city, and one (since last year) is regularly out of many products, especially if you shop at the end of a busy day. The other one is fine except for the usual Aldi randomness that always happens of one or two things being unavailable. So clearly it's not an overall distribution problem? I've wondered if the store more frequently lacking products has poor management, or if has gotten a lot busier and can't keep up with stocking (maybe also a management issue).

I think I might need to start a spin off thread in this direction! My 2E 9 year old is getting so frustrated with how not remembering/understanding various math terms is slowing him down in math progress. I have probably defined the word "exponent" (just for example) dozens of times and he understands how to do math with exponents but forgets that "exponent" is the word that matches with the concept "multiplying a number by itself that many times". But other than being his personal math dictionary, I haven't made a lot of progress in really remediating the weakness.

We do British style pancakes every year for pancake day... here's my lemon juice/powdered sugar lunch pancakes!

I felt like it was pretty light in terms of academic content to be considered a high school level course. My oldest DS did it in 7th grade (he is advanced in some areas, but didn't have a strong biology background in particular). He only did some of the suggested reading beyond the textbook, though. I think for a student needing an easier course it might be ok, but otherwise to come out of it with what might be more equivalent to a rigorous high school course, I think you would really need to look at the reading beyond the textbook and either do all of it or maybe sub in some more challenging content.

I could start a thread with a similar title, except 2E boy. My youngest is currently 3rd grade, and we'll probably finish BA 5 early next fall. He has dyslexia and dysgraphia, and is hitting these books at a younger age than his older brothers did...so he isn't going to end up with the same level of skill at organizing work and working independently that they had by the end of BA5. One of his big struggles is mapping math terminology to correspondeding concepts - like he will forget the meaning of the word "exponent", but if I point to a problem with an exponent, he totally understands the concept and can do math operations related to it...but the word "exponent" isn't firmly in his brain. So I know we need to work on that. As of right now, AoPs Pre-A would almost certainly be too "wordy" for him. I don't have a lot of advice...just commiseration I guess! I still have a few months to think about it and I'm eagerly following the advice other people are getting on this topic. 😊

I'm going to guess that the OP means procedural vs. conceptual, but maybe doesn't think of it using those terms, necessarily. Also, for multi-digit multiplication and long division (which the OP wouldn't have gotten to in BA yet), BA never gets all the way to the traditional algorithm most of us grew up using. I taught my two older kids who used BA the traditional algorithm for both as a "shortcut" once they were comfortable with the longer way. My youngest refuses to hear me out about the traditional algorithm...and I'm just left getting annoyed that big multiplication problems take a lot of writing...and he has dysgraphia so if he writes it is slow. At least he let me teach him short division, which is definitely my favorite math shortcut. 😁

At least in the past, 2nd grade was the last year read aloud, and 3rd graders were expected to read it themselves. I know the Iowa tests have been updated (No longer called "ITBS" at it was before, not sure how much else has changed), and I'm not sure if that changed when students are required to read the tests. It's been maybe 6-7 years ago that we were last testing with the Iowa test.

Requirements are so different from state to state and district to district that it is hard to imagine colleges are really going to "care" if your PE credit looks like an extra curricular. My DD is in public school, and to graduate they needed a 1/2 credit (aka 1 semester) of PE. That's it. There were several choices and she picked "personal fitness" - which essentially amounted to daily walking around a track, doing a group fitness activity like zumba/aerobics, or some very basic weightlifting. Meanwhile, friends in other districts have to take a full credit or more of traditional "gym sports" PE. It's already very different between different schools, so I would have no trouble "counting" for the purpose of graduation any equivalent amount of physical activity, no matter the form, if we were homeschooling for high school.

Oh, I also forgot about Skyjo: https://www.amazon.com/SKYJO-Action-Magilano-exciting-Adults/dp/B082YWGB3R/ We have a slightly different version but I am assuming it's similar. It's a lot like the card game Golf, but with negative number cards too.

https://store.rightstartmath.com/rightstart-corners-games/ There's also an app version for iOS.

In the Orton-Gillingham facebook groups I'm in, Writing Revolution gets a lot of positive recommendations. The groups weigh heavily toward classroom teachers and school interventionists though. Having read it and investigated their website a bit, I think there's more content in the seminars they offer on how to apply it, and also a "subscribers" site you can pay for that I assume has a greater number of pre-prepared worksheets and lesson plans that correlate. There's also lessons and worksheets on TpT that coordinate. I've been dabbling in it a little bit for my DS9, and there are a lot of things I like about it, but it is definitely a method to implement rather than a full fledged curriculum like most homeschoolers would be looking for. The audience is classroom teachers who are going to be making their own lesson plans (or maybe buying them from TpT). ETA: Here's a link to resources for TWR. I have used the free book resources to create a template, but I just now clicked the "School resource library" that I had the impression was a paid subscription and it let me into the page with many templates to download, etc. So maybe it isn't actually a subscription site? Or maybe it is just free temporarily? Not sure, but might be worth checking out

I would say that we've had better luck with games aimed a bit younger to use when my kids were PreK thru 1st or 2nd grade -- Sum Swamp, Zeus on the Loose, Alien HotShots, the RightStart math card games (especially Corners and different variations of War), and Speed (this version). I have had my eyes on Proof, but haven't gotten it. I own both Equate and Smath but we haven't really pulled either out more than once or twice.

We love both math and board games here but my kids never pull it out. One DS really disliked the "sorry" style mechanic of purposely sending another player back. Youngest DS was almost too young for it when we first got it though, so I should try it again with him.

I only did SWI A with one of my kids (oldest DS) before moving on to theme books. After watching the videos of that and listening to an "overview" lecture that was available for download on the IEW site, I felt confident to teach the theme books and jumped right into theme books with next DS without SWI. DD only did theme books as we did different things when she was younger and her exposure to IEW was at an academic tutorial style co-op in middle school. You really don't need SWI - I think parents like it because if the video instruction and I'm sure it's a profitable product for them to sell (so it would make sense for them to encourage everyone to use it). All IEW books follow the same basic pattern of instruction, just using different texts as the basis for the assignments.

We have the ikea style bed slats in a wood frame that was originally designed to be a waterbed frame, I think? We currently have a Purple brand mattress on it, and it's always worked well for us. I feel like exercise is a bit noisy due to the bed frame itself creaking, but I don't think that's the fault of the slats.

LOL...that is my household's pet peeve as well so you might not be the only one trapped by that question. 😁 My boys are constantly complaining whenever they find a reference to a "poisonous" snake...last year I even corrected the trainer I for a course I was talking on teaching reading. The choice of snake clip art and example sentence for the poison -- poisonous suffix addition bothered me so much I emailed her to explain and suggest she change her example to a poison dart frog. 😁😂🤣

That's incredible!!! I'm so excited for you! I hope you have many biking adventures!

You might run across one used! We sold ours for $125 when we were done with it. I think we maybe paid $350 new - not sure if that was a sale or if the price has increased over the years.

We discovered a WeeHoo bike trailer with our youngest and loved it: http://rideweehoo.com It's a nice happy medium in that kids can use them starting at age 2-3 just to sit in, but also has pedals that can be optionally used for slightly bigger kids to pedal along. We used it until youngest DS was about 6.5 (when going on long rides) - until he was old enough for a big bike that could keep up with the rest of the family on an 8-10 mile ride.

We do an annual standardized test because it's required for homeschoolers here. 13 year old D.S. really likes math competitions, so he has done pretty much everything I could find for him to do - I think that was five different competitions last year and a similar number last year. 11 year old D.S. wanted to try mathcounts this year but specifically asked me to NOT sign him up for any others. One competition was plenty for him. Oldest and youngest kids have had no interest in academic competitions. Youngest might be more interested by middle school though, perhaps.

I voted "no" but really it's mostly because the outside places I go are nearly empty of people. I usually am wearing a mask walking across a store parking lot (because I put it on before I leave the car) or maybe in the summer while waiting in line for an outdoor ice cream shop (but that was also so that I would be masked while interacting with the employee). I might be more likely to say I masked outside more often if I lived in an urban area with many people walking down the street at any given time.