I'm a lefty and I can cut with regular scissors just fine -- adult or child scissors, so I voted "no." The whole left handed scissors thing always confused me. :confused:

It's so tempting, but also hard to spend another $50 when I keep feeling like I must have all the key information I need somewhere in the Essentials program to teach a younger student also. DS5 is a quick learner in general...I think at this point if I could magically make anything I could imagine appear, it would be a quick reference to what the reasoning/rule/say-to-spell is for all the "tricky" words that I can't obviously see how the phonogram sounds explain them (like what's up with "who"? Why is the w in the wh phonogram silent there). Because for everything that follows the typical phonogram sounds on the cards, I can teach those! But DS wants to get reading a bit more complex books, and I would love to jump-start him so to speak with teaching the logic behind a lot of the words other curricula just treat as sight words.

Logic of English has recently released a whole bunch of teacher training videos available free on YouTube, plus a variety of shorter videos showing how to spelling dictation, etc. I think watching some of those could give you a good feel for what LOE is like. I know watching some of them has helped me be a better teacher of LOE! ETA: Just saw you have a five year old. They just opened back up Beta testing yesterday of the K-Foundations level. Not sure if there are still any spots available for that, but you could check their webstore to find out. They are charging $50, but that's still cheaper than buying Essentials (or buying Foundations after it comes out in print).

I'm using Right Start B as the primary program for my very mathy K'er. It moves quite quickly into more advanced concepts like place value in hundreds and thousands. Then we are supplementing with Singapore 1a (fun/fact practice for him, as the concepts are easier), and iPad math games. We looked at mep as a supplement, but he didn't like the pages as well as those in SM, and I liked the idea of just buying a book and not having to print stuff out all the time for him for math...we're printing all the time for other stuff as it is. :tongue_smilie:

It's a brand new program, so this is the only volume out so far.

I'm using essentials for DD8, and have just started at a much slower pace for DS5. He is already writing in manuscript all his lower case letters and can read cvc and words with basic consonant blends, plus stuff from lesson 2 of essentials (ee, th, ng). I'm guessing he may be beyond a lot of the foundations K level - Can someone who already has this beta lend any insight?

My 3rd grade DD is using this as a mostly-independent science program. She loves the story and has no problem reading a chapter in one sitting. I have her read the chapter on Mondays, read encyclopedia entries or library books about the habitat or specific animals two or three days per week, then one day of just notebook work. We might do a little bit of notebook work on the reading days as well. If it weren't for the fact that she doesn't want anything spelled wrong in her notebook she would be able to do that pretty much by herself, but since it really bugs her that she doesn't know how to spell a lot of words she wants to use, I scribe for her to a great extent in the notebook. I think it is a pretty good program so far - we're on chapter 5 this week. We do other science too but I wanted to make sure she is getting at least a little bit each day even on weeks I totally miss making some of our other science happen!

If being crafty is not your thing, maybe let the kids take more of a lead with it? You plan the academic part of the unit study, and let THEM pick the projects and make a list of items they need? I don't mind crafts, but I am really not skilled at crafty stuff and definitely find other "fluff" more fun than crafting. For a while I tried to "lead" my kids in crafts but DD was so eager for it I could never really satisfy her desires. Whatever I planned, she could want more! I've discovered though that if I provide a cabinet of basic supplies, my 8 year old DD is more than capable of following most reasonable kid's craft directions. I gave her a stack of old "family fun" magazines for random crafting inspiration, and I get from the library craft books that relate to our history studies, and sometimes our science studies as well. I will even pull up Pinterest for her, help her search for a topic, and she will "like" projects she finds interesting, then I can go through and print out directions for her or bookmark them in a folder for her to find easily later. She can browse through the books, find projects she thinks are fun, look and see if we have supplies, and even make a "wish list" for me of items we might not have on hand. For example, she really wanted to make berry ink from a Colonial period activity book, and let me know she wanted strawberries when I could buy them for her. I often ask her to include her brothers when it is reasonable. She always has a running "craft store list" and as much as I sort of dread it, I try to hit the craft store for supplies once every couple months to stock up. I definitely try to answer questions if she doesn't understand the directions or help her if it isn't working out. But I find that the more she does crafts on her own the better she gets at it and she can probably do almost as good a job as I could do anyway (like I said, I'm really not crafty). If it's a recipe she wants to do in the kitchen, I am all about that (cooking IS my thing), so I have her leave me the recipe and I let her know if I think it's something we can reasonably do. If the older two really want to do crafts, I think you can get a lot of help from them to make it happen! If they aren't wiling to do some of the prep work, maybe they don't really want to do it as much as you might think.

I love my proclick too! I make packets of worksheets for my five year old and packets of coloring pages for both DS 5 and DS3 and they stand up to a decent amount of rough handling from them. For things for me or DD that I want to look nice, I have discovered you can punch an overhead projector sheet (remember those? We happened to have an old box from years ago lying around), and that makes a nice clear cover. I also often use either plain card stock or laminated card stock for the back (or the front if I don't want a clear front).

Lots of great stuff to check out...Thanks for all the ideas! I haven't seen either Dreambox or IXL before, so I might have him try those out and consider a subscription...Though it would certainly be cheaper if he would enjoy one of the workbook or other "paper" options. :001_smile: Maybe I should try that first! Is Miquon completely about the c-rods? I just can't wrap my mind around introducing another manipulative into our house...My RightStart stuff takes up three of the smaller Ikea Trofast drawers as it is...:lol:

My math-loving Kindergartener is constantly asking to do more math. I informally worked through parts of RightStart A last year with my K'er (currently 5.5) for preschool. I got the sense he was ready for a faster pace than A, so we jumped into Level B without finishing A. We're through lesson 27 in B so far, and he just can't get enough. We are already into new material we didn't cover in A. Our time to do math is usually limited more by my patience and availability than by his desire (I usually cut him off after 20-30 minutes, even if he is asking for more). What's a good fit to supplement RS at his age, especially something he could do at least semi-independently? I know we could always play more RS games, but I can't do that while also teaching my DD. I'm fine reading directions to him and letting him go at it. I'd love to find something that will make him think creatively and solve problems. I don't think he wants to just sit and do page after page of addition problems or something like that, even though he knows how to do that, at least on the abacus. I'd like to start working through LOF with both DD8 and DS5, but that doesn't really solve my problem of what would be a good supplement that DS5 can do on his own. So I am wondering about Singapore 1? Math Mammoth? Some kind of a fun workbook? Other ideas?

We really liked the book "little man in the map" -- DD used that to memorize the states last year as a 2nd grader.

Maybe others would differ in opinion, but I think you might even be fine skipping the smaller game cards. I find they are great for games with my younger kids who need a lot of repetition for learning the phonograms, but my 3rd grader would much prefer spelling games or games to play on paper (not the card games). She is definitely a struggling speller, but it turns out that she can remember phonograms pretty easily, and is just generally catching on to the LOE method of spelling, so we haven't needed the games quite so much.

That's exactly how I've used phonics pathways with my five year old starting at about age 4.5 - that combined with easy phonics readers (bob books, Nora gaydos books, etc) has been all he has needed so far. We'll start doing spelling with Logic of English once he is more comfortable with writing the lower case letters.

I will agree too that I did not find the HTTS TM to be open and go either. I couldn't do much of anything with just the TM. With the workbooks I tried to use it last year for about half the year...but it turned out I was mostly just having DD fill in the workbook pages due to the difficulty in using the TM - and just workbook pages were not enough for her. I switched to LOE since I needed lots of hand holding..:lol: Though I do have to say that if I would have had phonogram flash cards with HTTS I might have been slightly more successful with it. The beginning of each HTS workbook says that the student is supposed to learn the phonograms, but for me without clearly provided tools to do so, I was apt to skip it and did. I just didn't have time to make my own flash cards and wasn't sure at the time where to buy them.

Yesterday my five year old Kindergartener declared he didn't want to do school any more, and he usually loves it. With a little gentle prodding I figured out that he thought the book I picked out from the library for him to read was too hard, and he was sad we had to return all the Bob books to the library. All it took was me telling him that we could read an easier book and that I would look into buying our own Bob books, and he was happy to do school again. Maybe there is something your DD isn't liking or is feeling stressed out by in particular? I also remember that my DD went through a phase at 5 or 6 where she kept worrying that if she learned to read I wouldn't read out loud to her any more. I had to reassure her many times that I still would read aloud to her even if she learned to read. Maybe your DD is worried about that since she loves to listen to you read so much? Just another idea to throw out there.

All the info you really "need" is there. Phonogram flash cards, spelling rule flash cards and grammar flash cards that match the program are nice but you could make your own or present the material in a different way.

We are starting this next week as a secondary program that DD hopefully can do quite a bit independently -- we're still using BFSU as our main family program, but that's limited in anything she can do on her own without a lot of planning on my part. I'm going to stretch it out over the whole year -- using the "two day a week" schedule -- with one "day" as one week's assignments and the other "day" as the second week's assignments.

One thing to consider is that a lot of topics in B get reviewed or expanded upon in C, so you may find that your DD has them more solidified after that. When I need more review/practice/independent work for my DD (we're about 75% of the way through level C), I often either print out practice pages from free sites (math-drills.com, math fact cafe, etc), or I use the "B" side of the review sheets from level C. I don't think level B had those, but level C has a "review" lesson once every six lessons with a worksheet to complete. There is an "A" option and a "B" option that are essentially the same problems with different numbers (so one might have 56-24 but the other side has 64 - 32 or something like that). We did the "A" review sides as they came up all year and I had her do a few "B" sides this summer for practice. What we didn't use this summer can be used as independent review/practice this school year as we finish C and start D.

My link is in my siggy. :001_smile: Check out this link up for tooooonnnsss of homeschool Pinterest boards. :lol: http://www.ihomeschoolnetwork.com/homeschoolers-on-pinterest/

That happened to me too! But I haven't gone back to try reloading the cart yet. Hope that works for me too! :001_huh:

I set up a seller account primarily to sell one rather expensive book (I knew I could list it for at least $50, because it was an expensive repair manual that sells for $100 new). It was super easy to set up, and then I could just ignore it because they sent me an email when the book sold, and I just dropped it in the mail. Amazon takes a cut, of course. With the cut that amazon takes, I think you would either have to have some more expensive books or a lot of books to feel like you would turn a good profit compared to listing them somewhere with no "cut" or fee involved.

Check if there is a Little Free Library anywhere near you and donate/swap some books! I agree with a lot of the other suggestions given here. Sometimes I take books in for credit at a used book store (even if it's not much, it's better than getting nothing for them and much less hassle than selling them myself). I also often try to bless other homeschooling families by bringing a box of books we no longer need to our co-op or other gatherings with a big sign that says "free." I rarely bring any home!

Do you think you could still post about the go-alongs you use for each virtue? As I recall you had linked to another site and mentioned that you had some books for the virtue? I can understand not posting the catchy songs but I would still love to hear about the other non-wcv resources you would use! (or at least please send me the link to that other site...I just had your blog post bookmarked not the other site you mentioned.). :001_smile:

I think you really could do that. Expensive programs like LOE are for those of us who want our hand held through the process and want neat cards printed out for us, lists of words pre selected, etc. :lol: Well that and for all the multi sensory suggestions. My DD really needs lots of reinforcement in various modalities to remember this stuff and I don't want to come up with all of it on my own - but I don't think all kids need that (the games, etc).