That's awesome! When I saw the title of this thread, I thought *I* should just go ahead and do it... And guess what I was thinking about buying? Yes, Nancy Larson science. :) I hope it goes well for you! Please keep us updated.

In regards to the second syllable, PR teaches (to the tune of Twinkle-Twinkle), "O and I may say their names when followed by two consonants."

I have seen this question here before, and some have recommended Sentence Family. Ds and I both really disliked FLL, so have been camped out doing Mad Libs together. I think we're going to start SF soon, and from there to MCT, of course!

Kathy, why painful? Thanks!

You might want to PM Kate in Arabia if she doesn't respond to this thread. I think she's in the Emirates.

The White House is off the beaten track, and access is very limited these days. And I'm with you on the Supreme Court -- I think it would be a bit challenging to arrange something too interesting with your very limited time contraints. I would recommend taking the metro (that's what we call the subway here) to the mall. I'd get off near the Capitol building and check that out as much as you want, then walk down towards the Washington Monument. Walking the area gives you a sense of how huge it is. If you want to poke in one of the museums, my boys like the Natural History, Air and Space, and the American Indian museums best. Or, you could get off the metro down near the Washington Monument and walk from there to the Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, and maybe even the World War Two Memorial. The Holocaust Museum is down on that end, if that would be interesting. Although your ds is 7? It is very intense, I don't think my ds7 is ready for it yet. Have fun!

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH! (and not just because it's about mice and rats lol)

Have you ever seen the Montessori land form materials? I would recommend a Google images search for "Montessori land forms" and I think you'll find some ideas that could work. Downloadable materials for purchase here. HTH!

I don't have any suggestions, I just wanted to thank you for mentioning the Elson readers! I hadn't seen them before. I just downloaded the level two book for my ds. :D

I loved A People's History as well, but that speaks to my own perspective. :) Howard Zinn also wrote a two volume series for young people (or, perhaps the original was adapted by someone else), but I haven't seen it myself. You can take a look here.

Anything from the Cricket publishers, I agree!! We have loved Click, and are currently subscribing to Ask.

I think that knowing it has caused so much heated debate and discussion (or, board war lol) here tells you quite a bit. But, I always recommend reading for yourself.

RightStart!

I See Sam?

We've run into this too, with the word truck. We worked on the pronunciation, and now he knows how to articulate it well for spelling. We have similar issues with some dr words like drive sounding a bit like jrive. Of course this looks bizarre, but to my ds it makes sense to how he hears the word. We just have to "say to spell" around here. :)

:iagree:I never sent my kids to Montessori, but I was a Montessori kid, and it was amazing and formative for me (unlike the public school education that followed my Montessori years lol).

I started teaching my oldest both English and Arabic alphabets concurrently, but when he started reading English backwards, I put Arabic reading on the back burner. We did some basic vocabulary, but mostly focussed on Quran and dua' (both memorizing and understanding). Once my oldest's English took off, we settled down into learning (again) the Arabic. Since we're mostly working on Quran at this point, he's been using the Qaidah Nuraniyyah. Thankfully we're almost done, and when we are he will read through Juz Amma and then go back to Surat ul-Baqara, reading to gain fluency. From there we'll do either part-time or full-time hifzh, I think (insha'Allah). We're also going through the kids' version of the Madinah Arabic series, but I'm using the book as a reference for myself more than the kids. I don't want to sit them down to fill out the workbook, I want them to speak. For me, exposing them to the language is a must from the beginning, but my oldest got too mixed up with the left to right vs. right to left parts to learn both together. My youngest (4) is starting to read pretty well now and so far shows fewer signs of mixing things around, so I'm about to start the Arabic alphabet with him. I think a lot of it just depends on the kid, honestly. But I hope this helps, at least some. :)

It's interesting that he gets confused with green and brown. I went to school with a boy who was color blind, and the way he saw things, peanut butter and grass were the same color. If your son does turn out to be color blind, I wouldn't think this would have anything to do with number recognition. If he isn't color blind though, perhaps they are related (visual recognition problems). I'm not much help though, sorry.

I'm glad to help as much as I can! :)

You're welcome! (Forgive all the typos, yikes!) I should mention that we also have "basket time." We used to do this first thing after breakfast, but now we tend to do it after lunch before rest time. The boys and I spend anywhere from 30-90 minutes smooshed in my big reading chair, reading aloud to each other. We got this idea from the Wildflowers and Marbles blog, here. I tend to read stories of the prophets, Quran, seasonal picture books, poetry, SOTW, and Ambleside Online Year One books. Yusuf reads I See Sam readers and early readers from the library (Commander Toad, Cam Jansen, Billy and Blaze, Nate the Great, etc). My little guy usually wants to read an I See Sam or BOB book. We also review our memory work (Quran and poetry). It's great cuddle time and transition into rest/nap time.

This is a fascinating approach! Will you share some of the specifics of what you are doing? I will need to spend some time reading through the material on the site you referenced as it looks wonderful. What kinds of resources do you have on your open shelf? How does that play out day to day? How is your child using WTM skills within this project approach? How do you go about "doing" a project? First, let me say that we're still a bit in transition and figuring out what works for us and what doesn't. We start our days with dawn prayers, farm chores, and breakfast. After that stuff, Yusuf (nearly 7) pulls out either math or spelling. Right Start and All About Spelling are the programs that I just love, work great for ds, and give us a lot of bang for the time we invest in them. I tend to be a perfectionist and a worrier when it comes to homeschooling (I have to fight myself not to fall into curriculum shopping, and I tend to want to do too much). Having the requirements of math and spelling (which reinforces phonics, reading, writing, etc) done allow me to relax for the rest of the day. As for the shelf work that follows, we have other curricula available (Math Mammoth workbooks, HWT, Tin Man Press logic), Mad Libs, Arabic resources (his "primer", handwriting, etc), as well as spines to browse (Usborne's Encyclopedia of World History and Usborne's First Encyclopedia of Our World, at the moment). On another shelf we have all sorts of good for the brain games and toys (Snap Circuits, Hoppers, Rush Hour, mancala, chess, maze books, puzzles, etc). We have a big cupboard full of art supplies too, which includes his knitting, sewing, and weaving projects. This shelf work ideally would have things rotating in and out. I'd like to incorporate our microscope into this area. There are so many possibilities. After we've worked hard for awhile (usually a couple hours, but my kids tend to have unusually long attention spans), we break out the project work. I encouraged Yusuf to think about having a science-ish and/or history-ish project going. After spending time looking through science spines and our bookshelves, he picked "jungles" for his first project. We have since changed this to tropical rain forests, as that is more accurate/specific word. We each have a project journal. In mine, I record questions he asks. For example, we have a big puzzle called Jungle Animals, and it has a tiger pictured on it. He said, I didn't know tigers lived in the jungle! I though jaguars were the biggest predator in the jungle, but if tigers live in the jungle, then that isn't true!" He was just talking, but I wrote it down as something to pursue. After we picked a topic, we pulled our resources we had at home on the topic at hand. Then, we went to the library. I showed him how to use the card catalog and find books by call number. He looked through every. single. book. on the shelf about tropical rain forests, and picked out the ones that he liked best. Some he picked for the pictures, some he picked because of the content (we read the tables of contents), and some he picked because he could read them himself. During project time, Yusuf looks through the resources at hand, reads what he can, and puts a post-it on things he wants to read together. That way, I'm not reading though piles and piles of books on the same topic lol. When one of us is reading, Yusuf takes notes (in complete sentences) in his project journal. He writes down the things he doesn't know, answers to questions he has had, etc. Sometimes he will copy a sentence exactly (putting it in quotes). Other times we will read a paragraph, and he will narrate a sentence that he wants to write down. It's everything we learned in WWE (we were in the middle of WWE2 before we switched to projects), but in a meaningful context. Not only is it meaningful to ds, but instead of groaning over writing one WWE sentence, ds writes *pages* daily about "his" rainforests. Awesome. Once we have accumulated a certain amount of information, he likes to "show off" his learning - to teach others. He found a book at the library full of rainforest activities for ages 6-8 (perfect!) which has provided some ideas. He is figuring out to build a model of the layers of the rain forest so he can add pictures or models of the animals in the appropriate layers. I try to stay completely out of it and let him work out his ideas himself, to give him true ownership. We're still learning how to manage all this, but so far it has been wonderful! This has gotten long and rambling, but I hope at least some of it has been helpful.

We've recently thrown out formal history and science curricula for "project learning" ala the White Oak School / Camp Creek Blog. For anyone interested in doing a project-based approach, this is an amazing resource. Right now, my oldest does a RightStart lesson daily and some spelling (AAS). We have lots of other resources on an open shelf for him to chose from during our morning work time. When we feel we've done a good amount of work, ds works on his projects. The best part about project learning has been that he is using all TWTM skills *in a meaningful context*! Instead of doing WWE2 daily, he does copywork, narration, and dictation from what he's reading about (and since he chose the topic - he's passionate!). The same applies to grammar, handwriting, etc. I'd highly suggest at least looking at that blog - it has been awesome for our family.

Umm, anyone? I am way too tired to respond to this properly, but it really needs to be responded to.

I'd love to hear how it goes for you throughout the year, so please keep us updated!

Me too, and it's torturing me not to invest in it *right now* lol. It looks so good that I want to do all the levels as it seems to go so much deeper than other elementary science programs. We're craving depth around these parts.