Hey, I've now had a chance to browse free samples, including a hefty chunk of Roots and Fruits (linked here), and it looks like English from the Roots Up does do some more heavy lifting than R&F, even without the notecards. Honestly, I think starting with EftRU and then expanding on that base with R&F (eventually) makes the most sense, particularly since I'm not going to be doing roots-based vocabulary with kindergarteners. There's just too much else to learn that early on.

Have you tried cross-posting this on the bilingual board?

Search Google for "planning unit studies," and I think you'll find a lot. If you'd rather a preplanned unit study, there are some free ones available, if you can pick a topic. Or, browse through Homeschool Share, my favorite free source (Level 3 Unit Studies sound about right for the ages of your kids). If you really want to pay a lot of money for this, there's always Everything You Need to Know about Homeschool Unit Studies, by Jennifer Steward.

You could try A Child's History of the World, which, while it has a narrative structure like SOTW, tends to be less "dense." Then it's a lot easier to supplement with whatever else you find interesting... (Make sure you get this edition, though, because the older ones had some very offensive content here and there...)

Yes, there is a difference. Here's a very useful comparison of "Pattern Blocks, Attribute Blocks, Tangrams, and Pentominoes." (I have attribute blocks, and I know you certainly can't do tangram exercises with them, or attribute block exercises with tangrams!)

If your child has to add on his fingers by the time he gets to multiple-digit multiplication, he'll probably get very frustrated doing his math problems. But if he just takes that second when he's learning single-digit addition, he'll probably have it down all the way by the time he gets through carrying. He won't even have to break it down into 8+2+5 by then: he'll just know it. So I would think your son is fine, depending on where he is. (Then again, I don't pretend to know everything, here.)

Well, there's U.S.A. games from Sheppard Software, or you could download Seterra for international geography. Or you could just browse around Mr. Brown's Cyber School: Geography, Maps, Atlases, & Flags, and see what links you like. All of these are free, I think.

I think this post, which was in response to a post of mine, kind of missed my point... I didn't say rote memorization, although I think that can be a valuable tool. In fact, in an attempt to make everything less painful, I got my son the Flashmaster, which allows him to review his math facts without the endless chanting I remember from my school days. (And it seemed to work--he enjoys "playing" with it occasionally, which is all I ask for.) But I think math facts still have to be learned to the level of automaticity somehow--if you don't want to call that process "memorization," then use whatever term you feel fits, but I stand by the fact that it is an essential but not complete part of math. (I do review my son's phonogram sounds with flashcards for his spelling program, whereas I don't remember ever, ever doing any kind of useful phonogram review myself as a kid. I already knew my sounds to a level of automaticity by the time we got to them on the stupid phonogram chart. So am I perpetuating boring, stupid rote memorization? Eh, maybe.) By the way, note that my son uses Math-U-See, which does try really, really hard to make sure that children are learning the concepts behind the math. I have nothing against concepts being learned--in fact, I thought I was agreeing with the majority opinion on this. Oh, well.

For homeschoolers who may not have heard yet, the Homeschool Shop in Culpeper had to close due to earthquake damage. Their inventory was bought by someone who set up shop in Fredericksburg. The store, which opened a week ago, is called "Train up a Child," and it is located on Caroline Street next to the Eyesore (whoops, I meant the "Executive Center"). While the footprint seems a little smaller than the old store, and it isn't quite as child-friendly, it's also a lot easier to navigate through, and certainly to reach for a lot of people. I hope to see you there!

And to get kids interested, check out Greg's Microscope. And I mean that literally, if your local library has it. It's a great prep while your microscope is coming in the mail! (Not that we have a microscope, but we have read about Greg's.)

Interesting. I was planning on switching after Epsilon, because that is a logical place to switch, in my opinion, and their stuff after arithmetic is widely held to be worse. I'll have to wait and see, I guess. We're still only on Beta, after all!

I was planning on starting a roots-based vocabulary program for my oldest son next year, in third grade. I'm having trouble picking between these two. I must admit that the pre-made cards for the former program look beautiful, but the latter seems more comprehensive and is cheaper than the books for the former. So, anybody who's used one or both of these, please chime in! Did you like it? Why? Would it be insane to get the cards for EftRu for occasional review while using RaF as written? Or is there some other roots-based vocab program out there that you find far preferable for elementary grades? I'm not too crazy about workbooks, particularly since there are younger siblings coming along in a few years.

What an interesting thought exercise! There are so many aspects of Math-U-See to compare. (By the way, please correct me when you think I'm wrong. Like I said, this is a thought exercise, in an area I don't really know much about. I'd love to learn more!) For one thing, Math-U-See is mastery-based. You learn a concept in its entirety, and real life applications as they refer to that concept. I don't know that I'd want an LA program that was completely like that. I honestly believe that grammar, for instance, is better taught in a spiral fashion, because, unlike in math, the stuff you "haven't gotten to yet" (e.g., adjectives) have much more impact on the stuff you have gotten to (e.g., nouns) than do the little variations of the stuff you have gotten to (e.g., the nominative case, or even just subjects and direct or indirect objects). On the other hand, some people seem to prefer the "mastery" approach to phonics, in which nonsense syllables are made of the sounds that have been mastered, and I can't say that's wrong, although I think I would have found it extremely frustrating. A spelling program that does this, however, would probably be a phonics-based spelling program, which do seem to be extremely popular. (I'm using one right now.) A "roots"-based vocab/spelling program could also look a lot like this, although what you're "mastering" would be one root (and perhaps language source, such as Greek) at a time. What would this look like for writing? You have to master the sentence, then the paragraph, then the essay, then poetry? I'm not even sure. And what "mastery"-based reading would look like after phonics, I have no clue. As you can see, what "mastery-based" looks like in some part of language arts could be a little strange. (By the way, I love how MUS does "mastery-based" learning. I am also extremely interested in Apologia, because Jeannie Fulbright makes some very cogent arguments in favor of what she calls "immersion science," which is another type of mastery-based learning, in my opinion. Of course, one of her points is that some of the basics of science will need to be learned in any branch, which isn't quite the same thing, but still... I could see more of an "immersion LA," if you will, for advanced literature studies, for instance. Isn't that what many of those lit unit studies, like Further Up and Further In, are?) Secondly, Math-U-See is manipulatives-based, to the point where you use those little blocks all the way up to Algebra. This is where the Linking Blocks linked above come in. Also, All About Spelling is a very popular manipulatives (tiles) -based spelling program, although it is certainly not alone in having manipulatives for phonics. If you expand "manipulatives" to "multi-sensory," there are even more reading and/or spelling programs that fit the bill, although I haven't seen any besides those linking blocks that really fit the bill for grammar in quite the same way. Once again, though, composition and advanced reading don't really lend themselves to manipulatives in the same way some of the other aspects of LA do. On the other hand, if you look at the job of manipulatives--making the abstract concrete--you could argue that diagramming and marking up poems into feet do much the same job for the upper grades. (Yeah, that's a bit of a stretch.) Thirdly, Math-U-See is whole to parts instruction. The concepts are taught, and then comes the memorization and examples. Here I'm going to give my only handwriting example (because so many handwriting programs I'm familiar with seem rather similar in the other areas I've listed): Handwriting Without Tears is very strong on understanding a shape before trying to get a child to actually write it. Hence all of those activities with wooden pieces and clay before the child is expected to use an actual pencil to write anything. But any handwriting program will make the child look at the whole letter, usually after (maybe even long after) they've learned the sound it makes, and then show the strokes needed to actually draw the letter. On the other hand, what whole-to-parts instruction looks like in reading instruction--whole reading--is an utter disaster; phonics, which seems to me to be the ultimate in parts-to-whole instruction, is widely considered to be preferable. Many lit students would agree, on the other hand, that really bad lit teachers never make it to the "whole" at all, whether at the beginning or the end of the process, focusing on literary techniques and "Jesus figures" and never approaching an actual interpretation of any of the works. How to Read a Book definitely supports a whole-to-parts approach to reading, however. What does whole-to-parts grammar instruction look like, though? The first thing we do in grammar is pull things apart, and then build up the whole; in this area, you could argue that grammar is the second part of composition, in which first, the whole is built, and then you check the parts for coherency, which includes grammar, spelling, and "flow." As most writers would tell you, you don't try to do writing parts-to-whole: hence the popularity of this month, also known as NaNoWriMo. The closest you could really get is writing the pieces as you come up with them, but you usually have to have some sort of outline for this to work at all, and writing from an outline is the ultimate in whole-to-parts when it comes to writing, if you ask me. Except for the fact that, before even the outline, you have to have some sense of what it is you're trying to achieve with a piece of writing--an argument you're making, a story you want to get told, a feeling you want to evoke in the reader, whatever. There's the real "whole." And wow, did I get to rambling. That can happen with writing, too, y'know. Which is why an outline is helpful. :p Finally, when you use the DVDs and CD, Math-U-See is multimedia, and, in the early levels, allows the parent to act more as a teacher's helper than the teacher. Here, programs like Starfall, movies from Leapfrog, IEW's SWIs, and Schoolhouse Rock could be said to be like Math-U-See in the language arts realm. So, for which part(s) of Math-U-See do you want an equivalent?

Is it your oldest that is having trouble? Apparently, as Math-U-See goes on, it requires a little more teacher interaction as the DVD lessons just aren't quite enough. I don't know, it's just a thought.

Eh... I got it for my son for his seventh birthday, and we've only used it twice in the six months since then. I think it's just a little too hard for him. Maybe when he gets a bit older he'll enjoy it more. To be honest, I'm tempted to tweak the rules every time I play, too. I've even pondered (gasp!) getting rid of the game board and just playing with the cards. For a more competitive (and less writing-oriented) take on the concept, check out Once Upon a Time. In this one, you try to hijack the story whenever you can, but the players all need to be rather familiar with fairy tales. (Sadly, my son's education is somewhat neglected on that front.) I've enjoyed playing this one well into adulthood.

and Don't you ever wish you could do something like knitting during the worship service? Today's lesson (from the intern pastor) just didn't have enough meat to it to take notes, so I kept falling asleep. So, yes, having something else to fiddle with can help my focus sometimes, too.

Me too! That's what I meant by switching to writing instead of tiles.

I really love this program. It probably is a little teacher-intensive. On the other hand, watching their older siblings practice phonograms can help the younger ones with their reading instruction, and won't necessarily hurt someone who's a little further back in the program. (You said you were teaching two out of six, but didn't give any ages, so I'm going ahead and assuming that at least some of those six are younger.) It's also less time-consuming when you move from the tiles to actual writing. That said, part of the reason I picked the program is because my son hates writing... and he's loved switching to writing from tiles! Go fig.

I'll out myself as a complete math ignoramus by saying that the only thing that registered in this post at all is the phrase "New Math," as a result of which I now have Tom Lehrer in my head. Thanks a bunch. But, to chime in as a complete math ignoramus: I think at some point you just have to do the boring old fact memorization. It's not fun, and it's not everything, but it is essential.

Do Frog and Toad and similar books count for this? Is that too simple? I'd recommend A Bear Called Paddington, but it probably doesn't have enough art for you.

Okay, here's "any" as an indefinite pronoun and the subject of the sentence: Any of the children would like candy. But as it is, it is an adjective (or a determiner, if you're going to be all modern linguist about it, I guess). Who said you can't have multiple adjectives modifying the same noun? "Any young European child would like candy." Both "young" and "European" modify "child," in that case, along with "any." And the rule about appositives is, indeed, that the sentence still makes sense--and makes the same sense--when you take it out as when you leave it in. As I learned it, the rule about using commas with appositives is that you do so when what the second noun phrase refers to isn't in any doubt. "Shakespeare's masterpiece Hamlet is the most-disputed play in literary criticism," besides being a somewhat doubtful sentence, (because I made it up off the top of my head,) cannot have the commas around it, because Hamlet is not the only work by Shakespeare that is generally considered a masterpiece. "The 'Scottish play,' Macbeth, is generally considered to be bad luck to call by name among those in the theater tradition." Here, the commas are fine. Did anyone else learn appositives this way? Edited to say: Ooh, and Wikipedia agrees with me on the commas. See "Restrictive versus non-restrictive" in their article "Apposition."

And I love Math-U-See because I'm sooooo lazy. My son watches the video, he works his pages asking my help if he needs it (which he hasn't done much of, so far), and that's about twenty minutes more a day I have to keep on top of my almost-twenty-month-old brat. Excuse me, I think he's getting into the jelly.

I know you don't have much time, but have you considered checking for activity guides at your local library? Mine has all of the Story of the World Activity Guides, but it also has more specifically themed ones, like More than Moccasins, Projects about Plantation Life, The Underground Railroad for Kids, and Westward Ho!. I just did a keyword search on "Activity Guide", and then a keyword search on "Study and teaching -- Activity programs" as a phrase (meaning that I actually put those quotation marks in my search), which appears to be the Library of Congress Subject Heading subheading for activity guides. Since they're subject specific headings, if your library uses that classification it'll probably get you a whole lot of activity guides on all kinds of subjects, but maybe it's worth a shot? The great thing about checking activity guides out from the library (if any are available at yours) is that, if they don't work out, it's no skin off your nose, right? And even if they do work out, you can return them when you're done, with the happy feeling that now someone else can enjoy the book, too. Sorry, I'm kind of a big fan of libraries. ;P I understand that not everyone has a nice one, though.

As a "naturally good" speller, let me tell you the rule that I really did find helpful: I before E, except after C, or when sounding as ay as in neighbor or weigh. Exception sentence: Neither financier seized either weird species of leisure. (Unless you're pronouncing "either" Scottishly, then it does follow the rules.) Random word lists never made sense to me. I'm using All About Spelling with my son, though, and that does make sense. It's a Spalding-based program, like others listed above, and includes rules such as "When a word ends in a z sound, it is more likely to be an s than a z." This will take your child a long way, but in the end, English is not terribly phonetic. Therefore, root-based programs (such as English from the Roots Up -- see another current thread for other programs) may be helpful, too, as they illustrate why English is not phonetic, and help see which rules are more likely to apply: "We get this from the French, so we use a "c" instead of an "s." (That's a random rule I made up; please don't teach that to your kids unless you get better backing than just me for it. Also, if you do go for English from the Roots Up, it only teaches Latin and Greek roots.) As a complete side note: My husband was not aware until this week that when describing males by their hair color, you should refer to them as blonds or brunets, not blondes or brunettes, since those are descriptors of females. Redheads are fine in any gender, being the good old Anglo-Saxon descriptor. More shockingly, he was not aware that, when we were affianced, while I was his fiancée, he was my fiancé. Some words are not Anglicized enough when we borrow them from the French, if you ask him.

English from the Roots Up is a classic that focuses on Latin and Greek. I disagree with the thought that teaching roots is useless in English. You need to find roots that are so integrated into the language that they are used prolifically... but they certainly exist.