I think it's hilarious that threads can be resurrected after so long. I assume it's because someone else has the same question, but wants to make it clear that they've read the old thread on the subject and they want whatever additional information is available. Having it popped with a little more explanation would be nice, though. Well, I'm going to be doing Rod & Staff Grammar 2 (Preparing to Build) for my second grader next year. It's amazing how excited I am about this, even though it is an actual textbook. As far as I can tell, grammar, like the times table, is always going to be "textbooky." And also like the times table, grammar is always going to require repetition, in order to make sure basic knowledge is firmly held in a child's memory. (Hence the name "grammar stage" for the "repeat, repeat, repeat" portion of education, right?) The problem comes when the repetition is condescending (the teacher is repeating things the child knows, when it should be the child's turn to demonstrate that knowledge), or when it's of material that the child has in fact mastered but has been drilled repeatedly on... this week... yesterday, in fact. (Since we're talking about grammar, my kids love Schoolhouse Rock and don't seem to mind repeating that over, and over, and over. Just a thought.) R&S does have a lot of busy work, but homeschoolers have pointed out that you can cut down on that, only doing it (maybe even orally) until it's clear that your child can identify a noun, etc. Then it's not so much "repetition" (although, of course, it is) as it is application. Only repeat something when it's clear your kid is floundering--"Remember, a noun is the name of a person, a place, a thing, or an idea," or whatever it is that they've forgotten. And when the "repetition" is along the lines of "What is a noun, again?" for review or as preparation for further lessons in a topic, your child should be able to answer the question and feel confident in their knowledge instead of bored with repetition. Of course, this comes from the lady who catechizes her kids, so... take it with a grain of salt. :p To get back to the topic of the thread, what I've read about Rod & Staff for older kids is that 1) the program is spiral, so presumably you don't have to worry so much about missing the older material, although you might want to spend a little longer on whatever topics your child isn't quite getting because he or she doesn't have the foundation of learning, say, the definition of a noun years ago; and 2) you could go back a ways (a year or two) and let your older kids cover it on their own, as quickly as they think it needs. Then they just have to get an acceptable score on either the reviews or quizzes/tests to demonstrate mastery, and they can move on.

I'm planning on having my three-year-old son around as I start his older brother (who is seven) on the phonogram cards. I figure the extra exposure won't hurt him any when he gets to reading himself. Hey, he's learning his catechism a whole lot faster than big brother did, mainly (or wholly) because he hears big brother being catechized.

We usually read out loud to our kids in the evening instead of letting them read before bed. However, they are allowed to read *after* "lights out." We took the cue from my sister, who has given each of her children so far a book light at a certain birthday (I think the sixth) to indicate that they are old enough to read some after the lights have gone out for their younger siblings. We've altered this even more by using the closet light as their "night light," which not only allows me to take my youngest out of his crib when he's awake in the middle of the night without stubbing my toe on any misplaced toys, but allows his older siblings just enough light to read (the oldest) or to "read" (the middle, who's actually just looking at pictures) until they go to sleep. So, pretty much the same as above, but modified for having multiple kids in the room. Allowing reading after "lights out" as a privilege has really worked to keep my son motivated to read!

:iagree: A few pieces of advice--if a program offers free demo materials, check them out! See if books (or software) that are components (or all) of a program are available at your local library. Check for local homeschool stores (we've got a used book store near us that specializes in homeschool materials, which is really neat). See if you could swing your state (or a local) homeschool fair--vendor hall passes tend to be free or at least much cheaper than the whole shebang. In other words, preview as much as possible! And, whenever possible, let your kids have input into what you buy, so that they have a "buy-in" on the materials. (Of course, this can also backfire if they get interested in glitzy but content-free materials, so it's more like: let your kids in after you've screened out the stuff you think or know will be worthless.) One of my most successful purchases has been Math-U-See. My son loves it--he's just finishing first grade, and he's over halfway through Beta (multiple digit addition and subtraction). He loves the independent nature of it--he just watches the DVD lessons and works on the worksheets, asking me for help when he can't get a concept. Then I review his work to see where he's had trouble. I love the independent learning from my side. I haven't even cracked the teacher books since I've gotten them--in fact, my Alpha level teacher book fell behind a tall bookshelf almost right away, and I never bothered fishing it out. That's about as "open and go" as you can get, and, surprise, suprise, he's never behind on his math. (That sadly tells you far too much about me as a teacher.) The manipulatives are a little troublesome, since my son has lost several pieces and his younger brothers are overly interested in them, and he doesn't even tend to use them all that much, but I still wouldn't give up the program for anything. Why did I get Math-U-See? Well, my sister recommended it, so I got the free demo DVD to see what the appeal was. I was on the fence about the program, but my son (who was in kindergarten at the time) watched it on his own and loved it. (I didn't even know he knew how to work the DVD player before that!) He wanted to know when we were getting it and pretty much wouldn't stop talking about it. I was still on the fence about it, but that decided me that it was worth the money. Two years later, he's still going strong. As for my failures? So far, they've been less learning style mismatches, honestly, and more subject matter. One of the things I love about homeschooling is that you're able to expose your child to so much material. Some of my son's "extracurriculars" have been definite (sometimes to the point of unexpected) successes; others have been dismal failures. Which is what I expected, so it's not really failure, now is it? There's only so much time and talent in life, after all. Of course, where the subject matter of failures is more central to what your child needs to learn (such as the three R's) is where you really have to take learning styles into account to figure out an approach that will let them master it, so I guess maybe they have been learning style mismatches, but I just haven't cared. Science has been a failure for my teaching style, despite trying several different programs. That's because I hate labs. I've always hated labs, even as a student myself, except for the silly physics ones with the slinky (light waves/sound waves) and the mirror, comb, flashlight (angles of refraction and reflection). They're involved, messy, rarely work like they're supposed to, and never really add anything new to my knowledge. I clearly don't have a scientific mind. I'll just stick with the (voluntary) independent reading he's been doing; yesterday, out of the blue, he told me all about how the ribcage is a cage protecting the heart and lungs, because they are some of the most important parts of the body. And, hey, reading taught me everything I know about science, despite cat dissections that attempted to invalidate the working theory that cats have, say, internal organs that can be found. Something to keep in mind, in view of all the people who hated repetition in various programs: often, the amount of material given in math (or perhaps phonics or grammar) to help a child review is far in excess of what a child needs normally. That material is there for the child who is having trouble with that particular concept. Let your children do evens or odds (as I remember doing in high school), or work until they have so many right in a row or otherwise demonstrate mastery, repeating the basic ideas as many different ways as you can come up with when they don't seem to be "getting it," and don't feel guilty that they aren't completing everything given. They aren't supposed to, and sometimes the material itself will even say this in its introductory materials. That said, if your child isn't getting bored, a little too much repetition is only going to pound the concept into his or her head that much more thoroughly.

Wow, I was just talking about supplementing Sonlight last night on this board! So now I guess I have to 'fess up to exactly how I've tweaked it so far... I've been doing Core 1 (now renamed "B") this year, and I just couldn't make myself use Follow My Leader, considering all the caveats about how it was an unrealistic book at the beginning of the Sonlight notes for it. I substituted with From Anna by Jean Little, a book that also deals with visual impairment and additionally provides a gentle introduction to Nazi Germany. (Which is not to say that it represents Nazi Germany as gentle!) While we aren't going to be covering World War II in history for years yet, I wanted to lay some groundwork for talking about it when it comes up in our day-to-day lives. That said, my son resented the fact that I had changed from the book we were supposed to be reading, and refused to get into the book. (He is such a rules-follower! He's got oldest-kid syndrome bad.) Books I wish we had substituted or at least slowed down: Mountain Born was a *lot* of reading at a time. It's a beautiful book, a very sweet coming-of-age story that I had never read before but that I loved (and so did my son, actually). It was just a loooot of reading. It's kind of jarring to switch between a full chapter of that and, say, half a chapter of Henry Huggins (which came later in the year). And as for Understood Betsy! Make no mistake, I love Understood Betsy, but I read it in junior high and my parents did not try to make me listen to it in first grade. It is just way, way too hard to get your child into--or at least, that's been my experience. Or maybe that's just because I have a son, instead of a daughter, who had trouble relating. (This is the son who loved The Hobbit when his father read it to him, even though his comprehension was fairly low, so he's willing to struggle through when the subject matter--or maybe the reader--is of interest to him.) I hate, hate, hate that every interesting and challenging book (with the exception of Dumas) has been relegated to "girl's stuff"--hey, Sir Walter Scott and Sir Winston Churchill, both fairly manly men, both appreciated Jane Austen; there were people (males) who refused to believe that L. M. actually stood for Lucy Maud; since when is SHAKESPEARE the least bit girly?--but there's only so much talking about dolls that my son will sit through. For supplementing, I've checked out a bunch of age-appropriate picture books on the topics we're covering and given them to my son to read on his own, which is generally the recommendation that seems to be coming up on this thread. I checked out as many as I could of the ones listed for the time period in The Well-Trained Mind, although quite a few of those turned out to be far beyond his reading level (Rosemary Sutcliffe springs to mind), so I just returned them to the library. I also looked for appropriate subject headings appended with --juvenile literature and particularly with the "ER" (for "Easy Reader") or "P" (for "Picture book") designation prefixing the call number, and put them on hold. (I'd say to just browse the shelves, but having young children makes that a lot harder than it should be, so the "Request hold" button and I have become very good friends!) Then I just put them in a basket for my son to read on his own during his younger brothers' nap time or in the evenings after lights out (our "night light" provides sufficient illumination for reading). I also read them to his younger siblings (or to him) when requested. This has worked pretty well for us. I understand, since you're doing American history, that you are absolutely not doing Core B, and that your children are probably older than mine, so none of this directly pertains to you. However, I thought the general strategies and problems I've had this year might be useful. So: feel free to substitute if you don't like a particular book (or if you know your child won't appreciate it--see the girly book my son hated, above) and supplement with stuff that they are willing and able to read on their own. And remember, if you purchased materials because you liked them, chances are that they're not going to be wasted, even if you don't use them for school this year. Your kids are likely going to have fun reading them and reinforcing what they do learn in school, even if it's years down the road... or at least, they will if they have the love for reading and learning that it seems you are enthusiastic about sharing with them.

As a user of Sonlight, I find this identification of it with curricula like Abeka a little unfair. Yes, you can get Sonlight in a box; however, it is nothing like as canned as Abeka, which is very much a textbook-based program, is. Every "pure" Sonlight user at the elementary level, for instance, has at least picked from one of three math programs--and then there are people like me, who use the core and disregard the rest. This "mix and match" approach, which is central to the program, encourages Sonlight users (or at least it does me) to look around at what might supplement or even replace what they're using now. When the Language Arts module, the only add-on I bought, completely failed me this year, for instance, I looked around until I came upon Writing with Ease, which is exactly what my son needs to increase his comprehension and facility with writing. All of this to say, I've been fascinated by this thread, and am now considering the Christian Gentleman's Series: Lessons in Responsibility for Boys for my own sons. (Maybe their father could teach it!) Why isn't there more praise for All Through the Ages, by Christine Miller, out there? I heard about it somewhere on this board, but it seldom seems to come up, even on the threads asking for book list ideas. I can't exactly claim that that's a resource I use that no one else does, since I don't actually use it or even own it (yet), but I'm certainly headed in that direction...

I've got Ubuntu 10.10. I went to the page using Mozilla Firefox version 3.6.17 (Mozilla Firefox for Ubuntu - canonical), temporarily permitted glogster.com with my NoScript add-on, left-clicked the "Folklore" thumbnail on the top left of the page, right-clicked on the new page, and selected "Print Glog" from the menu that came up. Then my little "Print" screen came up, (the one that allows me to submit a page range for printing and no other options,) and I told it to print the whole shebang. It worked beautifully, albeit slowly as is usual when printing through whatever it is that sends me to the little "Print" screen instead of the big one. (And since my printer is black and white, the result wasn't as pretty as the screen, of course.) All of this to say, I'm clearly not a computer expert, but it isn't necessarily the fact that you're on a non-Windows box that is the problem. Have you updated your browser? Do you have a no javascript preference or program (like my NoScript?) Did you get the big picture to load at all, and, if you did, did you try *right*-clicking it? I hope this helps! --Hannah