Oh boy. Here we go with the list of math we have used. This will take some time. Horizons - Kindergarten, too many things going on on each page Rod & Staff - Love this in the lower levels when it is a workbook or there is enough space to write in the textbook. Very thorough. CLE - overall, my favorite. Used levels 100-Algebra. My boys have been grumbling over the amount of work, and are not retaining, so we are switching. Hopefully some mathematical joy will be found again. MM - I need more direction in teaching this when difficulty arises. It's great for kids who are math intuitive, but lacks clear-cut directions for the less mathematically inclined. McRuffy - loved this for the lower levels. I wish we had continued this with the boys. RightStart - Just was not a good fit for me and my teaching style. Miquon - I need clear direction on how to teach this without having to flip through three other books to figure it out. I like the idea of it, but in practice, I am too intimidated by it. Mathematical Reasoning - just did not like it. Books fell apart, not much actual teaching instruction. Strayer Upton - if I had another one to teach from the beginning, I would probably use these because I like the looks of them. Yes, I own them, but have never planned to make use of them. I just like them! MEP- see Miquon's explanation Life of Fred - too many typos for me to get past, plus there isn't enough practice. Schiller - I liked, but my youngest did not. Fortunately, I purchased it used at a very good price. KinderMath - my favorite for the very young PreK level. Math U See - great for kids who do well with mastery, but mine need a more spiral approach. Math Lessons for a Living Education - very sweet program. I have liked what we used. Lial's for Pre-Algebra and both levels of Algebra. My eldest has done very well with them,but she very mathematically inclined. I just placed an order for Beast Academy, Teaching Textbooks, and Singapore to figure out if my boys will do better with these. Actually the Singapore is for me to try to figure out! I always wanted to try Math on the Level. I find it very intriguing. I think the only big math program we have never used is Saxon. LOL,

I just ordered an a Instant Pot for my parents, along with a cookbook. I hope they like it as much as I like mine. I didn't see anything else on the sales that interested me, although I did pick up some books on my wish list so I could use the Amazon rewards card deal of $30 off any order of $150.

We love to walk/ride places, but drivers on our busy 45mph road are getting crazier and crazier with distracted driving and speeding. I don't feel safe on a bike anymore. Walking is better, but riding to town was a lot more fun.

Alvin just did a gun safety course for 4-H. He has a BB gun (Thanks, Ram Man. 😒) and is enthusiastic about all types of weaponry. He would spend hours looking at guns, swords, canons, etc at the museums in Cleveland. He wants to learn ballistics for fun. Guns and snakes. That's my boy. I took a course one summer, but have forgotten most of what I ever knew. I will read through Alvin's books as a refresher, though. We have not considered getting a gun before, but due to livestock issues on our farm, it would be beneficial to keep a rifle around for quickly dispatching a severely injured animal.

Chirping crickets, huh? OK, I guess Faith will have to be my Guinea pig on this project. :)

LOL! Our central air hasn't been worth beans the past couple of years. It's one of those things that needs to be looked at, but we keep putting it off since something else usually requires our funds at the time. So a cold house has not been the issue at all. We have had the windows open all spring/summer, when the weather warrants it. This house holds heat and it has not been below 80 degrees inside all week. I think our highest was 87. He has definitely not been cold the past few days! Thank you for the suggestion, though!

Somewhere along the line, I received a free copy of RLTL 1. As my kids all learned to read fairly easily, I never pulled it out to use it. I have been eyeballing it this past week or so as I have watched Faith struggling with spelling. She reads beautifully, and knows the phonograms taught in AAS 1 backwards and forwards. She did well in Level 1 AAS, but Level 2 has become a struggle fairly early on. She is missing words left and right, no matter how carefully I pronounce things for spelling in my boring mid-western accent. I have looked through the RLTL book, but don't really understand what a week for us would look like. I have read that others use it to help with spelling difficulties for their children who already read, and I was wondering what a typical week looks like for you? She will be able to read the Elson reader with one eye closed, so the emphasis is definitely on the spelling end of it. Could you please write up a sample week for us? What sort of pace do you recommend? She is easily reading at a sixth grade level, perhaps higher. I do not believe she has any learning issues i.e. Dyslexia or others. She occasionally reverses her numbers in math, but I attribute that to her trying to work quickly. I would gladly purchase higher levels of RLTL if I could understand how best to use it in her situation. Thank you!

I tried it on two different occasions; Once with Joy who worked through about half of the first level and just recently with Faith who was trying to do the third level, but only lasted about 30 pages before the tears began because "it was too confusing." Both liked the colorful aspect, but the directions were sometimes not very clear/easy to follow. The books themselves, while relatively expensive, are not bound well. After only doing a few lessons, Faith's book started to pull away from the binding and the pages began to loosen. I remember the same thing happening to Joy's book, although not quite so soon. It turned out to be an expensive mistake for us, both times.

Thank you for the Never10 download suggestions! She installed Never10 as an added layer of protection on her PC. It is safe to sleep again at night.

Sigh. No sign of him yet. All 9 chicks are doing well, though.

I forgot to add that I own some of the lower level Fan Math books. I forgot I had them and didn't recognize the title when they were mentioned. Thanks for the link! That triggered my memory. I will pull them out and we can play with those until the other books arrive! It feels so good to have a plan! Optimism is good!

Once the boys looked at the TT samples, they fell in love. They were sitting here all morning, doing the sample lessons, over and over again. I debated on ordering two copies of the workbook, but only ended up with one, as I figured I could probably have each of them work some of the problems on the computer and some of them in the book, or they could even alternate day on the computer. Alvin was quite interested, too, so it may be a fun addition to CLE for him. I also showed them the BA samples. They were cautiously enthusiastic. They liked the comic book format and the characters, but they weren't sure if they would be able to do the problems correctly. I told them I would join in whenever things got tough and we could try to work the puzzles out together. We are going to treat it as a fun puzzle book to spend time with, but nothing to stress out over. I ordered the level 3 book set for all of us to share. I am considering the other recommendations, as well, but will hold off until I see how things roll with BA. I do so appreciate the suggestions! If these guys can become enthusiastic about numbers again, it will be well worth the financial investment.

On our way home from picking up a little holland lop buck for Faith, we passed by a hatchery. I had a lightbulb moment and came home with nine new chicks for Joy's egg business. We can house them in a bin similar to Jack's cage with a secure lid (which has a partly screened top) . They will be kept in an easy to access location and hopefully he will sense their presence and come looking for a fluffy butt snack. The girls made me promise that no chicks would actually be consumed in the baiting of this snake. I complied and showed them how secure the whole set-up is.

I actually purchased a couple of the Challenging Word problems books to try to help increase their understanding of it and they groused and grumbled their way through all of it. Did I stick with it? No. I wanted math to be fun and they hated it, so we shelved it. I lack the ability to provide clear, simple examples and help when needed. Alvin gets me because he is just as convoluted and distracted in his processing as I am. It's messy in that brain, but somehow he untangles it all and makes sense of it. Theo and Simon need clear and concise, which I am not! Do you think the MIF books might be a better fit for them? I keep looking at all the Singapore book options and throw up my hands because I can't figure out what would work best for whom in which situation. I react the way they react when faced with word problems. I'm going to pick the wrong book (operation) and screw up the child (solution) so what's the point of even trying anymore. I need someone to tell me, "Get this book because it has the clearest explanations and all you need to do is sit beside them and make sure they understand what to do. You don't need to explain the process because it's all in there for them to follow along and it is clear enough that a Guinea pig could do it. " (not that I'd ever compare my darling children to Guinea pigs.)

we can't seem to enter the answers into the fields. There is no cursor and nothing happens when we try to highlight it and enter it. The kids are desperate for it to work, and they take turns yelling at it when each time we try it again.

It's now July 8th. Still no sign of Jack. I asked Alvin if I could put his habitat away until we find him as I don't want anything to get broken and rendered unusable for when he is found. He gave his permission and we promised each other to keep looking for him every day. The good news is that I don't smell anything decomposing in the house. When Joy's dragon died suddenly this past winter, she was quite stinky very early on. With the heat we have been having the last few days, a deceased snake would cause a terrible odor. We are still holding on to our hope. If he is in the house, he is not dead.

She is most appreciative of the earlier thread on this board that warned her of the evil lurking under the guise of a simple Windows upgrade. She had not known of the danger to her unsuspecting PC until she was enlightened by her online community, (mainly) united in their mutual disregard for this darkness forcing itself upon their innocent lives and unfortunate software.

Ellie, XP was her favorite, but 7 is acceptable. Vista was horrific and she is not willing to sacrifice any more of her sanity on the glitchy computer upgrading to 10. She might be arrested for disturbing the peace by throwing it out the window (which would be appropos, considering) or even resorting to a sledge hammer.

She worked up her courage and plugged everything back in. Hallelujah! Windows 7 is still alive and well!

She has it set to not download without permission, but her spouse told the unsuspecting children to click yes while she was conversing. The spouse never touches her computer, so he doesn't understand the nature of the Very. bad. Thing. he inadvertently gave permission for the computer to do.

They are totally fine with reading and analyzing other material. I remember having the same frustration with math when I was their age. Just give me problems to compute. Don't give me convoluted word problems that I have to sift through to find the pertinent information and then figure out which computation is necessary to find the information that is required to find the answer. Although I did not have the privilege of bearing them, they are totally my boys when it comes to rationalizing reasons to NOT do word problems. 🙄 My reference to my eldest getting the benefit of one-on-one time was to when she was the only one being taught, while the youngers were all napping during her school time with me.

The mother in the above tale is now afraid to plug the computer back in to check if she stopped the download in time.

It was a quiet evening in NE Ohio. Simon and Theodore were gathered around the desktop PC trying out samples of Teaching Textbooks while their younger brother Alvin kept blurting out the answers in a very annoying fashion. The mother of the family was chatting with her mother on the phone, checking up on her dad's recovery after his second round of chemo last week. The word "downloading" uttered by one of her darling boys, penetrated her already distracted brain. She stopped mid-sentence to inquire WHAT was downloading. She heard something about "Windows" and in a feat unparalleled by any other in the history of modern technology, dropped the phone, leapt over unsuspecting children, shoving bodies aside, shut down the computer and unplugged the tower with contortions believed improbable for a 43 year old woman to perform, while the word, "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" bellowed forth from her diminutive form. Startled by her very uncharacteristic actions, her shocked children stared at her, awaiting an explanation. "I had to stop Windows 10 from downloading," was her only explanation as she picked up the phone and resumed her conversation with her mother.

So, what about combining TT with BA? That way they could have the consistency of a spiral program combined with a fun but designed to get them thinking more mathematically game component? I would continue to work on getting Prodigy to work, but but in the meantime, would that be a good compromise? I would probably start BA at the earliest level and have them gradually work their way up.

I forgot to mention that I am having a dickens of a time trying to get Prodigy math to work on my computer.