for the early years of math, there were blackline sheets to make multiple copies of. my struggling math student needed them to cement her facts. i have some of them to sell if you end up needing them.

one other idea- we have an amazon visa card. we use it for all purchases that take visa. we earn at least $25 per month and redeem it for amazon bucks that I use to buy... what else? BOOKS! Gotta love it. I can use them on marketplace sellers' books or amazon items. copies are 3 cents for us at office depot with our homeschool group card but i use a laser printer often. i agree about ambleside and mep. we are loving librivox! garage sales are my friend and i have just started posting items on paperback swap. if i buy it for a quarter at a yard sale and ship it for $2 but then get a book I really want, that works for me! I also used to buy extras at yard sales of books i have already but know are classics and would sell them on amazon. I made a lot of money this way and used it to pay for sonlight curriculum used. plan ahead so you can watch curriculum boards for deals on items you will need for the next year. starting early helps.

I switched my dd's to italic handwriting - getty dubay - and am pleased. the difference between print and cursive is minimal. print is nice, with a cute flair instead of the plain ole plain ole that we see normally. Transition to cursive was a breeze. I wanted my kids to be able to write quickly for ease of note taking in the future and I think this will accomplish that. I want them to develop their own personal styles anyway, so I didn't really mind that this is not traditional. I love that it is easy to learn and looks nice. I don't know any adults that write the way I learned in school, so honestly I just want their handwriting to be nice. This was the easiest program I could find to achieve my goal. I hear that Penny Gardner has an inexpensive program for italic. hth.

searched and didn't find one, but thought i'd ask here just in case. thanks!

MEP is similar to singapore and is free. I used R&S 1st through 4th and now my daughter struggles with conceptual math. I wished I hadn't used R&S. I printed MEP and am amazed at the difference. R&S is strong on fact memory and mental math in terms of oral math answering, but not on conceptual math. I read Liping Ma's book this year too and finally realized the difference in the way these math programs approach math. If you go with R&S, I'll sell you my felt pieces and my flash cards ; ) HTH!

For all of you who haven't heard of this, I read about it on this forum last summer and bought it here http://www.stmichaelschool.us/sentencefamily.html See details there. We love it. I do it with all 4 of my kids together. My dd10 said she would have like to have received it for a birthday present:lol: and she asked to do it today instead of playing with her cousins after she finished school. She asked if we could please do it from start to finish again. She and her sister have done Shurley 4, much to their dismay, and learned more from one fun trip through Sentence Family than from their years of Shurley. Maybe if you are doing MCT you won't want this. But if you are thinking of another approach, this is a super way to introduce the parts of speech! Worth every penny!

I switched mine and they did fine. We even switched one year to bjup which is very similar to GD italic and they did fine. They have great handwriting. We started with HWOT and then did Reason for Handwriting. But I really like the look of italic. To me, no one's handwriting as an adult resembles the Palmer method many of us used as kids, so I really decided it just didn't matter what I used so long as we liked it. I do keep them doing it daily for many years though bc/ I think it helps to keep them thinking about having good handwriting. We all like italic and are happy we made the switch.

Well, can I give an excuse??? :tongue_smilie: My 13 y.o. has special needs and can't tell the difference between adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. My 10 y.o. has the same genetic issue but is stronger in math. She takes 2 hours a day to finish, but has maintained grade level so far. We've tried: Abeka - not me Moving with Math - used for K and dd13 counted the picture of the cube as "3" bc/ she could see the 3 sides. not kidding. no fun. we weren't moving with that math! MM - currently loving MEP - this year we'll be doing some RS - love it. my ds7 does it and the others join in Singapore - didn't work well for those with special needs, but great for ds7 although i prefer RS MUS - my girls did 3 of the old levels and still didn't get it. i switched. Keys to is in a bin here for someday Saxon -not my cup of tea Rays - didn't make it far LOF - can't wait to get there! so fun! Hands on Equations - looking forward to trying this year Horizons - not me BJU - used with the DVD's for grade 3. not again i hope. I just bought On Cloud Nine and another set of workbooks for dd13 in hopes to get her to at least count money. Wish I knew the answer to teaching her! Teaching ds7 is a dream in comparison. he intuitively just sort of knows math. it is very fun! Loved Liping Ma's book! So helpful! Great thread. Thanks.

:iagree:I can add that I read Liping Ma's book too. It influenced my choices.

My children did 3 levels of MUS and weren't scoring well on standardized tests, weren't understanding math concepts (this surprised me), and weren't retaining their facts. I downloaded MEP, which is free and teaches concepts well, I bought Rightstart, and I bought Math Mammoth. I am loving these curricula which all teach math at a conceptual level better I felt than did MUS and my kids are learning. That is why we switched. Now we sort of hodge podge all 3 but we are learning so much!

thanks mom2moon2!

the Charlotte, NC library system is closing 16 branches. So, so sad!

thanks! I purchased MM bc/ it seemed less teacher-intensive. But MEP is so appealing! And I own and love RS. Man, I am such a junky!

I'd love to hear your thoughts of comparison. Which did you prefer if either and why? Thanks!

Could I buy just your manual even though the student pages are used and then buy the pdf of student pages? I have 4 students i need it for. It seems like this would be the cheapest method long-term and best for the environment instead of having someone toss out their whole workbook including the teacher section. Is this ok to ask here or should i ask in the for sale section? thanks!

MEP math is free online - just google it. Excellent stuff! Can anyone who has used both MM and MEP weigh in and compare for us? Thanks!

thank you! i haven't created any yet, so I'll have to work on it and see how that works. I was hoping there would be more publicly available homeschool ones.

I started OPGTTR once my son starting asking and am so glad I did. I waited with my older ones and now wish we'd started all reading sooner. Then you have the freedom to take it slowly and really enjoy the time with that child too. I also love the preK A-F books from Rod and Staff and the Kumon workbooks for cutting practice... and the HWOT letter wood pieces and magnadoodle. I'd say start and enjoy it.

Can you tell me more? I just downloaded it after reading the thread about memory work. Can we all share works we have already put on anki? I was surprised that the few things i typed in weren't on it already. any tips? thanks!

If you have the time to read Liping Ma's book Knowing and teaching elementary mathematics, I think it would help you understand what you are really looking for in a math program. Then you could really decide conclusively yourself. It is such a helpful resource!

We've done RS A and part of B and are part-way through MM. I prefer RS to MM bc/ RS really helps them see their facts on the abacus in their head. My son didn't need any extra help to memorize them. We LOVE the RS math games. No matter what you choose, that is a worthy purchase in addition.

we totally redid our plan after studying this forum lots and lots last year and are loving hs so much more now. if you sort the posts in this forum by # responses and take notes on the posts that tell what people like/ don't like, you will start to see trends! Since then, I have bought and liked or am about to start using and am excited about: Rightstart math, MEP math (FREE too), and Math Mammoth. We now really like using more than one math and after reading Liping Ma's book (a must read in my world) I see the need to use one of these types of programs or Miquon or Singapore or such for me bc/ I couldn't teach math like that on my own. MCT Grammar as well as loving Sentence Family which we all do together and all love History - SOTW1 was fine, but we love Ambleside Online and all do year 1 together. Love the free choices from googlebooks as well as listening to at least half of them on librivox.org. Love the Burgess Bird Book and the beautiful prints you can print online as well as the Cornell website on birds. We've learned every bird in our yard this year, hung feeders, and are having a blast. Apologia Elementary science books-Flying Creatures lines right up w/ our bird study. Christian Liberty Press nature readers - these are gems full of so much info. My kids take turns reading them and the apologia out loud so we do these together now. Presidential Penmanship and Penny Gardner are both good deals for what you get and we like the italic style and ease of transition to cursive. We used Getty Dubay at first for italic and it is great too. Have fun! HS can be super fun if you find curriculum you all love! The Raisingolives blog has really helped give me a vision for schooling several kids at once too. Doing more together and reading out loud/listening to audio books together is helping our days be a joy. Also, the forum posts on tea time were a treasure for us!

If so, what level Shurley were you in and what level MCT did you switch to? We are done Shurley 4 but I would like to include my 7 y.o. boy in MCT. I don't know if that is crazy though. Should I just switch my girls to MCT and keep on with FLL for my boys? I had already purchased SG5 when I found MCT here and bought it. I got the Island level. Should I just ditch SG and start Island with the girls?

is there a sequence to these books? Any I should start with? Have they helped your kids or are they totally just fun reads? Thanks!

:iagree:that in 3rd grade you can and I did let them write in their student books. My dd couldn't handle it if she had to write it all in a notebook. I let her write in it in 4th grade too. I purchased the blacklines and copied them and sorted them to do the way the TM said and was so glad I did. I think that is why we got the facts down cold. I forgot to say in my previous post that she scored at 8th grade level for some computations on her testing but scored at a 1st grade level for understanding and applying to other problems. This made me want to try something else and possibly use R&S as drill if needed. I may have my R&S to sell if you decide to use it and want to PM me.