we used year 1 when my girls were about 8 and 6. we bought all of the green color-coded book selections. Wow... some of those books were way, way over their heads at the time but i didn't realize that. Even SL scheduled the same books in much later years. (Mind you, the 8 y.o. has special needs and some kids have a much greater capacity than mine. But Bronze Bow is a beautiful story and was just too much for my 6 y.o.. VP said to read a few grade levels ahead to them, which I would normally agree with for read alouds. But it was a waste I thought of my time and theirs when we could have been doing so much more.) We had done SL cores 1 and 2 before that. Also, the green and purple selections aren't (or weren't then) on the memory cards so they weren't "scheduled" there. That was frustrating to me. I wrote on each card with a Sharpie to add them. The activities suggested in the TM weren't nearly as exciting as those in the SOTW AG. I regret not having used SOTW + the AG that year instead of VP. I also regret not learning the VP songs! They seem to be recommended by many people and we didn't do it. The memory cards are super and many people who do not use VP buy them any way, as well as the cd's. One other thing - VP does not make recommendations by age really the way TOG or others would. Oh - I do love the VP suggestions for many things. Their art study choices were super, as were their classical music choices, etc. But none of these are published by them. I love their catalog for ideas. I just am aware that I may need to use things later than they suggest.

ok, so just a thought. please don't yell at me if you disagree! but, if you paid for a year of bju sat and just didn't record the math, then would it be wrong to ask someone else who did record that math if you can please copy it? is that legitimate? just wondering if you know someone and then that would solve this since you didn't realize at the time that you'd wished you'd retained a copy.:confused: I'm not sure what the rules would be...

we are enjoying Linguistic Development Through Poetry Memorization I bit the bullet and bought the cd too. Although I don't like the way he talks, my ds-6 has taken a real liking to it and says his poems just like it! (This is good bc/ then he is enunciating well!) I offered my kids a quarter for every poem they memorize as long as they can recite each one plus all of their previous ones. They are loving this! They had been asking how to earn money bc/ we don't give a standard allowance. So that made this a fun incentive in our house to get the memorization wheels turning.

also, i just bought this and haven't used it yet, but in my research noticed that you can download and IEW guide to go with it! just thought i'd share in case you didn't know and might be interested...

did you buy it and not use it? is it worth purchasing? thanks!

From what I understand, memorization helps build neural pathways in the brain, allowing it to be easier for the child to both memorize and to understand more. I'm all for that! From my own experience, I know that EVERY single song and poem I have taught my children I have found that my dad already knew! I think this amazing knowledge base of my dads has helped him in life in that he can talk to almost anyone about almost anything. When we began nature study, if we told him about a new bird we'd seen, he'd tell us all about the bird. It is as if he is a walking encyclopedia. he know really neat stuff about just about everything! Lately we've begun studying art and classical music. Every song we play, he knows! I really just realized this about him in the last 3 years. I wish I'd gleaned more from him before that. But I think it helped him in life to make him one who really could talk comfortably with others from every facet of life. Now in his 80's, my dad memorizes the readings for church and is a lectern. He stands before the congregation and says his readings by heart, believing that this allows him to say them with great meaning and elocution. He is an incredible speaker! hth!

you could do some of the spelling out loud verbally. but i don't think it is necessary. i'd agree to just skip the rest. i've been having my ds read each story 3 times before moving to the next one. it has seemed to help him catch on faster so he is more fluent. also, i had each of mine read the lists of words on the workbook pages by reading the first, then reading the first and the next, then reading the first 3, then drop the first but read the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th... drop 3rd... This too seemed to help them become more fluent in their reading ability. it takes time but I liked that they learned to read each word and got better at joing the first and second letter sounds more quickly.

my dd 9 CRIED this week when it was the last day with Mrs Walker, the BJU English teacher for 3rd grade. CRIED! It couldn't have been passive. They answer out loud, and follow all of the teacher's instructions. I sometimes sit in with them. It was a great year. We just added a bunch of fun books to read on top of it and will read lots and lots this summer. We may not do it next year, but it sure served its purpose this year!

we did mus with the old books so did foundations and then moved to r&s. We stopped midway through year 3. We were very, very faithful to do every thing they scripted for the teacher to do and say, play every game, drill with flashcards, do all of the extra blacklines. But by 3rd grade midyear, my 2 dd's confused their addition/sub/multiplication facts and didn't get the concepts at all. I was so discouraged since I had personally loved R&S. We bought Rightstart and have loved it. I just ordered the game package to go with it. for now we have been doing the games that she explains but I am very excited to have more games to add in! R&S might work for you. But it was too much drill and too little explanation for my kiddos. If you get Rightstart, I'd start with book A just so you don't miss anything and take it as slowly as you need to. I make notes on stickies each day and stick them to each page, so the next day I do a quick review of all of the main concepts from the previous days. (I think I did a poor job of preparing my kids for math, so this seems to be helping them learn the concepts well.) I hope your son soon thinks he is a math whiz!

we use a cd too and sing the same hymn everyday until i think they generally know it. we did the last one for about 7 days before moving to the next. we do it first thing in the morning, followed by the Hide 'Em in Your Heart cd so we are singing a scripture. I add motions or let them march around and clap and stuff.

i stopped with my dd and wish i hadn't. i think i could have progressed but done lots of fun fact drill. now she practices on the mathusee website online drill every day. she is finishing 3rd grade and just cementing her facts now. i wish we'd practiced more faithfully earlier on.

I use it with my 2 ds's. One is 6 and the other is 4. I've noticed that the 6 y.o. "gets it" quickly. The 4 y.o. isn't really getting it all, but still is learning a lot. he is from an international adoption though and is speech delayed and stuff, so perhaps most 4 y.o.'s would do fine. All that to say, I love it! Here are a few things we did in it this week if this would help you gauge: What # comes after 3? What # comes next? What day comes after Monday? Show them cards with dots or tally sticks and ask which shows more. Ask them to show you 8 beads on the abacus... The 4 y.o. doesn't think through the more questions and answer correctly even though he can count. hth!

i just bought this and everyone told me to start in level one to make sure they don't have any holes in their knowledge.

another option is rightstart math A. it is not a workbook and requires little writing, but they learn to think about math concepts. we are thoroughly enjoying it with my youngers after bombing on lots of math curriculum choices with my older ones. and they are "seeing" math and getting it. now, that is my idea of fun!

somewhere online - I think in Paula's archives - is a schedule to use CHOW with SOTW. I hope it works out well bc/ that was my plan for next year with my DS's. There is a plan to use Egermeir's bible with them too. ok, found it http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/chowsotw.htm Then, we could drop anything we didn't love.

maybe read the posts about aas (all about spelling). i posted and asked a comparison between it and apples to pears, as they seemed to be some favorites for those who switched in spelling. those who had tried both seem to prefer aas. but lots love apples and pears and haven't switched. i tried sequential spelling and eventually gave up. i just didn't see my dd's gaining skill in applying it in their writing. friends tell me they see gains after using aas.

we also have an old and worn copy of I Can Read It! put out by Sonlight. It has been revised since our copy, and separated into multiple books instead of one big bound copy. But we don't mind the one copy. I like the lack of pictures so my kids don't "guess" at words. They have a few illustrations in black and white. I like the price. And the stories are a hoot! my ds(6) laughs out loud when he reads them. They slowly cover word families and we really like the slow and steady incremental approach. We have R&S and Pathway readers too.

that is really helpful. thanks! i am loving this forum!

we used the r&s books and like them too. at the same time, we used the kumon workbooks and really like them although they are a whole lot more expensive. I actually laminated some of them page by page and have the kids use a wipe-off pen so we could use them again. But we really like the cutting one. the maze one is fun too. i noticed they have them at Target too. Here is a link. http://www.kumonbooks.com/catalog/catalog_workbooks-preschool.aspx I second someone's recommendation of the Sonlight preK read-alouds too. We really love them. happy preK!

Could you compare the two for me? My dd has special needs. We've used Sequential and others and she just doesn't apply it to her writing at all. Any thoughts? Thanks!

we've just started barb's challenges and are really enjoying identifying birds in particular. today we found these videos online on the cornell site http://www.allaboutbirds.org/netcommunity/Page.aspx?pid=1189 how helpful! cornell explains about feeders and feed too, so I've asked for some for mother's day have fun!

you can play bingo and make the board the letters and the cards you read out loud are letter sounds. then if they have them down cold, make the board and cards the blends. You can do memory with capital and lower case. One of our favorite games though is expensive but you can find it used very inexpensively - The Phonics Game - http://www.healthyplace.com/adhd/add-focus/the-phonics-game/menu-id-1580/ it has a lot of different games in it. I think I paid $50 and I see them sell for that on ebay. hth!

We've used both MUS and BJU. This past year was our first with BJU. I read a study which said they had tracked students through and coming out of highschool who had done Abeka, BJU, and Saxon (maybe others but I can't recall) and the ones who had used BJU throughout entered college with the highest math scores. I wasn't loving MUS anyway and so made the switch but bought the BJU dvd's. We have had a GREAT year. My daughter has really enjoyed BJU 3. And I have loved not teaching it, even though I have taken many grad school math classes myself. We'll be sticking with BJU but I think I'll hold onto our MUS stuff in case we need review. I do wish I had had her do 5 minutes a day of fact practice with the MUS tape or the online MUS drill or something of that nature. My guess is that you may have stronger math students using BJU, but I really am not certain.

the tally sticks, if you don't have a big quantity of popsicle sticks already. I too just couldn't get into singapore. I even tried Miquon. No go. I am loving Rightstart. We are only on lesson 23. I have my 11 yo and 8 yo "play" with us so that they learn the concepts and learn to see the abacus. I bought all of the recommended resources and am so glad to have bought the cd because it gives you the appendices and that is so much easier for printing! You will need to print much of the appendix onto cardstock so you have the dot cards and stuff. You can get by without this, but if you end up loving RS, then you may consider buying the cd. We use the sticks and abacus all of the time. Oh, do you own geoboards already? They use those in level A. But you can live without them if you want the bare bones. One thing to note - she writes it as if the student will know concepts sooner than my son ever knows them (he is 5 and we are doing A). I just press on and he is slowly and very happily learning them! He ASKED to do math this week. That is a first in our house ever for math. Hope it is a great fit for you too!

thanks Dorothy! That looks perfect. I ordered them. That should spice up our days!