I am doing the k level right now and you definately need the teacher's manual. The stories are in there, and only in there, as well as all the definitions and instructions on how to present the words and picture cards. Even the directions for most of the activities in the student book are only in the teacher's manual. If anything, you could probably do without the student book, but would definately need the teacher's manual. Although, I have only seen and used the k level, so maybe the higher levels are different.

My son is in K. During Calendar time I have him work on memorizing things like his birthday, address, phone number, etc. I also do one thing related to what we are studying. For example, this month we are doing the MSB kit on rainbows and light, so he is memorizing the colors of the rainbow. Last month he did the names of the continents. It is all short and simple stuff. Just trying to get him in the routine for later.

I kept trying to make a plan for my son when we were doing K and I kept finding that one day into it I would have to change it. It was just too hard to predict how fast or slowly his skills in different areas would progress and how often he would be into school each day. So, what ended up working for me was to make a list of activities in various areas (i.e. arts and crafts, fine motor skills, numbers, letter, colors, shapes, etc) and just go to the next thing when he felt like doing it. However, ds is now halfway through K and I still find it useless to plan out farther than a couple of weeks with him. The "do the next thing" aproach seems to work out much better for us. I just go to the next phonics lesson, or math lesson, or art project on the list, etc. So, maybe that is just us. :001_smile:

I go through an umbrella school but the only reaon is that they give me %$1500 a year to buy what ever curriculum and supplies I want, as well as paying for extra curriculars. I would never pay to be a part of one, but that said, I think everyone is different. If you feel it is worth it for your own piece of mind then it is worth it for you.

This is one area where I can't seem to shake my teacher training from my pre-mommy years. I still look to my state standards or the common core standards often. I find it calms me down and I feel less overwhelmed once I do that, but that may just be me.

Rainbow resource sells bot the K/level 1 combo pack and just the level 1 kit. You can reuse everything in it except the student work book. Rainbow resource sells these separately for not to much $ thought I cannot remember off hand how much. I am planning to just get another workbook and reuse the program with my 2.5 year old when the time comes. IMO it is so worth it :001_smile:

I have never seen AAR, so I cannot speak to that, but I have been using SSRW with my son for the past few months and we both LOVE IT. I tried a lot of other phonics programs and looked at even more and this is by far the most fun and effective one that I have come accross. Things I love about it: 1. There are a number of fun games, songs, and a bunch of tips in the teachers guide to help your child build fluency in the words that they learn in each step of the program. This was big for us. 2. Once you have spent a few days singing and playing with the words, you read the story book for the lesson and your child no longer has to sound out each word, so they can actually understand what they are reading, which makes reading the story much more enjoyable. 3. They provide activities and questions to ask to help your child work on reading comprehension. 4. The storybooks in SSRW are also better than the other stories or readers in other programs I have looked at. My son thinks the stories are funny. Many of the readers have 3 stories in them, and each one builds on the next so he stays interested and wants to keep reading to find out what happens. They also hide Gus...this little reading bug character, throughout the books, so he loves to look for Gus in the readers. 5. My son also loves that they have this race track, and each step in the program you complete you get to move your car along the racetrack. There are 36 steps to get to the finish line. He gets so excited on the days that he gets to move his car and has asked me if he will get a trophy at the end :001_smile: 6. Another thing I like about the program is that they have optional assessments all along the way. I like that if I am not 100 percent sure that he has something down that I can assess to find out. They are supposed to score at least 80 percent on the assessment before you move on. 7. It moves at a good pace and does a good job of scaffolding. They introduce rules and then work slowly along to really cement them into place. This is by far the favorite thing that I have invested in for homeschooling so far. I just love it :) I hope that helps. We are now on step 16 of level 1 and I just am more and more convinced of how great it is it as we go along. I hope that helps :001_smile: ETA: My son had just turned 5 when we started level 1. Level 1 starts with a review of the letter sounds and then moves into blending cvc words.

Thank you to everyone for the replies! I feel like I have a much better sense of what subjects I should include, and I definately have a long list of different curriculum to check out! Off to research :001_smile:

Thanks to everyone who posted. It is so helpful to just see what others are doing. :001_smile:

My son is in K now and we just started doing some things from the orange book. He absolutely LOVES it and so far it has not been too hard for him. I think that there are a lot of things in the orange book that are also covered in his McRuffy kindergarten math curriculum, and also many that are not. We are just jumping around to things that I think he is ready for. I also use it when he doesn't seem to be understanding a concept in his regular math program because for some reason he just gets it with Miquon and especially with the c-rods.

I am looking ahead to next year and just wondering what others are doing. What do you cover (writing, grammar, literature, phonics, etc?) Also, what curriculum are you using? Thanks!

Ok, I have a minute now :001_smile: I have owned or looked at OPGTR, HOP, ETC, Phonics Pathways, The Reading Lesson, Bob Books, Nora Gaydos Readers, and SSRW....whew! what I noticed is that everything except SSRW seems to be pretty much variations of the same thing: learn a new rule, read a list of words, and read a story with those words in it. with SSRW, I think you get a lot more than that. There is still the list of words, but they give you games, songs, and a bunch of tips in the teachers guide to help your child build fluency in those words. then, when they read the story book for the lesson, they are no longer sounding out each word, so they can actually understand what they are reading, which makes reading the story much more enjoyable. They also have activities and questions to ask to help your child work on comprehension. The storybooks in SSRW are also better than the other stories or readers in other programs I have looked at. My son thinks the stories are funny. Many of the readers have 3 stories in them, and each one builds on the next so he stays interested and wants to keep reading to find out what happens. They also hide Gus...this little reading bug character, throughout the books, so he loves to look for Gus in the readers. My son also loves that they have this race track, and each step in the program you complete you get to move your car along the racetrack. There are 36 steps to get to the finish line. He gets so excited on the days that he gets to move his car and has asked me if he will get a trophy at the end :001_smile: Another thing I like about the program is that they have optional assessments all along the way. I like that if I am not 100 percent sure that he has something down that I can assess to find out. They are supposed to score at least 80 percent on the assessment before you move on. I also love the way it progresses. It moves at a good pace and does a good job of introducing rules, and then working slowly along to really cement them into place. So, we are now on step 16 of level 1 and I just am more and more convinced of how great it is it as we go along. I hope that helps :001_smile: Edited because I wanted to add that the down side is that SSRW is really expensive compared to other things, but I feel it is worth it, especially if you can manage to find it used.

:bigear: My ds is just like this, so I am interested to hear what people have to say.

I HIGHLY recommend Sing Spell Read Write. From your description, your son would be in level 1. I just cannot say enough about how well done it is. It is fun, engaging, sets your child up for success, and thoroughly teaches the phonics rules. I have tried or looked at A LOT of other phonics programs. I looked at a lot through my library and through other moms, and hands down SSRW is the best. I don't have a ton of time to post now, but I will try to come back later and elaborate. :001_smile:

:iagree:

My 5 year old ds is this way. Schooling during nap time isn't even an option at our house because my 2 year old no longer naps and my 5 year old does still nap :glare: how did that happen? I haven't really found any magical solution, but I have found a couple of things that help. One thing is to make it seem like we are all doing something together...so if he is working with the c-rods, or whatever math manipulative, my 2 year old plays with them as we'll. so even though she is not doing "math" she is doing the "same" thing as him. If he is reading to me, my 2 year old either sits with a book and looks at the pictures, or she listens to him read to us both. If he is doing handwriting practice, my 2 year old scribbles on a paper at the table next to him. And of course she paints, and does all art stuff with us. Stuff like that. Also, I try to include a lot of moving around into what we do so that we can all do it together. For example, to skip count we jump along a giant number line and the 2 year old jumps with up, or to spell words we jump on the bed while we spell and the little one jumps too. It is definitely tough, and I only have one little one, so I feel for you. I hope you get lots of helpful suggestions.

I have never seen the math u see blocks, and of course no one thing is for everyone, but I just thought I would add that I totally thought that the whole converting colors to numbers thing would be super confusing for ds, but shockingly it isn't. He had them memorized after about two 20 minute sessions of playing with them. It took me about a month though :tongue_smilie:

I just want to shout it to the world! :hurray: They are so awesome. Every time my son seems like he isn't getting something I pull them out and it is like magic, he just gets it with the c rods. It is really amazing how you can just explain almost anything with them. Also, he thinks they are some kind of fun game. He asks for them all the time and just comes up with his own little math discoveries while he messes around with them. Everyday I am more and more blown away by the whole situation. Best $15 I ever spent :D Ok, just wanted to share. :001_smile:

I am not aware of a discount. I will say, however, that I feel it has been well worth the money. We use it all the time for pretty much every subject. For most subjects it is a supplement, but I actually use it as my health curriculum. He watches the video, we do the activity and read some of their suggested library Books. They have videos on all the topics in the health standards for my state. My son asks to see a "Moby" everyday. He loves it.

Thanks for all the replies. Having him take turns with me, copying eachother's designs yesterday, was a lot better. They still are not his favorite thing to do though. I think I am going to just do less of them and let us take turns copying our designs. He loves the game Color Code, which I sort of feel is building a similar skill, so I think it is ok. Thanks again for the reassurance :001_smile:

:bigear:

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. I was able to find many of these at my library and order others through library loan. My son read one of the Fly Guy books last night and that was a hit. We are going to try out one of the Benny and Penny books this morning. From looking through those I think they wil be a good fit too. Thanks again for the great suggestions!

I am definitely going to try this today. I have a feeling it will go over WAY better.

I think he just doesn't want to sit and take the time to do it. It doesn't seem too hard because once he focuses on it he can do it. He will actually usually do the first one fine but they usually have 4 on a page and he is over it after that first one and doesn't want to do the other 3.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I am going to the library today to see what I can find. We have a small library and the easy reader section is pretty bad, we will see what I can find.