I found a herp vet about 30 minutes north of us, but unfortunately, Razor the Snake did not survive the night. DS10 is devastated and everybody is "carving" memorial rocks for her.

I know one of you has a daughter the is quite the young herpetologist. My son forgot to water his corn snake. She's about 3 yrs old. The snake is extremely dehydrated and when found, she was so near death, we weren't sure she was even alive. I put her in a small tub of sports drink, warmed up and look and behold, she lives. But she is not well, and seems to be crashing. Writhing, flipping upside down, and now she's very still with her head arched to the side. I'm still soaking her in the solution. Any suggestions/thoughts? He's devastated, especially because it's his responsibility to make sure she's watered.

Listen... Let me tell you a secret that totally transformed our school. (I swear I'm not a sales person, lol). Just do one, not both concurrently. We school year round, but you don't have to, to make this work. For half of your school year, cover history. For the other half, cover science. We study History from October through March and Science from April through September. So much less stress. We also school 4 days a week, have 30 weeks of full-time school and 10ish weeks of a shorter schedule summer school. As my kids approach middle and high school, I realize I'm going to have to modify this. But for elementary? Just do one at a time.

Prodigy Math. All the way. Customizable, free (unless you want to pay for it), fun and addictive.

I just finished up two modules this summer with my 8, 9, 10 and 11 yr olds. Overall, the program is good. The setup/online stuff is, as others pointed out, not intuitive. It took some solid time for me to figure out how to navigate the whole thing. Obviously, the middle school modules were somewhat above my 8 and 9 yr olds (and to be frank, the 11 yr old, too. But she has a LD so there's that). My 10 yr old is very strong in math and when he pays attention, he does excellent in science as well. Here's how I ran it... My kiddos would read the textbook/workbook individually. The chapters are not that long and they are structured well so that large blocks of print do not dominate much. I would write the vocab words for that chapter on the white board and they were responsible for looking them up in the glossary. Because we only had one book for four kids, they did not write in the book. That same day, I would present the digital lesson (available from their website ThinkCentral, only after you've been registered as a buyer). I'd cast it to our large TV, we'd go over it, discuss, etc. Then, I would assign a lapbook element relevant to the topic. I created most of these elements, but some I scavenged from various places on the internet. The next day, we would do the online workbook. Now, this is the SAME EXACT lesson that's in the printed book, but it's read by somebody different, and I'd cast it to the TV. We'd discuss as we went. I might or might not have a lapbook piece. The third day, we would discuss the review pages and I'd hand out the chapter quiz. We'd also finish up any lapbook pieces that did not get done. Lather, rinse, repeat. I would have liked to have had demonstrations and experiments, and ScienceFusion does have them. But they were long and often complicated. At least, too complicated for 3/4 of my kids. Overall, it's a nice science program. It gets done.

Volume 4 does change, overall, from the first three volumes. Even the student workbook is more advanced. That said, and I know others will disagree with me on this, I don't see the need to shield our children from the realities of history. ALL history is full of wars and battles and humans behaving awfully. SOTW1, 2 and 3 have content that could be difficult as well. My son was 7 when we did SOTW4 and he did fine. As a group, we sat and discussed what they'd read in the text. Did a timeline together, and a map. I added in books from the library that corresponded with the chapter.

ScienceFusion (minus the labs and whatnot) is a great middle school Science. It's topical, so let her choose a topic or two and have her work through it. It's nowhere near as wordy as Apologia, but it's content is just as good. It has a "textbook" and then you can also access that online, along with a digital lesson.

VBS? Absolutely! What can we count in VBS? Well, ours has a lot of physical activity and games, so there's PE right there. We also have some scripture memorization. Then, ours is almost always a musical, so there's Arts....music and drama. Plus, the play itself is literature. Check, check and CHECK!

Honestly? My kids did not memorize them completely before we moved on. They work with them SO much, they eventually internalize them. Even my dyscalculic kiddo has internalized a large number of number bonds.

I don't know about formulaic, but...Essentials in Writing is a pretty good get-it-done video format writing and grammar program. The grammar is pretty light though. I've used it for a couple of years now and while it's not my most favorite thing in the world...it's solid and does its job.

I'm such a box checker, I'm not sure I can survive not finishing the curriculum in one year, lol. But...if I take a deep breath and just let it go...maybe. I do like your idea of breaking it up over 2 years while studying other novels. One of the things I really enjoyed about our previous LA approach is that it was based wholly on novels, whichever ones I chose. I don't recognize any of these short stories from either the Opal or Pearl Mosdos book. So I know I'll miss having our novels. In any case, I found the TG for Pearl used on Amazon so once that arrives I'll have a better idea of how I want it to run. I'm still looking for Opal TG used. Tell me more about how you ran the poetry unit. Or are planning on running it. Will you just read it? Discuss it using the TG? Require your kiddos to memorize some of them?

Would you mind sharing how you ran the program? I typically try to break a curriculum down into the 30 weeks that we run our main school year, but am having a hard time making this one fit, lol.

Ok....well, it appears to be normal so....lol. I'm still debating whether or not I should shell out for the TG.

That's interesting that Jade does the same thing. I have Opal (3rd grade) and it does not have a poetry section. Do you have the teacher guide for Jade? If so, what does it say for that particular unit, regarding workbook pages?

Ok, weirdest thing. My Mosdos Pearl student workbook is missing Unit 4. I don't have the student textbooks in yet, so I had to go online and look at the ToC on Rainbow to see if the textbooks have Unit 4, and they do...it appears to be a Poetry unit. Am I missing something? Is there a reason why the workbook skips that entire unit? I did not purchase the Teacher Guides, but I'm starting to think maybe I should?

I use the Review pages from the WB as "tests". In a very loose sense of the word.

We used Wordly Wise last year (5th grade) and are going to give Word Roots a go this year (6th grade). While I do agree that reading is the best way to pick up new vocabulary words, I like adding in a little extra something for a wider exposure. And with Word Roots, I'm hoping to give them tools to break down words on their own, but understanding the parts.

I sat down and opened the Pre-Al book tonight for the first time and...immediately felt overwhelmed, lol. Dorothy, we aren't in Singapore anymore! It seems so...dry and wordy. A far cry from the combination of Colorful Singapore and Beast Academy that has guided DS10 along for the past 5 years. I'm not sure he's going to enjoy this jump. So what is your teaching approach? How do you mesh the student workbook with the online resources such as Alcumus? (I'm not even positive what Alcumus even IS). What other online resources are really important to buddy with the Pre-Al book? DS needs to wrap up Beast 5 and thus, I have a bit of time...we'll probably jump in at the turn of the year.

And yet another vote for... "Not behind at all." My kiddo just turned 8 in May and he sounds very much like your son. Maybe a bit more advanced in that he's finally turned the fluency corner and can read longer chapter books. But a word like "separated" would still probably trip him up. He'll be doing another year of phonics practice with ETC to smooth out the rough edges. Listen, it can be difficult to not compare. My oldest son is reading numerous grade levels ahead and his trajectory was far different than my next two boys. Each on is different though and we really have to focus on the individual. <3

I also agree with Fralala. We typically only use the Textbook for direct teaching. I'll pull a handful of problems and we'll work them together. Once I am satisfied that my student grasps the concept, I send them off with the corresponding WB pages. I try to stretch content out so that they are introduced/taught a concept, practice that concept the same day, practice again the next day, while being taught the next lesson, and then review of that concept via practice pages in the near future and periodically thereafter. Often, that extended review is from IP. And IP often takes the content a little deeper. I treat problem solving as its own subject. We work on it twice a week. I use Process Skills in Problem Solving first, and then CWP. Typically a half to full grade level behind our current content.

Oh, I second the addition of Process Skills and Challenging Word Problems. Not every day, maybe 2x/week. Or over summer. ETA: Process Skills would be something I would directly teach, following it up with independent work from CWP. So it's not really independent. But it is open and go.

Little to no prep? May I gently add...homeschooling is an investment in your child's education. The more YOU invest, the more HE'LL get from it. That said, it sounds to me like your accelerated kiddo would benefit from Beast Academy, which is fairly independent. My son does Beast by himself with occasional help on hard problems. But, I also do Singapore with him and I directly teach him that. So Beast, and probably Khan to round your son out a bit. With a side of Prodigy for fun and as review. Lots of luck as you begin your homeschool adventure!

I'm just going to bump this so I'm attached to it, lol. I want to remember that TextWord Press curriculum in three years!

Does anybody have experience with this program? Homeschool Buyer's Co-Op is going to be having a group buy soon.

Same here, Prairie. Same here