My older two dd's did the very same thing during 1st, 2nd and 3rd grades. Drives me crazy. I have found you have to sit with them for their lessons. Especially math. Once in awhile ds will do his math sheet on his own if it's his day to go to coop classes or awana which tells me his is capable of doing his work independently. He just has a very bad case of daydreaming. UGH! Most days if I leave him on his own, he could sit at the desk for hours staring at his fact sheet and be in tears at the thought of still having to do it after sitting there that whole time. So, I do it with him. I have a 2 month old and a 2 yr old ds who is into everything these days so I feel your pain in having to sit with your 8yr old during these lessons. It does get to be a juggling act. Usually, I have the baby in the sling and set my 2 yr old up with his trucks and playdough or string beads or some other activity or he just wants his own pencil and paper to do school with his older brother. Usually he is trying to steal his brother's paper and pencil which makes things really fun. Because I am juggling the younger two, we have to get ds's school done quickly so when he starts messing around and checking out on me, I have found two methods of discipline that have been effective for him. One is to either stand in time out at his time out spot with his nose touching the wall until he is ready to join us at the desk and do school nicely. (if he comes back and still daydreams through school, he is back at the wall) the other is to get out of his chair and start picking up the floor. I noticed one day the floor in our classroom was a mess. So, every time he goofed off or mentally checked out on me he had to clean up a section of floor or I gave him a number of items he had to pick up. He HATES cleaning so this was good motivation and it got the room ready to vacuum. Very nice. :tongue_smilie: For us, either one of these works well. In fact today he was literally crying over having to do his little saxon subtraction facts worksheet so he had to go stand at the wall. When he came back he was still grumpy but he got half of it done before he sllooooowed way down again and I had to put him back on the wall. Then he came back and got through the rest of the lesson well. I hate to admit it, but a good school day with him is based on how many times he had to stand on the wall or how clean he got his room done. UGH! Frustrating.

Thank you so much. After reading so many neg posts about TT, I was certain CD would be the best choice for dd but what a relief to hear TT geometry would be BETTER than CD. My dd will be thrilled with this news. She does like her TT Alg 1 and it is working for us which is a relief. Maybe I should get LOF to fill in the gaps though after she gets through this program from what I have read. Now I have to decide whether to stick with TT for 6th grade for my 11 yr old dd next year or try CD for her through Alg and then TT for geom. Then back to CD. It sounds like the TT algebra both 1 and 2 is what is lacking in the program compared to others. Would that be fair to assume? This is really a bummer because TT has really been a lifesaver for our family after having two babies in two years with horrible morning sickness, there is no way I could have stayed on top of teaching them math. My brain turned to mush.

Phew! What a relief to read all these posts. I was sure I had completely messed up my girls and have been feeling extremely inept and unqualified as a mom along with a little panic because we just had our third dd two months ago. LOL! My 11 yr old dd had an exceptionally dramatic week this week with the whole entitlement thing going on which drives me crazy. Also, the lack of effort in daily tasks has been a battle. This more so with my oldest dd who is 13. She is getting somewhat better but wow that is sending dh and I over the edge. She wants to quit anything that requires work and just coast for awhile it seems. UGH! The lack of self control with the screaming and crying is much more evident in our 11 yr old dd at the moment. Along with the greed and selfishness which is really affecting her relationship with the rest of the kids. It is hard to to have peace and harmony in the home when the hormones are running the show. Thanks to all of you who are giving advice on how you deal with this.

I am once again in a quandry over what to do about math. We started out in 1st grade with saxon till 8/7 and that's where we got lost. Dd just couldn't understand it anymore and it was taking her 3 hours a day to do math. So, after much research and deliberation, we went with TT alg 1 which she is doing well in, likes it and is done in 30 min a lesson. I worry of course about it not being thorough enough since she will be going on to college but she says she is plenty challenged by it. She is getting most of her problems right on the lessons and tests missing around 2 or 3 problems but never because she is stumped on the concept. Usually it is from silly mistakes and once we go over it with the instructor on the computer she knows where she went wrong. Now, after reading alot more neg than good about TT I am wondering if we should just bite the bullet and finish her out with Chalk Dust through high school. She is 13 and in 7th grade so I was a little concerned with pushing her too fast with a more rigorous program compared to TT and end up with the same confusion and tears we got with Saxon. But then again, I don't want her to go all through high school with a math program that won't give her a solid foundation in college if she decided on a science major. I did go with TT over chalk dust because #1 it was cheaper and #2 I have no time to teach her the new concepts. She just sits down at the computer, does the lesson and in the afternoon, I have an hour to go over all her work from that morning and we correct things if she got them wrong and clear up any confusion. This seems to be working well but I'm not sure we could do that with Chalk Dust. I am just not sure what to do. She really likes TT and wants to stay with them for Geometry next year since she is about done with their Algebra 1 but of course I am worried about the thoroughness of the program. Then again, TT alg 1 has her very challenged she says so maybe putting her into something more rigorous for geom would be like the old days of saxon 8/7 when it took 3 hours to do one lesson and lots and lots of tears. I definately don't want that again. Our house can't survive that. Those of you who have more experience with this sort of thing, I need some good advice. What should we do? I don't want to mess up a good thing but what if it is a good thing because it is so easy? Hmmmmm I just don't know. Like I said, I am in SUCH a quandry over this. _

I am once again in a quandry over what to do about math. We started out in 1st grade with saxon till 8/7 and that's where we got lost. Dd just couldn't understand it anymore and it was taking her 3 hours a day to do math. So, after much research and deliberation, we went with TT alg 1 which she is doing well in, likes it and is done in 30 min a lesson. I worry of course about it not being thorough enough since she will be going on to college but she says she is plenty challenged by it. She is getting most of her problems right on the lessons and tests missing around 2 or 3 problems but never because she is stumped on the concept. Usually it is from silly mistakes and once we go over it with the instructor on the computer she knows where she went wrong. Now, after reading alot more neg than good about TT I am wondering if we should just bite the bullet and finish her out with Chalk Dust through high school. She is 13 and in 7th grade so I was a little concerned with pushing her too fast with a more rigorous program compared to TT and end up with the same confusion and tears we got with Saxon. But then again, I don't want her to go all through high school with a math program that won't give her a solid foundation in college if she decided on a science major. I did go with TT over chalk dust because #1 it was cheaper and #2 I have no time to teach her the new concepts. She just sits down at the computer, does the lesson and in the afternoon, I have an hour to go over all her work from that morning and we correct things if she got them wrong and clear up any confusion. This seems to be working well but I'm not sure we could do that with Chalk Dust. I am just not sure what to do. She really likes TT and wants to stay with them for Geometry next year since she is about done with their Algebra 1 but of course I am worried about the thoroughness of the program. Then again, TT alg 1 has her very challenged she says so maybe putting her into something more rigorous for geom would be like the old days of saxon 8/7 when it took 3 hours to do one lesson and lots and lots of tears. I definately don't want that again. Our house can't survive that. Those of you who have more experience with this sort of thing, I need some good advice. What should we do? I don't want to mess up a good thing but what if it is a good thing because it is so easy? Hmmmmm I just don't know. Like I said, I am in SUCH a quandry over this.

I appreciate the feedback on this program. I had just a glance at the samples they gave and it sort of looked like a sonlight TG but I can see the difference now. Sonlight had overwhelmed me with the daily suggestions but weekly would be good for my older dd's. That's how we do it now. They get a weekly plan and are on their own to get it done by Fri. I try to have an hour a piece to sit down with them in the afternoon to check their work. So far this seems to work with LA but I really am struggling with MOH 3 this year. We are just reading stories and doing timelines and notecards. If they want to do a project they do it on their own and my 6 yr old isn't getting much history at all because I got winter promise hideaways for him which is a different time period and it is IMPOSSIBLE to get the boxes. UGH! Science is a toughie too to schedule but I realize now TOG doesn't have that. So far my oldest is doing apologia general science. We did the Prairie Primer which was the only unit study we have done and it was wonderful. Alot of work getting all the library books every week but we really enjoyed it on all levels with all the kids. This was nice since I have such an age range. I think that is why TOG has been appealing to me.

I have been really intrigued by TOG now that I have a 1st grader to fold into our homeschool day along with my older dd's 5th and 7th grade. I am really needing to integrate their history and science and anything else I can do all at once and it seems TOG spells that out for you which is like a breath of fresh air for me. I am feeling strangled by our schedule. It's just too much to keep up with three different science programs and levels and two different history programs. I was looking at some TOG samples and it looks really similar to Sonlight. How is this different? How is it the same or is it?

We did Saxon from first grade till DD hit Algebra and then we had all we could stand of the tears. She was having a hard time understanding the concept and since it has been so long since I have had any algebra, I couldn't help her without spending time to relearn it myself. If she was the only child I was teaching this may work for us but, I have two other dc an extremely busy 2 yr old and a new baby in the house so there is no way I have time to relearn algebra with my dd as much as I would love to. LOL! Actually, the explanations in saxon prealgebra problems were very confusing to me and I needed more help to figure out where they were going with the problems. I reluctantly spent the big bucks for TT algebra for dd thinking I am ruining my childs future after all the bad reviews I read about it being too easy but I have to say it has been a LIFESAVER. Oh my goodness!! She is very challenged by the algebra and the explanations are actually helping her learn concepts that saxon confused her on before in their prealgebra. Many times during her lessons she yells out wow THAT'S how you do that! She is thrilled to finally be understanding how to solve for x and other concepts she was very confused about. It really discouraged her doing saxon because the explanations were so vague and confusing. It made her dread her math lessons and she felt very lost since she is the type of child who wants to completely grasp a concept before moving on. She was extremely reluctant to try algebra at all thinking she was one of those kids who just doesn't get math. Now she has her confidence back and is really grasping the concepts in algebra. Plus, it is such a wonderful thing knowing if she gets any wrong we can go right to that problem on the cd and watch it reworked step by step and figure out where exactly she went wrong. That is really key for her to really grasp the concepts and it helps me as her teacher. I don't have any answers about whether this is rigorous enough or not but one thing we have learned is this...... No matter how awesome the curriculum is, if your child shuts down on you and feels they are a failure, it isn't going to do anyone a bit of good. We learned this the hard way through so many, many tears. I still get nightmares about giving my dd a "watered down" math program but if it challenges her, I think that makes it good enough. Plus, we aren't spending 3 hours a day on math. We had no time to do anything fun. I was ready to throw in the towel on Homeschooling and send them to PS because math was taking all morning. Now it is done within an hour. I still think the elementary saxon is best but by the time they hit jr. high math, I think we will switch to TT for the rest of my dc.

Thank you for letting me take a look at your schedules. It helps alot to see how other families are implementing this program. I was wondering, what do you do if you dc are getting the 10 list words right the first time around? Do you just review phonograms, key cards and move on to the next lesson? Also, for the upper level AAS how many dictation sentences do you have your dc write out for each lesson? Do you have your dc go through all of them over the course of a week or just a few and then move on? Thanks again!!

Apparently I am having issues with alot of curriculum this year. Vocab, startwrite and now AAS. LOL! Thank goodness I can come here for help. I don't know what I would do without these boards and everyone's wonderful advice. I am using AAS level 1 with my 6yr old ds and AAS level4 with dd 5th grade. I am wondering though should I be spacing these lessons out over the course of a whole week per lesson doing different activities with the spelling words or a lesson a day? So far we have been doing a lesson a day and ds has been able to spell all the new words in the list without any problem. We review the phonograms and key cards and move on to the next lesson the next day. DD has had problems remembering all the key cards for spelling rules, suffix rules and things like that but she knows all the phonograms and always knows the new spelling words in that lesson the first time around too so we move on to the next lesson with her as well. At this rate we do a lesson a day which seems too fast but they both know all the new words in the spelling lists. Does anyone break these lessons down through the week into sections, reviewing the rules ect.... then a test at the end of the week on the spelling words? How do you all teach this. Once again, I feel like I am using this program wrong. UGH! Then again if my dc know how to spell the words without any previous exposure it seems like we should move on and not bore them to tears with easy spelling words. This has always been my issue with spelling programs. They really need review and practice on the rules more than anything. I have been contemplating using this program for teaching the rules and spelling workout for lessons during the week with their spelling lists. I don't know yet. Haven't quite figured this one out. Those of you who use this program, how does your week look and do you spread the lessons out all week or do a lesson a day? Thanks for the help!

Thank you for all the great ideas!! I knew I could get a bunch of wonderful ideas here. I never thought of dd's Latin vocab. That is a great idea. Fll lessons and spelling words for ds is also. The letters are too. All of these. I will have to print this thread out and stick these ideas in my book so I can add them into our day. I feel so much better now about spending the money on this program. Thanks so much everyone!!!!

I am having a hard time with Winter Promise Hideaways in History too. I feel my older two got way more out of SOTW and Biblioplan ancients when they were in 1st and 3rd grade than my ds is getting from this history now. The worst part is, I spent so much money on it compared to what I spent on SOTW and Biblioplan combined. I thought he would really like this because of the hideaway projects but we have found it is impossible to aquire the boxes and I refuse to spend 100 dollars for cardboard boxes. We have had to improvise or just skip the hideaweay altogether. Very disappointing. I am still trying to muddle through it however but ds isn't very plugged in. I also had the same issue with the R&S math 2nd VS Saxon. Trying to figure out a way to combine those and have the best of both worlds.

This has been one of those buyer remorse curriculum purchases for me this year. I bought this after my older dd hated learning cursive with HWT and I wasn't happy with the way my 6yr old ds's writing was looking after using HWT. I am having a hard time coming up with ideas for daily handwriting practice that doesn't take much time to print out. My dd is in 5th grade and still has sloppy printing and balks at cursive. HWT was an easier transition but we just aren't happy with the way it looks. My oldest dd learned the more traditional curvy cursive and has very pretty handwriting. This of course makes the HWT method look even worse to my 5th grade dd and she wants to write like her sister. I am thinking though that I should have saved my money and just gotten a handwriting book for printing and cursive at walmart for 10 bucks. Maybe I just need ideas on how to really make this program worth it's money for us. I'm not real creative when it comes to making my own things up. So, any ideas on how those of you who like your startwrite program use it for a beginning printer and an older child relearning cursive. I thought if I got some great ideas, it would make me feel better about spending the money on it. I hate buying curriculum and not using it to it's full potential or worse yet not using it at all. Thanks!!!!!

Thank you all for even more great suggestions. I haven't had a chance to look through my WTM book much this year so I didn't realize it had ideas in there too. Thanks for mentioning that Peela. I actually have the grammar stage thoroughly scoured since I started hsing dd#1 in 2nd grade but now that she is in 7th grade I need to dust off that book and read the suggestions for the middle grades. She is really happy about having a plan now and also likes the flashcard idea. Thanks again!!!

Thank you for these examples. I knew we werent doing this right. I haven't had a chance to sit down alone, in a quiet place and actually read the TM explanations in depth in front of the book. I am usually trying to do this while someone is yelling MOM, my 7th grader is getting bored and antsy waiting on me to figure this out because she just wants to get school DONE for the day, and the two yr old is climbing on something he shouldn't be climbing on. No wonder I need someone to hold my hand through every new step we take during this homeschool journey. I am always, always very thankful for these WTM boards. Every time I am stumped, I come here and get so much help. A daily plan of what to do each day is exactly what we needed! Thank you!!!!

I feel so lost with this vocab program. I always make things much harder than they should be and I'm sure I'm doing the same with this. I started my 7th grade dd in book A this year and she and I are both scratching our heads about how it is structured. I have the teacher manual and the test book along with the student book. I am confused by the way the TM has the lessons broken down for each list of words. We can get through each one in 2 minutes. It takes us longer to get the book out. If we just go by the student book without the TM suggestions, dd gets the whole thing done in 15 min and is ready to move on to the next group of words but I know she hasn't done enough word study on that group of words in 15 min time to actually learn them or remember their meanings. Maybe it's just the format of how the workbook is set up that is throwing us off. It really doesn't seem like dd is actually "learning" the words. Maybe because there isn't alot of written exercises involved. I just don't know. Anyone have ideas or can share how they use this vocab workbook? Are the words sinking in with your dc? My dd just seems to be zipping through it without retaining any of it. Thanks for your help! Julie

I had the same issues picking a lit program for my 13 yr old 7th and my 11 yr old 5th grade dd's. I have always done lit guides and good lit books in the past but wanted something a little more structured after using K12's lit program which my girls enjoyed. We are using the 5th and 7th grade CLE lit and it is definately meaty enough to challenge both of them. I would say it is the subject they both have to buckle down on and spend the most time with. It can be completely independent with a trustworthy student but my youngest dd has to be supervised or she just breezes through and says it's done then learns nothing. This tends to happen with all the challenging subjects for her. LOL! My oldest dd is tired of "waiting" for me to help with this subject so she is doing it on her own and using the homeschool tracker to keep track of the scores. She is getting into the fact that she can have some sort of tangible report card this year through HT. Last night my oldest dd told me she has FINALLY learned through this Lit the difference between an autobiography and a biography and is so excited she can understand it. I was thrilled because I had no idea the child was STILL foggy on this concept and felt bad that I hadn't explained this so she understood it. We have gone over this since she was in 2nd grade reading Little House on the Prairie books and reviewed the concept almost every year since. Geeze. I told her I assumed she knew it and she told me she just acted like she understood. :001_huh: Ay yi yi. I feel completely incompetent as her teacher now. LOL! At least I have the CLE Lit to thank for clearing this up for us. It is a very worthwhile program and the vocab is extremely challenging which my kids needed this year. We are pleased. It does use short stories to analyze not "real" lit books (the short stories are very good) BUT at the rate we are going through this, we will be done with it by the end of 1st semester and plan on using Lit guides and reading at least 4 books to cover lit for next semester so that gives us the best of both worlds. Real books AND a more structured Lit analysis program all in one year. Can't beat that. I have to admit it is the only thing I have managed to pull together effectively. Now if I could just feel as satisfied with our science, history, and ds's phonics. LOL!!! Oh well, I will take what I can get. :001_smile: Good luck!

My dd will be 13 next month and is dieing to be a part of some outside classes. I am fighting this tooth and nail however because it ALWAYS blows our schedule. Especially the night stuff. We are too tired to get anything done the next day. By next week, we will be gone on Tues night, and Thurs night then she is gone Wed afternoon for piano and now wants a journalism class and art classes on thurs. I am trying to find a balance here because so far we are able to wrap most of her stuff up by noon with just history or science left in the afternoons. When we start doing outside afternoon classes, that will suffer. One area we have shaved off alot of time is English. She has done R&S since 3rd grade and is in 7th this year. She complains that it is all too easy and hates the constant review but she got a B on the chapter 1 test so I know she still needs it. I have compromised with her on this subject by doing half of it with her orally and letting her do the odds or evens in the book or if she has a lesson where they have A, B, C, D or E to do, I let her skip some of those and we only pick two for her to write out and go over the rest together. She is getting it done in 15 min and we aren't getting as many tears over english now. I'm not sure where else you could save time in your schedule. I do sympathize with you on this however. I struggle with this every year. Especially once the year is in full swing and I start caving on letting her do more outside the house. UGH! Dh annd I always laugh at the whole debate and criticism about homeschoolers not being socialized enough. Since we started homeschooling, we are doing so much "socializing" we can barely fit in the schoolwork. LOL! There are just so many things out there to take advantage of it is really hard for us to pick and choose. Good luck this year. I hope you can strike a balance soon!

This is good to know. My dd is a very young 13 and the only "logic" type things I have done would be the mind benders books. It doesn't sound like she would be quite ready for Trad Logic yet. It's nice to be able to make an informed decision about these things. So many times I feel like picking curriculum is like shooting in the dark which gets really expensive and time consuming. Thanks for sharing your experience with this. I really appreciate it.

Oh wow thank you so much. This is very helpful!!

I got mine from the critical thinking company

I was thinking the same thing as far as it being more important to have the instruction over the practice in a program. This must be why my dc are liking wordsmith and they cried buckets over writing strands. My dd's do enjoy writing. I am just quite overwhelmed with school this year so my creative juices are gone as far as coming up with stuff on my own. At this point, if it isn't scripted in a book telling me or them to do such and such I am LOST. ACK! Too much on my plate is making mommy a crazy lady. Thank you for walking me through this and giving me all these great ideas. This is just what I needed. Julie

We have several storage places here. I didn't think about that. I will go talk to them. I also didn't think about winter promise having a discussion forum. Another great idea. I will check that out. Thanks, Julie

My 7th grade grade dd is using wordsmith this year and I noticed in SWB review that it is a good program but doesn't offer enough practice. I was thinking of getting the wordsmith apprentice for my 5th grade dd and was wondering do I need to assigne extra writing practice to go along with these programs? If so what do I assign? I noticed in the reviews that SWB was thinking writing strands offered alot of good practice but not enough explanation which I totally agree. This is why we dropped that program in 3rd grade. Then Wordsmith has good explanation but not enough practice. Hmmmm I was wondering, would it be a feasable idea to combine the two? Or just pull ideas from writing strands? Then I shudder at the idea of having to buy yet ANOTHER book. UGH! Any suggestions about supplementing Wordsmith without spending MORE money on curriculum? Maybe supplementing isn't necessary? Thanks, Julie

Oh my I was going to just order the large and medium boxes from Uline like they recommend for simplicity sake and the shipping was 150.00 which put my order to almost 300.00 just for the boxes. I almost died. That isn't an option. Now I'm frustrated because we have to have a big box to even start the week. Those of you who have done this, other than scouring supermarkets and appliance stores, how have you handled this? I can't imagine spending that much on boxes. Thanks, Julie