I was considering Treasured Conversations before but I thought that used copywork to teach writing.

I am definitely not affluent. I live in a neighborhood that is fine crime wise and middle of the road. My neighborhood school is decent scoring when looking at greatschools for the area when we got our place but the scores have dropped a little with the new tests they use now. When compared to national standards it is a failing school. One thing that makes it easier to homeschool is the funds we can get by joining an oversight charter.

It is obvious homeschoolers are more well off then the average. I would include affluence by its definition to include much more the the 1%. I am in one of the areas discussed with a higher cost of with a much lower income being discussed as being needed in the area and we are getting by. Yea it costs more in high income areas but there are people making moderate incomes there or even less there too. Not every one has really high incomes in those area. There is for sure a tendency for those above the median to think of themselves as lower and compare to the people that are higher incomes.

Is placing in Math in Focus the same as Signapore? I could not find placement tests for Math in Focus like Signapore math has. I think I will stick with Signapore for my ds but I am considering MIF for my older dd since it is a little more incremental.

I bet Montessori gave him a good number sense and good start in math. I heard Shiller is very Montessori like if you want to stick with Montessori methods but I bet he would do well with Signapore too. You can use some of those type of manipulatives with Signapore and the apps you talked about too. Signapore does has a placement test and I would go by that for placement.

I was considering that too. I hope you end up liking it!

Elemental science is a neutral science which means it does not go into the age of the universe, evolution or global warming etc. To me those topics are crucial to biology but others may be ok with a neutral science or with adding that on with other books. I am still deciding if I want to use RSO Bio 2.

Congratulations!! I am really happy for you! I am glad you guys are able to own your own house and it is not in a scary part of town.

I do not know how much funds you have left but I like how Visualize World Geography looks and plan on getting that with funds.

I am looking for a writing curriculum that teaches the mechanics of writing like how to write a paragraph, how to use strong words and how to structure things etc that can pair with the history and science we are doing for a 3rd and 5th grader. It does not need to include spelling or grammar because that is covered already. I feel I could find stuff for copy work or dictation myself. Would IEW work for that or is there anything out there?

Is am glad this was bumped. I like this approach. I really want to combine writing with history and science for my 3rd and 5th grader but I do want a curriculum to work with. I am looking for a writing curriculum that will work for that.

I think I would get something besides your two spelling options to get her reading better.

We keep our heat low in the winter and dress appropriately. If we had air it would only be used when neccasary and only on low.

I do not think most typical kids who had no math education at all until they decide to learn as a teen will be able to catch up. I am sure there are some examples of it and it is possible but for most it is insurmountable to have no numeracy skills up to that point. It is not even rare to have a learning disorder. Most people placed in remedial math in college do not end up graduating. Some parts of math you can consolidate but there is not much out there for doing so and math is something that builds up and requires a lot of practice. Even being older does not mean it will happen really quickly. Saxon 5/4 is not easy to just start with and Saxon texts are huge with lots of problems and not much in the way of explanation for concepts. Just because there are examples of people who did it does not mean that most will be able to. To me it is educational neglect to have no exposure to numeracy in childhood and even well into teenhood because they did not want to. I have met very bright adults who had no math education who could not finish college because they were in very remedial math and had so many holes.

My cat stopped pooping and eating and got sick with fatty liver disease. I had to syringe feed him and when he finally started pooping it had balloon string in it. I did not see it happen though so if the vet said that amount should be ok it should be. Just watch for poop.

I like Apples and Pears for this because the words get used again in other lessons. My ds used to have that issue with Spalding but so far is doing well with Apples and Pears. Anytime he spells a word wrong I also have him air write it then spell it backwards.

It is a screening not an exam obviously. It does say to get an exam. I am glad this new source is out there if anything gets picked up from the exam although it can get expensive too if you try to get it for multiple areas. So far he has been flagged from the vision therapist in the first part of testing in the areas this has picked up on.

My first post post is irrelevant now that I read farther. ;)

It does sound like it could be vision based on what you are describing. Here is a screener I heard about recently from Kenneth Lane. He has new materials for different types of issues too. http://visiontest.rfwp.com/questionnaire/index.html. I have two kids so far with retained reflexes one with coordination issues and without them.

He admits that he is writing from a biased point of view of the side of the oppressed. His information is very good but it is obviously skewed. I have used it along other stuff. I mostly side with him but I do like to have balance and include other sides too.

My upcoming 5th grader is good at spelling. I am looking for something she can do independently to expand on what she can spell.

I am glad to do it when there are lots of resources available and it is common and acceptable. I actually have found the opposite to be true that I run into more people who are extremely relaxed or unschoolish who think the common core is the government trying to create robots who are not educated then people trying to make sure everything is common core. I have heard some people ask about common core if they knew that they were only going to be homeschooling a short time and were going back to public schools. I here a lot more requests for things not to be common core then the other way around. I also met local parents contemplating homeschooling who do not really want to teach and want a way to outsource or do a computer program for everything. They want the kid to be mostly independent. I am also joined to an online hs group with thousands of members many who share what they are doing. Some are more relaxed, there are some unschoolers and some who are very academic and everything in between and most have really thoughtful plans with kids getting a good education. I think the ones wanting to do school at home may be new at it and nervous. I think doing box curriculums was probably very common in the past. I think when more people are doing it then more people consider it that would not in the past but it is really hard to compare if homeschoolers in the past or now are better. I do appreciate all the resources out there now and the community events, hybrid, charter, oversight options available to many people now.

I like Gattegno and am using it with 2 kids but I think Miquon is probably a better format. They recommend to start Gattegno in textbook 1 for all regardless of age. There is a lot of exercises in textbook 1. I tried Gattegno with my older child and I dropped it. With Miquon you can follow a thread through several books so you can start with seeing it with small numbers but then move on to higher math. It is very hard to do that with Gattegno.

It happen recently on his Facebook page. I believe he deleted it though because people were going to report him for violating discrimination laws. He posted a political article and then demeaned people with a certain view and said he would not teach children of parents with those views. One or two people agreed but lots more from both sides of the political spectrum mostly politely wrote rebuttals and told him that it was not cool to do that. He promptly deleted all those comments and the people making them.

At first I was thinking at first I really like those pants and I am not sure why she has no words. I like that style that is soft but not too tight. I have a pair like that came from Walmart that I really like. Then I saw the shoes and I was like who would do that!?