One of our favorite programs! It made a world of difference for my DS who has motor delays. The person who developed the program is an OT. Super supportive help desk, too.

Out of the mouth of babes! I keep meaning to start a journal of all the cute things my DC say...

I think puns are a sign of an intelligent person with a sense of humor. (And this is my 100th post! Yippee!:))

I've had great success with the colors from Pottery Barn. I successfully have used their Silver Sage (a gorgeous grayish sage, my all time favorite, everyone raves about it), Latte (a taupe), Butter (a soft creamy yellow), and Atmosphere Blue (a soft blue). The Butter would be nice if you are leaning toward yellow. I have a lot of wood furniture (my grandfather makes custom furniture) and all the colors compliment it well. They coordinate well with each other, too. If you don't want to buy directly from PB, you could pick up some of their paint swatches and take the color you want somewhere else to have it custom mixed. Good luck! :)

Check out Jan's patterns at Sleeping Baby Productions. She has GREAT stuff, IMHO way more comfortable than my Maya wrap. I have a didymos wrap that was made into a sling by her, and it's incredible. Here's a link. http://www.sleepingbaby.net/jan/Baby/ She has patterns for all sorts of carriers, you are sure to find something that works for you. You can also buy slings that she makes and she does customs. For more info on carriers, including DIY, check out the forums at thebabywearer.com. The babywearing version of these great WTM forums. :)

Well, I'm a relative newbie compared to many on these boards, but a general theme that I've heard oft repeated is... if it isn't broken, don't fix it! Sounds like you need to listen to your daughter, lol. :) If you wanted to add word problems, I've heard really good things about Singapore's Challenging Word Problems (but mine are too young for them so we haven't tried them yet). Maybe that could satisfy your urge to try something new. Enjoy your successes!

Ruth Beechick's book An Easy Start in Arithmetic might be useful for you. It shows how to incorporate math into everyday living. I have Singapore 1A and 1B, and IMHO it is very basic with only 1 activity per page. It's meant for a 4 yo, or so I was told. That might be an option if your DD is asking to do more worksheets. I used Saxon K with my DS. That's a pretty gentle start, too -- lots of manipulatives and hands on activities with a few optional worksheets. Best wishes! :)

hmschooling, thanks for your thoughts. Interesting how you are using and rotating between Singapore and Horizons. Hmmm, makes me want to see the first grade books for my first grader, too! Of course, I should use what we have right now... :)

After much debate, I decided to order both Singapore K 1A and 1B (US Edition) and Horizon K book 1 to compare for my DD. We are doing some Rightstart, but she really enjoys worksheets, too. The first part of Singapore seems much, much easier compared to Horizons. Does it pick up in books 2A and 2B? I just don't know how Singapore could cover as much material with such a basic start. And a follow-up question... do these K programs follow basically the same format for first grade (eg, Singapore has one concept on a page and Horizon has many)? I was under the impression that Singapore and Horizons were at about the same level in terms of difficulty, but perhaps that was just an assumption on my part. Also, how do Singapore 1 and Horizons 1 compare with respect to the amount of handwriting required? I'm also thinking about math workbooks for my 1st grader, but I have a DS who tires with too much handwriting. TIA! :)

For a child who is learning capital letters, I would also strongly recommend the slate. It really helped my DC keep the letter inside the box, in proper proportions, without reversals. We used it wet and dry (with fingers and wet wads of paper towel), before actually writing the letter on it with chalk. The slate costs only a couple dollars (if that). Also, the wood pieces and mat were great for my DS who had fine motor issues. He was able to form the letters with the pieces well before he could write them. So, I guess it depends on your situation. :)

:iagree: We're big HWT fans here, too!

My DC are LOVING The Boxcar Children series right now! :)

Too funny!

I'm in process of deciding between Singapore and Horizons for my almost 4.5 yo DD, too. I ordered the first workbook of each to check out, they should be here tomorrow. Just wanted to jump in and say thanks to the other posters who have shared some great thoughts! :)

About the CDs, my DC LOVE them!!! They have been listening to them almost every day -- we broke them out in August and I think that they are on the 4th or 5th cycle now, lol! I haven't even formally added history to our day yet, so they are listening just for fun at this point. :001_smile:

Me, too! Thank you!

I love those war game suggestions!

For my very wiggly DS, ETC + Phonics Pathways has worked well. I can't say that they incorporate movement into the learning, but he is enjoying it. ETC is the fun, workbook part. PP is great with breaking the words into small parts and working with left to right tracking. There are no pictures for the words in PP, so helps little ones not to guess, which also is/was a problem with my DS (thank you, ps :glare:). We do ETC in the morning and PP in the afternoon. Best of luck to you!

ETC's readiness books are the a, b, and c ones. They cover all the consonants, and have handwriting instruction in lower case. ETC 1 starts with short vowel sounds, including handwriting instruction for the vowels. ETC 2 covers blends and ETC 3 gets into y suffix, silent e, and digraphs/trigraphs. That's as far as we are. :) Both my 4 yo and 6 yo are using the books and really enjoying them.

Hi there! I found some pre-owned Horizon math k books to check out for my DD, but the seller has what looks to be an older version. She put Lifepac in parentheses behind the title of the book and it has 1 big balloon on the cover instead of the little ones. She is selling Book 2 and the teachers guide, so I'll have to buy book 1 separately. I'm just wondering what the difference is for the lifepac vs current version. If I buy the newer version for book 1, would it still coordinate with the teacher's manual and flow well into book 2? TIA! I'm trying to save a buck or two, but don't want to deal with a lot of extra aggravation either! :) Amy

To answer your question, around the beginning of the year (1/2 way through K), DS began ETC 1 when he was starting cvc words, probably around p. 37 in PP. He had worked on short vowel sounds for quite some time -- at least a year on and off -- before he really got them down pat. So I would pick up PP occasionally, then put it back down again because he wasn't quite ready yet. By the beginning of this year, DS knew all of his sounds, both consonants and vowels, but was having trouble putting them together in words and didn't like the PP book -- that's when I knew we needed something to jump start us. I tried a computer program, but he got bored with it pretty quickly. He LOVES the ETC books, as does my DD. It sparked his interest and, after taking a break from PP for a couple months, we then were able to move forward with it again. He's now on ETC 3 and on p. 77 of PP. My DD "gets" reading. She also uses PP, quickly moved through ETC A-C readiness books, and is on ETC 1. She basically demanded the ETC books after she saw her brother working on them. :) Both DS and DD benefit from PP (for fluency) and ETC (for phonics reinforcement, spelling, writing). I have to say that I don't do much writing with PP since we also use ETC.

My DS got stuck in a rut with PP, too. We added Explode the Code workbooks and that made all the difference. They don't coordinate exactly, but close enough.

:lurk5: For some reason, I just can't get settled with math. I love RS but want something extra? different? My DD sounds similar to the OP's, looking forward to others' responses. :)

:bigear:

You've already received a lot of great advice. I'll just add that Ruth Beechick has some books -- An Easy Start in Arithmetic, A Home Start in Reading, A Strong Start in Language -- that give ideas for building a strong foundation without special workbooks or materials. Simple things you can do in your daily living to build strong language and math skills. The books are supposed to be for grades k-3, but I think that you'd find them useful much sooner. They are small, thin books -- inexpensive -- and I think you can buy them as one book, too.