Thanks for your responses. I expected some deserved tomatoes, but sometimes I need to hear it. :tongue_smilie: We have worked hard on handwriting for a few years using HWT. He has come a long way and writing is no longer the struggle it used to be. He has an appropriate grip and a nice amount of pressure. We work on OT "exercises" for strength -- mostly through various art materials. Although his handwriting is automatic (ie, he doesn't need to think about letter formation), it isn't necessarily easy for him. I use the term "reluctant" because writing isn't something he would choose to do, not as any sort of judgment on him. Because he is in ps (family decision at this time), he is expected to do a fair amount of writing -- hence, my thought about a writing program this summer. I do see the benefit of WWE and plan to continue with it, but I still might consider something additional for writing. It sounds like CW might not be a good fit at this time. For some reason, Writing Tales doesn't seem to click for me, but I can't put my finger on it. I'm thinking about CW primer for my DD -- maybe that would work for both of them. Or maybe I will just stick to WWE and spend the extra time on math -- that would be his first choice. :) ETA: OK, I've been looking at some more samples on line. You are right, I need to just stick with WWE for now. If his writing level changes dramatically before summer, I'll reassess.

I've been concentrating on phonics, reading, and math for my DS. He is doing well in all those areas and now I feel we need to catch up a little in writing. DS has fine motor delays and tires easily from handwriting so I haven't wanted to push it. We started WWE 1 last year and he'll finish it in the next 2 months or so. This workbook hasn't been too difficult for him, but we have limited time in the mornings (he attends ps and is before-schooled) and this was last to get done in the time crunch. We'll start WWE 2 and maybe move from ETC 7 to AAS for spelling (not a strong area). He has had some basic grammar in ps, but not much. We do extra work in the summer, and I'd like to concentrate on writing this year. DS will be a rising 3rd grader. I like the looks of CW Aesop, but I'm not sure if this would be a good fit for my somewhat reluctant writer. I'm also considering Imitation in Writing (is this a lite version of CW?) and MCT. Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks! I've been struggling to figure out next steps for writing for my DS. A Plan for Teaching Writing (Elem) might be just what I need. :)

:lurk5: Thinking about this for my DS this summer...

I love math manipulatives, but the ones that have seemed to click the best for my DC are the abacus and base 10 blocks (we have up to a 1000 cube). Maybe because they click best for me, too. ;) My Ker is using popsicle sticks for daily counting # of days in the school year and bundling when we get to a 10 -- there's a tens jar and a ones jar for storing. We show the number on the abacus and find it on the hundreds chart. Materials may be important sometimes, but application is often more important, imho.

:lurk5: I can't get enough of reading lists, lol! All the books I wish I would have read when I was younger. :001_smile:

You might want to check with your school district to see if they have a homework time guideline. For my school district, K-2 homework is not supposed to exceed 30 minutes. For 3+ elem, it goes up to an hour. Although this guideline is in place, my DS's teacher regularly gives work that would take him longer than 30 minutes. I've discussed with her, and she is fine with him doing what he can in the allotted time. That said, I do sometimes make him spend more time on it if I think that he is dawdling because I don't want him to think that he can slack and get out of work. To make sure that we cover what I would like to, we do before-schooling. I can't imagine my high energy boy spending all day in school and then asking him to have more table time in addition to homework. It would be a battle. We leave the house at 7:35 to meet the bus, so it is a busy morning, especially with the baby to get out of the house, too (I have to walk DS to the stop). We routinely spend at least 15 minutes on my work for him. Right now we are working on ETC 7, WWE 1 (wish it were 2 but this was pushed back too often due to time constraints), and SM 2a. Obviously, I can't do everything every day, but working for even 15 minutes in the morning, and maybe a little extra on Saturdays has given him such a better foundation than he would have otherwise. He is ahead of all the kids in his class in math, and his teacher gives him a little extra work when he gets done with math first. For a child who has an IEP because of sensory/attention issues, that is such a huge confidence builder. OK, I went off on a tangent here, but the point I was trying to make is that if you think that there is something that your child needs, making time for it however you need to, can make a huge difference. Slow and steady wins the race in our home. :)

:lurk5: Wow, I'm not the OP but thank you! Lots of great info here.

I love this! Thanks so much, from someone who is trying to force herself to wait, too. :)

My DD and I are doing MFW K this year and really loving it. To be honest, I can't imagine a better curriculum for K. We use the TM for math (calendar, hundreds chart) and the daily activities. We don't do the phonics work because DD is ahead in LA -- instead we use ETC. I love the Sonlight and AO books, too, so we use those as help for our reading list. But MFW K has so many fun activities, it really makes for a great school year.

Crimson Wife, Thanks for your comment. I have FLL 1/2 and was reading through it today. I like that it's "gentle," but it does seem slow for her. That said, I'm afraid to rush things too much. How much review does FLL 3 have? Does FLL 3 cover FLL 1/2 at the beginning of the book, or does it incorporate the review throughout the book, then take each concept a little further? Right now for 1st grade LA I'm leaning towards WWE 1 (and 2?), FLL (level?), AAS, and finishing up ETC 6 (she's flying through 5 so it might already be completed by the end of this school year), plus something for Spanish. I've been keeping my eye on the MCT threads, too. And I've also researched Beyond FIAR, which looks interesting. But, of course, it's still a work in progress. :) Thanks again for the Hive's comments!!! :)

Handwriting Without Tears was a huge help for my DS who has some fine motor issues. It has wooden shapes that let my DS build the letters well before he was able to write them. It also has other fun tools (little magnadoodle, playdough) that you could use to help with creating letters, as well as many, many good ideas in the teachers manual. Some people skip the TM, but at least for the first time you use the program, I think it is invaluable, esp for special needs. The program was developed by an OT and comes well recommended by many. One last thing, their customer service is awesome. When I called, I spoke directly to one of the people who helped develop the program, and another time she returned my call, so I was able to ask questions specific to my situation.

Thanks, everyone, for your responses. I will start doing dictation work, where she dictates to me. I love the idea of leaving a space at the top of the page by adjusting the margin. She'll love this! I have some Spanish background -- studied it for 6 years and spent a summer in Spain -- so I planned to start teaching her Spanish myself in the fall. At one point I was pretty fluent, but that was 20+ years ago. :tongue_smilie: I will look into an immersion program for her, too. Did you mean a Rosetta Stone-type program or an immersion class? I'll need to do more research for foreign language. She has a sign language alphabet poster on her wall in her bedroom and she is picking up signing from that, as well as a few other ASL "baby" signs (eg, more, all done, book, music, etc), but we haven't done much with Spanish yet. I'll also look at Reading Detective and Suppose the Wolf Were an Octopus. Again, this is a new area for me and I'll need to research more. I do ask questions as we read together, and she gives lengthy narrations for her own reading, but I think it would be good for me to focus a little more. Please, keep the ideas coming. This is a very exciting time for DD (and me :001_smile:), and I really appreciate your suggestions! :001_smile:

My DD is a 5 1/2 yo kindergarten and is moving along with leaps and bounds with her reading/writing. She will sit and read for hours if I let her, and can easily read Boxcar Children or Magic School Bus chapter books in a day. Right now she is reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which is purported to be a high 5th grade level per Scholastic book wizard. Every once in a while she'll ask a question about pronouncing a word (symptom was the last word she couldn't figure out), or what something means, but if I ask her what's happening in her story she'll give quite a lengthy and detailed summary. For phonics she is on book 5 of ETC. We were working through Phonics Pathways but stopped because I got bored with it. :tongue_smilie: She finished HWT 1st grade printing book in October and we've started cursive because she asked to. Unprompted she will copy a page of a picture book she is reading and draw a picture. She sent a letter to Santa and wrote "For Chistmas I want a Baby Alive please. Love, Sarah" and she addressed the envelope to Santa, North Pole. I reminder her of the r in Christmas and a period at the end of a sentence, but she spelled everything else correctly with proper spacing, etc. This stuff is fun for her. For math, she is probably a little ahead -- finishing up SM EB2b, she can say numbers through 999 and has a good number sense -- but not to the extent as she is for LA. For science, Bible, and some math, we've loosely been following MFW K but leaving out the phonics work. So, my question is where to go next with her. We just started AAS, which I thought would be fun for her and a nice change of pace from ETC. I had planned to work through the ETC books up to 6 and then wait on books 7 and 8. I also planned to start FLL/WWE in the fall, doing the exercises in cursive. Part of me feels that we should start at least WWE now (in manuscript until she is far enough along with her cursive practice to transition to that), so she gets more practice with proper structure (capitalization, punctuation, etc). The other part of me says that she is doing just fine on her own and more formal work can wait. Thoughts? For the fall (or sooner?), I would love to do an open-and-go lit based program for her, but I can't find one that I think would be a good fit. Sonlight's books become quite mature (she is a sensitive girl like her DM and will cry during books and movies), LLATL books seem easy for their respective grades but I couldn't skip too far because the grammar skils become more advanced, WP is too focused (I don't want to spend a whole year on animals), MFW 1 is too bible-based for my preference and for MFW Adventures I've read that youngers can become bogged down in the state work. We already use Sonlight, AO, etc for read alouds. Help, please! What would you do now and for first grade?

:lurk5: Interesting question. I'm interested in the Hive's responses, too.

Thanks for the responses. I tend to overanalyze these sorts of things, lol!

From reading about these curriculum and looking at samples online, I believe that both use colors to differentiate between the parts of speech. Does anyone know if they use the same colors? I couldn't tell from the samples I saw. Sentence Family looks like a kinder, gentler way to go for my DS for now, but I like MCT and don't want to lay a foundation that might confuse him if we use it in the future.

Lovedtodeath, Thanks for the suggestions, off to check them out! :)

Chris, Thank you for your comments. We sometimes talk about nouns and verbs but haven't gone to other parts of speech. At school, the teachers expect a lot of writing from students but haven't taught much grammar from what I can tell. Hence my feeling that we should start grammar after we finish phonics, even though I originally planned to wait until 3rd grade. Our mornings would be very full doing just math, writing, and spelling, so maybe I should just stick to that for now. Mad libs -- hmm, may that's something to add to his Christmas list. ;) Thanks again!

Hi there! I'm researching grammar programs for my DC, and I realize that I am a little rusty on all the grammar terminology. Does anyone have a favorite grammar resource that you use for fun? Right now I'm reading Life of Fred to review math, and I'm loving it. :)

Anyone? :) At this point, I could just focus on spelling for a little while, but I'd really like to do some grammar, too. I love LA, was the kind of student who liked to diagram sentences, so maybe it's just me who wants to start grammar now, lol!

DS is in 2nd grade in ps but we homeschool regularly in the mornings before school for about 20 min, 30 min when we can. For LA, he is working on WWE 1, to be finished by the end of the school year. In ETC he is on book 7, to be finished in about 6 weeks. I previewed ETC book 8 and am not as happy with how they teach prefixes and suffixes. I'll probably skip it for now and come back to it later for review. He is a pretty strong reader, but at times rushes and skips words or makes mistakes. My question is, where do I go next? I will continue with WWE, and I would like to add in spelling and grammar. I have AAS for spelling, which I am using for my DD, but I'm not sure about it for DS. I like what I've read about MCT, but it sounds like it might be too soon for DS since he hasn't had any formal grammar. FLL doesn't fit me well. I need something streamlined because of the limited time I have but fun and engaging if possible. He also does math most mornings. Thoughts?

:lurk5:

:lurk5: My DS is on SM 2a. He does not have his math facts down cold, especially subtraction. He is getting quicker with addition, but it's not instant recall yet. I can definitely see the benefit of having the math facts memorized early on because DS has to spend some time thinking about what 8+7 equals, instead of concentrating on carrying (same with subtraction). That said, he is doing well with understanding the concepts, and we continue to work on the facts as we move along. Flashmaster just came in the mail and has been a hit. I'm interested to hear what others have to say.

DS is on Singapore Math 2A. We spent some time using base 10 blocks before I brought out pencil and paper to do adding and subtracting with renaming. The blocks make sense to him, and he now gets that when you "borrow" 1 rod from the tens column, that it is the same as moving 10 ones to the ones column. For the writing part, I would put a little 1 in front of the digit in the ones column, but he prefers to cross it off and re-write the new number above (eg, if there is a 4 in the ones column, he'll cross it off and write 14 above the crossed out 4). I think this helps him see it better. Hope this helps and good luck!