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I've heard that, while both are phonics-based programs, actually learning how to read moves slower in AAS than in AAR. I do know people who use both together.

My kids are too young yet, but I love this idea! Totally going to save this for future reference!

Maybe notebooking or lapbooking the information will help him retain it better?

I am planning to use Singapore Math with DD5. She turned 5 in January, so August will be Kindy for her. This current year and lasy year we've focused on the use of Montessori materials to give her a good math foundation. She's good with the bi and trinomial cube, numerals and counters, golden bead material (basic place value), and is interested in the teen and tens boards and the hundreds board now. She's also worked through the Horizon's PreK wbs (with my mom), and Calverts K wb (with my MIL). From the scope and sequence, it looks like Singapore K will be a lot of review... for those who have used it, is it absolutely necessary that she go through Essentials before moving into 1A? I'm also open to another program altogether.

There's one that has the Pi symbol and the first 4,000-ish digits of Pi!

Answer, press to talk, then tell the person to, "Please remove me from all your calling lists." If they keep calling afterwards, then tell the operator you will notify the FTC if they fail to remove you from their lists, as you have requested before to be removed.

Does the Life Science text contain a significant amount of "general" science information that applies to all science, rather than to life science specifically? In a lot of texts I've seen, life science texts are where the author puts ideas life classifying and organizing, the scientific method, how scientific theories are developed, etc. That would certainly make that text longer...

They have their own set of basic supplies (crayons, colored pencils, glue, etc). They share things we use less often.

To my understanding, they start with basic math, and go up through linear alegbra and such. The website seems to have sample chapters for every level, which might help you. I bought "Apples", and it starts with basic addition concepts.

Welcome!

I think I find myself willing tp pay more for games, manipulatives, and trying different curriculum options because we have four very close in age. Whenever DH and I discuss something new we can try or add to what we have, it always gets mentioned that "Even if (DD5) doesn't like it, we can try using it later with (DS4, DD2, or baby)." If I had only one, I'd probably stick with what I know works.

We're not in a co-op, and don't plan to join.

My reaction would be that one of the benefits of homeschooling is the ability to mix and match grade levels and curricula to find the best fit for each child. That being said, I'd still start him on a basic phonics in kindy. Even if its below his reading level, it'd be important to me to make sure he really knows all the phonics rules. But I certainly would not try to slow down his reading. And, my 4 year old DS generally does "handwriting" on an aquadoodle. Its not ideal, but...

Thanks!

I like the Buki Books dot-to-dots because you can get books with increasing difficulty. We started with 1-10 dot-to-dot, then moved through 1-15, 1-20, 1-50, and 1-100.

We did butterflies last summer - my kids were delighted to see the life cycle.

Montessori Print Shop has a cute set of printable eye nomenclature cards, but I guess that would be more the various parts of the eye then the mechanics of it...

My dad has an HP he got for about $300 a few years ago... its a nice little computer!

I'm pretty low-key about school at 4, but if you want to encourage him, can you adapt it so that he's not doing worktexts and things that make him complain? We use the Montessori wooden alphabet alot, and tiny objects/pictures for them to spell. We started off with CVC words, and once those were mastered, we added objects with more complex names. My kids enjoy the play based application, and I still have control over what they learn (ie, if I want to work on 'sh' sounds, I put a baby shoe, a shell, etc in the basket of objects. For silent e, we put in pictures of a cake, cane, a lake, etc.). For handwriting improvement, we do lots of lacing/tracing/etc, and they draw letters in sand. Its not true handwriting, but they mastered the letter shapes and fine motor skills, so moving to writing hasnt been difficult for my DD5. For math, they love math games, puzzles, manipulatives, and real life math stories (1-100 connect the dots, the Kumon number games 1-120 book, teddy bear math, pattern blocks, geometric solids, books like "Two ways to count to ten"). Its basic, and a departure from the classical education tradition, but by gradually changing out the fun stuff to more classical, its been a pretty seamless transition for my kids. They get engaged and want to learn...

My DS has terrible milk allergies. We have had situations wherein milk is used as an inactive ingredient in medications, too - like in certain types of Benadryl. Generally, I have to read the package insert to find an inactive ingredient listing. We cope by: 1) keeping on-hand a safe version of any OTC med he could need... allergy, cold, fever, sinus, whatever. This reduces the need to run to the store and grab a med at midnight without knowing if its allergy friendly 2) making sure any doc perscribing any meds checks it for milk products in the desk reference, then having the pharmacist double check... and never, ever taking a generic substitution (because sometimes generics have different inactive ingredients).

We keep an extra weighted blanket in the car for times when my SID/OCD son is particularly "sensitive". My personal theory for my son is that the car is a very different sensiry experience, so he has a hard time remaining calm. The second weighted blanket in the car helps give him the sensory input he needs without being overwhelming and allows him to focus more on coping and behaving.

Awesome!

Yes, yes, and yes! We dramatically changed our grocery budget when my DS was diagnosed with a soy allergy. Since nearly every type of take-out, pre-prepped, or processed food has some sort of soy, we started cooking every meal and cut of convenience foods nearly altogether. The change in our spending was huge! And when my two highschool aged brother-in-laws were here for a month, we added a full extra $100 to our groceey budget! Crazy!

$300 to $350 per month for the six of us (averages $75-$90 per week). We eat healthy, not much processed. We put $58/month of our grocery budget into our local organic CSA, which provides us with tons more fruit and veggies than we could possibly buy for that amount. We're also lucky to live in an area where we can get things from local farmers much cheaper than we'd pay at a grocery - organic eggs ($1.80 for a dozen), raw honey, tilapia, etc. We shop meat sales, store specials, and try not to let food go bad. We use coupons and drug store "games" for nearly free household and personal care products. Cloth diapers for baby.