HI all, Where can I find black and white outline map for both US and the world ? I would prefer to have the map to have border, i.e. - for US map --> state by state border. - for world map --> country border. Thanks Dian

Or use cards ? I used Phonics Pathways in the past. We did it for a while, then my son balked when I pulled that book. It's a primer. It's thorough, but a bit boring. You need readers when you do this. We switched to Reading Made Easy by Valerie Bendt. We've been v. happy with it. I wrote about this program somewhere in this forum, just ssearch on it if you're interested. The book is v. easy to use and fun. It has nice stories, so it's not boring at all and you don't need ANY reader to go with it. This is the book which combines reading instruction and the love for reading. Mc Guffey .... we used it after Reading Made Easy, as a reader. We did a couple of lesson, then switched to Elson primer (free from googlebooks) since it's more interesting. One thing to know though if you decide to teach reading using old book. YOu have to know how to teach it. I believe , long time ago, they didn't teach ALL phonics before asking the child to read the stories. Instead, they taught the sound of the letter and one or two blending, then drilled on the words which were going to be used for a particular story from the reader via games. THe teacher also read the complete story talked about the story before asking the kids to read to get them familiar with the vocab. Then, the children were asked to read the short version of the story. Charlotte Mason in her book also advocates this kind of things. So it's little phonics with lots of word drills, which were then directly applied to the reading. Therefore, the word: mother, little, kitten, etc were taught quite early, just because they're high frequency-words and were used in many many stories. Because of this approach, they can have lots of interesting stories even at primer level. In our era, the word 'mother' is quite an advance word in the phonics and children don't learn it early. Hence, you get CVC readers like Bob books right now. KWIM ? If you wanted to use this method, you should try Elson primer instead (free at google books). This book has a huge teacher section at the end of the book, and the instruction is detailed. If you want to use Mc Guffey reader, I think Ruth Beechick wrote a TM for Mc Guffey, but I don't know whether it's for spelling, LA, or reading. I never used any TM with Mc Guffey, we just simply read it. With Elson, I did prepare my son a bit for the first few lesson using the TM, but he didn't need that intro anymore after a while. In addition, we used Treadwell Primer from http://www.mainlesson.com. The stories are easy to read, butb interesting. Dian

It depends on the reading level I guess. My guy (6.5, going to first grade this Aug) is reading at 2nd grade level. He can read books like Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, Are you my mother and I can Read level 1 series quite comfortably on his own. I check on these from time to time. I'm hoping by the end of the first grade he can read Frog and Toad series comfortably (I can read series level 2). There's also some mention on books like: nate the great and the littles. My son is definitely not ready for it. But at the end of first grade ... he may be able to do it. For school (my son will read these aloud), we're going to use various first readers and introductory second readers from public domain (google books): - Treadwell first reader from http://www.mainlesson.com - Summer first reader. - Elson first reader. - Beacon introductory second reader: Animal Tales (by Hiram Fassett). - Horace Mann introductory second reader. - A primary reader by Louise Smythe Hope this helps. Dian

WOW !! It's nice that there are several sequence on BFSU. TIme to see Dian

Are you looking for chronological history of America or just some exposure ? For short term or long term. If you only need some exposure, I suggest you to get biographies or books containing history story, like D'Aulaire and Bulla's books. Our Los Banos also has a plan for American History. Or pPRobably use something like Winter Promise or Beautiful Feet Am. History ? I'm assuming your child is a first grader (SOTW I). I'm also going to have a first grader, and my plans include American history. I'm using public domain books for this (planning to spread over 2 years, i.e. for first and second grade, studied chronologically, story appr0oach). - Viking Tales for Leif story. - Men Who Found America for Columbus, Pocahontas and Raleigh stories. - The Stories of Pilgrims (select chapters) - Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans (all) - Appropriate stories from James Baldwin Books: 50 Famous stories retold, more 30 famous stories, and 50 famous people. Examples of appropriate stories: snippets from Abe Lincoln's life, George Washington's Hatchet, Paul Revere's ride, They are all available from Google books and Heritage History. The read aloud level is perfect for first and second grader. NOTE: for a great exposure for American story, Heritage History recommends: America First. It's not a history book per se. But it's good for exposure and can be a spine. It contains 100 action-packed stories in American history. The read aloud level is more suitable for 8 or 9 years old though. But may be your 6 yo is going to be okay with it. Mine is not. Dian

Reading Made Easy by Valerie Bendt. It's similar to 100EZ, but the marking is simpler, and more importantly, not boring at all. It combines sight words and phonetic instruction. The scope and sequence is also such that children can read short stories only after several lessons. You definitely won't need any reader for this program. It's so not boring. This is the program which combines reading instruction and the love of reading. My son really enjoys it. There are several threads on this, which you can search using KW: reading made easy or RME. Dian

Reading Made Easy by Valerie Bendt. :thumbup::thumbup: I wrote about this in a few posts in this forum. Just search Reading Made Easy or RME. Dian

RS is advance. I just looked at level B a couple of weeks ago, in preparation to teach my first grader this August. While looking at those, I have a feeling that may be he won't 'get' some of them this year. A typical first grade scope and sequence for math is just: - mastering math facts 1-10 (add, substract). - place value up to 100. - some addition/substract up to 100. - basic geometry, clock, money. RS goes v. advance with clock, money and geography. But the real meat is the addition, which I think is second grade work. I mean four digit addition is basically second grade work. Also some of the mental math requires more maturity than what a typical first grader capable of. Dr.Cotter said, once a child finishes RS geometry, it is capable of prealgebra program like VideoText. If everything is on schedule, then this will be at year 6 which is pretty early. So I guess, even if we're one year late, it's still okay . Dian

I'm not a S-pore user, but would like to chime in on review. Even if S-pore doesn't have any review built in, you can always start the day with your own review. It doesn't have to be a pencil and paper activity (aka drill sheet), or even flash card. You can do things orally, via online games, or via card games. Rightstart (a curriculum which we use), also moves pretty fast. But it has daily review on counting up and down, number bond games, etc. So really, you don't have to stay with that topic till the facts memorized. You can move on as long as you know your child understands the concept. Just my two cents. Dian

I emailed Iris (author), and she said that the Startwrite-NAC version contains the cursive + print fonts. Don't know which print font is included there. Dian

We're combining RS level B (1st grade) and Math Mammoth grade 1 here. I guess you can combine two programs easily if the scope and sequence of the two programs are pretty inline and they complement each other. IMHO, there's no point in combining program just because one has more drill than the others, or if the topics are not line up as it can turn to be just extra busy works. RS and MM really complement each other. RS concept: manipulative (mainly abacus) --> abstract (vizualization of abacus, mental math). No counting. MM concept: similar to S-pore, i.e. pictorial --> semi pictorial --> abstract. Both are strong in concept. I find that the pictorial stage of MM reinforces the concept from RS. Also, MM gives additional strategy. I guess I can easily do the same with S-pore, i.e. RS + S-pore. But the scope and sequence of the two programs are just too different. With MM and RS, I have a spread sheet to match the topic, so that each program serves its purpose and reinforce each other. Dian

So just read and memorize the poem ? Dian

What do you do on poetry day ? Read a selection of poem ? Then what ? Discuss it ? Having tea ? I'm struggling with this. Well, I haven't yet tried. But, I'm not a poetry person. Not in my native language (Indonesian), not in English. I can appreciate good literature easily, both in Indonesian and English. Prose, I mean. But not poetry. I just don't like poetry. Now, how important is poetry ? Any suggestion on improving my feelings towards poetry? Thanks dian

They (NAC) also offer Startwrite-NAC edition so that you can make your own worksheet in NAC-type cursive. It comes with print font too. And they offer it at $30, which is $10 less than Startwrite 5.0. I may get this instead, and develop my own worksheet, instead of paying $22.95 for a consumable book. I want to be able to use this across curiculum Dian

For writing/penmanship (if you meant writing = penmanship), I suggest Handwriting Without Tears. IT has suggestion on teaching writing for lefties in the teacher manual. THis is the penmanship program which does magic in my son's capability to write and draw. You start off with putting the wooden letter pieces to form a letter correctly, then you use little blackboard with chalk, or stamp wooden letter pieces into a doodle pad. Only after this, a child is expected to write something on paper. My son (at that time 6 years 3 months) even after those exercise couldn't write using pencil. So I gave him the pre-K books where he could write using a crayon. After finishing the pre-K book, he moved onto the K book where he wrote using a pencil. Now, 4.5 months after we started the writing journey, he's doing the first grade HWT book and draws a lot. He can also do some math workbook, now that he's writing. We plan to finish off the first grade HWT book in two weeks or so. For first grade, my son will not get any more handwriting curriculum. I just want him to opractice writing via copywork and workbook (planning ETC and a little bit of math worksheet).

I would suggest to forget grammar for a while, and focus on getting the reading off the ground + penmanship (is this what you mean by writing ?). If you meant writing = composition, for a child that age, narration would be more suitable. My son is at the same age as your daughter, and is learning to narrate (not good yet, though). Later, when he's at the third or fourth grade, I'm going to transition him into written narration. Now, on to reading. You said that your daughter has the phonics pinned down. So, what exactly is the problem ? The interest factor or the fact that it's hard for her to decode ? If interest is the problem, then get her an interesting reading material. You can refer to websites with leveled reading, but personally my criteria in selecting reading material for my son (6 yo, just finished Reading MAde Easy on May 2008) is: - interesting stories. - the kind of words contained in the reading material (has to be mostly one syllable words or easy two-syllable words, like: little, mother, and everything with -y, -ing, -ed, -er and -est). - sentence coherency. This makes reading easier, because then your daughter doesn't need to decode every single word. She can sort of guess some. I do not really like leveled reading sugggestion, because it tends to emphasize on the length of the book. That is, if the book contains only one sentence per page, and is short enough, no matter how advance the words are, then it is for the beginner. IN my experience, it's sometimes more difficult for beginner to decipher this kind of reading material. In contrast, when I give my son with books selected according to my criteria, then he reads more fluently and with interest. At the very beginning, I use Elson RUnkel Primer and Treadwell Primer after I finish with the phonics instruction (Reading Made Easy), all available free from google books and Baldwin project, respectively. The words are easy enough,the sentences are coherent, and the stories are interesting. Before reading, I introduced him to the story and new vocab (with phonics approach). If you used Elson Runkel then you can use its suggestion (there's teacher manual at the back of the book), but I made up my own phonics-based vocab lesson for first several lessons, based on my son's capability. After several lesson, as he was gaining confidence, I just introduced him to the story via pictures, but there's no need to introduce new words. Now, I just asked him to look at the picture, and we had a little discussion about what the story is about, then asked him to just read it. This really transition him gently enough to other beginner books, like Green Eggs and Ham and other Dr. Seuss books, and I can Read level 1 series (we did my first I can read -- you know, biscuit series, but it's more enjoyable and easier for my son to read level 1, which is supposedly more difficult than Biscuit). This puts my son in around beginning second grade level. You could also try Frances, or Curious George stories. Frances is especially easy. The sentences are coherent and the stories are interesting. It's long, yes. But it's easy. For first grade, I would like my son to continue with the FREE/public domain graded reader (classic reader) during school read aloud time (I just don't have time to plan reading lesson around library material): Elson Runkel first reader, Treadwell first reader, Summer first reader, Beacon introductory second reade (animal tales)r, Smythe Primary Reader and Horace introductroy second reader. On Sat and Sun, he can read I can Read series or other readers from the library. Oh as for grammar, if your daughter read a lot, she will absorb grammar. If you feel the need, then you can start grammar later when her reading is taking off. Hope this helps. Dian

Yes. It's the light blue series. I didn't buy the hard copies from WP. I bought the download from the math mammoth website. I bought the whole series for $72 (4 grade). I plan to use them together with RS B-E. Dian

Me ... we use light blue Math Mammoth as a supplement to RS. We like it. It's like s'pore, but with more practice. My son benefits a lot from different presentation. MM is pictorial to half pictorial to abstract. RS is manipulative to abstract (via abacus visualization). For some topics, the pictorial stage helps a lot. I used s'pore earlybird with RS level A. It helped him with some topics really well. That's why I use MM this year. It has more practice and cheaper (I have 3 kids, and a good laser duplex laser, so printing is NO problem and cheap for us). As a stand alone, it might work. But it moves too fast. Especially on the first grade, when it discusses the math fact/ number bond. However, I remember seeing the author wrote like, don't expect student to memorize the math fact after this exercise, so the same page has to be printed periodically for practice. Conceptually though, it provides enough practice for the student to develop a certain concept. All in all, I like Math Mammoth. It's very logical and strong in concept. Dian

I supplement with Math Mammoth light blue series. As for drill, I use RS games. Math Mammoth is just for different presentation of math (pictorial) and I found that, at least for my son, different presentation helps with some topics. I use Math Mammoth because it's similar to s'pore. I supplemented RS level A with early bird on K level, and it worked well. For first grade though, I don't want to buy s'pore, especially because the scope and sequence is so different from RS and lack of practice. I just started RS level B with math mammoth light blue 1A may be 2 weeks ago. It works well (scope and sequence is not the same, RS being a spiral program, but I spent 3 hrs to make an excel spreadsheet to match two program so they can reinforce each other -- or more accurately, so that MM can reinforce RS). Anyway, I think RS is thorough enough and a very good stand alone program. But my ds shows better understanding when also presented with pictorial approach a la s'pore (and MM). So I guess for our purpose, Math Mammoth is the ideal supplement of RS. Dian

An Island Story by HM Marshall, free from Baldwin project.

I forgot you asked about RS vs MUS. MUS manipulative is rod of different length, each representing different number. This can present a problem because it's just a representation, but not true number which a child can see. In contrast, RS' principal manipulative, the abacus is very good and logical, because it doesn't show representation. It shows real things. So, in abacus, 10 is shown by 10 beads. 100 as 100 beads or ten-tens beads. In short, the manipulative itself is manipulable (is this a word ?), whereas MUS manipulative is NOT manipulable. RS uses games mainly card games to drill. My son learn 10 number bond in short time. Singapore; you should buy extra practice sheet if you are going to use singapore, because the primary math itself does not contain that many practice. Then it'll get more expensive ...:001_smile: HTH Dian

Right Start Math :thumbup: However, it's expensive. I bought mine used for a bit less than half price. However, you mention your child loves worksheet, so may be she won't like RS. It does have worksheet, but much less than saxzon. IT drills using games instead. Other good but cheaper alternative is Math Mammoth worktext . Get the blue series if your child needs to strengthen only one or two areas. Otherwise, try the light blue series for a complete grade worktext . It's quite similar to Singapore in that it has pictorial --> abstract approach (you have to add manipulative yourself though), it's mastery, teaches conceptual understanding and it has lots of practice (including a good amount a variety of word problem) using worksheet. I don't know whether it has as many practice as saxon, but the practice is certainly more than what is contained in the Singapore Primary Math. The text is very logical and self explanatory. It also has similar mental math strategy to Singapore. The website is: http://www.mathmammoth.com Don't be fooled with its appearance. You may think that it's just a collection of worksheet bundled together to form an ebook. But it's not. I guess you can see it clearly if you bought the lightblue series (the complete one). I can't comment on the blue series (the topical one, and the first one published), but I can tell you what is contained in the light blue series. E.g. chapter one is about addition. IT moves from the concept of addition (2 balls and 3 balls are 5 balls) to using symbol (2 balls plus 3 balls equals 5 balls) to finding the missing addend using picture. It moves gradually from pictorial to half abstract half picture to 100% abstract. Once chapter one is finished, you get to chapter two. Chapter two on substraction builds on chapter 1. It shows clearly the link between addtion, substraction and missing addend. It explains explicitly how to use substraction to solve problem: a. to substract something (e.g. 3 takes away 2, you're left with one). b. to find missing addend. There's plenty of practice and scenarios (word problem) for your child to understand the additon-substraction concept. YOu can also try the topical series, or the blue series of math mammoth. It's cheap - only cost $2-3. However, I don't know whether there's such explicit continuity between concept if you bought two different ebook, eg. the addition ebook and substraction ebook. With the complete program (lightblue), the logical progression between topic is obvious. You should see it for yourself. Oh ... you also mention about place value. It teaches place value similar to singapore and RS. MM uses the concept of place value a lot when teaching regrouping and carrying in the later grade (I believe grade 2). However, I find RS is the one which stresses on place value for the longest time. Whilst Sing, MM, RS all use symbols like three-tens for 30 when teaching place value, I believe, RS is the longest one using such symbol, before teaching children to use the proper name. I think on the K level, 75% of the book talks 30 as three-tens. On 1st grade level (book B), it's around 40%. I currently use RightStart B and supplement with Math Mammoth light blue for first grade (light blue is the complete curriculum, not the topical worktext) to get different perspective. RS is heavy on manipulative stage (mainly abacus) then go to abstract stage using visualization of abacus. Math mammoth (or singapore) seems good to fill in the gap, i.e. the pictorial stage. My son understands the concept better if we move from manipulative stage to pictorial stage to abstract. Once got to abstract stage, RS wins hands down (compared to Math mammoth + S'pore) because of its visualization tool i.e. the abacus. Drilling-wise, RS also wins because it's fun fun fun to drill using RS method. HTH Dian

I just posted my tentative schedule using Nebel's BFSU in other thread: First Year. Second and Third Year. To learn more about Nebel science, just look at the complete thread titled: Review of BFSU (the above links are part of the review thread). HTH Dian

I was also struggling with the word 'tandem'. If I only wanted to devote one day per week for 'formal science', then how can I do those in tandem, without leaving each topic for too long ? So I settled with doing things sequentially, starting with the one which has NO prerequisite. Turns out that the chemistry (nature of matter) is the one which should be done first as you can see in my schedule. Another way to do stuff tandemly is to treat chapters which lend itself to observation/exploration as ongoing. So in essence, you do these lessons (like B4 - life cycle, D4 - biomes, etc) in tandem with other lessons which are more appropriate to be assigned as formal lesson, KWIM ? And I must agree with you that while NEbel's science is good in concept, it is very intimidating. A bit like Spalding methods, I suppose. Both SWR and WRTR are excellent. But they need teachers to really understand the subject. That's why they have SWR training. Marie Rippel, creator of All About Spelling, took Spalding approach to spelling, and turned the hard-to-use program into an easy ones. Somebody or Nebel should go further with his concept and turn this goldmine into something that most HS mom will eager to use. In my mind, though, may be this book can be turned into a science course with these components: 1. Text book for children with scope and sequence like what I've outlined. The textbook should be narrative in nature and easy to understand, with nice illustration. Much like RS4K or apologia (?). 2. Experiment book with lab book for both demonstration (to cement the facts), and for real experiment (to guide children to use what they've already learned). 3. Scheduled ongoing projects for recording natural phenomenon, observation of lifecycles, biomes, etc. In order to do these activities, these following notebooks/journal should be included: weather notebook, nature notebook for species identification, lifecycle notebook, and "adopt-a-animal/plant/biome" notebook to note the changes of animal/plant/biome condition throughout the season 4. Scheduled read aloud books to enhance the current lesson, or to prepare for future lessons, which can be a combination of narrative book and science picture book. this should be ongoing. . 5. HAndbook of nature study. 6Teacher guide to explain all those and also contains: schedule, discussion questions and a list of possible teachable moment, e.g. teachable moment at the yard, teachable moment at the kitchen, teachable moment at the car, etc. In addition, Nebel suggests making little booklets (for early elementary students) after each lesson to cement the facts. He said, "If a child can illustrate what he learned, then he must have internalized it." If making little booklets was too much, may be we can just use narration after each lesson to see what s/he understands. Dian

Hi Angela, What I mean by teaching children to think scientifically through expt does not mean to ask children to guess wildly or making hypothesis wildly. May be this is what happening in public schools with their 'discovery program'. I don't know ... I didn't grow up in the US. What I think we should do though, is to lay good foundation/ basic, then based on that basics, we can ask children to make an educated guess what happens if there is an xyz scenario. So, here, it's clear that I would not ask children to guess wildly. But I'm first going togive them the info they need to make a guess (KWIM ?). Sometimes you can just discuss these with children, sometimes you need experiment to prove your guess. Therefore, one of the most important thing to have in a science curriculum is a scope and sequence which makes sense, so children are able to draw relation from different branches of science and at the end will understand the world from early on. That's why I love Nebel's science, since it teaches science to children this way with of course appropriate demonstration to cement the facts. Secondly, it's okay to do expt without forming any hypothesis at all. This can happen if we don't have enough knowledge to make an educated guess. Scientists do these often. Usually this happens when the question is like this: which one cause the x to happen ? Is it y, is it z, or is it w ? Then the scientist has to make expt to enable them to see clearly whether it is y, z or w. This translates easily to real life, like: which is better for cleaning windows: windex, vinegar, or xxxx ? Or, which is better to clean a yucky chopping board ? Alcohol, clorox, water, soap, or xxx ? Or, after learning about the nature of mixture and solution, children then will be able to guess: what happen if x is mixed with y, w and z, etc. So what we are after here is the habit to do scientific thinking. You mention about arithmetic and algebra, stating that algebra is akin to scientific expt, and should be reserved after knowing the facts. I both agree and disagree. Yes, we should know the fact. But we also need to know the concept behind the facts. THat's why I like Rightstart math, because it teaches concept. Nebel science is the same. Some children survive through algebra, etc, but without guidance of a teacher which teaches them conceptually, it is possible that those children survive algebra merely by memorizing the facts. In my mind, conceptual thinking or understanding, should also be practiced at grammar stage. And yes, from my experience, some first year phD students don't get this. I've mentored several of them during my tenure in a well-known public univ in Tx. They all came from reputable public univ (and presumably among the best ?), but they never had any science project in the univ. I literally had to coach them on how to design expts properly. And they're phD candidates ! I've also mentored summer students (pre med and biology major). And they're the same. Not to mention that their math ability is somewhat scary. I had to check on their calculation everytime, otherwise they would make wrong solution. Makes me wonder how they survive the higher math at all. I mean .. making chemical solution is just simple arithmetic, isn't it ? I had my degree in UK, and in UK, we had both big library and lab projects at the final years (3rd year). This really helped me on how to design an exprt. I also learned a lot of these when working for pfizer as a student trainee (I took one year out univ). So when I did my phD, I was pretty trained in terms of expt design and lab technique. I mean, that's the point of having a degree in science, right ? If you still cannot apply scientific methods after graduation, then what's the point of having a science degree ? And surely you don't need to wait till your phD graduation to get the scientific thinking pinned down ? It's interesting that I had this conversation with my PI. She's a US professor, but was educated in Canada. She was so proud her son doing an independent research project at Yale. I didn't understand why she was so proud and said to her, "But that's what I did in the UK." At that point, she said, "But most US students don't have such projects. How could they ? There are hundereds of them in one class." Then my prof also complained about the fact that US public univ do not train the science student properly like what she got in Canada. She told me to be careful to choose a univ for my children, and would not recommend public univ at all. She said,"They spoon-fed these children with facts, so when they get to graduate school they're in shock." I concur. Some of the students I mentored need spoon-feeding, even at graduate level. The transition to graduate school is rough, and shocking for them. You know, the experience of having to find your own answer because the note just doesn't give you an answer. The experience to read real paper. Yes, they're only 1st year phD student, and they will sure 'grow up' by the time they finish their phD and go to real life. But, how about those who only finish the first degree ? How about those who never got into college ? To this, my prof said, " They will learn these at their first job in a hard way." GASP. Scientific thinking is needed not only in the science field. IT's just logic.But it needs some guidance and training for thinking scientifically. And you need this kind of thinking in real life. Apparently, unless taught properly, children would never get it, even after high school graduation. This is just based on my personal experience. I don't know the stats, but what I saw was worrying. Dian