:iagree: One of my sons really honed his reading skills by playing Viva Pinata! He also loves reading video game inserts (nerd alert). My oldest son (almost 9) JUST finally got hooked on a series that he loves to read: Magic Tree House books. Since he has wanted to find out "what happens next" he has willingly read for a much longer period of time and his reading skills have improved drastically in 2 weeks. I am thrilled that he realized he CAN love to read on his own if he find a book of interest. (I also didn't make it known that the Magic Tree House books were a part of "school" because school isn't fun, ya know :tongue_smilie:.) That said, you can definitely homeschool without having the child read a lot at this age. I would try to keep reading to a minimum for "school" and try to motivate him to love reading books he is really interested in (video games! Cook books! Space books! Comic books! Mystery novels! Lego magazine! NBA star bio!). And don't be afraid to pick out books FOR him that you think he'd love. Sometimes letting them pick out their own books doesn't get you nearly as far. But YOU know his interests and can capitalize on them.

I used alpha last year. Day 1: I watch the video with my child. He usually looks like this: :001_huh: lol But that's OK because the videos are actually aimed at the parent, to help them understand the concept and learn how to teach the child. So we watch it together with that in mind. Then we sit down at the table and I explain the concept again in my own words and we do a couple examples together to make sure he gets it. Child does worksheet A and I help as needed and check it when they're finished. If they miss a couple I show them what they did wrong and they fix it. Day 2: Child does worksheet B (more practicing of new skill). I check it. Day 3: Child does worksheet C (more practicing of new skill). I check it. Usually they need less and less help as the days go on. Day 4: Child does worksheet D (new skill plus review of past skills). I check it. Day 5: Child does worksheet E (new skill plus review of past skills). I check it. Day 6: Child does worksheet F (new skill plus review of past skills). I check it. If they are clearly doing well throughout this week's lesson then I say, "You get to take the test tomorrow!" Day 7: Test. This is usually kind of a formality but helps solidify the end of the lesson and I do write down what grade they get. If it's not an A, we work on it for another day before we go to the next lesson. Day 8: We start a new lesson. Watch DVD together, teach concept in my own words, do worksheet A. However, that said, I do pay attention to whether my child is totally getting the concept only 1 or 2 days into the lesson. Unless I think they need more time to practice it just to remember the skill, if they are getting an A+ easily every day then I will move from the skills practice sheets and have them do a couple of the review sheets and tell them if they keep getting an A+ or only miss 1, they can take the test. This motivates them to do well (and makes them excited to take the test!) because that means they can be done with that lesson and move to the next one. HTH

All About Spelling. Great for struggling spellers. Start at Level 1 even if he knows how to spell those words because he will probably learn rules he doesn't know and can go as fast as he's reasonably able to through the lessons. I use it with ds 8 (almost 9) and ds 7.

Oh man. I feel your pain. I bought Singapore Math and found out it was not working for me and scrambled to buy MUS, too. I would look at MathUSee.com and look at the table of contents (or at least the list of skills covered) in the MUS book you were in. You could print it out, cross off skills he already has down, and look at what's left. That could at least give you a "plan" to work through the rest of the year. I would tackle 1 new topic a week just like MUS does, but move on once he certainly gets it. You could have him watch KhanAcademy's math videos and if your son doesn't get it, at the least YOU will probably get it and it will give you a basis for teaching him the topic. There is also often a green button above the video you choose on KhanAcademy that says "Practice this concept." I've never used it, but I assume it might come in handy. OR I would consider just buying the MUS workbook and not the teacher's manual and DVD? Do you think you can swing it with just the workbook and maybe the Khan videos?? (to save expense) It might be worth it to avoid all this hassle. AND I would definitely look on this site's swap list and others to see if you can find MUS used... Hope that helps!

I think maybe you're being a bit rough on him. It would break my heart if my son got there and was crying because he couldn't play. I think it's a skill to work on, but not have consequences like missing out on one of his favorite things at this age. I also wouldn't want him to deal with the embarrassment. I think some kids are old enough at 9 to do all that but a LOT of kids would have problems keeping it all straight. How many MOMS have trouble remembering all the gear they need, ya know? I'm a fairly organized person and I couldn't tell you how many times *I* run out the door and forget things I needed. I'd probably make a check-list and then help him with it... Walk him through it, or you double-check the night before that he has everything so he's not embarrassed or disappointed. Blatant disregard or a rebellious attitude is one thing, but a forgetful 9 yr old is very forgivable and totally normal, IMO. To be totally honest, personally, I would probably do it for him for a few more years in the form of "Hockey is tomorrow... I'm looking in your bag here and I only see one glove. Where's the other one? OK, go grab it. Also, you need your cup. Better find it and throw it in. Is that it? Yep, OK, now don't take anything out so we can grab the bag and go out the door tomorrow." He will get the hang of it.

I think having your clocks set differently than everyone else's would be a nightmare. I'd last a day before I showed up at the wrong time for an appointment. Also, communicating with others who do change their clocks would be awful. Compounding the problem would be you two talking about when an appointment or meet-up is scheduled but mis-communicating about whether you're talking about "real time" or "household time." Nightmare. I second the idea to keep your sleep schedules physically the same but change your clocks. :lol:

Are there any books for up-and-coming sci-fi loving boys? Trying to get ds7 interested in reading on his own so I thought robots, aliens and the like could be the ticket. :tongue_smilie: Anything come to mind?

Okie doke. Then maybe I don't need to concern myself with teaching her the names of the letters and it will just come at some point? She does like the Leap Frog Letter Factory but she still mostly picks up on the sounds and not the names for some reason. Does anybody have an opinion on whether I should skip All About Reading 1? But there is no Level 2 yet, I believe... I think she could benefit from the 2nd half of Level 1 but I kinda hate to pay $100 when she will fly through half the book and we might possibly be done with it in a few months. So I'm almost thinking about just continuing with Explode The Code plus leveled readers for our phonics / reading program. Does that sound like enough? What do people usually use along with ETC??

This happened with ds7 when he was learning to read, and now it's happening with dd5. She still can't remember the names of all the letters (it just doesn't stick :confused:) and she probably remembers more sounds than she does names. Which MEANS she can read all kinds of 3 letter words like mat, cat, sit, hit, get... Sometimes she forgets a sound, too, but she just asks "what does this letter say again?" and then promptly sounds out the word. Blending sounds comes very easily to her, which is nice. So right now I'm doing All About Reading Pre-1 with her and find that she still forgets which letter the "C" is. :glare: Yet, she knows it says /k/. So she can read cat and cup. I was *going* to buy AAR 1 for her for next year... or when she finishes AAR pre-1. However, I just looked at the samples and she could probably read the words in half the book already! What the? I don't want to spend $100 on it now. Should I just try to get her to remember the letter names and all the sounds and not bother with AAR 1? She would probably fly through it up until words with beginning or ending blends like "hand." Thoughts? Tips? Experiences? :confused: Is this common? This happened with ds7, too! I think she will be a natural reader and I'm confident I can teach her to read since I've got 2 kids under my belt now, but these learning "imbalances" or whatever you want to call it drive me crazy since I like to teach very systematically, ykwim? Thanks :bigear:

Thanks a lot for the links to these old threads and other information. I just now got through them all. I would LOVE to use SOTW if it weren't for these questions about how the stories line up with the Catholic Church's view of history. I would probably just skip a chapter here and there when necessary (or just skip Volume II?) except that I don't trust myself that I will know what to skip or substitute since I'm only just entering the Church. I don't *know* the Catholic view enough to spot any divergence from it, unfortunately. I just think my kids would LOVE the audio since they love books on tape. *sigh* But I think I am going to try Connecting With History to make it easier on myself.... now the question is whether to just read the books, or to use the IG. oy Anyway, thanks so much for the info and input!

lol Thanks, guys, for the suggestions. I am looking into Veritas Press and others! I might make up my own "package" from SL and others. ETA: WOW, Beautiful Feet has some awesome looking literature packs!! But they look a little beyond my kids' abilities right now. But I hope I will remember them for the future!

A few you could look into: Heart of Dakota Tapestry of Grace My Father's World

I would put him in whatever grade he would be in in public school. If his bday is super close I would put him in the younger grade so if he were in PS he would be one of the "oldest kids" in the class... give an edge, makes it easier on both of you, less paranoia for years to come. ;)

:iagree: Kinda sad. I wouldn't treat it as a learning problem as much as a never-was-taught-it problem. I would just go right back to where she's at... which sounds like about first grade? I would recommend MCP Math Level A. Simple workbook, simple straight-forward presentations. You don't even need the Teacher's Manual IMO. This level hones the exact skill you mentioned... making the leap from physical or pictoral objects to writing the numbers. It introduces place value with pictures. She might not need to start at the beginning (but may not hurt). She could probably fly through half the book because of her age and ability, but it will take her through understanding place value and adding 2-digit numbers, carrying, subtracting 1 digit numbers from 2-digit numbers and I think borrowing. Maybe you could suggest this curriculum to her mom as well? For people who are not "mathy" MCP Math is very doable and teachable.

I think if you already have reservations about Sonlight, you should probably not use them. I'm doing Core B right now with ds8 and ds7 and I'm not a fan of one of the Usborne Book of World History(which might be considered 1 of the history spines?). I absolutely LOVE some Usborne books like the internet-linked encyclopedias and they have tons of fun books on their website (so I don't want to diss my beloved Usborne! lol). But this one is clearly of a different variety than the other Usborne books that I love. There seems to be too much on one page... and I would venture to say too many illustrations! Normally I love illustrations but they need some focus, and we don't need a picture for every tid-bit. And some things (like beheadings) I could do WITHOUT illustrations!! In one of them there is an illustration of a pile of heads and a soldier holding a severed head by the hair! Decapitated bodies laying around. And there is a picture of a soldier standing over a kneeling man and slitting his throat! Ugh. Yes, this stuff happened, but do we need cartoon illustrations of it for my 7 yr old? Me thinks not. I would totally hand it over to the kids to scour the pages and read all the tid-bits about knights, castles, etc. But I can't because of the really disturbing stuff in it, too. So I think I could have just done without this book. Also immodest content like cartoon illustrations of egyptian teenage girls dancing topless under "sport and leisure." Mmm k. Is that really important for the kids to know about ancient egypt? ...Let alone something they need to have a visual of? :confused: And I second the schedule jumping around. I don't like using 3 history books at the same time. It just doesn't click with me and I hate not knowing which book we are using on any given day. It feels choppy to me. Another big reason I'm thinking about leaving Sonlight for Cores is the read-alouds are sometimes too much for me (let alone the kids) emotionally. I have a list someone sent me of possibly disturbing SL read-alouds and it's fairly big. So that issue (if it's an issue for you) increases with each Core, in general. I know in a book in Core B there were talk of cannibals in one book (mommy, what's a cannibal? umm, let's read a different book :tongue_smilie:). Not sure what you think about all this, but just an FYI. I thought TOG looks good, and did you ever look at Heart Of Dakota? The Instructor's Guides for HOD look way easier to follow than SL's, the program is cheaper, and supposedly they steer clear of the potentially bothersome books like SL does. Connecting With History also has some really nice books you might want to check out, though it's a Catholic program so there are a lot of explicitly Catholic books in CWH as well. Sorry about the novel.:tongue_smilie:

I know of Sonlight's. I know of Heart of Dakota. Are there any others I should know about? I'm looking for 3rd-4th grade. Thanks!

Glad to hear this!! That's what I was planning on buying! *Phew* :tongue_smilie:

I guessed 4th based on the last problem because usually division isn't taught until 4th, I thought. Honestly, I would consider the first problem 2nd, second problem 3rd, and fourth problem 4th grade!! lol But I could see it all being reviewed in 4th.

:hurray::party::hurray: That's awesome!!! You must be doing a great job! Got any tips? ;)

Is it possible? Advisable? Any anti-Catholic content? How is the Reformation portrayed? How about the Crusades? If you substitute or add-in to SOTW as a Catholic, how do you do it and with what? Would it be crazy (too much) to use SOTW AND a lot of Connecting With History books? Can someone also tell me what using SOTW looks like? As in... give me a snapshot of your day and describe what you do when it's "history time"? :bigear: Thanks!

That is hilarious!! And cute!! Precious innocent child! :lol:

:iagree: You're the mom. You know what's best for her. Besides, she will probably be on board 100% with homeschooling if you tell her all the reasons (the ones she cares about anyway) you think homeschooling is better. A few cons about PS that kids respond pretty readily to: Sitting at a desk for hours. Not being able to talk to the kids most of the time. Mean kids. The teacher will likely move to the next thing whether you understand or not (mommy will always make sure you understand). Not being able to do work outside on a nice day. Getting up at 6 am to get ready for school, waiting for the bus in the cold or rain. Being there for 6 hours and by the time they get home it's dark in 2 hours. Oh yeah, and they will have "homework" to do at home in addition to being at school. She'll probably say: :leaving: And PS certainly isn't the solution for those boring subjects! They don't get any more entertaining in PS! And the can suck a lot of joy out of other interesting subjects (like Science), to boot. And I think most homeschooled kids, if they have any desire to go to PS, it's solely because of activities and socializing with the kids. But if you point out that they can STILL do activities, and STILL hang out with kids at your group, ymca class, what have you... there goes the most enticing reason to go to school.

Oh no, I'm sorry. That must be very hard to see. I'm sure you've tried talking to him about it. Is there a specific reason? If he said there's not, is there anything you can think of that happened that you could fix... that maybe he can't articulate? Is he getting enough sleep? Just throwing thoughts out there. I don't know if you're Christians, but when my kids are upset and I pray with them it seems to help make them feel better. Maybe you could pray with him? You could also find some encouraging scripture verses that you could read together and maybe put on index cards that he could carry around? Just a thought. I don't know a ton about it, but I would be careful to not let your regular pediatrician diagnose and treat this with meds. I've read that regular pediatricians are not experts in mental health issues and that it is highly recommended that you take the child to a psychologist for an evaluation and diagnosis. :grouphug: Hope you can figure out what's going on.

I'm not saying to do everything I said in the absence of teaching and training each of your kids in virtue. That would be kind of impossible. If one of your kids has a very self-centered attitude that's never effectively dealt with and is turning out to be a.. uhh... scoundrel :tongue_smilie: you did something very wrong. Everyone makes mistakes and some kids naturally have better "hearts" than others. But as parents we don't just say "oh boy, this one has a really self-centered attitude. That's too bad." No, you recognize sinful tendencies and that's good, and wise parents use these observations to target the training of their children. The sooner you recognize it and the sooner you deal with it (while it's still a small issue and not heavily ingrained) the easier it will be to counteract it. We don't just let kids grow up and go whatever which way they want to go, good or bad... we are there to train them, lead them, keep them on the right path, cultivate virtue in them. That's why I said we should try to prick our children's hearts and motivate them inwardly to love each other... not just force them to say they love each other regardless of whether or not they mean it. You can't foster real love in their hearts for their family (including each other) while ignoring Johnny's blatant self-centeredness (or meanness, or fault-finding, or thoughtlessness, etc). It doesn't make sense. I don't think it's an either-or. It's absolutely both. Help them love each other by learning to value their family more, training, discipline, virtuous examples, and working on their own characters.

I agree. There is nothing besides the manual and the tiles and cards. The teacher's manual IS the program. I actually love it because there's no student book. Just one book to keep track of.