Do you do the activities/experiments? And if you do, do you buy the materials as they are needed, or do you think a materials kit is worth the money? $65 to $80 for a kit seems like a lot of money on top of the books, but really I could probably easily spend that much over the long run if I buy the materials as I go. ETA: I need to learn how to proofread. My title was supposed to say, "If you do Apologia Science..."

This thread also has caught my attention. I bought the Crayola colored pencils a couple months ago, and I hate them. Like others have said, they break a lot. I've had a few that I cannot sharpen w/o breaking, no matter how gentle I am while sharpening them.

I don't think it's new. This is my first year applying to be a tutor, but I've heard of people writing the essay in the past. It's just to show that you understand how the classical model works. CC wouldn't want to hire a tutor who doesn't know what the philosophy is all about.

I'm applying to be a Classical Conversations tutor, and I had to write an essay about the classical model of education, according to Dorothy Sayers. I had my husband read it, who doesn't know anything about the classical model, and he said it sounded good. I was kind of looking for the opinion of someone who is familiar. I don't think they're looking for anything extravagant. They just want to see that I have a general understanding of the philosophy. And I know that my writing has much to be desired. I blame that now on NOT being classically educated. LOL! So, please don't expect Shakespeare or anything remotely close. I can PM to whoever is interested. Thanks!

I wouldn't worry much about it. I used to teach in a private school, and I've administered the Stanford test to first graders and second graders. The first year that I taught, I didn't do any special prep for the test. Our curriculum was Abeka and the kids were doing WONDERFULLY in math. But...they struggled with the math section of the Stanford test. And I could see why when I gave them the test. In Abeka, you write your answers in the book. In the Stanford, they can only fill in the bubble for the answer, they cannot do their work in the book. So the students had to work on a piece of scrap paper. They had no idea how to do this! I didn't think to teach that! They tried to copy the problems on paper and do their work, and I saw kids copying the problems and not lining up the place values and getting all kinds of crazy answers. It was so painful for me to watch them struggle with something that they knew, but couldn't work out b/c they couldn't do their work in the book like they could with their Abeka worksheets. The following year, we did lots of practice copying the problems on scrap paper. The Stanford test wasn't nearly as painful to administer that year.

My understanding of spiral math is that it does seem to jump around. It basically introduces most of the concepts early on. You don't master anything right away, but the curriculum keeps moving around and keeps coming back to the concepts throughout the year, so that by the end of the year everything is mastered. Some kids get bored by this b/c after a certain point, there isn't much that's new. They're just coming back around to each concept that has already been introduced, to reinforce it. Some kids find mastery boring b/c mastery is when a new concept is introduced, and then you focus on that new concept for the next week or two until it's mastered. Then they learn a new concept. There's still review with mastery. We're doing MUS this year and there are 6 pages for each new concept (we're in Primer). The first 3 pages are devoted solely to the new concept, then the last 3 pages have review of older concepts. My daughter gets kind of bored with this b/c she doesn't want to spend a hole week or so on one subject. She doesn't want to speed through it either, so we only do one page a day. We're going to try Horizons next year in hopes that it keeps her more interested.

If you used anything from The Critical Thinking Co. in K, what did you use and do you recommend it? I'm thinking about "Can You find Me?" http://www.criticalthinking.com/getProductDetails.do?code=c&id=03802 "Mind Benders" http://www.criticalthinking.com/getProductDetails.do?code=c&id=01328 And maybe "Building Thinking Skills" http://www.criticalthinking.com/getProductDetails.do?code=c&id=05231 My only issue is that I'm afraid of doing too much. I guess I could get all 3 and just pull one sheet a day from any of them. Not all 3, but maybe Building Thinking Skills 4 times a week and then either Mind Benders or Can You Find Me once a week? This would be on top of math worksheets, handrwriting worksheets and ETC. Why do I feel like all of these would be great, but might be too much? And yes, I have started threads like this before, asking whether I was planning too much. I do tend to buy too much and then I don't use all of it and so I've resorted to asking opinions from those who are wiser and more experienced. Thanks in advance!

You must have been pretty popular and involved in a few activities. I wasn't involved with very much and I was on the quiet side, and IMO I haven't changed a whole lot. People who were close to me recognize me, but many people don't. I feel so bad when I recognize someone and I remember having conversations with those people, and then I see them and call them out and they don't recognize me at all. I was pretty much invisible in school. :(

Oh! The Roswell Park looks nice, and inexpensive! Probably free unless you use the pool. We could do that and either pack a lunch for a picnic or go out to eat. Thank you!

Okay. I got up enough courage to try it. I could hear a high pitched sound for a few seconds,and then it stopped. And the sound wasn't very loud IMO. I'm almost 31. BTW, does the audio only last a couple seconds, or am I only hearing it that for that long b/c of my age?

I'm scared to try, based on the way you describe it. Ummmm, I don't want my head to feel like it's going to explode.

Thank you! We've thought about Stone Mountain. We might do that on our own. It's a little farther from our friends who are north of Atlanta, but if they're willing to drive there we might meet up there. I didn't know about the children's museum, so thank you for that too! That does look like a lot of fun. :)

I've only ordered once, and it was back in the fall. I want to say that it took about one week, give or take a few days. I only live about 3 hours from the warehouse, so it could take longer if you live farther away.

My inlaws live in Conyers, GA which is just east of Atlanta. We visit them a couple times a year and we try to do some activities in the area. So far we've gone to the aquarium, to the zoo, and to the World of Coca Cola. We're going to meet up with some old friends of our who live north of Atlanta and I'd like to meet them somewhere kind of in between, which the halfway point is really in the city of Atlanta. But we're open to something in the eastern to northern area of Atlanta area. Does anyone have some suggestions for things to do in the area that maybe we haven't done before? Any parks? Any children's museums? Thank you!

Average overe here! She's five and a half and still not really reading. She can read some words, but she's not reading books yet, other than maybe the first couple books from the first set of Bob Books. I feel kind of bad when I hear about 3 and 4 year olds who are reading on 1st or 2nd grade reading levels. I tried to push her this year, and she just wasn't ready, so we've been sticking with enforcing her phonemic awareness by working each individual letter, doing rhyming activities, and beginning sound activities. It's been slow and steady for us this year, as we've only been doing pre-k level work.

Deleted b/c it's irrelevant.

I can't answer how she'd do b/c I don't know much about Challenge. But as for Essentials, if you want to do both Foundations and Essentials, then yes, you will have to pay for both. Some people at my campus who have kids who are Essentials age only do Foundations or only do Essentials, just to make things more affordable. Most did do both though.

Oh! Great ideas! Thank you!

Just curious, what do you print out? Is there somethign online to print for ETC or OPGTR?

We just finished lesson 13 in Primer, and I decided to let her skip coloring the blocks as long as she could write in the numbers and say the problems. She uses the blocks to build the problem, but she seems to hate coloring the blocks in the workbook. She knows what colors correlate with which numbers. Do you think that's the only reason why they are supposed to color them according to their color? And she didn't seem to mind coloring the blocks when we were only on the green blocks or when we started to do place value. Maybe she doesn't like having to keep switch colors? I don't know why she doesn't like it, but it takes her FOREVER to finish a page when she has to color them b/c she daydreams or starts playing with the blocks. I'm thinking about allowing her to continue without coloring, as long as she can tell me what color each number is. If you've used MUS, what do you think about this? Thanks!

I also have Bob books and the Abeka reading books. Hmmmm, I'll have to take a look of those Sam books. Thanks a bunch!

I think that's the same abacus that Rightstart uses.

First off, I don't know how to use an abacus. But a few of you have recommended the al abacus that is used with right start. It's this one: http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Resources-Desktop-Abacus/dp/B001V9ACMK/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336500358&sr=8-1-spell I'm interested in using an abacus, since it seems to be a traditional math manipulative that has been forgotten, but should I attempt it if I don't know how to use it? And would it be to hard to incorporate it into a different curriculum, like MUS or Horizons?

Okay, so OPGTR and ETC work well together. They seem to go out of order, so how do you all handle that? Do you skip around in the ETC books to correlate with OPGTR? I feel bad for leaving HOP out. I need to not buy all this stuff, b/c then I feel awful when I don't use something.

I can't decide what I should do. I think I have too much to combine. Anyway, for next year I have HOP K and I bought an extra HOP workbook to go with it that she can write in. Then I bought some Explode the Code books. Then I thought the OPGTR would be great, so I bought that. Can I use these all together? Should I eliminate something? Any recommendations based on what I have? Thanks!