I have a similar plan. We already use and love Rightstart, All About Reading, and All About Spelling for our math and reading. I plan to use MFW first for our Bible, Science, and Writing. I did the same with MFW K.

I found a great thread the other day about fluency sheets on the All About Learning forum. I will try to find it and paste it here later. Fluency sheets have been hard for us to get through as well. Sometimes I felt like we were stuck on the same lesson just because it took us at least 3 days to get through the fluency sheets. I have changed it a bit and now we are finishing about 2 lessons in 3 to 4 days unless he needs more time. I do the review cards in the morning during/right after breakfast to break up his reading some. The first day of a new lesson, we do the new teaching and the first section/page of fluency depending on what he can handle. Many days, I have him read every other word. We just read as far as he can make it. The second day, we do the activities, go over the new review cards, and more fluency. The third and fourth days, we read and reread the stories from the following lesson along with some fluency work. If he is catching on reall well, then we only do a quarter or so total of the fluency pages.

I didn't start it at the beginning of the year because my son wasn't quite ready for the writing portion, so I went ahead with the plan listed below. Our year is going really well although I feel Bible is lacking and my ds isn't crazy about his science this year, but he loved it with MFWK. I am also missing writing, which would be covered in MFW first. I recently came across a great deal on a MFW 1st teacher's guide. After reading through the manual, I love the Bible and Science. I think my son would enjoy it as well. We are set in math and reading, so I would skip those parts. I was planning on starting it after Christmas when his handwriting and reading had gotten to more of a first grade level and finishing through the summer, but now we have another little one coming in June which will disrupt my plan. My dillema is that I've already spent the money for our curriculum this year and it is working. I thought since we started early that I would be done with P 4/5 and science by Christmas, but we won't be done till early spring at the rate we are going. I would still have a few things to purchase in order to switch back to MFW. I really want him to go through this program for the excellent foundation in Bible. The two options I'm considering are to add it in now, dropping our current science and Bible or wait and use it for his second grade year. Then I would use Adventures when my oldest are 6 and 8. I kind of like the second plan, but I don't want him to be behind either. I can't make up my mind!!!!

I LOVE the builder boards!! My kids would love those!!!

I also agree that there is a point at which a child is "ready" to read. I worked with my son at 2,3, and 4 years old trying to get him to recognize his alphabet to no avail. All of a sudden, he was able to recognize most of them at 5. Did my teaching help some? Probably, but I think he would have been just fine had I not pushed him so much. I continued to push him to learn how to read during his 5 yr old Kindergaten year, but he just could not get blending, no matter how hard I tried. Just as with recognizing his letters, he was able to start blending shortly before his 6th birthday. He is now making steady progress in reading and loves it. I wish I had avoided some of the tears and frustration during his kindergarten year. I plan to gently introduce the rest of my dc to reading. If they don't seem ready, we will back off for a few months and then try again. My husband's reading experience was similar to one mentioned ealier. He could not read at all, despite lots of help through special ed, until he reached 3rd grade. He said that it was like night and day, one day he couldn't read, the next day he could.

These are some great suggestions!!! Thanks!

Thanks Kayla, but we already have those.

My son will be two in a few weeks and I have no idea what to get him. I feel like we already have so many toys that don't get played with!! He hardly played with any toys relatives got him for his first birthday, because he plays with his older siblings so much. I am looking for something in the $20-$40 range. Educational would be best since he has plenty of the typical toys from his brother and sister. So far, the only thing I can think of is the Melissa and Doug Latches puzzle, since he loves to try and figure things out right now. Any ideas???

There is an adventures set for sale in the for sale/swap board.

Sounds like a great plan to me. I may do that as well next time we go through MFWK, depending on how crazy life is with baby 4. :)

I think adding AAR1 would be perfect for beefing up the phonics. I loved the Bible and Science, but my son got bored quickly with the phonics. I think it could work wonderfully for some kids, but my son needed something more varied and fun. MFWK was perfect for us once we switched out the phonics for AAR1. This year we r doing P 4/5 for his first grade year bc he wasn't quite ready to start MFW 1st. After looking through the manual though, I kind of wish I would've waited and started MFW 1st a few months into the year.

I had the same problem when my son was doing worksheets in MUS. It would take forever!!! We switched to Rightstart, which has very little worksheets, and he is doing much better.

My son is six. He has almost gotten all of the lowercase cursive letters down and is doing really well in handwriting. When do you teach manuscript or do you? He rarely writes in cursive when he is doodeling. He likes to get his notebook out and write random letters and sometimes simple words, but always in manuscript. I am wondering if I should teach manuscript alongside of cursive so he learns how to form the letters correctly? I would still emphasize cursive and require him to do the majority of his work in cursive, but I do want him to have nice printing too. Any suggestions?

Neglect in some cases, maybe, but definitely not all. I was self-educated and despite a few holes with my math and writing, I was well prepared. I still got almost all As once I attended a difficult private school for my last two years and later college. But, I am the type of person that loves school and loves learning. My brother, who was dyslexic and did not like school, ended up quitting in high school and getting his GED. Would he have been better off in public school?? No, I don't think so. When she pulled him out in middle school, he was being teased for his learning disabilities and getting nowhere academically. She brought him home and taught him to read with her training as a dyslexic tutor. He is now an electrician and rents houses.

It is possible with some kids, but I wouldn't reccomend it. I think a certain level of independence is good, but complete independence can leave some holes and be extremely frustrating on the child at times. I did this when I was homeschooled. My Mom was not able to be very involved in my homeschooling because she was a working single Mom. I LOVED school and LOVED learning. I still do! I started homeschooling in 4th grade and did pretty much everything on my own including correcting my own work. I even ordered my own curriculum as I got older because I enjoyed looking through the catalog, picking everything out, and checking subjects off as I comleted them. She would check things over in the beginning, but as I got older, and she had to work more, I pretty much did everything myself. It was VERY hard and frustrating at times, but mostly, I enjoyed school, so it wasn't too bad. I even gave myself spelling tests at times because I wanted to finish the PACE (A.C.E) I was doing and didn't want to wait. I would record the words and then take the test as I listened to the recording. :) I think working independently taught me some valuable lessons in taking the initiative to get things done on my own, but my writing needed some major help when I attended private in 11th and 12th grade. I also discovered that math could be much more enjoyable and I could actually understand it when I had a teacher. For math, many times I would look at the answer key for a few problems to try and figure it out and then do the rest of them on my own. One major thing I lacked was in learning how to take what I learned and apply it in different situations. Application questions/essays on my tests in college were very difficult for me because I did not learn to do those in elementary/high school. I was able to learn it eventually, but I do still struggle with this concept some. Can it be done? Yes. Should it, probably not completely. For my own children, I will encourage them to become more independent as they get older, but I plan to always be involved in some way to make sure there are no holes, especially in subjects that may be more challenging for them.

How did you find a private therapist? We pay $40 per half hour through a clinic. Our insurance won't cover it because we could get it through the schools. The schools won't give it to me unless I put her in 5 day preschool. It would be so nice if i could find someone to come to the house though instead of drivung over an hour every week.

I get poison ivy multiple times every year. When we lived further out in the country, I got it over a dozen times one year!! After getting it so many times, I have learned that the only way to get it to stop spreading is to wash everything the poison ivy could have touched, my sheets, clothes, comforter, and myself. The sap will stay on anything it comes in contact with until you use a strong sap to cut through the soap. I have found that any laundry soap works well. For myself, I either get Fels Naptha laundry bar soap (not sure how to spell it) or just use dish soap. As far as relief from the itching and oozing until it goes away, one of my favorites is Ivarest. I have also use dome boro soaks, ivy-dry, and lots of other things. The ivy-dry really helps with the itching. I just carried it everywhere and sprayed it on whenever it started to itch rather than itching it. A friend of mine found relief with bread soaked in milk. She put it on top of the really bad spots that were oozing and it dried up the oozing very quickly. I can normally stop it before it gets to that point, so I have not tried this one. I think the most important thing is to get rid of the sap so it stops spreading. Hopefully this helps!!:001_smile:

I have been trying to get him to sing the song, but he is not really into it. I have it memorized extremely well though. :001_smile: I think my 4 year old is beginning to memorize it as well from hearing me sing it. When do you recommend starting my almost 4 year old dd? I had planned to let her follow along, but she quickly became lost as he is moving through the lessons much too quickly for her. The patterning, ordering, and shapes are pretty easy for him, whereas she is just learning those things.

I have been keeping my eye out for the games used, but I haven't gotten them yet because I didn't think they were used until much later in level A. It looks like there are only two games played in level A, so I was holding off.

Thanks for the encouragement and suggestions! I will add these to the others listed t play every day. I guess I was assuming he would get it right away because it seems so easy for me to see the groups. I can already see a small difference in myself from looking at numbers this way, so I do plan to stick it out! I think he will begin to like it again if I can get past this frustration and make it fun for him again by playing the games. I've just been having him practice by asking him to show me 8 on his fingers, the tally sticks, or abacus. I think the games will work much better!

Yes, the song does help a little, but it is more me singing it than him. It is good to know that we can keep moving and that it will be repeated! I don't think he is confused so much as that is frustrated because it hasn't clicked yet that 6 is 5 and 1 and he wants to count to make sure it5 and 1 is 6. I think we will try moving a little slower, maybe only one section of the lesson each day. Then I'll add the review games/activities for the rest of our math time until it clicks.

Thanks for the suggestions! I will try them with him tomorrow! He loves to play memory. I guess I was concentrating more on "show me 7.". He does ok matching the cards and that is more fun for him. I thought he was supposed to be able to show me 5 and 2 when I ask him for 7 or tell me it is 7 when I show him 5 and 2 of something. He kind of gets the 5 and 1, 5 and 3, etc. He just has difficulty telling me that 5 and 1 is 6.

I do not have the card games yet. Would any of those help on recognition. I'm starting to think maybe I should just start at the beginning again and take it really slow. I probably did do some of the lessons too fast because I tried doing one a day, which, he was fine with at first. I guess I was feeling like he'll be behind if he does A for first grade, so I was going to do A and B this year. As I continue to read more about righstart, I am finding othrs that use A for first and B for second, so maybe that's ok?

I just started Rightstart A with my almost 6 yr old son. The first few lessons were great! I still like it, but my son is having difficulty "seeing" the numbers. He really wants to count. He can recognize up to 5 pretty well, but he rarely gets 6-10 right. Since I have not allowed him to count, he thinks it is a guessing game. When he doesn't instantly know the number is, he starts guessing. When I ask him to stop guessing and think about it, he says, "but you won't let me count!" I'm not sure what to do to help him see the numbers as a quantity of 8 or 6 or 9 without thinking it is a guessing game. I really like the program, but I feel like we are stuck at recognizing numbers beyond 5. I did go ahead to lesson 11, because he gets tired of doing the same thing, but should I stop until he gets it?? Will the continual review help him to eventually see the quantities? Any input is appreciated!

Well, this wouldn't be a workbook, but Rightstart has a card games package that includes lots of different games to reinforce math skills. They say it can be used alongside any math program. We haven't tried it yet, but I plan to get it soon. I ended up switching to Rightstart comepletely from MUS because my son got too bored with it. So far, the swich is going well.