I really dislike the font used in RSO Level 1 books. I know it sounds silly, but it really really annoys me.

Thank you for asking this question Lynne! My daughter has asked to learn Japanese and I've had no idea where to start. Really excited about some of these resources everyone.

Merlin? Not that I know of, but wouldn't it be great fun? If you decide to do it, come back here and let me know.

Is that for the day, or for the week? I only tried TOG briefly and it's been awhile. I do remember that there was a lot of reading. My daughter is an excellent reader, but the books weren't really anything she enjoyed reading so that kind of made it drudgery. TOG is a pretty big expense. I wonder if you can find a way to make it fit your needs before giving up completely (like I did, LOL).

No advice, but I hope you have a good library because his reading could become quite expensive without one. ;) Can you have him talk to my third grader and sell her on this whole reading thing?

As someone who spent all last weekend dealing with lice... They were discovered Saturday morning and by Sunday (complete second combing) we appear to be lice free(checking everyday obviously)...48 hrs was all it took to clear them. I never want to deal with that again. It makes my head itch just thinking about it. I would ask them to stay away.

Wow! I hope it's something you like. You'll have to use it 25 times!!!

You are right, she doesn't have strong opinions about things usually. She's kind of like my husband in that way. They both kind of go with the flow (unless she gets frustrated and cries :crying: ). She can do exercises orally and we have done that almost exclusively in the past. Even orally though, she couldn't answer the questions and I really wanted her to think and draw conclusions. I guess I was thinking I would force the writing issue because I really want her to stretch and improve. From reading through the other comments, I realize now that it was quite a leap and just too much.

This is for my oldest who is 11. She was in tears three times today (and I'm not mean, at least I don't think so). She is reading Number the Stars and one of the questions she was asked to answer was: Whose thoughts do we know in this novel? How does that affect our understanding and perspective? How does that point of view create suspense? I asked her to answer it with a short paragraph. First of all, she hates to write and has gotten away with doing much too little of it so far, so I'm trying to get her to step up her game because it is a skill that seriously needs work. So, she scribbled Anne-Marie over the first part of the question and then just stopped. I reminded her that she needed to answer in full sentences in a paragraph and she said she was just making some notes. Ok, great! But then she stalled. I tried to ask some other questions to get her thinking, but she got so frustrated that she started crying. I told her to put it away for now and just think about it. (It's not due until Friday.) We are also doing RSO Biology 2 and we made applesauce and canned some of it and left some of it in a loosely sealed container on the counter. She was asked to explain the dangers to food safety with questions like, "If old rotting apples were used..." and she just wrote "don't". "Don't what?" I asked, very puzzled. "Don't eat it." So I asked her if she had read through the directions and we read them again together and I told her I needed her to answer in complete sentences and explain why she shouldn't eat it. Tears. More tears. (I wanted to rip my hair out, but resisted the urge.) I have no idea how to draw her out. When we are trying to talk about things that don't require her to state an opinion or original thought, I can't get a word in. She's a font of information to the point that it is frustrating. I can't get through material with her younger sister because of constant interruptions to supply some extra information (usually quite interesting, but if we let her do this all the time, we won't get ANYTHING done). But she can't/won't answer questions like: What's your favorite subject to study? (from the pediatrician at her well check) Answer=shrug. Favorite food? Shrug. What is the dance class you enjoy most=Shrug. I'm going to lose my mind. And the tears! She's always on the edge of tears and it's only getting worse now that we are closing in on puberty. Heaven help me. How can I encourage this child to really think??? (She's an excellent math student BTW. She's great at creative problem solving.) What gives? Will this improve with maturity?

I really really want to know what the item is!

Thank you, this looks great too. Have you used it?

Checking this out!

Anyone know of any good ones. My daughter really wants to learn to do this and outside lessons are not an option (no time, no money).

There is sentence analysis in the first books, but not diagramming. I tried to attach a picture of what that looks like that, but the photo was too large. The scope and sequence says there will be diagramming starting in year 2. You can see that here: https://classicalacademicpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/WOL-Scope-Sequence.pdf

I'm a little puzzled by the teachers manual. For example, I'm moving happily through the first chapter and the information I need is on the page that matches the workbook... Then I get to the section Analyze This and I have to flip to the end of the chapter to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing. When I get back to that section, I find tons of notes for all the sections. I do not want to be flipping back and forth at every page. It seems a strange(and somewhat inconvenient) arrangement. Has anyone else found it cumbersome?

Definitely don't skip the logic section. It was one of our favorites. Fractions... You probably aren't missing anything there.

I'm in GA and was only teasing about using those hours anyway. We spend more than the necessary number of hours on schoolwork, field trips and bunny trails. :)

810 hours over 180 days. Please don't ask if I track that. Wow, I've just done some math and I'm definitely working too hard. My oldest is dancing 8.25 hours a week this year and also piano lessons. That comes to 315 hours (of music and PE) by itself. When I figure out what time is left and divide by my 180 days, I only need 2.75 hours of instruction per school day. Wow! I could become a total slacker and still be in compliance. Don't tell my daughter.

Thanks everyone. I guess we will chug along with Beast Academy. Her older sister can pass on her laminated multiplication chart since she finally has hers down. I guess the two aren't very different in that respect. It took my oldest until just before summer this past year to be fluent. Memory is such a weird thing though. My youngest memorized her addition and subtraction facts with no trouble at all and is an ace at mental math with just those two operations. I don't understand my kids brains at all. (And as to the Neuro psych, we went that route for my oldest and learned a lot. I'll keep that idea in my back pocket, but wow is it expensive!!!) And thank you for the suggestions for MEP and CLE. I've looked at MEP before but had forgotten about it. I might print out some of it and let her see what she thinks.

We started it this week too. We are doing most of it orally and having a great time. We've only listened to the first two songs and my oldest really detests the parts of speech song. The singer's monotone voice makes her skin crawl apparently. She is currently sitting at the piano composing a new version for us. Ha! Grammar and piano covered today!

Ugh. My daughter is a young 3rd grader. She'll be 8 on August 25th. Last year we started the year with Math in Focus (we used it in first grade too) and at the end of 2nd grade we had moved into Beast Academy. We are currently on the multiplication chapter of Beast Academy. I know, from going through Beast Academy with my oldest, that once you finish that chapter, you end up using multiplication to solve problems quite frequently. The problem I'm having is this: she has a terrible, absolutely terrible memory even though she is quite smart. She picks up on things really quickly but promptly forgets them if we don't review frequently. I've taught money so many times and even though she can learn the names of the coins and how much they are worth and count out money and add and subtract money...well, if we don't talk about it for a couple of weeks, it's as if we never covered money at all. This doesn't just happen with money (she took a long time to learn the alphabet and letter sounds too). We've been drilling the number of sides on each kind of polygon for forever!!! It's making me crazy, absolutely bonkers. So, it's going to take awhile to learn these multiplication facts, and I don't want to just hang out and do daily drill for two reasons...It will be dull and she'll forget everything else she knows. I have Math in Focus 3A, but the material covered in that book is too easy for her and she's complaining about boredom. It doesn't cover the things she's having trouble with (likely they are covered in 3B, which I don't have). I have Beast Academy through 5B but don't really feel like I can go anywhere with it at this moment. At the end of last term, our daily math consisted of math fact practice (Reflex Math), a page from a Math Mammoth review workbook, and a couple of problems in Beast Academy. I don't know where to go now. I don't want to spend a fortune because I do intend to go forward with Beast (I hope, since I already own all of it), but we need SOMETHING to do. It seems like it needs to be spiral (is that the right word for coming back to topics frequently and building on them) and I would like it to be conceptual. Also, secular. She would love it to be hands on. Does such a creature exist? Ripping my hair out here! (And to add to my frustration, I had to order a second copy of Apples and Pears workbook A because she has trouble spelling and was having a difficult time at the end of the year so I put it away hoping that the summer would allow her to age a bit and she'd be ready to tackle it when we started this term. Anyway, she's gone back so far in skills that I would need to erase half the workbook to get us where we need to be.)

I told my oldest daughter that when she learned to tell time, I would buy a fun clock for the wall in our school room. She's now eleven and learned to tell time long long ago. Now my youngest is pretty good at telling time and I would like to buy a fun clock. I would like it to be something bright and cheerful and under $50 if possible. Anyone have a great wall clock that they can recommend? I feel like I've looked at clocks until I'm cross-eyed and still haven't found anything I like.

I'm not going to do links because I'm on my mobile and it would be a pain, but a basic youtube search will turn up our favorites: SciShow Kids SciShow Space It's OK to be Smart Crash Course Kids All of the videos are science related (our favorite) and are pretty short. We use them to start our day over breakfast. What I need are some ideas for history videos that are short (10 minutes or less) and would appeal to my youngest--age 8. She's pretty sensitive to violence and doesn't like to read about history. Anybody have any ideas?

I circle wrong answers so they know what to try again and if the second try is no good then we work it together. I don't mark correct answers, but my kids still like stickers so I occasionally put a sticker on well done pages. Otherwise, I don't grade work at all. I know I will have to soon, but my kids are still young.