Last year I only spent an hour on Friday afternoon grading everything for the week, and an hour on Saturday morning planning for the following week. This year I spend about 30 minutes on weekdays (during the regular school year) in the evening grading and planning. I'll lay out math manipulatives for the three different levels of math I teach (or whatever else I may need) the night before. Things ran more smoothly this year than last.

I like the idea of taking a break from Homer to do a week of Poetry to ease the heaviness. I think what it comes down to is how much time to I want to dedicate to writing. My daughter already has a full schedule...but she completed Writing Tales 2 last year so I would like to keep her going in the program. I plan to research it more tonight. Thanks for the scheduling ideas, Heather.

Thanks for all the help! I am going to continue researching Classical Writing Homer. I am encouraged about the poetry books. :001_smile:

I went back and read the other CW posts, and some of the posts about CW make me cautious to order it. I have seen the SWB audio about middle school writing. It makes logical sense to work on writing skills and seems easy to implement. It would also save me about $150. :) I think I will research the CW program further before deciding what to do. I will check out the poetry book a bit closer. Thanks.

Yes, I meant do you have time for it after completing all the work for Homer. Some maybe schedule it in between Homer lessons? I don't plan to do writing over the summer. ;) It is a big purchase for all those books, so I appreciate hearing your experience.

For me this year it is Math. I'm searching for an excellent secondary math program for my daughter. I'm going through all of them comparing them and I'll likely keep them all as reference to give math ideas from different points of view if necessary. I don't want to switch math programs every year so I'm looking for a good spine for the duration then I can add topics from other books if I'd like to.

Nice post. :) My oldest is 10 but that is old enough for me to realize that sticking with a program for a long time gives a sense of stability and a more thorough coverage of a program. It takes a lot to make me switch. ;)

Those of you who use Classical Writing Homer: do you also use Poetry for Beginners as recommended? Do you purchase the student and teacher workbooks for both? Is it too much for one year? Thanks for your help. :)

I recently finished Saxon 3 with my 2nd grade son. He used it until the end. Now I do think you would be fine skipping the last 20 or so lessons, but one thing I liked at the end of Saxon 3 was the way it taught long division - dividing a three-digit number by a one-digit number using money manipulatives. I think is was lesson 134. [i would make sure the math facts are cemented before doing long division extensively.] Long division with two or more digit answers does get covered again in the 5/4 level, but the way it was taught in Saxon 3 (with the manipultives, place value, and going one step at a time) was helpful for him as a starting point. Good luck.:)

If you want to use the Standards Edition another idea is to use the SE Teacher's Guides. When I purchase SE Level 5 last year the HIG were not out. I instead used the Standards Editions Level 5 along with the Teacher's Guide. The Teacher's Guide was helpful as its purpose was to help teachers understand the course material and see how each section fits with the curriculum as a whole. It gave background info before the lessons and had the answers in the back of the book. Although there were occasional mistakes in the answer keys (for example, Unit 1 Ex. 5 Problem #1 in the workbook asks you to list all the prime numbers between 1 and 50 but includes the answers "1" and "27" as prime numbers which they are not.) "1" is neither prime nor composite and "27" is a composite number. The textbook did correctly state that a prime number is greater than 1, however.) The Teacher's Guide also had extra problem solving and some mental math sections in the back for added understanding of the concepts. At the back are the California Math Standards and Correlations for grade 5 if one is interested. I was overall happy with the Teacher's Guides.

My favorites are Singapore and Saxon for lower elementay, but I use both. ;) I like the spiral nature of Saxon and how well my children learned the math facts, and I liked having the alternate concept presentation from Singapore. I especially like the CWP and IP books from Singapore because I like that students are encouraged to draw pictures (bar diagrams) to solve problems. Good luck. :)

Singapore, Saxon, Russian Math 6, EPGY Favorite math program of both my older children: Singapore :)

I am impressed with what I have seen of AOPS. I have the Intro to Algebra book, and it looks well done, engaging and challenging. It even gets into some more advanced topics towards the end. This is one of the American secondary math series I am strongly considering combining with Singapore math.

You may also want to consider the Discovering Math program. I have both NEM1 and DM1 and I like the visual appeal and organization of DM1 at least for a younger student. I am still trying to decide which of DM1 or NEM1 would work best for my daughter (if we go this route), but here is a link to the scope and sequence for secondary math which compares the two. http://www.singaporemath.com/v/vspfiles/assets/images/SSSecMath2008.pdf

My daughter asked me the other day if we could do Singapore Math through high school. It is her favorite of all the math curricula we have used to date. I have similar concerns that Cynthia has concerning the sequencing of topics. One thing I have considered is combining it with an American math curriculum. You could double check at the Singapore math forum, but I think that after NEM or DM a student moves into New Additional Maths. I read a very interesting book this weekend called A Handbook for Mathematics Teachers in Secondary Schools from Singapore Math. It discusses common mistakes made by students in various secondary math topics. It has math game ideas for Algebra and beyond. It focuses on teaching students to recognize patterns and cluster those patterns together for problem solving. It was a great read. It has me reconsidering using Singapore for high school.

Saxon 1-3 worked successfully for 2 of my children - both gifted. I did adapt and combine it with Singapore though so it wasn't exclusively Saxon. My daughter used some of Saxon 7/6 last year. She did not enjoy it but was scoring high on her work. She also used Singapore at that time. I think I may have placed her in the wrong level since she tested into 8/7 but I made the decision to put her into 7/6 because I wanted to keep her closer to grade level. I decided to have her use Russian Math 6 instead. RM6 stays with a topic longer and goes more deeply into concepts than Saxon did. It was a very good choice for this child. I think all math programs have their strengths and weaknesses. Saxon is strong in review and some students learn better with its incremental approach. I have always combined curricula. I have never used Saxon alone, but I've never used Singapore alone either. Good luck.:)

All rational numbers have an opposite number (if a is rational number, then the -a exists (and is also a rational number)). (From Russian Math 6) So for all rational numbers a and b, a - b = a + (-b). Since every rational number has an opposite number, subtraction is always possible. Since a and b can be any rational number, then it is possible that a<0, b < 0. So let a = -2 and b = -8, then by our definition above, a - b = a + -b = -2 + [- (-8)] but we know that the opposite of -8 = -(-8) = 8, so we have: a - b = -2 + [8] = 6

We use it as a review curriculum and combine it with other programs. For example, my daughter also did Singapore 5 with IP5 this past school year and is working through the end of Russian Math 6. She usually did 2 or 3 sessions of EPGY at a time. It is nice to have the program keep track of her progress and lesson planning, so all I have to do is go in and review her results. Good luck. :)

Just wanted to add that my daughter is starting Algebra in the fall. She'll be in 5th grade. I've chosen Dolciani and AOPS. If Dolciani gets to be too much theory at this age, I may go with Foersters. I respect the wisdom of those that say to not rush a child into Algebra, and I'm sure it is based on situations they have seen. My daughter is advanced at math and is Algebra ready having passed the placement test, and so I want to start her slowly in it while reviewing any weak spots we may encounter in Pre-Algebra. If it gets to be too much, we will back up and roll through Pre-Algebra again. I think it depends on the child, and I'll let you know in a year. ;)

It's great that you are satisfied with Saxon. I am a fan of the early elementary levels of it, and I like the middle levels for a review curriculum. For us it is sometimes helpful to see concepts presented from a different angle, and I far prefer the problem solving approach in Singapore to Saxon.

The way it is taught in this video is the way Saxon 3 (Lesson 134) teaches this concept. My 7 y.o. son just learned this a few weeks go. We divided money manipulatives among ourselves, and then I went to the board and showed him the steps with long division. Saxon 3 also does a great job with explaining the place value using dollars. He seemed to get it after going through this several times. Thanks for sharing; seeing it done in different ways can be helpful.

This was the same issue I had with it. We used History Odyssey instead, and I've been happy with that. Good luck.

Congrats to you both!:thumbup:

My 5yo does some MEP1, did all of Singapore EM, and now he's working through MM1. He really likes math and does Math fact sheets from Saxon on his own. My 2nd grader did all of Saxon 3 and Singapore 2 (with IP) this year. He did excellent with this. My 4th grader did Singapore 5 (Standards edition) with IP5 and now is working through Russian Math 6. I am amazed at some of the things she can figure out by studying patterns. I don't try to line any of the subjects up. I do think you can do too much math. It really depends on the child and the frustration level of that child. I try to make sure that one is done thoroughly and then, if there is time and the child is handling it okay, then two is fine. ETA: I forgot all about EPGY...my daughter completed this, also. :o Good luck. :)

Since my son now knows all his math facts very well, we are only using Singapore Standards Edition this next year. Saxon was a great help in learning those facts, but now he will get his review and reinforcement from the supplements in Singapore (both US and Standards) and from some possible supplementing of Russian Math 3 (and maybe MEP3). If you son has his math facts down (and since he scored a 99 percentile for computation), then he may not need more drill. He may just need to add in the IPs or CWP (or even Extra Practice) for more review if you stick with the Singapore Program. Good luck. :)