Penny Gardner's italics download

I'll be sitting in and watching this topic as we are WWE users and not American either. We haven't hit WWE 3 yet..

It is a lot! For us it was getting painful so we put it away. We are using Phonics Pathways and it is working sooooo much better for us. I am still using the AAR readers.

We'll take a break when I feel we need one :)

This is helpful! Thanks for the feedback :)

...will I really be missing out? The parts I'm considering are grammar island, practice island and sentence island. Do I really need it all? Will I regret it if I don't get the whole package?

I bought the 1st grade curriculum to use w/ my K and 2nd grader this year and it didn't work. I think if you are not combining it could work quite well. I found the material was way over my Kers head but my 2nd grader was enjoying it. We had a baby so I put it down for a bit, once we were ready to start up again I felt too far behind and wanted to start fresh so we are doing something different now. I do think it's a lovely program, but it's not great for combining ages. :(

I think I'm going to do something like this. She had expressed concerns about the tongue stiicking out behavior before, I brushed it off not realizing how extreme it was (I won't do this again!). Maybe I can bring it up and help her come up w/ some strategies and offer some support. They have had a hard year, which I'm sure the child has felt too.

huh? Of course we phone/text.

Normally we do spend a fair bit of time together, but my baby is a preemie so we need to be careful about germs. She and her dd have had a lot of illnesses so we hadn't seen them for nearly 4 months. Her dd has had behavioral issues, but not this extreme.

How do you bring it up w/out hurting feelings? I know I wouldn't like my friends criticizing my parenting.

Thanks for the feedback, now I'll tell you what I did and please tell me if it was appropriate or not and how to proceed from here. After it was apparent that this behavior was going to continue, I attempted to redirect the child's focus onto a solitary activity (coloring). The behavior continued, so I figured she must have a need that wasn't being met so I went and talked to my kids to see if she was possibly feeling excluded. I arranged for a group activity that they could enjoy together. She didn't want to participate and they left soon after. This is my best friend so I can't just not have them over. My mother thinks I should talk to my friend about it (my kids were beginning to copy the behaviors, but I nipped it in the bud), but I feel that in doing so would likely not go over well and be a friendship ender which is not at all what I want.

What do you do? I had a friend over last week, she has a dd who is 4. Her dd was not only mean to my kids, but disrespectful t/w me (eg. repeatedly stuck her tongue out at me, spat at me and screamed at me while I was talking to her mom). Her mom didn't do anything, IMO, to stop her dd's behavior. This type of behavior went on for about 3 hours.

It occured to me the other day that I inadvertently dropped phonics intruction w/ my 2nd grader (we were using AAS for spelling and phonics and it didn't work for us so we dropped it). I have been wondering if we should be doing more phonics or not. I have PP so I will have him do this and see how he does. :)

Nature study never gets done at my house so I am interested in this also.

I will probably just keep doing what we're doing this year but one level up. I am adding in a few things. So far this is what I'm thinking LA - Phonics Pathways, WWE 1, Penny Gardner's Italics and maybe some kind of phonics workbook (because he likes them), possibly MCP or ETC Math - RightStart B Science - Finish off Elemental Science Grammar Biology and move up to Earth Science Geography/History - Finish off Expedition Earth and begin SOTW vol 1 with AG French - The Easy French Art - Artistic Pursuits Everything other than LA and Math he is tagging along w/ his older brother.

This is what is on my scratch sheet: LA - MCT Island, R&S Spelling 3, WWE 2-3 Math - RightStart D Geography/History - Finish Expedition Earth and begin SOTW vol 1 Science - Finish ES Grammar Biology and begin Earth Science French - The Easy French (this is a big maybe) Art - Artistic Pursuits Keyboarding - Typing Instructor for Kids This is my current plan, I won't make any final decisions until late spring/early summer so this can completely change :p

I'd stick w/ what you have. I am using Penny Gardner's Italics w/ my 7.5 year old for remediation. He did K at private school, homeschooled last year but I didn't follow a handwriting curriculum and followed bad advice so his handwriting didn't improve. I started using Penny Gardner's Italics late last summer, we only do 7 minutes every day but he buckles down and does his hardest work. His writing has improved 1000%! It's been slow but steady.

haha, I am trying to tell myself that it will be all good until highschool :lol: It's such a distant marker it does not scare me. I'm hoping for validation here - lol

you might want to check this out. I haven't used it yet, but am planning on starting it this week. It looks fun and it's FREE!!

My oldest is in 2nd so we are really just starting and I'm curious. :)

Us too :)

Thanks for the suggestions. AAS didn't work in this house. We completed level 1 then dropped it. Would grade 3 R&S be suitable for an 8 year old boy who is a natural speller but has only had a little bit of formal spelling?

I was feeling a bit like this this week, so I flipped back and looked at the work the kids were doing in September and the difference is HUGE! All that hard work is produing fruit. Sometimes it's hard to see week by week, but it's there when you look at it over time. Keep it up, mama! Your doing a great job :)

The price of R&S is very attractive. I've tried expensive programs before with no success, at least if this doesn't work for us it's a cheap mistake. :)