Hi Jet, I would hop over to the Saxon math website and have my child take a placement test. If she places into prealgebra that means that she does not have the skills it takes to be successful in algebra. It doesn't do any good to start algebra I if your child hasn't mastered adding, subtracting and dividing fractions. If she misses questions on graphing or percentages I wouldn't worry so much because algebra will teacher her graphing, and you will have to stop and review percentages if you do MIXING word problems. Depending on the algebra program that you use they may teach negative numbers from the ground up, Jacob's does, and so you might not need negative numbers from pre algebra either, but you really need to get those fractions down cold! One idea is to fast track this with "KEYS TO" algebra, pick up percentages also if she is weak in that area. No messing around with these, no slow pacing, work on weekends, do two or three lessons a day. Also, your daughter is old enough to be motivated o do the extra work that it takes to get into college. Due to a lousy math background (I changed schools 10 times in 12 years) I ended up going to the public library and on my own and studied algebra every weekend so that I could do better on the ACT. Getting into college was important to me and I made doing what it takes priority. This was not my parents pushing me to study extra, I just was I wouldn't do well. The good news is that once self-motivated she can do this work in double time. Some 16 year olds take algebra in community college and that can amount to high school algebra I and II in four months--so I know that a high school student could do it in one academic year. I would use a mastery program such as Foersters so that I could do every other problem, or every third problem if I was catching on.

I guess I would look at it like this: If by doing Chalkdust basic math your child is able to solve Singapore word problems at the same grade level then Singapore 6 would be redundant. If not aren't able to solve these kinds of problems then they would be getting something out of Singapore.

how about the ANTI creative school project? On July 4th we could start a new tradition by blowing up all our school work from the previous academic year. My boys wouldn't get into anything to do with glue or scissors but I think they'd get into this one. Might even be a way to reward them for filing and putting away their schoolwork in the right place. "Blast Books"

Jeri, I was trying to limit my response to the Singapore products, but a lot of people say that Russian Math 6 is a really good bridge. Thread Hijack: I have had a lot of difficulty integrating our algebra with NEM. Everything is presented out of order and the problems concerning fractions in one require prior knowlege that you didn't get around to in another. I have been integrating it on a lesson by lesson basis, using Allen as the spine and supplementing with Singapore. In other words I use the theory as the spine and supplement with hairy calculations which reinforce technique. Since Singapore spreads algebra out across three years rather than just limiting it to NEM 1 I find myself flipping through all three books for extra problems.

It's kinda cool that they were able to remove the snake without killing it. I'm also thinking how awful it would be to have a large animal dead in the washing machine. Gross.

No. But, the entire series gives the child 6 years of working with unknowns in the form of increasingly complex bar models, making mathematical arguments, and using association, distribution, and the commutative law in the mental math exercises, and horizontal equations so that all of these are old hat and come naturally by the time of 7th grade algebra. the first few chapters of 7th grade NEM cover some topics that in arithemetic that were not covered in the primary series, such as more on the division of fractions and decimals, negative numbers, and order of operations. They don't actually begin algebra until several chapters into the book.

7 days

With my second grader I began by drawing the outline of the bar model he needed. Then I told him to 1. Label 2. Write numbers 3. Write question mark (this represents the unknown quantity on the bar diagram) 4. Write number sentence. the list helped him. He does a pretty good job on his own. Just make sure they always draw a bar model for every single word problem no matter how easy it is. With my oldest son I took a piece of poster board and cut two different sized rectangles in it that he could use as a template and that made things faster.

It was for me. Carefully study the two models they give you and then try to draw a bar diagram similar to the examples. The other thing I found useful was to go to the Singaporemath.com message boards and look at all the questions people had about bar models and how Jenny demonstrated them. After you get the hang of it, you'll wonder why you never saw it. It will "click"

Hi Kim, If you think that you might use Singapore for all of your children it may be a good investment to go ahead and get grades 2,3,4 so that you can start from the beginning. The secret to those convoluted word problems are the bar models and they begin teaching that in the second grade! In the beginning the bar models have only a couple of basic patterns and that makes it easy for the kids. Each year after that new complexity is added and there is more variation in what can be done. By the time the kid is in the 6th grade he has had four years of manipulating "unknowns" in multi step problems which take the form of a bar rather than an "X and it's just a tiny further step to replace the bar with a an "x" ....it's just notation at the point, not abstraction, and this is why kids in Singapore are ready for algebra in 7th. So, I guess what I am saying is rather than starting in the 5th grade with these problems, start as low as you need. In the second grade even, your child would not have to do the whole book, maybe just three per unit-just enough to catch on. You'd have the book for your younger children. It's very hard picking up the bar diagrams in the middle of this program. If I were to give grown ups work shop on bar diagrams I would start with examples in the second grade and work my way up to the level you are working at. You are not dumb at all because you find these difficult! I found one that I couldn't solve right away and showed it to my husband who has a math degree and he said, "You can't solve that without algebra!" I gloated when I showed him the bar model solution. Also, it's not expected that the kid have 100% mastery of word problems in these books. If your kid is successfully solving them at 50-60% that is not bad! Of course 75% is better. Remember that in Singapore they are on a different grading scale than we are. For them a 50% is the lowest C you can get-- a75% is the lowest A) It seems that the other goal (maybe not intentional) of Singapore math is to push the kid to spend more and more time thinking on a problem and also to learn how to be patient with himself when he can't get the solution. Don't give up when you can't immediately think of the solution. In many math programs they may train the child to recognize and solve a particular class of problems, but in Singapore not all their problems are so obvious and you may have to try one bar model, another, and another before you finally get it. Don't be surprised if you spend 30 minutes on a one problem. In those cases in which my son was at 50%, when he was finished with the book I would rewrite those word problems he missed and have him try them again. By the end of the book he couldn't recall the correct solution from the ones he missed in the beginning.

I'm with Kelli I don't keep track of everything. It probably would come out to be $1000 I think for 3 kids, if I had to guess.

Give us an update!

Sometimes emergency rooms aren't the best place for care. I would only go to one for a life or death situation. Husband broke his hand and bypassed the whole ER visit and went straight to the orthopedist. When my son was little he ripped part of his lip off his face, my pediatrician called a plastic surgeon for me and we met in his office and got it stitched up right away, correctly by a specialist and it was much, much cheaper than an ER visit.

I would look up the name and number of an orthopedist and get an office appointment. They are likely to have x-ray machines in their office and you'll pay on the office fee of a specialist rather than $1000 for an ER visit.

What unit are you on? I've had good intentions of working through Henle as well.

There are areas such as math and Greek where I really can not hold myself to one book because I just let the ideas take me whereever they take me. For example, I'll start off in a chapter in Greek, then I want to pick up books I have written in Greek to see if I can understand more now that I've done the lesson, then I end up getting out my dictionary to look up words, then I end up learning some grammar out of order because I need to to understood the book I picked up and son on. The same thing happens in math.

Public schools turn out physicians and lawyers too! Lots of them. Don't give up because you can't do it all at once. You don't have to do it all in one summer. Plan out the most important subject and use videos or box curriculum for the others. Relax, and then pick the next important subject to work on. If you get burned out you are more likely to quit. The homeschooling police won't ticket you if you don't have all the details planned out by Sept 1st. It's okay if you take your time on planning out that last subject because you took a day off to go to the park.

Gallon zip lock bags for unit cubes, flash cards, puzzle pieces, geometric cut outs, crayons, hex weights. And I keep them in my pantry as well. I don't think little drawers would work unless we took out the entire drawer and brought it to the table.

I don't know what you would consider cool stuff, but we were really big on Origami and fitting it into our math program---it climaxed in a four foot truncated icosahedron constructed aof units with a tie dyed print on the paper. I used origami a lot because it teaches the kids to follow instructions: They are more motivated to be careful. And also because if you choose the right kind of origami to do you can demonstrate a lot of neat math concepts with it. That said, you'll understand why these were my "cool" choices. The best book available for a beginner is 1. Polyhedron Origami for beginners by miyuki kawamura. And then I'd follow up with 2. Amazing Origami by Kunhiko Kasahara Kasahara's book is interesting because he talks about something called "constructibility" which is a big deal in geometry and also he has a manipulative that demonstrates the gemetric series and another two page spread discussing how to divide a piece of paper into a prime number of parts. In other words, How would I go about dividing a piece of paper into 11 perfectly equal parts if I can't use a ruler? I used Kasahara's book with my son when he was about nine and he got a lot out of it. One of my favorites which results in beautiful pieces but is difficult to make is "Fabulous Origami Boxes" by Tomoko Fuse And another by Tomoko Fuse which is more comprehensive, this is a thick book, than the others but less motivating because of the black and white photos is "Unit Origami Multidimensional Transformations" And finally the last one is Mathematical Origami by David Mitchell. Also I didn't use regular origami paper because it was too expensive for large projects, a project using unit origami can use up hundreds of squares. I bought scrap booking squares in packs of 1000. Now I've given even that up and just cut the squares with a paper cutter.

To save an individual post as a file to your hard drive: Click on the post number which is to the left of the justice scales icon. This will cause a new window to pop up with only that post it in rather than the entire thread. You can use that as a permanent link in a blog entry, as a reference link in a different post on a different thread, or you can save it to your computer. To save it to your computer click on file at the top of your screen and save it. You will now be able to view this post offline.

All the homeschool groups I know of either require a statement of faith or what amounts to a statement of diversity. The ideal thing for me would be just to meet with folks informally, like friends do, at parks and homes. Can't help you out with the politics.

I actually am here just to socialize and not increase post count...actually. LOL If there were a java chat room I'd rather be there. The rep thing got very interesting when I got a lecture on the Nash Equilibrium this evening.

You mean like a curriculum in a box? That would be a neat idea. I have always like the K12 art and music classes but I never wanted to shell out that much money for a years worth of art and music. The problem that I have with curriculum in a box is that it assumes a level of reading comprehension that my children do not always have. Sometimes they need something more challenging and sometimes less, so invidual books that I pick out for them seem to be the way to go. Something that I could use right now is to be able to buy a kit of all the science equipment I'll need for my science curriculum. Right now I have to piece meal it. That takes up an enormous amount of time. I hope others respond to this thread.

Ya know?! I have some towels that I have this shredding problem with and I had never had it before. Now that you bring it up, these are the only towels that I have ever bought from Target. And yes, mine are shredding each time I wash and dry them.

Here's a dissenting opinion. He went on to have three daughters, one of whom became a grandmaster. And that upbringing involved playing chess with dad for hours a day at a very young age. Entire 8 page article on Polgar What I like about Polgar is that he isn't just another PhD in education shmuck with an idea to sell, Polgar had the goods. He delivered big. Susan Polgar Sofia Polgar Judit Polgar The other day I was on David Friedman's blog (son of Milton Friedman) and he had a blog entry about how he had unschooled his daughter in math and how it "had worked" because his daughter got an average SAT score in math. Is that what it means for an educational practice "to work"? Average? We'll have to stick around to see what else Friedman's daughter does in life that makes her different from a public school graduate with pushy parents. Although, even if she hit it big, I might attribute that to her father's indirect influence in informally fostering critical thinking skills rather than the unschooling itself. It's not like we flashcard types don't casually discuss issues with our kids at the dinner table. On the topic of "early and intensive specialization in a particular subject"-- that has been my husbands motto since we began homeschooling. When people find out what our 12 year old is capable of mathwise compared to other kids his age they will say he is "mathy" implying that he has some inherent talent. I've also seen people say that he's just smart. (But we had his IQ tested before we started and we know that he's average) Other people think that it's genetic, Dad has degree in math then son got his mathiness genetically, except this isn't my husband's biological child. Instead Mr Charon has come up with a crackpot plan much like Polgar, only in math, which goes something like "if you want the usual result in math, then use the usual programs, if you want a special result, then you will have to do something special." When I read about SWB upbringing, you can see that she did get an intensive education and that her mother did rely on memorization. She also had a specialized education in the sense that she learned from nonstandard sources. I am always stopping by Drew's blog to hear the latest on his daughter's progress in Latin. He, too, has perhaps adopted a program similar to this--- Intensive specialization in a subject taught using the apprenticeship model rather than pure book larn'in. (So in that sense I agree with your article, memorization alone without guidance, in other words, just turning the crank, won't work) And by the way, if anyone out there is a musician or artist and has anything to add about this idea of intense specialization from an early age with an expert producing results which most people would attribute to "IQ" I'd love to hear what you are doing...By defintion one can't specialize in everything, but it still makes for fascinating reading.