We approached each year of CC that we were going to do our very best and shoot for MM. I think it is really something the child needs to "own". I worked with all my kids to learn their memory work; however, my oldest daughter (4th grade at the time) decided to work toward MM. Throughout the year she worked on her memory work and then at the end she really put in extra time to get it all down. She did the extra memorization work and she reached her goal. That year I was the director of CC and it was really a thing of beauty (for lack of a better term) to hear children recite such a large volume of memory work.

Sometime this last year I saw an interview on a college campus where they posed this question (can you just be friends?) to women and men. Each gal said "yes" and each guy said "no way" and then laughed because they knew they were playing this game with their female friends to "just be friends" but they did have romantic interest. It was pretty funny to watch the repeated answers.

Sounds like things are really changing for you! I echo want an earlier poster said that it might not be the best idea to drop math. What about keeping Latin and math and then being "unschooly" for the rest of the day? I think it would work well if your child is proactive in learning. I can see where my children would like this for a season, but not an entire year. Perhaps you both need a rest. Burnout? Elizabeth Foss' book Real Learning has some great advice on this. I love that book for helping me to refocus on real learning (aha!) (side note: author is Catholic, I am not, so I skip over those parts and glean from the rest).

:iagree:

For our Bible time or studies, we have enjoyed using Susan Hunt's various books (e.g. My ABC Bible Verses, Big Truths for Little Kids, Sammy and His Shepherd, Discovering Jesus in Genesis) and Sinclair Ferguson's "Big Books of Questions and Answers". Great books that teach about the Bible and about Jesus. We usually work through these books along with scripture and catechism memory.

You may want to consider getting the Home Instructor Guides. They give some of the "why" behind the exercises, mental math pages and other good tidbits for teaching Singapore.

Tell me your favorite copy work books for first graders. I have seen Memoria Press' book, which looks great. Any others?

:lurk5:

Have any of you seen WWE materials used in a small classroom? I'm interested in doing this and gleaning from experienced people! I have used WWE material and loved it. Next year I'll be teaching first grade in a classical Christian school and I am considering using WWE 1 for the writing portion. Of course one of the gems of WWE in homeschooling is that since it's one on one, you get to really see if the child can answer the questions and narrate the material. You can't replicate that exactly in even a small class, but maybe you can still use the method. My class will be pretty small, maybe 6 or 7 kids. If you have experience or a different idea on this, I'd love to hear from you!

:iagree: My oldest was in K when our 4th child was born. My beautiful plans and strict time schedule went out the window. We basically did the above - reading, beginning handwriting and math games. I do think it was a gift from the Lord to have to scrap everything big and narrow my focus to the essentials. Life was so much sweeter that way, and K homeschooling should be sweet! :)

Grab a copy of The Well Trained Mind and read the math section. It gives a great overview of a handful of math programs and defines spiral and mastery. And then you'll find the great advice to just pick one and stick with it until you find it doesn't work. Really, for K you don't need a math curriculum. Count beans, count candies, count toys, count while you skip, count while you're in the car, play math games, post a hundreds chart on your wall, learn skip counting songs. At this sweet age kids learn a ton just by living life and you being intentional by talking to them about numbers, etc. Then for first grade try out a math curriculum. (This is no help to deciding between your two options, but I love Singapore :) )

For us, WWE weeks spark an interest in a book, my kids ask to find it at the library and they find a new friend.

WWE levels aren't necessarily by grade. I wouldn't start at level 3. What you should do is grab the text book - Writing with Ease Strong Fundamentals. This book gives you a great overview of WWE philosophy, describes each level, and shows where you are going with the program. Also, in the book each level has an evaluation. So you can give your son the evaluation exercises and that will tell you exactly where to start him. As for FLL, I would suggest starting your son at a FLL level 2, especially since you say he has some difficulty with writing, spelling and reading. You can always double up or skip lessons if it is too easy. I'm also a big fan of the CD for FLL to play the chants for helping verbs and other things. Sometimes it's nice for the kids to hear someone else's voice :) My opinion is to start at an easier level and let him have some success in an area (language arts) where it has been difficult in the past. BTW, I found the same thing with GWG. I switched from FLL to GWG because I needed work my oldest could do on her own. After two weeks I was back to FLL.

Local yarn shop is a #1 choice. My other suggestion is to grab a children's book on how to knit. Quite often children's "how to" books are so much more simple and leave out all the extra mumbo jumbo that you don't really need. I love knitting and I hope you'll learn how to do it. My girls loved to knit while I read out loud to them. Now I should knit while they read out loud to me!

Be rest assured that you're in good company! In the past I've bought Apologia astronomy and then found a vendor who puts together all supplies for the experiments. Will it make you sad to hear that even with that all done for me that I didn't get beyond a few chapters? My new science method, which is going fine, is to make a stack of science books and just let the kids go at them. It's my one "unschooling" area :)