Have you ever looked at McRuffy?

OK, we love McRuffy math. We have used it for years. My daughter struggled with it because it moved pretty fast. She is artsy, not academic. We moved her to Teaching Textbooks because its a very similar style but moves much slower. Even with struggling in McRuffy 1st (she had done fine in McRuffy K), she tested barely into TT4, firmly into 3 and since she was a 3rd grader, decided she couldn't do math and therefore hated it we went with 3. She does well now. My boys have all gotten McRuffy, never struggled. They are both much more numbers oriented naturally. MDS did move to TT a year ago. He wanted the independence and so did I lol. We have all enjoyed the games and the hands on. I love that the lessons do not take long. The language arts, well that's a different story for us. We tried the kindy level. It was just way more than I wanted for us at that time. Now, I kind of regret that. Its a solid program, and works well for many. We just wanted a lighter language arts path. We never revisited it. Science, we did half of kindy. We liked it quite a bit, I honestly don't recall why we dropped it. I think I wanted more living books.

What about the Total Math books by Carson Dellosa?

Can I suggest another? We love McRuffy Math. Very hands on, very colorful, super fun, and surprisingly advanced without ever feeling pushed. Lessons don't take long, include mental math, listening skills, and games.

If you can get your hands on a copy of the Childcraft Indian Book, it is fabulous!!! ETA: it's cheap right now on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Indian-Annual-Supplement-Childcraft---Library/dp/B000W7M0OU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1462025855&sr=8-2&keywords=childcraft+indian+book

In my honest opinion, there is not enough teaching, but I have heard others who didn't agree with me. Just 2 nights ago, I was talking with a friend who is a special ed teacher and she said that the math on mobymax was really making a difference for her students. I had actually forgotten about Growing With Grammar, Soaring with Spelling, and Winning with Writing. They can be very independent for kids who can read well on their own. Teaching Textbooks for math is awesome and most 2nd graders can handle grade 3... My advice here though is have them watch the lesson, do the workbook, then enter the answers in the computer. For content subjects there are things like brainpop.com and brainpopjr.com. they can watch the video then take the quiz. The results don't get saved but we have printed them for record of what was done. You could also get the What Your Grader Needs to Know books and read through the sections a few a day (one history entry and one art one day one science and one music the next, one story the next, etc. You could use the sayings and poetry for memory work or copy work to help with memory and handwriting), it could be done short and sweet.. Have them keep a notebook with summaries, drawings, etc (thinking of Waldorf style main lesson books or notebooking type things here). Add videos from brainpop to it and it could be awesome for them. I would not be concerned with grade level here, I would start with the k book and if you did just 2 short readings a day you could do 2 books a year. You could also add crafts (searching online for ideas is pretty easy and usually yields great ideas, maybe your wife could help with this part?). There is a program called Home Art Studio, my kids love it, even the K level is great. If you have the supplies on hand and the kids know where to find them it could be very independent as well. With anything that they do independently, someone is going to have to stay on top of them. Their work needs checked every day. I do understand the want for online learning, I have never found curriculum that is online that would work for us, but we do use lots of online sites, videos, crafts and games to make homeschooling work here. My kids just are not book lovers. They prefer visual and hands on learning. If they are bored with what we are doing, they will disengage and learn absolutely nothing.

There is www.mobymax.com,you can use it for free but extras are worth the $99 a year membership. I agree though, kids these ages need a person actually working with them.

My kids have all loved Bailey School kids, silly spooky stuff.

My portfolio made a HUGE change last year. Since the district no longer sees our port, and we use an "unschool friendly" evaluator, we are much more "real" with what we put in there! I begin with a letter that gives a quick over view of our year, activities we have done, places we have gone, etc. I include in this short sweet note that I attest that we have completed the required days as we believe learning happens all the time. I then have a log of books, magazines and also include video resources we have used. I have a "together" section of this and then each kid has a list in their portion of the portfolio... did you notice it seems I have 1 portfolio for my kids? Yep, I no longer make them each their own! Most of our learning is done together, it's easier to just have to put it into one place instead of keeping each kid separate. I then have a scrapbook style section. Pictures of places we went, things we did, etc as a family. I put in very short little blurbs with it. Then each kid has a section. This includes some samples of math (2 or 3), some writing samples (again 2 or 3), and a small scrapbook section of things they did that didn't include the other kids... for example Scout activities. I also include a short note in their individual sections about their year, where I saw growth or where I would like to see them grow next year. If they are required to have testing that year the results are in their independent sections. I scan this and email it to our evaluator, we do a distance eval, she calls we all chat on the phone and she sends us our letter to take to the school.

The transition from McRuffy to TT is smooth, they have a very similar feel. Just do the placement tests to get into the right TT level ;)

We really love McRuffy here. My kids have all loved the variety of the hands on, the games and the "it doesn't take all day" lessons. I did have to move my "math struggler" from McRuffy to Teaching Textbooks a few years back... she needed a slower pace. Its strange... McRuffy feels all relaxed and not over the top, but it's surprisingly advanced. Even after struggling through McRuffy 1st, my struggler tested into TT3 very firmly and actually just passed the placement test for TT4. She is now thriving in math and helps her youngest brother with his McRuffy because she misses all the hands on fun. We never used Miquon, and only briefly did I own Singapore (it was just too different from the way we wanted to do math), so I'm not help there.

Classical House is secular?? I will have to look at it again. I glanced once years ago but figured it wasn't going to work for us and moved on.

Was it Guest Hollow? www.guesthollow.com haha.. guess not, while I was double checking the site addy someone found your gem :)

Thank you! I couldn't put it into words. I didn't expect to have so much meat to it, but have been pleasantly surprised by it. My kids beg for more and I love what they are learning/doing. Eta.. We did Artistic Pursuits also... Or we tried to. It was boring and we didn't make it very far.

No.

We LOVE Home Art Studio!! Don't be afraid to use K with older kids my 5th grader and I both enjoy it as much as my littlest kiddo! Its on sale at the coop: https://www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/home-art-studio/?source=59491

We have loved The Complete Book of American History and Jennifer Armstrong's The American Story. I have added in the If You Lived books and some different craft books for the time period that we are studying. Scholastic has some great activity books as well that we have bought when they had their dollar sales. Google has also been a good tool for finding crafts and videos for what we were learning.

You can get a good deal at the co-op. Its where I bought ours. https://www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/readinga-z/?source=59491

I would tell her to look at McRuffy or Teaching Textbooks. I agree that what she most likely wants isn't to get away from CC aligned, but to get away from "new math".

My oldest went back to PS in 6th grade on a STEM track, he took Pre-Alg in 6th and Alg in 7th. Their Alg had several different tracks though. For many of the kids who began Alg in 7th it would take them 3 years to get through Alg 1 & 2 instead of just one year for each. ODS took the full Alg 1 in 7th grade and passed the "Keystone Exam" which is an exit exam all high schoolers in our state are supposed to pass to graduate. My next 2 kids would not make it through this rigorous course.. even the one of those 2 who is very mathy (he simply couldn't handle the strain of the workload), my 4th kiddo... who knows where he will be in a few years, but he instantly gets math and doesn't have to work at it like the oldest. I would not push a kid who is not truely ready to advance so much in math. Honestly, I tried to get ODS to slow down. Burn out is real in high school, it's becoming more and more common with all these advanced classes that used to be tackled in college. Instead of worrying about pushing ahead, it's important to consider the personal well-being of your kiddo. There will always be higher math courses, even if he doesn't get to them until college.

I don't think there is anything that I would keep from my kids (about the same ages), but I'm not a "censorship" kind of mom, so I may not be the best one to ask lol. I do not plan on using Hakim until high school-ish, but I know many use it in late elementary. I have listened to the audio and enjoyed it, and think my kids would have too.

Hakim's A History of US

For the older 2, Prentice Hall Science Explorer might be a good option. You have to skim ahead and gather supplies for labs but its do-able. I also had to reactor section question answers... But there are teachers books available (I just never bought them). My younger kids like REAL Science Odyssey and Mr. Q, but I print a lot and don't mind doing it (cheap to operate Brother inkjet/generic ink).

We only use the language arts as well. We have never felt we missed anything either. We are working through them in order. I do pick and choose activities, we don't do them all. If we did, we would spend 10 hours a day on LA! Today for example, they would have written up a sheet that told about their favorite elements from stories, read a book and made a "map" of the elements, then written their own story and illustrated the cover of it. We talked about story elements and their favorite ones from books we read, then they wrote the story. Its hard for me to not feel we need to do it all, its kind of like the SOTW AG, I really have to remind myself that it can't all be done and me stay sane.

Moving Beyond the Page, we are really enjoying it, working lower in level than my kids are. My 4th and 5th graders are doing the 7-9 level. We add in spelling be cause I don't care for theirs.