My 6 yo is on the more extreme side of normal, I think. He will cry, yell, throw himself on the floor, and stomp away. He is generally a perfectionist; making mistakes will usually make everyone around him miserable for the next hour. We're working on it...

Mine get 30 minutes of TV before bed, but it can be lost for bad behavior. They sometimes use apps for school on child safe mode with the timer on, typically set for 5-20 minutes, depending on what it is. Ds uses rocket math, math evolve, and dragon box. Dd uses the loe app and little writer (letter formation). Movies are a treat that happen about once every other week from late fall to early spring. During those months they can also play unlimited wii as long as they are standing. If they sit down it must be turned off. I also let them veg with the tv when someone is sick-not the sniffles, but puking, not eating, running a fever sick.

There is a new one, discovery k12. I only played with it a little, but it strikes me as having much in common with easy peasy. http://discoveryk12.com/dk12/

I'm looking for recommendations on non-fiction or historical fiction. Well-illustrated books are preferred, but given the lack of options, I won't be picky. I need both lower elementary and upper elementary options. Middle school fiction would work too, as long as the scientific terms aren't too dense. TIA!

I would just go with drawing. It will allow you to address many aspects of art that could be applied to other mediums later if he wishes. Along the lines of what Hunter was saying, it takes few supplies and can be done almost anywhere. I've come to terms with the same issue in music. My oldest despises singing, but I can still teach him pitch, tempo, rhythm and music reading via an instrument. Children are who they are...embrace it.

Base 10 set, clock, and either an abacus or c-rods.

Yes, this is the best way to illustrate it. The term you would Google for examples is "dimensional analysis." It will serve your student well all the way through college science classes.

I got mm, which we use. You might consider adding something about spiral vs mastery. I just checked out your sample on the preschool activities. That looks like so much fun. I'm mentally slotting it for when my youngest is ready.

I would stick with aar for her. Fluency is important. Even if she gets the rule, she needs to develop fluency to be a successful reader. In that respect, aar has more helps and isn't slowing down her overall reading (though maybe the rules portion). You can use the cursor on the fluency sheets. Having the sheets and the cards gives you practice options that don't give much in terms of context clues. If you don't want the expense of aar, You might want to make cards, use nonsense words, and a use cursor to supplement.

Needing additional drill on math facts is entirely different than needing additional review of concepts. It sounds like mm would be good for your oldest if you did additional drill. There are lots of games, apps, and also the worksheet generator that came with mm if you need to add those in. I recall that cle has a flashcards system too; maybe you already have that?

It was a pretty smooth transition for us with both of my olders, pretty much keeping the same pace. We usually did new teaching and the activity on one day and broke the fluency sheets up over two days. For the story lessons we also did 2-3 days, reading the story several times to develop fluency before moving on. A brief 2-3 minutes is done daily with the cards at a separate time. This averaged around 3 days per lesson with a pretty good level of fluency.

I agree with your assessment. Probably a good fit for a small subset of students, but it's impractical as an only curriculum or spine for the majority.

Ours isn't on there. We use sound beginnings. It's a scripted spell to read in the spalding style with Catholic and Montessori elements. I'm probably the only one using it though, lol.

I really like aar for young readers. It doesn't require little writing-it requires NO writing. My olders both started around 3.5 and did well with it. They didn't do pre-level, but they could blend and knew all the primary sounds before beginning. Everything is there, including the readers and games. The are plenty of multi sensory options. We often used the flash cards for when they were wiggly. My dd liked to do them while jumping. ODS used to love riding his bike in circles around me while I held the cards. The little activities were fun for both of them. My ODS liked to glue all the activity pieces together. Dd enjoyed coloring them...so lots of fine motor available for use as the child likes.

The book series, "What your x grader needs to know" might be what you are looking for. There is a book for each grade and an overview PDF of all grades here: http://www.coreknowledge.org/mimik/mimik_uploads/documents/480/CKFSequence_Rev.pdf I think etc is redundant with aar. It would only be necessary if your child is struggling here, which doesn't appear to be the case. Aar will cover some of the things that might be listed under literature in other places: recognizing main characters, comparing characters, sequencing, etc.

Nm

There is also aquinas learning. CCM is ideal for use at home as a supplement. CSH is a fuller program that would be good for a co-op. It has art and music stuff. You would need to add math and phonics for the early grades. Aquinas learning is big bucks and has teachers from what I understand, though that is the program I know least about.

Lots of independent reading and read alouds should be sufficient for vocabulary, especially if you pause to define words. We enjoyed using vocabulary cartoons each day, trying to use the word properly without the other noticing. it was low-key and fun, but certainly not necessary. I wouldn't do a workbook at this age for an on-level child. Eta: you might want copywork or a fun intro composition for la. You could just use the ideas on the bravewriter site if you want something relaxed and fun. Or pick up the cheap and easy to use writing with ease workbook.

Since aar and Aas are both full phonics programs, you could use just Aas and HWOT for your la. Aas will cover phonics and you can just read books of choice from the library. We had good luck with early library readers after aar2. Enough of the phonograms had been covered by the end of aar 2 to sound out most of the words commonly taught as sight words in ps. I paired that with a spell to read for continued phonics. It worked great for me and allows the child more choice in reading material. I wouldn't suggest skipping aar for a struggling reader, but really Aas plus aar is a bit of overkill for a typical or advanced kid.

I agree that iew seems easier to implement. I prepared all the little games over the summer and stuck them in a Tupperware container, so it was pretty open and go. For next year we are doing mbtp la. I like how it draws in the other subjects, has lots of variety, and is literature based. Ds is a rising 1st grader, but pretty advanced, so I like how I can get a higher reading and grammar level in mbtp, but still use the less advanced writing option. I want an all in one for my sanity.

I haven't tried write shop (though I really scrutinized it for next year, lol, we must have similar taste), but we did bible heroes this past year. The methodology was good for my ds. He really liked the little games in each lesson. The step by step instruction made writing seem easy. I appreciated the gently integrated vocabulary and grammar. I watched the iew webinars but didn't buy the 'twss. I found the tm easy to manage and teach from. Maybe we would have gotten more out of it with the twas, idk, but I'm happy with what we got without it. As far as cons, I can only think of a few. If you feel you need the twss, that is a huge con for price. I also got a little tired of having every lesson be a bible story, but ds didn't seem to mind. Finally, The creative portion of writing is pushed aside/delayed/separated, as expected for a program that focuses on structure and style, though you're probably already quite aware of that aspect.

Readers are essential. The yellow cards are just sound cards, but I'm not sure if the level 1 cards would be all the same phonograms as aas1. The cards are pictured in the manual, so in theory you could create your own if you were short on cash but had lots of time to burn.

Wondering about this too. I have the latest version, cc aligned, and multiplication is in 2b on mine. Maybe the older version is different.

It sounds like mm is what you want. There are unit reviews and cumulative reviews already made. Further review is embedded in the word problems. For most kids, I think the practice and review in mm work texts should be totally sufficient for the concepts. Some may need to drill facts separately, or prefer games or other fact practice to the mm worksheets. We don't need as much practice on the conceptual, or such small increments as is usually provided. We often cross out some, as recommended by the author. IMO this has different psychological effect on the child than taking a program with less review and adding things to it when the child begins to struggle.

Either seems perfectly reasonable for elementary. I prefer the chronological approach because there are more curricula available and it makes combining ages easier. The ps style self-out model doesn't sit well with me for philosophical reasons, and the idea that the distant past is too abstract for young children has certainly proved false in my home. I find it easier to connect the ideas chronologically since each event influences the next, but the causal relationships are probably a little beyond most early elementary students.