Your reasoning is exactly why we're using AAR for my 3yo ds. It doesn't require writing. The activity book is cut and paste or bingo or other such games. I usually cut them out myself and when there is pasting (or taping if you wish) involved he takes great pleasure in doing that part. OPGTR also doesn't require writing from the student but ds would freak out if he had to do his reading right in the parent page so that was a definite no for us but you might consider it. I *think* one could use dancing bears without writing. There is a bit of tracing in level A but it doesn't appear to be integral to the program.

Behold and See from CHC (Catholic) is theistic evolution. They have grades 1-6 but from what I understand the 4th grade book repeats a lot of the 3rd grade stuff.

Yay, I hope RR get it soon. I get penalized by uncle sam for being in the same state so it's cheaper to let them ship it to RR first. :glare:

We're happily using aar because it's scripted, fun, and doesn't require writing from my young student. For an older kid capable of writing you have a lot of options for og or spalding. AAR is one that is open and go with lots of interactive stuff but idk if it'd be my first choice for an older kid since there are so many less expensive options. A couple cheaper og programs to check out; spell to write and read, sound beginnings, logic of english, dancing bears, opgtr to name a few but I'm sure there are many I'm missing. Oh, you were probably just asking about aar and already aware of the others, nm the list then.

My oldish 3 yo is doing mep and we just do it out loud. We are also using miquon with c-rods for manipulatives. I printed the mep on regular paper but I didn't click the "scale to 1 page" box so the writing boxes are bigger but the page numbers are cut off, which is no biggie. I also have little number tiles for him to use if it's not the sort of thing that can be done out loud. Mep has printable numberlines, number cards, sign cards, and shape cards so it shouldn't require much writing at all. I'm thinking about loading it in notability for him too just to add some variety. All the fun things in it make it ideal for a young student. It's very interactive with discovery type learning.

You could get the 3rd-5th book and buy the $5 ebook of the k-2 as a backup just in case you run into a lesson and discover they don't have the background for it. The only caveat with bfsu in your situation is that your dc might move at different paces. That would leave you doing 2 science classes, experiments and all, or you would need to move one of them through at an uncomfortable pace. It sounds like interest-led is working for you. I'd probably leave it alone. eta: oh, and there's no writing required. A journal is recommended but it can be pictures or you could just skip it or do it orally.

I haven't used VIE but it's worth mentioning that there is an older (and much cheaper) version that is Catholic, which must be ok if you're using chc. The tm's are way cheaper too. It's not as flashy though. I can't speak to the quality of bju but the company is notoriously anti-Catholic if that is a factor for you.

Thanks :w00t:

I haven't used it but I'm pretty sure the chem offers book substitutions for younger students if you are tired of biology.

Thank you, not looking to do lots of planning myself either. The open and go aspect is appealing with a low time commitment.

Last night my 3yo wanted to know what time it was and I told him to look at the clock. He came back and said he couldn't tell and the clock was weird so I said just look at the numbers, you know how to tell time. He came back again and told me he tried really hard but IA (eye-uh) doesn't spell a number and emphasized again that the clock was really weird. I went to look and saw it was roman numerals written with the bottom of each toward the center of the clock so the VI was upside down. I guess we need to do roman numerals soon.

We use mep. We've gone through reception and recently started y1. MEP obviously requires direct teacher instruction while mm is directed more toward the student and lends itself to independent study. MEP is a spiral discovery type of math. Math mammoth is mastery based. Both are hugely influenced by asian math. I like the clean layout of mep because my ds gets overwhelmed when he sees a lot on one page. I also feel like the direct interaction involved in the teaching gives mep less of a workbooky feel. The wide spiral of mep works well for us because it will introduce a fairly advanced topic just briefly and then leave it alone for awhile. I've found that my ds is quietly chewing this over in his head and will work things out on his own so when it's revisited he's already "discovered" it and is rather pleased with himself. That's a personality thing though and ymmv.

Thanks for the replies. They are extremely helpful. The k curric I have seen seems to have somewhat inflated expectations I think.

I realize it varies greatly by child but I'd like to get an idea of what is typical at different ages in that range so I know when I need to start thinking about pushing it. We're just doing pre writing now but there is NO interest in writing. Words or sentences per day kind of thing if you can remember. If they're writing a lot in other workbooks I would count that too.

We loved those activities and I appreciate that reception includes them. We often changed it up and adapted to suit the materials we had available. We are done with reception and my student still isn't writing-ready so we still do some of those activities just for fun. I consider it prewriting.

Thanks, yes that helps. Sounds interesting. Maybe that will be next for us when we outpace aar. I wish something was just like the essentials with spelling and grammar integrated but would leave the writing out and use tiles instead or something of that nature...sigh.

You can see them all on the sample of the phonogram cd

Yes, I even have mechanical COLORED pencils.

I see, that's a simliar reason to why I stopped progressive phonics. I'm using AAR1 with my son who will be 4 at the end of the yr. I chose it because it's explicit phonics and doesn't require writing. DS likes the little games and I appreciate that's it's scripted and ready to go. He is speeding through it quicker than I anticipated and I will purchase level 2 when it's released but I'm starting to wish there was something a little faster paced that was scripted and didn't require writing. I see this getting expensive and idk what exactly to do when we outpace the release of new levels, which is beginning to look inevitable. I'm willing to pay for the open and go factor as well as the fun little games for now since he's young. If you're trying to get something that's a good value you will likely end up in the same place as me, going quickly through and paying top dollar. It's probably worth considering trying to adapt a swr/wrtr type of program if you're looking to get the most from your money. I'm currently toying with the idea of getting sound beginnings so I can go quickly through the phonograms and release him to real books. It would also give me flexibility in terms of spelling down the road, something I expect to be hugely influenced by his asynchrony.

The digraphs start getting introduced about 1/3 of the way through aar1 so I don't think it would be a waste for you. The letter sounds are introduced briefly with the idea that the child is already familiar with the primary sounds the letters make (that's aar pre-1). Toward the beginning of level I it gets into secondary sounds such as s can say /s/ or /z/. Whether or not your money would be better spent using hop and waiting for level II, idk since I'm unfamiliar with hop. I generally think it's prudent to use something you already have if it's working for you. Do you dislike the hop?

We are just at the beginning of y1, going slow because my student is quite young still. We're using miquon with it and I really like mep and want to continue with it. I'm a little puzzled on the adding cwp though. I've seen posts say that you shouldn't start after cwp level 3. So, do those of you that use cwp add it in from the beginning? It seems like a lot to do miquon/mep/cwp. Would you wait to add in cwp until miquon is done?

I like the way essentials looks but it has integrated writing like swr and wrtr. That's where aar sets itself apart from the other explicit phonics methods, well and the little games but it looks like loe has games. Does the kindy level of loe separate the writing out?

My oldish 3 yo is doing great with aar 1. I love that it doesn't require writing. I plan to order level 2 when it's released. I do wish there were more options for explicit phonics that weren't totally intertwined with writing. I feel like aar is kind of my only option and I'm quite happy with it but I'm worried about how long it will take for new levels to come out and it's kind of on the pricey side.

I don't really see a problem with going slow. Could you just do review somedays, maybe a couple 3 min reviews through the cards a couple times each day on "off" days so that more is mastered before trying to add to it?

This is our first year and I have a general plan, or outline if you will, of K-12 what needs to be covered. I currently am scoping things out for next year and have mostly figured out what I'll do but I'm still kind of chewing on a couple things. I have purchased the program that will be our core for next year, CWH, since I want to read, ruminate, and read some more before I try to start lesson plans. There are also quite a few teacher resources involved. I anticipate that cwh will be my biggest planning requirement while my other choices will be more open and go so I won't purchase those until we are nearly ready to use, or if I see a killer deal. A couple of the things we are using this year are multi age resources that you use year after year so I guess you could say I have that planned already too.