This seems like such a silly question that I have put off asking it. I haven't found exactly the answer I am looking for via google so I am coming to all you wonderful people. Are there any books, guides, manuals, etc that I can go over? I have no idea how to teach her to hold a pen, what angle she should be writing at, and what to do when she complains her ink is smearing all over her hand :) Handwriting is very important to me and I don't want to start off wrong. Thanks for any advice!

I don't think the teacher's guides would be useful, but of course I haven't seen them. My 6 year old is doing ETC 1 just to practice independent work, even though his reading level is higher and I have never seen anything that would make me wish I had a teacher's guide. Depending on your DD, be prepared that the writing may be too much. It is for my 6 year old (boy) which is why we are using it the way we are. Certainly you can skip or modify but most the pages ask for quite a bit of writing.

I used both. Started 100EZ with a 5 year old who didn't know any letter sounds and totally failed. There was no where near enough practice for him to go from sounding out single words to comprehending sentences. I later learned how children need to be able to read all the words in a sentence in a certain amount of time for comprehension of the whole and that is what we were missing. OPGTR is very logical organized. It is also progressive, so if your child is struggling with something there are clearly defined sections you can hang out in until that developmental readiness shows up. The first 26 lessons teach letter sounds. Next comes short vowel cvc words, then ending blends, beginning blends, long vowels, etc. You can probably figure out where to jump in if you have a child who is already reading a bit. The "Look Inside" preview on Amazon is really really generous so you should be able to take a peek and figure out if it is right for you.

I just need to jump in second "Becoming Orthodox" for anyone curious. Fr. Peter's son & family are my neighbors. It is largely about my church and how a group of Christians seeking the church from the book of Acts found the Orthodox church as well as their journey INTO the Orthdox Church.

I don't live near family so I make phone calls and send pictures of the kids... pretty much the same thing I do every day except I try to get everyone on that day. Sometimes my parents have sent me flowers or potted plants which is super sweet. DH will usually take care of breakfast and dishes on Saturday and we try to go out on a date Friday or Saturday of Mother's day weekend. I am sorta attached to MD because my first Mother's Day as a mother was a week after my son was born. It was our first time venturing out of the house with a baby and we went to brunch not even realizing it was MD. Sweet memory.

If I paid for it all myself, I would probably spend around 500$/year, excluding lessons and activities. Certainly we could do it on less but that was about what I naturally wanted to buy. We used a homeschool charter this year and I found spending the $2k allotment on kindergarten rather challenging (ohh but believe me I managed ;). I am sure the older grades get a lot more expensive.

I was raised nominally RC, got back into the church in college and started going very Traditional Catholic after marrying my DH. DH was not Catholic but agreed when he married me to come to church. Although he believed *mostly* everything I believed, he never felt fully comfortable to become Catholic. A few years after our marriage we moved and began looking for a new church. There were limited Traditional Catholic Masses and I was Latin Mass only at that point so we eventually found a Byzantine Catholic church and both liked it. We started to fall in love with some of the theology while we were there and DH opened to the idea of becoming Byzantine Catholic. Unfortunately at the same time, I was crushed with the realization that the theology that we both loved was really NOT Catholic. Although many Catholics will tell you different, the filioque (from the Son) truly changes the understanding of the Holy Trinity. While you will find many explanations in Catholic teaching that agree with Orthodox understanding, you will find nearly as many from respected Catholic theologians and saints that would be considered heretical. I understand that nuance may not be the most compelling thing to everyone. The theological differences in Original Sin were actually MOST compelling to me, along with the Immaculate Conception (which was a hard thing for a Trad to see at first!). I read a lot during the two years it took us to sort everything out -- and by a lot I really mean that. I had dusty old tomes stacked everywhere on both sides of the issues. All the reading pushed me in the EO direction but facts alone were not enough for me to make the jump and give up my beloved Latin Mass. Finally I started reading conversion stories of people that went RC -> EO or EO -> Eastern Catholic. Seems the silliest reason but I couldn't find a single conversion story that seemed like a good reason to stay Byzantine Catholic and that is what finally pushed me over the edge. Hubby & I (along with the kids) were Chrismated and Communed a few years ago. Hope that is helpful and not too much detail. If you want any book suggestions you can ask or PM me... but I have absolutely none that would be considered light reading lol

He might be able to do the Before the Code series (Get Read, Get Set, Go). My 3.5 year old is doing them now except for the handwriting pages. There is lots of circling, coloring and drawing lines. I also like the very inexpensive School Zone workbooks, Mazes, Connect the Dots, Same or Different, Does it Belong, etc. A dry erase board and marker go a long way and you can find tracing dry erase workbooks too. I have Wipe Clean Trucks and I see the same company has Animals and one for fine motor I am considering getting. All three of my kids (5, 3 and 1) fight for turns with that book.

It might also be worth considering that the second edition for B is out now, but C won't be out until late summer. If you go with C now, you only have the option of the 1st edition. I only saw the 1st edition books at a curriculum fair, but the 2nd edition seemed much improved to me and we are enjoying working with it.

following -- Trying to figure out what to do for my 5 year old. So far I am letting him learn to print in the ETC books but I always thought I would teach cursive first. I am considering starting some of the basic lessons from the 1874 Theory of Spencerian Penmanship and 1935 Palmer Method of Business Writing.

Well my oldest is in K so you can take my advice with a grain of salt. As a "mathy" person, it sounds to me like he may not have enough practice writing down the steps in a multi part problem. You mention he can do a lot in his head. Does he usually write to show his work? Cosmos's advice about building up strategies seems right on. If you feed him the steps you might be slowing down that acquisition.

Thank you! I will definitely pick it up when we are ready to get started.

Thank you that really helps. I guess I wasn't clear about my ds's age. He is 5 now but not for long. He will be nearly 6.5 come fall so it will be true first grade by the time we are looking at Miquon Orange. I will also have a 4 year old and a 2 year old running around, hence the desire for some independence. :) So it looks like it would be ok to get Miquon as a supplement and I will just schedule it if and as we have time for it. I didn't realize when I was posting last night was how inexpensive Miquon is, but I just bought First Grade Diary off currclick and I will get started reading it. MM will end up being our main program so DH or grandma can guide if needed. Hopefully ds likes it!

I am expecting a new baby in mid-October. My son is 5 and just wrapping up RS level A. We are going to go right into level B and continue it through the summer. We have really liked RS but I am *so* done cutting out little bitty scraps of paper and trying to keep them all together and in good shape for the next kiddo. It is not the kind of program I want to continue with into grade school. Come September I'd like to switch programs. I love the idea of Miquon from everything I have read, although I have never seen the materials. I am concerned that it will be too intense for me to teach with a new baby, and impossible for another adult to help with. (my mom might come stay with us for a few weeks). MM looks very straight forward. I like that the instructions are simple and printed on the workbook pages. So my main questions are: How mom-intensive is Miquon to teach? Could I easily explain it to another adult and have her guide my son? Is it overkill to buy MM & Miquon and use both? Are there any other programs I should look at to get the most independence possible out of a non-reading 1st grader? Thanks for any ideas!

We failed miserably with 100EL this year with my K'er and I feel like we lost a lot of time because I was just thinking "eventually this is going to work out". Nooope! Over half way through the school year and barely on lesson 30 we quit and started on Progressive Phonics & the SkyFish app. Then I bought OPG & the Before the Code books. This combo is going much better and I am hoping we can make up some of the ground we lost. You can "See Inside" both of the books on Amazon. Actually a HUGE portion of OPG is on there so you can try the first week of lessons and see how you like it.

I haven't tried many different options, but we bought MUS Primer and RightStart2 Level A. I hated MUS after really looking at it (my degree is in Math and I didn't want my kids to learn that way). We have so far really liked RS. My son finished Level A early and we are about to start on Level B. It is a direct instruction program so it is parent intensive, but at this young age I doubt you can avoid that in any curriculum.

Thank you! You guys are fast :) I will start looking into those.

I am doing K at home with my son this year and he has started begging for workbooks. None of our curricula uses any at this point and I would rather find something worthwhile than just pick up cheesy ones from the grocery store. Cost isn't too much of a factor. Is there anything really great out there for 1st graders? So far I know we will be using RightStart level B. I am not sure what exactly we will be using for language arts. We had a huge crash and burn with 100EL so I just ordered OPGTR and Spell to Write and Read which should both be here this week. I did order him ETC as well so I will see if he likes those. Thanks for any ideas!