My sensitive 9 yo dd said this was the best book ever. She does enjoy crying though. Meaning loves drama and emotion.

We just started Imitation In Writing (Fables) and Check the Deck for third grade.

I absolutely agree with you. Sorry if my statement was not as clear as it should have been.

I use R&S spelling for third grade. I honestly believe spelling is best learned incidentally rather than in formal teaching. Not always. But my dd is an ok speller so I figure I won't stress her out too much and she will learn as we read and write. At this stage she loves her spelling tests/lists because she is not overwhelmed. Sequential spelling looks appealing to me and I may try it after the current curriculum.

My 9 yo dd has terrible pencil grip hold but we started cursive HWOT and I expect proper grip during our cursive lesson and practice. I'm hoping she will move towards the proper way once she gets better at cursive. We also do lots of finger exercises to strengthen her fingers; piano practice, puzzibits, playdough among others.

I also use R&S spelling for 3rd grade. It's not exactly memorization but practice work on certain sounds.

I'm interested in opinions on this as well. I tend to think Flashmaster is better because it has more features and looks more grownup than the Shark. But I have not used either one.

We started the HWOT cursive today. So far so good. I kept the lesson short and my daughter liked it because she can read the cursive in the workbook. We shall see how it goes.

That looks awesome!

The only thing I've dumped is CGC (for dd9) and picked up Apologia Zoology 2 and we love "popcorn reading" through the lessons.

We are using Daily Grams and Easy Grammar 3 as well as R&S English 3. Writing goes along with Reading for comprehension. For creative writing we are journaling with prompts and word banks.

R&S Spelling is working well for us. I've heard good things about Sequential Spelling.

What a great idea! Sounds like fun :)

That's great that it worked out for you and your son. I would honestly consider it if it were not for my ps kids needing me to help them study for a test, check Spanish homework or running kids to extracurriculars.

I love HOAC. I didn't realize they gave away freebies! Thanks.

I've been doing diagramming with my dd9 with R&S English 3. I just can't say enough about it. My dd loves it!

Great tips! Thank you ladies.

Me too!!!!

Oh my goodness. I was just looking at their website! I taught using this method many, many moons ago. It is a great program. Like pp mentioned it does require a lot of prep time to put together but I found it to be a very rich, hands on program. I also heard of Math Bridges. My dd used this in 1rst grade and seemed like a good program as well.

"Potato Chip Reading"---lol I like that. I may have to borrow that term :)

So happy to hear good reviews about R&S. We are doing English 3 and even though it seems good I kinda just grabbed this curriculum at the last minute while at a hs bookfair. I'm doing R&S English 3 along with Easy Grammar and Daily Grams. I know this has nothing to do with OP but thought I'd share :)

I have no helpful advice to give as we are in the same boat. Just one grade behind. I made my daughter cry today because she could not complete 100 addition problems in 5 mns. Lots of drama! All I can say is, I feel your pain :D I have been debating whether or not to get Flashmaster...what do you think? Is it worth it?

Very Nice! You are very blessed to have such a nice house to homeschool. Enjoy! And TFS

Thanks, Emily! I really appreciate getting a real life perspective considering my daughter was in tears as I administered the MUS pretest for Gamma. She couldn't remember how to do double digit multiplication and became very frustrated. I think we will get the Saxom 3 TM today at the bookfair and do that for a while before I add MUS. Thanks again, :)

Thanks for your input. I did do the placement. Not sure how accurate it is considering she's been on a brain break all summer though. We'll see.