When working through the problems at the beginning of each section, should you go through the solution to each problem as you do it, or do all the problems first then look through the solutions? The wording in the solutions makes me think you should do problem, solution, problem, solution, because it will say something like "Let's see how this applies to the next problem." This would also keep mistakes from compounding into the next problem, but I wasn't sure if looking at the solution right after doing the problem would eliminate some of the benefits of the discovery method. Thanks for any help you can give me!

I was going to suggest Exploration Education, right up until you said really cheap.

When my daughter was first using CLE, she would skim through the beginning portion of the lesson, the part with all the new teaching, and then get lots of the problems wrong. So for a while I had to sit with her and read it out loud to her before she was allowed to move on the the problems. The teaching is all at the beginning of the lesson, so this is very easy to do. Eventually she figured out that if she took the time to read, she got more problems right, and she was able to transition to reading it on her own. This would be harder to do with MM since the teaching is broken up between the problems, but it would still be doable if you sat next to him while he worked and read each section as he got to it. Either program would allow him to eventually transition to independent work but are both "scripted" in the sense that you can just read what's on the page to teach him. If you went with a purely scripted program you wouldn't have the opportunity to transition to independent work. Just a thought.

MEP is an amazing program. We love it. But...I would not try to use to for remediation. MEP is hard to jump into in the higher (4th, 5th) levels because a lot of the thinking patterns are learned in the lower levels. . There is no built in drill. It will say something like "Review the x10 table" and that's it. There's no drill in the worksheets. I had to do extra drill work with my son using Math Mammoth because it just wasn't there in MEP. The lessons are kind of scripted, but more for a public school teacher than a homeschooler. They are very doable, we've been using it for 4 years now, but it takes planning ahead of time to make the lesson flow right between using the lesson plans, copymasters, and worksheets. To cover money we used the Math Mammoth topic book on money. However, from the description of your situation, I'm not sure MEP is what you want. You might want to look at CLE or Math Mammoth (MM). They are both written to the student, so all the explanations are in the book. No explainations needed from mom. CLE has drill built right in. Lots of it. My daughter has used it for years and has her facts down cold. CLE is also spiral, constantly reviewing topics each day. They also have a placement test so you'd know right where to start. MM does a bit more in the conceptual thinking department than CLE, and we've used it here and there, but my kids haven't loved it enough for us to use full-time, but there are others who love it. It's more mastery based, meaning you sit on one topic until you've covered it all before moving on to the next. My kids get bored with this. They like variety. But, if you need to target just specific topics, you can buy inexpensive books from MM that are single topic. Good luck finding something that works for you and your son!! I know the stress you're feeling!

We briefly used one level of this. I felt like all we ever did was make flashcards. Most of the activities were based on the flashcards, and the flashcards took forever to make. And some activities even called for two sets. There is a time and place for flashcards in language learning, but it was just too much for us.

My son uses it for guitar, so not quite the same as piano, though he has asked to use it for piano too. We payed the $19.99 or so monthly fee for a few months during the school year (since it was still cheaper than private lessons but we weren't willing to shell out for a whole year) but have let it lapse over the summer. He still plays for the 30 minutes each day that it allows on the free plan. He really enjoys it and loves trying to beat his high scores. He also really likes the variety of music. That is one thing he complains about now that we aren't paying, that he can't get the really good songs with the free version. However, my son already knew how to play before picking up Yousician. I'm not sure he could have learned to play using it. Piano may be different since there's not quite the same difficulty as far as playing and fingering chords, but we haven't used it for that. I do think that piano is something you can get pretty far self-teaching. You won't ever be a concert pianist without a live teacher, by I get by just fine having taught myself for the most part. So if anything I would continue to use the free lessons while trying to find a teacher, but you can also just pay monthly if you don't want to commit to the whole year.

I'm still trying to narrow it down for next year. My DS wants something he can just get done and move on to doing more science, so I'm thinking about doing CLE LA with extra writing thrown in. CLE LA, which ironically people think is light on writing, has about the same number and type of writing assignments as EIW, at least at the levels I'm looking at, so we will definitely supplement with something, whether that ends up being Maxwell's School Composition or IEW or Killgallon or even WWS 1, though I don't think he's quite ready for it. We already have all of these things, so it'll most likely end up being one of them. I've kind of been looking for an excuse to use Maxwell, so I'm strongly leaning that direction.

Am I missing something? We were really excited about using EIW. We came from using IEW and were looking forward to the shorter videos and worksheets to tell us what to do next. My DS9 has been doing level 4 and I'm disappointed in the grammar (in hindsight I should have added in some grammar after it stopped; it wasn't enough) and there's only one of each type of writing project. He just starting on his big final research project, and I was a bit surprised when looking forward in the book that that was about it. There's just little things like lists and invitations left. So basically he wrote 5 things. Five! Coming from IEW where he was writing something every week or two, this is a huge letdown. Another odd thing I noticed was his writing assignments would actually get worse as he did the 7-step editing process. He would write a fairly decent first draft, but by the time he would go through the full checklist of things to edit, it was kind of a mess! Too much editing can definitely be a bad thing. IEW was formulaic, but at least it moved his writing in a forward direction. In the end, I feel like this was kind of a wasted year for both grammar and writing. Thankfully we have a lot of time to make it up, but it never feels good to think one has failed their kid for a whole year. Am I alone in my failure to get something from EIW? ( I know not every curriculum works for everyone, but we had such high hopes for this one! Just needed to vent. )

I'm looking to move my son into Beast Academy for next year. He will be 10 and in 5th grade. Right now we use MEP and are about 2/3 of the way through Level 4 and will finish by the end of this school year. He loves the puzzley, logic kind of math, but he has requested to do something a little more independent. I love MEP and the topics it covers and the depth of knowledge it gives, but I too hate the time and paper juggling involved, so I'm not adverse to a change. So, internets, what level should we start on? I already own BA 3A and 3B from when they first came out and I tried it with my DD. It was a bust with her, but she thinks totally different than DS. I kind of hate to just jump in on Level 5 and miss all sorts of good stuff, but I'm also not sure we need to go all the way back to 3. Would starting with Level 4 be a good happy medium? Or do we really need to go all the way back to 3? Or would starting with 5 be fine? I looked at the placement test they have, and I'm fairly confident he could answer all the questions that would place him in Level 5, since MEP teaches a similar way of thinking, and the one problem I thought would throw him I asked him orally and he said, "Oh, that's easy." And proceeded to explain how he would do it. I don't care too much about pushing my kids to be crazy ahead in math, so if we did BA 5 next year, that would put him on track for AOPS pre-algebra in 6th, maybe, and I don't know if he'll be ready for that. He likes a bit of a challenge, but really freezes up if it's too hard. I know we don't have to do AOPS, but I think he'd thrive on it at the right time. Well, a long novel later, opinions? Thoughts? Advice? Love that I can come here for help! This place is the best!!

My daughter was at the end of 5th grade (age 10) when she started it. The math was all adding and subtracting decimals (money) and multiplying decimals to find percentages for taxes and such. She had to be very precise and double check things to get all the profit and losses to add up right, which was good for her because she can be a bit sloppy at times. So if your kids have a good grounding in decimals, they could do this. I think end of 5th was about perfect.

So my daughter loved running her own bookstore using Simply Charlotte Mason's Business Math so much that she willingly continued doing it over the summer just for fun. She loved ordering the books, seeing how much money she made, etc. What other curriculum, not just math, would you say would appeal to a kid who loves this kind of thing?

I'm a bit frustrated because our ES through our charter school messed up the PO to order the Mod Design class from YouthDigital at Homeschool Buyers Co-op and caused us to miss the deadline. We could pay full price for it, but if the deal comes around again I'd rather just wait. Is this something that comes around regularly, and if so, when should I expect to see it again? Thanks for your help!

We're in MM3 and we spend less than 30 minutes to get through about 3 pages. I do the whole thing with him since he doesn't stay focused well, and I often do half the problems for him, talking through them as I go, to cut down on the amount of writing time. On the other hand, he did MM2 last year as a supplement, and he did it completely by himself. I really don't remember how much time he spent doing it, but he was able to do it by himself. So depending on how self-motivated your kid is, it can range from no involvement to complete involvement. (So helpful, I know. :001_smile: )

My dd10, 5th grade, had perfectly acceptable handwriting while learning print and also while learning cursive. But all of a sudden her writing has gone completely downhill. It's an unreadable mess. And it's not just her printing, her numbers are a mess too. I let her write in print instead of cursive because she prefers it and it is faster for her. There are two things that I know for a fact are contributing to this: she is writing much faster than she used to since she is more comfortable doing so; she has a terrible pencil grip. She went to PS through second grade and her teachers told me that it wasn't worth trying to change it since that's just the way she writes. Her grip: So what should I do? Should I just let it be and assume her writing will improve as she gets older? Do I need to correct this? If so, how do I do so? I really hate to add another lesson/subject to her day. She already has so much going on. She did complete all of HWT through both cursive books, so in theory she knows how to write neatly, she just doesn't want to slow down to do so. We also have those little rubber pencil grip things, but she writes so agonizingly slow when she uses them that it frustrates her immensely. I'm just tired of not being able to read her assignments well enough to grade them. Help!!

So I finally found an email address, and asked them this question. Here was Hilary Burkard's (the author of the program) answer: "I think a 'complete' English spelling programme would be enormous—there are so many words! We wrote Apples & Pears because we could not find a suitable programme for the children we tutored. It was impossible to include everything so we had to decide what was most useful and what was easiest to learn. Unfortunately, I don't know of a more advanced programme that I would recommend. By the time your daughter has finished Book D she should have a solid foundation of regular spelling patterns, a range of common irregular words and the most predictable rules. To continue improving her spelling try to apply the techniques used in A&P to any new words she needs to learn. Pick out the morphemes in longer words and note which rules it follows or is an exception to. Practise irregular words frequently until they are firm and then revisit them at intervals to make sure they are not forgotten. I would encourage her to use a dictionary to check any word she is unsure of when she is writing." I hope this helps others who are wondering the same thing!!

We always skip the first light unit in each grade. It's just a review one. Also, we skip the 5th, 10th, and 16th and 17th lesson in each books, as these are quizzes and tests. This allows us to get through each grade in much less than a year. This allows time for supplementation. I would start with 202 in your case so you can start the flashcards and drills from the beginning and not miss the first part of them. Good luck!!

If you have Netflix, you can change a setting somewhere to be able to watch movies with the Spanish audio instead of English. Here's a blog that tells how do it. We watched the Croods in Spanish. Quite entertaining. :)

We made the switch a couple years ago. CLE really doesn't have lesson plans. All the learning is in the workbook for the student. We started CLE halfway through second grade, and she's been pretty much independent with it since. I read over the new stuff with my dd if it's a topic that seems more difficult and then she does the rest on her own. And it definitely works those math facts. There's skip counting, speed drills and flash cards every single lesson. My daughter loves that kind of stuff, but I know not all kids do. CLE definitely doesn't have the many different methods of solving problems like SM does. It does have word problems in every lesson, but they're not strain your brain types. Basically it's just a good, solid traditional spiral math program. (SM is mastery, so that's a big difference too.) What we didn't like about SM, besides the millions of books, was the problems always seemed to be in order, like 1+1, 1+2, 1+3 ... and my kids would see the patterns right away and just filled in the answers. I didn't see them thinking real hard on anything. I'm sure once you get past basic facts it's probably not like that, but it drove me crazy. Transitioning from SM to CLE was easy. I just looked over the scope and sequence to see what we had already covered and just bought the light units we needed. I think we started in 206 since we were halfway through the year. There's not much in the way of special methods or techniques that you're going to miss. Plus they review things over and over and over again. If you're even a little good at math, you can probably explain anything that's not totally familiar. They also have placement tests on their website. You'll definitely want their addition and subtraction flashcards as they're numbered specifically for the program, but I'd get your own multiplication and division. I don't like theirs, and they don't need to match up. The reference sheets they have are handy too. That being said, I switched my ds from SM to MEP. Speed drills drive him crazy and so would CLE. If you love the cognitive element of SM, MEP has a lot more of the think it out, logic type problems. You can always just buy a single light unit from CLE and just see how it goes. They're super cheap! Good luck!!

We use Getting Started With Spanish (GSWS), which introduces one word or concept per day. It's been nice and slow and easy for us. You can get the ebook version for $10. Like the pp said, Salsa is free. We use it for a fun review. You can find the lesson plans by going here, and doing a search for "Salsa" and the episode number you're looking for. I can't find a direct link to them.

We used book 1 and most of book 2 after having done AAS 1-4. We ended up dropping it because I could tell that none of it was sticking with my ds. She'd do fine while working on the unit, but it still wasn't reflected over to her regular spelling. One thing I think I could have done differently was skipping sections based on the pretest you give them. I made her do everything, and I think she grew to dislike it from that. I really can't put my finger on what I didn't like about it. I really wanted to (so much so that I own up through book 5) but it just isn't a style that I could teach well (though there doesn't have to be much teaching) or my daughter learned well from. (She doesn't sound things out well, so syllabication really doesn't help her, which is the focus of the series. She adds all sorts of extra syllables where there shouldn't be.) We've switch to Apples and Pears and it's going much better. As for your questions, definitely independent. The pretest will help you place them and let you know what sections you can skip most of.

We use GWG. It is light. It's easy. The kids do it by themselves. We're using it in the early years to be able to check off a box for the charter school. You wouldn't need to back up in the program, just get them grade level. Everything repeats every year. It's a good program for when you need to put school in a holding pattern and just get things done. That being said, after using GWG, I moved my dd10 into JAG, and it started at the beginning all over again. It moves through the topics faster and does not have the variety of work that GWG does. It's just labeling parts of speech, etc., in sentences and diagramming later on. GWG has more fill in the blank, rewrite the sentence type stuff. I think JAG would be more difficult for her if she hadn't done GWG (and a brief stint in MCT). And now that I've looked around some more I think next year instead of continuing on to AG (the program after JAG) I'm going to use Daily Grammar Practice. It's one sentence per week analyzed four different ways. They have all grade levels, so you could jump into this one right now. I'd be using this right now if I'd found it sooner. It looks quick, easy, and painless. Good luck with your choices!!

My daughter (10) tested into book C of Apples and Pears, and doing one level per day will have us finishing both book C and D before the end of the year. Does that mean we're done with spelling after that? What are people planning to do afterwards, if anything? I looked into emailing the company to ask, but they only have a phone number (in England) on their website, no email. Just trying to plan ahead while I still have school money to spend!

Home Science Tools has a bunch of forensic science kits. We haven't tried any, but they're on my list for the future.

We didn't make it through the first K-3 book. We all got tired of doing watercolor crayon projects. It felt like that's what almost every project was. My kids only wanted to do the projects with clay. Also, while the art history snippets were interesting, nothing stuck with my kids. I also would have loved full page images of the art being discussed. Some of the pictures were quite small. I just wasn't hugely impressed and we gave it up.

So after thinking long and hard about why MEP was taking so long, I came to the realization that ds' math facts are not as far along as they need to be for the level of recall MEP was asking for. MEP does not do any drill/memorization at all. It just says "make sure you have these facts memorized" and moves right along. At the end of last year ds had most of his facts down, but we took the whole summer off, and now they're just not there. So here's what I've decided to do. Instead of completely switching curriculum, I'm going to postpone MEP until ds gets a firmer grip on his facts again. In the meantime, I picked up book 3A from Math Mammoth to give us some worksheet style review that still requires deeper thinking. It also covers American money and time which don't get solid coverage in MEP, so two birds with one stone. We will hop around in MM while working on his facts, and when it appears he's got them more or less down, we will pick MEP back up. We'll also continue using MM as a review supplement, like we did last year. I'm hoping this will allow MEP to go smoother and faster when we pick it back up. I just couldn't bear to let it go completely since I love it so much! Thank you all for your advice and input. It helps so much to be able to spout off somewhere where people understand what I'm talking about! I appreciate you all!