What would you suggest for an easier program? That worked well for us for elem (BA along side Singapore), but we just haven't really found something else that I feel was a good alternate yet. I think part of the problem may also have been that he was cheating at PreAlgebra. lol. He just did Alcumus problems, got them wrong, read the solutions to learn material, and then ended up passing the sections, he told me once he was mostly done, rather than reading the book and attempting the problems in the reading first. I didn't necessarily mind at the time, since my hands were kind of full with o

We just started a Nessy subscriptions, and my youngest child (Kinder) gets really stressed out by the “mad stars” she gets whenever she does not pass an activity or game. She doesn’t mind not passing, itself, but she starts crying every time she sees the “mad star looking at [her] mean.” Any ideas on how to help her? We’ve talked about growth mindset and how she's young and still learning, even how the star isn't really mad and is just giving her a confused look, but it does not help. I would really like her to continue doing Nessy at least a few times a week, but we need to figure out how to

I hear ya here! I just went back and looked at my post in this thread from just 2.5 months ago, and I feel like I'm out of control already! lol. Uzinggo said they're not continuing their services but to "keep a look out" for something new they're going to be putting out (still not out, as far as I can tell), so there goes my high-input/low-output science option for ds11. Also, despite having gone through AoPS PreA independently, he now thinks he's "bad at math," because it has actually gotten kinda hard. I told him that that is my expressed goal in finding him academic material- to get him

Ha ha. Yeah, I think that when I first posted, I thought that maybe there was just an over-reliance manipulatives, in which case, it does seem ok to continue forward, while we wean from the dependence on manipulatives. Through this conversation and upon further thought, it's now become clear that what we're actually talking about it a lack of understanding of some basic concepts, which merit figuring out before going any further. In hindsight, it was a dumb question initially, and of course moving forward when foundational pieces are missing is a bad idea. lol. But I've really appreciated the

Maybe that's why it has thrown me that two of my kiddos don't just absorb math; I think my other two kiddos are more similar to your dd, as am I. I'm still learning to process what is "normal"! Even my 4th grader who still uses c-rods, definitely understood counting on at age 4, as did my other two kiddos, so it honestly never even occurred to me that my youngest wouldn't have it figured out by shortly thereafter, and that that is actually ok/normal. I'm definitely going to try it as "counting really fast!" the next time we sit down. I can't recall if I said that exactly last time we t

I don't take offense - no worries. I feel like I'm pretty good at teaching ideas/understanding in higher level math, primarily because I've always loathed formulas and algorithms. So I just started taking my oldest kiddo through AoPS algebra, and we are having a wonderful time and he wrote out a great proof that sqrt(2) is irrational and it's SO MUCH fun! lol. BUT, I have a lot more practice teaching some of that sort of stuff than elementary age stuff, and I just never struggled with understanding any part of arithmetic, personally. So I think I *thought* I was a pretty good teacher, but it t

Ah, I hadn't thought of that. I have so much to learn! lol. I'll ask about it. I thought they were magical for a while, because it got these two kiddos *doing* math, when they were stuck (my other two kiddos have never really gotten stuck on something in math). I think they just didn't actually make the leaps I thought they had, and instead, they only learned to use the manipulative correctly. lol.

Hmmm, so we talked about "why" we count on when she is just counting everything together (for 8 + 3, we'd get 8 beans out in one pile, put 3 in another pile, and she'd count them to get 11), by talking about how we don't have to count the first 8 because we already know they're in the 8 pile, so we just have to start at 8 and keep counting up the extra 3 in the other pile. And then we practiced this a lot. Is that what you mean, or something else regarding the "why"? She knows addition means "put together," and she can do it with dice just by counting all the dots on both dice combined.

Bigger problems become problematic because she usually doesn't think to actually do division; she guesses a random number and then multiplies by 5 to see if it's right. She is dyslexic and has a difficult time with fact memorization (which is why I let her rely on C-rods for so long), so by the time she actually gets a number divided by 5, she has usually forgotten why she even did it. lol. I have explained "counting on" by using C-rods by making our staircase and pointing to one and asking her to start there and keep counting (easy for her), counting up/bigger, one more each time, or going

I will have to think about this, some to see if I can gauge their actual understanding. The short answer is that they cannot articulate what they are doing, and the older will even flat out tell me that she has no idea what's going on. But they are also both autistic, so articulation of thought processes is a special challenge for them in general, and not just with regards to mathematics.. ETA: the 4th grader can say 3/5 means to break into five equal pieces and take three of them, and she can draw a matching bar diagram or pizza picture where she correctly shades 3/5. But she's not able

Yeah, we've tried counting on a *lot,* and it still doesn't seem to gel, even with just +2. And, despite being able to count up to 100 orally quite easily, and go backwards as well, she still can't do subtracting by counting down at all (not even -1 -- we tried today! lol) And we've drawn little number lines and talking about hopping up and down the number line, but no dice with that either. And we count beans and add and take away there. I feel like if I *tell her* to either put more beans in or take beans out, she'll do it, and get the answer, but she never seems to add/take the beans out co

Two of my kiddos still rely heavily on C-rods for math: 1) My youngest (K/1st) can look at a page with single-digit addition & subtraction problems, set up the C-rods, solve, and write the answer down completely independently, if she has C-rods in front of her. But without the C-rods, she seems to still lack enough understanding to even use her fingers to add or subtract (despite having used other manipulative and talked about and explained addition/subtraction concepts in a WIDE variety of ways). 2) My 4th grader still uses C-rods all the time, particularly to help with fractions work

Interesting ideas here. Thank you! We have an Arduino set and a huge tray of spare computer parts from some laptops my son took apart when he was younger (they were dead and I didn't care). We don't know which parts of the computer are dead and which are still good, but I wonder if he could figure out a way to try to actually make something out of it....

Thanks! I'll check all those out! 🙂

I have some kiddos who fall asleep really well (relatively speaking: it only takes 20-40 min to fall asleep vs 2-3 hrs without) to guided meditation / breathing podcasts for going to sleep, but I'm having a hard time finding one I really like. I don't need it to be Christian, per se, but I would like it to be compatible with Christianity (i.e. steers clear of things that are rooted in new age philosophies / eastern mysticism / etc). Anyone have suggestions?

My kids LOVE Der kleine Eisbär audiobooks (even my 10 yo -- shhh, don't tell!). They have fun voices and animal sounds and music and all. Honestly, most German audiobooks we've found are more like radio shows/dramas for kids than just a plain audiobook. They also love the Felix CDs - such fun music! When younger, my kids also loved this series: https://www.amazon.de/Die-besten-Spiel-Bewegungslieder-Mitmachen/dp/B0058MQZA4/ref=pd_lpo_74_t_0/258-4173569-8652734?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B0058MQZA4&pd_rd_r=5cea528d-8564-4d66-8bbe-58a3a43c17eb&pd_rd_w=06RgC&pd_rd_wg=WwCtq&pf_rd_p=

How old are your kids? My youngest just turned 5 and I've been considering thinning out our bookshelves, but lacked the impetus so far (as well as not really being ready to admit that we've outgrown a lot of our preschool/toddler/baby books). PM me if you'd like to consider some used books, and I'll take some pictures. Most of the ones I would be getting rid of are probably board books, but we have an extensive collection of them. Some show wear, but are still very usable, and others show almost no wear, because we got them right as my kids were starting to move away from board books. ( I'm ke

So we do mostly secular curriculum just because it's the best fit for my kids' needs, but science is the one area where we do a mix of secular and faith-based. My kids are 10, 8, 6, and 5. As a family, we have really enjoyed going through the science units that The Good and The Beautiful puts out. They are fun, low-key, and requiring almost no prep on my part. While they are faith based, none of the ones that we have done contain anything specifically "young earth" or "old earth," it's more from a perspective of "Wow, look at how amazing God is that he created such intricate bodies/systems." A

It is $10/month, with no limit on the number of books you can get each month (only limit is 10 at any one point in time). So for us, it might be perfect for letting my children and I read more books (if we each had 2 going, we'd hit the 10 limit. lol. And kids books are shorter and quicker, which is a problem sometimes with hoopla (where there are monthly limits), but wouldn't be such a problem if you could get another as soon as you returned the one you're finished with. It *says* there are 9000 hits just in the ebooks for kids in German category, and some of them look pretty cute. It def

It also turns out that amazon.com's kindle unlimited does have a good number of German ebooks as well. (Far more than hoopla or overdrive, at least.) https://www.amazon.com/s?i=digital-text&bbn=9074047011&rh=n%3A133140011%2Cn%3A9069934011%2Cn%3A9074044011%2Cn%3A9074047011%2Cn%3A10727696011&dc&fst=as%3Aoff&qid=1588426857&rnid=9074047011&ref=sr_nr_n_5 Amazon is confusing because some of their content is shared (you can migrate it from one marketplace to another) while other content is not shared (e.g., audible books do not play as nicely when migrating be

I found this, but I'm still trying to figure out if I can sign up with a participating library from a different continent. lol. They have a place to sign up outside of Germany, but the participating countries list is pretty small. https://www.onleihe.net

Yes, this is where I was thinking that a library subscription would pay for itself in just a few short months. I know that (state-side) I've found that even the more expensive ones aren't much more than $50/year, and those are to major libraries. Here's a list of some I found, but I know that last time I looked this up, there were far more places near me (like neighboring states) that offered e-library-cards than are listed on this site. https://www.aworldadventurebybook.com/blog/libraries-with-non-resident-borrowing-privileges

Hmmm, this is an interesting thought, though our experience with Amazon unlimited is that the selection is far smaller than even a small library collection. But, I've never even thought to check the .de site, so I'll definitely check it out!

I'm not sure why it took me so long to realize, but I FINALLY realized that if US libraries will let non-residents pay for a library card, and access their online resources, maybe (just maybe!) other places do that as well. Does anyone know of any German libraries that have services like hoopla where you can get ebook access (even if it's paid), rather than just buying every book we want to read?

Hmmm... Good question. I will have to ask her. Off the top of my head, I'd say she's enthusiastic when it comes easily. lol. She loved fractions at the beginning - until they got harder. She loves skip counting -- the easy ones. She likes some of the BA puzzles -- definitely not the starred ones. But I'm often surprised at her different perspective, so I'll chat with her about it. 🙂