My son is going to be in 2nd grade next year, and I'll also have a daughter going into kinder. My son and I attempted SOTW last year, but it was torture for us both. We got through MAYBE half of book 1 before I threw my hands up and quit. He was bored out of his mind with it. I was bored out of my mind. He barely paid attention. It was a mess. He learned absolutely nothing from it. I know that some people rave and love SOTW, and I really want it to work for us because I feel like we'd be missing something otherwise, but I can't risk losing another year of history because I decide to try it next year again. He loves books so I'm thinking we'd be better off doing something with more a CM-type approach? I have been checking about Beautiful Feet the last couple of days and wanted to know what others thought of it? Also, what other suggestions/ideas can you give me on a curriculum for him? Like I said, I think something that uses books might be best for us, but I also want to make sure he's not in a program that is too "easy." I want to feel like if we decide to switch later that he'd be capable of making a switch. TIA!

We are in our 4th week of school right now. We started early because I'm due with a baby in November so I wanted to be ahead. My oldest is in 1st grade so I'm still new. We are having trouble with 3 subjects/curriculums: WWE, Apologia Astronomy, and SOTW 1. The problem we're having is that my son can't seem to recall anything I read! With WWE it happens when we read the passage they provide for the narration exercise. Today we did another one from Alice and Wonderland, a book we've never read before. He couldn't answer the questions even after I read the passage a few times. With Apologia and SOTW it's the same thing: he can't answer the questions I ask about what was read. He's just not interested in what's being read. He can answer all the questions from FLL in their narration exercises because they usually use a complete story/fable so he is drawn in and interested. I just don't know what is realistic to expect of a 6 year old. What are others experiences with this age? How do I handle it?

That makes perfect sense. I'd like to do it that way, but how do you prepare for a week ahead of time if you don't know what you'll be doing? As in, I like to have some plan on what we're doing so I'm not flying by the seat of my pants.

I have been looking over our new curriculum for 1st grade, and I have to say I'm a little confused on SM. This will be our first year using it. I saw the weekly schedule at the beginning of the HIG, but I can't figure out a good way to break it down by day. Any help?

Thanks so much for your input! I'm also interested in knowing where you found your tests for Apologia, and I will be sure to look for some videos on lap booking.

I think we're going to use Apologia for science for my 1st grader, but I have a few questions. First of all, can someone please explain the lap books? I have a very limited understanding of lap books in general, and I know nothing about Apologia's lap books. I had been planning to use the note booking journal, but I saw that a lot of people really liked the lap books instead so I wanted to know more about them. Also, if I did get them, would it be better to get the already assembled ones? Second, I live in TN, and our state does not require any kind of testing for homeschool students, but there is a chance we could be moving states. At this time I have no idea where it might be, but I assume it will probably be somewhere that requires testing. Does using Apologia keep the student completely on track since it only studies 1 topic per year? I looked at a sample state test for 3rd grade in another state the other day, and it asked a lot of questions about things that wouldn't seem to be covered in Apologia's elementary curriculum such as electricity. Third, what order would you suggest doing each subject starting in 1st grade?

I'm thinking about making the switch from Horizons to Singapore Math for my soon-to-be 1st grader. We like Horizons a lot, but I didn't feel like my son was able to fully get some concepts because it switched around so much. It would touch on one thing, and then we wouldn't see another problem like it for a couple of weeks so it was hard at times to fully grasp harder concepts. I'm thinking mastery/conceptual curriculums might be better for us. My son is pretty good at math. He finished his kindergarten curriculum with Horizons before our school year was over by at least 2 months. Do you think Singapore would be a good match? I also want something that will kind of lead me in the way of teaching new concepts to him so I can rest in knowing I did it correctly at his level. I know that Singapore's HIG helps with this some. Can someone explain to me a bit how the system works? Any info or input would be so helpful. Thanks!

My son will be starting 1st grade soon, and I'm getting my curriculum choices finalized right now. I'm trying to decide if we should do spelling or not. We do ETC for reading which is in a way a type of spelling program, but I know he will need extra help because on the pages where he has to spell the words he typically has a harder time even though he can read the words just fine. We are almost finished with book 4 in ETC. Should we do a spelling program for 1st, or is it too early for that? Also, what about a foreign language? When do people usually start that, and what language do you prefer? I have a friend who does Spanish with her 1st grader so I didn't know if 1st grade was a typical grade to start a foreign language or not. Thanks!

Thank you! I think I was starting to feel like I was alone in my thoughts on this. Do you mind me asking, what you did buy as far as books are concerned to keep it light?

What I've read about it in the WTM seemed extremely overwhelming and not very direct. It didn't really give you a specific subject or topic to read. It just seemed too disorganized to me, and I need something more organized telling me exactly what we're supposed to be doing from week-to-week.

Also, as I understand it from my friend at TOG, you don't do lower grammar the same when you have children in the lower grades. While they are doing SOME things that are specific to their age-level, a lot of it is learning from listening to what the older children are doing so it's not really doing tons of activities and books for each child in each stage.

I understand all of the points you ladies mentioned, and I've thought about them all already. What I mean about not liking SOTW for older grades is the WTM version. That's just not something I'm interested in doing. I realize that TOG is not ALL planned out for me so I do nothing. I'm actually friends with the VP of TOG who also owns Bookshelf Central so we've been over all of this multiple times. But with the WTM you are doing everything with nothing to go on. At least with TOG you're given a schedule and frame to work with. I need at least that. So what do you recommend for going to after 5th, out of curiosity? Another thing I don't like about SOTW is that it's not as heavily Bible-based as I'd like. There's not as much in the way of church history either as some other plans, which I wouldn't use so much in 1st grade, but would like to add in more for later elementary grades.

Okay, before I say anything, let me preface all of this with the fact that I know everyone says you shouldn't do TOG before 5th grade or so because it's overkill. I get that. However, my oldest is starting 1st grade soon, and I want to plan ahead when choosing a curriculum. What I mean is that if I were to use SOTW (as a lot of people suggest for this age) then I feel like I'm locked into SOTW for 1st grade forever which isn't exactly convenient when my oldest is in middle/high school with younger ones in elementary grades. I would like to have them all in the same program then for convenience reasons. If my oldest gets to the older grades when I'm no longer doing SOTW with him, I'd have to go back and buy books and whatever is needed for the younger grades in order to keep them all in the same program. At that point it just seems like it would have made more sense to have started them all out in the program. Does that make sense? I know that I could do SOTW long-term for all grades, but I hate the SOTW model for the older grades. I need something that is laid out neatly for me and won't require me to make the lesson plans and do everything. I require more organization than that so SOTW is definitely not for me later. I've looked into TOG, BP, SL, and VP. I'm confused. I don't want to spend a fortune on it since I have 3 (soon to be 4) kids to educate, and this will only cover the history/literature subjects. I definitely want something biblical-based, and whatever I end up using in later grades is what I'd like to start with. I know that I might end up changing my mind later, but I'd like to at least have the intention to stick with whatever I choose for first grade. Recommendations? What would you do?

Title says it all. I see people talking about their child using their lap book so I'm just wondering what these are, and how they work?

That's exactly why I decided against TOG for now - I wanted something simpler. So what is simple, but also still provides a good foundation that will interest him and provides biblical history?

Never in a million years would I have thought picking a history curriculum for a first grader would be so difficult. I haven't had trouble picking any other curriculum except history. I've considered TOG, but have decided it's too intense for a 1st grader. I've also considered SL, but I don't know if I want to spend $500 for the package especially since we won't even be using their LA. I actually already have SOTW year 1, but I'd love something that also has biblical history in it. I've heard of people using BP, VP, SL, TOG, SOTW, and also mixing things up with something like SOTW and VP cards. What is this? Any ideas on what might work for what we want?

I have no idea why the person/people (can't remember if I heard it from more than one person or not) used the LA with SL or not. I didn't actually know her IRL. She said something about it on another group so I didn't ask her questions about why because at the time I wasn't really looking into SL much. I'm glad to hear that everyone seems to agree to not use their LA, though, because I really like FLL and WWE and had just decided to go with those and didn't want to change in case I was disappointed. Right now I'm leaning toward using SL at least for the younger grades.

Can you not just customize it? Just buy the history, literature, readers, and whatever else you want? I know you still get a discount for spending X amount of money.

I really like SL. I really do. I've liked it since I first began looking up curriculum before my son started kinder, but I've always decided against it for one reason or another. The main reason has been that I've seen a couple of people say that they started their child out with SL, and when they switched to another curriculum they realized that their child was behind. I feel like I've seen so many people on here who have a child using SL so I'm wondering if this person/people were mistaken or something. What are your thoughts on it? My son will be 1st grade next year so it will be for that. However, I'm going to a couple of homeschool conventions/fair in the next month or so, and I want to do as much research as possible before then. I also like TOG, but I've seen where some don't recommend that until the child is a little older. What would you suggest starting out? What about when they get older? If you recommend SL, would you recommend getting the multi-subject package or just the core package? We already use Horizons so that wouldn't be any different for us for math. What are your thoughts on SL's science in the package? I know you can substitute for Apologia as well.

I've been looking into what history we're going to use, and I've looked into TOG, but it's just so expensive especially after buying the books since my library practically has nothing on their book list. So I've been reading into what to do after SOTW in TWTM, and I feel a little confused and overwhelmed. First of all, she says to use the kingfisher history encyclopedia, but how do you determine what section to study each week? Is it set up in an easy way to just go through it chronologically? Second, explain the time line to me. How do you do yours? What else do you do?

I've been doing Horizons with my K'er this year because we used their preschool curriculum last year. He's kept up just fine with it even though it is advanced. However, I wish it had more teacher help in the teacher's book. I thought about switching to Saxon until I read how many people hated it on the thread about the curriculum you liked the least. So, if not Saxon, what do you suggest? I know there's MUS, but I don't know if that would just confuse him since he's been learning differently so far. Plus I don't understand MUS one bit. Singapore? Help?

I'm curious as to what your first grader does for school each day. What subjects do you do? Curriculums?

OK, I feel like I keep posting questions for suggestions, and as annoying as it probably is, here is another one! Exciting, right? :) I'm going to a homeschool convention with curriculum vendors next month, and there will be lots so I'm wanting to get a head start on who to see. I have NO clue about a science curriculum. I know I want it to be Christian. I realize that some are secular and don't teach evolution, but I want one that teaches from a creation standpoint. What are my choices? What is actually good? I need it for 1st grade, but I also want it to be good for older grades as well.

Which science do you prefer? This is for a first grader by the way.

We do math, phonics, writing, nature readers, dab a little into SOTW, and read, read, read!