I'd second Math Mammoth if you're looking for a curriculum, as it's inexpensive, easy to use, and prepares kids to do worksheets independently at school.

My favorites: Explode the Code with Bob books (or Get Ready, Get Set, and Go for the Code to learn letter sounds) Rightstart level A Handwriting without Tears Memoria Press Read-alouds

I think everyone above has given a good summary of the pros and cons, but I just wanted to add not to stress about it, because both are excellent choices. Ultimately, think about which one will realistically get done at your house. If you don't have many younger children and can really devote a good 15-30 minutes to teaching math each day, go with RightStart. But if you have a baby and a toddler and need your child to be a little more independent, go with Singapore. (Either program requires mom teaching and involved, but it's a lot easier to get a child started on some work in Singapore and then go change the baby or keep the toddler from wreaking havoc.) The other practical matter to consider is your child's fine motor capability. You can always scribe for him or her if you go with Singapore, but it might help to know that it requires quite a bit more writing than Rightstart.

Can you tell us more about what you like about the MCP and Essentials combo? I've used Essentials A and B, and it looks like there's a lot of overlap with the table of contents from MCP. As ealp2009 said, any child who's already reading at a fourth grade level isn't going to need that kind of review and spiral unless there's some sort of significant math learning disability. She'll probably whip through Essentials in a few months and then be ready to plunge right into Singapore 1A. Personally, I'd be more likely to add Mathematical Reasoning to Essentials than MCP. MCP really might be tedious to your dd. (It looks like it takes 63 pages to get through the number 9!?) The Mathematical Reasoning books are a lot more interesting, and they develop a nice variety of skills.

I agree with eveyone else--that's a terrific solution, and an innovative way to solve a trial-and-error problem! The C-rods are very appropriate for those spatial problems. My only concern with using the C-rods would be if he were using them as a crutch because he doesn't have very good mental math skills--but if he recognizes quickly that 8x4=32, I think you're fine. :)

Singapore bar models are an amazing tool for solving complex problems, but I worry when we're explicitly teaching the steps of the bar model, especially if the child can already solve the word problems. If using the bars becomes too rote, it almost takes the thinking out and reduces problems to a certain set of steps to follow. It feels like the purpose is serving the tool rather than the tool serving the purpose. Rather than going over and over the bar models at this point, you might consider moving on and then reintroducing the bars as the problems get more complex in future levels. Your ds might be more receptive and interested when he can see their use more clearly.

I definitely agree with the above posters about working up to it with 99s and 98s, and also using manipulative so to walk through the steps. My only other thought is to not rush it. The strategies are certainly helpful for mental math, but the hard thinking that kids have to do to figure it out is just as valuable. It's not about memorizing a certain procedure, but about kids having the confidence that they can think through problems and figure them out. So no worries if it takes your ds a while to really get it.

I definitely started out in a similar worried, unsure, and overwhelmed place. Take comfort: anyone who's giving as much thought to this as you are will figure it out! My main piece of advice regarding activities is to think about what you need to be a sane, happy mother and then work from there, because your kids will likely be fine with any of those options. Homeschooling at the beginning truly doesn't take a ton of time per day, so don't feel any guilt at all about choosing social/out-of-the-house options that will keep you feeling refreshed and happy. (But at the same time, don't overload your schedule so much that you're exhausted either!) Regarding curriculum, those are a bunch of good options, too, and any one of them would probably be great. I'd personally lean against doing TOG during the early years, since it requires so much teacher prep and material gathering. That's a lot to handle when you're just getting used to homeschooling and have a toddler. As much as possible, I prefer to choose curriculum where I can just open up the book and do the next lesson, because the more lesson planning I have to do, the less likely I am to actually teach a lesson! Also make sure to include a lot of the subjects that make you happy and give you joy to teach to your kids. If your four year old loves literature and poetry, I suspect it's because you enjoy them and are already happily sharing them with him--so keep it up and make sure to include it! I'm in my second year of MP picture book read-alouds, and they're truly wonderful books (and their corresponding craft books are very fun).

I think many people were supplementing due to the release schedule, but for those of us lucky enough to be starting now, I think we should be okay. My son is just beginning 3C, and I've been very impressed with the completeness. (The publisher says that it covers everything in common core as well. ) I had been spinning my wheels trying to slow my son down, too, Changing to Beast as our exclusive program has been a wonderful change. We are taking it really slowly, diving deeply into the challenge problems. (3B took from September until December.) The only thing I've added is a Kumon multiplication book to build some speed and fluency with the multiplication facts. I can see continuing to add a little drill to build fluency with facts and multi-digit multiplication and division, but I'm sticking with Beast as our sole curriculum.

Code.org has awesome self-paced, free courses that introduce the basics. My seven year old is loving it, and learning a lot.

If you enjoyed The Blue Castle, definitely keep going! She wrote many books (although some of them were mostly to pay the bills, so there is some variation in quality.) I personally love Jane of Lantern Hill, as well as the Emily series.

I watched the one on Amazon Prime (starring Lindsay Duncan and Alex Jennings) with my kids this winter, and it definitely earns its PG-13 rating. Most of it flew right over the heads of my 3- and 6-year-old (such as a few brief homoerotic scenes) but I jumped for the remote when Titania had her legs wrapped around Bottom and he was, um, braying. I would definitely NOT recommend that one for an 8- and 10-year-old. Sorry to not have a positive recommendation for you!

I'm doing CC (in a community) next year, so I've also been thinking about how to flesh it out. My plan is to listen to SOTW 3 over the summer, mosly because we love it, but also to build some context ahead of time. Then, we will read most of Simply Charlotte Mason's Stories of America each week as we go through the sentences. I won't have the time flexibility you have, but I expect we will linger over the more important (and comprehensible) topics like the ones you mentioned and not stress about expanding the sentences about things like the Monroe doctrine or President Polk. I really liked the suggestions at Simply Charlotte Mason for related books and historical fiction, so I plan to incorporate some of those along the way. I don't have a comprehensive week-by-week schedule laid out. Have you looked at guest hollow? She has a more structured plan laid out, but it's not aligned with CC. http://www.guesthollow.com/homeschool/history/americanonline.html

I forgot to mentions that Along Came Galileo would probably be perfect for a nine year old reading level, but it makes a great read-aloud, too.

My six-year-old loved listening to "Along Came Galileo." I'm a Protestant, but I felt like it was very respectful of Catholicism. It was a wonderful book, telling a bit about Galileo's life and connecting his work to to that of other astronomers of the time.

I used RS A, B, and half of C before transitioning my son to a combination of Singapore and Beast. I'm currently starting over with my nearly four-year-old daughter. I also found the sequence, particularly in A, to be a bit random. My hunch is that some of the random topics were thrown in there to make sure that state standards were met. Very few of them are essential to later learning, and you can always back up and cover them if you later discover they were important. So skip away! :) In General, a lot of the geometric excursions and vocabulary can be skipped without a problem, but the activities that build the foundation for number sense are essential. Based on my previous experience, I'm planning to skip a lot of the geometry/vocabulary in A this next time through, but will make sure to spend a lot of time on the games. If your daughter is loving it, I wouldn't worry about slowing her down, as it will be obvious when she needs a break or some variety. In my experience, my son had no trouble transitioning to singapore/beast. It was a little bit of a shift, but he was ready for more structured assignments and paper and pencil work. Rightstart is truly an amazing program in the foundation that it lays down for numeracy skills, and all of the other areas of math (geometry, spatial reasoning, word problems) are a cinch once you understand numbers so thoroughly.

I use AAS as it is written, since it works well for my rule-minded guy, so I can't speak from experience about the method you're using. But what you wrote sounds to me like your daughter benefits from having specific examples in front of her to help her understand the rule, rather than the other way around (i.e., the kind of kid who likes to get to know some trees before thinking about the whole forest.) I don't see why this is necessarily a bad thing, as long as she can then apply the rule to words beyond the initial words that you already showed her. Perhaps you could have her work with half the list first, before presenting the rule, and then see if she can apply the rule to the remaining words the following days? This might give you a better sense of whether learning the rules is doing her any good. If she still can't apply the rule at that point, perhaps AAS isn't the curriculum for her. But if she can apply the rule then, I don't see any harm you do in taking that route to get there.

I resisted the eight dollar kindle buy and went for the paperback, and I'm glad I did! Can you get it directly from CAP instead maybe?

Regarding the question about finances, there are no "referral fees" or discounts or anything like that for families that recommend the program to new families. But, the director does receive 40% of the tuition paid to the campus, so this is of course an incentive for the director to enroll more families. (The other 60% is split among the tutors. There is also an additional "registration fee" that goes directly to CC corporate, as well as a supplies and facility fee.)

There is also an adorable craft book for MP's jr. K and k book lists, if you want craft projects. My daughter and I just started the jr. K book by doing some crafts for books we already own on the list. It also includes a craft for each letter of the alphabet. I haven't used the enrichment book, though.

We're listening to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (read by Douglas Hodge) right now, and it's an incredible performance. Perfect accent, perfect voices, and just the right amount of sound effects in the background to keep things interesting.

Problems like this just wow me--I find it so amazing that Singapore gives kids the tools to do this kind of deep thinking. My son just started 2A, so this is still far off for us. I'm currently taking a middle school bar modeling course on ed2go.com to keep up my teachers certificate, so I've enjoyed seeing these problems and knowing that this class may eventually help me teach my kids better!

Okay, I finally got the first one! The clue for me was seeing that the answer is the *difference* between a whole pound of fish and a whole pound of vegetables. That suggested that starting with a whole pound of fish and a whole pound of vegetables in the initial bar diagram would be helpful. We know from the question that 1/4 of a pound of fish costs the same as 4/5 of a pound of vegetables, so these bars should be equal. F 1 unit (to stand for 1 fourth) V 4 units (to stand for the 4 fifths) Next, I extended each bar to show a whole pound of the fish or vegetables. F 4 units (4 fourths) V 5 units (5 fifths) I then subdivided the Fish bar to match the units in the Vegetable bar. (Each fourth was divided into four pieces.) F 16 units V 5 units I drew a brace in the space showing the difference between the two bars and labeled it with a question mark. Now, on to finding the right number of subdivisions. Since we will need to work with half a pound of vegetables, I subdivided all of the units in half so I could easily see 5 tenths of a pound of fish. F 32 units V 10 units But now we need to be able to work with tenths of a pound of fish. The first common multiple for 32 and 10 is 160 (32 x 5). So, I subdivided all the units 5 times. F 160 units V 50 units 7/10 F + 1/2 V = 13.70 7/10 of 160 = 112 1/2 of 50 = 25 112u + 25 u = $13.70 137 u = $13.70 u = $.10 There is a difference of 110 units between the final two bars, so the difference between a pound of each is $11.00!

Okay, now I'm looking at the first problem. You must be in a crazy subdividing section! This one looks like it needs to be subdivided twice, too, but I don't have time right now to figure out what the denominators have to be. I'll try to take another look later tonight.