I started using AAR for my struggling reader (middle child). She's almost done with level 2 now, and it's been slow going. Her younger brother liked the looks of it and wanted to do the same program. He's almost finsihed with level 1 - and it's only taken that long because the program takes that long. He "gets" reading and we will be going back to Phonics Pathways for him. It is much too slow for what he needs. But my middle struggler will continue using it at least a bit longer. AAS is an excellent program - I think for any kind of speller, but AAR seems (at least to me) to fit better with struggling readers.

It's been a while since I've posted because things have been going along pretty well. We've been homeschooling essentially since the beginning (we had a one-year hiatus while I completed my doctorate). I work full-time; so, we school on evenings, weekends, and assigned work when they are home. Their dad helps whe he's home with them as well; they also attend a 2 day-per-week academic center for homeschoolers (focus is on science, history, writing, PE, and a smathering of some art). The kids stay with their grandparents 2 days per week. This is where I need help. WHen I send a stack of work to be completed (even if it is just reading a story in the reader, having a grandparent read the history chapter, etc.), it doesn't happen. Ever. So, I'm trying to find something that is paced and has specific checkpoints of specific activities that my kids can do while at their grandparents' house. I don't want them to have to work all day, but I want them to have some educational input/activities while at the grandparents' house. It needs to be mostly independent (the 3rd grader would need to be able to help the 1st grader if needed). I've checked out the ones listed below (as best I can). Does anyone have experience with these? Time for Learning - this seems very childish. Do children actually learn real content here? Again, my point is educational activities that give them knowledge or shore up on skills. www.acellus.com - this seems more academic just because it is not an animated video. Monarch/Switched on Schoolhouse. This is a bit too Christian for my tastes, and it won't work for my 1st grader, and I'm not sure my struggling reader 3rd grader will do well with that much text based (at least based on what I see there). I also see several "on-line curriculum" distributors for various curricula that I can't get a good feel for what they actually offer. We are not in a chater school state; so, all of those options (Connections Academy, K-12, etc.) are extremely expensive. Laurel Springs and Oak Meadow are also out of our price range. We are willing to spend up to $1000 per year for all 3 kids combined. I know that limits our options, but we're on fixed budgets. We already have a subscription to Dreambox and starfall. But, we'd like something with checklists of specific activities that the child should complete (which is what led me to acellus and Time for Learning). I guess we could just add a Brain Pop Subscription and require them to watch a lesson from each of the content areas - but we have no way to track that to ensure they actually did work, correct? Maybe I'm wrong and there is a tracking feature there. Again, I'm mostly looking for something they can do while I am at work and they spend time at grandma's house. They will need to complete the lessons before the TV turns on (or at least complete the work before I get there to pick them up). I'm sure you guys have some good ideas for me to consider that I haven't found yet in my hours of searching. :) Thanks! Kimberly

Phonics Pathways out of those choices (my oldest learned easily and efficiently with that book). My middle is a struggling reader and we've switched to All About Reading. I'm using it with the youngest too. Good luck finding what works for you and yours.

I don't supplement Miquon at all for my just turned 7 year old (1st grade). Sometimes we play card games or something, but that's it. (Ignore if my sigy says something else because we've settled on Miquon for her without any other supplements.) We do look at the calendar to see what day it is and to count the # of days of school for the year (more for my 4 year old than anything). For us, it includes everything we need. It does cover clocks and measurement - not as much as other programs might, but you can add that more easily (as others have said).

We're another by time and mastery family. When my 8 year old started level 1 we did about a step per lesson (one lesson per day and about 15-20 minutes per day) and sometimes 2 or 3 steps per day. Some "steps" of level 2 took us 2 days/lessons to complete/master. Now that we're at the end of level 2, we've spent over 2.5 weeks on the last 2 steps. And we've done spelling most school days in that 2 weeks. It will be a full 3 weeks just on those 2 steps - that's the longest we've ever spent (so far) on the steps. But my daughter has struggled with these lessons. She's even having a hard time hearing the difference in the sounds we're working on in these 2 steps (au, aw, and ow, ou). 3 weeks ago I thought we'd be ready for Level 3 last week. But I'm not rushing her. She'll get there when she gets there. She's pretty good at determining when a word is mastered and when she wants to keep it in review. We just moved "your" to mastered after about a month in the review stack, even though she got it right almost all of the time, she still wanted it there until she felt that it was mastered. Three has been there about the same amount of time. LOL. So, I recommend just setting an amount of time for the day's work, and seeing what you get done. Move on when you're "done" with that step and the review stack isn't too overwhelming because it is too big.

This thread has been very interesting to me because it never even crossed my mind that a homeschooled child would have specific stipulations about how much the parent must teach. Here in KY we have a few "hybrid" type set ups where the children are technically homeschooled, but they attend "school" /classes/ whatever you want to call it a couple of days a week. We will actually be establishing this type of hybrid program beginning in the 2014 - 2015 school year. We will pay teachers the going rate for public school substitute teachers (full day classes). You can look up that information on the local public school website.

If you've got a table device (Android, iPad, etc.) the Homeschool Helper App is great and you can "copy lessons" from one student to another - although I'd rather just create a lesson and click which student(s) it goes with. :) It is fantastic - you can run reports, keep attendance, grades, reading lists, field trips, etc. It does not work on the computer or on-line synching. It's only on the tablet.

Wow that is a fun one.

Make them laugh. That's what I've learned - especially with my younger daughter. I'm not very good at it, but if I keep a light mood she's a much more willing/able student. :) She really likes to have control of her learning/environment. So, when I get all stressed and in a tizzy that she isn't just doing the work then she doesn't get any learning or work done. So, I've learned to let her have some control and lighten the mood when something is hard. We use puppets to do reading and math (in addition to our regular math manipulatives). She doesn't like to be taught - she likes to figure things out; so, I have to balance how I guide/help her in figuring things out. She likes anything that can be made into a puzzle (logical - not just physical puzzle).

But when they finish the level - before going to the next stepping stone on the path an egg cracks open and they get a new animal-ish thing. My 6 year old loves to try to guess what is going to be in the egg (the pattern on the egg always gives a hint to the contents). They also get golden eggs for completing activities/lessons and those can be traded in in the store for things to fill the house, and they can be used to play arcade games once the arcade is open (you have to be on a certain level for it to be available I think). Kimberly

My 8 year old sounds a lot like yours. We did 1st grade math 3 years in a ROW! UGGG. I felt like I had failed, then I realized - her brain just wasn't ready to get it yet. Finally this year - actually within the last 6 months - she does finally get the relationship of numbers. She still has to think of some facts, but she can figure it out and to me that's way more important than having it memorized. We finally are into the 2nd grade math book. We're almost at the 1/2 way part of it. So, for us - this is major progress since we started 2nd grade with the 1st day of 1st grade math again! The flash cards and such were stressing my daughter out too; so, we just kept working on her conceptual abilities. Since she does "get it" now, her speed has increased with her facts as well - but not a speed demon by any stretch and if I put a timer on her it'd be back to square 1. I don't have much other insight to offer.

I'm in. I've got a 4 year old who wants a movie (screen time) every time the olders and I start school work. He does listen to some read-alouds, but when it's independent work time when I go back and forth between the girls he just wants to watch something. I want to break that habit now!

Following. We're studying Da Vinci now. We'll be working on him for 6 weeks. So far, I've just gotten a few things from the library about him - but I'd like to have a few more ideas. One of the libraries around me has this book: Amazing Leonardo da Vinci Inventions You can Build Yourself. It seems to have some good ideas.

My library was exactly the same. It drove me bonkers! My solution was to go online from home and request every book that I wanted. We also browsed, but when I wanted something specific I'd request a hold. That made the library staff have to find the book for me. After a bit over a year of that me requesting them in that way, they redesigned the entire children's section - now the juvenile non-fiction are even in that part of the library too. Now, the books are alphabetized. It's still hard to find books because children come and move things around - I think some signage would help - telling parents not to let the kids put them back would be a big help I'm sure. :0 I don't know that my requests is what put them over the edge or if it was the new library director - but all of my friends requested books that way - we had a plan to force them to change. On the other hand, I still request books that way, but I'm sure it's now much easier to find what I requested - so that saves them some time. :) Good luck!

I am not a CC member, and these (Science set) are some of the best investments in our homeschooling library. I bought the whole set. I used the set mentioned above for our science this year. We read and memorized about a card per week (sometimes we didn't get to a new card for a specific week, but that was the general plan). I collected books from the local libraries and from our own stash to go with the theme/topic on each card. Sometimes I used the question/answer on the back as copy work. Sometimes my oldest had to read them independently and then narrate what she learned or write a summary. The younger 2 kids usually listened with some understanding of the information parts, but I made sure to get books more on their listening/learning level. I can say that we will for sure continue to use these cards throughout our homeschooling time. I don't have any of the history sets yet, but I plan on getting them.

If you're ok with christian content the weekly scheduled dictations in SL could easily be used for that purpose and leave out the rest of the LA activities with SL.

I have been having this same discussion on another on-line group. I have come down to, I can't function only with a curriculum that is totally not me as the teacher/facilitator/mentor etc. I have a teaching philosophy that I developed/wrote when I was looking for university teaching positions. I have found that I ascribe to the same philosophy for the education of my own children - and homeschooling them has made me a better faculty member. :) In short, I think there is essential knowledge that people should learn (i.e., the grammar if you will) and to learn people must be actively engaged in the learning process. Knowledge can't be poured into brains. Once (or as) the "essential knowledge" is gained (or in process) this leaves a lot of room for specializing in areas of interest and forging ones own path. I have been struggling with this (does the curriculum need to match the teacher or the student - which is priority) for the last few months. My younger daughter is a very different learner from me - any my older daughter (who is just like me). She didn't think school was fun and wanted some things changed up to better fit how she learns and enjoys life. I don't know that my current sig. shows what we're currently doing, but it's working for us - now. I've changed to some curriculum that better matches her way of doing things, and still meets my needs as the facilitator of learning. As I was figuring myself out (and determining if curriculum could work if it didn't work for the parent) we tried a boxed curriculum [this has nothing to do with boxed/unboxed curriculum discussion and is just a descriptor for a specific curriculum I tried that happened to be boxed] that is designed for hands-on and creative learners and I changed up how we approached our math topics. She was happy with read alouds and map/geography work that we were already doing. She enjoyed the boxed program that we implemented, but it was very difficult for me. I felt like we were wasting time and never accomplishing anything [ again, not because it was boxed, but because of the nature of the program hands-on creative activities with books feeling supplementary to the activities as opposed to my preferred ways of activities supplementing books]. The topics included did not line up specifically with my concept of the "essentials" nor did it match with how I learn. Deep somewhere in my logical brain, she was learning something and we weren't "wasting time," but every time I pulled the materials out I felt like it was wasting time. So, it doesn't really work for me because I like to feel like I'm making progress on essential knowledge. Since she likes the curriculum (I wouldn't say she loves it, but once she gets started on projects she usually doesn't want to stop), we're using it in part to supplement her need for that type of activity/interaction. Since we all have limited time and may not be able to complete/finish everything that a curriculum offers or suggests, I naturally wanted (and sometimes did) eliminate the parts that did not resonate with me. Of course those are the parts that probably would resonate with her. I also made concerted effort to retain the essence of the program and the aspects that also offer the aspects she wants included in her school day. A curriculum that doesn't get done is far inferior to something that does get done (to paraphrase one of the regulars on this forum). On the other hand, I've found some programs that are very scripted/open and go that allow me to see that we're making progress, and that allow her the hands-on types of activities that she craves. These are what work the best for us right now. I think as that younger daughter gets older and begins doing more work independently what works for us will change because I will not have to be as directly involved in carrying out the lesson plans or overseeing specific projects. At that stage it will be much less important for the curriculum we choose to fit with our styles; it will be more important that it fits with hers for the things she learns more independently.

How did you find the AAS spelling lists already on spelling city? I tried to find it because that's what we're using now, but I never could find the lists. Thanks!

The others are giving you good information and we just started SL, but I just wanted to say that it took me about 3 years to go with SL because I couldn't figure it all out. Getting the print catalog actually helped me get a real handle on what it was and how it worked and how it could be broken apart. I recommend that. :)

Following along for the ride, if anyone responds to you. :) I'd actually like to get a tri group for my oldest daughter. She'd really like that, and I think it'd be way more fun to train with some age mates than only with her mom. :)

I used this for my older daughter. Our purpose was to try to cement...er... build some spelling skills. :) We used the copywork/dictation along with it (as it suggests). It worked well for that. I agree with the previous poster if you're doing it with a child who is not reading well it will move too fast. We didn't actually read the books with it unless we already had the book laying around. We have several of them, and in other cases we'd read them and could think back on it without needing to re-read (I was using it with an 8 year old; so, this worked- with a younger kid I think it'd be better to read the books). My daughter did learn some important spelling rules and made a nice folder that she can refer back to to assist with spelling. That said we just started AAS because really - I need more direction and reminders to continually review the spelling stuff.

Kathryn, In response to your question - my daughter was similar to yours. She turned 8 in November; so, technically 2nd this year and 3rd next year. In LA things she's what I consider a year ahead. I started MCT around November. We've completed reading GI and SI. We're now working on the writing activities with SI (my daughter hated to write back then; she's come around a bit). We're most of the way through BL and about 1/4 through PI. We sometimes do the sentences in PI Killgallon style - where we do all of the analysis and then she creates her own sentence with the same structure. So, I don't know what you should do, but we went ahead with it. I don't expect us to start the town level until at least early fall. I think she needs a bit more practice building good sentences before we move on to paragraphs. So, we'll be using some of the Killgallon ideas/types of activities with her as we finish up PI over the summer. I might then start grammar town with her and do additional work with sentence level stuff before moving on to the other parts of the set for Town level. Hope that helps you. :)

I've never used it, but this looks good and I'm interested in trying one of them when my youngest is a bit bigger. http://simplycharlottemason.com/store/product-category/product-handicrafts/

I have not used WWE, but I agree with the previous posters that MCT does not have direct writing instruction. You'll have your grammar covered, and writing activities that help cement those concepts - but not writing instruction per se (until the upper levels, where I think it gets more direct).

My older daughter is "using" MCT Island level now. While my younger can listen in to what we're reading - there is not the same level of understanding. If you want a solid foundation for grammar at the 1st grade level I would not use MCT to do it. FLL 1 and 2 were a good foundation for using MCT. Much of the grammar part is review of FLL - but my daughter has to apply the information in different ways - which shows me how much she understands beyond having them memorized. For example, last night at bed time she was trying to figure out if "of" was a preposition. (We didn't fully memorize that list of FLL2). From what we learned about prepositions we use the easy sentence "The squirrel ran ____ the tree." Using this sentence, even if it is silly (The squirrel ran aboard the tree), helps her determine if something is a locative preposition. She's still trying to figure out how to identify the other prepositions - beyond just knowing the list - WHY are they prepositions. In MCT PI books we have lots of discussion about what a word is doing in the sentence to determine the part of speech. This has led to good conversations about the productive nature of English in terms of using nouns as verbs (i.e, google it, or squeak). When analyzing a sentence today, she first assumed that "squeak" was a verb because "something can squeak." After further exploration and realizing that a verb didn't really fit that part of the sentence she figured out that it was a noun in that sentence. I'm not sure that 2 years ago we would have had the same depth of conversation. There is no harm in holding off MCT until she's within their recommended age ranges. The flip side is also true, there is no rush to get there! There are many good ways to build a foundation that will prepare your child well for using MCT later. I was hesitant to start MCT this year because I wasn't sure if my daughter would be ready for Town when we finish Island. We are still working through the writing activities in SI and we still have lots of PI sentences left to do; so, we're going to keep working on those then reassess if it's time to go there. If not, then I will likely use Building sentences in the interim. I guess my point (after all that rambling) is that there is no reason to rush, and I think that waiting until your daughter is older (about 3rd-grade-ish) will have more benefit than doing the program with a 1st grader - even if the 1st grader can understand the story.