I haven't done this yet, but we have just started doing this. I have the 5 day Core D with advanced readers for a 3rd grader. We school 4 days per week; so, that right there gives us extra wiggle room to stretch it out. I also stretch it by not reading everything on the schedule for a specific day. For example, there are history read aloud books, literature read loads, bible (we only do the American Indian Prayer guide and no other bible readings),readers, and the LA is included. So, we may take 2 days to each scheduled day worth of activity/readings. I do read the complete chapter or the complete amount assigned for a specific book on a specific day - I just don't do all of the books on the same day. So, each day on the schedule takes us about 1.5 or 2 days to complete. I hope that helps, and I'll be looking forward to how others spread out the core.

How much time are you/ is she willing to devote to science? It would be possible with sufficient time, but without knowing the rush to get through them it is more difficult to say.

I've never done diagramming - ok maybe I had a couple weeks of it in elementary school, but nothing after that. What's the best quick way for me to learn enough to share it with my oldest daughter. She asked me something about modifiers the other day that would have probably been easier to explain if. Could draw the relationships, but I don't know how! We use MCT; so we have the grammar parts down with his 4 level method. Thanks.

Even after my oldest was reading chapter books we continued Reading Pathways until she finished it. To start her on chapter books we read as a team. She had listened to books on tape of Magic Tree House books. Since she knew the story well, I would Point to sentences here and there that I knew she could read. Then I worked up to having her read one paragraph per page. Then to reading a bit more. Finally she was up to reading full pages. After she could easily read a full page on her own she kind of too off with it. We are starting the same approach with my younger daughter now that she can read VCE words. They pick up the others from context and reptilian within the book. My older wanted to read longer books. The younger doesn't really have the desire yet. We're trying to get her there.

Checking out just a unit or concept or 2 are really good ways to see if it fits how your kids learn and prefer to work. It's a great fit for my younger daughter; it is really not a good fit for my ledger daughter. There are some other fairly recent discussions of it. You might do a search for it. I can't find them to link while on my iPad.

I finally AAR used for a reasonable price; so, I grabbed it up. I should have it in hand by the middle of next week. :) Thanks for the help. Now I'll be keeping my eyes out for the AAR 2 used - because my 6 year old already easily blends CVC and CCVC and CvCC words well. We've just started working on long vowel sounds - she gets it, but again it isn't fun. So, I'm thinking we'll go pretty quickly though this and then be ready to move on to The next set. Thanks again Merry for all of your words of wisdom - on this question and the other AAR and AAS threads. :) ETA: I've been trying to post this for days - but sometimes the forums don't give me the box to type in. I'm not sure what the glitch is with that! Kimberly

When I was in middle school I learned a song - to the tune of "when the saints go marching in" How, when, and where How, when, and where How, when, and where, to what extent Oh, they usually end in -ly - how, when, and where to what extent Otherwise, they modify verbs. I'm not any better at explaining it and my daughter just kind of "gets" LA stuff; so, I haven't had to find a better way yet but we enjoy singing the song together. :)

My 8 year old daughter still has letters that are not clearly formed, awkward spacing between letters/words and sometimes completely illegible. She hates the physical act of writing - holding a pencil, etc. I have found that having her write on the white board is more palatable to her and on there I can encourage correct production. It's frustrating and I try to have some assignments where I 'let it go" and others where I'm more particular about how neatly the work is done. This has taken some pressure off because some work is "for her" and as long as she can read it it's good enough for me. :) Having her read those assignments to me a few days after she writes them has become an incentive for writing more clearly. I'm not much help, but I still have hope that we'll get there someday.

Merry, Thanks so much for this response. The 6 year old won't be doing AAS for a bit; so, I was hoping it might be possible to use the AAS cards - here I'm assuming similar/same words and similar/Same order of introduction - so we would use tiles and cards we have and buy the teacher guide and the activity book - not the entire student kit. Is that feasible or is that getting into too much trouble? Will the future levels require specific readers like the first 2 sets do? I just feel like that's the part that makes it seem l,e a LOT of money - especially when I could just teach with what we've got. Thanks again.

I was just going to say that my 8 year old wrote 2 very nice paragraphs - completely new skill recently. My 6 year old went from still sounding out each letter to blending and reading words. But those have nothing to do with projects; so, I'm just gonna give you a bump so maybe you can get some inspiration. :) We rarely do projects. I'm just not that kind of momma. :)

I know there have been lots of threads about AAR. We already have the "kit" letters and we have AAS Level 1 and 2 cards/student packs. I'm wondering if it is possible to use the AAR teacher's book along with the student activity book to implement the program? My middle daughter is very much a hands on learner - I'm very much not a hands on learner or teacher. I'm thinking that having the teacher's guide would give me good direction in the order of presenting the material and would tell me which activities could go with those lessons. I realize that the readers are an integrated part of the program, but we have about a million readers around the house (including some very nice fly leaf publishing books, and other graduated reader sets); so, I'm less interested in that and more interested in adding some hands on stuff and strategies for teaching without needing to create them myself. We've been using phonics pathways, which is a solid program that is easy to implement. The 6 year old is learning to read with it, but she's not having much fun with it. I'm trying to find a way to make it more enjoyable without breaking the bank. I'm impressed with the AAR method and wondering if we can implement it with only some of the materials. I think she is "almost" ready for the Level 2 set; so, I don't want to spring for the entire level 1 set if we're only going to use it for a very short time - even if I realize I can use it for my younger in a couple of years. Finding the sets used for more than a few dollars off is difficult and if I'm going to spend about the same as for new, I'd rather give the author my $$ and her full due. :) Thanks.

I'd also say I don't "teach" for the most part, but I am with my kids for much of the learning. Maybe for some when they say "teaching intensive" they mean the prep before the work starts, kwim? In History/geography we read together - but I'm learning right along with them (I grew up in the social studies era). To me it feels teacher intensive in terms of time spent while doing it, but recently switched to SL (don't shoot me anyone, grin) for history, geography, and read alouds; so, for me that no longer feels teacher intensive. it's just spending time reading with my kids. For LA subjects, I feel like I'm actually teaching my children something and some parts are more "teacher intensive" than others, but I still mostly use open and go curriculum. We recently started using AAS and I like to read over everything before I do it and a few lessons ahead (my 8 year old is moving quickly as we try to get to the right spot in the curriculum where she has to really apply new information). So, while the teaching part is kind of a no-brainer right now, it is more teacher intensive than typical for other users of it because of how I'm pre-reading and planning. For the grammar and writing component (for older daughter) we currently used MCT Island level, which is sit and read together and we talk about the PI sentences together. Now that we're incorporating some writing assignments I spend a bit more time reading the teacher's section in the back of the books and decide how to implement the writing assignments. When we do MBtP lit units, it's only intensive when I work with my daughter on the writing assignments. I make sure she understands the process and how to do the assignments. In those times I'm teaching, but it's not a teacher intensive curriculum. Math at our house goes both ways. LoF is not teacher intensive in terms of prep or participation. MM is not prep intensive and usually I'm not actively involved unless they get stuck. Miquon is teacher intensive for prep and working on the lab sheets. So, I guess it depends on your definition of "teaching" and your focus of intensive. :)

If you have the teacher's book (or whatever it's called) you can look in there for a description of the threads. Without that book, you can just look inside the back cover of the book. It lists the thread (A is counting for example,) Then on each page at the bottom where the page number is located it's actually a thread page number. So it says something like A 4 this is the 4th page of thread A. Or it might say D 25 - this is the 25th page of thread D (which may be multiplication, I don't remember). I hope that helps.

I was just coming back to say this. It didn't dawn on me until a while after I posted earlier. Most colleges do have a free writing help center (different names at different places) that help students with course papers, senior thesis, etc. Usually those centers are better at editing type of assistance rather than revision type of assistance, but that would be an excellent place to start. It's also not a bad idea to have students swap papers and help each other. Depending on the students this may be more or less successful.

I use a great woman (for my dissertation actually). Here's her website: http://www.carpenterdoc.com/ It is all done via email.

I was hoping you'd answer by question. :) I really appreciate all of your posts that I've read on here and your blog. :) I was actually looking through the orange book last night at the threads and thinking that same idea - including skipping counting stuff. I was thinking of completing each book before moving on, but I've already got the red book; so, we could work through and do the thread for both of those books. I only have the 1st 2 books right now, but I can see how quickly we get through them. My daughter really likes how little there is on each page as compared to the MM we've been using. I'm not sure how exactly it will work to do both at the same time. Thanks. Anyone else out there with experience?

I've picked up Miquon for my younger daughter and I think my older would benefit from the conceptual nature, but I'm not sure how exactly to go about this. My younger is a visual spatial learner by nature; so, the rods already make sense for her and she has the simple relationships memorized already. My older is more of an auditory learner, but I have seen manipulates help her cement concepts by giving her different ways to think about things. My 8 year old has struggled with math - since we started. She's currently working on 2nd grade math MM 2A right now (and she reads LoF, currently Edgewood, for fun and concepts). She "gets it" now and math is finally not a struggle. This is good news. We'll be moving into more complex topics soon (double digit subtraction specifically is a concern, and multiplication/division - although she already gets the concept of this more than the subtraction of double digit with regrouping). So, my question is how do I go about getting her "past" the how to count and put numbers on the number line/number grid stuff and get her working to her level without sacrificing the benefits of the program? Thanks in advance for assistance.

We're incorporating lots of American history as it fits in with the chronological cycle of history (more than 4 years to get through the 4-year cycle). We're using SL core D and E with the end of SOTW 2, and continuing through our reading of SOTW 3 and 4. I'm not working hard to line them up - just working through both "sets" of history studies as it comes and we'll make connections as relevant.

Here's what we did through Island - and we haven't added other writing curriculum (umm, let me clarify we did a lit guide for MBtP that incorporated writing - and it did get my daughter writing more, but we weren't using it as a writing curriculum, iykwim.) - we did the books in the prescribed order (from the publisher that comes with the books in the mail and is posted on their website). While reading SI we did not do any writing - I didn't even read the teacher's manual part of the book as we were reading (although I'd read it before we started). Sometimes when my daughter was writing things for other subjects (think the Lit guide, history narratives, etc.) I would reminder her of points that were in the books we'd read so far. Then after we'd read the whole thing, I read the parent manual again. Then I read the "main points" parts of the parent manual to my daughter. From there, I choose a couple of prompts that I thought my daughter would not balk at doing (she hates the physical act of writing). I then chose a couple that she would not like, but that we'd do over some time. We're going through the rest of the writing prompts in that way now. We're also using PI as copy work (sometimes) and even more fun, after we've analyzed a sentence I have her create a new sentence using the same pattern as the original. She thinks this is fun and challenging. Sometimes she needs me to give her another example. Sometimes if I give her a verb she can more easily fill in the rest of the sentence. So, that's how we've done writing so far with the Island level.

We're on the elementary level as well (E now). When we started with Apples I read the introduction material to my daughter - it includes an explanation that you have to write the answers on paper and check them before reading the next chapter; so, she "got it" and realized it wasn't just me suggesting it. :) She has a notebook just for LoF assignments. Then our pattern for a long time was she would read the chapter and work the problems. I would then read the chapter to her again helping draw her attention to the subtle inclusion of math in the chapter and she'd work the problems independently. Then we'd read the answers together (there's lots of teaching in the answers). When she had an answer incorrect, she got to explain how she got her answer and why it was different from what Fred had as an answer. I did this process mostly to teach her how to learn from the book. Now, she reads the book completely on her own and checks her own answers. As follow up, I ask her what the "play" section included and if she got the answers correct. If she didn't we discuss why her answers were not correct and strategies she can use. For example, she forgets which numbers are ordinal and cardinal. So, we discuss the strategy of looking it up in the index and finding the page in the book that talks about it (if it wasn't in that chapter). To me, learning how to use the textbook (even as unconventional as it is) is as important as learning the math.

I find that there is a fair bit of writing included if I remember to use the teacher's tips and ideas sections. :) At the same time, I was also considering using something like Killgallon because it's more scheduled (which means I'll do it). :) I think those program complement well.

There isn't much in terms of plot, setting, etc. (that I remember in the AMP set).

So, you said that you couldn't see "enough difference" to make it worthwhile for your family. Can you expand on the differences you did notice? That might make the decision for the rest of us a bit easier. :) Thanks

That's a lot more output than my 8 year old would ever produce in one sitting. My daughter hates the physical act of writing, but loves the process and thoughts of writing and the telling of writing. I could get that from her orally, but it's way more advanced than she would produce on paper at this stage.

How old is the 3rd grader? My daughter who is by regular school definition 2nd grade, but I consider her 2nd/3rd grade. I don't have much experience with other 3rd graders. Also, was this a first draft or after revisions? - That can make a difference in the assessment of it. What I see is spelling that is accurate. Interesting facts about cardinals. I agree that it is repetitive (is that something you've been working on? If not, how would the child now that the repetitive nature is a problem?). My child writes similar types of repetitive sentences. The biggest area of concern that I have is that there is not an opening/topic sentence nor a closing sentence and the ideas don't flow easily from one to the next. The reader has to work hard to make sense of the order. Have you tried using "self editing checklists?" My daughter is working through a lit unit of MBtP (7-9 level) and they use self editing checklists for the "longer" assignments. My daughter, after reading through the checklist and grading herself went back and changed some words, and adjusted the structure a bit. She didn't adjust everything I'd like to see adjusted, but she did recognize that some things could use improvement and she was able to figure out how to do that (in a simplistic 3rd grade way). MBtP's checklists also vary a bit by assignment. So, in some cases it focuses on making sure you have 3 main points, and others focus more on organization and structure, and others it focuses on "voice." So, each assignment has a goal and that's the primary focus for improvement. I don't know if I helped you know more about this assignment in particular, but I thought I'd share some ideas that have worked with us recently. And the paragraph sounds very similar to something my 8.5 year old (language advanced, but really doesn't like the physical act of writing) daughter would do.