My kiddos use the Franklin Mirriam-Webster's Dictonary and Thesaurus. It's easy to use, my 2nd grade son loves it.

2 oldest with only SWR, still using for spelling. My third is learning to read with 100EZ as my lesson plan adding in SWR phonos. We are almost done with 100EZ (a few weeks left). Then she will only be using SWR and reading easy readers.

I thought the last unit was supposed to come with the LOOM? Anyone get the Loom for year 2 with the last unit?

Half raised here. They do get the SWR lists dictated to them. Sometimes I will dictate a sentence at the end of the spelling lists. Other than that they do not do any dictation. As far as copy work goes, other than learning their letters in the beginning they have never done it. They do on the other hand have a "ton" of memory work memorized :D

Geography can dovetail with history. You can try to get SOTW from the library as well as science readers on anything she is interested in. If you don't have access to s decent library, I have known several families ask and get the books the kids were using in school when they pulled them out to finish up the year.

We buy them. Currently I have, Year 1,2 and 3 books Ug, LG and D on the shelves. They are on 5 long shelves dotted by year with the unit and week on them. I love being able to pull them off before planning, expensive but worth it :)

We start with Shurley English for 1st,2nd,3rd then we did Junior Analytical Grammar and we are completing Shurley 4th. I plan to go through to Shurley 6 and then concentrate on Latin.

I am on week 33 of year 3. I plan on having the kiddos listen to the audio of SOTW 4 and adding some books in from the TQ guide III (American History 1865-2000). I figure we will do this over the summer, no pressure and then jump into Year 1 re-designed for September. I do have year 4 and its a bit "heavy" for the ages of my kiddos so I don't feel too bad skipping it in order to jump into the redesigned cycle:o

Yea, I have seen some so big, patients had to have a small incision to remove them. It's caused by bacteria, food and oral secretions. Not sure how scientific this is but, almost ALL the patients that had the larger ones slept with their mouth open..lol:confused:

Yes, as suggested he should try and switch by replacing the all day drinking to water. Coffee, both caff. and de-caff have very high acidic levels and it could be zapping his salivary glands causing his mouth to have dryness and create oral malodor. Sugarless chewing gum can in some cases stimulate salivary glands.

LOL...It sounds pretty bad when you read it I guess:rolleyes:

I would look in the back of his throat and see if he has tonsil stones. They would be located in the back of his throat , they look like white stones. If you see them you can use a water pick to get them out, or you could use a q-tip and gently press beside them and they will pop out. This is a common cause of bad breath. I would suggest using a tongue scrapper also. I used to work with an ENT specialist and these were common remedies he recommended. HTH

Chili cheese dip with Frito's sounds yummy, do you make a regular thick hot chili and serve them with the chips or is it different?

Saute in olive oil for about 3-5 minutes: Small onion garlic a few leaves of fresh cilantro (if you have it) add a tablespoon of Adobo (Spanish seasoning) Add to sauteed (above) 1 can of black beans 1 large diced tomato 2 cups corn (frozen) pinch of chili powder simmer or 20 minutes Add to mix, 1 sm. can tomato paste 1 can black beans (these have been mashed) Cook for another 15 minutes and add salt and pepper to taste. After mix has cooled , smother mix onto a tortilla ,sprinkle with cheese( I like sharp cheddar), top it off with another tortilla and flatten. I wrap each in saran wrap and refrigerate. Put on the grill, or in the stove on a cookie sheet, for the cheese to melt fully. Cut like pizza. I serve them with a tray of sour cream, guacamole and hot salsa. You can also use this ad a dip and serve with tortilla chips. I also make Key Lime chicken wings, hot wings, choclate "dump" truffel, egg and tuna mini sandwiches, sherbet fizz punch and the always left over veggie tray..lol

I have this in my dd math book , it might help. Key Words for Math

Your sweet, I'm happy I could help!!!!

I just called her, she said he did Pre-Alg & Alg I in the same year at 14. She had him take the tests in Alg. I only until he got an 85% and then started him there. The following year he did Alg. II and Geometry at 15. he took the PSAT in October and got a Merit Scholarship. She put him in the local Comm. College and he was able to cover Trig. and Pre-Calc. Then she had him take the SAT and he scorec 2400 on the math. He is currently taking Statistics & Functions and Calculus this semester. To be quite honest this all sounds like Greek to me, my oldest is only 9 :) Hope this helps.

I have never used Horizons but I have heard it is somewhat advanced so, it makes sense he would place there. I do think children tend to place higher in TT because of the placement tests, I am no expert tho. That was actually one of my concerns for NOT using it. I did not want to have a "fluff" math course for my dd. There has also been a lot of negative comments about TT not being "grade level". If not for the fact ,that I personally know of a friend who used the upper levels of TT with great results, I may not have given it a second look. She had her son (16) take an advanced math course at the local community college after completing TT. He took his SAT and got a perfect math score and will , most likely be attending MIT this Fall. Yes, he is bright but this is why I decided to look again into TT. I am still not completely sold on it;) which is why I still plan on having my dd complete Singapore. I need her to finish TT to see if it really is what I am looking for. I can say, she loves doing the lessons, the teaching is so easy to understand but we'll have to see.

I use SWR and I have used it since my yod oldest learned to read at age 4(now 9 1/2). I slugged through the learning curve, went to several seminars (Basic and Advanced) and stayed with it. I taught my ds with it also. I started my 4 yod on it, was so different. I have two older kids to teach, I tend to use "teacher intensive" curricula. I just couldn't find the time SWR needed for my dd. She knew the first set of phonograms (A-Z) and I shelved it. Last year (Sept.), I decided to try SWR with her again, we were slogging through it, no consistency aacccckkkk:(. I went to a used curricula sale before Christmas and grabbed a used copy of 100 EZ. I introduced the card phonograms from SWR when 100 EZ introduced the letter combos like (th, ow, ar, er) . I used 100 EZ as my lesson planner to execute SWR. adding the phonograms from SWR. I did not do any lists, no chart work. For the writing ,I would just have her write the phonos. (like in SWR). Here we are on lesson 70 of 100 EZ, she is whipping through the stories and her fluency is amazing. The only complaint I ever had about SWR was, the lack of cute stories to practice while moving through the lists. I did add Bob books and others but ,it added to the time on top of doing SWR and many times I would have to teach something she was not yet introduced to in SWR. The story after each lesson in 100 EZ alleviated this for me. My friend also started doing this with her 5yod in Sept., this was her 1st year using SWR and her daughter has already finished 100EZ and is moving through the SWR lists. She is reading 2nd grade easy readers so well , my gf said it was so easy to slide into SWR. Just thought I'd throw out this little tidbit for those that could be struggling with SWR :o.

I had my 4th grader (9 yod) also take the TT placement and she placed comfortably in 7th also. I have many friends who use TT and they kept telling me the tests are not really representative of the program. They said the tests are on the "easy" side and that I should try doing grade 5 or 6 instead of 7. Mind you ,finished up Singapore 4B so I though TT7 would be "easy". I borrowed a friends and she flew through the first few lessons and then came to a screeching halt:eek:. I went ahead and ordered TT6 and it's perfect. It moves slower and has review. I still allow her to do several lessons if she wishes but she is not stressed at all. I plan on moving through Singapore 5A when she finished TT6, most likely the end of summer (we school year round). I have a BJU textbook for grade 5 (I use this series for my son) on my shelf and I matched up the TOC, looks to be just about even. The BJU touches on Pre-Alg at the end, TT goes into Pre-Alg deeper than BJU. Have you considered returning the TT7 for another level? HTH's

We have a 2400 sq. foot ranch with 4 bedrooms and 2 baths. Attached is a 3 car garage with a loft of about another 1,000 sq. feet that I cam currently doing over to have my school room completely out of the main house. We picked a ranch because of the 1 floor living, I have been in Capes & Ranches that are "tiny", I would consider that a starter home because of the sq. footage. I don't think of any "type" of house as a starter home, I actually thought it had more to do with the size of the home. I have been known to be wrong though:)

How do you know if you need to get your child tested or if there is some type of LD we are dealing with? Our oldest, ds 7, is making me question if there is an issue. He is still so young, even though I have had early readers, I would not test until 3rd. An amazing amount of fluency happens between then, I'd wait:) He would rather guess at words than just actually read them. He is about 60 lessons into 100 EZ Lessons. Even for dd who, had always been a very strong reader I think it's quite common for them to try this and see if it works!..lol:D We have been inconsistent with school in the past and I think this could be a lot of it, because he certainly does better with lots of structure (I see this now in hindsight Looks like you already have your answer, I can say that of all my kiddos the one that I was the least consistent with in respect to reading has been the one with the least amount of fluency. I have started being more consistent and I can already see improvement. It sounds like your doing exactly what he needs, maybe doing 1 lesson of 100EZ over 2 sessions might help him to focus better...M&M's around here work wonders for reading rewards:rolleyes:

We actually start with cursive, I don't bother much with printing. My 4th grade dd and my 2nd grade ds both write everything in cursive quickly and neatly. Neither of them are currently doing any HW programs. My Ker writing CVC words in cursive and knows how to write ALL the phonograms in cursive (we use SWR). I guess the style would be most like Italic Cursive.

9 yod- make her bed,put her clothes away(I fold laundry at night and bring it into the rooms while they are sleeping) and get dressed before she comes out of her room. Then she goes in the bathroom, washes her face, brushes hair and starts her chore chart which consits of, using the pooper scooper in the "spot" where her dog goes and tossing it into the woods:( feed the dog , empty the top rack of the dishwsher & pull out the knives from the silverware basket (put those away), wipe down the bathroom counters. Then she wakes up the 5 yod. My 5 yod does the same before coming out of her room. Her chores are, empty the bathroom trash, put the clothes in the downstairs hamper and put the silverware away. My 8yod- does the same before he comes out of his room, his chores are. Bring down the recycleables, take out the trash, fill up the dogs water bowl thats downstairs and empty out the bottom rack of the dishwasher. Then its breakfast for ALL, my 9 yod clears the breakfast table, my 5 yod wipes the table down and my 8 yod brushes his teeth and starts guitar. Soon after, the girls are in the bathroom doing the same, my 9yod gets going with piano and I have about 40 minutes with the 5 yod by 7:45 AM. My 9 and 8 yod also have dusting once a week and that's it.

Curently Everyday Math, the school is trying to change to Singapore, but that's until middle school, then it's Foresman and then Prentice Hall in HS