Oh shoot, I was thinking of buying some of their illustrated classics (like this http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0794524192/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_8?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER), since I know my DD would love the stories but isn't ready for the originals yet. Have you tried any of those?

Yes, not to mention that in ensuring a high percentage of children can meet those minimum standards, differentiation centers around the poorly performing students rather than those performing average and above, since they can meet standards without much teacher effort. Other than high ability learner pullouts (which in many cases are a joke) I've heard from friends that the latter students are largely ignored...either made to sit through teaching on subjects they already know, or given their own work to do but with little teacher oversight.

I have friends who swore by it for teething saying it worked almost immediately, so maybe there's something to it for more minor pain. I can't imagine it helping much for something severe as a migraine, though.

One of my main issues with all this teaching to the test is that it completely stifles the development of curiosity, creative thought and problem solving skills, which are so much more important in the long run than most of what is testable. Our schools are starting to fall behind not only in math and LA, but in trying to fix those issues we're also now falling behind much of the rest of the developed world in problem solving There are countries that test heavily that seem to be doing something right, though. China has started to steer away from a testing-based curriculum because they recognize this is an issue. And I read an article recently on education in South Korea, where they emphasize and excel in both test taking and creative thinking, and their students excel in both. (Of course the school day/year is significantly longer, which is something that will probably never happen here.)

You now have 4 stars. ;)

Our Overdrive titles expire after 2 weeks (renewable 3 times), even if we transfer them. (I've only tried on iPad and Kindle, not SD, but the app forces you to return them.)

I love these threads! They always give me new books to add to our list...My suggestions: Anything by Dick King-Smith Twig, and Big Susan (Elizabeth Orton) The Littles series My Father's Dragon trilogy Barefoot Books...The Barefoot Book of Monsters was our favorite (recommended here) but we've also read Princesses and Animals so far. Some of D'Aulaire's books (We've read Book of Trolls and Children of the Northlights so far, and have Norse Myths waiting in the wings) The Adventures of Pip How Many Spots Does a Leopard Have (stories) James Herriot's collection for children We've also read several of my own favorites from childhood, which my 4yo understood and loved more than I'd ever imagined she might at this age, including Stuart Little, Cricket in Times Square, Wind in the Willows and The Mouse and the Motorcycle.

I have a problem and obviously need intervention. My DD is such an enthusiastic learner that it's driven me over the edge this year. I look at book samples and imagine how much she'll love them, and because of that I buy everything, EVERYTHING, that looks fun. If there were 200 hours in a day I'd be set, but because I'm stuck with 14 hours, and don't want to school more than 1.5, maybe 2h a day for my young rising K'er I know I'm going to have to put some of my fun, wonderful books away. Which makes me want to cry. Not even counting the books I've bought and decided won't work for us, these are the books I love and have to decide between: Science: I have Sassafras, and want to go through BFSU again, I also bought The Private Eye which is amazing...It covers science/art/creativity, I'm reading through it now, and I'm dying to use it as well, we do kitchen table experiments I find online, and I have numerous science kits and books with experiments that I've bought on impulse, some of which have barely been touched. LA: I'm going to do HWT-K, and bought LOE-Foundations B, but now I think I should have bought C instead, or not bought anything at all, because we're doing well and having fun just with shared reading. LOE does some spelling, but I don't know if spelling makes sense for K anyway. RLTL has been calling to me for awhile now, and I'm having to sit on my hands to keep from ordering it. Math: We're going to move on to RSB, but we're also fooling around with Miquon Orange when she's in the mood, and MEP when I'm in the mood for somethign different. We also have LoF Apples through Dogs... :crying: Extras: For music we're doing piano, and I bought SQUILT which looks amazing (but how the heck to fit it in?) I've also bought MP K Enrichment along with art cards, and we do a fair amount of cultural studies and other NF reading. Are any of these necessary? In my mind...maybe? Kind of? Because I want to show her that school is about so much more than the 3R's, and give her a full appreciation of the world around her. We also do 1-2h of read alouds (not included in the 1.5h I want to spend on schooling) and we spend a couple of hours outside playing, do field trips, errands, cook together, and of course just play. I know, I know, I'm ridiculous, she's so young and we have so much time to get through it all, everything here could be stretched out over 2-3 years and we'd still be okay, but darn it, I want to do it all now!!! My thoughts: Should I ditch the extra math besides RSB, maybe limit math to 2-3dpw? Forget about LOE and, since she's already ahead, just have her practice through real books which is more fun/fulfilling anyway? Do science only 1dpw (if at all) and not worry that we won't get through much? (She loves science though, especially the experiments I've found online, and has been having so much fun with Sassafras.) My other thought...What if I just semi-unschool, let her choose (within reason) each day what she wants to do, and forget schedules and planning? Do kids need to start learning structure of some sort by the age of 6?

I've had that same thought, but I'm guessing they don't want to let people know because of course we'd be much less likely to buy those items. Finding out about a backorder after placing an order is always annoying, but people are much more likely to just ride it out. I've only had one package held up for a backorder, and if I'm remembering right I received it within 10 days...Not ideal, but not that big a deal. I've also had 3 items that I waited forEVER for, over 6 months for one, but they didn't hold up the rest of my order, and luckily the item was just something I'd gotten for fun. I stick with them despite the annoyance because at least 3/4 of the time, for the items I've looked at, they're cheaper than Amazon, sometimes significantly so. I've also gotten good deals on non-branded manipulatives, which I wasn't able to find elsewhere. Plus, I get Amazon boxes all the time so even when they include learning materials they don't excite me. Nothing beats the thrill of seeing an RR box waiting outside your door...

We worked through one volume of FIAR over the past year, and really had fun with it, but in my mind the main benefit was that it showed me how to pay attention, REALLY pay attention, to our read-alouds, helping us go deeper into everything we read. Talking about everything from character traits to culture, and as FIAR suggests I'm now getting books on related topics out from the library for us to discuss, topics that might have been dry suddenly become fascinating because we can associate them with characters we've started to care about. (For example, we're currently reading the Catwings books, and as spin-offs we're learning about flight--how wings help birds, planes...and cats!...fly, as well as instincts which are discussed in one of the books.) So now I feel like I've gotten what I needed from FIAR, no need to spend money on the other volumes, I can do it almost as well on my own, with the books I choose (we weren't thrilled with a number of FIAR's suggestions) and without a lot of the busywork they suggested. Learning through fiction is a wonderful, sweet way to learn, and I think it's how we'll be focusing a lot of our studies for years to come.

It's crazy too that they've only sold 125 packages a year, and apparently less last year. Think of all the hs'ing Waldorf families, and they only can find 125 of them? Why don't they instead focus their efforts on improving their marketing (and website) in order to make the name well known?

I'm an author, so I get why publisher's would be upset about reselling. I work for years to write a book, and there are tens of thousands of used copies being sold that I make nothing off of, it almost feels like stealing. Readers own the hard copies, but I (and my publisher) own the content. I'm sure it's ten times worse for curriculum publishers whose programs cost hundreds of dollars...But of course it would be ridiculous to"forbid" resale, or claim that it's illegal, that's just silly. And obviously I'd never ask that people take pity on me and return their purchased copies just to help me stay afloat financially. I wonder if they think they can get away with it because those who espouse Waldorf philosophy truly believe that it's the only way to raise a child, that they'll make a better world if they help spread the message, like missionaries. To them it's a religion. (Does Enki teach anthroposophy?)

SUCH great tips, Iris. Thank you! I have no patience for reading material before I start using it, but I'll take your advice, and read at least till it starts making me twitch... My DD is really a poet at heart, she's come up with some pretty unique analogies of her own, so I'm really looking forward to seeing how that develops. (She writes her own stories till she gets tired of writing, usually after a sentence, lol, and then I transcribe.) She's not really into drawing, but I'm thinking of working with her on that, maybe creating joint projects. She's also a budding entomologist (who finds ways to include the words thorax and mandible in everyday conversation) and we do use a creature peeper she loves, I'm hoping the magnifiers will be a bit better quality though. I'm not sure how she'll feel about killing the bugs, she routinely saves bugs from the tub or driveway, and brings them to the grass so they can be reunited with their moms and dads. :lol: But luckily she believes me at this point when I tell her bugs are just sleeping, so I may just have to make them sleep myself before we study them. Again, I'm so excited! Thank you! The more you say and the more I read about it, the more this sounds tailor-made for my daughter.

Thanks! Just found it used for $5, including shipping. You've made me ten times more excited about this now. Yay! I love the intermix of science and creativity, it seems like it'll do so much to foster curiosity and love of nature!

I've been looking for nature-based curricula for my DD, and came across this program...It sounds fascinating, and so different from anything I've seen before, using a jeweler's loupe to magnify natural objects, drawing and writing about them, developing analogies between the objects and man-made structures, and learning about the beauty of things we take for granted. The website doesn't give much info, so I'm wondering if I could get by just buying the loupe and finding opportunities to use it, or whether the IG gives more creative suggestions than I'd be able to come up with on my own. Has anyone used this program? What do you think?

Ahhh, thank you! So the IG is $80, the consumables maybe another $30...Although somehow when I look at them all separately, without all the fun books, even knowing we'd be reading the same books without having to pay for them, it no longer looks anywhere near as appealing. :laugh: It's just the idea of building a curriculum with My Father's Dragon and Dr. Doolittle and Pooh that makes me feel giddy. I don't know what's wrong with me, the last thing I need is another curriculum choice! I think I'll wait to see how well people like it and then if it really is ALL THAT, consider it for 1st grade or mid-K.

Lalalalala, you didn't say anything did you? I can't heeaar you!!!! Gah, okay I looked. And their Reading with History is making me salivate, but if I bought it with the 1st grade readers it would be over $400(!!!) Just for reading and history!!! :lol: I wish there was a way to buy just the IG's, consumables and other unique resources, without the read alouds and the readers, all of which would be available for free at my library. Even so, I couldn't justify paying over $100 for K history...But darn it all, I WANT to.

Whitehawk, THANK YOU for recommending The Barefoot Book of Monsters!!! I ordered it after seeing your recommendation, and it's our new favorite book, we haven't had a new "read it againandagainandagain" book for the longest time. (It's a set of amazing, multicultural "monster" stories. The stories are fun and the writing is really lyrical so it's fun for me, as a writer, to read aloud.) I now seriously want to order all the "Barefoot Book of" books.

Thank you! Easy enough! :)

We go to library story time once or twice a week, and it does include a craft. She'll do what it takes to finish the craft (usually just sticking things together with a glue stick) but never wants to embellish it with the crayons/markers. I think part of the reason is she gets frustrated with her drawing ability, that pictures don't look like she sees them in her head, so gives up really quickly. Crayons for bath walls is a good idea, I'm going to try that! She does have puppets, and we use them for imaginary play pretty often. She actually likes clay/play dough/sand actually, so we do get some play time out of them, but never more than 10 minutes at a time. It just seems so strange to me, I've never met a kid who didn't want to spend most of their time with toys. I feel like I've wasted so much money trying to engage her.

If LOE looks best it might be best to start with Foundations, either level B or C (you could take a look at samples to see which might fit best.) I think you can get away with just the text and workbook, maybe also the phonogram cards, but those can be easily made yourself.

It seems like all my DD has ever wanted to do is read/be read to, and be taught (the small amount of schooling we do now) interspersed with imaginary play (which she'll lead, but she seems to need me or my DH to be a part of.) There's very little independent play at all. I've bought her every toy and game and art supply I could find that looked interesting and fun, but they just sit on the shelves unused, even though I'm always trying to engage her by playing with them myself. She'll play in playgrounds and we do go outside quite a bit, but even then she doesn't really play much, has no interest in ball or chase or bike riding or whatever, would much rather just with us and have conversations. Is she going to miss out on a lot by not doing regular play with toys? I mean I'm sure she will, even things like visuospatial skills she's not getting because she doesn't like puzzles/Legos/blocks, and fine motor skills that aren't progressing because she doesn't do art/drawing/coloring. Is there anything I should be doing that I haven't thought of? (She does like my iPad, but I want to really limit apps and other electronic toys, for now.)

It sounds like an O-G program like LOE or Spalding might work for him, because it does give rules to follow. How well is he reading now? Does he sound most words out fine and just need to build fluency? Or does he need to learn more basic phonemes.

Shawthorne, or anyone else who's used Torchlight books, I ordered one used after reading this thread and it came without the actual torch. Grrr. So I'm trying to figure out how it's supposed to work...Can I reproduce it just by using a circle of white paper on a Popsicle stick? And then you just move it around under the transparency to reveal various bits of it?

Hmm, I hear what you're saying, Crimson Wife, but I've always felt like unless a word is used and reused many times it's probably not going to stick long term. I don't know if what I think of as typical vocab study, where you're thrown obscure words that aren't usually used in conversation, maybe need to use them throughout the week but then never again, really would help most kids retain them a year later. I think coming across words in your reading and looking them up and digesting the meaning that way seems just as useful. I don't remember formal vocab study until I was in high school, and even then it was minimal, but now I have a huge vocabulary just because I've always read a ton. My DD is still young, but she also has an amazing vocabulary, probably 3rd grade level or above, just because we read for hours a day and I define the words as we go. They feel like a useful part of life to her, rather than just something she'd have to study for a test.