I'm glad I could help! :001_smile: For 1st grade, we did do many of the worksheets, but for 2nd grade, I've found the 4 pages in the workbook seem to be just the right amount for ds. I have, on occasion, pulled out a worksheet if I felt he needed some extra practice, but it's been rare for the 2nd grade math. My original plan was to finish 2nd grade math in May, and then use some of the worksheets over the summer for review, but it's July and we're just finishing the last workbook, so I'm just going to give ds a few weeks off and start up the grade 3 book in mid-August. We, too, love the combination of Bible and reading. My dh has been impressed at all the Bible knowledge our ds has been gleaning. It's one of the factors that keeps us returning to R&S. I've tried a variety of schedules, some more successful than others. :tongue_smilie: Last school year, we did reading, phonics & handwriting in the morning and math (as well as science & history) after lunch, when my dd napped, since it gave me some undivided time to teach ds. This upcoming school year, I'm hoping to do reading, phonics, English, spelling, handwriting and math in the morning and then history, science & geography in the afternoon. Now that dd is older, I think it will be doable. I find my ds does need breaks. Last year, his limit was about an hour and then we had to shift gears. By the end of the year, he was able to go two hours, as long as there was a "Go run up and down the stairs 10 times." quick break in between! :001_smile:. Most recently, I've broken things up so that we do two, one hour blocks, each with a 1/2 hour of 1:1, followed by a 1/2 hour of independent work and then we do "Morning Gathering," where my dc have a snack & I read aloud to them, followed by some active play. (It's during ds's independent work that I work with dd.) After Morning Gathering, we do another block of 1:1/independent work and then my ds practices his violin. The children have an hour break for lunch to give time for eating, "Teatime Studies" (composer, artist & hymn study, poetry, memory work, etc.) and outdoor playtime. After this, dd naps and ds takes a quiet time, during which he listens to books on tape. Following quiet time, we have "Exploring Time," where we do history, geography and science, along with art projects and literature read alouds. Since we school some during the summer, we're able to have lighter Fridays, so that's when I do Artpacs and R&S's music, as well as extra activities, such as science experiments and field trips. I’ve recently been acquainted with Heart of Dakota and love what they have to offer. I'm very committed to R&S, so what I've been doing is integrating HOD into our day, as I can. I use their "Scheduled Books for Emerging Readers" with ds, to give him extra practice reading, I will be using their history, Bible study (which is really a devotional), science & geography as part of our "Exploring Time" and I use their literature suggestions in our read aloud time. Their recommended English is R&S, so that fits right in and though they recommend Singapore math, they advocate parents using the math program that works for their child, so using R&S works well. (By the way, in case you noticed in my signature, I do supplement with Singapore math, but only because ds is very mathy and begs to do it! It's fun for him and if we can fit it in, we do; however, R&S is our core program.) I did purchase R&S's science, history and health workbooks, but I'm thinking of using them just for extra reading/discussion for ds, in the same way we use A Beka's history, although I'm still in the planning process. I hope I'm not overwhelming you with too much information! I just thought I'd share what has worked for us, in case any of it is helpful for you.

We're just finishing up R&S Math 2 and we loved it. Yes, it is a lot of drill, but it works! My son just took his standardized test and received a perfect score on both math computation and math concepts. I will add that we did everything as written in the TM - all the activities, the boat poster, the bee and clover posters, etc. It was definitely worth the time to do everything, as it all fits so nicely together and made a well-rounded program. My ds loves that he can quickly and easily answer any addition or subtraction fact, plus he really enjoyed the whole bee and clover theme of the 2nd grade book. I know some criticize R&S for being too drill oriented, but my dh equates it to learning the scales when playing music ...it's not the most exciting thing, but it's necessary and it gives a great foundation. I'm excited about the foundation that has been laid and plan on using R&S all the way. After the first 3 grades, the program really picks up and I'm looking forward to all that ds will learn down the road. (FWIW, I'm a former middle/high school math teacher and can vouch for the effectiveness of R&S's approach. I can't tell you the number of students who struggled because they did not have quick recall of the facts.) We also are partway through unit 1 of the 2nd grade reading and phonics. I have found grade 2 to be much less teacher intensive than grade 1. The grade 2 reading does, however, have a lot of writing for the student - 4 pages vs. the 2 pages in grade 1. We've been doing 1/2 a lesson a day - the "Before You Read" section one day and reading the reader and "After You Read" section the next day. So far, that has worked well. I'm going to monitor as the year progresses as to whether we'll continue as is, or move to doing the whole lesson in one day. As far as time frames, this is how it plays out for us: Grade 2 math - 45 minutes for both the lesson and ds doing the assignment. (Note: at the beginning of grade 2, it took ds about 30 minutes to do a worksheet; at the end, it only took him 10-15 minutes.) Grade 2 phonics - 15 minutes for both the lesson and the workbook (I expect this to lengthen to 20-30 minutes, once we get past the review.) Grade 2 reading - 20 minutes for the lesson and reading the reader; 45-60 minutes for completing the workbook (Note: As mentioned above, we currently are spreading this over two days, until ds is able to complete the workbook in less time.) Grade 2 spelling - I expect it to take about 15 mintues a day for everything. Disclaimer: The above times don't include dawdling time! :tongue_smilie: HTH!

Not to confuse things, but actually, this is the opposite of our desires. If we had called our son what he would be, according to our school cut-off, he would be going into 3rd. We intentionally called him 2nd, because socially, we didn't want him with 3rd graders so soon. For example, in our homeschooling co-op, the grade divisions are 1-2 and 3-4. Because he is called a 2nd grader, we can keep him with 1st graders another year. If we had called him a 3rd grader, he'd been lumped with 4th graders. We didn't want that. Down the road, we'll also get another year before he's exposed to typical middle school discussions. For college, we wanted another year of maturity under his belt. Hope this makes sense. :001_smile:

I've always wished I could drop the grade level classification, as it does seem senseless for homeschooling. The problem comes, however, when other groups use the grade levels for sorting children. I'm thinking of Sunday School, VBS, youth groups, homeschooling co-ops, outside activities, etc. The consideration of this contributed strongly to our decision to hold back our ds. Although our church doesn't have Sunday School and the like, I knew there'd be other settings where I wanted ds to stay on the younger end of the age groupings. Down the road, I want him to have more time before being exposed to more mature issues.

Interestingly, the opposite of this is one of the factors that played a role in our deciding to delay 1st. I looked down the road and wanted our ds older when he graduated. For us, not only was an extra year of maturity beneficial for starting first grade, it is also something we desire when ds is ready for college. I have a late October birthday and started K at 4 and college at 17. I was successful, but I definitely would have greatly benefitted from starting a year later on both ends.

After our ds had finished K, he turned 6 in August and we chose to do a K/1 year, in between his K and 1 years. It's one of the best decisions we have ever made in our homeschooling. Although academically he was ready to move on, giving him that extra year to mature has reaped immeasurable benefits. Instead of rushing ahead, we've been savoring the moments and enjoying his childhood. I have no regrets about our decision. :001_smile:

I was considering using Apologia General on up, down the road, until I read the comments by Carrie on this: http://www.heartofdakota.com/board3/viewtopic.php?p=18435#p18435 This thread (here on WTM) seems to give quite a different perspective. Any thoughts on the above linked post, from those who have used Apologia? :bigear:

You might find the book "Managers of Their Schools" interesting and helpful. The authors, Steve & Teri Maxwell, are Christian homeschooling parents of 8 and in addition, Teri battled depression when her children were young. She specifically wrote the book for mothers in situations like yours. The link to their site, with information about the book, is: www.titus2.com

I'd recommend e-mailing Carrie, herself. I did that when I was uncertain and within a day she replied with a personal e-mail containing a lot of helpful insight based on my personal situation.

Thank you for taking the time to reply. It's very helpful for me to have the perspective of experienced users.

Yes, just the Reading. (We also do the Phonics, but I feel I have a good handle on that.) I absolutely loved Grade 1 Reading, so I have been excited about beginning Grade 2; however, yesterday it took us over two hours (and some tears) to complete all of the TM exercises and the workbook. I looked ahead and some lessons have six pages, compared to yesterday's four, so I can only imagine how long that will take. DS loves the reader and I do love what he is learning, but I also want to balance the time with everything else we want to do. So, with your DD doing some outloud and some written (and with not doing the TM), do you have an estimate of how long it takes you each day? Thanks again!

Thank you, this is helpful. Since you are doing one lesson a week, are you planning on just finishing part of Grade 2 reading or are you planning on extending it over another year or so?

bumping again for one more try :001_smile:

bump

For those of you who have used Grade 2 Rod and Staff Reading, I'm wondering how long each lesson took to complete. Specifically, if you did the exercises in the teacher's manual, how much time did it take to work with your child? Then, for the part of the workbook the child does independently, how long did that usually take your child? A comparison with Grade 1 would be helpful, as well. Thanks so much!

I would say most definitely. Although you could just have your child do the workbook, I strongly feel the teacher's manual greatly adds to the program. I found the explanations of the various rules, the extra practice, the directions for conducting the spelling drills, etc. very beneficial. Also, in units 4&5, we found the sentence dictations, which coincide with the spelling and punctuation/capitalization practice, to be invaluable.

From my understanding, Saxon 5/4 reviews a lot, so as long as a child knows all of his facts (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division), he should be just fine. I would not recommend jumping into 5/4 if he doesn't have the facts mastered. HTH ETA: I also think readiness and maturity are factors to be considered, as there is substantially more writing involved in Saxon 5/4, since the students are copying problems from the text, rather than having a worksheet. I remember back when my son did Saxon 1. Intellectually, he was quite advanced and the material in Saxon 1 was very easy for him, but the amount of writing was very difficult for him, because his fine motor skills were not nearly as developed as his cognitive abilities. As time went on and the fine motor skills caught up, everything fell into place, but I feel I caused unnecessary stress in the beginning. 'Just something to consider! :-)

Would you give me an estimate for the amount of time each day and week that was needed, in order to finish the course in 12 weeks? (This is for everything - reading, narrating, notebooking, projects, etc.) Thanks!

I'm confused on what you want. It seems like the above definition of syllable contradicts what you're trying to find out. Do you just want to know if people pronounce boil "boy-uhl" or "bowl"? If so, I'm not sure I understand why you are having folks use the above definition, since it is already shows "boil" as having only one syllable. :001_huh:

I think we're disagreeing on semantics, here. I pronounce it "boy-uhl" like you (although I don't say it as distinctly as boy .... uhl, but more of a blending of the two parts), but don't consider that to be two syllables. Yes, "oi" has two sounds, but they're not separate syllables, by definition, if you go strictly by the rules of English, which classify diphthongs as one syllable. (Those rules are why dictionaries list boil, coil, coy, etc. as having only one syllable.) ETA: I just re-read what you wrote about it not being the diphthong, but the syllabic "l" that makes it two syllables. If it's the "l" and not the diphthong, then it would follow that every word ending in "l" would have more than one syllable. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the reason you are considering "l" to be syllabic is that the diphthong is making it sound that way to you.

It might help if you compare it to pronouncing "bowl." I think you would agree that "bowl" is one syllable. The difference with "boil" is that there is a diphthong in the middle, making it appear to have two syllables, but since by definition, a diphthong is a "mono-syllabic vowel with two sounds," there really is only one syllable.

They're available now for MOH 1, at $8 a quarter.

To be honest, I wouldn't bother asking him to change. In the 8 years I taught PS math, I never saw a math teacher require homework to be done by columns. Some of my students used rows and others columns. (For what it's worth, I currently use R&S math and they teach the students to use rows.) As long as I could clearly see their answers and they were in order, either way was fine with me. The one thing I didn't like (and didn't allow) was when their answers were all over the paper (and yes, I had students who did that, even when I taught a college class!! Urghh!) or when they were not clearly labeled #1, #2, etc. The easiest for me was when they circled their answers.

I wanted to view the new book, but didn't want to spend the money, since I own the 2004 edition. I asked my library if they would purchase the book and much to my delight, they did. Perhaps you could try that.

How long does CLE reading take you each day, including any instructional time? Does it change year by year? Thanks!