Yeah, that's something for which you have to watch out. The forms from my district asked for many things that are not required by the regulations (e.g., asking for more details than necessary on performance, listing subject areas not required at the elementary level, such as library skills, etc.). I just politely set them all aside when I received them and went about my business using my own forms. ;)

I was in the same boat as you, as my ds turned 6 in August of his K year. That's what led me to order the LEAH guide, as I needed some guidance. (And that's why I responded to your post. I know what it's like to be just starting out in NY!) No, they most definitely cannot require you to use their paperwork. Just make sure you cover all the areas required in the regulations, so they can't come back and say you missed something. The first quarterly I wrote took me days, literally, as I was still learning the process and wanted to ensure I dotted every i and crossed every t. As time progressed, it has gotten so much easier and probably takes me all of 15 minutes, since I use the same form each time and just update the data.

I would still start at the beginning, as you would miss some great fine motor skill activity if you skipped the beginning books. If it makes you feel any better, we started with Book A last September, even though my dd knew her numbers past 100, knew and could write all of her letters and had a lot of practice cutting and pasting (from doing the Kumon books), and she still benefited from the series and begs to do the books on a daily basis. :001_smile:

It depends on the district. I reported my 6 yo as a kindergartener and when it came time for my quarterly to be due, my district sent me a letter saying I didn't need to submit any paperwork, since there are no requirements in the regs for kindergarten. (Too bad they didn't send it before I had written the quarterly!) I'm sure there are other districts that would require something, but even then, your quarterly could be very simple - just one paragraph briefly talking about what you're doing. Since there are no subject requirements, you wouldn't even have to go into detail about each specific content area. From 1st grade on up, I've learned to streamline the process of reporting and I've never had an issue with my district. To give you an example, on my ds's IHIP, for math, I simply list the textbook I'm using, along with the publisher's name, city & state. Then for each quarterly, I just list the lessons we covered. For this recent quarter, I just wrote "Lessons 51-100." I follow this same pattern for each subject. If there are "non-textbook" subjects, I just state what we did during the quarter. For example, for music, I wrote "Weekly Violin Lessons & Two Group Performances." At the end of the quarterly, I have a paragraph where I write something along the lines that my ds made satisfactory or above progress in all areas. This is my fourth year of reporting and thankfully, everything I've submitted has been accepted without question. At first I thought I had to add much more, but after reading the guide put out by LEAH (containing sample IHIP's and quarterlies), I realized how simple the process could actually be. :001_smile:

Interesting. I think the reason I've never heard of the letter is that none of the homeschooling families I know get one. (I'm from upstate NY.) When their children are ready for college, all they do is submit their transcript (done by the mother). Thankfully, none have had any trouble getting into college, even SUNY schools. I can't speak about financial aid, as I've never discussed that with them. In my experience, many colleges are glad to get the homeschoolers, because of their reputation for being such good students.

What letter?

Actually, not in NY. We're only required to report to the district from the ages of 6-16, even if a child is still in 10th grade. As far as the OP's question, I would not skip a grade. Many homeschoolers have children that do work a grade level or more above their official grade. In our case, my 9yo, 3rd grader tested at a post high school level in reading, is finishing up 4th grade math, etc., but I've chosen to keep his official grade at 3rd for several reasons. One, I never feel pressure when it comes time for testing, as I know he'll always do well for his "grade" level. Secondly, I want him older when he attends college, to have more maturity under his belt and thirdly, I much prefer him being with 3rd graders in other group settings. If I listed him as 4th or 5th grade, based on his work, he would be exposed to things much sooner than I prefer, especially as he enters the teen years.

I thought some of the activities in Beyond were too time-consuming and that the amount of learning didn't match the time involvement, but it turns out that my ds absolutely loved doing them and they were a highlight of his studies. On a daily basis, he would beg to do HOD! This year, we're doing Bigger and although I started out with the intention of doing all of the left side, I've been finding myself doing the reading, but skipping many of the activities. I know my ds would enjoy them, but we're supplementing HOD with other areas and there just isn't the time in the day for everything. It's a balancing act that I haven't quite conquered!

Rod and Staff includes some of what could be considered copywork. Their first grade workbook has the students writing the addition/subtraction fact families from 1-10 as part of each daily assignment. Their second grade book has a lot of copywork of the addition/subtraction facts 11-18. Both grade levels have supplemental blackline masters that also include some additional opportunities for copywork. http://www.rodandstaffbooks.com/list/Mathematics_for_Christian_Living_Series/

We did a similar one with HOD, where my ds smeared shortening all over one hand and then put both hands in ice cold water. It's messy, but it works really well to demonstrate the impact of blubber.

Rod & Staff

Hmmm. I'm not sure where you saw the part about DITHOR being required. I know the core books are required, but DITHOR is optional. Here's a quote from the Bigger Packages page: "If your child is an independent reader, choose Drawn into the Heart of Reading Teacher's Guide and Level 2/3 Student Book below or use your own program." We use R&S Reading along with HOD, although we've dabbled in DITHOR. I'd like to use it again, as a supplement, but finding the time in the day is the problem.

Have you looked at the Kumon books? They have several maze books, as well as related books. My maze-loving daughter has loved them and always begs for more. Here's one, just for an example: http://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Mazes-Kumons-Practice-Books/dp/4774307106/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328236068&sr=8-1

It must be a regional thing, because yes, around here (upstate NY), we do say ank and ink with the short vowels sounds. On the other hand, with her southern accent, my mother would use long a with ank. Having said that, OPGTR didn't work here. I think AAS is a great program. I wish it had been out when I started homeschooling.

I've been teaching my 9yo ds Hebrew and Greek. For Hebrew, I purchased the board book "Itty Bitty Baby Learns Hebrew" from www.triviumpursuit.com. I'm not sure why they call it a baby book, as it's been a perfect fit for teaching the alphabet to my ds. After I introduce a letter using "Itty Bitty Baby," I then have my ds do the corresponding pages, at a rate of one page a day, from "Let's Learn the Alef Bet: Reading Readiness Book for The Hebrew Primer," which I purchased from www.behrmanhouse.com. The Behrman House has some excellent resources, so when my ds finishes "Let's Learn the Alef Bet," I plan on purchasing the next level book from them. I have liked the combination of "Itty Bitty Baby" and "Let's Learn the Alef Bet," although there are some differences that confused me at first, such Beth vs. Bet or Waw vs. Vav. Thankfully, I have a brother who is proficient in Hebrew from his studies in seminary, and he explained that the sound of the letter is what's important, rather than what a particular group calls the letter. My ds and I have also enjoyed singing the Alef Bet song along with http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21-qxk53PvM&feature=related.

I hope I don't offend anyone, but I thought I'd share a personal experience that probably reinforces many of the OP's concerns. My niece was unschooled all through her homeschooling. Though she was (and still is) very motivated, grew up without a television and was involved in a myriad of interest-based educational activities, she's repeatedly felt short-changed. Although she is outstanding in her knowledge of areas of interest and she is very self-directed when she sets her mind to a task, she feels her education was quite lacking in the basic academic areas. When she went to college, she was required to take remedial writing and remedial math courses before persuing her degree. Now that she has her own children, she's gone the complete opposite of her upbringing and is very structured, because she doesn't want her children to fare as she did.

I only have two, a 9yo ds in 3rd grade and a 4yo dd, but your comment above is exactly why we use a schedule. Without it, I know I would be devoting most of my time to my 3rd grader and keeping up our house. With a schedule, I have specific times that I work with my dd. She loves it and it ensures she gets my time. I basically rotate the children. For example, when my ds is working with me on his math lesson, my dd is doing activities such as puzzles or Lauri toys. After that, my ds will do his math assignment while I work with my dd on preschool activities. The next time I work with my ds 1:1, my dd has playtime in her room. After that my ds reads independently while I read to my dd. We do have joint times, where I read to or work with both children together, as well. Most of our schedule is by 30 minute blocks (except history, science and quiet time), as that is what works for us at this time. Each day, we do about 4.5 hours of academic work, 45 minutes of music practice and 1.5-2 hours of read alouds.

Based on what you've shared, I think you'd love R&S. Even though I have a math degree and spent years teaching math, I still love the layout and clear direction of the TM. As far as number of problems and skipping any, so far we haven't. I have actually found that the repetition and drill has resulted in my ds REALLY knowing his facts and thus flying through the material. Grades 1 and 2 didn't take him long at all. In grade 3, the copying was taking too long, so I ended up having him use the textbook as a workbook. With writing in the text, he could finish a lesson in about 15-20 minutes. For grade 4, there often isn't enough room to write in the book, so I have him do his work on lined paper; however, to shorten the time, I will write out about 2/3's of the copying problems on our chalkboard and he will do them there. This has brought the length of time for him to complete an assignment down to 30 minutes (on a non-dawdling day :001_smile:), which is "just right" for us. P.S. Just to show how R&S can, indeed, be advanced for a mathy kid, today, when I had ds do 365 divided by 5 on the chalkboard, he immediately said, "Oh! That's 1/5 of a year!" When I asked him to give me a fraction equivalent to 1/2, he said, 50,000,000,000/100,000,000,000. :001_smile:

Well, I have a very bright, "mathy" son and we adore R&S. We've done 1,2,3 and are about 1/2 through 4. I had considered switching at one point, earlier this year, but my ds was very adamant that he wanted to stay with R&S, as he felt it was more thorough than any of the other programs I considered. I know many love CLE, but it didn't fit our style, as I prefer more teacher involvement in the lessons, which is the way R&S is laid out.

One thing that helped my ds when he was a wee one was to play "count down." 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, ... BLAST OFF! Simple, but effective. Also, R&S sells flash cards that include practice with before and after numbers, if you want additional reinforcement. Here's the link: http://www.rodandstaffbooks.com/item/1-13141/?list=Mathematics_for_Christian_Living_Series

I taught math for over 10 years and despite using a myriad of sources and textbooks, I've always seen ratios written in all three forms: 2:3, 2 to 3 and 2/3. (I just now checked a Saxon book and it has a whole lesson teaching the student to write the ratio of 2 boys to 3 girls as 2/3.) This is the first time I've ever heard anyone say that a ratio shouldn't be expressed like that, so I'm curious as to where you got your information. To the OP, when we taught ratios in the public school, we simply told our students that (in this instance) 2/3 is just another way to write a ratio - it isn't a fraction, but simply another notation for a ratio. That explanation seemed to be all the students needed to avoid confusion between fractions and ratios. One reason I like showing the students the 2/3 form is that it makes words problems easier to solve. If I said, "The ratio of girls to boys in a class is 2/3. If there are 12 girls, how many boys are there?" the students could simply set up a proportion, 2/3 = 12/x and cross multiply. Of course, they could also write 2:3 = 12:x and use "the product of the means equals the product of the extremes," but they always found it less confusing to set up a proportion.

I was in your shoes several years ago. I began by supplementing Saxon with R&S and ended up switching over completely. Now that we've gone through R&S 1, 2, 3 and part of 4, I can look back and see the outstanding foundation laid by R&S, the ease with which my ds flies through math problems (both the basic facts, as well as harder math problems), and the thoroughness of the program. As a former math teacher, those things are important to me. :001_smile:

For R&S 2, we did one lesson a day, 5 days a week. We did about 1/2 to 2/3 orally and then my ds did the remaining work independently, in writing, on notebook paper. (The part he did was evenly divided among each part of the assignment.) For R&S 3, we do one lesson a day, 4 days a week. As with last year, we usually do 1/2 to 2/3 orally, although I have ds do all of any diagramming assignments, as I think they're great practice and they don't take that long. If the purpose of the assignment is hampered by our doing it orally, I have my son do the writing; however, if he would learn just as well doing it orally, we go that route. My goal is to spend about 15 minutes working with my ds on the lesson and 15 minutes of him working independently. If I had him do the entire lesson written, it could easily take him 30-45 minutes, depending on the length of the assignment.

We've used R&S Math 1-3 and just finished lesson 49 of R&S Math 4. As time goes on, my appreciation for R&S has grown much deeper. It is extremely thorough and yet, quite gentle. I have a mathy son and yet the repetition and thoroughness has been just what he needs, plus the oral drill in the TM has been very effective and beneficial. We do Singapore along the side, but frankly, I'm finding that R&S eventually covers much of the mental math found in Singapore. I love how my son knows the facts in and out and can breeze through his math work because of that. I also love the solid conceptual foundation he has developed. My only negative is the amount of copying involved in Math 4 on up. I would prefer that the student books were in workbook form, to save time during our day. Despite that, I will say that my son is adjusting to the copying and has become quite accurate with the copying as a result of the daily work.

We love R&S here, but I wouldn't recommend it for that age, mainly because of all the writing involved. This becomes even more pronounced as a child progresses to the grade 2 books. To give you some perspective, R&S recommends that girls be 6 and boys 6 1/2 before starting the 1st grade work.