Yes to the oldest book. I need to get it for the youngest level. I was thinking the same way about a lesson 2-3 times a week. Yea, I'm making do but yet at the same time, it's not. I bought these books because I felt they were good and would work and now I need to do that. Instead, I look to what everyone else is doing or the latest catalog and buy something else that winds up sitting on the shelf beside the first. :) I think some of them have been with me several years. Why do I have books that I am not using? So this year is use it or get rid it of it. :001_smile:

Well that explains why I can't spell. :tongue_smilie: We just did words list with no rhyme or reason. Thanks for the links and I will check out that program. I think ABC does a good layout of rules and then I could just use the others to make out the list that follows those rules. Now what about phonics? We did 100 easy lessons but after that i didn't find much that went beyond that. Which is why I bought Abc's and syllabication rule booklet. Is there something else? I have flashcards from 2 different places that give all these pieces of words and on the back it tells you how to pronounce it and the exceptions. Is that enough? If I actually do them (funny how things work that way) shouldn't the flashcards with a list of spelling rules work for a good phonics base? We have never really done spelling or gone beyond 100 EL. Their dad just works with them as they read outloud. Oh and mine are 11 and 8

Thanks how do you think you will use it? Just wondering if there is a different way than what I had in mind.

Okay I am not a speller and confess that it is a horrible task for me. Is the whole point of spelling, just do it? Like the Nike commercials - Just do it My kids can't spell. No shock there since we never touch spelling since I am so poor at it. However before I run out and buy another program, someone tell me the whole point is you just take a list and work it till you can spell it. There are fancy programs, basic programs but the point is to actively work a list of words you can't spell. RIGHT??? Given that I can't spell, I wasn't sure if it is simply that simple. I have the following (I'm trying not to buy anything else ) McGuffey Speller Abc's and all their tricks a 4 th grade spelling book and workbook Victory Drill book If I just make up lists and make sure they do them and test them, won't that improve their spelling? Yea, it's time for me but I have these resources on hand. Is spelling that simple?? Do I need to group it around word families? I don't remember my spellers at school doing that but maybe that's why I have a hard time LOL! Thanks!

Anybody use Harvey's Elementary?? And would Janice Cleaves books work for science? I am trying to be a good steward (sigh) and use what is available on my shelf. Thanks Stacie

We are dairy and gluten free. I do remember that oreos and cheerios are dairy free. Some kinds of animal crackers, push pops are dairy free, Fruity pebbles, cocoa pebbles, rice chex, beef frank ball park hot dogs, Vienna sausages, small size moon pies, Act 11 butter lover popcorn was dairy free (yea go figure!), And food allergies can come and go. My middle's dairy came on when he was 7. Just out of the blue. One day he was fine the next he was a skinny rail living in the bathroom. And dairy could be a problem with the processing, lactose, whey, or casein, In theory, he could have had a problem with one, gotten over it and then had a problem with the other. And gluten issues are known to cause dairy issues. So it could be a different problem that is just noticeable with the dairy. IF it doesn't clear up in a reasonable time, break out the food diary and start charting. I think I wrote a novel between my kids. Good luck!

Almond milk here. And if you are avoiding milk because of a gluten connection, Rice milk by Rice dream has enough gluten in it to be a problem for some but not enough to go over the ppm limit from my understanding. We fell in love with almond chocolate milk YUM YUM!!

I made the leap from 6b to NEM. We had used Singapore as our spine with all the supplements, with Miquon and then used Saxon as a back up to make sure the concepts were solid. However, since I had Saxon algebra 1, I decided to move my son into that. That was a disaster!!!! Saxon simply didn't explain it in a way that made any kind of sense to him. HEck, It didn't make any sense to me and I can do Alegbra in my sleep. We finally just scraped it and bought NEM. No problems since. I have a mathy oldest and non mathy middle. Both have done the same math route (middle one just started 2 years later than the oldest) Both have had no trouble with understanding or getting Singapore. Both test very well in math. I do credit Miquon with making my kids "mathy" I figured the middle one would not be able to do Miquon since it doesn't give direction or make much sense at all sometimes but he has done very well with it. He's finishing up second grade and will start the purple book this summer. Just something about that program that works. I've all ready started picking up books at used sales for the baby. :D

I never used Saxon 1,2,3. I taught the operations with counters, had them memorize math facts and moved into Saxon 5/4 with the math kid in grade 1 and the non math kid in grade 3. As preschoolers, they moved the number on the calendar and stuck the day on the board (Today is Monday) neither seem to have issues and never had problems with Saxon 5/4. So I would say skipping is just fine.:D

Thicker skin!! Yep that best describes it. Think tiny little pale see through skin with broken straw hair that screamed 24/7 with claws that hooked into you and wouldn't let go ....UGH. Some days I thought I had given birth to a screaming banshee monster like that little ghoul in Harry potter. The first time she smiled on the gluten free diet, I cried. I hadn't seen her smile in probably 5 months. Her vitamin levels were so low, the ped said corpses had higher levels. Life was scary. I can't even imagine how bad she felt. A year later, her skin is thicker, almost with color as her vit d is still low, her hair is beautiful and she rarely screams. In fact yesterday, she even played hide and seek with her brothers and counted to 5 all by herself. A year ago, she didn't even talk, look at people, or socialize in anyway. SHe now speaks in full complete sentences and will sometimes speak to someone outside the family. She at least will now smile at strangers instead of hiding her head in my shoulder and screaming louder. I believe I am deaf in one ear due to the hihg pitched screaming. Gluten free is not as bad as people first think. Biggest thing is to retrain your taste buds. We ate out of the produce and meat section only for 2 solid months. THen we added in one type of "baked" good - like pancakes - until we found the one we liked the best. Then we added in like one thing a month, each time exploring different types of that one thing until we found one we all liked pretty well. We now have a decent cupcake, cake, pancake, loaf of bread, and cookie recipe. ANd chicken potpie and cornbread. We are now trying to find a fluffy high biscuit. SO far we have only made flat biscuit cookies.:D But we keep trying.

Yep, But we are a group of the 8% who test negative on both the blood and biopsy tests. My baby was so sick with a classic case of celiac (but neg tests)that we had to do the diet out of sheer desperation to save her life. The gi claims we are allergic to wheat, rye, barely and oats, the allergist says we have no chance of being allergic to any of that and the ped says we defy current normal -ie AMerican - medical beliefs concerning celiac and gluten. By doing the diet, we discovered solutions to my lifelong gi problems and my oldest son's problems. Gluten never made me sick or so I thought. After a year of being gluten free, I now get very sick if I eat any. It also took 9 months of very stirct gluten free life style-everything from soaps to the forks we used was inspected and had to pass - before I saw the first signs of recovery. Now after a year, I finally have started to feel good. THe baby took about 2 months to being to recover and now after 1 year is pretty much fully recovered other than still being behind in some developmental stages.

I use intensive and challenging when they enter book 2 each year. So my middle on is now 3b and just started cw 3 and intensive 3a. They do present concepts a little faster so you can easily work out of one book before you finished the text book. Plus, it provides great review without seeming like a review. If you join the yahoo group, you can search posts for books on the Singapore madness but I believe the one mentioned is the one that explained it well. Sort of like a teacher explanation. I read it thinking if I was doing an in service day, it would run a lot like this book. The extras do add a lot. We didn't do them in the early years the first time and missed the explanation on how to do the rod layouts. I believe that was in the cw book 2 (?). Made a lot more sense the second time around when we did all three books.

I've used SIngapore from the start. I have no clue what it is trying to teach other than "math".:glare: it teaches math in direct contradiction to what I was taught. (FUzzy math student here) Once I stepped out of the way with my kids, they have done fine with the program. And I have one "mathy" kid who can answer the question before I finish reading the problem and one not mathy at all. Amazingly, he's doing just as well with the program. SIngapore teaches math in a true math way, jumping not in an order like American math but in an order that a math mind would naturally jump too. ( skip counting automatically lends itself to multiplication, 2 digit subtraction automatically leads to 3 and 4 digit subtraction. One doesn't teach the more advanced problems because the knowledge is all ready there. The student simply needs to make the connection to complete the jump.) The biggest I found was to buy all the major parts - PRimary book, intensive books, and challenging word problems books as some info is one book and different info in another. What I did was sit down with each one and have them read the lesson to me. Once they could do that well, I then stepped back and said do this page and then let me check the answers. I have only taught the rod diagramming as that takes a little bit of getting used to and has been the largest and pretty much only hands on instruction either child needed. And that was in one of the extra books. I also read every book I could on the way Singapore teaches math and how to do it. Very enlightening. their high school students probably on average have a better understanding of math then most American math teachers. Not that they are better than a teacher here but their understanding why this is done this way or why this math works this way is far superior. I would say one needs to study the "method behind the madness" to use Singapore and how they teach it. And join the yahoo group SIngapore math. They help me with the rod diagramming constantly when I just can't "see" the problem. Another thing I found was that their culture just doesn't accept non math people. THey except you to be able to read and understand language AND understand math just as well. IT's not an either/or like we are used to here. I definitely have never been a math person. I can now do more math than in highschool after going thru the program the first time with the oldest. I now apporach math with the idea that you learned to read,write, you can learn math just as well. It doesn't have to be one or the other Just my input. Having two kids so totally different in math, I see how Singapore works with both. And I am glad that I stuck through the program even when I was more confused then my child. :willy_nilly:

Google gluten free recipes. WHIle I don't know about the sugar part, they do use all those other grains and do not use any wheat, rye, barley, or oats. I cook with lots of alternate grains and find plenty under gluten free.

Thanks! I've homeschooled for years with my oldest and have been going around and around wth history and what to use. Last year I decided to just take a history reading list and just do that but have needed a little more guidance than that. Reading this last night made sense of how to do it especially since we all ready use so much of the other things suggested. I just didn't want to get the book and still need to buy TOG or something like that to get history accomplished adn provide a good education. I didn't realize I've basically been doing a classical education along and will only have to make some adjustments in spelling and our copy work and throw in Latin. SO thanks! I'll wait for the new edition and see if I can pickup a cheap copy of this one. I like to tear up the books and lay them out in the order that makes sense to me. NO chance this is out in a digital format is there?

I just read the Well trainedmind last night. It fits perfectly what I have been trying to do on my own the last few years. I've always struggled trying to find the "right" curriculum and this finally feels just right. iT fits our style. BUt then I jump on here and see all the references to TOG, MFW, Sonlight, and I wonder is anyone using the WTM exactly as outlined in the book? Are any of you just following the book and using it and not using other "prepackaged" programs? Or does everyone still need to find a curriculum? I was seriously going to buy the book(and that is a big big step for me) and implement the program outlined in there Monday ( I have most of the primary resources for 8th and under all ready in the book) as it really only requires some tweaking for us from what we are doing now. But now I wonder if one can really do the program in the book if everyone is buying all these other curriculums.:confused: Thanks! (forgive the spelling my computer is down and I am using the backup which might blow up with spellcheck ;) )