We are finishing up Gamma now and dragging through the end of it. The complexity of the 3 digit multiplication problems has made our math time easily take twice as long. My son can do the work and gets the concepts but he makes lots of minor errors due to trying to do so much mental math when our times tables are not solidly memorized right now. So we have decided to finish Gamma and then start CLE 300. I may go back to MUS for Delta at some point but there are some gaps and fluency that I think CLE will help fill in. One thing I did a few weeks ago was stop all new teaching and print a practice worksheet each day from the website, then i would sit with him and work a few problems with him on a dry erase board while he copied on his paper and then let him do a few independently. This seemed to help a good bit.

I'm thinking ahead a whole 18 months (cause why not? :)… Wondering if anybody has successfully combined these 2 programs? I love the look of CAP W&R but don't think it will work for us this year but thought it might be a nice creative complement to Essentials when we start that in 4th grade… Thoughts? Does a W&R book typically take a whole year to complete?

ok thank you. I can keep this in my head as a readiness goal for the next couple of years. In the meantime, for my 8.5 year old, I've been dictating the passage to him one sentence at a time, asking him to listen carefully, repeat the sentence to me and then write it. I do this for narrations he has scribed to me and for passages from literature. This is separate from our regular copy work. I do not allow him to look at the paper and I do not repeat it more than once. But I'm wondering if instead of reading them to him, if I should be letting him study the passage one sentence at a time and copy from memory? Does it matter? Is a combination ideal?

This. Yes. Thank you. Could you define STUDIED dictation?

Interesting… this makes me think about 18 months from now when we will start CC Essentials (EIW). I have often worried that that program would stifle creativity and 'natural writing ability'. Any thoughts on that?

Just out of curiosity, which chapters are you wanting to skip and why? We are starting SOTW in a few weeks and I don't have a hard copy, just the audio download so I can't 'pre-read' for questionable content.

Could someone walk me through a typical week of lessons in CLE Language Arts 300? How long do the daily lessons take? How many pages from the Light Units do you do per day? When I look at the samples, I can't tell how much of the lesson I'm seeing. Are there things in the teachers guide that are not in the workbooks? Creative writing assignments, for example, or narration / dictation exercises. Are there readers with the curriculum or do I need to do our own thing for literature / reading comprehension? I'm 99% sold on this for us next year but just trying to get a feel for what a week of lessons will look like.

We have loved MUS for the early elementary years. It starts off pretty easy but builds a really strong conceptual foundation and lots of math confidence.

One of the things I would like to start encouraging my kids to do in the morning is some sort of Bible journaling. I found a cute printable on teacherspayteachers that included a verse, a space to write what you're thankful for and a couple application questions/journaling prompts. The only thing is, it seemed a little below where my oldest and too advanced for my youngest. What other resources for Devotions / Bible journaling are out there? Ideally, for my oldest (8.5), it would include an assigned passage with space and prompts for journaling, prayers and gratitude lists. For my youngest (6), a verse or story printed on the page that could be read to her and then more free space to draw and write.

I love this idea! I have been doing something similar with a manila folder but only randomly. I like the idea of it being a more intentional way of covering what needs to be done.

The only thing that seems 'light' to me maybe is the amount of reading and related exercises, only because you said whatever you can get them to read. Of course, i don't know what sort of reading you are doing for other subjects… But in my planning for LA, if we go with Abeka Language 3, I will most likely be adding some good books to our curriculum and narration exercises from our history readings.

Glad to hear I'm not the only impatient one… My little one has these stalling techniques she pulls out during reading lessons… last week it was a new itch every 5 seconds. Sometimes its multiple bathroom breaks. Today she yawned every 3 or 4 words. Making me crazy!

I'm the opposite, Reading Eggs made me crazy. Only used it for one day of our free trial. I had forgotten about Explode the Code online, may have to consider that for DD6

For us, 'non-get er done' stuff are readalouds (we do them a lot but its the first thing to go when time is tight and mom is stressed), Sonlight (not sure why but we never got it done the way I intended), Timeline figures in the Timeline book, lap booking, arts and crafts. We don't have a lot of non-get-er-done stuff because I figured out pretty early what wouldn't get done and quit buying it :).

*Generally* (barring sickness, travel, weeks of terrible weather, or Mama's mental health), we don't watch TV during the week. We do have what we call 'school screen time'- that is any assigned show, iPad game, brain pop, VP lesson, etc. Even that I try to keep to a minimum because my kids get so whiny and irritable when they have been in front of screens. I used to think it was the content that mattered (so as long as the characters weren't being aggressive or whiny, it was ok) but I recently read an article that regardless of the content, kids (and adults) get a steady stream of dopamine hits while they are involved in anything with a screen. It has something to do with the fact that tv shows, video games, etc response time is quicker than real life, so the dopamine hits are greater than even doing something you really enjoy, like dancing or playing a game. When you take that screen away, it's truly like taking a drug away from an addict. Dopamine levels drop = fighting, whining, etc. They are allowed to each pick a show on weekend mornings (so Mommy and Daddy can sleep in and have our coffee together :), and we have family movie nights, etc. But, sometimes there is no way around it- I have a phone conference today that requires 45 minutes of uninterrupted time and so they will watch TV while I'm on that. Not the worst thing in the world, I just have to be prepared for some grumpies this afternoon :)

Which do you prefer and why? We will not be doing the spelling from either… I've seen the Abeka texts in person but only viewed the samples of the CLE Light Units. It *appears* that both are workbooks that teach to the student, which is what I'm looking for. Abeka has creative writing exercises included in the curriculum, does CLE? Does CLE have any reading comprehension / literature assignments? Copywork or narration exercises? The cursive seems a little light in CLE compared to Abeka but that might not be a bad thing for us.

Yeah, I'm not sure if this will work or not but we are going to try. The good thing is, we will finish Gamma in a few weeks and start CLE. Since he is just going in to 3rd grade, I don't feel like we have to start Delta right away. Although when CLE 300 starts covering division, I may break and do a few weeks of MUS Delta so that he gets the conceptual foundation of division first… I don't know, I'll just have to be flexible and see what works!

My oldest loves science projects, craft kits, do-it-yourself stuff. He's pretty good at doing it on his own and helping his little sister. I have zero time to help with this, so I'm looking for some kits to order that they can grab and do together. Nothing that requires a lot of prep or crazy materials, unless already included. Ideas?

I've worried about this too but I think it looks worse on paper than in reality… The math probably won't run concurrently. He is doing MUS Gamma now but I want to use CLE starting this summer to fill in some gaps, mostly in regards to math terminology as well as weights and measures, fractions, money, geometry, etc. However, CLE is a good bit behind where he is with multiplication so we will continue with Gamma and probably do Delta at a very slow pace. MUS has never taken us a full year, in fact he's finished most of the books in 6 months or less. (I thought about just getting some supplementary workbooks but most of those don't teach to the student the way CLE does and the price is really competitive with most of the workbooks I've seen.) For history, we will listen to SOTW at our own pace. The VP is really more for fun for him, he begs to do it every afternoon when his other school work is done. We don't do all the literature and activities along with it, he just does the 30 minute lesson and games on the computer.

MathUSee, VP Self-Paced History, AAR and AAS (not independent but quick, open-and-go and it works)

We won't do all of these subjects every day. I have no problem skipping problems or spreading lessons out. DS8 has really matured this past year and is able to do so much work independently and (generally) without complaining. I'm thinking our schedule will be Bible, Memory Work, Math and Language Arts every day (alternating between MUS and CLE; and spelling only 2 days a week); then rotate between History, Science, Health and Art as extras.

Science is my son's favorite subject and that's actually why I don't schedule much. He does so much on his own, interest-led and we do a weekly experiment in our co-op. He also watches lots of documentaries and reads reads reads. "Exploring God's World" seemed like a good jumping off point and it goes along nicely with our CC Cycle 1 memory work. And I'll admit- I loathe hands on stuff :crying: As he gets older and can do more of that stuff on his own, I'll add more to our studies :)

Honestly, many weeks that's probably all we will do. My kids will love the coloring pages but I think SOTW + CC Memory Work + VP History = more than enough history studies! ;)

Thanks for the tips! I have wondered about the Activity Books because I am NOT a crafty project type (although my kids love them and I'm happy to let them do anything they can do themselves pretty simply). Both my kids would like the coloring pages, though, and the narration ideas would be great for my oldest. As far as reading, I haven't decided yet. We spend a lot of time on history between CC, VP and SOTW, so I'm thinking some fun stuff from other subjects might be in order

We have loved Veggie Tales for years, as well as Whats in the Bible. Looking for something much shorter though. I love how BrainPop's topics change weekly and are about 5-10 minutes in length. The Superbook app looks neat, and I have some kids Bible apps that I don't think even realized they do half of what they do! A word of caution on Adventures in Odyssey- we started listening to them on road trips this past year. My kids are 5 and 8, and the 8-12 age range they give really is accurate. I was surprised at some of the content and had some interesting questions to answer. Also wasn't crazy about the sibling fights they constantly feature and use of the words 'stupid', 'shut up', etc