This is our first year, so just trying to figure out what the right balance is. So far we are doing: Saxon 8/7, LOF Pre-Al w/ Biology (half-way thru LOF right now, should finish it next week, I don't know if I will do the Economics or just do the Saxon? ANd still looking at Zaccarro books) Science: Aristotle Leads the Way (LOVE THIS!) History: HO Level 2 Ancients, with K12 HO as a reader instead of SOMK- *does anyone have a list of these matched up???* Vocab from Classical Roots Wordly Wise Hake Grammar CAP W&R Fable and Narr. 1 (this is another LOVE! It's their favorite LA) Literature- haven't gotten anything yet, but I do have plans ;)

I am doing it w/ 2 students, and I like having 2 workbooks and the TM. They could share, but I like them reading along as we go. I am not having them write in the book, and plan to use it again w/ 2 students together when my twins are older.

I am using it w/ a 4th and 6th grader, and we do 1 lesson a week, so 14 weeks. I will skip it if we had another big writing assignment in another subject, but I think we may just go thru a lesson a week all year, it's their favorite curriculum by far! I do make them re-write and edit their stories, so that takes an extra day or two.

I always knew HSing my kids would be difficult with so many different levels, plus keeping up with housework, ect. Tell me how you do it! What is your day like? What things do your kids do on their own? Mine seem to need hand-holding thru everything. No child is working more than 2-2/12 hours per day... but *I* am working all day long on school! And juggling laundry and meals in between. I want my kids to have a really good education, and I think some of the things we are doing are working wonderfully! Other times I just feel like I am not doing enough with them individually, and they would be able to do better if I just had one or two kids instead of 5. Do you keep a schedule? A loose one? Do you assign work like a teacher does, daily or weekly? Does this work? It seems like if I don't say "Do X" and then go check in 10 minutes they will be reading, playing or goofing off. And of course my biggest question- what to do with a 3 year old? She wants to 'do school' along w/ everyone else. We've only been doing this a few weeks- she knows her numbers to 10 by site and also w/ MUS blocks, today I had her pick one, then do a fun 'puzzle' to find 2 blocks that added up to that number. Fun! Last night I did a quick set of flashcards (these were new, never presented to her before) for upper and lowercase letters. She got U wrong (said N) in uppercase, and missed I think 6 lowercase. She knows the sounds of most of these as well. She keeps playing the LOE Games w/ my 1st graders, so she's picking up some phonograms as well. I'm not sure if this is okay or not? Will I get her all messed up? She sits in on several hours of school each day. If I don't have someone assigned to play with her, or have her in the school room w/ me, then she's up to no-good! She cannot play unsupervised, she gets into too much trouble. If I keep her busy, she's fine, but she insists on having her own work to do. I've been working on that! I've got some thing specifically for her to do, but then it pulls me away from the other kids in the school room. And what about noise? I tried math all at one time, like Confessions of a homeschooler does. DISASTER! I felt like I was in a whirl-wind, and no one really got to enjoy learning their lesson, it was all jumbled up. The only thing we are ALL doing together is history, and that's going really well. Science is sort of a DIY thing for now, with movies and books, some journal pages, and calling that good for the littles. The bigger one is doing a text book and I really like that. If I just had the little ones I would do a LOT more with them, and I love science, but so far I just can't seem to get it to come together.

I saw last week that Moving Beyond the Page had workbooks on the last 2.

I just made my meeting book from free resources on-line :) I put in a calendar, skip counting pages, some graphing for weather and temperature. Daily we do calendar, I choose a number to skip-count with, track the weather (sunny, cloudy, rainy, windy snowy) and temperature (cold, cool, warm, hot, very hot). The teacher book tells you what to set out for the clock and money cup, but I just hand them an amount of play money to count out to me a few times per week. You would need the teacher book, most of the manipulatives, and the workbook pages. We are half-way thru Saxon 1, and another child is almost done w/ Saxon 3. I actually like the way it teaches :) Look at LOE Foundations for LA.

I went w/ Saxon. My oldest is in 6th grade, and it's our first year HSIng. I felt like doing one year of Singapore, then having to find something new for the next level was not the best choice. It's going to take us some time to figure out HOW to HS, so I don't want to change the curriculum the next year. I wanted something that went all the way thru HS, and TT and Saxon were the 2 most common from HS moms I talked to. Saxon is also what one of the local High Schools use, so if for some reason we send her back in HS, she will be in the same curriculum. One other thing I considered was that kids in our area coming out of that High School and going to the local CC will have the same math background. Mine actually tested out of Singapore, we could have maybe done 6B? I got Saxon 7/6, and she already knew most of the material, so we will actually be doing Saxon 8/7 this year.

We just started, and I am wondering if this is enough LA/Grammar for my 4th grader. We are new to HSing, she's very good at writing. LOE Essentials- I got this to shore up spelling rules, but I am also using it for Grammar. So far it's been extremely simple. I'm also using spelling tests 2 from on-line, not the ones in the book. She was not taught the more advanced phonograms that I can tell, so I wanted to get in one year of good phonics before she's too old. I have the entire set, we are doing spelling rules, grammar rules and phonics. Wordly Wise- for vocabulary, I really like this so far, we are on lesson 2. Writing and Rhetoric- this is her favorite of everything we are using. She really likes it! Her writing was already really good. It has a small amount of grammar in it, but usually in a more applied way. We are planning to do one lesson per week, unless they are doing a science or history paper. We are on lesson 3 this week. I've been sort of starting to add one thing per week, just to get a feel for what the lessons are like. I don't know if this is enough Grammar for 4th grade or not. I don't see anything yet that she doesn't already know. I also want to add a literature unit here and there, but right now I am just having her read to me a few times per week aloud from whatever book she is reading. She also listens to what I read aloud.

No, the doubles plus one or any strategy like that just cause confusion. I think I will make something like the number street thing up for her, hopefully it helps! She knows doubles, 10s, +9s and +/- 1 and zero. Everything else she counts on her fingers. How do you help a child learn number sense? MUS was my second math choice for her, but I decided to get the blocks and use Saxon instead because it covered so many different topics,a nd I was afraid w/ MUS that she would have to start back so early. She would have needed to do Beta in 4th grade! I don't want to move on to multi-digit mulitiplication until we get the regrouping thing down because it will just lead to tears and frustration.

Thank you for replying. Today was the same, she started to understand about 1/2 way thru the page, but at the beginning of the day it was back to counting 1s. As for place value- this is where the big problem is, and I don't know how to teach it! I think Saxon 3 will start it in our next lesson. I'm hoping with manipulatives she will get it! I know DD1 learned w/ fact families, and I think that's the best way to learn, but when DD2 got to that grade they switched to CC math. I gave it 2 years and saw no mastery, just confusion. I think it was taught so many different ways, she can't see a concrete way to get the answer, so she just counts up and down. I have MUS blocks, so I hope I can figure out how to use those to teach borrowing and carrying. I think she gets the concept, but it's the computation that trips her up. I think if she knew her math facts it would be easier, but when she starts couting on fingers for each place value, and counting down (who does that? She can count backwards like a pro!), it just all gets jumbled up. That's why I didn't want to start 4th grade math w/ multi-digit multiplication. We just aren't ready and it will cause a lot of frustration. Are there any other tips or manipulatives that could help me help her? And what is the MUS place value street? Could I make something like it up myself? Thank you!

I need some help. I have pulled my kids from PS, so trying to fill in some holes. I have always known that DD2 (4th grade) did not have her math facts down. They were not taught as individual facts, they tried to do the 10s and doubles (which she does know really well). When I try to explain them her face glazes over, she does not get it! I think I did well teaching her what 9+ and any number is, she gets that. Today was any number -9. You would think I was speaking a foreign language! I tried several different ways to easily show her the answer. Her way of doing it would be counting backwards 9. So if the problem is 17-9= she would say 16, 15, 14, 13, 12,11, 10, 9, 8 (using her fingers to tally those 9). THis was acceptable in school, but I don't want her adding or subtracting this way! I ended up getting some MUS blocks out. I used the 100s block as a base, I gave her all the ones and told her to put on the correct number (17), then kick off 9 of them. She still counted the first 7, then the 1 left over from the 10. I let her keep doing this, because this is how she sees subtraction. I then got out a 9 rod and a 1, and then put a 7 on the second row to make my 17. When I kicked off my 9, I just kicked off the 9 block, and she could see there was a 7 and a 1 left over. We did this for an entire page of subtraction problems! By the end she could easily see how to get the answer, but I'm not sure if it will be there tomorrow. What else can I do? When we started this summer she counted EVERYTHING forwards and backwards on her fingers! I've since gotten her to memorize several fact families she has trouble remembering, doing fact family worksheets and number bond stuff w/ the MUS blocks. She can do 10s, doubles, 1s, 0s, 9+, and several other facts she has since memorized. We have made big progress! I'm just not sure how to teach her strategies to get the right answers without counting. I know them myself, I know the facts, and I can't remember how I learned them. Do I just stick w/ making her memorize them, because she can do that. I'd rather her have some understanding of moving the numbers, but that never works and leads to frustration. If I say the words "mental math" she freaks out. She does not ever want to compute answers in her head. I am using Saxon 3 (yes, we are remediating), so there are lots of fact practice sheets to do. She actually knows all her multiplication tables really well! It's the addition and subtraction we have trouble with (and borrowing and carrying). Today she said that 27+27 was 414 (7+7 is 14 and 2+2 is 4). When I pointed it out she knew to carry, but she's in 4th grade! If there is a problem with subtracting she will just take the smaller number from the larger number, and sometimes even when she doe sborrow she does it wrong. I feel like these are 2nd grade skills, and we had a bad 2nd grade year/teacher. 3rd grade was fine, and she got that, but so much of 2nd grade is missing. What should I do? We are working over an hour on math per day, some of it she gets really well, and other things she really struggles with. SHe's actually a really smart kid, but she has had so much negative with math in school she just hates it.

Thank you! I plan to use Elements with my 4tha nd 6th graders!

Logic of English Essentials. http://www.logicofenglish.com/essentials :)

Hi, I just pulled out my DD in the same grade! I have noticed several issues, and have been working all summer to help correct them, so we can be on grade level soon. For math, unfortunately math facts just are not being made a priority in schools. I decided to re-do 3rd grade math b/c I knew she had so many holes. I think this was the best decision! I did get Saxon b/c it still had a lot of manipulatives in the 3rd grade level (which we need). So far we are doing 2 lessons per day, and have done a little over 1/2 of the 3rd grade book. I don't do every question, I pick and choose so it doesn't take forever. I also just pick the parts of he meeting to do, so it doesn't take as long. She is so proud of herself! I've seen massive improvement and recalling of math facts, understanding on topics she was lost on (fractions!), everything is slow and steady. The biggest improvement has been in her self confidence, though! We do spend a good hour per day on math, but she knows that will end as soon as we are done w/ the Saxon 3, and working on 4th grade stuff. She also knew she was behind and agreed that Saxon 3 was a better place for her to start. We were having tears b/c she did not understand the math lessons in PS, now she gets it all quickly and is ready to move on. It's like night and day! I don't know if we will stick with it forever, but I really think that we made the right choice in math, it's worth it to back up and get the foundation down before moving on. It's also worth it to boost their self esteem. In spelling, I decided to go w/ LOE. We are using the spelling list on-line, so the words are harder than the list in the teacher manual. This is also what we are doing or Grammar, since that's included. It is going over all the phonics (which is great!) but not in a baby-ish way. We have just started a few lessons, but so far so good. There are games and stuff for fun. Our LA is CAP Writing and Rhetoric (she loves this, it's her favorite of all the LA), LOE (Spelling and Grammar), and Wordly Wise b/c she needed some vocabulary. We have been doing the math all summer, and now she's really fast at it. I've figured out that each time we start a new program it takes a few lessons before they know what is expected. Maybe just do one or two new books per week until you are doing everything? That's what I am doing. Good Luck!

Without going into a very long discussion I will just say that I tried so very hard to make it make sense. It didn't. I read the Bible- the whole thing, and tried to do so without the Christian-Glasses I was raised with. It does not say what Christians say it says. My way out was slow, but steady. I read and studied a lot, the Bible, Judaism, lots of history- both Biblical and secular. I read lots of apologetics- they talk in circles and make no sense. I agree with many of the previous posters about inconsistencies and judgementalism.

I've got 2 lefties. My first one has had a lot of trouble with writing, he couldn't make good contact w/ the paper to make a smooth line, he were always wavy. I got him the Stabilo pencil like the pen above, and it helped him w/ his grip. I would recommend that! For my littler one I have triangle crayons and big barreled pencils to work on her grip and contact w/ the paper. I also have HWT stuff, and I have a print out like the PP w/ the correct paper tilt. I have worked really hard to avoid the hooked handwriting.

I think people have the wrong idea of what forgiveness means. Your family seems to think it means to just pretend like his previous behavior never happened. *I* think it means to let go of the anger you hold toward the other person, but it does not mean that you act as if he never threatened your SIL. If he was my BIL, no, I would not want him around my kids. I would not be mean about it, just matter of fact. I feel BIL is unstable, and I am not comfortable having my kids around him until I feel a significant amount of time has proven that he has changed and no longer has anger issues. I will go to family events that he is at, but may not stay the entire length of time. I do feel like your SIL needs support, as well as your nephew. I also don't think there is really anything you can do until she is ready to leave. You can listen, you can repeat back to her what she has said. Don't give advice, let her come to her own conclusion.

I decided to get LOE, I have Essentials for my 4th grader and Foundations for the littler ones. There are no dragons in the workbook. They are on the cover of the TM and the workbook, but I have not scene any in the workbooks I have here (A, B and C). I also cut mine all apart and laminated it so that we could use the pages over and over. Most pages are games. I just have them do the handwriting portion on regular lined paper. THe teacher manual for B has spelling words, handwring practice and sentences to copy. I actually thought the dragon was cute and thought it was in the workbooks, but he's not. If you took your book apart, you child would never see a dragon. If you used a cover for the TM, you wouldn't have to see him either. I would say the Essentials would be better for a 3-4th grader, and the Foundations for the K+ crowd. My 1st graders are reading, so we are focusing on the spelling words and rules in B.

I posted here a while back, and you were all so helpful! I have still not bought anything for my 6th grader's math next year. This is our first year HSing, so she's coming out of 5th grade PS. I got Saxon 7/6, and when we got it she said "I know almost everything in this book" so after testing and going thru we decided to start at lesson 95. We've been doing that for a while, she's on lesson 105-ish. I'm still not sure what I need to get! She is gifted, but does not enjoy math. She has done LOF Fractions and Decimals and Percents and likes that approach. Here are options I am considering: 1. I signed her up for Alcumus. We have limited internet usage, but I could just have her play on here an hour or so per day to see if she likes the set up of AoPS. So many of you recommended AoPS, but she does not like the sample. I'm not sure if she would like the discover method. Right now I have told her that she's going to do it about once a week to practice. Should I just get the book and see if she likes it? 2. Jousting Armadillos- this was also recommended, but again I'm not sure. DD liked the looks of the preview better than AoPS, but I can't tell how much help is given, what resources there are for me as the teacher if she's stuck, ect. I could not tell by what was on the site what all is needed. How quickly do they go thru the books? 3. Zacarro books on Amazon- is there a particular order I should do them in? Right now this is DD's top pick, but I have no idea if this is really good enough for a full math curriculum. 4. Saxon 8/7- so many of you did not like this option, but DD does. She says it's easy and she gets it. It takes her about 30 mintues to do a problem set in 7/6. I've been spending about 10 minutes going ever each lesson w/ her in the morning to make sure she understands the lesson (some we just skim thru), then she does the problem set. I like that I could get the DIVE CDs if needed. We are also doing LOF Pre-Al w/ Biology, but I don't think the Pre-Al Economics book will work for us. I don't think I agree w/ the author's POV. I've noticed a lot of negative reviews due to that. Is there an alternative? Would LOF PreAl, Alcumus and the Zaccarro books work for a full Pre-Algebra? Which Zacarro book should I get? I have several other kids who will also need my help, so I can't spend an hour working thru a math problem with her every day. I am also not a math whiz. I have taken up to college calculus, but I don't remember most of it. I'm scared of the discovery method! I'd rather teach a short lesson, or at least be able to find the directions on how to do the problem somewhere in the book. This is also my first year, and it's a daunting task to bring 4 kids home from PS w/ a 3 year old. I don't know how much time I will have to devote to each kid for each subject. Thanks for any advice!

Check out your library's paperback section. Mine has a lot of scholastic books in that range- Pony Princesses, one about Tiara Princesses, the new Disney Princess chapter books, Rainbow Fairies (these may vary, some are too difficult, but there are also smaller ones similar to MTH, so look and pick the shorter ones), there are also lots of animal books, Puppy Place, Animal Ark, Animal Rescue or Rescue Pets? (can't remember the exact name, sorry). There are also Barbie chapter books. My DD was *very* picky at that age, and I've had to look high and low for girly books on that level. Mercy Watson books were fun, Katie Kazoo, Fancy Nancy has a few chapter books, too. Kylie Jean series is around that level, too. As for AG, she might find the girls of today books easier to read. Mine likes the historical dolls and their stories, but she often didn't want to try to figure out what some words ment. The Girls of Today ones are just easier. They are by different authors, so you have to search the card catalog. For non-fiction I really like the Who Was... or What Was... series.

I am looking for a HS planner, something that I can write in daily what we do. My state requires me to keep track of the amount of hours for each subject, for a total of 1000 hours. I have been keeping track on freebies I have found on-line, but so far I haven't found exactly what I am looking for. I also have one that is made for big families, and you can record 4 kids worth on a 2-page spread, but the boxes are too small IMO. What I would like is something that is colorful or at least color coded for 3+ kids. I have also considered having different books for each kid. I think I could just use 2, one for the bigs and one for the littles, since they are doing so many things together. I would like a space to write notes, record which library books I need to pick up for the next week, or supplies we need for a science project. I don't know if I want a bunch of different categories, or just the main ones and then blanks for whatever we happen to be doing. Or maybe a little notebook would be best? If you have several kids, how do you keep track? Do you have a favorite plan book?

I have both Essentials and Foundations B here at my house, and I would absolutely get the Foundations over the Essentials for a 7 year old. It's not babyish at all. Infact I considered getting Foundations D for my 4th grader instead of Essentials.

Me again! I am looking into all the programs suggested on the thread, and learning what I can and sharing w/ DD. I think part of the issue is that she is used to regular workbook math. 15-20 problems of the exact same kind, repeat for 3 days then add a step, repeat 3 days and add a step, repeat until unit test then change subject matter completely. Saxon looks like lots of different types of problems each day, not the same repetition. It will be different for her b/c she will have to actually look and read each problem to figure out how to solve it. In that regard, I think it's good. I agree that the lessons are pretty boring and pretty flat, only gaining a step or two and build very slowly without having the student try to figure things out for themselves. I showed her the very small preview of Jousting Armadillos (what a name!), she thought the circle problem was neat, and she liked finding the patterns, but didn't want that for a real math program. She said it didn't feel like math to her? I will need the teacher's guide and the student book, right? We both liked the look of the Zaccarro books! Is there a particular order we should get them in? Do they teach, or let the student figure things out? Is it a real curricula or just a supplement? If I can find a good price on the AoPS Pre-Al or JA I will get them to try out. I'll also look out for Jacob's ALgebra to see where we need to head. If you had to choose between Saxon 8/7 or Pre-AL, which would you suggest? The suggestion to de-school is probably a good one! I just don't think DH will be on board w/ that.

Is the AoPS pre-test accurate? I had her take it quickly this afternoon and the only thing she wasn't sure on was the negative numbers. She hasn't been taught negatives in school yet. She figured square roots and powers out w/ LOF and just talking to me. She still says she does not like the look of AoPS, and doesn't want to do it. I found some pics of the inside of Jacob's Algebra, and she said she liked the look of it better. She definitely wants the LOF series, she did Fractions and Decs & %s, so I will go ahead and get her the Elem. Physics and see how she does with that. She went thru the Saxon book today and made a list of the things she knows she needs work on, and then proceeded to work thru a lot of those lessons (not the problem sets, just the practice problems). If I did LOF thru the Pre-Al books, would she be able to jump into the Jacob's Algebra after that? Is LOF enough to learn the Pre-Al concepts? As an aside, we do not have enough internet allowance to watch a math lesson every day (or more). Does AoPS have them on DVDs to purchase? Maybe I could download them at my parents, and then put them on a disk to watch at home? Would this be possible? I'm not a tech Whiz. And THANK YOU to everyone for helping me pick the right thing for my DD :) I really appreciate it!

Should we do TT? I can probably borrow it from someone to look at. I can also buy LOF, which she has loved. I went to a HS conference this spring and looked at every math curricula there. Saxon (which I remember as a kid, and I always did well in math, but I agree it got old... but it was also easy), Singapore only to 6 @ MFW and another retailer, Right start, MUS, TT, Abeka, I think that's it. No BA, no Jacob's, no AoPS. And I don't know anyone who uses them. I did not see the Singapore DM books either. I have talked to a lot of HSers, including those w/ High school aged kids. They are all using TT, even the ones who don't know each other. It's been the #1 recommended brand, but that's probably b/c most people can't teach past about 5-6th grade. I don't know how well I will be able to teach, I took up to college calculus, but I've forgotten a lot of the later stuff. For now I am going to have her start at lesson 95 in the Saxon 7/6 I have, that will give me a few months to try to figure something out. I will get a better picture of where she's at, and see how much she dislikes Saxon ;) Are there videos to help w/ AoPS if we go that route? And is she really ready for the Pre-Al book? Has anyone used the Jacobs Algebra (is that where I should start)? Or maybe get her thru a few more LOF books? And I'm still wondering what exactly your day/schedule/plan looks like when allowing your child to work at his or her own pace. Do you set up a particular amount of time they should work on a given subject, or ask that so many lessons be completed in a week? What about in Science?