I just found out my library has a drive through pick up window. Mind. Blown. We'll be there weekly for sure now. I'll probably start taking them to story time type things again come the summer.

Exactly. I have done this when someone wanted less literally minutes after I posted it. So, in hopes of giving it more time to find a buyer who would agree to my price, I declined. Wouldn't you know they come back and say they'll take it for what I listed originally? Someone said haggling is a culture and it's totally true. Here, with things like garage sales and such, I always price at more than what I'm willing to take simply to buffer the normal haggling. It's not personal, it's business.

With any purchase I make, I make it not expecting to get a dime back. I intend to use something, it has a price, and I decide to pay that price. If I use it, I've lost nothing, as I have done what I intended. If I did not use it, it is my error, and then yes, I have lost money. Should I decide to try to sell it, anything above zero is more than I ever expect to get for any item whether it be kids clothes or a math book. I already made the decision to spend the money so anything returned to me is a bonus. It is no longer taking up space in my home, and now I have money in my pocket. Market values flucutate, especially with high dollar items. I would be wasting my energy to get upset that I'm not getting half my money back, when I am not owed anything by anyone. I can only afford to homeschool buying mostly used and with the hope of selling what doesn't work for us. I still weigh every purchase heavily as I could easily be stuck with something. You could be a blessing to others by selling to them for what they can afford or just donating. I don't really see the difference. I'm sorry you're upset, but you could just list on eBay/Amazon or something with a BIN price and remove all haggling from the equation.

I see you're doing Latin and spanish. Have you always done both? I wanted to ramp up our Spanish study as we attend church that's mostly in Spanish. However I tossed out the idea of teaching Latin and my husband said "YES!" quite emphatically and so now I'm wondering if a gentle start with that be ok, or too much at once. DH doesn't get all that into homeschool planning so I was a bit shocked and want to run with it!

Reading just clicked for my dd. She is 7.5. It is completely normal. She has a late birthday to boot, so she's still in first grade for all intents and purposes (ie what to tell strangers when they ask). It matters not one bit what you call the grade she is in. She has no idea what curriculum is considered a second grade level, except for math, that has a 2 on the cover lol. My dd is ahead in math as well, but "behind" in reading. We all have different strengths and I hate for you to stress about a developmental milestone you cannot control. I have no doubt she'll be right with the average 3rd grader when the time comes. Fwiw, as an older kid that knew how to blend, we moved to a spalding style approach. I could tell a big change rather quickly when we would build words together via dictation and then have those same words later in a reader. It got her out of the fat cats on mats boring stuff and into real stories. That alone may make her feel more empowered? It was a great confidence booster here. I'm %100 involved in every subject as it is requires really at this age. Thankfully she doesn't care.

We just did the kindergarten sample lesson and they (7 & 4) loved it! We even got the toddlers involved to help rip paper for the leaves on the flowers. This looks like a fantastic deal, definitely getting the K-3 videos. Thanks for sharing, and the OP for asking. I hadn't really thought seriously about art yet and this video approach is perfect so I can sit back and let someone else teach for a change while I manage the littles.

Do you all buy the supplies for Home Art Studio's site directly as well? This looks great.

Good gracious! I bought ahead up to 3b on the swap. Now Im thinking I better start buying 4-6 even though my kiddo is only in 2a. I wonder what the odds are that all, soon to be 4, of my kids could use the same math anyway? I wonder too, if I could use the Standards HIG later with US? I guess though if it truly is discontinued, I'll have had enough of a foundation with it to teach it fine and only be out the money in textbooks.

I just read this as well thanks to this review! I'm a bit unsure now though about the trivium. Everything I thought I knew about it is apparently false. It seems that even though she doesnt think it right to apply the three terms to developmental stages, it seems that there's still clearly stages whether they be termed grammar, logic, or rhetoric. What harm is there for neoclassical followers to do this when indeed, there's a clear stage where you are pouring knowledge in, then waiting for them to reach a point where they can analyze and then finally produce their own thoughts?

This. It was much more approachable to me than Spalding as the sheer size of the book freaked me out. The rules are not at all too much for a kid that wants and needs to know them for reading to make sense. Just a few lists in, my then 6 year old K student was saying the rules during dictation before I even did. It's very gentle and definitely a get-er-done type of program. We have fun with it in our side conversations coming up with more words that match the rule.

I generally agree with the other posters here. You know if your kid is happy, he is just fine. I never did anything of the sort with my first two and they are amazing with what they come up with. But there is a place for preschool activities. I have a 2 yr old and babysit another full time, and just letting them run a muck is pretty much guaranteed arguing and chaos. I know, because I've been living it for six months. So, I'm very thankful for those Pinterest moms, that have ideas and post them. No, I'm not doing elaborate puppets and such, but I see the value, the sanity, that a simple set up of a fresh activity mom invented can bring, even if short lived. They are both in the stage, where if I just invest a few minutes setting them up with an idea, giving them that special time, they are far more likely to pay me back in independent or *gasp* cooperative play for hours. It's just for a season as their minds develop to be able to play on their own. A third child, also 2 but about 4 months older, I watch part time has already reached this stage and I can just let him be with his whole setup of trains. I actually feel like I'm intruding if I bother him! So don't allow what you see or are told to make you feel pressured. It is just there for anyone that needs it.

I plan to use these made available free an amazing mama. She has other levels as well up to 3. Hopefully she'll put the last one up this year. http://tendingourlordsgarden.blogspot.com/2012/05/story-of-world-timeline-cards.html?m=1

We just finished Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I'm so happy we've finally, after many months, been able to add classic read alouds back into our day. My son is napping much better. After we do history or science, the girls usually get out art to do (or a SOTW coloring page) and we get on the couch. When the toddlers wake up they're now used to it and hop up on the couch too! The 2 yr old I care for brought me the book one morning and said "Read it!!" It just melted my heart. I get a good hour in each day this way. We're following along behind WWE 1 so up next is Mary Poppins.

Wins Singapore math- just when I'm unsure if she's truly getting it, she'll amaze me at the next lesson doing something mentally before I've even taught it. I'm taking it really slowly, spending lots of time on math facts and the "big" jumps. I'm going to spend the summer figuring out in advance extra fun things to do to supplement topics, so I'm not searching so much in the moment. Reading Lessons Through Literature- I feel like I talk about this all the time but it was just such a godsend after the complete fail that was AAR. She could blend words but that was it. She desperately wanted to read REAL stories, but no clue how when AAR wasn't giving her more phonograms. This simple little book brought confidence, real stories, in a totally stress free way. It allowed us to keep adding tools to her box, while her mind was maturing to put all the pieces together. She is taking off now at 7.5 asking to read everything in the house. Elemental science- this was almost a fail as in we moved and I canned it. The layout is irritating (why not have the lab page I need right there in the teacher guide rather than in a totally different book, etc) so I found myself flipping back and forth too much. But we started the human body section and she is begging for more science now. All the activities have been great. So we'll give earth science a try next year too as I hear it's even better. SOTW- because it's awesome. FLL & WWE- we love the poems and dd likes memorizing the parts of speech even with the constant repetition (we're finally past nouns hallellujah lol). WWE has introduced us to classics to read on the side at our leisure and she is doing great with narration. Fails Toddlers. Toddlers everywhere!! I must must must plan things for them. I need to hit Pinterest hard and have a box of go to things so I can have some peace. I think we'll spend all morning on them in the coming months, and then do content subjects during nap time despite math being a little better for DD in the morning. ELTL 1- I just highly dislike Aesops fables (can I say that?!) and so much of the program is wrapped around these weird stories with animals that die and just..no. Idk, neither I nor DD like them, though there are a few that have been ok. Plus it's so gentle, it almost seems pointless. Capital letters and punctuation..that's pretty much it for so long. It was also impossible to stay on track with the outside reading with all we had going on. I am open to looking at level 2 just so I can have grammar and writing in one program, and as I'm loving the looks of Wayfarer, but I'm very happy with FLL & WWE right now. I think it will help immensely when DD can read te literature on her own.

We are in level 2 of RLTL and it literally takes 10 mins. And that may even include me running toddlers to the potty lol. I like that I can teach from my iPad, calling out words and rules while doing other things. We alternate like her schedule says, so 2 lists a week, a day of just phonogram/words review and the other two days we read the Elson stories(which are just lovely). I usually have her read a new story Friday, then the same story Monday unless she flew through it. In level 1, I would even bounce back to old stories just to review that way too. I just love this so much, and my up and coming kindy dd is listening in and loving for me to dictate to her when she plays. I got the workbook for her to start in the fall since it's got the cutesy pictures and things, and we'll take level one slowly. On your other point, I agree, it's hard to see how a day plays out. I think, a lot of it will get done in our "morning time" I hope to start, rotating the subjects in. I want to switch to doing content subjects in the afternoon when the toddlers are napping. I'm also a little unsure how to jump in when we're halfway through SOTW 1 already. So I have to see what term matches up with where we are so the supplements fit.

Yes this. I'd read to her as much as she could stand and call it done. She is 4 and doesn't need a curriculum at all. My daughter will be 5 next month and is about 6 months or so behind speech wise. We "do school" only when she wants to and that's pretty much playing with c rods or just talking about letters. She writes when she wants. She decided to start blending sounds totally on her own a few months ago but isn't ready to go past that. We may try more formal school in the fall and that will simply consist of actual math lessons from a book and actual reading lessons from OPGTR or something. Thats it. 20-30 minutes and done. Her being able to speak and be understood is what she should spend all her energy on and just being a kid.

Wayfarers looks incredible, thank you for sharing. We love RLTL here and this approach seems to be exactly what I had hoped to piece together myself for next year. Right down to the toddlers even!

In our reading program, we use spelling via dictation to teach reading. With each word, we mark it according to spelling rules. So once I'm done dictating the word, we go back and mark silent e, phonograms, reason the y says e or i, when the a says it's long sound etc. In higher levels we'll get to suffixes and such, though I will also evaluate switching to a more traditional spelling program once she takes off reading for more difficult words. By the end of level three we'll have done 1720 words.

I don't know if this will help, just throwing it out there with respect to reading. If he's only missing a word here and there, perhaps you could sit behind him, so you can see, and just write down the words he misses. Then at the end, have him read those again (or perhaps the entire sentence). With my daughter, I found myself jumping to correct her too much, and often she'd see something didn't make sense after she kept going a bit and would back up. This way perhaps, he'll feel in more control of it and it won't break up his flow of reading. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I've not used Rightstart, but I did want to say that Singapore is indeed hands on. Per the HIG, every single concept is introduced first with manipulatives (cubes, counters, cards etc) before you ever bring out a book. None of this is mentioned in the textbook, which is why I wonder how people are teaching it without the HIG unless they intuitively know to do this. I sure didn't! Concrete, pictorial then abstract, that's Singapore. If ever my dd gets stuck, I know we've moved on from the concrete too quickly and back come out the c-rods or what have you. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I hope the HIG helps, it even tells you what to do in the corresponding extra practice books if you need that. We are in 2a, first time using standards and I'm rather surprised and pleased at the amount of review. Especially after hearing that Singapore doesn't have a lot of review. It seems to be much more than 1b, so far and in the weeks ahead I've seen, there's a review lesson nearly every week and then a bigger review every 3. I think it is perfect for my DD but just like I did last year, if we need to park it at place value or facts practice or what have you for a bit, we do until I feel she's got it. We also do the mental math a few times a week as the HIG suggests. Really the HIG is gold to me, I could not teach this without it, so much is left out of the textbook.

Do they have the HIGs? There's an 18 week schedule in the front. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Changing already! We are going to be a Wayfarers family so she'll be tagging along in a lot of subjects (history, art, geography, Latin, spanish). Dd turns 5 in April and if she'll sit still by fall we'll try the following: Singapore 1A and/or Miquon - I have her doing the math side of reading eggs whenever she wants and she's picking up math facts left and right. We'll go at her pace with this, I think Essentials would be a waste. I picked up Miquon on a whim and will try it out too. Reading Lessons Through Literature 1- I have the phonogram workbook. We'll play phonogram games from LoE and go slowly through. She loves dictation. ELTL 0 for her read alouds I'm considering HWT as she has a funky grip and is vehemently against lowercase letters right now. However her older sister will be starting cursive with New American Cursive and I'm tempted to just have her learn that. She can do RLTL in cursive as well.

It's all really a continuation of what were already doing. I just added WWE and FLL this month as I dropped everything but reading and math in the fall. Now DD is telling me she's tired in the afternoons and needs to start taking naps again lol. And just two nights ago, out of the blue, she read a chapter from Frog and Toad. First thing she's ever read voluntarily outside her readers. It's what I've been waiting on for a year! She's coming up on 7.5.

We school year round but since I'm due in July, I think we'll shift to a more traditional schedule, finishing the year in May, and not really doing anything formal outside of reading and math until September. I really want to try planning all the weeks in advance just so I have something to fall back on when baby arrives. Everything is fairly open and go, but I want it right down to books I need to check out and what weeks to request them, supplies for projects etc. We are going to be a Wayfarers family! Starting in Sept with Medieval Term 1. Solves my planning dilemma above :) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Math: Singapore PM 2B/3A (maybe some Miquon, she likes using her sister's book) Reading/Spelling: Reading Lessons Through Literature 3 & 4 Cursive: New American Cursive Geography: Geography Through Art & read alouds scheduled in Wayfarers Writing/Grammar: English Lessons Through Literature 2 History: SOTW Vol 2 Science: BFSU - peppered with read alouds from Wayfarers Spanish: They love Salsa, we'll keep going and add in more Spanish read alouds. Art: Home Art Studio & books on artists to supplement/picture study Latin: Song School Latin 1 Morning Time: Devotions, memory work, Shakespeare, hymns, composer study, picture books with the 2yo & 5yo (all this is ambitious, we'll see what actually gets done!)