I'm liking these books. It's easy, but it gives a good background. Then we're seeing the real world map skills when planning road trips (reading road map) and we look things up on the historical atlas as we do history. I think it'll be enough.

Unfortunately, nope. The two cookie sheets - even big ones - won't be large enough. The tile set-up is laid out in the books. To have the whole alphabet there in order, you want a minimum of 2' long - and 3' is better. Our magnetic board rests against a wall. It can also fit behind a desk when not in use. You have the tiles laid out for the lesson. The board gives storage - and helps with work. I like the idea of using the blank tiles to figure out what letter goes in the blank space. It also does well with splitting vowel sounds and consonant sounds. Unfortunately I figured that out after writing a "q" on the blank blue tile. So I got more blank tiles by laminating red and blue cardstock :) My son started saying "q, u" when alphabetizing, so I felt it better to separate the q and the u. If you really don't want a whiteboard to start, you can just lay out the tiles on a table or the floor for a lesson. When things settle down more, then you might get the whiteboard. We started without the board but I'm glad we have it.

We're working with Level 1. Looking ahead, I don't see a way to use a cookie sheet. The materials recommend a 2' x 3' magnetic board and I really do see the benefit. We used the table until we got the board, so it is doable without the board, but if you are going to use magnets, I do think you need the larger size.

I've got a way, but I don't recommend it... Son with dairy allergy, then nut allergy. Connect food to death and you change your diet pretty quickly. :glare: On the plus side, we're eating healthier and I'm at my college weight again - something I wasn't able to do even when working out a lot.

I teach algebra at the community college and see a huge number of students who understand the material when I do examples in class (that is, they can follow along, claim understanding, and can answer my questions & tell me the next steps in a problem and even why we are doing a step), but then they bomb the tests because they're not doing the practice on their own. I use the example that I "understood" how to parallel park and how to drive a clutch, but it took a lot of practice to be able to do it. Understanding didn't mean much without the ability to do the work. So I cringe when I see people talking about only using the workbook with Singapore math. It may work with some students. But with my son, I'm going to be darn sure that he has the basics down and solid. We do the textbook together (mostly verbally), he does the workbook and Intensive Practice. We do the Challenging Word Problems, and work from other books as I feel there's a need. I'm interested in hearing the other discussion. And I'm coming from seeing students in my college classes who have passed higher-level math courses in high school, but the placement test puts them back in basic algebra because although they may have understanding, they don't have the skills.

:iagree: Us too. I remember finally moving out of the free lunch and to reduced in middle school. We weren't on full lunch prices until high school. On the plus side, we were in a poor community, so there wasn't a stigma to that at our school. Lots of hand-me-down clothes.

I think stick is just more fun. You also have more control about when to shift. I know that when I drive an automatic, they shift later than I want to and I'm yelling, "SHIFT!!" at the car, so I prefer to avoid that. However, when ds was in a preschool program and I had to wait in car line to pick him up, I really coveted an automatic. As long as you're not waiting in a lot of lines, I'd go with stick. (Our next car will be stick.)

Hep B - 3 shots Polio - 4 shots PCV7 - 4 shots Hib - 4 shots DTaP - 5 shots MMR - 2 shots Varicella - 1 shot So that's 23 shots, plus the assorted flu vaccinations. None of them were given around the time (not even same year) as the anaphylaxis to cashews. My grandmother died because of a heart problem due to rubella, so I'm glad we have the vaccinations and my son's able to get them.

Ds has been vaxed on schedule. He was diagnosed with a dairy allergy at 3 months (breastfed the whole time so at least we didn't have an issue with finding safe formula). He had anaphylaxis to cashews at 5 - it wasn't near vaccinations (other than he may have had some in the prior 4 months but I don't recall). I'd think the allergies are more likely a response to pesticides/factory farming/etc, rather than vaccinations, but I have no studies to back that up. We'll continue to vaccinate.

I'm not familiar with ulcers, but I'd be questioning whether a colonoscopy should be done.

The first thing I notice is that the sample set of pdfs posted is for the 2nd edition, not the third (current). Sample lesson #10 is for Chapter 38 while sample lesson #13 is for Chapter 16 (I'm looking at book 2 which is what ds and I are currently studying). So the pdf guide seems to skip around far too much for me. I also don't see where you'd get more than the samples... unless it may be for a book you could buy separately. I've been using these guides. They help me organize the material, but there's still a lot of organizing I do. They do have some projects and ideas (like we taped off a section of the floor to indicate how much space each adult had on the Mayflower), but it's definitely not open and go. I did get the testing book to do the multiple choice tests for reading comprehension. That's gone well. You can look inside the teaching guides at amazon and do a bit of a comparison to the pbs guides (which look very incomplete). I wish there were an open & go guidebook to History of US, but I haven't found one yet.

The software has worked well for us. Ds was initially resistant when I talked about starting him on typing, but the program is game-like enough for him that he's done it without anywhere near the complaints I get with math or spelling. In a month, he's gone from hunt and peck only to using the home keys and typing a couple sentences without much double checking. Handwriting will still be faster but only for a time. (Just asked ds what he thought about typing. His response, "It's good. Fabulous even.") So definitely worth a try :)

My son lives for gaming on the XBox, Wii, and computer. I got Typing Instructor for Kids and got him started last month. It's working well. He still writes almost everything by hand but he was able to chat via email with his father and type it himself recently.

I got a UPS tracking number when my recent order shipped. But no estimated date or additional info for the backorders :(

We saw the original 3 in a marathon at a wonderful theater - one that used to do silent films - huge huge huge screen, theater seats about 800 or so. It was wonderful!

I don't have allergies, but my son had anaphylaxis to tree nuts. He was allergic to dairy since he was 3 months old and the tree nut reaction was at 5, so I don't think it was tied into vaccinations for him. I think there definitely may be a link to environmental toxins with the current increase in severe allergies in kids. My father had an anaphylactic reaction to penicillin back when it was first introduced in his part of the country. Had to wear dog tags stating the allergy when he was in the military. I had a friend who was allergic to egg when I was growing up, but he was the only one I knew of. I have a friend now who's in in 50s who is allergic to fresh water fish and I think used to be allergic to wheat (he talks about his mother having to bake everything with rye). And about one memorable race to the hospital when in high school. I was thinking of homeschool before we found out about our son's tree nut allergy, but once he had his reaction, homeschooling became a very easy decision.

The iExcel books also show the bar method. Books 1-3 have stickers in the back the student can use instead of drawing bars. I really like the iExcel books for the set up of the bar method. They start with just using a bar model for basic addition and subtraction in 1, then in 2 do all 4 operations. They'll start with one or two examples, then 4 problems for the child to do. What really helped me was how they showed the bar model for a basic arithmetic problem like 5 + 8, then in the next section did a word problem that would use the addition bar model. The problem-solving approaches at the front of the book tend to work best for us as extra challenge problems, but I really do like their bar model approaches at the backs.

There are experiments (some) in the Activity Books. The Teacher's Guide does provide a few others in the discussions (where they talk about ways to introduce the lessons). I'm planning out for 3/4 grade with MPH and don't see adding in anything extra - so no need for other experiment add ins.

I lay out the lesson using the HiG (mainly to have an idea of extra activities to add in; suggestions of good places to add the Mental Maths). We do the textbook and related workbook problems, adding in mental math and other activities that are suggested in the HiG. Once we're a day or so into the chapter topic, I start in with the CWP. We generally do a page a day (depending on both our energy levels and any issues with understanding). I'll do the Extra Practice pages (and/or add in from Miquon or other workbooks) as needed throughout a chapter. I don't do Miquon in order by the books, but rather pick topics that mesh with what we're studying in Singapore. I generally don't do the IP pages until we have finished or mostly finished the text and workbook. My son finds them a lot tougher. I'll also add in iExcel at different points. I like the demonstrations of the bar diagrams for word problems in the back. They were very helpful for me in 1B and have worked well with 2 as well. It is a lot of juggling with different books, but it doesn't take me too much time to lay out a chapter. I use a day for the text review and a day for the workbook review before moving on to the next chapter. I try to pace along the lines in the HiG to cover the material in a year for A and B.

The Standards editions has review sections at the end of each chapter. They are cumulative and cover prior topics. I used the US edition for 1A and 1B and didn't feel there was enough practice. We were also using IP and CWP and I still wanted more drill to memorize the basic facts. I use the standards edition for 2A (we're in B now) and I got their Extra Practice book (same level of difficulty as the text and workbook) and think it does give enough practice and review. Looking at the replies, I hadn't thought of using the tests in that way. Phooey. I bought the EP book for 3 and now may have to grab tests. What a neat idea!

I like Dell Logic Puzzles. You can't find them in the stores as often, but their value pack gives a good selection. The one star puzzles work on a similar level as the MindBender books. The two-star puzzles will be a good step up. The three-star puzzles helped me on the GRE with the analytical thinking (although those problems may have changed in recent years). The four and five-star puzzles are just frightening :) The books do have the solutions in the back. Grids are small, so you may want to redraw on a blank sheet of paper for smaller children.

I'm homeschooling my 7 yo son. I teach math at a community college as well. We're really on a fixed schedule there and in college most of the student learning needs to happen outside the classroom. That's where they can play around and see what happens if they attempt with a different method. As far as order of operations goes, my point is that order of operations is there for a reason (I use the analogy that you're doing shortcuts: multiplication is a shortcut for addition, exponents are a shorthand for writing multiplication). Using the distributive property, although it gives an equivalent answer if done correctly, is not following the order of operations and can cause problems (and is wrong in terms of procedure if what I'm trying to see if you understand is order of operations). It isn't a fear that a student will get confused if they use the distributive property (which is necessary in many places), it's that in demonstrating order of operations, you must use the order. My student illustration was with someone who used the distributive property incorrectly both when solving an equation and checking the equation. That defeats the purpose of using order of operations to check your solution. If she had used order of ops, she'd have caught her distributive error. I've taught at the cc for over 13 years now and have seen so many students who have seen a lot of math in their schooling but who have only been taught memorization and not understanding. With Order of Ops, they've been taught PEMDAS and not the idea of shortcuts, and most of them will multiply before dividing because the mnemonic is MD. I've had students argue with me that -3^2 is 9 because "that's what my calculator says".

They teach students to use the calculator only (see all the threads on EveryDay Math). The appalling thing for me is that I teach material that's at an Algebra I level - and I have students testing into it straight from high school who have graduated high school with the 3 math credits required - of which Algebra I is the lowest course they can get high school credit for. It's quite a challenge because you not only have to teach them the math, you have to convince them that they need study skills and the approaches they used in high school will not let them pass my course. I'm not limited to the number of Fs I can assign and I will assign you the grade you earn. (Local public schools in a couple of districts are not allowed to assign a grade of below a 50 - so as not to discourage the students.) Just back from 3 hours of teaching, so a bit burned out. First test on Wednesday and grading them is always discouraging. Oh well. It was cool when writing the test to have ds (7) look over my shoulder and give the answer to one problem :lol:

Thanks for the link. We do have Plus. I don't see the Bill Nye videos on that list. If I do a search on my Streaming, I can get Greatest Inventions with Bill Nye, Stuff Happens with Bill Nye, and Greatest Discoveries with Bill Nye. Anytime someone says they get Bill Nye the Science Guy, I think of the Bill Nye the Science Guy programs with that title. My son loves them and if I could find them on Streaming, it'd be wonderful - but I don't see them on the pdf... It goes from Biggest Rectangle to Binge Drinking will no Bill in there. If I'm overlooking anything I'd love to learn (ds would so adore not having to get the DVDs from the library). Thanks.

Actually, if you're doing order of operations, you could not distribute the 7 through. Then you're using the distributive property and not using order of operations. The distributive property is essential with algebra - but order of operations is how you check solutions to equations. I've had students solve an equation incorrectly (making an error with distribution: for example saying -2(x-3) = -2x - 6 by not changing the sign), then checking the solution using order of operations would catch that there was a mistake. The student distributed incorrectly again during the check and claimed that their answer was correct. So order of operations is important for checking work. As for students not understanding - the mnemonic of PEMDAS is good, but students who are taught the mnemonic but without the understanding - or without the stressing that it's P/E/MD/AS - will get the problem I mentioned wrong - even with a calculator in front of them - because they multiply before dividing. And yes, there are a lot (sigh) of students who are not taught math correctly. I teach at the community college (generally basic algebra) and have seen it all. We're starting rational expressions and equations and I guarantee you that there are many students who can't add two fractions correctly without a calculator.