I got them this year in 5 to do instead of Extra Practice on topics I felt my son needed additional practice. Of course, this would be the year he started picking things up without needing the extra practice. :rolleyes: I use the placement tests on the Singapore site as end of book tests & use the reviews in the text to see if we need to go back over any material. We use the standards edition.

Example at purplemath. I've only seen synthetic division working underneath the problem. Polynomial long division is done the same way as long division with numbers (as in link). I do align like terms (unlike the link), but if you take a look at any college algebra text, I've only seen polynomial long division in the US way. Do you have any links of the other way for polynomial division? I do agree with the long division symbol looking like a radical and I tell students every semester NOT to write a radical.

I would start with 2 or 3. I wouldn't go back to 1.

We're finishing up SM 5. I've used the iExcel books (prior version of Process Skills) the whole way. In 1 and 2, the books introduce the bar model. By the time you're in 5, there are some sections where I couldn't set up some of the CWP problems (fractions in particular) without having done the iExcel walk-throughs first. I don't think iExcel alone would give enough practice. It is very strong in showing a procedure and then giving some practice with that procedure. The CWP books do a good job of then providing a lot of reinforcement. I definitely think the CWP books have better and more challenging word problems than what you'd find using the text and WB alone. I think the bar model approach is a brilliant way of transitioning to the idea of using a variable and algebra for word problems. It's not explicit at any point through 5 though, so I've shown my son how the bar model leads to an algebraic equation. I don't know that this is what the OP is looking for...but I've taught math at the cc for 15 years now and I've been really impressed at the foundation my son has gotten with Singapore math and I'm thrilled at the word problems.

You can just scan the first page and send it. If they want more they'll ask. If you're doing Explore scores & portfolio, it'd be just the Explore score. If the Belin Blank had other test results, you could send that, but if it's just the info you got with the Explore test, they don't need it. Good luck!

My son is finishing up Singapore 5B now. I plan to do IP and CWP for 6. I have AoPS PreAlgebra. I see no reason not to just move directly to it from SM 5. My son has also started using Alcumus. He mainly gets problems from PreAlgebra and Counting/Probability right now (just started). He's okay with those right now. So my suggestion is just to start PreAlgebra directly after finishing 5.

Hope you have a wonderful time!

My son was on Zyrtec for a while for environmental allergies. It never helped with hives though...we use Benadryl for that. My husband has been on Singulair for years and hasn't had an issue with it. Allergies and medications are so particular though. Sigh.

I am not diagnosed, but I get a rash if I'm in the sun much. I wear strong sunscreen. I have a large sun hat with a wide brim. I'll still wear long sleeves sometimes in the summer if I don't want to wear sunscreen, but i still have to put it on the backs of my hands. Sorry!

Looked like it was retirement savings that made us elite...and some pastimes. Were it not for retirement, we'd have been listed lower!

Have you checked all service providers?

For me, part of the security is that if something happened and we couldn't homeschool, we've got advocacy for our son. We'd have someone who could possibly help with conversations with a school and with providing some support.

Forums are an attempt to get started. Elists are pretty active.

Yup, yup, yup. The Process Skills books are here. I used the iExcel books. They have some problems where they're just setting up the bar model for an arithmetic problem. It really helps with set up of problems (and there were some in CWP 5 (old edition) that I couldn't see how to do with a bar model until we did the iExcel setups first!). I also found the text & workbook didn't have enough or difficult enough practice with the word problems. Those came in iExcel, CWP, and IP. For the word problems... doing this example you gave: Sam is 23 years old. He is 24 years younger than his father. how old is his father? One thing I did some was to use Cuisinaire rods to show the part/whole set up. It also made moving to the bar model a bit better. So here, I might start by asking what we know. Here, we can say that Sam is 23. So we can draw a bar (use a rod) to represent Sam and say it's 23. Then I'd ask what else we know. Well, Sam has a father. His father is older. We need another bar... this is a comparison. Father's bar needs to be longer than Sam's bar. How much longer? 24 years. Sometimes the Cuisinaire rods helped... sometimes not :) Sometimes I'd draw the model...sometimes I'd help my son with it. So now we've got 2 bars... one for Sam that's 23 long and one for his father that's 24 longer than Sam. So his father is the length of Sam + 24... so 23 + 24 = 47 years old. The bar model is really powerful and lets my son solve problems in CWP 4 and 5 that I would use algebra and a system of equations to solve. It's impressive. The key idea is finding a "unit". In this case, Sam is our "unit". (You don't need to talk about this with your child, but I see it all over the place in 5... and it's so cool because it leads so very nicely into algebra!) I'm terribly impressed with how the bar models work out and how powerful they are.

I didn't attend my undergrad ceremony. My master's degree was from a large public university. The ceremony was meh. I'm glad I walked and I'm proud of the degree, but if your daughter says not to bother & it's a financial hardship...don't go. I definitely wanted my husband there. Perfectly fine if he were the only one. No regrets about missing undergrad ceremony as well.

Congrats!!

Front page of our newspaper today. Due to some dispute with city council, a local church that feeds about 150 people each night in conjunction with the Salvation Army is stopping their program. Sounds like the church did offer to extend the program for another year, but council said no so program is stopping. If people are homeless or staying in motels or other short-term situations, there can also be a lot of difficulty in actually cooking.

One other idea... RFWP does have forums now. The yahoo group is still limping along, but it's mostly dead. The forums should get a response from someone from RFWP if you post.

For a 6th grader who's good with grammar, I would be more likely to start with Level 2. I definitely wouldn't do Building Language, but would start with CE. You could choose to do Sentence Island as a more "fun" introduction to the program, but I don't think I'd do any other books from Level 1 other than maybe the poetry book. We used all parts of Level 1 in 3rd grade (although I don't think we finished poetry). Level 2 spread a bit more and didn't stay in just 4th grade... CE is wonderful (and has just been revised). We did very little with paragraph town or with poetry though and this year we've done grammar and CE 2, but we haven't touched poetry or writing. We've done a lot more with WWS. You can mix and match books, but they do work very well as one level. I wouldn't start Level 1 with a 6th grader though...especially if he's strong with grammar.

Agree with others. Think son enjoyed it, but CE is much stronger and BL can pretty easily be skipped iMO.

:) Well, that'll explain some of it... my book ends (last page of index) on p841! My son's allergic to dairy (hives head to toe after eating baked milk at last allergy challenge...phooey). Instead of butter, we just use Earth Balance sticks & they bake great.

This doesn't look like it... I have Joy of Cooking, but it's a very old edition (my mom's old edition from when I was a child... maybe you have a newer version?) I only see 3 things in index for gingerbread... none contain applesauce... This is the Gingerbread recipe (p636 in edition published in 71) Preheat oven to 350. Melt in heavy pan and let cool 1/2 c butter Beat together well: 1/2 c sugar 1 beaten egg Sift 2 1/2 c sifted all-purpose flour 1 1/2 tsp soda 1 tsp each cinnamon and ginger 1/2 tsp salt (1 T grated orange rind) Combine: 1/2 c light molasses 1/2 c honey 1 c hot water Add the sifted and liquid ingredients alternately to the butter mixture until blended. Bake in a greased pan about 1 hour. There's also a recipe for wheatless gingerbread (9" round cake) and a high altitude gingerbread (in addition to discussion on how to make a house and cookies). But that's all I see in this edition.....

Jenny has said on the Singapore forums that there weren't any plans to write a HiG for 6. We're doing IP and CWP for 6, but since we've been using Standards, we'll just move along to Elements of Mathematics books or Art of Problem Solving. Looks like you can go to Prealgebra pretty easily from Singapore 5. But we do plan to skip 6.

Yup. It depends on what the error is. If it's a mistake made as he's learning new material, I'll generally say which problem it is on a page, but I won't say where in the problem. In fact, I don't think I ever say where it is in the problem... sometimes it's a misspelling :) Just as proofreading your English work is important, it's important to be able to catch your math errors. The age of your child matters too. I don't think I started saying, "You've got two problems wrong on this page," until my son was in 3rd grade or higher... and again, this is on material that is review.

I had my son do it :) We're in 5 now. He said, "I don't remember this one." Key is first and third facts. He drew four bars, but didn't worry about lengths... A + B is 52 ...so he has A bar, B bar, and 52 as their sum to the right. D+F is 62, so he's got those two bars with a 62 as their sum to the right. There isn't any overlap, so the sum of all 4 rope lengths is 114. We know that A+D is 47. Subtracting 47 from the total length gives B+F as 67 yds. My husband looked at the work as I had my son explain it and said, "that's easier than how I'd have done it!" :) I like Singapore! HTH.