We are RightStart math failures, too. If something doesn't work, don't use it. We've switched to Math Mammoth and are doing well with it. My main goal with math is to keep is short(er). I don't keep it under 10 minutes with math always, but I do split it up so we do adding and money and skip counting - so three short blocks of three different math topics - in order to keep it "short" and still get through things. As for nature study, my loose definition is anythings hands on with direct observation. Do you have the Handbook of Nature Study by Comstock? The Handbook of Nature Study blog is also very helpful with concrete, realistic ideas for what to do. My best advice, though, is to implement CM principles one at a time and get them going well before you add something else. Get your footing with math and then try adding nature study. I find I do best with Nature Study if I have planned ahead of time what we are going to do. Many times that is a list of ideas, but I don't just make it up when I do it. When I am constantly on the lookout for opportunities, they pop up, so we've done nature study every week since the new year and have really been enjoying it. One week we brought in some snow (right after it had snowed and it was fresh) and let it melt in a glass bowl. The question was, what would happen to it. My son guessed it would disappear, which was a good guess. Another week we talked about apples and I actually bought one of each variety of apples in the grocery store and we tasted and compared them (and examined the parts of the apple, in the process, of course). One week we compared "stick trees" and "needle trees" as my son called them when he was younger. Just look for things around you to take a closer look at - don't make a big deal out of it. Someone asked about Trial and Triumph - we just started AO year 1 formally at the beginning of the calendar year, and we've only done one chapter so far. Yes, it is gruesome, but that's what life was like. I think it's a little more intense because it is individuals, but we studied gladiators in SOTW and that was about the same speed. It was real life so I am very direct about it but I don't emphasize the gruesome parts when we discuss it. If it makes you uncomfortable, consider something else. If you are comfortable with it, your children will be too.

We are using Ambleside and love it. It does take a bit of planning for us. We do 40 4-day weeks of school rather then 36 weeks like their schedule has, and they also just give you what to do for the week and I kind of floundered with that a bit. When I did work out a schedule that worked for us, here is what I did: My son was already used to being read to for 20 minutes (think a chapter in the Chronicles of Narnia series) so I replaced that with the literature and poetry readings. I just figured out how many pages to do a day, and we are actually reading all of the Blue Fairy Book in year one rather than just the selections they have. Then the history, geography and church history readings I added in one day a week in place of SOTW which we now do three days a week instead of four (we just read the text and whatever books we can find at the library). The science readings I added to our science time which we are doing per WTM without a spine per se. Art, artist study, composer study, and nature study are done on a rotating basis every week (one per day). I let him pick which one we will do, if possible. We are enjoying our curriculum very much.

I lived in Walla Walla Washington which is about 45 min west of Kennewick. For being as far north as it is, the climate is very mild. It's dry, no trees, generally flat (like South Dakota or Nebraska - midwestern states towards the Rockies). You're withing driving distance of the mountains, which is nice. I went to college there so my knowledge is limited to the weather - isn't that sad?

My third was that way. She stayed in longer than my second who came a few days early. And I had imminent signs of labor every day for three weeks, only making it more difficult. My doula actually knew of an acupuncturist who is good at enducing labor. My little one was due on 9/9/9 so that was my excuse for making the appt. I couldn't get one on her due date but got one the day before. Just knowing I had that point at which I knew it would be over really helped my frame of mind. As it was, I did end up going in for my acupuncture appt. It was at 11:00 and I was having my normal BH the entire time. My doula had said some moms left in labor and others went home, but all of her clients who had gone to this guy went into labor within 24 hours. We left the office at 12:15 with no action and went home to eat. Fed the boys (my husband was at work but my mom was with me) and by 1:00 I was having strong contractions every 2 or 3 minutes (which my mom said was pretty close for a 3rd baby - she was a 4th baby and was born at home because her father wanted to shave first). So we left for the hospital and DD was born at 4:01 p.m. But the entire time when I was complaining every day about imminent signs of labor without going into labor, my doula said it was very, very common with her clients, especially moms with more than one child. I know it's hard. Hang in there!

What are you expecting? I don't expect my child to have something memorized after writing it once. I do expect him, over time, to have a better understanding of basic sentence structure than he would get if he was just reading. Actually writing something out gives you the opportunity to labor over every word and see exactly how it was done. It's an indirect way of learning grammar, punctuation and spelling. It is also a good way to practice handwriting without being bored to tears writing the same word (or letter) over and over again. We do copywork daily. My son is always memorizing something and I usually have him do selections from his memory work. Usually he finishes memorizing something long before we have written all of it, so that method has not left me without copywork to assign. When he is memorizing something, sometimes he misses words or doesn't quite understand them; if he's written it out, I know he's got it. We do not do handwriting, other than learning each letter initially. We do copywork and that is where he practices his handwriting. I had to practice handwriting every day all the way through the sixth grade - generally we were given the letter of the day and had to write an entire page of that letter. This is far more interesting, and it provides other opportunities to learn at the same time (as already discussed).

There are programs like Right Start that tell you exactly what to show the child and do for each part of the lesson (scripted, even though they don't give you specific text to read) and other like Singapore where you're given a few problems and left to figure out what to do (unless you already know math or have the HIG). Right Start may not give you specific words to say but it doesn't give you a worksheet to hand the child either; everything done requires direct interaction with the instructor rather than independent learning on the part of the child.

Only you can decide if it's worth it. It is a good program and people swear by it. But there are a lot of other good programs out there, too. For us, Right Start was not worth it. It was too scatterbrained (skipped randomly from subject to subject) and I never knew if a topic was supposed to be mastered by the end of the lesson or if we would be coming back to it again in a few days/weeks. We are now using Math Mammoth and I see a lot of similarities in it to Right Start. Many of the concepts are taught in the same way. There are games and the abacus is used (at least in 1st grade). There is more practice built into the program because the math books are filled with worksheets, but each worksheet has two or more activities/approaches on it, so it develops a very good understanding of the concepts. So if Right Start isn't working for you, don't feel guilty about trying something else. There are lots of other programs out there with lots of enthusiastic reviews. Shake the dust off your feet and move on.

First, it depends on which math curriculum you're following. Usually there is some guidance there, if nothing else simply in what is covered over the course of a certain grade or year. But a simple answer would be this: addition/1st grade subtraction/2nd grade multiplication/3rd grade division/4th grade That was what we were expected to do when I was in school. Now curriculum are expecting mastery of addition and subtraction in grade 1 as well as an introduction to multiplication. So that's why I say, refer to the curriculum you're using and see how far they go in a given year.

Does anyone use this? I know they have a whole site, but I was wondering if anyone had the book and found it useful. If so, tell me how you use it and why you love it. Thanks!

We're using McGuffey's Eclectic Speller in place of workbooks. I just go through half a lesson with ds6 each week. At first the words were all phonetic (short vowels) so they were easy. Long vowels are harder because there is more than one way to make a vowel long. So I have him read the words, then I spell them aloud and he repeats me the first day. I have him read them, then I have him spell them aloud the 2nd day (spelling bee style). Then the third and fourth days I just say them aloud and he spells them. Sometimes I have him write them for copywork. It just all depends on how he's doing with a lesson. If we need more time on a lesson, we take it. But generally we do a half lesson a week. If he doesn't know what a word means, he asks; if I don't know, we look it up. This method is working quite well for us.

Math Mammoth is similar to Singapore in philosophy by has a lot of worksheets. I considered it for my son, but didn't do it because worksheets take him forever. But it might work well for you.

We're only on our first year, but we've been following the WTM recommendations. We did animals last fall, reading a lot of the Rookie-Reader series. Now we're studying the human body, using the Kingfisher Encyclopedia of the Human Body as our spine. In the spring and summer, we will study plants and have a garden. I have an old set of Childcraft Encyclopedias and have been using them as our spine as we go through the various topics. We do science every day and just read a couple pages from our spine and one of the enrichment books that I get from the library (like the Rookie Science Readers). The Private Eye thing looks interesting, as do the Young Scientist experiments.

We are Right Start failures. It is very scripted, and it seems to wander aimlessly from topic to topic. You'll be learning numbers then you do partitioning (okay, I'm fine with that), but then you're counting money with nickels and pennies and doing partitioning with them and then you start in on perpendicular lines and rectangles. When I tried to figure out how RS taught telling time, it was mixed in to a few lessons halfway through the book while they were working on something else. It isn't something where you have a section on Numbers, then Addition up to 10, then Addition up to 20, then Geometry, then Subtraction. So you can't look at the book and figure out the scope and sequence - you just have to wander aimlessly with it, which I simply did not have the patience for. I am sure the activities are effective, but I like to know what I'm doing and what the point is and I could never figure it out. Right Start is also very opinionated about not doing certain things like counting or using flash cards or anything like that. My son happens to like flashcards, just like some children like workbooks. I understand that workbooks and flashcards aren't for everybody, but they just seemed very adamant about not doing certain things, kind of like a religion or something. I just wasn't a believer, I guess. Playing games to learn math facts may work really well for some kids, but locking yourself into doing only that is just as bad as locking yourself into using flashcards and workbooks. You really have to be on their bandwagon if it's going to work for you, and I wasn't. We tried it multiple times and finally gave up on it. Lots of people swear by it, but it isn't for everybody.

What kind of fat did the recipe call for? Subbing margarine for shortening would create cookies like that.

We're doing Ambleside which has a lot of read-alouds along with SOTW and first year WTM science. I use a lot of library books for SOTW and WTM science. For those, I make a list of what I want to use at the beginning of the quarter. I have a document in Word where I've typed out all of the chapters and sections in the chapters (like the sections of each chapter in SOTW). On Tuesday or Wednesday (Wednesday is our library day), I go through and make sure I have the books I need from the library. I make a list of what I can get at our branch and request the ones I need from other branches. That way they are there for me by the next week, and if someone has them checked out, I can still get my hands on them close to when we need them. For our read-alouds, I have the chapters written out in that same document and I know how many pages we need to do per day or week to get through the books, so no planning there except at the beginning of the school year. Music - we generally learn one new song a week, and I keep a running list of songs we want to learn. We have three categories of songs - hymns, children's Bible songs, and folk songs - and I just rotate which one will have the new song each week. We sing daily so that allows for me to play the song and read the words aloud for a few days before we try to sing it (we do music daily). For artist study and composer study, we are currently working through books so I have the chapters spelled out in my planning document and I know what to do next by looking at that. For nature study, I do have to come up with a plan or it doesn't get done. For art, I have to read what the next chapter is in our Artistic Pursuits text and make sure I have my act together. I buy the supplies at the beginning of the year, so it's a matter of making sure I have them ready to go and the appropriate gear in place ready to be used. We have standard props we use for math - abacus, coins, beans, tally sticks, flash cards, etc. I have a general outline of what we're covering and then I use the prop that best works with what I'm trying to accomplish. Really, I do very little preparation. If something requires much preparation, it probably won't get done.

My suggestion would be to go to a curriculum fair and take a look at things. Just browse. That will give you a much better idea of what is out there and how it works.

Yes, that is what I was going to recommend. I would compare it to the Usborne Illustrated History Encyclopedia. The have pictures of historical artifacts, places over where the stories supposedly took place (like the Sea of Galilee, which is a real place), and examples of foods and crops and such that are discussed in the stories. My kids really enjoy it.

If you have Office Depot or Staples nearby, you can download it to them and they can print it for you. If you do B&W it won't cost very much; actually it may cost even less than if you did it yourself at home.

He certainly likes math. Most days when we finish school and I ask him what he enjoyed most, math is usually what he mentions. We finished the first addition chapter and then went on to subtraction, but he didn't have his addition facts down well yet and he got confused between the two. So I slowed down because I want him to have a solid base in addition before we move on to subtraction. I've been practicing his facts daily while doing other parts of the book (shapes, length, etc.). He's a tough kid to figure out. Not just in math, but in other subjects as well. He listens and asks questions appropriately, and he'll narrate well (in subjects where we do that). But then at times, I will explain something forwards and backwards and upside-down and inside-out and he just doesn't get it, then three days later I'll hear him explaining it in perfect detail to his little brother. So he's smart, but it's really hard to get a feel for whether he is "getting" something and whether or not a given program is working for him. I've tried Kumon, and he says he likes it, but he definitely is not ready to be left to work on his own yet. It takes him forever to do a lesson unless I stand over him and keep him engaged. We've tried Right Start (more than once) but it just does not work for us. I like Singapore because it explains the concepts well. It's easy to teach because there is a logical outline - there is a chapter on addition, another on subtraction, etc. I hate Right Start because it is so scripted and I can't tell if he gets a concept or not so I don't know if I should move on or stay where we're at, and I can't go to another part of the book because there are no sections (everything is just all mixed up together). I've been doing math in three segments and it seems to be working well. 1) We practice skip counting. 2) We practice math facts in various ways - flash cards (which he says he likes - he specifically mentions them as a favorite), abacus (another favorite), partitioning, word problems (from Ray's), etc. 3) A section from Singapore or another topic by my own invention such as counting money or telling time. We spend no more than ten minutes on each segment. I've spent hours looking at various math programs but am at a loss as to what to do. DH and I both found math very easy so I never thought teaching math in homeschool would be so hard. In fact, I taught myself math all the way through college. I don't remember memorizing my math facts because I just knew them, though I did have a teacher who drilled us with flashcards and a time to make sure we knew them. Some days I want to just get MCP Scott-Foresman (what I had in school) and hope that if it worked so well for me, it will work well for ds too. But I'm worried that if we're already behind, we'll just get even further behind by hopping from program to program. I really am at a loss as to whether what we're doing is working or what might work better if this isn't.

Does your child do their work independently? Or are you doing a lot of teaching with this program in order for them to get the concepts? Do they become more independent as they go along? We are doing level 1A and it is very mom-intensive at this point. I have the HIG, but sometimes I feel like the textbook/workbook supplement what I do rather than my supplementing what they do. I follow the basic outline of Singapore, but my ds needs a lot more practice and explaining and work than what is given in the text. That's fine at this point, because I want him to have a solid foundation. But in a couple years I'll have a second child to teach and I'm hoping ds will be a bit more independent by then. Also, am I a failure if my ds only finishes 1A by the end of first grade? We're halfway through the school year and I can definitely see us finishing 1A, but it looks like we'll be doing 1B next fall, which will be second grade. Are we hopelessly behind? Thanks!

I wasn't that much into poetry myself until I started reading it to my son every day. We do a new poem every day and then I also read the poems we did for the past four days (so five poems a day). By the time you hear it the fifth time, you're becoming familiar with it. He has special requests that he likes to hear again, and he also memorizes some of the poems I read (ones he chooses). No analysis, though I may explain a bit what the poem is talking about the first day we read it if I think he doesn't have the life experience to understand something. As for art, we do art appreciation once a week. Right now we are doing the Come Look with Me series. We just look at the picture, discuss the various details, talk about what the weather is in the picture (if it is outdoors), whether the people are happy or what their mood is and why, etc. Then I put the picture aside and have him describe as much of the picture as he can recall. Really quite simple. It's one of his favorite subjects. And I have developed much more of an appreciation for art myself through these weekly exercises. Being exposed to something and majoring in it in college are two different things. I think everyone should be exposed to enough poetry and art that they have a basic literacy. I didn't have that when I was in school, and I feel like I missed out.

I just write down what we accomplish each day. But let me qualify that. We have a routine we stick to very closely. Some things, like OPTGR and Right Start math, we just do the next thing and it doesn't matter to me when we finish, we just do some every day. Other things, like SOTW or read-alouds that we're doing, I have a set goal for how much I want to do each day. With SOTW, we do the text and I check out as many of the books as I can find from the library. Then we do one section of the text and whatever library books we found that go with it every day. At that pace, we're moving along just fine and I expect to be done when I want to be. With read-alouds (lots of those with Ambleside), I know how much I can do in one day so some books we do every day and some we do once a week. The extras that we do once a week - nature study, composer study, art, artist study - I decide at the beginning of the week what we will do for each one and then we do one each day (we only do four days of school each week). I have one document where I write out all the chapters of each book at the beginning of the year, and then I take from there when I record what we did. So I write things down as we do them, but if you asked me today what we are going to do Monday, I could give you a pretty good run-down based on our routine and what is next in each subject. But I don't have it spelled out day by day for the rest of the year - too much work! If something happened, then I would have to go change it all, which would drive me crazy. This method gives me both planning and freedom, which is what I like. I'm sure that helps a lot. ;)

For us, it depends on how many resources we find. We just do the text plus whatever books we can find from the lists at the library. I do one section a day with the books that coordinate with that section. We do SOTW three times a week. At that pace, I don't think we'll have any problem being finished by the end of the year.

I'm too creative. I would be bored out of my mind if I didn't "make things my own."

My dh and I were both good at math, and I tried RS B earlier this year with DS and it was a disaster. Then I tried Singapore and it was a disaster. DS always said his favorite thing we did (when I asked him at the end of the day) was math, but it was like he just didn't get it. So I did my own thing for six months, and now we're doing Right Start B and it's easy and fun. Just give it time. She isn't ready for those concepts yet. She won't be math retarded - I promise!