Now THERE's an idea--ODS is working through Beast 3 right now. I think DD could handle the concepts, just not the frustration...but if I pull out a few problems here or there to add just a little extra challenge, that might be a nice balance of not-too-hard and just-challenging-enough without having to purchase two books which I will only partly use. (And I can still have her do all of Beast in another year or two when I think she's mature enough to work on problem-solving persistence.) I think DD sounds much like your son; she can understand concepts easily, but she needs some repetition for retention. Currently I've been having her do a page of a new concept plus a page of something old to balance her frustration with "More subtraction AGAIN?!" with my feeling that she needs at least some repetition to really solidify it for later.

Hmm... I hadn't considered just using the text. In fact, since she hasn't needed explanation, we've just ditched the text. But I do remember thinking that the text was more challenging than the workbooks, so maybe that's a good option for now. Oh, bah--I thought I saw a reference to the IP having more puzzle-y things in it. She really goes for all the cutesy, which is partly why I chose Singapore. Huh. I was intending to back her up a little bit to try to reduce her aversion to math, since I think she didn't retain as well toward the end because she got upset as soon as the book came out...but I never considered that this might be TOO far back. I'd done some poking around on here and found several folks who went to 2A partway through C. Perhaps I will try to zip through 2B with just the textbook (unless she's unhappy about losing the puzzle-y math sheets) and then head into 3. Now I'm curious enough to head to the Singapore website and look for placement tests.

I'm amazed at how many tidbits from Eliot still pop into my head--and that was just an interim class. (Though it inspired me so much that I took an entire semester on poetry thereafter and am still in love!) Oh, the glory of words, carefully chosen!

I started DD on Singapore 2A (US) after she started really balking at math midway through RS-C. She's much happier now, but I'm trying to find the sweet spot for her. Perhaps it's because she was midway through C, but I'm finding that she really doesn't need all the repetition given in Singapore. It might take her five problems to figure out a new concept, but not five days worth of problems. (Though that's even true of things we hadn't yet hit in RS, like subtraction with trades.) For that reason, we've really sped through this first book; I keep her on a topic until I'm sure she understands, but she gets bored and angry if we keep repeating once she's got the idea, so then we skip problems--or entire pages/lessons. I'm trying to decide whether I should purchase the regular workbook again for 2B or switch to the IP book. Does the IP book simply have fewer, more focused problems, or is it equally long-winded as well as more challenging? She enjoys the feeling of accomplishment in math, but she is not fond of struggling for answers. I got the standard workbook because I wanted to rebuild her confidence and enjoyment of math, but it frustrates me to be flying through so quickly and skipping so much. (2A has taken about 2 months of 3-4 days/week, only a page or two each day--generally not whole lessons.) Any suggestions?

James Patterson's Maximum Ride series has the same vibe as Hunger Games, IMO. I don't remember them having anything inappropriate, and at the time I read them I was teaching 8th graders, so I think I would have been paying attention... I LOVE Nancy Farmer's House of the Scorpion. I've read it numerous times--exciting AND thought-provoking. She has other good books, too, but that one is my favorite. Gary Schmidt has written a wide variety of really good young adult books--the seventh and eighth graders where I worked loved them. (Wednesday Wars was a big favorite.) I seem to be the only one mentioning him, which surprises me since he's received two Newbery Honors. He's a Christian college professor and father of five, so he's careful about how he handles difficult issues. Avi's True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle is seat-gripping and spot-on for that age. I loved anything by Gary Paulsen around that age. Roland Smith's Peak is a super-cool book that both the students and I loved.

I have yet to find much that is messy in BFSU...but maybe I'm not looking hard enough. Most of it is demonstrations done with around-the-house objects or sorting pictures or objects. In fact, I am adding quite a bit of hands-on because that's what really engages my kids. BFSU has a decent literature list included for each topic. I'd suggest, like PP, that you use BFSU and lean heavily on the lit aspect. You can take your time with it and spend time watching videos on various topics, doing the occasional hands-on, and reading lots of books. After all, it's intended to take more than one year.

Can you divide his blocks between everyone else's and rotate just the remaining three? So something like this: DS1- First subject Long block 1 DS1- Second subject Long block 2 DS1- Third subject Long block 3 DS1- Anything remaining Not sure if that would work at all, but it's something to consider.

Well, I was originally going to vote for 5th grade because I thought, "I could've figured that out by fourth, so 5th seems like a safe guess." And then I remembered that I used to teach Language Arts to 8th graders, and only about the top 10% of them would have been able to figure this out. So I decided that maybe by 10th they'd have more vocabulary exposure...but I still think it likely that a large percentage of the adult population probably just gets the general gist of this form and couldn't come close to actually defining at least a few of the words in it. It is, after all, written by book-lovers. ;-)

If you're looking for open-and-go, have you checked out your local teacher store? They usually have a variety of topical books at various age levels. Books tend to include a mixture of copyable activities like mini-books to make, games to play, crafts to assemble, etc. Something like this book (patriotic!) would be cute. You would need to assemble your own materials, so these aren't 100% open and go...but I think this is about as close as you can get.

I am totally un-musical. I took two years of piano as a kid, followed by two years of violin. I still can't read music. (I'm more the artsy type.) DH took piano lessons briefly and trombone lessons briefly (he's guessing until money ran out, since he never complained about either), but he wishes he had more. So while neither of us is especially musical, we want to give our kids a) the chance to potentially discover a passion that can last a lifetime and b) a well-rounded education, which for us includes a basic understanding of music. ODS has wanted to play guitar since he was three. We recently started him on lessons (at nearly 7) and he is enthralled. DD asks to play violin, but I don't think she has the maturity to practice yet. YDS is a born drummer. We also own a piano (which DH's parents were given by his grandparents) and I have the Pianimals books that the older two have been slowly working through. I don't dare push them as their teacher on piano, though, because I really don't know what I'm doing and I have enough on my plate with the rest, so piano is totally as-they're-interested. I have noticed that ODS does far more tinkering on the piano now that he's taking guitar lessons. We also have a homeschool choir available in our area, and that teaches music notation, as well. ODS started last year and the other two may begin in the next year or so if they continue to express interest.

This is awesome! I think I am nerdy enough to aspire to educate folks as we trick-or-treat! I wonder if I can convince all three to be obscure historical figures... Last year ODS wanted to be...a stump. After all the agonizing he went through to decide, I went with it. I rolled cardboard around him for his stump, created a lid for the top with rings, cut eye holes, added a couple twigs and attached some cardboard roots... It was hard to walk in and my sister said he probably got more candy because people felt bad that his mom had just rolled him up in cardboard when everyone else had their storebought finery, but he was delighted. And hilarious.

My sister said she found some nice, tall Cherokee jeans at Target that her daughter loves--skinny or bootcut. My DD seems only to fit into Sonoma slim jeans from Kohl's; those are the only ones that will stay up on her and not gap. They are as tall as the Cherokee ones in the back, but they scoop a little in the front so they don't dig into her stomach when she sits. I think they are a very modest, but nice-looking fit. I tried Children's Place and several other varieties, but somehow those always fall down or gap. (I've never seen the knit-waist for girls, though. I saw them at Gymboree for boys, and ODS loved the ease and comfort. At nearly-seven, though, I got him regular jeans this year. We'll see how that goes...)

I used RS primarily, but I bought Miquon and used it some to supplement. Here's my 2c: Miquon: Very discovery-based. This can be great, but for whatever reason Miquon's way of doing things worked better for my DD than my DS--it just annoyed him, while she found it exciting. (Then again, he intuited so much that the discovery was unnecessary.) Miquon's worksheets are simple, one-color and generally without illustrations. (Plus or minus, depending on who you are.) Some of the Miquon sheets are arranged oddly, staggering problems in a way I found visually confusing or overwhelming. (I skipped those, but if this were my main program, I would have had to block out some of the page as they worked.) Other pages had very little on them, but encouraged kids to write their own problems. While this may have been motivating in a group setting--see what everyone comes up with--it wasn't engaging for my kids on their own...even the guy who generally loves coming up with random math problems would sigh and say, "This again?" The price is great on Miquon (something like $50 for the whole business?), so that's a definite plus. And it's deceptively simple--while at first glance you might think it's easy and straightforward, it really digs pretty deep into the topics it covers. You as teacher need to do the legwork to find out where each lesson is going and how to present it well, though. We did a few pages once a week for about a year--using parts of Red and Orange--before I gave it up. It was too much work for me, and RS was doing the job just fine. Right Start (2nd ed): Very interactive. My initial reason for purchasing RS was because my kids were very young and I wanted a playful math that used a variety of manipulatives to make each point, so they'd have lots of opportunities to "get" it. I love the emphasis on 5s and 10s, the games to reinforce concepts, the sparing use of worksheets early on, the emphasis on mental math strategies. Really, I love the RS approach in general--I think it's a really strong way to present math. I had mixed feelings about A. It seemed to jump through too many topics per lesson and skip around too much, so it was good that I planned to use it informally. I ended up going through and reading several lessons, then working with my kids on one concept at a time--like sit and play through four lessons worth of patterning all at once, then in our next session move on to the next topic covered in those four lessons. Level B, though--oh, the glory! I love B! It's absolutely amazing! My only downers for RS are the expense and the uneven pacing (scattershot A, super strong B, really slow C). I'm still excited to use A and B with YDS, though--but we'll probably not haul out the Miquon, and whether we'll do RS C or use Singapore (or Beast by then?) will likely depend on his personality. ODS is now on to Beast, since he was requesting "hard math" and speeding through RS. (He did C in something like 3 months, working 3-4 days a week.) I switched DD to Singapore 2 midway through RS-C, simply because Singapore fit her better (and she was too competitive, looking at her progress through RS compared with her brother's and getting all tense). She wanted get-er-done math (read: I'd rather have a worksheet with an obvious end than play a game for a while and not know exactly when my lesson will be done), and the visual aesthetic (large text, few problems per page/not too cluttered) and playful style (lots of solve-to-unlock-the-code and cute little cartoony drawings to accompany the problems) are perfect for her. She's once again squealing that she loves math. As for the feasibility of doing RS with two kids separately--I taught C to ODS and DD at different speeds, so I prepped and taught two RS lessons daily. I didn't find it to be a problem; often RS B and C lessons end with a worksheet or game that can be done independently (I modified games to make them solitaire-able or used alternate games if need be). Thus, it was really just a few minutes of review and a bit of introduction to new material for each kid, plus the occasional check-in to see that they're doing fine on their activity. Because the whole business is scripted, it's easy to see the recommended sequence of activities and all necessary materials at-a-glance, making it very quick to prep. HTH!

I didn't think of this as especially fun, but my kids have loved learning household skills. When they were teeny, I'd let them help me scrub the counters and the tub. At this point, they wash floors, scrub toilets/sinks/stove, roll and shake rugs, vacuum, sweep the porch, strip their sheets... They each have one task each day, which helps my sanity and seems to give them a satisfying sense of accomplishment. In a similar vein, they were so fascinated by me fixing holes in seams and replacing buttons that I got them some felt and large needles and they have had a blast making little stuffed animals, pouches, bracelets, or whatever they can think of. We enjoyed the butterfly garden this year, and this is the second year we've caught local tadpoles to watch them turn into frogs. (With the kit you're stuck with the frog; with locals you can happily return them to their habitat once you're tired of dealing with them!) As for games, we have Pattern Play (MindWare), Rush Hour, Blokus, The Allowance Game, Mancala, Guess Who? (with the extra cards--my librarian DH loves this one for developing categorizing skills), checkers... We have a variety of tangram pattern cards, word magnets for making silly sentences, whiteboards that get lots of use for drawing and writing stories, a stomp rocket and a good kite that are fun to play with and ponder, and everyone is allowed some tablet/computer time daily. (ODS loves Stack the States and has learned a ton already. All the kids find things they enjoy on Starfall (I paid $30 for the year). We had a MathSeeds subscription for a while and will get one for YDS when he's a bit older.) We also have Snap Circuits, which the kids would love if it worked. I think our resistor may be faulty, and one of our lights will flash ever-so-briefly and then appear dead, though it still completes the circuit. A bit frustrating for the kids...

This. Well, mostly this. In math, there's a pretty clear linear progression. In reading, you can give an age-graded level. But at what point is your kid advanced in science or history or language arts in general? And how much? In those subjects, there's a far less linear progression, and what every publisher covers at every level varies in its depth. So I feel comfortable saying that my kids are working ahead in math and can read above their grade level, but I'm not going to claim we're advanced in anything else unless one of my kids shows an intense enthusiasm or unnatural ability to grasp a certain subject. I just blithely state what we're covering--which usually doesn't have the same effect as, "My X-grader is working on X+2 curricula."

You don't happen to live near me, do you? Because I'd LOVE to have my kids take classes like you want to teach! :001_tt1:

I'd agree that going complete immersion might be a bit terrifying to little ones off the bat, but I think it'd be cool to gradually do more and more of your speaking in German. For that age, in particular, routine and predictability are key--if a child knows what's coming (more or less), they are less stressed about that as an unknown and more able to relax and focus on other things, like learning. So as they're familiar with the routine, you can gradually switch your instruction to more German without causing them a major stress-out. I'd have the same basic structure every time. Something like--circle time greeting/weather/whatever, song, story, game, vocab review, active song/fingerplay, craft, free play, farewell song--depending how much time you have and how big your group is, I think my sequence would take about 75 minutes, if free play was mostly whatever time kids had if they finished the craft in a hurry. You can have some things that change (new game and craft each week, rotate through various songs and finger plays). Select a theme for each week or have in mind a general progression or series of things to cover and break it into bite-size chunks. Use books, songs, games, and crafts to teach the vocab. For books, if you can find ones that are familiar stories or ones that have a really obvious storyline, then you can focus on the vocab, stopping to point out/discuss the pictures in German and have kids repeat some words as you read. For songs, you can teach a line at a time and then explain its meaning, asking if the kids remember in subsequent singings. Games can be anything active/interactive, from Simon Says to relays to I Spy. Crafts can include coloring pages, cut-and-paste, or make-it type things like paper dolls (start with basic labeled body parts to put together and provide labeled clothes to color and dress them in a subsequent week?). I guess my overview would be--familiar sequence, small bites of info, repeat elements multiple weeks for mastery, gradually increase immersion, alternate sit-down and active activities, and limit each activity block to 10 minutes or so (with a few minutes to transition between activities). Hope that's remotely helpful.

My DS 6.5 can't stand being wrong or losing, so he just makes excuses. "Oh, I knew that was a bad move, but I was trying to be nice and let you win." Or, "I wasn't really paying attention, so I didn't do very well this time." More annoying yet is when it is some game the kids make up and he just changes the rules so he can claim he didn't lose. (His sister hates that!) DD 5.5, on the other hand, is so uber-competitive about every aspect of life that she just bursts into tears and shouts about the unfairness of it all--all the time. Over everything. *sigh* We don't play many games around here, though I need to start again. I used to have a once-weekly session where I rewarded them for being good sports, but then we got to a period where DD could never keep it together, so it was too frustrating for everyone.

This past year we used RightStart B/C (and I adjusted assignments as necessary, since it could take him forever just to play the games--thankfully he understands math quickly), AAS (done standing up by the whiteboard and with lessons shortened as much as possible while still getting the content--it still sometimes took him a half hour to write a handful of words), and Bible Heroes (only because he really wanted to do writing). That was all we could manage for most of the year. In the spring I finally started adding one "extra" per day--science (BFSU, done via lots of experiments), social studies (my own), Spanish (my own), art (my own). I try to make it all active and hands-on, otherwise I lose him quickly despite his easygoing personality and desire to please.

Our only problem has been that as soon as school starts up, the few people we know are so busy with school and homework and extracurriculars that they don't have time for friends outside of those. Hopefully that's just a regional thing, but i feel like it's becoming more universal--the overscheduling.

I LOVE RightStart B, and it's worked well for both of my older kids so far, despite their different learning styles. I didn't need the script, though some find it helpful. I love the variety of activities and manipulatives (lots of card games which can be done solo or with others, abacus, 3-d shapes, place value cards...). You can use what your child needs or skip some activities if they have mastered soemthing with ease. The progression from concrete to abstract was masterfully done, and the whole program was just really solid and fun. I bought Miquon as a fun alternate, but DS was not at all enamored of the C-rods, and he did not like the open-ended-ness of it. He's naturally very mathy, though, so he really didn't need the discovery phase; I ended up speeding him through portions of RS where it progressed more slowly than he needed. DD seemed to need more of RS's structured step-by-step progression; she got frustrated with the lack of direction in Miquon. It's probably a great program, and if I hadn't been so passionate about RS, I likely would have put in more effort and made it work. But since I had RS and it was working so well, I decided it wasn't worth expending the energy to get Miquon to work just for "something different" once a week or so.

We chose to start both of the older kids in soccer last fall, at 5.5 and 4.5. U6 soccer is the last level that is done co-ed around here, and after that the competition ramps up quite a bit, so we wanted to give our kids (ODS, especially) a chance to try the sport before it jumped to a competitive level. Since most folks start super young, we figured if we waited too long, the kids would be way behind the curve. I thought it worked pretty well, though I definitely won't sign my youngest up until he's over 4. The U4s (3yos) spent most of their games crying or scoring on the wrong goal; even DD's age level (the 4-going-on-5s) was hit-or-miss, with a few kids on every team who were having a hard time understanding the rules or keeping their emotions in check--and that was both fall and spring, when the kids had a good 6 mos to mature.

About the time my kids were reading decently on their own (first grade level or so), DH and I realized that they didn't need as much sleep as they had been getting. Following a tip I read somewhere, I told them that they could either go to bed at the normal time or read in bed and stay up a little later. We started with 15 minutes because reading was still work; now ODS is given an hour to read each evening, and DD gets 30-45 minutes (she needs more sleep). I'm not sure whether to call this "required reading" or not, since I sorta-but-not-really force them to read for this time (they're not allowed to do anything else but sleep)...but it sure has saved DH and I, since we can sit down and chat in peace for a bit while they're reading, rather than losing our evening time together. And we like to read before bed, too, so the kids feel cool being like us!

In our old house, I tried to make the basement into the schoolroom. It was bright and open and well-lit...but it was too out-of-the-way, so while we went there for our brief formal time, most of our informal staring-at-maps and flopping-down-to-read happened up in the living room, so that's where I ended up hanging our maps and number line. In our current house, we have only one level; I set aside the formal living/dining room as our school area, so that's where we have our number line, timeline, maps, and whiteboards. Unfortunately, like someone above, my school room is the first thing you see when you enter our front door. "Welcome to our house. We're homeschoolers--can you tell?" I do, however, like that we spend a lot of time just hanging out in that space, and I like that it consolidates our schooly stuff so our whole house isn't covered with Mom-made posters on whatever we're studying and other random gear, like the old place was. (Then again, we still do family projects and science experiments in the kitchen...)

This thread reminds me of some of my husband's stories. He is a librarian and has worked at a few different colleges/universities. The library would sometimes get calls from parents who were either trying to research a child's topic for them and get all the sources lined up and ready for when their kid dropped in the library, or the parent would call to report that their child had lost a book and request that all fines be waved for their poor little dear. This was definitely worse at one particular private college. (I worked there for a while, too, and also heard stories of parents calling to try to get their kids out of trouble for poor choices or to complain that a grade was unfair--when often their kid hadn't bothered to show up for class or do any work. One family was livid when their child got kicked out for not attending any classes and using their time instead to break as many rules as they could find. The family--parents AND grandparents--threatened legal action because no one had notified them that little Johnny--by this time 19 and legally an adult, so the college could in no way share his information without breaching privacy--had been behaving so poorly.)