return it immediately and order RS for the year! Problem solved, and you are not the worst mommy...the worst mommy would make her kids do the program she just knew wasn't going to work for them anyway...:lol: :tongue_smilie: Dee in Sunny FL!

is filled with loads of easy to read geography books. We are learning about China... We took out a book called A ticket to China and another one called, Why we left China. Don't get too many, keep it simple at this age. Daily we read certain parts of the books and discuss them. You can have your child do a narration or a dictation in which you write down what they learned and then they can draw a picture about it. We will eat a chinese meal. Paint Chinese Characters and numbers, even our names. Make a chinese lantern...template is online.. color an envelope red and put a dollar in it as we learn about the Chinese New Year Read one or two Chinese folk tales. We will pray for this country as we are Christian and then that is it. Our unit on China is done and we can go back to the library and do it all over again with the next country. Really, Geography at this age can just be simple, pure, and fun! The internet is loaded, did I say loaded, with free flag printables and maps. Have fun! You'd be surprised what you can come up with on your own. Blessings!!! Dee ps if you need loads of internet sites on China, I have them. Email me and I will give you most of the ones we used for our unit. rebel4jesus25@hotmail.com pps Egypt is our next country and again, I plan on keeping it simple, all the while introducing my son to the wonders of both Ancient and modern Egypt. :) ppps :P We also took out a few movies from Netflix. One on Eric Lidell, it's a cartoon, one on a boy and his panda in China...can't remember the title, and one from the library called, Families Around the World, China...so kewl!

You can check out Reading Reflex at a Barnes and Nobles near you. That's what I did and fell in love with it for my eldest son and purchased it right then and there and for some reason, he took off with this method. I only used part of it for my now 8 year old and then went directly to Tatras phonograms(similar to WRTR) and Let's Read, A Linguistic Approach, which is very similar to Alpha Phonics only it takes you farther than Alpha Phonics does. :) HTH, Dee in Sunny FL!

I realized that the author of this story was a boy!!! My 13 year old boy can't write like that. Kudos mama! Good job, and great job, Jonas! Dee in Sunny FL!

For the first grade we did the oral class time and then the two page lesson. We never did the blacklines, never. At first my son complained and on some days I'd break the lesson in half, but very soon he was able to complete the whole two pages without complaint and we never skipped any portion of our first grade lessons. For my son, he needed the review, so it was very important to us to complete every lesson. Now we are doing the second grade book and he is flying through 3 pages daily with no complaints. The first page we do together while we are doing the oral class time instead of doing in on the dry-erase board. The second page he flies through and the third page he gets a little help in if he needs it. With all of this, it takes us about 30 minutes and 10 minute class time. I am loving that he is so solid in his math facts and that by the time we learn multiplication in the third grade, his addition and subtraction facts will not be a hinderance. No blacklines or speed drills for us! Don't need 'em! My little guy is so proud of how fast it takes him to do his addition fact pages. Blessings, Dee in Sunny FL! We are loving Rod and Staff and don't plan on switching for a while! Yay!

I pay 150 a year for all of my 3 kids, used to be 4. I'm with them because I get a very nice transcript for my highschooler. It has worked for us. I'm interested in info. of the free one for friends if previous poster doesn't mind posting the info.. Blessings!! Dee ps Oh, I love the umbrella school. I also only send in curriculum choices at the beginning of the year, and attendance forms quarterly. I don't have to worry about state interference, evaluations, or tests.

Ace and it is very grammar light in the second and third grade. It begins to beef it up, but still gently, at around the 4-5th grade. I love their approach. Their focus for now, the second grade, is on writing sentences, punctuation, capitalization, and proper word usage. I will use Ace English up until the 6th grade and then do Winston Grammar and Winston Grammar Advanced for the 7th and 8th grades. HTH, Dee in Sunny FL!:D

I can't give you any, but being that LOF is so cheap and there are already rave reviews on it, why not give it a shot for a few months and see how it goes. You'd only be out 30, as opposed to 300 if Chalkdust didn't work out. :D HTH, Dee in sunny FL! (who is also trying out LOF and praying it's a hit so we too can go straight to Algebra with it)

The only thing I liked about SW was the proofreading assignment. Megawords breaks down the words and shows the student why the word is broken down the way that it is. It teaches them all the patterns and combinations for the words, and it includes vocabulary, a huge plus in my book. If you do the word timings, then you also have a little speed reading course as well. :) Megawords has really worked for my struggling speller, but I do also use Sequential Spelling on the side. As the previous poster mentioned, Megawords is done more independently by the student. HTH, Dee

Rod and Staff math 1. We preferred the gentle mastery approach and it was just what my son needed. The CLE at that level seemed jumpy to us and was more on a 2nd grade level in some parts than a first grade level. I didn't like that introduction of a concept and then not enough practice or lightly practicing it and then it popping up on another page for so called practice or not popping up again at all for another couple of lessons. But that was just my impression. I ended up givine the CLE away. I have not regretted my choice and have already purchased R&S math 2 and 3. The reasons I didn't like CLE may very well be reasons someone else does. Some children don't need lots of problems to get a concept down and are ready to move on sooner. Some children are bored with repetition and for those children something like CLE is better suited. HTH, Dee in Sunny FL!

I thought it would be the middle of July, but we are here and I'm not feeling ready or relaxed enough, so I think we will start full force sometime in August...probably the second week. I'm definitely extending 'MY' vacation. :D:D:D Blessings!! Dee in Sunny FL!

So far it has been Math Relief Algebra, but I'm interested in what Life of Fred has to offer, so we may be trying that one out really soon. :) Dee Blessings!!

We loved the Math 1 so much that we decided to use Math 2 for this next school year. It is thorough and so developmentally appropriate for a little one. I like that it's gentle, yet it's not overwhelming and I know that for some people it's slow, but there is a nice build up of skills leading into the 3rd and 4rth grade books. It is totally evened out by the fourth grade, I know, I have the books. :P It's a nice balance of mastery, with just a tiny touch of spiral. This next school year we will also be using their 2nd grade spelling, and their second grade social studies as an introductory geography course. I am excited because I have heard really good things about Rod and Staff spelling. What I love about Rod and Staff...gentle, thorough, reasonable, and written by people who have godly morals and values. So far, that works for me. Unlike many on the board, I didn't like the English series. I use Ace for that and that works for me for now. I use an old Silver Burdett series for our writing assignments. I buy my R&S materials at rodandstaffbooks.com Blessings!!! Dee

So sorry for your loss, and yet so touched by your grace during this difficult time. I have 3 babies in heaven and can't wait to greet them one day. I will be lifting you and your family up in this difficult time. God bless you!! :grouphug: Dee

Thank you Kimmyandgracie!!! I will definitely be using this! Blessings! Dee in Sunny FL!

a mixture of Rod and Staff, BJU, and Ace. :001_smile: Dee

I started my 7th grader with book 1. Book 1 starts with syllabication rules beginning with VCV. It lays the foundation for all the others. It's very important not to skip book 1. We have seen tremendous progress with this series and I am determined to finish out the whole series. We are on crunch time so finished 3 books in our first year. We plan to finish 3 more in the 8th grade and the last two in the ninth grade. I wish I would have started this sooner. The bonus for us was all the vocabulary that my son has now learned not to mention reading improvement and reading speed improvement. HTH, Dee

Noeo Science. They look like they can even make physics interesting! :) If money were tight, you could just purchase the TM for 20 bucks and get the books from the library. My library has most if not all of them. Also, Timberdoodle has some reasonable little electronic gizmo thingies that you could make and learn a lot from. They look neat and I don't like physics, either. HTH, Dee in Sunny FL!

http://www.nde.state.ne.us/READ/FRAMEWORK/appendix/appendix_b.html http://phonogrampage.com/ These are both great! Enjoy! Blessings, Dee:D

I schedule it in 3 days a week, at least. Oh you have to get the student sheets, they are soooo worth it, at least they have been for my 7 year old. He loves 'em! It would be so much to copy because they are really long pages, not your average 8 by 10 sheets. It is cheaper to just buy it and you'd have to adjust your printer so much to copy them and they are double sided. Just make sure you get the right levels for your children and you know your children. My son is doing the beginner pages even though he is 7. He loves to color what they tell him to color and wasn't ready for anything more than that. Don't follow the age levels on the site, just go by what you know your children can handle. This was our favorite find this year and we're still doing this in our summer school. I love the review questions every lesson and I love the application and prayer time after the lesson. I didn't read any of the other posts, so sorry if this is a repeat. Blessings! Dee:) ps I only use the student sheets, not the TM and it has been more than plenty, but I am planning on getting the review cards, the c.d., and the timeline for next year.

to Rod and Staff. They have a nice little geography curriculum there for the second grade. I'm thinking of using it myself. I think they are going to love what you have planned for them, and they will be more mature when they get to american and ancient history. Blessings!! Dee;)

I have a friend who's letting me borrow the first two of these, but I'm still trying to figure out how to make them work with something else as they pretty much look like they stand on their own. Blessings!! Dee in sunny FL!

When you download the sampler of each period, there is a lesson plan schedule that gives you a pretty good idea of what is in each lesson. That's what I have done to see if these will flow well with our history lessons. Hope this helps, Dee:001_smile:

Sabrina, we do one to two lists of Sequential spelling a day. This takes us about 15 minutes, and for the most part he works on Megawords independently and completes 3-4 pages a day. I do randomly orally quiz him on the unit's words and we do a little speed drill at the end of the unit to see how many words he can read correctly in a minute. We try to keep it simple, though. HTH, Dee

Hmm? I had never heard of this book, but I'll save you the money. Start in book 1, it lays the foundation for all the others. :D Dee :tongue_smilie: