I've never used or seen CLE. We use Singapore primarily but I use other things for extra practice sometimes. I have some R&S math that I supplement with if they need a little more practice. R&S seems a little behind Singapore in terms of when certain topics are introduced, but since I don't have the entire R&S math series I could be mistaken about that. R&S has really thorough explanations of each new concept. I think both programs are "mastery", not "spiral". Both have review built in. R&S has more practice problems (though Singapore has plenty of practice if you buy the supplemental workbooks like IP). Singapore's word problems are more complex than R&S's. I like Singapore Math because it really teaches good problem solving skills. Plus, it's what we started with and my dd and ds both love it and "get" it. I think R&S looks like a solid math program from what little I've seen, but the word problems looked really easy compared to Singapore.

Sonlight Core 3 - we loved it.

I primarily use Singapore Math. But...before I delve into Singapore's way of doing things I supplement heavily with Miquon Math and Cuisinaire Rods. I use the rods with Singapore, too. I think the cuisinaire rods helped my kids visualize addition and substraction conceptually better than anything else we did. The Miquon worksheets are great as well, but I think the cuisinaire rods themselves are just a helpful manipulative. A loonngg time ago I found a link on a messageboard tying Miquon topics with Singapore topics. I don't know if such a thing exists for other math programs as well.

I've taught two of my kids how to read with VP's Phonics Museum. I've read the complaints about the readers, too. My dd and ds have both liked and understood the readers though. My dd especially loved the art projects scattered through the workbooks. I forgot to use the song CD that came with PM with my son and we only have a few lessons left so I don't see the need. My dd, who is an auditory learner, really got a lot out of the CD though and she used to take it up to her room to listen to after school was over. My dd also LOVED the cardboard museum and pictures. We have really enjoyed Phonics Museum. I didn't need to do any additional phonics instruction. Between the teacher-directed practice in the manual, the worksheets, and the readers, Phonics Museum is very thorough. I have one set of VP History cards that I haven't really utilized. I was also unimpressed with Legends and Leagues, but my dd thought it was funny. I used the list of books for First Favorites as a book list and we loved the selections, but I never bought the teacher materials. HTH

I totally agree about Rod and Staff. My dd has retained everything she has learned from their grammar program and I think it's because of how much practice is built into it. (Grammar is her least favorite subject btw.) Years ago when I was first choosing curriculum, I ALMOST went with Shurley. I liked the idea of Shurley. But it was pricey and I ran it by my dh. My dh (who was homeschooled himself and whose grammar is far and away better than mine) wanted to know one thing: Is there diagramming? Old fashioned, tedious diagramming. We went with Rod and Staff. I didn't do any diagramming in my public school education. Although dh's family didn't use Rod and Staff. They used Abeka.

I took New Testament Greek in college using the Mounce text (it's still buried somewhere in my old room at my parents' house and I want it back now). It was a two semester course. BTW, I've often thought it would be a great homeschooling text for Greek because when I took Greek in college, the professor just went through the lesson in the text almost word for word. I really didn't need to go to class. The book is totally self-teaching.

We've always used both, but if you must choose one or the other, IP will give you a much better review of the concepts in the lessons. IP can be quite challenging as well. That said, I just purchased enough copies of CWP for all of my children for all 6 levels of Primary Math since it is going OOP.

I have a book from www.sslearning.com that has reproducible worksheets about simple machines called "Learning about Simple Machines". It includes simple experiments and lab sheets to fill in, along with informative type worksheets to introduce each simple machine and the scientific method. There is a short teacher's guide in the front. My book says it is for Grades 1-3. I went to their website and it would appear my particular copy is either out of print or they changed the cover art, but they have a Simple Machines book for both Grades 1-3 and 4-6. I never actually used mine since we never found the time to do the experiments, but it looks like a very thorough book.

My dd's schedule is: 8:00-8:30 Breakfast 8:30-9:00 Bible/catechism 9:00-9:30 Read-Aloud (Literature and History) 9:30-10:00 Grammar 10:00-11:00 Math 11:00-11:30 Spelling/vocabulary 11:30-12:00 Writing 12:00-12:45 Lunch 12:45-1:30 Latin 1:30-2:00 Independent Reading (meaning her scheduled "for school" reading) 2:00-2:30 Science 2:30-2:45 Handwriting or Keyboarding (we alternate) 2:45-3:00 Memory work (flashcards, Bible memory, etc.) We only do Science 3 times per week and Writing (with Writing Strands) 2 times per week Some of this is fluid of course since some days the work goes faster or slower than others. I'd say this schedule is the most typical for us. I do one-on-one school with my ds while my dd is doing Latin/Reading/Science. Once we start TOG in a few months I'll begin including him in read-aloud time I assume. I have a feeling my day is going to get a little busier when our school year rolls over.

Thanks for the responses. I figured ramping things up to everyday would be best now, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't overloading him. He really does like to read to me when we are doing school....he just hasn't torn into our bookshelf in his spare time the way his big sister did. But I was encouraged today when I began pulling all our old first readers out of storage (they were still in the moving boxes from when we moved into this house) my ds immediately began pulling things out to read. Maybe he was just reluctant to get into the "school stuff" on our shelves. My dd never had a problem with doing that. I don't know how many times I've had to go up to her bedroom looking for school books...

My ds is finishing up his phonics workbook and it's time to move into our collection of first readers. Currently, between the books in his phonics program and our Bob books he reads about 3 times per week. Should I have him read to me every day now? Or is that overkill? I didn't really structure this with his sister when she was his age because she tore into all the first readers on her own without asking me. My ds likes to read out loud to me, but if he is left to his own devices he chooses Legos over books, so I need to schedule it in. The early readers we have are an assortment of picture books...things like Amelia Bedelia, Frog and Toad, Dr. Seuss, Mr. Putter and Tabby, etc. I want to give him plenty of practice without exasperating him. He's a wiggly boy, but fairly compliant.

I've used Rod and Staff science with my 9 yo dd. We've used everything up through God's Wonderful World 5. I was skeptical about it at first because I wanted to stick with a topic for a longer period of time than R&S does. I thought it skipped around a lot. My dh liked it though and thought it was thorough in it's explanations and he pointed out that our dd was little and probably would enjoy learning about lots of different things in a year. Each book sort of draws inspiration from a book of the Bible. GWW 5 draws inspiration from the book of Psalms for example. I like that the series gives glory to God when discussing the wonders of God's creation. It also has good solid science information. My dd has learned a ton from it. Science is one of her favorite subjects and she never complains about doing it. I thought the format of Patterns of Nature 2 was very very different from the rest of their science series. But we've enjoyed them all. :001_smile:

I love Sonlight and have been using it a year ahead of my 9yo dd's "grade level" for a few years now. She is a really strong reader and told me the other day she wouldn't mind a little more reading actually when I asked her to give me a year-end review of Core 4. Sonlight picks some really engaging books for their Cores. We're not doing Core 5 this coming year, because I wanted to try TOG Year 1 to stick to a 4 year history cycle, but I think we may come back around to it. That said, I would not have been concerned about using it with her even this past year. You could pick out some books from Core 5 and get them from the library to look them over to see if they match up with the reading level your kids are on right now to gauge how difficult they might be. I sometimes just look up books at www.lexile.com to get a Lexile number on the book I'm curious about. Then I'll take something my dd has told me about reading recently that she enjoyed and look up that Lexile number as well. I try to get a sense of how hard the book will be for her. As for writing, I've never used SL's Language Arts so I have no idea how challenging that would be. HTH

I graduated from public high school in 1994, and my high school did not offer physical science to my knowledge. The sequence was: 7th grade - Physical science 8th grade - Earth science 9th grade - Biology I 10th grade - Chemistry I 11th grade - Physics I They also offered AP sciences, Anatomy, and Astronomy which I think some students took in their 12th grade year. I would imagine Physics in high school counts as a "physical science", just as Biology is a "life science". Look at some prospective colleges and contact them to see what they like to see in a transcript. All colleges are different. I think the sequence I outlined above was the college prep/honors track back when I was in high school. I know these things change over time though...

I am happy for those who can manage to get out to museums/zoos and such. I live in the middle of nowhere. I sometimes feel I am reading about an entirely different world... I would also love to just do something outdoors with my 9 and 5 year old on our own property that wouldn't involve a 2 hour drive to the city...like plant a garden or something. But I have a 3 year old who will not stay in the yard and a 15 month old who is teething and wants to live in my lap. I don't really see a good way to do anything extracurricular honestly. If I manage to get 3 meals on the table, 1 nap for the 3yo, 2 naps for the 15 month old, laundry and dishes done, AND not have a splitting headache by the end....it's a good day for me. Doing all of that AND school for the 9 and 5 yo is kinda tough. Going out and doing something "fun" sounds exhausting. Seriously though, not everybody has entertainment at the ready in their community. We don't even have a Wal-Mart, let alone anything cultural or educational. I went to public school and only went on 1 field trip a year if I was lucky. Can't a family vacation once a year count as a field trip? (and here's hoping we can afford some manner of family vacation this year....)

Fiestaware. I bought Corelle dishes at a Bridal/Registry event at an outlet mall after dh and I got engaged. I got Fiestaware as a gift from my parents. I have since gotten rid of all our Corelle. The Fiestaware is sturdy, doesn't chip ( a big pet peeve of mine...I hate chipped stoneware), and comes in lots of colors.

Thanks so much, Heather :001_smile:! My dd has really liked (and done well) with the PM series so if there is any way to continue with it into higher math I really wanted to give it a try. The numbering of the books and ordering of the math topics just throws me off a bit. Perhaps if I find some wiggle-room in the household budget to buy a few books ahead of time I can get a copy in my hands and it will all become clear. And those are some impressive math scores, Larissa! It's nice to know it is a good program for test scores as well.

We re-purposed our old breakfast nook for the schoolroom. We used to have an eat-in kitchen at our old house, but now we have a separate dining room. I figured we would just junk the old breakfast nook, but my husband suggested using it in the schoolroom. Fantastic! It's old and the finish is boogered up anyway, so I don't worry about the kids marking it up. The bench style seating is nice when my 5yo needs me to slide up next to him to help out with an assignment. And since it's a solid oak table, my dh mounted our pencil sharpener right to the tabletop on the far corner. You can get really, really good deals on old dining sets at used furniture stores. I've seen full sets complete with chairs for less than $100. They are sometimes.....well, less than beautiful, but really with all the assorted school supplies, art projects, overflowing bookcases, etc., are any of us really worried about schoolroom decor? :tongue_smilie:

If we were to continue with Singapore after 6B into NEM: NEM consists of 4 volumes, right? I think only 1 & 2 have solutions though. (If I am mistaken, please correct me.) First, if my dd were to complete NEM 1-4, what level of math would she be ready to go into? Pre-calc? Trig? Is the Geometry included in NEM a full Geometry course or would she have to take Geometry? I'm not very familiar with the topics covered in Algebra I, II, Geometry, Pre-calc, etc. I mean...I took them loooong ago, but I did not copy my high school texts Table of Contents :001_smile:. Secondly, does NEM take a full 4 years? Or are they like the Primary Math texts to where each is designed around a semester? And lastly, are NEM 3 & 4 doable without a solutions manual? TIA

My dd used it a couple of years ago. She filled in the workbook pages. I assigned it twice per week, but let her work ahead if she wished. She really enjoyed it and chose to work ahead quite a bit. I plan on buying it again for my other kids.

Personally I'd use the Phonics Museum, but of course I am biased because I've taught two of my kids to read with Phonics Museum. Both of my kids liked the program a lot, and they got a lot out of the readers (much more than I expected actually). I'm usually one to use what I have though. I only switch programs if it doesn't work for my children. I have never tried to teach a child who could already print to switch to D'Nealian manuscript though. My children picked up D'Nealian with no problems, but then I was starting from scratch. You could ignore the D'Nealian and have your daughter complete any writing on the worksheets in traditional manuscript. I know the early lessons have you tracing inside letter mazes, but since those are just handwriting practice you could substitute cheap maunscript handwriting practice worksheets. Later on in the program it has sentences and words to copy or complete and she could just do those in traditional manuscript. I've just been really pleased with Phonics Museum. After trying (unsuccessfully) to teach my dd to read with 100 Easy Lessons, I found Phonics Museum to be very "open and go". The Teacher's Manual had clear instructions and suggested activities. I skipped most of that stuff if things were going smoothly though and focused on the worksheets and books. I personally love the program.

Wow, I'd like a solution to this, too. My dd is a dawdler. She has always dawdled. My ds has not presented with this problem so far. I've found white noise sometimes helps my dd. Instrumental music sometimes helps her focus. I think she has gotten tired of our limited selection of instrumental praise choruses. We have tons of classical music but she doesn't like that for some reason....perhaps I'll pull out my dh's Star Wars soundtrack. Seriously though, I've noticed she has more of a problem with dawdling if she doesn't like the assignment. She likes math, but hates copying problems. If she is doing Singapore workbook assignments, she's fine, but not the textbook, since she has to copy it. She hates copywork. She hates doing the comprehension questions in her history workbook, but she'll do her science comprehension questions readily enough because it's her favorite subject. And we can't very well just eliminate any subject she doesn't like. If it were up to her, she'd do nothing but read and write poetry. We use a timer to help keep her on task and treat the whole thing as a discipline issue. I've also found long breaks from school kill her motivation. If we take a long break, it can take weeks to get back in the groove again. I've gone to only 1-2 week breaks (we school year round). Sorry if that was rambling, I have a teething baby in my lap which affects my coherency and typing ability. :001_smile:

I use Suffer Little Children by Gertrude Hoeksema. CBD carries it. It's supposed to start with 1st graders, though I think that a wide age range could be combined with it. Volume 1 is just a teacher's manual. Volumes 2 and 3 have TMs and workbooks. Basically, there is a Bible text to read for the day, usually about 1 chapter in length. The TM has a guided discussion of the text to be done orally with your child. It brings out the important events and concepts. There is also a memory verse related to the reading for each lesson. It's designed to be done 4 days per week. For Volumes 2 and 3 there is a workbook assignment to be completed after every 4 lessons. These include some mapwork, fill-in-the-blanks, matching and such. It's review of the previous 4 lessons. Volumes 1 and 2 cover the Old Testament chronologically and Volume 3 covers the New Testament. It is published by Reformed Free Publishing, so it is coming from a Reformed perspective. I haven't noticed any truly glaring denominational bias, but then again I am also Reformed so I may have a blind spot here. I like it because it just has you reading the Bible itself with your children. The guided discussion allows me to talk to my child and really bring the important bits into focus and get a handle for how much they retained. You could always skip anything in the discussion you didn't agree with. I don't have my kids do all the Scripture memory, but I do use the verses for copywork. My dd, who is finishing up Volume 3, has learned a lot. Her Bible knowledge is far and away better than mine was at her age. The series continues with Show Me Thy Ways 4,5 and 6. These appear to be aimed directly at the student instead of teacher-led. We'll be starting it in a few weeks. I first heard about this series long long ago on the old version of these very boards and I'd like to issue a sincere thank you to whoever posted about it way back when. :001_smile:

The fine art of curriculum bashing is the only way I can get a decent review of anything. When someone hates something, they usually are quite specific about what bothered them about it. When someone adores something, they get quite specific about what they love so much about the curriculum. I can read their criticisms and passionate defenses and decide for myself whether the book/program in question will meet my family's expectations/goals. If everybody tried to be all polite and just gave vanilla, generally positive reviews with no criticisms.....well I would have to buy everything and see it for myself. And then what would be the point of coming to a homeschooling messageboard...

We have always used the Challenging Word Problems and Intensive Practice books for each level. We work through them concurrently with the topics as they are covered in the normal workbook and textbook. I had my daughter read the textbook on her own around level 3A, I think....my memory is fuzzy. If she has trouble with something she is supposed to come to me for more help and I'll do example problems for her from the Instructor's Guide. We never finish the CWP and IP books though. We dabble in them. We always complete the textbook Practices/Reviews and the workbooks of course. I have no idea if we are doing it the way we are supposed to or not. :001_smile: