I am considering PLATO for my now 5th grader for some subjects. I have been unable to find a review on it though. Has anyone used it? Does it keep track of grades or allow the parent easy access to see the student's progress? Is it easy for the student to know how to progress in the program without a lot of help? Would you consider using the language portions, along with a writing curriculum, Daily Grams, and books to read to be sufficient for language? I would appreciate any feedback. Thanks! Angela

:iagree: I had the same experience. One should be able to visit a website and look at a curriculum without being bombarded with unwanted calls! Angela

Did you already fill your quota for people? I am interested in joining a group buy. Thanks, Angela

:bigear:

Thanks! Maybe I didn't exit the first lesson correctly or something. I will try again. :-) Angela

We just did the first lesson of our free trial and the kids loved it. I could not get the second lesson to pull up though. Can we only do one lesson a day on the free trial, or did I do something wrong? Thanks! Angela

I found it on the HSB site. https://www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/index.php?option=com_hsbc_epp_order&Itemid=1070&c=1

We just found TheHappyScientist.com. I purchased a year subscription on Homeschool Buyers Coop for $5. I have only watched one video so far, but I think that my kids are going to love it. They already watch one Brain Pop a day and that is always a big hit around here. :001_smile: Angela

I agree with several PPs that you do not need the teacher editions of the books. If you are not familiar with the program, I would definitely get the curriculum guide however. I used the guide with my first (K4) when he was 3 1/2 to 4. Then did K5 while my second tagged along. My third was only 2 1/2 when she started bringing me the flashcards/books wanting to "do school" like her older siblings, so I didn't use it with her. :tongue_smilie: I just used the materials very loosely. All three were strong readers at a young age and love to read. I will add that we rarely used the readers as "school." They learned phonics, but the reading part was never associated as school work in their heads. :001_smile: My comment on the on the K4/K5 programs is that basically the content from the whole K4 year is covered in the 1st semester of K5. I would probably opt for K5 and just slow down if I needed to, unless I had a child who I knew needed an extra gentle start. This also makes for a nice smooth transition into 1st grade. (rather than doing K4, then 1st which, you are supposed to be able to do) Abeka phonics is a good solid program that I would use again, even though I wouldn't really use any of their other materials at this point.

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We have used Time4Learning as a language arts supplement for a few years now. I saw That Homeschool Buyers Co-op is having a sale on Plato Learning. I have been unable to find any reviews on it. Has anyone used it? Did you like it? Did your kids like it? If anyone knows how it compares with T4L, I would love to hear that too. The price would be almost the same for us since we use T4L for 9 months a year. My kids like T4L for the most part. I have things that I like about it and things I don't. I am wondering if Plato is interactive like T4L or if it is just read and fill in the blanks etc. I would love to hear your experiences. :001_smile: Angela

Ah! Too bad! :sad: I have bought rice milk ice cream before, which was pretty good, but quite expensive. I think that the reason that coconut ice cream turns out so well is the fat content. I would think that it would be harder to make a creamy texture with something like hemp or rice milk. Maybe by adding eggs?....but those are probably off limits too, huh? I hope that you can figure things out. We have gluten and dairy intolerance issues around here so I know (at least a little bit) how difficult it can be. I am trying to modify some activities/recipes myself for our curriculum. Btw, we love Apologia science around here with or without the experiments. :001_smile: Angela

You can make dairy free ice cream with coconut milk. I made some for myself last night. For a regular batch, I use two cans of coconut milk. (check the cans as some have other added ingredients) I use 3/4 cup sugar, a tsp of vanilla, and a pinch of salt. You can make lots of other flavors, but this is a basic recipe. If your child isn't allergic to coconut, it might work for you. :001_smile: Angela

Thanks for posting this! I have had my teacher card at Staples for a couple of years, but didn't realize that you could get 25 items instead of the normal per person limit. Today I bought a bunch of highlighters, pencils, and index cards for a penny a piece. That was fun! :tongue_smilie: Angela

It depends on his writing ability/inclination. The junior journals have primary lines and less writing in general. They also have simplified excises and coloring pages instead of the regular vocabulary crossword puzzles. Have you seen the sample? http://www.jeanniefulbright.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/ANATOMY-JUNIOR-SAMPLE.pdf There are also samples of the regular journal, so that you can compare. Angela

We did Astronomy last year and my ds 10 used the notebook. My dds 8 & 6 used a lapbook and pasted the mini books into notebooks. We enjoyed both, but were a little tired of dealing with the minibooks by the end of the year. (we used them for history too) This year we are doing Zoo 3 and I am have the notebooks for the older two and will be order the junior notebook for my youngest. One nice thing about the Zoo 3 notebooks is that they have stickers in the back to use for the Map It sections as well as some minibooks. I think that it will be a good mix for us this year. Angela

Do you have Type to Learn 3 or 4? Thanks! Angela

Daily Grams by Easy Grammar is really good for this. It only takes about 5-10 minutes a day and touches on capitalization, punctuation, sentence combining etc. It is something that I will continue to use this next year no matter which language curriculum we use. Angela

My 2nd grader will do TT3,Fun Maths Process Skills 2, Visible Thinking in Mathematics 2A/B (well, I'm undecided if I'll do the Fun Maths this year or next) My 5th grader will do TT5, Fun Maths Process Skills 3, and Visible Thinking in Mathematics 3A/B I was trying to quote the PP. I messed it up. Here is my question: My son will be doing TT6 and I have been looking for a good problem solving supplement. I looked at the samples and these look good. They look like they might be better as a supplement for a kid that needs clear simple explanations than may just Challenging Word Problems. If I was just going to get one of the books, which would you recommend? Fan math or Visible Thinking? How are they different Thanks! Angela

Abeka tends to run pretty advanced, so that might not be the best choice unless you drop a grade level. It is filmed in a classroom and is generally paced pretty fast. It was too much workbook and drill for my son, and the days were pretty long for that age, IMO. There were parts that my kids enjoyed, especially the Bible. I have never used JBU, but I hear that it is taught more "to" the child by a teacher. Maybe someone else can give you some input on that one. We have used Time4Learning. My daughter enjoyed their 2nd grade language. She was already reading well, so I can't say how well it teaches reading. We didn't find the program to be enough (for us) for math or language for 3rd grade. It does make a very nice supplement. We use it as a language supplement, and their is rarely a complaint about doing it. :001_smile:

Thank you very much for the recommendations. I checked them out. I liked Homeschool in the Woods, but didn't want to invest the $75 to get the CD right now. I found out on the Rainbow Resource site that the printed version is reproducible, so I can buy one and make copies for all my kids. Problem solved. :-) Thanks again! Angela

Can anyone recommend timeline figures to use with ancient history? I have three kids who each have their own timeline books, so I am thinking that PDF version would be cheaper. Of course, if someone knows of something free, that would be great too! :001_smile: Thanks! Angela

I'm so glad to hear that it worked for you! That gives me more confidence to proceed. Thank you so much for sharing. :001_smile: Angela

That is what I am hoping for. :001_smile: I did a little of this out of necessity with my older kids last year because the mental addition and subtraction pages at the beginning of the year were taking them FOREVER each day. (they hadn't done much mental math before that) I just made one if the pages be from an easier chapter. We wouldn't have made it through chapter one without doing that. I did a little mixing through the rest of the year, but not as much as I plan on doing this year. Angela

Thanks, everyone, for the ideas. :001_smile: I can't really imagine adding more than 2 pages a day. My kids in MM 3 & 4 would sometimes be completely spent, and I would be too by the time they finished 2 sheets. I frequently had to sit with them and help them through the whole lesson, especially with the word problems. I did cross off a few problems, but as it was, things were't sticking that well for my oldest. It seemed like intensely focusing on something like a fractions concept for a few days and then not seeing it again for many days just didn't work for him. He seems to need constant repetition to make things stick. In his case, I decided that MM just wasn't a good fit and I am going back to a spiral program. I love the way that MM teaches and, I am hoping that when my 6yo gets to the higher levels that it will not be so overwhelming to her since she has used it all along. Like a PP mentioned, the main topics that are not constantly reviewed are the measurement, money, and clock type topics. For my DD starting MM 2, I think that I will just insert these periodically as I go. For example, I will start at the beginning, but instead of doing three pages of addition in a row, I'll do one followed by one clock page,then one addition with a measurement page. That way her two sheets every day consist of one regular topic and one time/measurement/clock type topic. I will probably just alternate clock and measurement until she finishes one, then switch to money etc. The end of chapter reviews would just come after the last page of a chapter. The cumulative review, would be based on where she was with the main topic. I'm thinking of splitting this into 4 spiral notebooks or maybe a three ring binder, so I can keep everything straight. I hope that it will make more sense after I print the whole thing out. I will split it into chapters and the separate from there. I really hope that this will be enough so that I won't have to add extra review. Of course, topics come up in daily life, but I am trying to take some of the review pressure off of myself since I have my plate full of that with my older kids. :tongue_smilie: I wish that I could know how this will work without trying it. Nothing like making my kid a guinea pig. lol I don't want to mess her up. She is my one child who actually LIKES math! :001_smile: She was frustrated last year though, when she couldn't remember some topics on the cumulative review and end of year test.