This last year was our first using MM. We used MM 1, 3, & 4. I ended up mixing it up by necessity. My kids (doing 3 & 4) were really getting bogged down during the mental addition and subtraction section. It was taking forever just to get through 1 page much less two. So I started having them do one page of that and one page of another chapter. I think that my son did measurement and my daughter did time. From then on, we sometimes mixed it up and sometimes didn't. We made it through the year though. The issue that we had was running onto things that they hadn't covered on the cumulative reviews. I just crossed off the few things that they didn't know and went on. For next year, I am trying to figure out if I can mix it up even more. There just wasn't enough review for some of my kids. Honestly, I am probably going to have to switch my oldest to a more spiral program. I am still trying to figure it out for the middle one. If I can mix things up enough to make it more spiral, I will keep her in MM. I think that my youngest will be fine. :001_smile: Angela

I am going to try to combine them next year. We will mainly use SOTW and will add MOH audios. One big difference that I see is that SOTW is written for 1st-4th and MOH aims more for 4th-8th grades. I will be interested in seeing what everyone has to say. :bigear: Angela

Thanks, everybody, for the help! Angela

My 10 yr old ds did MM 4 this last year, but he needs a spiral program. I also need something that will work with his auditory style and not require me as much. We had a difficult year in math. My 6 year old thrives on MM, just not my son. So far, TT is the one that seems to fit my requirements. But looking over TT placement tests, I noticed that the word problems are VERY simple. Is this an accurate representation of TT problem solving difficulty level in general, or are the problems in the curriculum more difficult than the placement test? I would definitely put him up a level from his grade level, but even then I am wondering how much I would need to supplement the word problems, since the 6th grade placentment test had word problems that were similar to 5th grade. Examples from TT grade 5 placement: Dwayne has 25 comic books and Christopher has 32 comic books. How many do the two boys have altogether? Mrs. Smith bought 48 donuts but she gave away 36 of them. how many does she have left? Here are a couple examples from the MM 4 end of year test: Mark and Joe shared 280 cards so that Mark had 50 cards more than Joe. How many cards did each one get? If seven meters of rope cost $6.09, how much do five meters cost? I think that TT learning style would be wonderful for my son. Right now, we have daily frustration. I am wondering though if I would need to supplement with problem solving, and if so, what should I use? Angela

I think that my kids would die if I made them do 4 pages a day. :tongue_smilie: My older two (MM3 & MM 4) did 2 pages a day unless one was a teaching page and then it didn't count as a page, so they did three. They did all of the cumulative reviews, but not all of the tests. I did speed through the last chapter with my oldest and did a lot of it orally. He will probably be doing a different program next year. It just wasn't a good fit for him. The other thing that we did was to pull from a different chapter if we were on something especially grueling. I would just give them a page of the harder topic and another from a different chapter like measuring or time to shorten our day. My youngest (MM1) usually just did 1 page a day. We did push it a little towards the end of the year to get done though. My older two probably averaged 40 minutes a day or so. Angela

I can't find any samples, but the content listed for book 8 looks good. I think that it might be just right for her. Thanks again! Angela

Thank you for the recommendation! Which ETC book would I get for a one year phonics review? Thanks!

My dd just turned 6. She completed Abeka phonics 2 this year and has been reading since she was 3. I would like to have something for her to use to review phonics next year. (mostly for spelling). She likes workbooks. Is there a good workbook that would give her a year of solid review. I'm not looking for anything really time consuming. She is a decent speller, but if there was a good independent spelling program that would review the phonograms and maybe even touch on the rules for adding suffixes, that would be perfect. I don't have the time to do AAS. Is there something along those lines, but more independent? Or maybe just a phonics workbook? I'm not really sure how to proceed. If it helps, the rest of her line up for next year is: MM, FLL 2, Daily Grams 2, WWE 2, SOTW, Apologia Science, spelling-??, lots of reading Thanks! Angela

My son did EG 4 this year. We used Daily Grams along with it. For him, it was absolutely necessary for review. We covered prepositions, nouns, and verbs toward the beginning of the year. DG does not spiral, so other than a few cumulative reviews, he would not have seen these topics again for the rest of the year. It was even more helpful with the punctuation and capitalization rules. Maybe others don't need the review, but for him, it was necessary. Other than looking it over at the beginning, I didn't really end up using the teacher book much. I did have to look up a couple of answers that I wasn't sure on, but that's about it. It isn't scripted or anything, but does give some teaching helps at the beginning of each section. I suppose that I should have read them. :tongue_smilie: Angela

:bigear:

FLL is great for auditory learners. In levels 1/2 it is almost all done out loud. My very auditory son actually learned most of the parts of speech definitions/prepositions/pronouns etc from overhearing me teach FLL to his younger sister. That was nice. :001_smile: WWE was also very good for my son. It has the parent read the story excerpts out loud and ask comprehension questions along with doing narration, dictation, and copywork. At some point (around year 3, I think) it says to have the student read it themself. (silently or out loud) There is still enough of it done out loud to be very helpful for an auditory learner. We love Audio Memory Songs and audiobooks in general. Spelling city.com has also been helpful for us for practicing spelling words. They have an option where they spell the word out loud while the letters appear. They also have games. I enter our spelling lists for the kids to practice. It has been great for us. (of course, it would't be as helpful if we didn't use a list based spelling program). :001_smile: I read our science and history out loud. It is more work for me, but my kids love it and almost don't consider it school. :tongue_smilie: I always say that my son can learn anything he can hear. Math is a bit more challenging since I have trouble just getting him to focus on the page. He wants to just listen to me. Unfortunately, math is one subject where you really need visual. He loves to read, so thankfully, that isn't an issue. I have really had to experiment to find curriculum that works or my auditory learner. Handing him a workbook is just not a good option. When I teach to his strength, he can pick things up very quickly though. Angela

I am wondering about how much time it takes your dc to complete CLE math or language each day. I am especially interested in the 4th and 5th grade years. Thanks! Angela

My daughter just finished up Abeka 2 phonics. I would say that the new things that are covered (at least with more depth and practice) in the second half of the year are the rules for adding suffixes and more dictation. I used the tests, basically as an end of the year review since I didn't really use the curriculum guide. (I had used it with my older kids) The final tests in the book had her add suffixes (like -es, -s, -ed, -ing, and -est) to words, making any needed changes like doubling the final consonant (sit, sitting), changing the y to i (happy, happiest), or dropping the silent e (ride, riding). They also used these words in dictated sentences. If you are going to use AAS, I'm sure that all of these things will be covered. Without a rule based spelling program, I think that you might be missing out on cementing some foundational concepts by skipping the 2nd half of Abeka phonics 2. I thought about using AAS for my daughter next year (she will actually be in 1st grade) as a review of the spelling rules that she has learned, but we would have to start at level one (for the syllable rules) and I think the rest would be so redundant for her that it wouldn't be worth my money to have to buy the first 3 levels or so mostly as review. So now I don't know what to do for phonics/spelling rules review. I am hoping to find something a little more independent and a bit cheaper. It sounds like AAS might work out well for your daughter. I hope that she enjoys it. :001_smile: Angela

:bigear:

If you are supplementing TT, how do you go about it? Do you do more than one TT lesson a day and use the other days to supplement, or do both TT and the supplement each day? About how long long does it take each day? Thanks! Angela

:bigear: I have heard that some use TT and supplement with LOF. (this would be for 4th-5th grade and up though) I am considering this for my son after a rough year with MM. I love MM for my daughters, by the way, it just isn't a good fit for my son, though it did help his conceptual understanding. Angela

:bigear:

This is exactly how I feel! I need help! WWE has been great for my 10yo and I am now trying to figure out where to go next. I am strongly considering IEW for next year. They have a Student Writing Intensive. http://www.excellenceinwriting.com/swi My understanding is that it is taught directly to the student via DVD. I hope that this is what I need. :001_smile: Short of hiring an actual teacher, this is the closest thing that I could find for the hand holding that I need. Angela

:bigear: I am interested to know also. :001_smile: I did see on their site that they offer a music free option on th mp3 downloads. Angela

I am on WWE 3 with my son who just turned 10. He is a reluctant writer too. The thing that we do to help with the dictations (which may be the complete wrong thing to do, but it's getting him through) is that after I have repeated the dictation (or a section of it, if necessary) he will ask how to spell any words he has questions on. I go through them with him and he writes them at the top of his paper. Then I repeat the dictation and have him repeat it. He then writes it, referring to the words he wrote as necessary. There are sometimes 1-3 words depending on the selection. This helps him keep on track and not be distracted by asking how to spell a word. And then forgetting everything. I don't know if this would be considered correct, but it has eased some of the frustration that we were experiencing. I figured that it was better to modify than give up. ;) I hope that everything goes better for you and your daughter. Angela

:bigear:

Wow! I was trying to figure out if I could fit SOTW and MOH. :lol: I guess that I have it easy! I was relieved that SL didn't have any cores that matched up with my kids grades (1st,3rd,5th) for ancient history. That was one less to keep on the list. :tongue_smilie: We used Guest Hollow (loosely) for American history and really enjoyed it. But don't even look at that! You have enough on your plate. :lol: I'll bump for you. Maybe someone else has some great wisdom to share. ;) Angela

The 2nd grade phonics is good. I like the language in 3rd and 4th as a supplement. It didn't have enough review of concepts for us to use as our core grammar program. It did teach some things that I might not have covered (especially in liturature analysis and reading comprehension) and really cemented a few things for my kids. Another plus is they never complain about doing it. :tongue_smilie: The math was good for reviewing a concept we had covered. I didn't find the explanations in math to be enough for the kids to learn much new without my assistance. If they got stuck, it just offered the same explanation over and over. :glare: For me, the language was helpful enough as a supplement for me to pay for it. It also helped prep my son for standardized tests, which we are required to take in our state. Angela

This sounds similar to how I envision us doing things. Do you prefer the SOTW Activity Book for the younger ones rather than the MOH materials? Angela

Thank you for the recommendations! I will check them out. :-) Angela