Love this link! Thanks! ... oh, the one for Home School Free Thinkers.

I also tested my 4th grade son with the Math Mammoth test after deciding to switch him over from Horizons. He BOMBED! :svengo:!! But I went with my gut intuition that he was ready and we would just take it as slow as we needed to, stopping at concepts that needed reinforcement, and then moving on. He's done very well!:thumbup: The big problem was that he was not used to doing the math in that method and wasn't used to the double question word problems. As a result, I transitioned my 2nd grade daughter into it by just eyeballing the samples and putting her where I thought she would have success right off the bat. Both son and daughter are doing well and liked the program after the first 3 weeks of initial grumbling. They find it challenging but interesting. My solution to review is to buy a standard test booklet for their grade and have them work through it during the year. Typically, the grade appropriate stuff is easier and they skate through without any hesitation. Sandy in Texas

I've bought a ton of curriculum on these forums by searching for what I'm looking for. Do sellers really look at the Want to Buy section before selling? Does it work better that way or is it better just to look on the For Sale boards?

This year I started using Tapestry and she introduced me to the best method. I'll never stop using it. She has you buy a plastic portable file box for each kid and load it with about 12 green hanging files and as many manila file folders. Each year is divided into 36 weeks of work which makes up 4 separate units. So, at the beginning of the year I set up the first 9 files labeled 1 through 9. I took ALL of their workbooks to the local office store and had the bindings cut off and the pages 3-hole punched. Then I divided each book into 4 parts. The first part of each book was then sorted into the first 9 files so that each of the files contained a week's worth of work. The rest of the workbook went into a file in the back of the plastic box - waiting to be sorted into the next unit's 9-weeks of files. On Monday, the kids pull out their weekly file and sort it into their 3-ring notebook in one of the following sections: Language Arts, Math, Science or History. Then they take their weekly student assignment sheet and write the daily page assignments on it. They put this guide into their Lesson Plan section. This part is quick and easy for them and they like the independence that comes with making some days busier and some days lighter. It has worked so well for us and the kids have taken to it like a chocoholic to M&Ms. Sandy in Texas

By the way, I love your signature: "I See Sam books when I'm feeling masochistic". Too funny!:lol:

I want something that teaches to the child, like Saxon does, and that focuses on problem solving and patterns as much as math procedures. Maria Miller's philosophy of math is very similar to mine. Horizons does a better job teaching to the child in their 4th through 6th grade workbooks than in the first three grades, but it doesn't incorporate sufficient amounts of mental math and pattern tricks. Saxon isn't paced fast enough for my kids and Singapore just doesn't click with me.

We're about to switch to Math Mammoth from Horizons. I have a son who is 1/2 way through the Horizons 4 book and we want to switch over. He's very good at math but I don't want to switch in too high and discourage him. When he took the placement test he scored about 54% on the end of year test ... but this was after not doing math for about 4 weeks (summer camps got in the way). Should I drill math concepts for a couple of weeks, sit down and review the type of problems that will be on the test (not the exact ones) and then re-administer it?

Is it Books that Build Character? Look it up on Google Books and you can look inside.

My shelves overfloweth and my memory eludes me! I'm looking at buying or using a library system. I've looked at LibraryThing, Book Collector, GuruLib, Readerware, and All My Books. Which should I go with? Here are my needs... 1. Flexibility with Tags 2. Ease of use 3. Economical 4. Will stay with me forever 5. Would like to share my list of books with other friends of mine Can't wait to read your feedback!

Hi - I just got my TOG Y3 and the schedule for Wk 3 shows the three levels all doing different core history and history reader books. The UG is on the Hakim series while LG is doing America in the Time of Lewis & Clark and Dialectic is reading The Industrial Revolution. They are all doing the same read aloud on that week. From my understanding the Classic books are listed as alternative reading on the Redesign schedule. I would find another book that has the same subject in the Classic version booklist and pick from that the next time around.

Thanks for the OT suggestions. Unknowingly, I've been doing this. I start tickling him and wrestling with him and then having him make a fist and resisting me opening it. He likes those games and it starts our morning out with some exercise. We might start playing pillow fights (because he would have to hold onto the pillow case) or tug of war and see if that helps as well.

I love and hate Paypal. Here is what other users said they found in the FAQs. "What is the spending limit for credit cards? Currently, the spending limit with a credit card is $250 USD due to our agreement with Visa and MasterCard. This limit is reset at the beginning of each calendar month. If you need to spend more than $250 in one month, you can add a second credit card which will also have a $250 limit, giving you access to $500 a month by credit card. So, they either need to add a second credit card, use a different method of funding, or wait until the next calendar month rolls over (which is tomorrow)." Hope this helps.

My son frequently has trouble with not being able to get his hand to write without tickling. It hits him about once to twice a week. I remember this happening to me when I was a kid and you can't get your hand to squeeze the pencil tight enough to write. He has to wait until the sensation goes away, so we switch to reading or some big body movement until it passes, but it's very irritating to him. Does anyone know what this is and if there is something else besides stretches and refocusing the rest of his body that would work?

My ds uses Horizons 4. This year the lessons have increased to 3 pages and he does them all. Some days I will cross out problems - not very often. If it is simple addition, subtraction or multiplication and there are a lot of them I'll cross out 1/3. It takes him about 30-45 minutes to do math. Lately, the long division and geometry has been taking him a little longer because it's new and harder for him. My dd uses Horizons 3. It also takes her 30 - 45 minutes to do a lesson (not including drills). She slows down significantly on the big subtraction problems so I pull out a white board to "race" her. She starts the problem and then, when she's just about done, she says "go" and I have to try and finish before she does. Then we compare answers. She loves it when I make a math error.:tongue_smilie:

Half Priced Books is my regular every-other-week stop. Just when I think I'm done purchasing - there's a new subject for another unit. This is the downside of unit studies:tongue_smilie: I spend approximately $500 to start the year and about $50 per month thereafter. Maybe I'll start an envelope of receipts and determine the actual yearly grand total.