How cool!

Martial arts... does that count as a subject? If not, then Spanish.

I just want to throw out there that we were not fans of Right Start C in 2nd edition, but loved it in 1st edition. By the end of 1st edition C, the child has a solid grasp of the subtraction facts, mental subtraction, and 4-digit subtraction, along with the multiplication facts, and basic perimeter and area. Where 2nd edition C may take significantly less than a school year to complete, 1st edition C has a lot more "meat" and can easily fill an entire school year, with many kids taking longer than 1 year to complete it. My DS#2 is working through RS1 C and the beginning of BA 3 concurrently.

I have a 2nd grader. He's a solidly strong reader (reading Harry Potter aloud right now), but he is not independent with very much AT ALL. He can focus on puzzles, games, and reading *that he finds interesting* for long periods of time, but most other things I must sit with him or he will wander off or hang upside down from his chair. He's using: Math: Beast Academy -- Is able to read the comics, but doesn't absorb much when he does. So I have to sit with him and read them to him. He can quickly and reliably do the worksheets independently, BUT only if I'm there to read the questions aloud to him. Science: Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding -- Extremely teacher intensive. There's almost nothing that is done independently. He will read independently to himself from related books that we borrow from the library, but only if he's interested. History: Story of the World -- I read to him or play the audio book. I ask for narrations of the sections and write them for him. I have him copy a sentence or two as copy work. He often does this without me standing over his shoulder, but if I were to leave the room, I would come back to find nothing written on his page. The projects and other things we do are also very teacher intensive. He sometimes finds the books we check out from the library on the week's topic of interest and will read them independently for entertainment. Writing: Writing With Ease - Just like with SOTW (except that there are no library books, lol). Handwriting: Handwriting Without Tears -- can do a page or two independently, as long as I'm nearby to remind him what he's supposed to be doing. Typing: Keyboarding Without Tears -- This he can do completely independently! And it's awesome. Grammar: First Language Lessons -- teacher intensive. It's all a conversation and repeating after me. We don't do any of the copy work, so he doesn't do anything independently here yet. We also do ASL and Song School Latin, and none of that is independent. We haven't started spelling yet (one day... sometime, eventually, soon...). When given 2 hours of uninterrupted time: If I insist that he's quiet, he's happy to read to himself, play video games/ watch tv, play card/math/board games, play with legos, do math puzzles, draw maps of imaginary places, or design his own board games. If I DON'T tell him he needs to be quiet, he's likely to run in circles/ do cartwheels/ spin in place/ do forward rolls in our family room, make forts and/or obstacle courses out of the furniture (usually involving a circuit and repetitive jumping off of the banisters), create a zip line out of floss for his toys to ride down the stairs, or organize self-imagined physically competitive games (think tag or racing games with complicated, non-standard rules) and order his younger brothers to play with him (and they listen!). Sometimes I have to remind him not to climb up the walls or to stack furniture to the ceiling. <-- I wish I was kidding there, but I'm completely serious. He does have SPD (sensory seeking and sensory modulation disorder variations) so that's likely the explanation for his apparent transient insanity.

For my kid in WWE1, we do it two days per week (on the days we don't do history, since there's narrations and copy work going on there too), combining day 1 with day 2 and day 3 with day 4. For my kid in WWE2, we do 3 days per week, combining day 1 with day 2, but doing day 3 and day 4 separately, and I see the schedule changing again as we go through. I prefer not to have him write a dictation of copy work he did in the same day... that'd just be too easy. We do all of the lessons in order. I do try to catch up if we miss a day by doing a lesson on a non-scheduled day so that the weekly plans are done each week. When we've gotten too far behind or for whatever reason not caught up in the same week, I've just picked back up the next week and then stopped when the prior week's lessons were over so we could start fresh at the beginning of a lesson the week after that.

When I started public 1st grade I was still solidly ambidextrous, so my 1st grade teacher told me that I *had* to write with my right hand because "when you learn cursive, you have to use just one hand." (This is especially funny because I never learned cursive in school). I'm still irritated that my teacher did this! It caused a lot of unnecessary anxiety for me as a kid. I vote that you don't make the decision of handedness for your child. He may choose late, or he may never choose. But IMO, you should let him be the one to decide. As a side note, I'm still ambidextrous, but unless I I think about it, the stuff I write with my left hand comes out as a mirror image.

My oldest had the hardest time grasping place value. This is what it took for him to get it: -moving beads one by one on the AL Abacus while building the number with the RightStart place value cards to 200 (we had 2 abacuses) -building several more of our own abacuses from pipe cleaners and beads so that more hundreds could be touched and seen and he could physically show numbers in the 100s -building several 100s out of 1" tiles (all lined up on the living room floor!) -reading Sir Circumference and All the King's Tens over and over and over and over -building a homemade version of MUS's decimal street For my second son, I just invested in a set of base-ten blocks (and colored them with permanent marker so that the colors alternated just like on the AL Abacus). He played with them and built numbers with them.

I've been using it as a stand-alone for my oldest DS. He's very auditory and needs me to read the comic books to him in order to really get it. Sometimes he needs me to read the questions on the worksheets too. But he grasps concepts quickly and doesn't need much review, so it's been working well for him thus far. I'm just starting to ease my second son into BA. His main math is RightStart, but we're starting BA as something fun to mix things up once or twice a week. He's excited and likes it, but it is much more challenging than he's used to. He has a low threshold for frustration, so I'm hoping to help him work up a tolerance for difficult, frustrating problems that require real thinking. My plan right now is to continue doing both RS and BA with him until he finishes RS level C (1st edition), and then move him to BA as his main math. We will have to find something to supplement with for extra practice though, because he needs a bit of repetition to move information into long term memory.

I have littles, so I'd be home anyway. And I don't know what I'd want to do if I were to go back to work. And I don't want to pack lunches every day. We participated in this free program through the public school system called "Ready for Kindergarten" when my oldest was a toddler and preschooler. They held classes to teach parents how to teach their children and gave out supplies (educational toys and books) and lesson plans/ideas. Doing this stuff with my boys made me realize that I really enjoy teaching them! That's the first time I seriously considered homeschooling. We keep it up because we all like it (most days), I think it would be hard to put the boys into public school. They are in different "grades" in different subjects and DS#1 requires some modifications due to his SPD. I like being able to tailor their lessons to each of their abilities and learning styles.

So yes, for someone new to BA and with no AoPS experience, what is Alcumus? Is it like an adapting problem generator for extra practice?? Or...?

Admittedly, we don't do any of the extra writing activities in FLL, but I wouldn't think it would matter much if one were to skip FLL1, assuming definitions and poems are memorized? We're actually not there yet, but I'm considering having my DS#3 go straight into FLL2 when the time comes to start formal school with him. I don't know. We'll have to see how much of it sticks. Thus far he's memorized all the poems and definitions right along with DS#1 and DS#2 that we've done in FLL1, and I just don't see the point in going over it all again? Maybe a couple weeks reviewing the concepts and refreshing memory on the poems from 1 and then moving to 2?

I saw that too. Pretty awesome! I love that the level 5 books are purple! I figured they'd be red or yellow. But now I'm really curious what color the level 2 books will be.

Voted!

Hits: DS#1 is LOVING BA. I just ordered the 4th grade books because he's flying through 3C and 3D. I'm expecting that once he hits some stuff that isn't partial-review he'll slow down to a normal pace. DS#3 is doing great in RS1-A SOTW has been awesome. The activities in the AG are serious fun, and the kids all love the audio book and ask to listen to it in the vehicle over and over and over and over... OPGTR has been working with DS#3, at least so far. We only do these lessons while he's up moving around (I write stuff for him to see on the white board), and I got some textured letter cards for feeling and some magnetic foam letters for making words, etc. Looks like teaching this kid is going to require some intense creativity on my part. DS#1, #2, and #3 are enjoying FLL1. The lessons take all of 5 minutes, and they enjoy reciting the poems. I like that I'm teaching them grammar without it feeling like a chore for any of us. I probably wouldn't bother with official grammar lessons at all until middle school if not for this program. Misses: While TYCTR in 100EZ Lessons worked well for my older two, DS#3 could not even begin to sit down for a lesson. So we ditched that. RS2-C was a great big flop for DS#2. There was too much review and then too much jumping around with the topics. He wants to focus on one thing at a time and gets frustrated when we move on before he's mastered something. I did 1st edition RS all the way through E with DS#1 and invested in 2nd edition thinking it would be an improvement over what we already had, but I'm really not liking how the lessons build. The sequence in first edition seems to work better for my boys. So I'm in the process of switching DS#2 from RS2-C back to RS1-C. It will require some backtracking and he's not happy about going from middle of RS2-C to near-beginning of RS1-C. Still on the fence: SS Latin and WWE we just started in the last couple of weeks, so I don't think we're far enough in to really make any judgements yet. I like how BFSU builds and the concepts and whatnot, but it requires so much planning on my part! That's hard with 4 kids to manage and tend, other lessons to teach, hours of weekly therapy appointments, etc. And the flow-chart was barely mediocre. I had to make a more accurate one.

I would ditch the Bob books if you aren't using them. You can always check them out from the library later if you decide you want to use them after all. Flash cards totally depend on the kid. My kids folded our flash cards up into paper airplanes and some other origami-like creations....

My grandmother read to me a bunch, but she lived out-of-state and I only got to see her once or twice a year. My dad never once read to me that I can remember. I can remember my mom reading to me, but only in 3rd and 4th grade. I'm pretty sure she started reading to me in response to the school wanting me in special ed (which she refused to allow) because I couldn't read. I believe she was trying to "help me along" or something like that because as soon as I started reading, she stopped.

Our umbrella school has MUS and I borrowed it our first year HSing, but never really used it because we had already started in RS and the rod thingys seemed awkward to me after using an abacus. I love RS. The first edition of RS A is better suited to pre-k than the 2nd edition level A, IME (I've taught both editions. DS#1 did 1st ed. A-E and DS#2 did 2nd ed. A, B, and is working through C now).

I have zero experience with the piano or reading music, but I would like to teach my kids to play. (And I'd like to learn too!) What have you used and liked? Anything you'd recommend I steer clear of? My guys are pre-k, k, and 2nd. Also, we can't fit a piano in our home atm, so I'm looking at keyboards. They all seem to have a different number of keys, and none with what I think is the actual number on a piano...? Does it matter how many keys are on the keyboard I buy?

I've been using the con-tact brand clear matte stuff in the 18"x24' roll off of Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000LNXY5O?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s01) I really like it! I only covered our books about a month ago, so I can't say how well it will hold up in the long term, but it seems pretty good so far. It covered a LOT of books... 13ish and I've got enough left in the roll that I could cover one more. Cost was an important factor for us, so I didn't go with library-grade laminate, though that would otherwise be my preference.

I also agree with starting in 3A. My DS#1 had just been wrapping up Right Start level E 1st ed. (so doing beginning 5th grade math) when I switched him to BA. By the topic lists, he should have started in 4A, and already knew a lot of the stuff covered in the 4th grade books (like multiplying very large numbers and converting between percents, decimals, and fractions), but was missing experience with variables. RS is kinda weak on fractions too, so I decided to buy the grade 3 C and D books and have him do the variables and fractions chapters. It felt a bit like going backwards, but I figured a little review on fractions would help ease him into a different kind of math, and especially help the transition from parent-led, largely verbal lessons to student-led visual lessons. And WOW! What a change that was! BA goes waaaay beyond what we did in RS! I'm glad we started "behind" where he was in regular math. I'm actually having DS#1 do everything in 3C and 3D because there's so much MORE to them than a typical math curriculum.

My older three are obviously very intelligent, though they showed it in very different ways when they were 2 and under and one probably qualifies as 2E. My youngest, 2yo, is delayed pretty much across the board. Thus far, he's hit all of his major milestones at about twice the age as my older boys. I've mostly come to terms with the fact he's different, and everything in me hopes that he will surprise all of us one day by blossoming into someone remarkable. But it breaks my heart to think that he may not have the same potential as his older brothers. I agree with the others that giftedness looks different in different people, and sometimes you have to let yourself grieve (and then move on) when you don't get the child you expected.

Hi, I'm new. Is there a spell check buton hidden... somewhere? I NEED a spelling checker!

I thought the same thing when we did that section! We actually did short division in Right Start first, but the reasoning for why it worked and how it fit into the big picture of division didn't seem to "click" with DS#1 (and that's weird for a RS topic!). But after doing that BA intro to long division, DS#1 really seems to *get* it now. I'm interested to see how they continue with long division in 4B.

In addition to what's already been listed, my kids watch these on Netflix: Dinosaur Train (facts about dinosaurs) Octonauts (facts about marine life) sesame street (pretty much everything) Blue's Clues used to be on netflix but isn't anymore I don't think. They learned color names I'd never even heard of before and shapes and what happens when you mix colors, etc from that show.

Yep, its the same way in my house. I think it's a pretty good system. DH has said before that he wants to teach the kids stuff that I've been to chicken to attempt, like music (he plays several instruments and I play nothing) and coding, but him actually doing this with the boys on the weekend has only happened a handful of times. I've decided I will need to figure out how to teach them these things myself.