I'm always so slow to post. Ours is up, it was our week 5.

Hi everyone, I for some reason misunderstood the description of the Standards edition of Singapore Math and thought it was primarily for those who live in California. I didn't realize that it also has more problems and a different layout, etc. I have all these U.S. Edition books and I was wondering if there is any reason to switch to the Standards edition. Do any of you prefer the U.S. editions, and if so, why? Or should I try to sell these and get the Standards versions? We're starting 1B soon so I will have to stick with the U.S. edition for this next volume, but wondering what to do about the 2-series. Thanks for any feedback you have!

Ours is up...link in signature!

We have a 7 year old playing piano and a 4 year old playing violin. The 7 year old has the longest practice time; we aim for 45 minutes/day. He practices first thing after breakfast before we start schoolwork. I use this time to clean up after breakfast then do violin time with the 4 year old (30 minutes). It gets tricky when I have to help the 7 year old with things, but mostly he can practice on his own with occasional guidance from me. The 4 year old requires more hands on time, so usually I am with him his entire practice time to check his posture, etc. We have a 2 year old who will start on an instrument probably by next year and I have no idea where to fit him in! But we are a music-intensive family (DH is a professional classical pianist) so that's why it has a big place in our lives. This is our first year homeschooling and I have to say that one of my favorite things is that we have built in the practice time early so it's out of the way and I don't have to spend the rest of the day or late afternoon/evening trying to get the kids to practice!

Our blog is in my signature! We're on week 3 of our first time homeschooling. So far, so good...

Mine is in my signature as well. =)

I really appreciate all the feedback and the great wisdom reflected in the responses. Especially the good advice not to necessarily compare with others! Great reminder. =) Thanks again, everyone!

No, MFW doesn't require that much read-aloud time, it's just something I'd like to do more of, and I was intrigued by an earlier thread where many of the responses I read were from moms who were reading aloud 2-3 hours/day! I also heard Kathy Weitz of Classical Writing do a webinar where she said she felt that reading aloud was the most important educational activity she did with her kids, and that even if nothing else got done, if she just read aloud that would be a good day! Anyway, that's why I try to put in more read aloud time than is "required" by MFW but it's still hard to fit it in to the extent of doing so 2-3 hours a day, as lovely as that sounds! I'm enjoying the responses. Hope to see more! Oh, to answer another question, I do want to do music in the beginning of the day because this was one of my great struggles last year, trying to do all the music after my DS came home from school and it was the last thing he wanted to do, or trying to fit it in before/after dinner...it was just such a struggle. Now it's done first thing and it helps make our afternoon and evening so much nicer not to have it hanging over our heads! We are a pretty music-intense family, since DH is a classical pianist, and our teachers are pretty demanding so 45 minutes is really the bare minimum we can have our son do and meet her standards (while little brother who is 4 has 30 minutes of violin). Thanks, everyone! This is all so helpful to read!

Hi everyone, We've completed our first two weeks of school here; I have three DSs (7, 4 and 2) and we're mainly concentrating on the 7 yr. old right now who spent the last two years in public school. We use the curriculum listed below and our general schedule goes like this: 7 a.m.-8 a.m.--kids get up, get ready for the day, do morning tidy-up chores 8 a.m.-8:30 a.m.--breakfast 8:30 a.m.-9:15 a.m.--Music practice time 9:15 a.m.-9:30 a.m.--Bible 9:30 a.m.-10:15 a.m.--Math 10:15 a.m.-10:45 a.m.--Break/read aloud 10:45 a.m.-11:30 a.m.--Language Arts (FLL/CW Primer, Handwriting, Spelling) 11:30 a.m.-12 p.m.--History/Geography or Science 12 p.m.-12:45 p.m.--Lunch/read aloud 12:45 p.m.-1:30 p.m.--Quiet reading time 1:30 p.m.-2:00 p.m.--Languages (Latin or Chinese) 2 p.m.--we aim to be done, but if we haven't finished anything above it goes here. The public school kids are done at 2:30 so I try to keep us finished before then. To keep this schedule, I feel like I'm constantly on the go go go and I don't understand how some moms are able to fit in 2-3 hours of read aloud time a day! Even doing the hour I've indicated above is hard! (I try to fit in another time after dinner for about 30 minutes, so on a good day we're reading aloud 90 minutes but we don't always hit that mark). So I guess my questions are, does what I'm doing seem to make sense? Secondly, am I not giving certain activities enough time, or is this right for the age groups I'm dealing with? (Little brothers join us when we do the history/science, then I try to fit in one-on-one time with them when the eldest is doing more independent work.) Thirdly, how on earth do you fit in more read-aloud time??? One of my goals with homeschooling this year was to give my kids a more relaxed schedule and less stress than what my son had been experiencing with public school. Although we are very busy during school time, once it's done, I just let them play, play, play for the rest of the afternoon. There is part of me that feels like I'm not spending enough time doing school, and that I'm not doing enough to make it fun and memorable, and that my eldest in particular is doing what is asked of him but not really learning or not enjoying it as much as I hoped he would. (He does all the copywork, narration, etc., but I wouldn't say he's thrilled by it!) We are using My Father's World/Adventures during which we covered Leif Ericsson and Columbus, and when I asked him to tell his dad tonight about some of the things he learned about Leif Ericsson, he could hardly remember a thing! Sigh. Anyway, I'm rambling a little here, but I suppose I'd love some reassurance and encouragement that we're on the right track or some suggestions if we are not! Thanks, everyone! Best, Helen

Just started homeschooling this week! Will try to do this as well, what a fun idea! My blog link is in my signature.

Here is another thing to look at, pretty inexpensive and available at Memoria Press: http://www.memoriapress.com/descriptions/artner_history.html A review of the program here: http://www.homeschoolchristian.com/curricula/reviews/artner.php Good luck!

New homeschooling mom here! Starting tomorrow with my 2nd grader and 4 year old, while trying to keep 2 year old occupied. I still have miles to go before I sleep so I probably should stop hanging out here. But, I will say a prayer for all who are starting tomorrow, myself included. Have fun and enjoy! Blessings, Helen

Sorry to keep posting, I should have just consolidated this all into one reply. I still feel like such a neophyte here! Anyway, I'm so intrigued that there are a number of MUS Alpha to Singapore folks here. It definitely makes the potential switch a little less daunting. I'm not sure why I am feeling the need to switch; I think I wish math were more enjoyable for my DS and am wondering if a different approach will help. I have been considering a Flashmaster as well so will ponder that idea some more. Thanks thanks thanks everyone for your input! I will keep you posted on what happens, if you are curious!

Tina--I'm intrigued by your idea to do Singapore 3x/week and MUS for the other two. My son will be in a co-op on Fridays so if I tried a similar idea it would be more like 50/50 of each. But I'm curious to know if you found the two programs meshed well together. Since the approaches are pretty different (although both do certainly seem to emphasize more of a conceptual understanding), do you find that they complement one another well, or are there times that the way one program teaches it is different from how the other handles it? I'd love to hear more about how this is working for you all. Thanks a bunch!

Thanks for the great replies, all. I just double-posted this same issue in a different thread because I completely forgot about this one! I'm still getting used to these boards! But these responses were all helpful. Greatly appreciated! I wouldn't survive without these boards!

Wow, threads like these definitely make me think twice, and since I'm already thinking twice about our math curriculum choice, I suppose I'm thinking quadruply hard about this! (bad math joke). I am a brand new homeschooler, starting this fall, but I have been doing MUS Alpha this summer with DS (7 yrs old) to help him catch up on basic math facts. I was going to just keep going with MUS but then wondered if I should also supplement with Singapore, but then the more I went along with MUS the more I wondered if I should consider a program with a different approach. I'm not sure which one would work better with our son, I'm not sure if there are downsides to switching, I'm not sure how to figure out which of these to use if either, or if I should consider something else! It's all so confusing! But nor do I have time to try out tons of curriculum at this point. Anyway, I guess my question is, for those who have used Singapore, what do you like/dislike about it and what were the challenges of teaching it? For those who don't use it anymore, why did it not fit with your child? Thanks for any insights you could provide!

Very helpful suggestions, all. I'm learning that it's hard to know how well you'll like a curriculum until you try it, and of course then each child is different and has their own learning style as Sue has mentioned. It can all get mind-boggling!!! Sometimes I feel some doubts about whether I know what I'm doing. But, then I remind myself that in PS my son didn't even have that much math instruction at all (as evidenced by his not knowing most of his basic math facts after 1st grade!) so I figure that even if I bumble it all some what with curriculum choice and such, hopefully it will ultimately still be an improvement over what his experience is in school! Thanks, everyone for the input (and more input welcome for those just joining the thread!)

I'm a new homeschooler who will officially start next Monday with my 7 year old DS (and to a lesser degree with my 4 yo DS). This summer we've been going through MUS Alpha to revisit all the math facts he never learned in PS. We made it through the addition section with no problems; subtraction is a little more challenging in part because (as I mentioned in a earlier thread), I cannot wrap my mind around their explanation on how to subtract 9! My son was fine with thinking of subtraction problems as addition problems in reverse but then with the whole idea of "9 vacuuming 1" and adding 1 elsewhere, he was totally confused. He began solving 16-9= 6 and things like that. I have told him that if the way he thought of subtraction before worked better for him, to stick with it. Hopefully I'm not sending him down some ill-fated path for doing this, but I never learned subtraction the MUS way and I still did well in math in school. (Not that that means anything!!) Anyway, I digress. I'm thinking of switching at this point to Singapore as soon as we finish Alpha. We're doing MFW, they recommend Singapore and I keep hearing all these great things about it. But I'm a little fearful of changing approaches when we've just started. But then again I think that in some ways, now is a good time to change since we haven't gotten that far into MUS. I like aspects of MUS, but I can't figure out if it's a good fit for my DS or not. Does anyone have any thoughts about this? I'd love any and all advice! We'll finish up Alpha regardless, even if I can't understand the MUS way of subtracting 9 (and 8)!! But before I order Beta, I just wanted to get some feedback on whether it would be okay to switch to Singapore. Thanks in advance for any feedback you might have! These boards are my lifesaver!

I usually do OPGTR with my 4 year old 3x/week. Each session takes us about 10-15 minutes before my DS has had enough! I don't always complete the entire lesson in one session. Some times he gets daunted by the reading section that's at the end of the lesson so I'll split things up. I'm not on any particular schedule with the book, so I just want to go at his own pace, and so far it is working well for us. Absolutely it has helped him feel like he's becoming a reader, and I really like that there is a phonetic system underpinning it. My eldest son learned to read largely on his own and never had a moment of phonics, and I'm afraid that is catching up to him (he's 7) so we're probably going to have to go back and do basic phonics with him all over again now that we are starting to homeschool this fall!

Thanks, Sue. I did well in math as a student but was by no means a math major and I think my strength came from 1) learning math facts and 2) using the algorithms correctly. I'm not sure understanding the concepts was my strong suit which is probably why these kinds of instructions don't make sense to me sometimes! Anyway, it helps to have the perspective of someone who has a degree in math! Thanks again.--Helen

...completely did not understand how MUS handles the -9 lesson (#21)??? The whole idea of making it two steps and figuring it out from 10 made no sense to me. I just abandoned that way of doing it and stuck with the basic concept of turning a subtraction into a reversed addition problem. I was just wondering if anyone else had issues with how MUS handled parts of subtraction or if it's just me!!! Thanks for letting me do a mini-vent. :) I feel better now. But would still love to hear from others!

I have loved reading this thread. First-time homeschooler here, getting ready to start in two weeks! I had originally planned to do school at our dining room table, but as I write about in my blog, those plans have quickly changed. I ended up turning part of our basement playroom into a school area. So I don't exactly have a homeschool room, more like a homeschool wall, but hopefully it will work out! You can visit at http://rowancourt.blogspot.com.

I'm a first-time homeschooling mom, getting ready to jump in with my 7 yr old primarily, but also including my 4 yr old when possible (and trying to keep my nearly 2 yr old out of trouble...) I have just finished creating a schoolroom...well, actually, it's more like a school wall!...and that has been tiring but also very exciting. I just posted up a photo of it on my blog about homeschooling. (http://rowancourt.blogspot.com). I am nervous about starting but excited, too! Wish us luck!

I don't know if this is the list you're thinking of, but it's a good one to take a look at: http://www.classical-homeschooling.org/celoop/1000.html#contents Good luck finding what you're looking for!

Thanks, Donna! I love these boards. I never used to frequent message boards before I began our homeschooling journey a few months ago. Now I feel like I can't live without these forums! And all your collective experience, wisdom and encouragement is crucial for me, as I don't have any local homeschooling friends. Thanks so much, everyone!