I know, right? I feel goofy even thinking about giving them away. But ELTL works well for us, better in some ways since it's written for a homeschool audience.

Hey, I'm looking for the Hive's input. I just scored a whole set of MCT books today from a friend who is decluttering. This is fabulous, except for the little-bitty hiccup that I had decided to stick with ELTL because it's does what I want it to do and is easy to implement. I want to let them go to another home if I'm not going to use them, you know? That, and I have family of 5 in a 850sqft house and I'm trying to not hang on to everything. Thanks! Anabel

This particular child lives her whole life in story, and it really does help her where it might not usually help others. For example, I wanted her to get more physical activity, and the only ways I've found to actually motivate her is to give her audiobooks when she is walking, or for her dance teacher to give her extra lessons on storytelling through dance to make regular dance class palatable. She has taken a lot of French, but without any connecting narrative, she couldn't remember the grammar rules. This is also a child who has written almost a dozen complete novels, because the stories her mind tells *needed* to be written down. I have done my best to explain why she should care, and she accepts them in a limited way. Arg. I have to go again. I'll see if I can get back to answer the rest later. Thanks! Anabel

For some reason both of my school-aged kids detest the videos. Passionately. Most of the time I end up explaining the math, which is fine, though annoying. I'm thinking that "story-based" doesn't have to make stories around math problems, but math tells the story of the universe, right? It's the language of science. Ok, can't keep typing now... children seem to want attention. And help. With math, LOL. Thanks! Anabel

Yes, it looks fabulous! That organization has a lot of cool stuff; they have a version that uses traditional US course labels but also does the story stuff. I'm trying to track it all down now.

We started the year with Jacobs' Algebra, then slid over to Khan Academy in the spring (as she has done most springs). Does AOPS give good reasons for bothering with Algebra? I'll have to break out Fred and see if he does. Thanks! Anabel

Hello! I am in the midst of re-vamping our plans. A bit late in the season, but there it is. My 12yo has been doing Algebra this year, but it's been slow going. Not because the math or concepts are hard, but because she doesn't care. She lives and breathes story, and she really wants to know why she should care about math. I'm thinking about doing Life of Fred with her, because I know it has a story to keep her going, but will it explain why she should care about binomials, etc? Are there any other programs that I should have on my radar? Thanks! Anabel

Update: I'm halfway done painting the c-rods, and generally they are great. The sprayer I linked to above didn't work out for me, so I've gone to little crafter bottles of spray paint. My little dude has had Unu and Duo visit various locations in the house, and they've made friends with the Doctor and traveled in both a rocketship and in the Tardis. I think we're doing well with them. :)

I'm one of those people who can't resist messing with curriculum, and who has enough computer skills to make this work. I've already changed the colors on the pre-Miquon booklet that someone had linked to in another thread. I've had Miquon before, and I've been too ADHD to be able to make it work. Given my little guy's growing sense of numbers using the c-rods, I might look at it again. I'm hoping to put up pictures at some point. :) Anabel

I found this to turn paints that I already have into spray paints. The ones look great! :)

All right I'm starting! Luckily I already have lavender-colored spray paint. This is going to be quite the project, but I'm pretty sure ds will love it. :) Anabel

Hello! I'd love to know if I'm just crazy or if anyone else has had this issue. My nearly-3yo loves playing Dragonbox Numbers, which is great. So I pulled out our c-rods today, and told him that the little white rods (ones) were Unu (that's the name of the Nooms who are ones). In the game, the Unus are light purple. After about 30 minutes, he declared that our c-rods are the wrong color, and that the white rods need to be purple. I'm considering spray painting them. Am I crazy? Taking a deep breath, Anabel

Hello! I have a random question about science. I have a 7th grader with excellent recall and who strongly dislikes busywork in any form. We've tried doing science in a variety of ways, most of which she hasn't really enjoyed. Lately we've been watching Crash Course videos, which she enjoys, and she picks up a lot of information from them. However, I don't end up with any written material to demonstrate learning. Partly I need that because we're with a charter school, and partly because it's a little unnerving to be trying to educate someone and rarely see whether or not anything sunk in. What kind of written work do you require of your upper-logic stage child in science? Is there a list of skills from SWB or other resource that we should be making sure that our kids get good at? Either for logic stage or for rhetoric (I'm looking ahead)? I imagine that note-taking is one such skill, but I haven't come up with anything else. Thank you! Anabel

I'm using two different sources for my game plan this year: http://www.therightsideofnormal.com/ http://www.amazon.com/The-Self-Propelled-Advantage-Independent-Excellence/dp/1614482969 History: I'm overshooting this year... I'm making up my own history this year, probably more properly called "historical cultures". I'm crazy, but don't ya just love making up new things? Both of my school aged kids are doing this with me. We're doing middle ages, and went to an SCA gathering this weekend. Everyone had a great time. English: Dd7 is using ELTL2, Dd12 isn't doing grammar this year. She writes fantasy fiction, and dh will teach her formal academic writing later in the year. They also have readings, some from AO and others from Wayfarers. Math: Mammoth Math 2 for Dd7, Jacobs Algebra for Dd12 Science: Quark Anatomy as our spine, extra readings, and kid-driven science experiments through the year. Truthfully I'm herding them into doing the experiments, but they are doing the bulk of the choosing and work. :) Japanese: class at the Buddhist temple, plus I've put together some worksheets for Dd12 to help her learn Kanji (she was having trouble last year, thank you dyslexia) French: Duolingo & free reading in French. I'm still trying to find a tutor PE: regular walks, juggling It's all good fun. :) Anabel

Hello! My eldest was recently diagnosed with stealth dyslexia, dysgraphia, & dyscalculia. She's also extremely verbal, so when she was young we started her in French and more recently she started Japanese. She's younger than your daughter, but I thought maybe our "data point" could be of use. Japanese is nice because the vowel sounds are extremely consistent. Someone mentioned that Japanese doesn't have an alphabet but is more in the pictogram family, but that's an incomplete description. Japanese (like Hindi) has a syllabary -- the sounds of the language are based on syllables, and there are only 5 major vowel sounds (short o sound, long e sound, oooo, long a sound, long o sound). The very first thing a new student would do is learn the hiragana "alphabet", which is a system of writing all the consonant+vowel sound letters. The way my daughter's class did that was very traditional Japanese, which was to practice writing the whole alphabet every day for about 5 months, while repeating the sounds. This worked extremely well for dd; she has her hiragana solidly memorized. The next thing to learn is the katakana, which is another way to write the same sounds as you already learned in hiragana. There are also "combination letters" but they seem to be relatively secondary. The next stage was harder, when she started kanji. Kanji are more like Chinese characters, the pictograms that were mentioned before. These don't follow a logical pattern like the hiragana and katakana (there is a logic but it's quite different from an alphabet-style writing system). I'm actually in the process of pulling together resources for her to tackle kanji again this year. Her problem is that the kanji often have many strokes in them, and the parts "float around" in her head. If they all had a story she would do better, because she can make things hold still if they tell a story. She has the same problem with numbers. Anyway, I'm pulling together resources for her from forever-fluent.com and kanjidamage.com and I'll be assigning her writing practice like she used to do for the hiragana/katakana. I'm not sure that it will work, but I'm pretty hopeful. And FWIW, dd has been learning ASL a bit since her toddler-age brother was using it. She got pretty good at communicating in it (at least with us, though we don't have any other practice opportunities) and doesn't seem to be bothered by not being able to tell her right from her left. Maybe Signing Time didn't take us far enough for that to matter, though. Good luck with your choices. :) Anabel

I wanted to second the Quark suggestion. We've done Botany, and I also had my girls reading the Sassafras Botany book. They loved Quark, but neither liked Sassafras. Quark also has a workbook that includes vocab, copywork, and pages to record an experiment. The experiments come from another book, but my kids liked the flexibility and would design their own experiments. It's definitely worth looking at.

My daughter is doing Druidawn (it's not just for boys, but that's a primary target audience). She's 11yo and loves it (she's also into dragons, fantasy, and some sci-fi so it's right up her alley). She's in a special group of girls who enjoy writing. I also have friends (at least 4 friends, some with multiple children) whose sons are doing it, who also love it. Most of them weren't excited about writing, but Druidawn got them very excited and writing quite a bit. I don't know anyone who has been unhappy about it. Most of the people I know have started with kids who are at least 8 or 9yo, but it's worth writing to the folks who run the program to see if they have a group that would suit your son, and to ask their opinion about what age to start at. I wouldn't start my 7yo dd yet, because while she can narrate and do copywork, I don't think she's quite ready to start generating her own stories. My elder daughter might have been ready at that age, though (she has always been a storyteller). Basically, it's fabulous and well worth your attention. :) Anabel

http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/-/m/pdf/education/activities/aquarium-ss-opensea.pdf?la=en http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/education/classroom-resources/curriculum/exhibit#the-jellies-experience

We went on a sardine kick last year. The best recipe we found was Tom's Pasta con Sarde, and we all really liked it. It's linked on my Sardine recipe Pinterest board: http://pinterest.com/anabelneri/food-sardine-edition/

Hello all! I'm researching problem-based learning (not project-based learning) and I know some folks here have looked at it in the past. What's the latest word on this? I'd love to be able to do it with my 1st grader and some of her 1st/2nd grade friends, but I'm nervous about trying it without some hand-holding. Has anyone used the Prufrock Press units? They don't look very PBLish to me, but it's hard to tell. And all the RFWP units look like they're for older kids. Thanks! Anabel

Hello! I'm wondering if anyone here has done "problem-based homeschooling" before? When we had the kids assessed, it was suggested that we read the book by Sheila Gallagher from RFWP about it. I've read most of it, and I'm pretty clear that I need a little hand-holding to get started. I'd like to do it mostly with my almost-7yo, so the curricula that RFWP has is too advanced for her. The Gallagher book suggests looking at William & Mary's curriculum, but I'm having a hard time figuring out where one would actually buy that. They link to Kendall Hunt, but then I can't find more than a catalouge. Has anyone barked up this tree before? Is there a good, homeschool-budget-friendly way to find these project curricula? Thanks! Anabel

Edit: she has stealth dyslexia, discalculia, and disgraphia.

Edit: she has stealth dyslexia, discalculia, and disgraphia.

Hello! I have a child who is coping with stealth dyslexia, discalculia, and disgraphia. Since her diagnosis, she has started using her iPad for doing math, but I'm wondering how other people have done this. She's just started algebra, and will need to write out equations and it would be great if they would line up properly. What have other people used? Thanks! Anabel

Hello! My girls just had GDC testing, and so I now have the great joy of finding curricula that meet them better. My younger dd needs a different math program. We were using Right Start, which I love for its building-of-mathematical-thinking style. She hates, it however, and after reflection on her test scores and consulting with my husband (whose brain works similarly), it seems that we need something more visual, with more pictures. Dd has strong verbal skills, but also has really strong pattern recognition skills. Lately it's looked like she's trying to intuit answers using her pattern recognition skills, but she's still fine-tuning it. Here's what dh described as being ideal: a math book with clear illustrations of the math concepts, that can be looked at and grokked, then move on to the next section. He would then like a unit test covering several lessons to see if he got them, and then be able to move on to the next unit (or go back to a specific section if needed). Is there anything like that? I've used MEP and Right Start, but it's been a long time since I've seen anything else. I'm also open to suggestions. Thanks! Anabel