We had good experience with one of the Rigorous Reading lit guides this year. They’re worth a look.

Lightning Lit was rolling out lower grade levels, and I don’t think 5th and 6th grade exist yet. Also, it’s a pretty complete language arts program. Could you just choose individual literature guides for a couple of grade-level books that interest you?

Thanks for the feedback, ladies. Thanks too for the reminder that AAR is so much more than just phonics. I’m really looking forward to teaching it again!

I have an almost 8-year-old DS and an almost 6-year-old DS. The older one has high-functioning autism and ADHD, and reading has come slowly for him. He stalled out in PS last year but has made great gains using AAR this year. (We finished AAR2 and we’re about 1/3 through AAR3). He obviously needed an intensive, incremental program like this one. I would like to start AAR2 with my 6-year-old this summer. He enjoyed reading the AAR1 readers as supplement to Hooked on Phonics this year. And I find I just love teaching with AAR! I only hesitate because reading comes so easily to him. Compared to his older brother, it’s like magic how he just “gets it.” Questions: If you’ve used AAR with a sibling who didn’t really “need it,” how did it go? Was it overkill? How did you streamline it? I’m sure it wouldn’t take long to figure out once we jumped in, but I like to have a vision before I start.

Lightning Literature starts diagramming early, but it’s a full program (not grammar only).

https://www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/smartpoints-vendor-hall/?source=facebooknew&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=HSBC-SPVH-2018-05-12&utm_medium=referral Hope that works. They posted a link on the Facebook page.

Just a test

I’m not the OP, but thanks for the Makedo link! It’s really affordable, too. I’m ordering for my boys’ Easter baskets.

The more I think about it, the less sense it makes. We’d be losing three school days and I don’t have any way of knowing how well the GeoDraw camp will be run. Shoot. It’s the kind of thing my son would love, too.

So is it geared toward current CC parents and their children, or can anyone come? I just assumed it was kind of a three-day open house.

Classical Conversations is huge where we live. We don’t belong and aren’t really interested in joining. But I was just looking at an upcoming “practicum,†during which DS could participate in a “GeoDraw†camp. Has anyone attended these, and found them useful? How hard is the sell?

You could consider administering an adaptive test like MAP, which isn’t grade-level specific.

This will be our second year homeschooling. It’s so helpful just to type this all out. Whew! I feel better already. Math: Singapore 3A/3B Reading: AAR 3-4, Inference Jones, reading to Mom, lots of read-alouds Language Arts: HWT Cursive Handwriting, AAS 3-4, WWE 2, FLL 2, Marie’s Words Science: RSO Physics 1, plus studying physicists in BF History of Science History: SOTW 2 or SCM Middle Ages (can’t choose!), plus studying Giotto and da Vinci Extra: OT, social skills group, homeschool PE class, and group piano class

We read all the Ramona and Henry Huggins books when my boys were those ages. There are a lot of them! We also read the Fudge and Wayside School series. I envisioned reading one carefully chosen classic after another, and we did read a few of those. Stuart Little and Mr. Popper’s Penguins come to mind. But reading those popular series really helped us establish the habit of reading aloud. All of us (parents included!) looked forward to spending time every day with those characters.

So you would choose copywork and dictation from his readers? And then look ahead a bit in our content subjects to find passages to use for narration? Is there a stand-alone source that would be good for WWE2 narration passages? Sorry, just want to make sure I get it straight.

I’d like to switch my 2nd grader to WWE, but I don’t think the passages in the workbook are going to work (har har!) for us. He has some special needs, and writing in particular is much less of a struggle when the content is interesting to him. What tips can you share for choosing and working with your own passages? What worked? What didn’t? How far out did you plan? I know it’s a big job and I don’t mind spending time on it, but I want to be as efficient as possible.

I bought Draw the USA (Draeger) to use as part of our US geography study this spring. Now that I flip through it, I’m struggling to picture HOW to use it. I know we can just noodle around with it and still learn a lot, but that’s not my personality type. Has anyone used these books in a more systematic way? Have any tips? This is for a kindergartener and 2nd grader.

Log in as yourself and from the dashboard, look for “Placement test results.†That will show if you have an override in place or if the test is chugging away. Or click on Students, then click Edit next to the student’s name. That will show you which grade you’ve assigned, and you can change it there, too.

We loved Todo Math, starting at that age.

Great! I’ve got my fingers crossed it goes smoothly for us, too.

We’ve been paying the monthly rate ($$$) for my son. I found a Facebook group where a woman organizes group buys every few weeks. How do they work? Do you keep your login information and the progress you’ve made in the game? I think I signed up as a teacher instead of a parent. Does it matter?

Our district uses Eureka Math — everything is free online.

I just gave our 2nd grader the MAP test through affordabletests.com. It was $60 and it was an easy experience — choose the date/time and power up the iPad. We chose MAP only because that’s the test our school district administers, and I have to say the reporting left something to be desired. (Long report, few specific actionable.)

Very helpful! It's definitely my personality to DO. EVERY. PAGE. But I know I need to relax about that. I like the idea of doing a couple of columns each day over holiday breaks, just to keep things fresh. That may be how we do it.

I can see how Lightning Lit could serve as a solid resource for literature alone. But I bought it because it's meant to cover grammar and writing, too. I may need to find another way to teach those skills. I did think about using the 1st grade books for my 2nd grader but we've been reading most of those books to him since he was tiny. I thought he'd think they were too babyish. Live and learn!