I was wondering how you all balance school with appointments and other activities when you have a busy week? Also, I can't seem to balance chores/housework, meal planning, etc. :( I would love to hear how you all get school done during those "crazy" weeks. Thanks so much for any ideas. :) Some week...

My ds is 8, technically a 3rd grader and we are doing Adventures. My dd is 5 and in MFWK. I am loving the curriculum but have to admit that we skip a lot in K. My problem is that I spend so much time teaching my ds who needs me to sit with him almost the entire time he does any work that I skip mor...

Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 1:28 pm We had our MFW 1st grade timeline and Adventures timeline figures on our dining room wall for all of last year and half of this year. I took it all down at Thanksgiving in an effort to make our dining room look more like a dining room :). I was going to put the time...

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 11:24 am For a while, I was loading work on my 8 yo dd to get through the material. I noticed that things were taking us a lot of time to get through - and lots of tears. In particular, I am referring to math and PLL. Once I backed off and started giving less to do after we...

I am thrilled to report that my son is two weeks away from completing the phonics lessons in MFW 1st! Since my son is a little older than most when finishing MFW 1st, I want to double check on how best to proceed. (He turns eight next month.) I plan on using Spelling by Sound and Structure next. We...

Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 10:47 pm Linda, last year when my dd was 7, I called the MFW office and spoke with David about timed drills. I was concerned that my dd was not doing math drills within 2 minutes on paper. He mentioned that it is one thing to know the answers to math facts and another thing...

Posted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 11:42 am We are using Adventures for my 8yo dd (just turned 8 in October) and K with my 5 yo dd. We used MFW 1st last year. We are loving it. My younger dd listens in on most of the reading we do for Adventures, but drifts off sometimes. My 8 yo loves to do some of the K ac...

Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 10:54 pm Like AmyLynn, I am also pastry challenged. Despite my pastry challenge, last year I led our coop (12 kids 9 and under) in making apple pies using roll-out pie crusts. There was no way that we were going to have all of those kids play with flour - at least not at my...

My daughter, who is 10, isn't the best reader in the world. She did request that the books she reads be for whatever country we are studying for ECC. Does anyone have any suggestions? Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2008 8:30 am There is a series of books from Alexander McCall Smith - Akimbo and the Elephants ...

Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 9:20 pm I am using MFW 1st with my 2nd grader this year. We are now cruising along and are almost to the end of the phonics portion of the program - it has helped tremendously to work through it with my daughter. She does not have older siblings, but I can see how she would...

Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 11:47 pm Hi Tammy, I'll share what happened with my dd, who just turned 8 a few weeks ago. We used MFW 1st with her last school year, and held off on doing the Spelling by Sound & Structure until this Fall. She is in Adventures now, and we are going through SbS&S very easil...

I am considering buying the K and 1st curriculums for my daughters who are 18 months apart. (I am thinking about starting them immediately instead of waiting until next school year.) I have read the post about what to do when teaching both K and 1st together. However, considering both are well ahea...

Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 10:24 pm We used MFW 1st grade this past year with my older dd. She was not reading fluently, and only reluctantly when we started the program. She has vastly improved over this past year. As for your son and his reading, did you ever complete a phonics program with him? Do...

How do you handle the memorization? I am looking ahead to next year and I am just not sure if my ds will be able to handle memorizing poems from PLL, and bible verses from church and I am assuming there will be some Bible Memorization in Adventures. So how did you handle it all? Posted: Fri May 25,...

Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 4:40 pm We have our timeline posted in our dining room on the wall. We put up all of the MFW 1st timeline figures, and have continued it this year with MFW Adventures. Last year, I also put pictures of my two kids at the 2000 mark with their birth dates noted, so they could...

Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 6:16 pm What I am doing is a shape on cardstock, writing on both sides as instructed, and then laminating the badge & punching a hole in the top for a bit of yarn to wear around the neck. This way, even though they are getting use, they are staying very nice. I had purchase...

Posted: Wed Aug 22, 2007 8:38 pm

Paige - I love that you put the pictures of your kids on the timeline - we did that too - the kids love it!

Liz in CT

Marie, For whatever reason, you and the passing of your mom came to mind today and I am lifting you up in prayer today. My mom passed on eleven years ago and even knowing where she is doesn't keep me from missing her at different moments in my life. May you be blessed this week with special memories...

When I was fretting about my then 1st grade dd's spelling (or lack thereof) during MFW 1st grade, the advice I received from David Hazell was that kids need time to absorb the correct spelling that they are seeing in their reading and learning in the phonics lessons. I backed off on the spelling las...

I like Crystal's suggestion. I have that spine on my bookshelf too and would like to have it in our book basket during CTG (two years down the road). I have to admit that after picking "this and that" in my first several years of homeschooling, and still trying to get to the basics, and not doing ve...

I'm glad you posted your message - I have been feeling the same way. We are having a lot of fun too, and not moving as quickly as the TM would have us go. I feel like taking the extra time with the early topics has helped us all to understand the timeline better and to enjoy more of the different ma...

Target had a math bingo game in their $1 section that has simple addition & subtraction & slightly harder problems too. For simple addition facts up to 6 + 6, we have been using two large foam dice from the dollar store and throwing them into a pyramid of cups on the floor and then adding them up. W...

I want to second the recommendation on Mary Hood's booklet Taking the Frustration out of Math. I also would endorse the Bluedorn's Teaching the Trivium. My almost 8yo dd has also been in tears about things that seem so simple to me, and I get frustrated too. I realize that I am asking her to do thin...

If you need a chart, there is one at

www dot sciencemadesimple dot com / conversions dot html

Liz

If you have a way to measure cm at all, perhaps you & your kids could measure out 100 cm. on a piece of paper & make a meter stick so that they can learn to measure the meters. Most rulers will have both inches and cm. Since measuring inches and yards is covered later in the chapter, I think it woul...