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Lorri
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| Posted: April 18 2008 at 2:52pm | IP Logged
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Best - Math U See and figuring out that my oldest probably has a math learning disability. Math U See has changed his attitude and figuring out the LD changed mine, both for the better.
Worst - Sonlight's Diamond Notes for language arts and MCP phonics.
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Lorri
mom to    
The Mac and Cheese Chronicles
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pipandpuddy
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Joined: June 13 2007
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Posts: 70
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| Posted: April 18 2008 at 4:43pm | IP Logged
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Best--Patterns in Arithmetic for my first grader. This was such a fun program.
Trouble in Bugland which I wrote about under Living Literature. It brought the insect world to life in such fun way.
Catholic Mosaic--Cay has written a fantastic resource for studying the liturgical year.
Our Lady of the Rosary K/1st Religion--Just enough for structure and easy to add in your own ideas/supplements. The Jesus and I wallchart is beautiful. We have loved this program.
Worst--Seton Grammar books. They are so tedious. Next year I will use Hillside's books.
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SuzC
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Joined: Feb 20 2005
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| Posted: April 18 2008 at 7:10pm | IP Logged
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Best: Linguistic Development Through Poetry Memorization by Andrew Pudewa.  It was often "below" my 5th grader's ability, but the benefit of them sharing the experience and hearing them laugh together over the silly ones made it so worthwhile. I love to hear them mimicking Pudewa's delivery. The fact that it completley took the teaching off my plate was an added benefit! 
Worst: morning sickness 
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Suz in TX
dd~12, dd~9, ds~8, ds~6, ds~4, ds~1
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Martha
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Joined: Aug 25 2005
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| Posted: April 18 2008 at 7:28pm | IP Logged
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Worst = Saxon math
Best = Hillside's Language Lessons
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Martha
mama to 7 boys & 4 girls
Yes, they're all ours!
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mavmama
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Joined: Nov 01 2006
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Posts: 618
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Best--Math U See X4. They all loved it,and I do too.
Worst--MCP phonics (the green book for 3rd grade) This is my vision of "school at home" Boring.
This is a fun post to read!
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Liz
Blessed by 4 wonders
dd11, dd911, ds9, ds8
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nissag
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Joined: Nov 23 2006
Location: Massachusetts
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Posts: 1511
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| Posted: April 19 2008 at 3:46pm | IP Logged
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Best:: Great Books and Harvard Classics for the older kids, seasons lapbook with William, lots of natural crafting, kitchen experiments, and travel plans
Worst:: Flying without a net, wondering about the best way to make a transcript from our work, working through "what do we do after high school?", limited time
Great idea for a post!
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Nissa
Deacon's wife, mother of eleven, farmer, teacher, creator, cook.
At Home With the Gadbois Family
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mom3aut1not
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Joined: May 21 2005
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| Posted: April 19 2008 at 6:19pm | IP Logged
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Best
Catholic Mosaic
Christmas Mosaic
The Teaching Company dvd's
Worst
Nothing really. I did try using a couple of books that didn't work out, but that was because my ds wasn't ready for them.
In Christ,
Deborah
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sailormom
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Joined: Feb 04 2006
Location: Minnesota
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Posts: 34
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| Posted: April 20 2008 at 11:15pm | IP Logged
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Best:
Catholic Mosaic
Imitation in Writing Medieval Legends (my oldest dd LOVE, LOVE, LOVES this)
Lively Latin
Teaching Textbooks Algebra 1
Catholic Picture Bible by Father Lovasik (my 6yo son's most favorite book ever...lol)
Worst:
Not a whole lot, thankfully! :)
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Pamin OZ
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| Posted: April 21 2008 at 5:37am | IP Logged
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Not exactly a best but I made Sequential Spelling work for us which I am very happy about because I bought it and used it pre-baby but we just don't get to use it atm. Soooo, I assigned it to my 11 yo as typing practice/spelling. It's working! So I'm going to assign it to my 14yo as well.
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Pam in Sydney
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/paminoz/
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Bookswithtea
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Joined: July 07 2005
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| Posted: April 21 2008 at 6:05am | IP Logged
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Best: Our best FIAR year ever, Sonlight's Core 1 read alouds, Math U See, and CHC's FHC prep alongside Elizabeth's FHC notebook. Also, relieved to say that Teaching Textbooks Alg. 1 worked for us! woohoo!!! Best new Christmas book by far is the Jan Brett Christmas Treasury. Gorgeous.
Worst: SL's Learning About God from A to Z (not anti Catholic at all...just boring). Also Apologia Elem. Zoology 1 along with Creation Sensation's "experiment kit." I do not know why everyone says these books aren't textbooks and the experiments were dry for us.
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Blessings,
~Books
mothering ds'93 dd'97 dd'99 dd'02 ds'05 ds'07 and  due 9/10
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LLMom
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Joined: Feb 19 2005
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| Posted: April 21 2008 at 2:22pm | IP Logged
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Hits: Math U See for youngers and Bravewriter for all. All the great read-a-louds.
Miss: Saxon for one ds. Wordly wise for another ds. Most everything else was great.
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Lisa
For veteran & former homeschool moms
homeschooling ideas
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Kristie 4
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Joined: June 20 2006
Location: Canada
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| Posted: April 21 2008 at 3:50pm | IP Logged
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Hits: The Books (as usual), Henle Latin, and the Harry Potter unit (HT: Theresa!)
Miss: Trying to go more formal at times, trying to turn interests into units!
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Kristie in Canada
Mom to 3 boys and one spunky princess!!
A Walk in the Woods
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Helen
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| Posted: April 21 2008 at 4:25pm | IP Logged
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Best and biggest surprise:
Seton workbooks for spelling and grammar and MCP phonics
Worst: not enough read alouds or poetry
Great thread!
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Ave Maria!
Mom to 5 girls and 3 boys
Mary Vitamin & Castle of the Immaculate
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ALmom
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Joined: May 18 2005
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| Posted: April 21 2008 at 4:49pm | IP Logged
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Best: Kolbe's Ignatius Speaks and Writes, doing detailed lesson plans for all children, CHC prayer book, RC History, Holling C. Holliing books and supplements for Geography, Montessori cards for science, a real science person to introduce rocks and minerals, leaves and other such basic science stuff, science writing for the 11 yo, Winston Grammar.
Worst: Not having all my lesson plans done before the year started, Kolbe Holt science textbook for 7th (just way too much info crammed in. I wish I had not given this child a choice to either do the text or join the science class with our science teacher).
Overall it was a very good year with lots of progress for all the children and much less stress than ever before.
Janet
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Bookswithtea
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| Posted: April 21 2008 at 6:09pm | IP Logged
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Oops! Janet's post about Kolbe reminded me of a program I used this year that was just excellent, imho.
Best for high school--Kolbe's jr. high literature program has many books in it that are commonly read at the high school level. We used the short story unit, the poetry unit, a Shakespeare play, and 9th grade level novels within the program as a Freshman lit. course. I altered the tests just a little bit here and there, but otherwise used it as designed. It was perfect for us, and a bargain, imho, at $100 for notes, essay ideas and tests from a Catholic perspective on so many books. I think I will use some of the more middle school level notes on novels for my upcoming middle schooler, as well. There is easily 2-3 years worth of materials to use and reuse. I love nonconsumeables!
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Blessings,
~Books
mothering ds'93 dd'97 dd'99 dd'02 ds'05 ds'07 and due 9/10
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Mamamoon
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Joined: Nov 21 2007
Location: California
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| Posted: April 22 2008 at 1:08am | IP Logged
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best~my montessori bead box, they just keep amazing me. wish i had the confidence to use them exclusively for math.
worst~spelling workout
mamamoon
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A firefighter's wife, and mama of two dancing princesses~
Creekside Wonder
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doris
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Joined: April 24 2006
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| Posted: April 22 2008 at 4:46pm | IP Logged
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I asked my dd and she said best: Singapore Maths and copywork!
I know they've all enjoyed lots of readalouds (still talking about Understood Betsy and The Wheel on the School) but don't count those as 'school' 
Worst: morning sickness and exhaustion...
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Home educating in London, UK with dd (2000) ds (2002), dd (2004), ds (2008) and dd (2011).
Frabjous Days
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SeaStar
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| Posted: April 22 2008 at 5:55pm | IP Logged
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RyaneM wrote:
SeaStar wrote:
I have only the preschool crowd in my home this year, but the best for us was a magnetic animal alphabet bingo game. |
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Melinda,
Who makes this game? It sounds like something my 3yo would love!
Thanks,
Ryane |
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The Smethport Toy Company makes this game, as well as many other magnetic learning and travel games. Made in the USA, too
Smethport Toys
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
SQUILT Music Appreciation
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Bella
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Joined: Nov 18 2006
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| Posted: April 23 2008 at 9:21am | IP Logged
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DD:
Best- Discovering Christian Light's Sunrise Math!
-Setons' Handwriting(Grade 5, and this has improved her handwriting so much-and it has led to rabbit trails with the way they incorporate writing about each state.)
-Sonlight's Core 3+4 and books on CD!!
-Online math games
-Copywork-I have tried to be consistent this year, and I see her writing phobia slowly fading.
Worst-Math U See and Singapore!(It took me all of these yrs. to figure out that DD does much better with a spiral math approach.) She loves time drills, quizzes, tests,(who knew!?) and the variety each lesson brings. She loves math!!!
-Sonlight's IG-I wish they would just tell you *exactly* which order to read the books- the schedule was useless, as was the discussion-waste of money for that.
-Tuesday Teatime -DD doesn't care for poetry, and for some reason doesn't care to listen about saints.
DS-
Best- Ditching my plans for the year, and mostly unschooling him! 
- Holding off on ETC, until just a month ago. We do four pages a day, and he is getting it.
-Copywork-I have him copy my grocery list-I make little symbols next to the items, and he copies all of the items that have the same symbol in one area that I have pre-divided off for each part of the store(produce, frozen,etc.)
-Holding off on formal math! He has learned to read numbers just by counting the pages in chapter books I read. ( I asked him to keep track of how many pages we read each day!) And, I got a blank calendar that he writes the numbers in each day with a dry erase marker.
-Tuesday Teatime! He loves listening to poetry and hearing about the lives of saints!
Worst- The ridiculous Kinder plans I had in mind way back in the fall-that lasted two weeks, before I realized I had a DC that was just not ready for all his momma had planned!
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Peace and Blessings,
Bella
Wife and Mom to my sweeties!
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Cay Gibson
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Joined: July 16 2005
Location: Louisiana
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Posts: 5193
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| Posted: April 23 2008 at 10:37am | IP Logged
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All I can say is THANK YOU, LORD! for Teaching Textbooks!
Even my 6-yr-old sits on a stool watching her sister work through the 5th grade math. I might not have to teach her math at all.
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Cay Gibson
"There are 49 states, then there is Louisiana." ~ Chef Emeril
wife to Mark '86
mom to 5
Cajun Cottage Under the Oaks
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: School year's best and worst
