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I need some planning help....

Here's my situation. We are using Bigger for our 4th grader. She has a processing/problem solving issue and it's affecting her math. If we walk her through everything, she gets all the answers right. If she has to figure out the steps to a problem on her own, she freezes. She can't take the info she knows and apply it in new situtations. She can only apply it in the first way she learned it. I have to do math with her, takes us 2 hrs...and then all the reading for the other subjects. I do not have the time for all the one on one for her when I have a preschooler and a 1st grader to teach as well.

One thing I also have to deal with is food...my middle dd has several food intolerances (she can't have gluten, casien, or corn - it's not easy getting all of that out of your diet), so I have to cook everything for our family from scratch. I spend about 3+ hours each day on meals. By 3pm, I need to start working on dinner...later than that and we're not eating until 7pm.

So, time for school...time for cooking...I just can't do it all and keep my sanity. This past year has been exhausting.

So, I am thinking outside the box and trying to make Preparing work for us next year before jumping ship to BJU dvd's.

What multimedia things would work nicely with Preparing? I need something to use that isn't just reading so much from me.

We are using Saxon 5/4 for math. I am SERIOUSLY considering Teaching Texbooks Gr. 5 for next year. That will take off some of my math instruction. Yes, we have DIVE for Saxon...but it's not enough instruction for her.

Then, for History, I was gonna pair up our Drive Thru History dvd's as extra beyond the reading.

For Science...what would work nicely? We have Jonathan Parks cd's...but I am thinking visual more than auditory.

And English...I was almost thinking of using AO Switched On Schoolhouse...but I honestly don't like that they don't have books, too, along with the cdroms. We are NOT liking Rod & Staff for English. It is good...but it is bothersome to my dd when they refer to stories in their Reading program throughout their English. My dd has been sticking with her Growing With Grammar from last year and the R&S just sits....

I just need to free up my time some. I cannot count on her to do all the reading by herself. I need something in a different media to get her going. If I have to do 4 hrs with her, plus 2-3 with the upcoming 2nd grader...then the preschooler...it's just not going to work. I have to be able to breathe.

If I can't find something soon...and I am exhausting myself looking at everything out there...I've talked to dh about shelling out the big bucks for BJU. I am planning on attending 2 of their meetings next month (well, only the 2nd one if we go back to buy).

Anyway, I think the Drive Thru History would work nicely...and Teaching Textbooks....just want one other thing to add with either the science or the English.

Any suggestions?

Have you heard of Cozy Grammar. I found it at the library and gave it a try. I thought it was great! It's a grandmother like lady teaching grammar from her cozy little cottage. It's very easy going and from what I saw, complete. I don't think there was any writing instruction though. But, it's the only multi-media grammar lesson other that SOS or BJU that I know of, and those are still very textbook-y. It has 3 levels of grammar, I'm not sure how many grades are covered in each level. It also has a punctuation course, an essay course, and some other stuff I think. You can find it at http://www.splashesfromtheriver.com/.

For Science, I've recommended Lyrical Science b/c if you use the cd's and text, it really covers a lot! It is written from a Christian perspective and has wonderful songs on the cd's that are quite catchy and full of science terminology. The book explains more fully, then has questions for them to answer (orally or written). It lends itself well to discussion or independent work and the cd's make it fun. It's not visual, but livens it up a lot!

I think that if you really want a computer based math, Teaching Textbooks is the way to go until Pre-Alg. Then my top pick is VideoText...TT is still good though and as long as you use it til the end, you'll cover everything that needs to be covered. You'll need Beginning Publishings "Bridge Math" after 8th grade to get the math needed for the high school sciences...but it's just an 8 week summer course. That's only b/c TT introduces some concepts later, not that they don't teach them at all.

HTH!

I don't have any curriculum advise but I wanted to say I sympathize with you on the food sensitivities. My ds6 is allergic to corn and milk (casien and whey) and I limit his gluten.
I hope you find what works for you and takes some of the stress off of you.
Val

I think MamaMary can add some information here...I believe she uses Time4Learning for some subjuects. Maybe this would be something to help take some stress off of you.

Blessings!
~Linda

Thank you for all the replies. It's nice knowing there is new cirricula to still research - lol.

I love using HOD, and don't want to stop. Just having things to get me over the hump and fill in when I can't get it done myself will be a huge lifesaver.

I think TT will fill our math choice.

I looked at Cozy Grammar/Punctuation and want to show dh. That might fill the English, but I worry about needing more in the way of writing.

I need to look at the science stuff, and also that learning site.

With the few extras, it might be more doable for me. I need to remember it's a 4 day week, too, so there is that flexibility.

Thanks for the suggestions, they are a breath of fresh air!

Tabitha,

The science in Preparing Hearts is meant to be done independently for the child. So, your child would read the plans from the Preparing Hearts guide and do it on her own. The science in Preparing Hearts last year took my son 30 min. or less each day and covered all our bases in that subject area with very little to no time investment by me. So, I would recommend doing the science as written in Preparing Hearts. Also, much of the Preparing Hearts guide can be used by the student independently, if you teach your child to read directly from the guide.

The next thing to do is to honestly assess where your time is going during the day. There are actually only 3 short readings a day in the Bigger Hearts guide, so the reading can't be stealing that much of your time. There's one for history (10 min. or so), one for science (10 min. or so), and one for storytime (15 min. or so). From what you've shared above, it sounds as if your daughter's math and the cooking are taking up to 5 hours of your day, which leaves little time left for school. So, those are the two areas I would work on fixing in any way possible to get your day more in balance.

If your math is taking you that long each day, it is definitely forcing the balance of the rest of your day out of whack. So, I would look for a different less time consuming math option. 2 hours a day on math is actually equal to half of the time it took us to do an entire day of the Preparing Hearts guide including math and DITHR each day, so it's no wonder your days are feeling long. For what it's worth, our Singapore lessons last year in Preparing Hearts took 20 -25 min. daily.

As far as Rod and Staff goes, you can easily use a different English program that you feel better meets your family's needs. However, for any other moms who might be reading this thread, I did want to clarify that the Rod and Staff English doesn't refer to any of the stories used in the rest of their program during their English lessons. It's actually just a Mennonite publisher, so the sentences come from the Bible or examples of Mennonite life.

Blessings,
Carrie

Thank you for clarifying that Carrie, re: Rod and Staff English. Next year will be our first year using R & S and the comment about the readers threw a red flag up for me, it's back down again.

Heather

Thanks Carrie for your input.

I think the Math will be a huge reliever for us, just changing that. Thank you for directing my focus on that change alone. It will free up a lot of time. Between the drills in Saxon, reading through the material and examples with her, and then working through the problems (me reading, her working...and me helping when she gets stuck and explaining again and again), it takes about 2 hrs. Her problem, like with long division, even if the steps are outlined two pages back (divide, multiply, subtract, bring down) she could not handle flipping between her problem page and looking back at the chart with out losing it. Even if it was written on the board I'd still need to explain what was the next step. It's amazing that things in the sample lessons online with Teaching Textbooks she can spit the answers out too, and the same thing just written on her Saxon page...she can't handle doing. These processing problems are just all new to me.

And, this processing issue has gotten to be such a hinderance in her learning that I pulled her out of piano. She is great at piano, but when the teacher was yelling at her and getting mad that she couldn't apply info learned to a new technique, enough was enough (and the piano teacher use to homeschool and also had a dd with processing issues, so I don't understand her getting that frustrated during a once a week 1/2 hr lesson with my dd).

For me, having accent things helps. So, songs to go along with a subject really help. She loves the reading and such, but for her to really retain I am finding that she needs some visual and auditory things as well. She is typically always been just a workbook kind of child, so it's all throwing me a bit for a loop.

For the R&S comment...there were several things in the Gr. 3 English that read as if you were coming right in the middle of a story. It just seemed if they were going together, Grammar/English and Reading. Maybe it's just their presentation that made it seem that way. I know they do use the Bible, but the way they were using the info was as if you needed to know the story prior...and some of them my dd didn't. To her, it was a hinderance because she felt she was missing info to be able to do the work. I didn't flag those lessons, but I will have to go back over them at some point and dig through and find those examples. Perhaps again, it's all in her processing issue and she was focusing on the wrong thing and that was hurting her.

I am super excited about all the suggestions and guidance here...they all help immensely.

I've got my HOD shopping list going. 5th grader in Preparing and my 2nd grader for Beyond Little Hearts.

I have a friend at church who is all excited about HOD and will be getting Bigger Hearts for her son in the fall.

You have awesome curricula Carrie, and it's just a blessing to use. I just wish I would have realized what was going on with my dd months ago...we lost a lot of time this year, lots of frustrations and stress...all because I thought she was being lazy and not applying herself. I never stopped and thought that it taking 2 hrs to get math done was not the norm, and a sign that something wasn't right. I'll blame it on an overloaded mommy; all my fault. It's only gonna make me stronger though, and be able to better teach my children, so it's all good.

Oh my, math and cooking sound like the major stressors in the day - and at least the math will be a pretty easy fix. We only spend about 20-30 minutes on Singapore each day, and both of our dc are doing great with that, so Singapore or a different math program that is shorter on time would free up a good portion of your time. As far as the cooking goes, I know that will just take some time to figure out. My oldest sister's ds was diagnosed with diabetes a few years ago, and she's been able to streamline her cooking time for him to be less and less as she figured out shortcuts that work. I pray the same happens for you over time. I love to cook - but 3 hours a day is a bunch of cooking. Whatever you can possibly do research-wise, or any help you can find for that, to lessen that time each day cooking, would be well worth it! I'm not sure if it would work to do a rotating menu, where you cook double of things and freeze half for later use? We do a rotating menu at our house, on a 2 week basis for breakfast and lunch. Then, we change things up for supper. I don't know if you could do something like that or not? My heart goes out to you about this, but I know you will find your way with this through time. I applaud your efforts to do this for your daughter's health!

We just finished PHFHG last week, and the science was a favorite part of my ds's day. I also loved it because he did it all on his own, and it only took him about 20-30 minutes a day to do. I honestly never did anything with the science, other than listen to his oral narrations and set out a few things in the kitchen for experiments. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anything as convenient as that (and the science has some nice links to the history too), so I'd stick with that.

R & S has been great for our family, but we do 1/2 - 2/3 of in orally or on marker board, so there's not as much writing for my ds to do. He just took his standardized test and breezed through that portion of the test, so I know he's retaining it well. Maybe doing it orally/markerboard would help? I'm not sure about the stories thing, we've not ran into that, but then I'm sitting there with him with my teacher's guide in hand for that 20 minutes, so if he doesn't know something we just talk through the answers together using my TG. We've loved the Christian focus of R & S and the short lessons, but you can easily do a different grammar if you'd enjoy that - just be sure to pick one that won't add more time to your day.

It's understandable that you've had quite a year with health concerns. I had one of those a few years back, so I really feel for you. I think with those few changes though, you'd be back to a great pace again. Praying for you!

In Christ,
Julie

Thank you!

Cooking, that is gonna be a big part of my day no matter what. We've been doing this diet since November. I have a nice rotation of things, but still, you always have to check labels...cook EVERYTHING from scratch. We have a handful of things that we can use quickly, but not much. Gluten means no oats, barley, wheat, rye...and all those derivatives like maltodextrin, dextrose, grain distilled items, etc. Corn...is in everything like wheat and goes by all kinds of names...and then there is no dairy at all. It's super healthy cooking and we all like recipes better for the most part without all these things in them. Amazing.

Lots of the stress and time involved is insuring there are no dietary slips. They affect her in about 20 mins. - 2 hours...and last about 24 hours...can take your body 6 weeks to rid of that contamination.

Anyway, I did my planning last night and atleast have a nice chart to go from here on out.

Changing my math is gonna be the big one...off to start another thread asking about that.

Tabitha,

I think it sounds like you're heading in the right direction. You may wish to consider doing Preparing Hearts at half-speed for the first few months to ease your sweet daughter into the rythmn of the guide and to help give you the time to train her to read from it and start leading her toward some independence. Then, as she gets more comfortable, you could ease up to full-speed. I just want to assure you that Preparing is a very meaty program, so you can take a bit of time to ease on in and still have plenty of learning going on!

Blessings,
Carrie