These symbols are, in one sense, quite ordinary; they are commonplace items from everyday life in the ancient world. And so we might take them for granted, overlook them. But they're there for a reason ... When we see these signs, how can we help sensing we have received an urgent message, telegraphic, cryptic, from a distant family member?

The first Christians traced those lines because they wanted them to stand forever as a perpetual prayer, for remembrance of the dead, for the perseverance of the living, and for deliverance in times of trial.

Silver for General Washington is an engrossing story about twelve-year-old Gil and his sister, Jen, who are living in Valley Forge with their cousins during the occupation of Philadelphia. Before leaving their well-to-do home in Philadelphia, Gil helped his father bury all the family silver in a chest beneath the house. As the winter progresses and conditions grow worse for the poor soldiers, Gil overhears people saying that what's really needed is money to get food and other supplies. Knowing that it's what his father would want (his father is away on war business) Gil decides to sneak back into Philadelphia to recover the silver himself and offer it to General Washington. A nice story that brings to life the struggles and courage present in a critical and difficult time in our country's history that is all too often taken for granted.

Suitable for a family read-aloud or independent reading grades three and up.

Singapore students are scoring the highest in the world in math and science. The web page for these texts in the US is http://www.singaporemath.com

Singapore Math seems to solve the "conceptual/drill...Saxon jumping around problem". Here's an example from a problem in the first half of the fifth grade book:

<< Mr Li paid $36 for 3 singlets and 2 T-shirts. A T-shirt cost 3 times as much as a singlet. How much did Mr Li pay for the 2 T-shirts? >>

Apparently the children are taught to "think mathematically" and are able to solve these types of problems in 5th grade without using algebra....these types of problems lead up to a better understanding of algebra.

Multiplication Asian style The children learn facts families in sets ....for example they chant as follows

2 2 4 2 3 6 2 4 8 2 5 10

They don't say "times" or "equal" although that is explained to them. They are taught the reciprical nature of multiplication and division after they can chant this from memory they write out the sets as-

2x2=4 2x3=6 and so on 4/2=2 3x2=6...... 6/2=3 6/3=2

and finally provide answers for equations....then they go on to memorize the next set which would be

2 6 12 2 7 14 2 8 16 2 9 18

If anyone is thinking about going with this program I would suggest making the move before going in to New Elementary Math. It would be easier to acclimate to this way of thinking while still in Primary Math I believe.

There are answers at the back the book but no other aid. To be honest I think I would have trouble teaching this material. I did "ok" in math but not great and I don't remember more then basic algebra. If you tend to think mathematically and enjoyed algebra, trig. you could probably use this without too much effort.

The Singapore texts actually do have almost as much drill as other books I've used (Miquon, Horizon) but not as much as Abeka. For example in 3rd A Singapore gives about 8-10 examples of adding 5 digit numbers then the workbook has at least that many that the child does on their own. The difference is that Horizon has the child doing a few of those problems every day for a week or two while at the same time they introduce new things. Singapore moves on after 2 lessons that cover that...but the child should have mastered that skill before they can move on to the next lesson. In Asia the kids spend a lot of time working on drills at home.

In Saxon you learn to add fractions then you repeat the same level of adding fractions for 6 or 8 lessons in the doing 3 or 4 problems in each practice section. During the intervening lessons you jump from learning short division to dividing with remainders to using metric scale etc before you finally get back to fractions again.

With Singapore you learn to add fractions and spend maybe 3 lessons learning how to do that (slight difficulty increase with each lesson) then you move on to using the skill of adding fractions with word problems (real life) for a few lessons. By this time the child has probably done more fraction addition problems overall then they would do in Saxon. The skill is learned and won't be touched again until the review chapters. If the child has trouble, the teacher/parent shouldn't move on. I did this a few times with my son and regret it. The review chapters occur often enough that the child shouldn't forget.

Smath is a very similar game to Equate. It comes with a game board, 4 plastic tile racks and plastic tiles with a bag for the tiles. Tiles: 6 each of numbers 0-12, 10 blanks, 36 equal signs, 9 each of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division signs, and 12 clear parentheses that stack over another tile when used. There are no fractions or decimal points. Each player draws 10 tiles per turn. Game play is similar to Scrabble, but equals sign and parentheses tiles are kept separate and can be used as needed. This prevents game play from stalling.