OMG
Doc that's exactly the way my dad taught us math in the 70's and 80's
i'm sending him the link now
looking at the sites was so weired for me 
karma for the link

Kimba15 
my daughter didn't click with the dots either
i firmly believe it works better with visual learners
manipulatives worked wonders with my daughter
she started Singapore Math at 2.8 years old and has loved every minute of it
now a year later she is starting the first grade program and doing really well
we still use the math dot cards 1 though 20 to help teach quantity
and some times she enjoys placing small stones or bears on top of each dot

we started using LM again after almost a year break
she is older now so i just let her play with it however she likes
we also use it to practice math facts and other things she learns in SM like even and odd numbers etc
i'm just so glad that she enjoys math and thinks it's really fun 

the auditory approach is certainly working for us
if you notice we play a lot of learning CDs and music during our day
it seems like everything my daughter responds well to includes music and movement to some degree   
even her book choices are not overly visual she prefers lots of text and poetry

i still try to include other methods and learn styles as well
to challenge her to learn in different ways and simply for brain development
but when we start a new subject or something that will be difficult for her     
i alway use her dominant learning style
this helps us avoid a lot of frustration and keeps her motivated   

1.    Animal foods: meat and organ meats, poultry, and eggs from pastured animals; fish and shellfish; whole raw cheese, milk and other dairy products from pastured animals; and broth made from animal bones. (When i can't find raw whole dairy we don't eat it)

2.    Grains, legumes and nuts: whole-grain baked goods, breakfast porridges, whole grain rice; beans  and lentils; peanuts, cashews and nuts, properly prepared to improve digestibility.

3.    Fruits and Vegetables: preferably fresh or frozen, preferably locally grown, either raw, cooked or in soups and stews, and also as lacto-fermented condiments.

4.    Fats and Oils: unrefined saturated and monounsaturated fats including butter, lard, tallow and other animal fats; palm oil and coconut oil; olive oil; cod liver oil for vitamins A and D.

Avoid: foods containing refined sweeteners such as candies, sodas, cookies, cakes etc.; white flour products such as pasta and white bread; processed foods; modern soy foods; polyunsaturated and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils and fried foods. MSG

is anyone else using a Charlotte Mason approach to home education?
or interest in the method?

we first started looking at picture books at around 7 months
but she wasn't really interested and i felt that her physical program was much more important at that age 
at around 1.8 years old we started again and this time she loved books
she does go though stages when she doesn't want to read
during those times i don't even ofter to read to her
i just keep reading to myself all the time and soon she is begging to read stories again 
 

               Date Uploaded: June 22, 2010
               Name:   Dare (child) and Muse (child)
               Filename: (LR Video) – Little Reader and Dare 5 months and Muse 3 years old-1.avi

               Date Uploaded: June 22, 2010
               Name:   Dare (child) and Muse (child)
               Filename: (LR Video) – Little Reader and Dare 5 months and Muse 3.5 years old-2.avi

               Date Uploaded: June 22, 2010
               Name:   Dare (child) and Muse (child)
               Filename: (LR Video) – Little Reader and Dare 5 months and Muse 3.5 years old-3.avi

one other product i forgot to mention is a really great coloring book
the best part about this book is the facts about each painting
it's almost like a POI only your child gets to color it
my daughter loves it

START EXPLORING Masterpieces - A Fact-Filled Coloring Book
by Steven Zorn , Mary Martin

DadDude

i know you read a lot with your son
do you have any books to recommend?

cool
thanks so much for the link
karma to you for sharing it

LilyAndOwensMom

that is the same chart as in the How To Teach You Child To Be Physically Superb book
i found the chart to be very helpful myself 

Here is a list of children's books that we are using now or will start using in the next year or so
Enjoy

Muse's all-time favorite books
The Little Prince
by Antoine De Saint Exupery

What Is A Whispery Secret?
by Lois Hobart
 
The Original Flower Fairies Books
by Cicely Mary Barker 

Harold and the Purple Crayon

Tale of Peter Rabbit (and others by Beatrix Potter)

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
by Lewis Carroll

The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh
by A. A.  Milne

Becca Backward, Becca Frontward
by Bruce McMillan

Excuse Me!
by Karen Katz 



Poetry

 Poems to Read to the Very Young
 Eloise Wilkin

A Child's Garden of Verses
by Robert Louis Stevenson

Favorite Poems Old and New
by Helen Ferris (Editor)

When We Were Very Young
Now We Are Six
by A. A.  Milne

A Child's Book of Poems
art by Gyo Fujikawa


Art books

Come Look with Me: Enjoying Art with Children
by Gladys S. Blizzard

Discovering Great Artists: Hands-On Art for Children in the Styles of the Great Masters
by Kim Solga and MaryAnn F Kohl

Drawing with Children
by Mona Brookes

Georgia O'Keeffe
by Nancy Frazier

Katie Meets the Impressionists
by James Mayhew

Lives of the Artists: Masterpieces, Messes (and What the Neighbors Thought)
by Kathleen Krull

Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists series
 by Mike Venezia

Mary Cassatt
by Sophia Craze

   
The Fantastic Journey of Pieter Bruegel
 by Anders Shafer




Math books (not textbooks)

Fish Eyes: A Book You Can Count On
by Lois Ehlert

A Pair of Socks (MathStart Series, Matching, Level 1)
byStuart J. Murphy

Quack and Count
byKeith Baker

Anno's Counting Book
by Mitsumasa Anno

Anno's Magic Seeds
by Mitsumasa Anno

Anno's Math Games
by Mitsumasa Anno

Each Orange Had 8 Slices
by Paul Giganti

Math Appeal: Mind-Stretching Math Riddles
by Gregory Tang

The Grapes of Math
by Gregory Tang
   
Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi
by Cindy Neuschwander

   
Sir Cumference and the First Round Table
by Cindy Neuschwander



Music books

Frederic Chopin, Son of Poland, Early Years
by Opal Wheeler
(all the books in this series)

Lives of the Musicians: Good Times, Bad Times (and What the Neighbors Thought)
by Kathleen Krull



Classic Literature 

Bambi: A Life in the Woods
by Felix Salten

Blue Fairy Book
by Andrew Lang

Charlotte's Web
by E. B. White

James Herriot's Treasury for Children
by James Herriot

Just So Stories
by Rudyard Kipling

The King of the Golden River
by John Ruskin

Peter Pan
by J. M. Barrie

Pinocchio
by Carlo Collodi

Stories of Robin Hood, Told to the Children
by H.E. Marshall

The Light Princess
by George MacDonald

The Trumpet of the Swan
by E. B. White

The Velveteen Rabbit
by Margery Williams

The Wind in the Willows
by Kenneth Grahame

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
by L. Frank Baum

Mary Poppins
by Mary Shepard

The Courage of Sarah Noble
 by Alice Dalgliesh



Language Arts Books

English for the Thoughtful Child
by Cynthia A. Shearer (Editor), Mary F. Hyde (Author)
(Uses wonderful pictures to stimulate the child's imagination and lead him into writing, with grammar introduced as necessary to the writing task. Also contains memorization assignments, oral composition, written composition, and practice exercises.)

Language Lessons for the Very Young
by Sandi Queen

Simply Grammar: An Illustrated Primer
by Karen Andreola



Nature Study

Handbook of Nature Study
by Anna Botsford Comstock

Nest: An Artist's Sketchbook
by Maryjo Koch

The Burgess Animal Book
by Thornton W. Burgess

The Burgess Bird Book for Children
by Thornton W. Burgess



History books

   
Our Island Story
by H. E. Marshall

Pompeii . . . Buried Alive!
by Edith Kunhardt

Shh! We're Writing the Constitution
by Jean Fritz

Viking Tales
by Jennie Hall

What's the Big Idea, Ben Franklin?
by Jean Fritz

Where do you think you're going, Christopher Columbus?
 by Jean Fritz

Augustus Caesar's World
by Genevieve Foster

Columbus
by Ingri & Edgar Parin D'Aulaire

i absolutely agree
there are no preset milestones for your child to reach
every child is different and so are the parents and teach styles
i did the doman methods with my daughter since birth
but she is only now starting to read (at three and a half)
yet i am so thankful we began all the doman programs
if nothing else because it gave me a great respect for my tiny child
she wasn't interested in reading but she could tell the difference between a Picasso and a Van Gogh at two years old
what i love about most of these early learning methods is that your the expert and there is no wrong way to teach  
if i could change anything about the last three years it would be to not have focus so much on reading perfectly by 2
but instead just enjoyed all the fun we were having together

i want to second what Sarah108 said about stress
even having a firm expectation or timetable could cause subconscious pressure on your child  
it's so important to keep learning super fun and stop before you child wants to stop

all that being said in doman's physical superb book
there is a detailed chart covering a lot of the topics your looking for and more
i highly recommend that book as well as the other in the series

best of luck
and karma to you for all you've done for you child
tatianna
  

Sarah108
sheet protectors are not sticky
they are a plastic slip you use
i buy them at Office Depot, i use the store brand because it's cheaper or i look for sales
one thing i have noticed is that it's best to wait a few minutes after you glue the picture to the card
or it may reacted with the plastic and bubble a little bit
so let the bits dry before you place them in the plastic sheets

waterdreamer
yes it came with an instructional video
but the music at lest is on CD
don't own a tv much less a video player
so i haven't watched the video yet
but the program comes with a step by step teachers guide
so i don't think you really need the video
i'm going to visit friends in week or so who have a player
so i will watch it and post about it

Monique

i just started SSRW and you right it is expensive though you can find it a little bit cheaper on amazon
we bought the first grade kit for $160
the good news is that the kit resales for around $150
so if you keep it in good shape you don't lose much

we decided to buy this program for a few reasons

muse did not learn to read with sight reading
we tried everything little reader, all the big red Doman words (hundreds of them), YBCR nothing worked
i had used Doman's method with many classrooms of children in Africa before i had kids (so i know it does work)
his books where my standard baby shower gift for years
yet with muse it just didn't work
(we will be starting it with her sister this month knock on wood)
after almost three years with little to no progress we started doing a little bit of phonics on the side
and muse finally began to read  
the only problem was most of the programs and books i looked at were really boring
and since muse is without a doubt a auditory and tactical learner this program seemed like the best fit
(on a side note auditory learners in general do better with a phonics program)
the program comes with a tons of stuff (a huge boxes)
it's truly multisensory with songs, games, prizes, wall charts, readers, and loads of hands-on activities
they claim a average 42 percentile-point increase in total reading scores, 34-point increase in comprehension, and a increase of 2.7 reading grade levels in one year
but like i said we just started so i can't give a full review yet
i will let you know how it's going and if it's worth the money in a month or two


 
 

Sarah108
except for some little reader and little math i use real cards for all the EK subjects
i have printed out a few sets
but i mainly make them myself using large postcards, art books and magazines
i am always in thrift stores, used book shops, library sales, and on ebay and amazon
i also swap books at paperbackswap.com 
for great wildlife bit cards i am always looking for  Wildlife Explorer by International Masters Publishers
 are perfect for bit cards and you can find them at yard sales etc

i don't make my cards as big as doman says to
i use regular size white card stock
and instead of laminating i use regular plastic sheet protectors
and i don't use contact cement ether just a glue stick 
this makes EK a whole lot cheaper for example
i'm going to make a set of bits on the art work of Vermeer
i found a big art book on his work at a yard sale
so for 40 pictures it cost me  $1.50
i bought 250 sheets of card for $12
and 200 sheet protectors for $14
it took me a hour and a half to make these bit cards and cost less the $10

sadly it's th POI that take all the time
i have made way over 3000 cards but only 50 have the POI
 
sometimes i buy already made cards like The Presidents Fact Deck at Barnes & Noble
the set came with 52 cards one card for each president with a large pic on one side and facts on the other
plus some extra cards the set was $10