I’ve taught Latin for 9 years now (to my own kids & last year in a hybrid school environment) and I absolutely LOVE Cambridge Latin for about 5/6 grade +... before then, look at Cambridge Minimus!

Well we did early grammar (FLL 1/2 in 3rd, then 2 years of K12 LA) but now, in 6th grade we have dropped English grammar altogether and study Latin grammar using Lingua Latina instead. The Latin grammar is, in my opinion, the perfect way to revisit all the English grammar he has already learned.

Well I have to vouch for your daughter! Fifth grade math is hard! And confusing! All of a sudden they are thrown from the basic arithmetic operations into fractions, decimals & percentages!! It's really a lot of tedious work! We did Singapore 5A & 5B last year (just finished 5B) and it was tough but Singapore just CLICKS with my oldest! I know MUS moves VERY slowly and has a lot of review (it's a mastery program so they do the same thing everyday, all year). It also comes with manipulatives to show them, concretely, why the math works. Rightstart math is another great manipulative (& game!) based program I am using with my younger son. He is learning math with the alabacus and it is completely amazing FOR ME. I never knew how an abacus worked til we started RS, but you can use an abacus to teach up to highschool level math...!!! Maybe look into some of those options?

I am an old earth creationist but I don't really have a view as to how it all came to be. I don't know. I don't think there is any way to know for certain but I definitely believe the earth/universe/life has been around a LOT longer than 2000 years.

Magic Schoolbus complete DVD Set is coming out/has just come out. I think it was due out July 31st (or that may have been for pre-order) it was like every episode ever made on DVD for $50-60 ish. HTH! (sorry to be so vague! LOL I do not recall details but I know I was happy to hear it!) =D

baby oil will take it off faces. Ask me how I know!! :tongue_smilie:

When we used US Edition we used the IP as supplement and never went with the CWP because, in my honest opinion, Singapore has PLENTY of challenging word problems already in the curriculum! Last year we switched to CA Standards edition & dropped the IP altogether because it was obvious that it's built right into the Standards curriculum & again with the CWP, simply unnecessary imho! (although I do think IP is a fundamental part of the US Edition materials & I would not use those materials without IP)

Well I, personally, am subbing to this thread because my plan is to use K12 HO for my 11yo after we finish the last SOTW book. We're on book 3 now & will do book 4 through next year & start K12 HO in 7th. I would love to see what you guys do with the curriculum as it sounds very much like what we already do with SOTW. We add in timeline (but I want to start it at the beginning, when we start K12HO). We have some map work we do in SOTW, and he has developed into writing more essay-style narrations rather than 1 or 2 sentences (that has always been hard for him, now I just have him summarize the story). I would love to hear your take on the 2-level outline vs. 3-level, etc as we are just learning to outline & take notes & I need all the help I can get with explaining to him (general paragraph-writing instruction seems to be helping some but maybe you know something I don't know!! ;)) Hope to hear you guys enjoy your new Curriculum!!! :D

READ. That is seriously my only goal for my 4 year old. I had all these big elaborate plans & already have my hands on a whole lot of curriculum that I want to use, but this year my goal is READ. We will use Explode the Code every week day & he will have the option to work on Singapore 1A if he wants to. He actually enjoys doing math work so I just wait for him to ask before we move on. He's FOUR. ;) I am teaching the kindergarten class at co-op HWOT this fall so I am excited about that but I will not require much from him on writing until 1st grade when we will start giving narrations. SOMETIMES when he is in on my oldest's botany lesson or activity, he will dictate a short narration that I copy for him & then he draws & colors me a picture to go with it. I honestly don't WANT him writing his letters until he completely understands how to correctly write each letter (which he will get explicit instruction & supervision for) and they simply do not have the physical ability/strength, in my experience, to properly write their letters/numbers before first grade. We just got into a REAL PICKLE with my 11 yo because he went to ps in K & 1st & evidently no one noticed (INCLUDING MYSELF) that he was writing EVERY SINGLE ONE of his letters incorrectly. I think it is a HUGE reason his handwriting is messy & I hope to avoid it with my next two by any means necessary!

My 4yo has the red dye sensitivity, for sure & my daughter has the annatto sensitivity too! So crazy. We get all our dye-free candy(LOVE Yummy earth Lollipops!) & cold/cough syrups through our local Frontier co-op. I can usually find dye-free vitamins at the health food store but I've noticed recently that even Walmart has the gummy fish oil/omegas dye-free now, too. We always skip red icing & I make Julie hold her gumball to make sure Caleb doesn't get red or else they have to switch! LOL! Evidently yellow gumballs are not dyed with annatto, so she's good on gumballs :D

We used Sadlier-Oxford's Vocab Wkshp in 4th & 5th grades & I'm about to purchase for 6th grade this week! =) He loves it! We also use the progeny press lit guides which have lots of vocab work & he's learning formal latin & keeps a Latin notebook for Apologia Botany so I would say he's getting plenty of vocab ptc!! :D

Magic Piano is AWESOME!! We love Sky View, Draw Something is fun but I recommend a stylus! ;) The Littles love Team UmiZoomi, there are "BOB Books" on there for free... Nova, Smithsonian, Nat Geo even has an awesome app. Search Science, Education, etc & look under the free ones, LOTS of stuff to choose from!!! HAVE FUN! :D

Wow! My littles are going to be STOKED!!!!! We LOVE MSB!! :001_wub:

We used about the 1st 1/3 of this plan before switching to Apologia Botany. The linked plan is GREAT and I'm still using it in addition to Apologia for videos & other links she has posted. We use the Atlas of Botany that she suggests & also the Botany coloring book. Apologia is just MUCH easier since it's written to the student & my 11 year old can read it easily & it has LOTS of activities & projects suggested. Apologia is NOT very easy to plan out though (in my opinion)... of course there may be a "guide" somewhere online I just have not looked... also, Apologia is VERY creation-oriented (which I believe in God as the creator, but NOT that the earth was created 6,000 years ago) so we skip some of the creation stuff (but I also LOVE that it gives God the credit for all the glory & majesty of nature, so it's a catch22!!! ;)) Just throwing that out there for anyone interested in more of a botany course. We started in January & our Botany adventures have worked themselves out PERFECTLY in our homeschool! We are ALL loving it! :D

My little ones LOVE storytime (we have gone to the public library story time since they were babies) & my middle one loves audiobooks, too!!! I just organized a felt story busybag group so we would have a few different felt stories to use in our storytime at home. You should join us! Look up Busy Bag Exchange on Facebook :)