Let your children choose projects that they can do by themselves to leave for your breaks. I think you will burn out if you try to lengthen your school year by much and kids need to learn how to entertain themselves for longer periods. When my boys get bored on longer breaks I help them develop projects to work on. As my oldest has done this a few times now he is getting to know a lose process for doing it and is starting to pursue some of his own interests truely on his own.

My boys used My First Book of Tracing then started the ECT Primers. Both were big hits and they have pretty good handwriting for their ages. They also seem to have good stamina - not sure if it is just who they are or from the book, but I tend to lean towards a little of both because it is true for all 3 of my boys. I think cutting books of any kind are great. I didn't do any with my oldest and he still struggles with cutting my younger two do much better.

My 8yo son hates school but loves to learn. If I let him tell me what he wants to learn about he will read, write, draw and retain. I tell him what he needs to do and it most likely becomes a battle. I have found having him do 90% of the reading himself helps tons. Allowing him to draw pictures to go with most of the writing he does if he wants to. Adding in an extra art project when work is done in a timely manner. It has also worked well when I give him an assignment list for the day. Then he know exactly what needs to be done for each subject to be free to go play before lunch. We are fortunate to have a school bus go past our house so he knows when other kids go to school and come home. This has been a small help in realizing that he gets a lot more free time during the day.

My boys in K4 do lots of dot to dots - then color them in, mazes, patterns with Funtastic Frogs, Color seperating with Funtastic Frogs, Pattern Block pictures, Simple Math sheets - how many, beginning addition, ETC Primers

Thanks for this post. I am dealing with many of the same things with my boys. I know many of thier friends get a color for what they were for their behavior at school for the day and their parents say it is a great way to keep track of how things are going at school. You make me wonder how something like this would work for us at home. Everyday they get to share with their dad the color they ended our school day on. Then we can have rewards/ consquences from dad for school behavior just like they would if they went to public school everyday.

I am ready for more structure to our day, but I promised my oldest that we don't have to do grammar until Aug. So anything we do will not be full days but we are doing at least 1 subject per day.

You could use Beautiful Feet Early American History. I found the guide used and am using the library for most of the books. For Science, I am using Beautiful Feet History of Science. This the first time I have gotten a science curriculum up to this point we have used books from the library and followed the boys lead.

:iagree: I have found that having a set order is more important than a list of what needs to be done. We get dressed at 8am and eat breakfast. If you are not dressed you don't get breakfast. When breakfast is over we do school. Some days it is one things, most days it is a full day. Lunch is at noon or close to it. Quiet time is from end of lunch until 3. Dinner is about 5. Bedtime is 7. That is the outline to our day. Do things change? Yes. But this is the basic outline and in this context we can all function. I know that I need to do some kind of activity with my boys first thing after breakfast or they usually don't have a good day. It can be as short as reading a book but they need some mom interaction.

This is why I take my list from Rainbow Resourse to the my shelves before I order. :) I just ordered the rest of what I need for next year. Plus I have things I will be using in the years to come that I have picked up at used sales. Thinking ahead always thinking ahead :lol:

I have both programs but have not started either of them. History of Science looks great and we will be starting this in the fall. It looks like a great study of showing the progression of science. Geography - is based on the Holling C Holling books. These books are set around the Great Lakes and the Mississippi. So the geography is North America Geography. I think useful in teaching geography but may not be as useful for you as it is for those of us living in the States. I am not even sure what else to use for Geography, as this is something I have struggled with.

Thanks! I think my son will enjoy this.

Our general rule is that if Daddy is at work, we have school. Now, we do take breaks. Our breaks, involve doing one maybe two subjects to start the day. Math, Greek, and writing are all done at least once per week. I have found that starting our day with at least little bit of challenging the mind makes for a better day for all. The days, we don't do any seat work, we are off to the zoo, all morning at the playground, co-op days, baseball, or summer camps.

I have used HOD Emerging Readers with both of my older boys and will with my youngest once he is ready. I use the Beyond Manual and I believe it is the same in the Bigger Manual. The kids read the books outloud to you and then there are narration questions. The questions provide different ways of looking at the text. I have found the books listed in order along with the alternate books to be great in getting my kids to be confident independant readers. The books are listed in the order used on the website so you can see where your daughter would fit.

My boys are currently using Hey Andrew. They love it and it is their favorite thing to do for school. I started both of my boys after they were easily reading chapter books with good comprehension. I am planning on switching my oldest over to Elementary Greek after he finishes Hey Andrew Level 3. Something is just not sitting right with me and I feel like EG will take care of it. I think I am looking for more instruction vs just doing what the page says.

:grouphug: I stress more over figuring out writing than anything else. My son is currently in Unit 3 of R&S Grammar 3. I have not found the amount of writng to be much more than in 2. I have him do most things orally with some written practice. Mostly, when he is given an assignment to put in Capitols correctly. He can tell me orally correctly everytime but if he is required to write them the get forgotten. Anyway, my son also writes narrations in history and science about one for each per week. Also his bible is all narrations after declaring that he knew the entire bible. This was our middle ground and now he feels like he is learning bible again. Burn out, yes it is a scary thing lingering in the unsettled school book dust. I am slowly learning that I up the amount of writing required very slowly. If I know on thing is going to be more writting then no other subject can increase in writing for at least two weeks preference would be four. This might seem a long time but then it is all second nature and the next assignment is almost embraced because it is something new. I hope this makes some sense, it is late and I feel like I am rambling.

My kids love co-op but they also didn't really have connections with other homeschoolers until we went to co-op. From what you wrote it sounds like you are well connected in with other homeschoolers. So I would't do the co-op. I think they are great and offer a lot of benifit but they are not for every family. I think the big thing is for kids to have friends and times for them to interact on a regular basis.

I got one up this week. Yeah! http://raisingthreeknights.blogspot.com/2011/05/fun-with-miquon.html

I, also, think he did a good job. I would continue to focus on sentence structure and paragraph structure. To me it seems like he ended up trying to pull a lot of his knowledge together because he enjoyed the book and had a lot to say.

I have found that I pick and choose what I like and then write my own lesson plans. Not completely reinventing the wheel but tweeking more then the average.

I have found the Tracing book to be great to get ready for writing. I also found a simple cut and paste book at Borders. I to limit the number of pages a day. In fact, with the cut and paste my son has to do at least 3 pages in other books first. This gives me more time and forces him to work on many skills. All of this is his choice and he does it about two days a week.

How have you done this? My boys are 6 and 8. They are not working at levels that are to hard for them. In fact usually by the end of the week our school day has been shorted by one to one and half hours - same amount of work. Just because they seem to have remembered how to focus. Then we have the weekend and I have to start all over again. Both boys are easily distracted by me talking to one of their brother or the other brother moving. At this point, I send them to thier rooms to work indepentantly if they are unable to focus in the kitchen and for our oldest he is given enough time to finish his work, if it is not done we move on and then he is required to finish it later on his own time. This has helped some but I am still almost daily fighting the time to focus battle. We do school at the kitchen table. Each boy is working on thier own thing while I am there to help. When they are working indepenantly I will take them one at a time to the living room to teach a new concept. We combine for history and science. And because life isn't crazy enough with the older two doing school my youngest has decided he needs to do school with us most days and is learning to read, so the scheduling gets a little crazy.

Thank You so much. This is exactly what I was looking for! Here is the link if others want it. http://www.inquiryinaction.org/

I had a chemistry curriculum at one point that started with using M&M's to see how the coating disolved and color spread. It was something I had downloaded for free and looked really good. I can not find it any where. Any one have any ideas of what I am remembering? I am thinking it would be great to do at our co-op next year.

DS 8 started using wide ruled notebooks this year. I did it to be able to keep track of his work easier. He writes on everyother line and then it is easier for me to read. He writes well when he is focused. Pens are used when he needs some motivation to work harder and for free writing.

I have been working at doing narrations and writing across the curriculum. I started to become conserned my boys were behind in their writing when I reread TWTM. So, I gave them the year end evaluations in WWE. I was pleasantly suprised that they did very well. My oldest passed level 3 with ease, and most of level 4 - he needs more detail in his writing to be able to passe the level 4 evaluation. My second passed level 1 and I have really not worked with him as much as I think I should. I do plan to step up work with him, but at least I know that doing narrations and writing across the curriculum is working. We are making progress. I also plan to start complete notebooks in history and science next year to have everything in one place.