My daughter just turned 4. We do preschool work a couple times a week. We will continue with Saxon K, phonics pathways, Rod & Staff About 3 series, Awana, and various crafty things. This year we are adding the Berenstain Bears Science book, some Social Studies stuff from when I taught 1st, and some lessons from Kids of Integrity. I may also start her on the basics of piano if she continues to ask. We usually do library story time every week. I’m also joining BSF in September so she will have a little class through that. She wants to take dance, but we have to convince Daddy.

Wicked Plants and Wicked Bugs both by Amy Stewart are fun and informative. They are written as literary nonfiction. Excerpts can be found on her website.

We will be starting preschool in a few weeks. It's a test for my husband to show him this homeschool thing can work. Very little listed will be done every day. I can't imagine doing it all in any one day. I plan to add 15-25 minutes of "instruction" 3-4 days a week and continue our 20+ minutes of reading daily. I have and plan to use: Finish Rod & Staff About 3 series Start the Rod & Staff ABC series Continue/Finish Mathematical Reasoning Beginning 1 Possible start Saxon math K Continue Phonics pathways very slowly Getting Ready to Read by CTP (games) Preschool Centers Bundle by Lavinia Pop on TpT Hands On Thinking Skills from CTC Awanas through church + Children's Bible Reading Lots of Library Books Kumon cutting/coloring/sticker/glue Fine Motor Games and Activities Various Preschool Board Games

The back to school sale will be August 1st and 2nd. Get your wishlists ready! It will depend on the seller's specific choices, but most of the site will be 25% off.

They don't announce the sale even to the sellers until a couple of days before hand (full disclosure-I am a seller) to keep sales from screeching to a halt until the sale. Generally the back to school sale is toward the beginning of August with a bonus day either at the end of August or first of September. That way they catch the schools that start early and the ones that start late. I'll try to remember to come back and post when they let us know.

If you think about how an English class in a B&M high school works, "not allowing" that doesn't make any sense. In a B&M school the teacher, coordinator, state, someone decides what constitutes a year of English. They decide what it will take them about a year to accomplish. This is the required work for the course. Then Suzy (aka me in high school) signs up for the class. She is a fast reader and writer. She comes to class every day. She finishes all of her work and homework in class. She has 10-15 minutes or more left at the end of at least half of the class periods which she spends working on her Chemistry homework and flash cards. There are weeks where she only works for 2 class periods out of 5 because she finished her project/book already and is waiting for the next thing. Suzy did all the work for the class for the year in way less than 180 hours. Next to Suzy in class is Macy (aka my best friend). She is a slow reader and writer. She uses all of the available class time + several hours a week at home to complete her work. She spends many more than the 180 hours. Both of these students get credit for the same course. The schools plan for what should take x number of hours or class periods. They know some students work faster or slower. As long as you plan a reasonable amount of work (many local private schools may have online syllabi or check a related online course), I wouldn't worry about counting hours.

Double post

If you have a spare screen available this website has a similar timer as well as other visual timers. I used them when I taught in a classroom. Some of them were helpful, others were distracting. It may be worth trying to see if that type of timer helps. http://www.online-stopwatch.com/classroom-timers/

We are participating in 3 of the 4 offered summer reading programs at our library this summer. With the exception of the fact that you can do the adult program without actually reading anything, I find them to be appropriate. For the under 2 crowd, there is the sheet of activities to check off. It includes things like singing nursery rhymes, practicing animal sounds, and reading various types of books (animal, alphabet, counting, story, etc). Once you complete 12 activities, you get to choose a board book. Looking at the sheet, we could complete all the activities that are appropriate for my 9 month old in an hour. That's not the point of the program, but nothing is hard. It's mostly to encourage reading to babies and toddlers. We'll save it and turn it in later this summer even though we are done. The 2-12 age range gets a paper with stars to color. They get one star for every 15 minutes they read or someone reads to them. When they get 20 stars, they can get a prize. There are both books and trinkets. The books are all 20 stars, but some of the trinkets require saving up their stars. My youngest isn't reading yet other than reciting memorized stories. She chooses 3 books before rest time and 3 books before bed time. She'll also bring me a book or two randomly during the day. This usually adds up to about 30 minutes of reading. They also get to color 2 stars for each library program or story time they attend. We usually go once a week to the story time with a related craft because my oldest enjoys it. Students 10-18 (tweens can choose the kid or teen program) log hours. When they fill a paper they pick a raffle jar. I'm not sure exactly how many hours they need or what all the prizes are since I don't have a student in the program. The adult program requires checking out and reading/watching 5 books, audio books, and/or movies and writing them on a recording sheet. These are also raffle tickets. Most of the prizes are gift cards. They also have a laptop for the big prize that will be drawn from all the non winning tickets. Overall, I find it to be appropriate at each level. We take advantage because we are there anyway, and the girls like free books.

I used the Texas version for 4th grade as a public school teacher. I found them to be well done. They were certainly more interesting than the textbook from 1993 that we had. The students seemed to enjoy them. Each newspaper focused on a major event with a few minor short articles about other things going on at the time. The front page story was generally a piece of historical fiction written from the point of view of a child at the time. The inside story was then a more factual account of the event. Inside would also be a couple of short unrelated, but similar time frame articles. They would usually cover a biography, government topic, a landmark, and/or holiday. Some of the papers included advertisements for items common at that time. The back was usually a crossword or other puzzle type activity followed by comprehension questions. They were a good mix of direct answers from the article and then some that required inferences and opinions. I plan to use them when my kids are old enough for the topic.