Thanks, these look really neat.

Just giving a friendly bump. :bigear:

We are using WP Animals and Their Worlds as our spine and then are adding in the countries to match the habitats. We are also using "Children Just Like Me" and "Children Just Like Me - Celebrations" to see what kids around the world are like. My kids have been really enjoying it so far. I bought an extra (cheap) copy of the Children books so that the kids could cut out the pictures to paste on a notebook page. I've also been using this mom's info to add to our knowledge: http://www.homeschoolcreations.com/Geography.html

I only have a rising 2nd grader, so I have no idea how to grade this. Part of me says this isn't very schoolish, but then again is anything we homeschoolers do schoolish? I will say it was an interesting read!

I guess I'm not seeing the problem besides too little time to actually eat. I guess if you're counting the time between 9am and 1:30pm that equals 4 1/2 hours. But not all of that is listed as school or HOD. So if you figure that you have added some time with Phonics Road (not in HOD's time recommendations) and dot mapping as well as breaks that puts you close to normal time. Here's how I'm seeing it: 55 minutes (spelling, math, dot mapping) 40 minutes (history, project, Bible) 40 minutes (Phonics Road) 35 minutes (poetry, storytime) 20 minutes (science) --- 190 minutes (3 hours 10 minutes) The rest is not school and so therefore does not get counted toward HOD's recommended time.

My DD loved "5 True Dog Stories" that is listed in Sonlight's Core K.

Here is a site that would help you plan out SOTW: http://barefootmeandering.com/homeschool/planning/

My kids love God's World magazine. We're also considering a nature type magazine.

:iagree: 2. They want a program with lots of hands-on activities built in. My kids need the hands on projects. 4.They believe Sonlight is too expensive. 6. They don't want to address false, foolish, or questionable ideas. There is a time for this, but not in grades K-2 or maybe even 3 in our home. I want my kids to be more grounded in their truths and beliefs before we study others beliefs. 9. They want a "Bible-centered" homeschool program. When we do ancients, I want to show how the Bible fits in. 11. They don't want any "sad" books, or "heavy" content. My DD couldn't even handle slow, sad sounding music as an infant. It would make her cry every time. Even though she's older now, she still is super sensitive. 13. They feel compelled to "do it all," whatever their Instructor's Guide mentions. I'm a box checker. 14. They want to present all content as "absolute truth," without question or doubt. See #6. 22. They want to guard their children from anything “offensiveâ€â€”at all costs. See #6. Overall, I appreciated this list to help me see why this would probably not work for me. I wish more companies had things like this to help in my decision making.

Great question. Here's a bump off of page 2.

If you are looking to study the second half of American history, you could look at GuestHollow.com for her American history. The schedule is free and you can substitute whatever books you have at home or your library within any given topic.

Hope your first day was a great one! We use paper clips instead of bookmarks since the paper clips don't fall out as we drag our books all over the house. Just a thought.

Heart of Dakota is a great program for a newbie as the author helps you by doing all the planning and gives you key ideas to take away from each lesson. I think that depending on the skills of your oldest two, you could combine them into Preparing Hearts or Creation to Christ. I think I would strive to have the youngest fit the guide as much as possible so that you would only need to modify for the oldest. Each of those programs lists the ages you list in your signature with extensions available for the oldest. So if it were me, I'd try to place the youngest in the following chart: http://heartofdakota.com/placing-your-child.php then I'd make sure the extensions are the right age for the oldest. I know some of the ladies on the HOD boards could help you with placement or extension ideas.

Also consider using wrapping paper tubes and cutting them down since you could probably find people having some of those empty at Christmas time.

If you are looking for classical, both of these programs are advertised as a Charlotte Mason approach. They are great programs, and some are using them classically, but I wanted you to be aware of how the author intended them to be used in case you didn't know.

:iagree: I think both HOD and MFW are great programs. I am considering doing MFW K with my 4/5 year old son. Little Hands to Heaven from HOD would also be a great choice to add a gentle program to the speech therapy since it focuses on the letters and has a great Bible program to go with it. Both of my kids enjoyed it.

Giving you a bump since I'd love to know what others suggest. I'm finding that we still need some reading instruction since DD is showing lots of signs of being dyslexic.

If you find the place, let me know since DH is also a computer guy and neither of us want long winters or super hot summers.

Winterpromise has crafts included in their American history programs.

I love the room! Would you care to come organize my space?

Here in PA, we say "all of THE sudden". I had no idea that anyone said it differently or that it wasn't a real phrase to be used in everyday life.

We do not blog or facebook or whatever other forms there are. DH has a facebook account to check out who has posted photos of our kids. Though we're still not sure exactly how to do that. We do have a yahoo group that is by approval only where we give lots of info for our family who lives far away or for the uncles in the military as they travel. But we feel that it is safe since you must sign up and be approved by us before you are able to view any info.

We loosely followed the schedule this great mom was willing to share: http://barefootmeandering.com/homeschool/planning/

Our local Barnes and Noble will order the book into our local store for us to view before we decide to buy. Maybe that would be a good way to view it before actually purchasing it. I do have the book, but have yet to use it all. Some days I remember to pull it off the shelf and read some, but when I bought it my DD was too young for it (pre-k) and now I often forget about it.

Thanks, I'll have to keep this in mind for next year!