We went to a laser printer, but I did not love it. I do love my refillable Canon Pixma. I also have an Epson that is refillable ink and super fast but it hated cardstock. The Canon Pixma ink lasts for a very long time and prints beautifully. I don’t love having to push files through the Canon app to print from my iPad, but that is my one annoyance with the printer.

For my younger kids, I buy them the book “Words I Use When I Write”. There are several versions depending on the child’s ability. We add to it as they go, so I am never spelling the same word twice. And when I really just can’t do it, they can always ask Alexa. I do use a dictionary in my spelling classes, but they usually aren’t ready for that until around 3rd grade.

We are using Fallacy Detective for 6th and plan to use Art of Argument next year in 7th.

I’m a fan of color, so the Stabilo 88s are my jam! I like the Zebra Mildliners for headers and highlighting. Micron 02 for black ink pens. I also have a deep love for fountain pens, but they are far from convenient and they usually bleed through like crazy. So I don’t use them very often in my planner.

Thanks!

I keep mine on whatever level their birthday has them in for the state. For me, though, this means I have: A 6th grader doing 6th grade work. A 4th grader doing 6th grade work. A 3rd grader doing 4th grade work. A 1st grader doing Kindergarten work. A preschooler doing Kindergarten work. (He isn’t official on any paperwork yet, though.) I considered putting my third child behind a year, since he didn’t start reading until the last bit of his first grade year, but then he flew through 2nd and 3rd grade and is now ahead. Likewise, my oldest was two grade levels ahead until she decided to put more emphasis on art, and now she is “on level”. I test them on the level they should be by age, not by what they have actually done. I’ve considered actually claiming their real grade, but figure, my version of 3rd grade isn’t going to be like the public school’s anyway, so why bother?

Just adding what our schduel looks like: 9am- Noon: Morning Basket Time: All ages together. We have a Bible memory verse each week. We read our science, history, and literature selections. Once a week we discuss a poet and read some of their work. Once a week we discuss an artists and look at some of their work. We may or may not do an art project related to the artist. Depends on how crazy the kids are acting. Noon- 1: Lunch 1-3: I work with the little ones on whatever it is we are doing for the day. Though we do a Bible lesson in the morning as a group, they have their own smaller lessons with me in the afternoons. We work on phonics. (Neither of mine are to the reading stage yet.) We do math games and hands on type things. I read to them from whatever story we happen to be doing. We just finished up all the Beatrix Potter books and are moving on to the Winnie the Pooh books this term. 1-4pm: Older kids work independently. If they have questions or need help, they wait until I am done with the little guys. 3-4: Twice a week I do fallacy with the older kids. On Friday, I start checking work for the week at 3. Independence has been key to making it work with so many kids at all different levels. Having a big chunk of the time spent working together also helps. The older kids have additional science, literature, and history supplements to go through on their own in the afternoons. We also do Wild Explorers Club one day a week.

Mine have enjoyed Thoughts That Make Your Heart Sing, Indescribable, The Jesus Storybook Bible, and The Character Builder’s Bible.

This is what we do, as well. I write their week’s work into their agenda. They check it off as they go. I go through everything on Friday afternoon. If it isn’t done, they spend the weekend doing it rather than other fun things they’d like to do. I also have the policy of 1 day grounded per assignment intentionally skipped. They tend to make sure everything is done before I put my hands on it Friday afternoon.

Thanks for the resource!

Mine usually changes from kid to kid because of the history rotation. I usually plan using history as the spine and then all literature comes directly off that. I do mix in some more fun reads, like they are currently all reading the Wrinkle In Time series, which doesn’t align with their history at all. My 4th grade son usually reads a lot of the same things as my 6th grade kids because of the history rotation thing. I might assign him a couple fewer books and let him have longer to read them, but they are generally the same books the older kids are reading. I make my lists based on the SOTW Activity Guide suggestions and Ambelside Online reading lists.

We do a lot of supplementation, but I don’t supplement every single chapter. Our supplements for SOTW 3 focused more on the American Revolution. We actually finished up early, so now they are cycling back through and hitting some of the subjects a little more intensely during this third term. The Who Was and What Was books are good for the 3rd/4th grade age. My kids also really enjoy the You Wouldn’t Want To Be... series books. They like the pictures. And as most of my kids are boys, they like the sometimes grisly details of those books. George Vs. George was a big hit for SOTW3. My 4th grader loved The Courage of Sarah Noble. I tend to focus more on chapter books than picture books for the above 3rd grade crowd, though we did use some picture books like the George Vs. George and You Wouldn’t Want To Be... books. The Activity Guide had a lot of recommendations. I also used Ambelside Online for resources. I just looked up the corresponding years for history and combed through their recommended reading. I made a master list of everything and then just chose the resources that appealed to me most.

One thing that really helped make the decision for us was coming up with a family mission statement. My DH and I decided what it was that was the most important for us. Now we can hold any activity or commitment to that and see if it is a worthwhile addition to our lives. It helps us say no to the distracting and often very consuming and yes to things that really do bring joy and purpose to our family.

I don’t let any activity dominate our weeks. In fact, I pulled my kids from all organized activities because it was just too much for me to handle. We had no time for field trips. No family time. I felt like I was constantly having to balance everything. It was just too much for me. The completely quitting everything arose as my older son’s baseball schedule was moving from 2 nights a week to 5 nights a week and my older daughter’s dance classes were moving from once a week to the company schedule, which I just couldn’t fathom doing. I decided to quit for a year as a trial period. We spent the year doing things we didn’t have time to do before. Visiting a local theme park regularly. Going hiking. Going to the zoo and the museums. We all liked the lower key thing so much, it just became permanent for us.

I have PreK, K, 4th, and 6th this year and have done all their history and science together. I keep them cycling through together, so they are all together in the same spot. This does mean that they aren’t in the spot they should necessarily be in according to the book. My Kindergartener started last year in Year 2. He’ll just pick up ancients next cycle through. I read Story of the World out loud to all the kids together. We usually keep to one or two chapters each week. I then have additional work for each kid according to their level. My 6th graders will write the events and people on their timeline. They will look up the appropriate pages in the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia and write an outline for that information. They will look up and color all the applicable countries in their geography coloring book. They will also likely have reading that goes along with history. (Like reading “Soft Rain” while we’re discussing the Trail of Tears. My 4th grader will have his own supplemental reading and finds the countries in the atlas. I may read additional picture books with the younger ones depending on what we are covering. The Activity books that go along with the SOTW books have lots of supplemental resources listed and projects you can complete. For science, we were using Berean Science with all the kids, which was lining up with our history quite nicely. My kids were just acting terrible during experiments and demonstrations, so we have adjusted to a more unit study/ literature based approach to science for now. I correlate it with history. So, we were studying gems and rocks for a couple weeks around the time we were covering the Gold Rush. I use The Handbook of Nature Study and real books on the topics. The older kids read some of those themselves and we read some out loud together. I also assign research topics that go along with our topics for the 6th graders that they then present their findings to the younger kids.

We had a really bad experience with Samaritan. First, you pay monthly, but anything under a certain amount isn't covered. For us, that meant basically nothing was covered. I might take my kids to the doctor once a year. Even urgent care at self pay rates almost always falls under the max amount. (Stitches to the face for one kid was $108 for the self-pay rate.) So then only thinks covered would have been birth. So, we pay Samaritan for a year. We pay the entire birth cost out of pocket because it has to be paid before 36 weeks. (Homebirth, so we're talking $3000.) We go to submit our bill to Samaritan and they can't find us in the system. They've taken our money every single month for a year, we filled out all the info they asked of us, we even called them a few times during this time because we were under the impression they'd send us a family's name and we'd be sending them our money. They tell us they are behind, but keep sending the money directly to the office. But suddenly, when we need reimbursement, we aren't in the system. They apologize and their offer is to give us the next 12 months for free. 12 months of what? Literally birth costs are our only big healthcare costs, so 12 months does nothing for us immediately after a birth. We insist they either reimburse our birth costs OR give us our money back. (The cheaper of these two options would be the birth costs.) They finally agree to reimburse us for the money we sent them, since they provided us zero services, but it was pulling teeth to actually get the money back. It took us calling them every other week for 5 months to get 11 out of the 12 months back. They never did pay us the last month, saying it was our "activation fee" or something like that and was non-refundable, despite the fact that they didn't actually activate our account ever. We just gave up on it, honestly, because it was such a headache. Self pay has just been significantly cheaper and better for us.

I was looking at using this for my lower grammar kids! It says the first book is for Grade 1, is that doable or not, in your opinion?

I'm thinking I will try it out with my 4th grader. But my 6th graders, I felt like it would just be too much redundant busy work, since they really only needed the Grammar portion. So, I'm doing Easy Grammar with those two. We'll see how it works out for my 4th grader. (Doing Level 3 with him. I think he could probably do Level 4, I need to look through it more, but he tends to shut down if the challenge is just too high. But he also doesn't do easy very well.)

I did notice that the levels don't correspond exactly to grade level. I'd be looking at placing my 6th graders in Level 5 and my 4th grader in level 3.

I'm looking for a language arts program for the upcoming school year. We have never found a LA program we actually liked. (Other than Aesop's Grammar from RFWP, but that was a one year thing.) Has anyone tried The Good and The Beautiful? I downloaded the free ones, but I'm still not completely sure. Any other suggestions welcome. This year I will have a Kindergartener, 1st grader, 4th grader, and two sixth graders in addition to a newborn and a toddler. (Baby will be here is about 2 months.) So, older kids being able to do most or all work independently is a big big need around here.

The actual plan laid out in WTM is what we are using. SOTW plus Kingfisger plus additional reassures they give with timelining, outlining, and reasearching. I'm also adding some additional extra sources from Ambelside.

Berean doesn't have experiments, but not super intensive ones like I have had in other programs. These are more of junk you he lying around kind of experiments. I have completely skipped them in some areas without an issue.

Math: Teaching Textbooks 4 Science: Berean Builders Science in the Scientific Revolution *plus Oh Yuck Encyclopedia* History: Story of The World 3 *plus additional reading* Geography: Operation World Handwriting: Patriotic Penmanship Language Arts: The Good and The Beautiful 3 Other: Critical Thinking and Logic 4 I'm also doing a fable/fairy tale unit this fall with my younger ones and I will probably lump this guy in with that. Bible: Herein Is Love Genesis; Walking in Peace

I count it. Where we live, it is 180 days, each day being at least 4 hours. On any given day, not just school days, I can find at least 4 hours of "education" my kids are getting. I also count my field trip days as school days, since the school would count them.

We use the IOWA with CogAT through Seton. Our state requires testing every 3 years.