That's a good point, thank you. I was more or less giving him some more to do so older DD doesn't get frustrated she's the only one left at the table with work to do. He is capable of sitting and paying attention but he's not quite there with the writing skills yet. Thanks for the help!

Regarding the bold section....would you mind being specific on what that maturity & the physical skills would look like? Just so I know for future reference. I don't doubt that they had it for a specific age in mind, I'm just wondering what maturity level or skills they are looking for. My girls are far ahead of my boys and I don't want to put anyone in too soon. What would you put a 6yr old in for English....and PLEASE don't say FLL. It was a major bust here. We do history, Bible, science & geography together. Math, handwriting, spelling and reading are all separate.

DD is 7.5 & DS just turned 6. He could write more if I pushed him, I just haven't felt like putting up the fight. He is well on his way in reading lessons which is one other reason I wasn't sure if I should keep him in on it. Edited to add I think I could have him doing it all written by the end of the book this year. DD is capable of writing it all currently I just don't require it.

It is high enough the babies can't reach...and the babies are taught that they have their own shelf of board books. I just worry because most of these are soft cover and we loved them so much I don't want them to get destroyed. I guess what good is a book if it just sits on a shelf though, right? So how do you handle when it comes time to do the study again....just hunt for the books and hope you find them all?

I can smell all our neighbors' laundry when I go outside!! I thought I was going crazy!! I'm so relieved you mentioned this....now I know it isn't just me!

We're finishing up Beautiful Feet's American history. I can't decide how I want to put the books away when we're done. Do they go in the basement on the fiction shelf of "books for future use"? Do they go on the general free for all book shelf in the living room (if they do I worry they will get destroyed by babies) ? Do they all get kept together on curriculum shelf for if we do the guide again in 4-5 years? But if I do that they may never be browsed and they're such good books.... HELP! What do you do with your books when you're done?

We ONLY do stockings....grandparents get enough gifts & I find myself buying just to buy. So we quit doing other gifts & just do stockings. So every year each kid gets new socks & undies and dried fruit in their stockings. In past years they each got new water bottles, a movie that went with their character, their favorite tea, chocolate orange, mandarin oranges, a favorite candy bar.... when they were really young they each got a roll of tape, a package of wipes, a pudding cup & box of animal crackers. This year I'm thinking of duct tape for each in their favorite color.

Anybody combine kids in Rod & Staff's English 2? My oldest two are close in age and DS is quickly catching up to DD in skills. DD is in 2nd & DS is 1st. We started out with FLL1 together but we were all quickly banging our heads against the wall. We've moved onto R&S English 2 and are really enjoying it so far. We are halfway through Unit 2. I read it out loud to both and have 1st gr DS do a sentence or two for copywork and then oral work. 2nd gr DD does half oral and half written. I think my DS will do ok for the rest of the book, but how much more does it ramp up in 3rd gr? Will he fall behind if he did most of 2 orally? Will it be too hard? I don't want to keep him in with DD if he will just have to re-do it all next year because the 3rd gr book will be too hard. Or will I regret in the long term having him a grade ahead? I've seen others say it really ramps up around 6 or 7...

Thanks, I was hoping they would compliment each other. Does your DD do GGC on her own or do you teach/read it to her & discuss? Is it something you can do once a week or do you have to do it every day?

We're starting VP's OT/AE (you teach) soon. I was thinking about doing GGC OT1 with it. Anybody familiar enough with GGC to tell me if this would be overkill? I don't plan on doing VP's Bible course, just the OT/AE. If doing OT1 is overkill alongside OT/AE does anybody have experience with the NT1?

Thanks for all the help! I think I know where we are headed now!

Thanks HomeAgain. I plan on continuing to have her read aloud for a while for the reasons you stated. Maybe I should clarify a bit...I was wondering if the reading workbooks like CLE has are necessary. I like the samples I see online but I was wondering if AAS and R&S LA2 would cover all that & throwing in these light units would be overkill?

First time posting here, so be patient with me! We use The Reading Lesson until they are reading decently. My first DD is really plugging along and gaining confidence in her reading although she isn't into chapter books yet. I have CLE readers for 1st & 2nd grade and we also use Pathway readers. She has finished all the 1st gr Pathway books & is working her way through CLE "I Wonder". We just do 10min of reading every day along with AAS 2. She is in 2nd gr this year. We tried FLL1 (combined her and next younger child for sanity sake) but we all hated it by lesson 20. I can tell they are beyond bored and need more of a challenge. I ordered R&S LA 2 for DD and DS (1st gr) is going to do the first 4 explode the code books along with his reading lessons LA. I just noticed CLE and R&S have reading/phonics books/workbooks beyond the initial learning to read stage. Now for my question.... Do we need to do the phonics/reading books? Am I going to have a huge gap if we don't do them? Can anyone tell me why we should do them? Is it more of a practice practice practice to solidify what they've learned? The light units from CLE look like fun and do-able, especially since we have the readers. I'm just wondering if it would be overkill. Will she get all her bases covered between LA & AAS? Or is it something that should be done maybe in 4th grade?