I always thought five was a foundational year. You could also just start where you left off and skip anything too easy for her. Blessings, Brenda

This year our two youngest are newly two and four. We will be doing MFW All Aboard the Animal Train and they each have a special Walmart workbook for fun seatwork. We are reading aloud tons, doing park days, library days, special outings to explore the world, and MFW makes for a fun base of activities for them. Our four year old is learning her letters and may begin reading lessons this year...we will see😁. Second semester I may add Rod and Staff workbooks for her as well. Hope everyone is enjoying their little ones! Brenda

I second Phonics Pathways with the Abeka readers. Both are excellent. You could always do the workbook as easy seatwork time. Brenda

Our sixth born will be first grade this fall😁. We are doing Alphaphonics/MFW 1st grade for phonics. McGuffy reader 1, Sonlight levels 1 and 2 readers, and Pathway for independent reading time. He is picking up reading well now, which is so exciting. MCP Math B with Singapore textbooks starting at 1A for our tutoring time. MCP is mostly independent after the daily warmup. He finds math super easy. Pentime 1 Second semester we plan to do Adventures in MFW with the second grade suggestions. He is an older 1st grader with a late summer birthday. Have fun ladies!

Yes

We often just came back to finish it after Bob books, but most of my children wanted a break near the end of the book as well.

My children have loved these and I have found it was worth the time we allowed invested. Brenda

I prefer Phonics Pathways with adding my own personalized reader list as they go through it. It can be done fast or slowed down by doing dictation every other lesson. This has worked so well in my home. Blessings, Brenda

Rummy was one of my favorites as well growing up!

I will try! My phone camera has not worked in weeks, but my daughter's phone does and when she gets home I will take pictures. I am excited about our new storage/ rotation plan!

That is the sweetest memories 🥰. It made me think of checkers and chess. I used to have them, got pregnant and children did not value putting them away well and mama didn't have the energy to babysit toys😉. I think I could look for one of those 10 in one game sets made of wood. It also made me think bout Yahtzee...it was one of my favorites. Thank you for good ideas. I will look into the Animal stacking game. If it is a board game or in a small box it may fit with the above, or could go in my preschool bin if it is more independently done. I am considering getting MFW discovery blocks and putting the Mighty/ Super Mind into a box of their own. I have been organizing bins by day, but in each bin is varying ages of similar skills. The bins are 28 qt Sterlite bins and the baskets inside are white from Dollar tree. 2 baskets fit snug and perfect in each bin. This helped me organize them well. The bins are about 6 at Walmart and the baskets 2.50 total at dollar tree for anyone looking for an economical way to rotate and organize toys and puzzles. Bin 1 has two baskets...one is wedgits for the youngest ones and Magna tiles for the bigger kiddos. Bin 2 has puzzles. I cut out the picture and put them in zipper bags and organize by age. So a basket for toddlers/preschoolers..this has 2 to 6 piece puzzles for toddlers and several dollar store 24 piece puzzles. In the same bin I have a basket for bigger littles with 100 piece puzzles and a couple 200 and 500 piece puzzles. Bin 3 is Lauri toys...Alphabet puzzles, Number puzzles with pegs, Lacing and tracing, Locktagons, tall stacker pegs, a sorting game, and got a space puzzles. I took the fit a space and separated them into 3 bags...with a few empty puzzles to use for tracing, one using the laces and pieces from the empty ones for lacing shapes bag, and half for actual puzzles. We love Lauri here. Bin 4 is for about 2 to 4 years to keep them busy when mama is teaching older children. I have a small shape sorter, a piggie with coins, stamps by Melissa and Douga toddler Montessori skill book that has so many skills in one toy..it is awesome, and I have a little room in this bin still if I find treasures at Goodwill 🤣. Bin 5 ...thinking of MFW discovery blocks/ and putting Mighty Mind.

Hi everyone! I have went through organizing toys, puzzles, and games and realized I have enough room on my cart for 2 more games. I am looking for ideas for adding a couple games to my cart for the littles. In our house littles are preschool to 3rd grade. Below is what I have so far. Chutes and Ladders Sneaky Snacky Squirrel Hi Ho Cheerio I Spy Match game Mighty/Super Mind The original Memory Game Catch the Match These have been tried and true favorites here. Thank you everyone ahead of time for some fun ideas! Blessings, Brenda

My upcoming 7th grader is my 4th born so I took life a bit gentler on her than my oldest. She will officially have to follow a mama made weekly checklist to practice keeping to a schedule a bit better. She is a hard worker and will do great. Math- She is loving LOF Elementary books right now, so I will encourage her to go as far as she is able in them. I expect through at least Decimals and Percents. I tutor her in math and my focus will be Fractions, Decimals/ Percentages, and PreAlgebra topics. She has been working on Teaching Textbooks independently and really likes it, but my plan in the fall is Saxon wherever she tests into it...probably PreAlgebra at that point. English- Rod and Staff level 6 1st semester and Intermediate Language Lessons 2nd semester. Pentime Handwriting in the summer. Essay writing for a 6 week focus at some point when I am bored with other curriculum 😂. Reading- McGuffys 5th reader, Robinson/ Sonlight/MFW book basket books. Possibly CLE reading program to work on certain skills. Spelling- Rod and Staff 7, Spelling Power when she finishes. Geography- Memoria Press Geography 1 and 2 plus as a family we may do MFW Exploring Countries and Cultures. I am heavily leaning on a Geography year for all of my children. Littles BF Around the World with Picture books in my nursery hour, Middles-MFW ECC, and olders HOD geography program. History- Biographies through time...using All Through the Ages as my book finder😁. Schoolaid Health Science- I will allow her to choose science topics to focus on and let her study whatever fancies her in addition to our ECC studies. My children have read Apologia, Rod and Staff, and Abeka science text for fun, so I do not push formal science until 8th grade when they do General Science which seems like review to them at that point😉. She loves to draw and paint, so I will probably find her something exciting to learn more of that well from. I also want to have her learn chess. Planning is so fun. I love seeing how far our sweet babes have come. Blessings, Brenda

I was also going to say Phonics Pathways or Alphaphonics as well😁. I do a pattern reading- day 1, copy and mark-day 2, and dictation-day 3. I first test to where they are learning something new by quizzing spelling ability and reading ability. Once I know where they are we go quickly through the above for quick review, followed by the 3 steps for teaching new patterns for them. I also start with Bob books, then Sonlight, McGuffy, and Pathway readers....reading aloud is the most important part of the day at that stage imho. Blessings, Brenda

I love doing multiple maths as well. All of my children's favorite toys have been math manipulatives😁 and Legos.

Those are all excellent choices and together cover all basic aspects of LA.

We have the same love for the same books. We are officially curriculum forum buddies😁. If you could pick readers what would you choose? It looks like All about reading has made an appearance, giving me something I need to research😁. I already owned too much (who has too much😂) curriculum from my older children when All About Reading came on the scene. Dash into Reading has been calling my name to....they are soooo cute! I have two little girls who "need them😁". The CLE, Pathway, McGuffy, and Sonlight choices are just not enough😂.

I agree on needing something to read. Children's minds need to be kept engaged during stressful times. It seems Rod and Staff 5 is loved here😁. Phonogram cards are compact and an awesome choice!

Tools are definitely a great addition. I keep contemplating between buying an old fashioned chalkboard and a lot of chalk for teaching the neighborhood if the very difficult times came. Keeping children's minds busy may help bring a little normalcy. My thoughts are my toddlers love taking lids off of dry erase, so I may be more wise to switch to chalk.

If I added an extra Grammar book, it would also be FLL 1/2. I LOVE this book. I love your minimalist approach by using references as an excellent way to cover more levels and topics in a small space. Smart!

If I could have added a couple items more than 4 Wise Owl would totally be on my list😁.

Thank you ladies! I have a couple new programs to look at😁. Brenda

I have used xtramath. Following this thread 😁. Hoping you find a new fun tool! Blessings, Brenda

Love your choices for tools! I love my abacus, cRods, and place value cards as well.😁. Life of Fred is just for fun here as well. We find the storyline of Coalback to be hilarious, we have a bit of onery humor😉. Thanks for sharing!

If you could pick only 4 items to teach basic language arts to young students what would you pick for your "go bag". 1. Phonics Pathways...it begins with 2 letter blends and moves all the way to multisyllable words in a gentle way. 2. McGuffy reader set. It would span all abilities and could be used orally, for copywork, and vocabulary growth. 3. Natural Speller as he list can be used to grow weak readers by working through patterns. It is also an excellent resource for spelling patterns and teachers the rules. It even goes into Greek and Latin roots. 4. Rod and Staff English 5. If I could only grab one of the text, it would be this one. It is written in an easy to understand way and would give a solid base in basic grammar and writing. Blessings, Brenda P.S. This is similar to the threads Hunter did when I was on here years ago. I just love thinking simply and thinking of the what ifs.. Thanks for participating!