Quite a lot actually! Monday - morning co-op (group of about 10-15 kids) Tuesday - afternoon co-op (another group of about 10-15 kids) Friday - history co-op (just DS and one of his best friends) every other Wednesday - 4-H (homeschool group...close to 50 kids) We also occasionally attend our homeschool groups Park Day on Friday mornings and the Game Day on Wednesdays, although, we haven't been recently. There are also other field trips and such with the group scattered through the month here and there, but no set routine for those.

If it had been only my choice, I probably would have quit before we started book 5. He does them completely on his own and they have always been just a review for him. He LOVES them though. He asked me to continue with the rest of the books this coming year, so we will finish through book 8. He thinks the questions are hilarious, which is why he likes them so much I think ;)

I just have to tell you how wonderfully eloquent this post is! I know many of the PP's have said similar, but I just love the way you have put it all out there! Beautiful post and great reminder! TY!

:iagree: Even for things that call for him to check his own work, I always go through and check it myself as well. I hand it back for correction if needed (except for tests, like with GWG...we discuss the errors, but no correction is needed).

My DS was doing this again today!! He was actually quite irritated about it this time though. Problem #37 on page 73 in the practice book. He went OFF about how "there's NO WAY that problem deserves a star...it's gotta be like the easiest perimeter question ever...WHY did they put a star? I am crossing it out..." :lol:

:iagree: The Scholastic Book Wizard has been the best for getting a general idea of reading level, based on actual comprehension too, not just a random list of words. http://www.scholastic.com/bookwizard/ I will just plug in books that I know he can read and see what level they are. It's not an exact science by any means, but it will give you a general idea :D Someone showed me this chart before, which I also keep handy for reference...it shows the alignment of all the different 'levels' out there (Lexile, Rigby, DRA, STAR, etc) and how they align with each other. http://title1.spps.org/sites/283c935b-2b13-4da8-9fee-f4f5ea72b44d/uploads/TEXT_CORRELATION_CHART.pdf

PaperBackSwap is a great one! I've gotten a ton of books there!

We actually school year round, so we are only going to have June 'off' if we finish up everything this month, like we should. We will be traveling for most of June anyway. We start the new year on July 2nd. Summers are terribly hot here, so we tend to be 'home' anyway. We take breaks in the Fall and Spring b/c of traveling/birthdays/etc.

DS6 Language Arts: Winning with Writing lvl 2 Growing with Grammar lvl 2 Soaring with Spelling & Vocabulary lvl 2 WWE lvl 2/FLL lvl 2 Explode the Code 6,7,8 (only b/c he wanted to finish the series) HWT Cursive Math: Beast Academy 3B-3D Singapore 3A & 3B Life of Fred Cats & Dogs (supplement - b/c he loves it) History: SOTW 1 Science: Daily Science gr. 2 McGraw-Hill Science gr. 2 RSO Life and Earth & Space (supplement - when labs correspond to other work) Art & Music: Stories of the Great Composers World's Greatest Artists World's Greatest Composers Foreign Language: Arabic - private school on weekends

Must be :( I can't find them on my Android...BUMMER!! ETA here's the link... http://corporate.eb.com/apps/ from the EB website...it lists all of them and the links to where you can find them in iTunes.

Thanks!

We have used several of the Top Secret Adventures and REALLY like them...however, they are pretty expensive for what they are. DS really enjoyed them and I would love to do more of them, but the cost is a HUGE deterrent. We have a couple of the Which Way USA books too, but we haven't used them yet. I have found them at our local homeschool store on consignment and they look fun enough, which is why we have the ones we do. We are planning to use them this year :D

I posted a link to a blog post with a bunch of reading programs and links to the websites... We have participated in a few of these and they are great!!

Language Arts: Winning with Writing lvl 2 Growing with Grammar lvl 2 Soaring with Spelling & Vocabulary lvl 2 WWE lvl 2 FLL lvl 2 Explode the Code 6,7,8 (only b/c he wanted to finish the series) HWT Cursive Math: Beast Academy 3B-3D Singapore 3A & 3B Life of Fred Cats & Dogs (supplement - b/c he loves it) History: SOTW 1 Science: Daily Science gr. 2 McGraw-Hill Science gr. 2 RSO Life and Earth & Space (supplement - when labs correspond to other work) Art & Music Stories of the Great Composers World's Greatest Artists World's Greatest Composers Foreign Language Arabic - private school on weekends We work year-round, but will 'start' the new year on July 2nd with the materials above. He's finishing up our current work and should be done by the end of May, and we will likely take most (or all) of June off for traveling, etc and will start fresh on July 2nd!

thank you all again for all of your great book recommendations!! Geronimo Stilton has been a HUGE hit! He hasn't wanted to move on to the other series we picked up (AtoZ Mysteries, Time Warp Trio, Dragon Slayer Academy) just yet b/c he keeps wanting to read more of the Geronimo Stilton books!! THANK YOU again!!

:iagree: Same here!

THANK YOU everyone!!! I am adding all of these to my list!! We picked up several of the Geronimo Stilton books today, and the first two books from the Time Warp Trio, the first book from the A-Z Mysteries and also one of the Ricky Ricotta Mighty Robot books! He's got a great start now to see which series he will want to continue with for now...he already started one of the Geronimo Stilton books in the car on the way home :P

Thank you SO much!! These are great suggestions!!

I need a new book series idea...I am running out of them :)) (this is for free-reading, not for read-alouds...which is why I am looking more for a 'series' than just random books, since he seems to really LIKE having a series to read) So far, he's read: Magic Treehouse series Cam Jansen series Nate the Great series Captain Underpants series I remembered that we have 2 Jigsaw Jones books on the shelf, which I will give him tomorrow and I also heard about the Geronimo Stilton series that we will try too. Any other ideas?? He's not quite ready for Boxcar Children (just yet!) and he said that Harry Potter was too big right now (even though he WANTS to read it...it overwhelms him right now). I already have some non-series books that we read as read-alouds a year or so ago that I plan to give him (My Father's Dragon, James & the Giant Peach and other Roald Dahl books, etc) but I know he would love a series to really dive in to. TIA!

This will be our first year too and I am trying not to go crazy overboard with planning. Since we plan to do the history cycle, I know we will revisit so much more later, KWIM? I am planning to get at least 1-2 library books with each week, when I can. We will do the Activity Book activities each week and if there is a project, we will do at least one of those with each chapter as well (if not more). I am going to try to do it just a week or two in advance (or maybe a 4 week prep) for books and activities so I have everything ready to go. There are SO many great 'extras' that I could throw in too, but for our first time going through, I want to keep it a bit simpler I think...

There's a lot of great advice so far, but if you haven't already noticed, it's different from post to post too b/c it's going to vary per child!! The main thing I learned and CONTINUE to learn is to STOP comparing my child to other children his age. There are things he is capable of that others his age aren't even close to, and vice versa! The beauty of homeschooling is having their education be completely unique...but it's easy to forget that sometimes when you are on boards or in homeschool groups and discussions come up.

We love the flashcards and the poster that lists each of the virtues. We use the large flash cards on our calendar board and use one a month, but it's nice to have the poster as a reference chart at all times too!! It's definitely one part I wouldn't skip having :)

We are at about $450-$500 with JUST current curriculum books. That doesn't include any extra stuff like encyclopedias and stuff that are new, but can be used year to year or any other 'supplies' for the year. It's spread out throughout the year since I buy at the homeschool store and online at various times though!

I have quite a few timeline resources (both homemade and purchased) on my Pinterest board...I have other History items on there too, but there are a lot of timelines as well... http://pinterest.com/workofchildhood/history-and-timelines/