Along with the titles others have recommended, at around the age your dc are our dd enjoyed The Thornton Burgess books (they are now free audios, here's a link to Freddy Fox the others T.B audio titles are: Adventures of Jimmy Skunk , Adventures of Buster Bear, and Adventures of Paddy Beaver . I'll copy and paste some off our "audio books enjoyed" list: The Box Car Children, Dr. Dolittle , The Frances Audio Collection, Jim Weiss (various), Laura Ingalls Wilder: Farmer Boy, Laura Ingalls Wilder: Little House in the Big Woods, Laura Ingalls Wilder: Little House on the Prairie, The Wizard of Oz, Patchwork Girl of Oz, Pilgrims Progress (unabridged) (mature younger), Princess and the Goblin, Reluctant Dragon, Raggedy Anne, Rikki Tikki Tavi, Sophie Hits Six, The Winnie the Pooh Series, The Story Hour Series (some of), Anne of Green Gables, Hairy Maclary and Friends, The Jan Karon Story Hour, Classical: Peter & the Wolf, Classical Kids: Hallelujah Handel, Classical Kids: Mozart’s Magnificent Voyage, Classical Kids: Mr. Bach Comes to Call, Classical Kids: Tchaikovsky Discovers America, Classical Kids: Vivaldi’s Ring of Mystery ... and etc..

We use AAS with our natural speller, customised, with a rules based approach. *DS looks through the list of words first. *We review previous rules cards (helps to have those rules down pat to remind him of during dictation time :001_smile:) *Since he's heavily auditory in his learning preference, we talk through the rules part of the lessons, verbally, together. *Practice a little around rules/words that he needs some practise in. All done. No tiles, no spelling word cards etc with him, just as prescribed above. (Merry helped us with possible ideas and taking many of her suggestions we arrived at the above, with AAS, for ds). I think the hardest part for me was/is making sure I schedule (allow) time to do spelling each day. Spelling became the portion of teaching that was just too easy for me to drop off. I don't do spelling with ds all year, just for a few weeks each term.. and this year he wants to complete the books, so has asked for summer time spelling (completing a 'school' book earns the student, & the mum, a reward in our home;)). DD uses AAS as prescribed and NEEDS the daily lessons. But that's another story.

:iagree: (just because it's easier ;)) Current read aloud: Shadow of the Boyd by Diana Menefy

Succinct review! Thanks Jenn

Thanks for the links Thomas.

Ruth, were you able to purchase these in NZ? Thanks, Chelle in NZ :)

:iagree: Thanks for replying since SL hist is a near perfect fit for dd yet for ds we've had to constantly reinvent. So I'm starting to toss around options for post Core 7/H for him.

:D

:bigear:

:iagree: ... I haven't used the core names at home much since we started reading SOTW1 alongside Core 1 ... we say we're using SOTW3, with sonlight books - though I still count myself as a Sonlight reader first ;)

:iagree: I seem to have Core E fixed in my head as the old Core 5 :tongue_smilie:and I really have to stop & tha.ink. (While I enjoy the majority of their book selections .... I do wish SL would just stop switchin' numbers and letters around ;))

We did the same thing for our intro to HS ... :grouphug: I too salvaged what I could and just used whatever learning tools I could pull together along with books , lots of lovely books from the library. Once I got my head around the "bad choice" moment we ended up having a pretty fun year - really hoping yours pans out that way to. (Oh. and I went on to resell the unuseable, for me, surplus to someone/s who really wanted it).

♥like♥ Taking notes (DS starts WWS in 2012 - once we've completed WWE)

We're using a customised Core 3/D & the first 1/2 of Core 7/H - SOTW3 is the history spine holding all this together . I switched out quite a few book and added in a heavy NZ flavour ;) We only have a few months left to go of this combination and then it's summer break for us (yay!!!) with a new start in Feb 2012. We'll be reading through Core E and the other 1/2 of Core H, using SOTW4 as our spine.

Thanks for the reminder - for me to enjoy today. DD at 9 still loves and learns with lots of *fun* things. Admittedly the learning gadgets/extras are more geared to a 9yr old than a kindy aged DC.;)

We have only 3 & ½ months left of our learning year to go & this has been our best year of language arts yet. Teacher intensive All About Spelling (Both- as prescribed for DD9, just the rules for DS11) Writing With Ease Text and some of the workbooks- (Both - Using different levels) First Language Lessons (3 & 4 accelerated for DS) Some teacher instruction Grammar Land & practice sheets (intro for DD9, review for DS11) **added in Aug 2011 Language Lessons - Queen Homeschool - Daisy Independent Italics Handwriting - Both (using Startwrite to create our own cursive pages) Poems for Memorization - Rod & Staff Both using different grade selection Child's Introduction to Poetry – DD9 The Walker Book of Classic Poetry & Poets – DS11 Reading J Sonlight & Other for both

I find the IG has all those extra things I like to know about: *Timeline figures and dates (!!! helps tremendously with planning). *Extra comments to watch for (or that we may like to discuss) in a book (helpful if your giving the dc the majority of the books). *The book notes are handy so I can speed read through to get a good idea of what the books are all about (Helps me to swap our books in an area of history where I seem to be overloading on a topic). *The reader notes help - saves time, I don't have to read the books to talk with the child about a book they are reading and have chosen to give a verbal narration on. *We like mapping exercises, so use the SL ones as a reference point to often generate our own geog moment. *And I know I'm "re-mentioning" ;) that the IG helps me to reinvent my own wheel when I plan our each new learning year. I pull out the information I like/think I may need, get my plans sorted and put the IG away. Others, quiet happily, do not need, or want, the IG. I like to have, just the history/core one, since it makes my job easier. We don't use SL's LAs or science . (sorry, typos have to stay I'm out of time :auto:)

Please take my comment from the perspective that we are not C.M purists ;) I find that 'painting' in our home space is an easier - prelim sketching is great while away from home, outdoors .. or for us, capturing the object on camera and bringing our nature adventure back home, to work on artistically, seems to be our ongoing approach. Our dc have enjoyed trying all the water colour mediums,: traditional water colour palettes, w.c pencils, w.c pastels and w.c crayons - and our toddlers loved have a go at all of them. Often when the dc were little and the weather was in our favour, and for my peace of mind, we'd paint outside under our shady backyard trees (saves some of the tidy up later when one of the artists is an active 2 year old:001_huh:). Hope you find what works best for you & your fam!!

I find putting the books I'd like the children to read into their own book basket helps. Mostly our DC read just the readers we've selected out of SL (or added in), with the occasional R/A. I read the majority of R/A's (any that could more easily be read by the child goes into their reading pile) or we listen to an audio book, if it's available. Johnny Tremain on audio book is was a must for us - great book but sooooooo long! (I see you have a baby due in November so a student that can work more independently is probably very helpful, as opposed to doing a core the way SL has prescribed, with child lead reading and parent lead reading.) Our dc pick up one book, read it, then move to the next - the only chopping (?) in and out we are do is with reading portions of our history spine (dd would rather listen to Jim Weiss, SOTW) and read the encyc. We tick the books off together as we go (working off our own list, in chronological order, is less daunting for everyone). I don't fuss if they want to read 'out of order' though. We don't use SL L/A's or their Core schedule, the later gives me panicky feeling when I look at it - so after referring to that portion of the IG for our initial setting up I ignore it ;) We did restructure core 3/4 (D/E) to spread out over 2 years, switched out the SL spine, placed SOTW 3 & 4 in there. Hoping you find a way to make this work, reinvent or drop, and ease the angst for your DD.

This link gives a sample of Core F writing assignments, so you can get a better feel for yourself what is required. We purchased Core 5/F for an older child who was living with us to assist her with brushing up on her research/writing skills. Both my dc would have struggled to do justice to the writing assignments in this Core in grade 4 and I have/had no desire to be their research assistant extra-ordinaire ;) - but that's just our family. (Gr.4 ..... is that age 9-10? Sorry, international here:tongue_smilie:). Your dc may be just fine with it, I've learnt what won't work for others can be a near perfect fit for us .... and vice versa.

:lol: too funny!

Yes. All together, unless the read aloud contains content that is too intense/disturbing for the younger dc. With the read alouds, if I think the book will engage the dc interest we'll read it. I've learnt to try many different writing styles and topics as opposed to sticking to a set reading level. It's amazing what will grab their attention. (My ds does not like horse stories that involve them being injured or dying - regardless of any reading level:tongue_smilie:). Sonlight has a read aloud list that we select from and use, along with other reading lists - like Ambleside online. If it's a chapter book and I was hoping to achieve a good chapter or two for the older child's benefit, it'd set the younger one up with a quiet activity to do while we read. Sometimes the story would be so riveting the younger one would also be begging for *more* . Every child is different:001_smile: Again, we used Sonlight's reader lists, books recommended in Honey for a Child's Heart , along with books we'd select from the library (still do) and I'd let them read until they were ready to stop. Reader time in the younger years was done when they were most alert (just after afternoon tea worked really well for us). Hope you manage to sort an approach that works well for your two, and you.

I'm not sure if my comment is enlightening .. just our current experience. We've been studying/reading through a small collection of books in relation to European Explorers 'rediscovering' our country. Every book (!!) had a different 'this is fact' about the same event concerning one of the explorers. Annoying ;). After hunting and searching on line we found a primary source (journal) that detailed the events as the eyewitness saw them. The authors of the books we'd been reading must have employed artistic licience, not really done their home work, borrowed ideas from other authors, or just written from their own preferred view point.:glare: So no clever nick names for us,just a sanity saving measure for the mum of a logic level student. ;) ETA: Wondering if the intense focus has developed because other 'teachers' have had the same/similiar experiences like the ones we seem to continually encounter with books we read?

Seriously?! What an awful comment! :grouphug: