We do this every year, sometimes just for my parents, sometimes others get added in (last year our next door neighbor came!). We lay out their work on the dining room table and they have some time to show work they've done, certificates, and things they've accomplished. Then we have a little 'ceremony.' My mom always brings a balloon arrangement, to make things festive. My husband welcomes everyone, I give a brief overview of highlights from the year and then read from a 'certificate' I've made that shows specific accomplishments and activities for each child - they come and receive it after I read. They recite some poems and Bible memory work. Then my parents take us all out for ice cream. ? It's relaxed and fun and they always love it! As they get older, I hope they'll be willing to do a little more - give a brief speech about a highlight of the year, etc, but I will keep it light and simple.

We essentially do this, though we just do a timeline bonanza every so often and fill things in. And I do order a lot of the extra books from the library. Sometimes I'll read one or two aloud in school time, sometimes they get mixed into general read alouds, and often my oldest will read them because they are there - but sometimes none get read before they go back... oh well. I also try to make a point of finding the places on the globe as we go.

Thanks for the suggestions! It hadn't even occurred to me (ETA: because I'd never heard of them...!) to do the Paris catacombs... I will look into that. Also cool to hear about Sainte Chapelle, it looks gorgeous.

Thank you for this! It confirmed a few things that I thought were worth doing. Glad to hear that about the Strasbourg cathedral - think we'll just look at the outside of Notre Dame and see the inside in Strasbourg. Plus, it's encouraging to hear positive things from a trip with those ages! We love travelling with our kids, but this is a bit larger scale than we've done with all four before.

Our family just booked tickets for a two week trip to Germany and France in September! So excited. We will mainly be staying with family in the "corner" of Germany near Basel, Switzerland. We plan to spend three days in Paris and visit Versailles. Because our youngest two are 2 and 4, we will be taking it slow and enjoying the immediate area where we are staying, but we want to do a few day trips as well (Strasbourg? Alps? Rothenberg? etc). We are currently working through SOTW 3 and the older two (10 and 8) are excited to be seeing some familiar places on the travel maps. Any recommendations for things to see and do in that area? Anything that's particularly excellent historically? Also, Paris recommendations welcome. Our visit there will be brief, so we will just choose a few things to see and space them out with parks to keep kids happy.

I don't think they are. I was just thinking of a couple of years from now - I'm doing grammar all together now and thinking through my plan to get from here to there in the next year or two.

So I might have this wrong in my mind - the books don't get increasingly more difficult? ETA: just went back to look - hadn't been on the page since they changed from levels to colors. Question answered! I really like the idea of being able to use different workbooks as needed and double up the students during just one instruction time (vs. running multiple levels of FLL!).

I haven't been able to find many threads about this even with the google search, so... Has anyone been doing GFTWTM (is that the abbreviation we're using?) with students in different levels at the same time? As in, you read the instructor text once and they each work in their workbooks of different levels? It seems possible when I read the description, but is there any reason why this wouldn't work? I don't do heavy grammar every year. We've done some FLL and this year we are doing a lot of diagramming and discussion in morning time, drawn from CLE's extra diagramming resources. Looking ahead, I'm wondering about officially hitting grammar again by using GFTWTM in a year or two with gr. 5 & 6 or 6 & 7at the same time, just different workbooks. That would help with the instructor-time issue... thoughts?

We read aloud poetry whenever, I just keep them with all the picture books and try to remember to grab them along with other read alouds. But poetry tea is huge here. And simple. At the kitchen table, without frills. And they adore it. My 8yo will not let us miss a week. Sometimes we each read a poem and chat and are done. Some weeks we really get going and it's an hour. The 8yo has been writing poems during her quiet time for the occasion. The 4yo chooses poems for me to read from a Mother Goose anthology and a RL Stevenson compilation. So that adds poetry too. And it's fun.

Bless Julie Bogart's heart. She may have just talked me down from a ledge.

I'm wondering a similar thing - the previous mobile version took you right down to your first unread post. Now you have to start at the top every time?

Pygmalion is high school reading level and has no disturbing content. Could make for interesting conversation, though there's a lot about class, etc, that would probably be missed at younger ages. ETA: and then you'd have the fun of watching My Fair Lady and comparing. My 3rd and 4th graders love My Fair Lady.

Yes. And of all things, I would not want to make this independent and miss those foundational conversations about God, faith, truth, life, choices... the list goes on. Reading and discussing the Bible together is the foundation of our day. So important, yet very simple - we read a section and talk about it to start morning time. Same thing together at suppertime. (Somewhere in the day, someone usually reads a story from a children's Bible to the 4yo.) Most of our best conversations spring out of those times.

I haven't yet used first grade math, just jumped in at 2nd. We talk daily life math, so they knew how to add, etc, by the time we hit 2nd. Everything circles back around and gets covered again. My oldest two are now finishing 4th and 3rd and skipping first hasn't been an issue at all. My mom went farther in her time - she started some of us in third. Same result.

We've been using these with watercolours and they have been excellent. Just need a small rag for dabbing off paint and maybe a water bottle for refills. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01LZ8NUHW/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1521398285&sr=8-4&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=watercolor+brush+pens&dpPl=1&dpID=41QVKxwEYJL&ref=plSrch

This is very helpful, thank you! Lots to think about - I'm looking at the MP package more closely. I appreciate what you're saying about reading deeply and think my girls would enjoy some of that, so even if we don't go 'full package', I might work in some of the guides. I do like how intertwined all of the subjects are... food for thought.

DP, quote issues.

There's also a prepositions song set to Yankee Doodle that's easy to memorize, so we just did that instead of the FLL version.

I am tempted every year to make this switch. But then I look at the packages and we've read most of the books already (as in, we'd need fourth and fifth next year and there is only one book we haven't read). Did you run into this? Is there any way around it? Add to that that we've only done very minimal Latin until now and... maybe we've missed the boat for MP?

I laughed so hard at this that my husband came in from the other room to ask if I was crying or laughing. If that was my first interaction with a tampon I don't know if I'd ever put one in a delicate place either!!

We like to do longer Bible passages, poetry, and geography, history, and grammar facts. I get a lot of our poems from the book Favourite Poems Old and New.

I like to make a spreadsheet for each subject, with the weekly goals listed for the year (ex: SOTW ch 4... etc). With something like math, I just figure out how many pages per day on average. The work can flex as needed over the weeks, but it gives me a feel for where we are in the year. Then each weekend, I make a one-page checklist for the following week. All the work for each day is listed. It makes a huge difference for us - the kids know exactly what they need to get done in a day and I know exactly what to check.

Unabridged - read your top picks aloud and then choose some to get on audiobook. I'm always amazed by what my kids are willing to listen to while they play Playmobil or Lego or whatever and it's amazing how much they grasp as well.

I also just have her read a page a day. I then offer the needed phonics info as she runs into things. I like it that the program highlights areas that are weak and I can offer support where needed.

We also do a lot of geography with history - doing the SOTW maps, finding places on the globe, etc. We also use GeoPuzzles, listen to Geography Songs, do fill-in maps of continents and see if we can beat our own best number each time, and track where friends and family are when they travel. When my sister went around Iceland, she sent me a message with a photo of where she was each day and we marked it out on a poster of Iceland, then read about the site. She came home with money and food from there - amazing way to do geography if you are close to people who travel! All of the above happens in spurts, often in morning time.