My oldest got this for her birthday. It includes a book that explains everything about weather and how it works and what all the terms are. There is also included a poster of cloud formations, a weather station to track rain and wind and a little thing where you put in all your observations. We also found online a daily weather sheet to track her observations. I think you can pick this up at Target for less than $20.

The Odyessey is a bit much. My girls couldn't even get into any of the versions of this story. They did like Rosemary Well's Max and Ruby versions of some of the Myths. They also really enjoyed The Gods and Goddesses of Olympus by Aliki. It is basically the story of the birth of the Gods as told in Jason in the Argonauts. Each page has a beautiful picture and a nice short version of a story about that God or Goddess. My youngest fell in love with this book and all the pretty pictures. With this you get a nice introduction to the mythology without dealing with a lot of the blood.

Between Dover and http://www.learningpage.com/, I am able to build very nice review books for my children for language arts and math. These are fun worksheets and activity sheets.

First, I figure out what I want to teach and what I am going to use for a particular year. Right now I am planning first and third grade. Then I sit down with my calendar, a notebook and a box of sharp pencils (they erase). I figure out what weeks will be short week or around holidays so that we will want to do a fun week and what weeks we will not have school. In the notebook I write down all the dates for the year. When I recieve materials such as latin, singapore math and such, I write down the page numbers and see how far they will stretch. I keep a list in the back of the planning notebook of when materials will be running out so I know when to reorder. I then basically, make plans for each month and review my plans on a 4 to 8 week basis to align them with where we currently are. That is why I do it in pencil so I can change things. Currently, I am doing monthly units. January is place value, Colonial days, clay, double letter phonograms, fables, rewriting fables as precipts, Franklin science, and addition drill. This summer we will have a month where we will do money math, learn about the history of money, do money science projects and dollar origami. Good luck in your planning. Be sure to use a pencil because planning is great but it works best when you are flexible and ready to erase and change the whole thing when life happens.:rolleyes:

I even write my own curriculum when I need to. I use Singapore math without the HIG, SWR, and use the library. I do make detailed lesson plans each year and adapt programs and read and research what I want to teach and adapt it so that it will meet the needs of my own children.

We homeschool year round with different subjects starting at different times of the year. January--Math, foreign language June--history September--language arts, writing level I also like to know what I want so I can buy used as much as possible. Many used curriculum sales take place in the spring/early summer and I also pick stuff up at garage sales--so I like to have my list on hand.

I really like Singapore My Pals are Here Science but we completed 3a/b in six weeks. I have most of 4a on hand but am not ready to let my dd start it yet because I want the Critical Thinking book that goes with it and I worry about the math content. I want her math facts to come more quickly before we move on. Currently, we are reading about a different animal each week. I check out a variety of books from the library on a specific animal both fiction and non-fiction at my dd's reading level and above (for me to read). And we learn about that animal. I keep it very informal. We also like science kits. My oldest got several for Christmas. And she does daily weather study that include, temperature, wind speed and cloud formation.

I took detailed notes on this book and have been writing my own curriculum for my dds. I also read and took detailed notes on Rhetoric in the Classical Tradition. Right now my oldest is in 2nd and we are doing narrative using aesop's fables. On Monday's we read the fable for the week. On Tuesday she dictates to me a shortened version that is just the facts. On Wednesday and Thursday she illustrates and copies what she has composed. Later on as the year progresses and her pencil phobia gets better, we hope to start with a short fable and have her expand the description and/or dialogue.

http://home.pct.edu/~evavra/KISS.htm This is a grammar curriculum that you can print out or use the online pages. She does not have 4th plus in pdf form yet but you can use the online pages. Click on Kiss Grammar Workbooks. Page down to #2 grade level workbooks. Click on grade level workbooks. The OL link next to the grade levels will take you to the grade level workbooks. The literature links will take you to online pages of the literature used in the exercises. Yes, KISS is based on real books. You may want to go through the exercises a bit to find where your son needs to start out. Workbooks and teacher's guides for grade 2 and 3 are in pdf form. The student workbook is in front and the TG is in back. There are also quizzes and tests. Hope this can help a little.

I have 2 girls and I own and moderate http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GiftedUsingWTM/ My oldest is in 2nd and is about 2 years ahead in math and science. Currently, I just let her explore science although I am looking at picking up Singapore Science again later this year. My youngest is in K and taking her time. She loves princesses and ponies.

I don't know that I could homeschool without the support I recieve from the wonderful people on this board. Thanks so much for providing this for us to link up with each other. And these boards are wonderful. Thanks.:)

We have used STOW and liked it but got bogged down in the medieval period. I tried TOG to fix that but it didn't work for us. I love TOG and want to use it for High School. Right now, since my children basically hated the whole medieval period and they don't like Columbus or the pilgrims either. We are just sort of exploring history through good books. We are reading the D'Aulaire biographies, the American Girl book and a few other books about early America that you see on lists. We just finished The Courage of Sarah Noble.:)

We took 3 semesters to do SOTW I. We spent a semester in the first 1/3 of the book doing a chapter a week. The next semester we just did the Greeks. We read a chapter every other week and filled in with Uborne's Book of Greek Myths for Young Children and did science on the other weeks. This was probably the best semester ever. We even learned the Greek Alphabet for fun. Then we finished off with the last 1/3 of the book and did a chapter a week. We didn't use the tests and I had my girls do the coloring pages and the maps while I read. We did some projects but not a lot.

This is so nice! I have mine at the bottom of my signature. We've had another nice week and have really found balance in what we are doing.

I read the book Composition in the Classical Tradition and took tons of notes and created my own composition curriculum based on my notes. Currently, we are rewriting fables. Basically, writing precipts of them which my dd dictates to me and then I write down. Later she copies her sentences and illustrates them so she will have a nice book of her own fables when we are done. Also, we are embarking on Latin using minimus and this I hope will really help with vocabulary. We listen to the stories and then look at the words and find similiar words in english or spanish to try to figure out the meaning of the words. I also have the TG on hand. We use copywork to teach parts of speech and I really like KISS Grammar. It is an excellent resource for teaching grammar and what I believe is one of the best.