Has anyone done the Sassafrass Science living book series as their science curriculum for elementary school?

This all sounds very nice!

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Awesome! I'd really like to get a group of people that are kind of not tied to some formal group together--just people who like doing the same sorts of things and everyone having fun. I know that's normally just friends! I'm with you about things for the fall being shaky. I don't think we'll be able to really dig in until at least January, either. Kinda of sad because we've been somewhat (or totally) isolated for so long already. Oh well.

Is anyone part of what I'm calling an "old school co-op" which is really just a group of friends that you regularly get together with to do fun educational things? (I've heard people describe that as what original co-ops were back in the 80s/90s--maybe I'm wrong.) How common is that sort of thing among moms schooling young students these days?

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Whoa--this thread has been informative. I have been looking around for unit studies to see if they are something we could work in to our day. I came across GR chatter and thought it might work, but then I recognized the lady who is making it as the same one who made that big TGTB video since GR is linked to the Homeschool On blog. After making that connection I can see how GR seems to have a similar vibe to TGTB in terms of artwork and beauty of the curriculum...hmmmm. I'm using TGTB to get my feet wet with LA this year. I looked up this thread to see how using the GR unit studies was going--thanks for all of the honest feedback. Any new opinions after more time passing? Are there any units that are good with 0% YEC material in them? What I've learned about unit studies overall is: I have already made these on my own without knowing what they were called. I have done quite a few delight directed unit studies around read aloud chapter books with my kids (they are very young). We add science, geography, culture studies and other "academic" things that seem to connect as well as art and field trips. I agree with @8FillTheHeart that you can totally put together unit studies quite easily yourself if you want to do one! For my own stuff I would have to have a decent math and reading program going on the side. I like how the themes of unit studies take over the family and create a sense of adventure as everything you're doing has the potential to connect to it somehow. It's a lot of fun! Does anyone use unit studies full time or even just occasionally to shake up a boring year or time period?

Has anyone tried the Beautiful Feet series Early American History or Around the World with Picture Books? I'm drawn to both as an inclusion to our "together time" each week. Has anyone tried them and found the lesson plans to be useful? Would doing the Early American History one be too confusing to kids already working through Story of the World?

I probably should have said when there isn't a pandemic! I'm trying to see what's normal for homeschool families so we can adjust our schedule to make time for other people when meeting is wise again.

When do you normally like to schedule play dates or get togethers for your children? Pick the one that works best for you right now! If you are super flexible about when you like to meet leave a comment.

I'm going to look in to this myself--thanks for the suggestion!

A couple of thoughts: Your kids are close enough in age that you can get away with doing the same science curriculum with them both at the same time. If your younger child understands the material better it may help fill in some blanks for your older child due to collaboration. (I'm doing the same level 1 course with both of my children this year.) Since you're not really in to science yourself, choose something to do purely for fun with the understanding that you are a student as well. Take the pressure off of your self to get everything right and make it about discovering the right answers. This mentality works well for certain branches of science but not others. Astronomy and environmental science come to mind as good options. RSO has an Astronomy 2 that you could use with both of them and see how it goes! Regarding your son's interest in chemistry: Why in particular does your younger son love chemistry? Does he just like mixing things up? Is he intrigued by the actual content as written (learning about the periodic table, historical scientists, atoms, bonds, etc.)? Actual chemistry is very abstract and boring. I would say that if he just likes mixing things and doing experiments then you can sporadically plan those throughout the year for fun while also pursuing another aspect of science for course work. As a former public school science teacher I can tell you that there is no point in doing the "experiments" if he is not also connecting what he is seeing to a science concept. The lab work is meant to display in real life the science concept that is being read about in other studies. It is very common for children to "love chemistry because of experiments" but when you get to the brass tacks of actual chemistry they don't enjoy it. I have met adults who are in love with chemistry and other science loving adults who find it tedious and boring--they gravitate towards geology or physics. I would suggest providing him with chemistry related reading material that is geared towards kids and see if his interest extends to a deeper knowledge of chemistry. If so it would be very easy for you to provide him with fresh learning material to do as a hobby while you round out his science education with other material.

I get this. I find myself purposefully not filming my kids performing things, receiving awards or having some moment—I just watch it (craning my neck around the cell phones), enjoy it, and take a picture before or after in costume/by something noteable,etc. Being a bad picture taker means catching up should be faster! We have so few pictures of 2009-2016 that I will be lucky to fill two albums. ☹️ Taking pictures became important to me only recently. I’m also getting large 12x12 pages to slide a 12x12 piece of white card stock into for attaching portraits from that year. I used to be bad about getting portraits done, too. Now I can incorporate ones not in a frame into the photo album which makes me feel better about getting the them—they can still be enjoyed.

Some curriculum is more what is called "open and go" which means you don't have to plan ahead--you can just run through the lesson, follow the steps, and your child should learn just fine. Other curriculum involves more planning ahead but may lend itself better to some families. You had said you were a high school teacher for eight years, so you are familiar with the sort of effort it takes to plan ahead with lessons. I was a middle school math and science teacher for seven years, and I can say that planning all of the subjects for an elementary level homeschool has taken me more time. There are a lot more things to choose and figure out how to incorporate--I am no longer able to devote all of my creative energy to one or two subjects. I have chosen an open-and-go ELA course since that is an area I feel more insecure in teaching, but math, science, history, geography, citizenship, handwriting, Bible, art, field trips, special activities and read alouds--it has taken some time to get the hang of how to schedule all of these things into what I consider a reasonable homeschool day/week. How this relates to Dimensions: Dimensions isn't an open and go math program, and you may find more joy in homeschooling math if you could find an open and go program. The most important thing you can do, especially for a Kindergartner, is help him feel postively towards math and get basic skills down. You said that Dimensions felt long, was not in your wheelhouse, and you dreaded it. Maybe it's not for you! I can definitely see how a math teacher would recommend it because I was drawn to it as a former math teacher. I was never looking for an open and go math, so I'm not sure what is out there. I'm sure there is something, though. I think Dimensions is too much for Kindergarten at a home school and am happy to use Essentials for my Kinder so I can put more of my mental energy into learning to use Dimensions with my second grader.

My husband's father died this year, and looking through old photo albums of his childhood was a great comfort to him as he began the grief process. At that point I realized that I needed to come up with something easy (for me) to do that would create the same sort of relic for our children. After being terrible at picture organization, I've decided this is the way I can be most consistent at actually creating photo albums for my kids to look at in the future. Digital photo books and physical scrapbooks full of fancy paper and stickers both take so much time--I'm always behind! Last year I uploaded pictures to Snapfish as the year went on, then printed an entire year's worth of pictures in January. A photo binder, some insert pages, some blank cards to write notes on, a few hours worth of sorting and stuffing, and we now have our very first "yearbook." If you still make old fashioned photo albums what's your system?

Got the groceries from a pick up. Had a tea party with the kids (my daughter is obsessed with throwing instant parties. It is hard to keep up. 😅) Next up: Finish making a raised garden bed for our new backyard--gotta get things in the ground to have a late summer harvest.

It definitely does have a lot of individual problems, especially in the workbook. When I was in school the teacher would often assign specific problems out of the book as homework--we never did all 25 problems or anything like that. I'm trying to plan the first several chapters before the school year starts, and part of what I'm doing is highlighting which problems in the workbook I expect my daughter to complete for indepedent work. I view any problems left undone as an opportunity to reteach things that she missed the next day. It's important to pick them individually instead of just "do all of the odds or evens" because I've noticed sometimes doing that means they don't practice a certain version of something--all of the odds might be addition and all of the evens subtraction. So you need to mix it up. I'm planning to run Dimensions and Essentials like this: Start with my second grade Dimensions child. Teach the lesson, do the guided practice, then assign her highlighted independent problem. While she is doing those, teach my Essentials Kindergartner. Second grader turns in her Dimensions work and goes to play. I'll check over her work, then the next day we review the corrected work before doing the next lesson. I do think that math is a subject that involves more actual teaching and time. We are going to do it first each day to make sure we all have the energy and focus for it!

This is our first year, too! My second grader is doing Dimensions 2A&B, but I had seen recommended on here ”Singapore Essentials Kindergarten A and B,” and actually ended up going with that for K (we are starting with B—don’t need A). It is a workbook that has a note on the bottom of each page as to how to use manipulatives to teach that concept, then you use the page for practice. I’m going to do 10-15 minute sessions each day with my Kinder and see how fast we finish. I’m going to warm up with skip counting (1’s, 5’s and 10’s this year), then do the suggested activity, then do the practice, and then keep going as time allows.

I have never had a craft booth, but I do crochet. It can take a long time to make something! I would do this: plan on bringing things that can be used as gifts. Check out crochet earrings. They are beautiful, but they do involve a different sort of yarn/string. If she is skilled enough to crochet with that material, then it may pay off because she is doing something small, giftable, and a jewelry item (might be able to charge a bit more for her time). Other than that I would say to make a rack of scarves--scarves are very popular, and there are tons of patterns to make ones that are unique.

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What are some academic subjects that a 6-8 grader can self teach or resources that make a topic self teachable? (For instance, your child self taught vocabulary/roots-prefixes-suffixes using a particular workbook).

We have read 1-6, and my girls love them! Zoey uses a lot of scientific reasoning in each book—it’s not always down to one particular topic. There is a chapter in each book where she fills out her science journal working through the scientific method. Let me make a quick list here of the Main topic. First book: finding the right food for a baby dragon to eat. Second book: getting rid of mold in a monsters fur. Third book: finding out what is polluting a pond where merhorses live. Fourth book: saving the eggs of caterflies during a snowstorm (example here—uses salt to melt ice and catnip as a host plant for the baby creatures—different topics). Fifth book: finding the right growing conditions for magical seeds. Sixth book: healing a unicorn cut.

If anyone managed to heal from DR I’d love to hear what you did!

Has anyone found or made a good curriculum for teaching your kids how to draw the world from memory? I’d like one to use just as a family—not attached to a co-op.