I remember asking opinions for books I didn't have access to in order to see if they we're purchase worthy and not getting much of a response. So I'll give you my two cents. ;) My faves: The Witch of Blackbird Pond Caddie Woodlawn In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson Sarah, Plain and Tall I read each of those books multiple times as a kid because I loved them. I wasn't impressed with Om-Kas-Toe, Pocahontas and the Stranger, Walk the World's Rim, and Phoebe the Spy. There are better books feed a child's soul. I also think Poor Richard is a better bio about Ben Franklin than What's the Big Idea Ben Franklin? though it's certainly not as compact. And all this is written humbly. My tastes certainly aren't the most academic or well read. :)

I do a hand off when DH gets home. There's a point where I can't stand hearing the kids (usually starts at dinner prep). I'm waiting for him to say something about "if this is what homeschool causes then..." someday but so far he has been understanding. I do feel guilty that by the end of the day their voices are like nails on a chalkboard for me. I think when the younger two are a little older and I can throw them all outside everything will balance out.

For a humorous and effective way of looking into crash test ratings watch Top Gear season 2 episode 7. They show what damage is "acceptable" at each level. DH and I were shocked. In no way can a 3 ever be acceptable to drive in. And yet, they're out there.

I agree with the above poster. Have you looked at Killgallon's sentence composing?

Simply Charlotte Mason has bible, history, geography and lit (historical fiction usually) in their guides. The guides cover K-12 or 1st-12th and are on a 6 year history rotation. I liked the Romans and Middle Ages-Renaissance programs. I did not like Stories of America from the Early Modern Guide. It had a lot of fluff. Four days a week you do history as a family and each age group has their own enrichment book to read. One day a week you cover bible and geography.

5th grade plans (excluding stuff we cover as a family): AO history 1600-1800 (I think this is a combo of Y4 and Y5), bios and lit Math: waiting to see how she does on placement tests R&S LA 5 Webster's Speller GSWL Building Thinking Skills and Mind Benders Exploring America's Musical Heritage Kipling, Longfellow, Bradstreet and Wheatley

I could have sworn I posted plans to this thread.... Anyhow, 3rd grade plans: Wheeler's Speller (I have been going back a forth about this for months now) Ray's Primary Arithmetic followed by... ??? SSL2 Killgallon's Sentence Composing AO Y2/3 lit and bios McGuffey's 2nd reader (we use the unpopular brown ones) and Webster's Speller So really just Language Arts, math and Latin. Multum non multa right? The rest of the subjects are all one room schoolhouse stuff we'll do as a family. I hope she enjoys it all and we have another fun year. :)

I'd email them! I emailed them about the bird pages (because I completely missed the less than $19.99 qualifier) and the responded quickly and politely.

HejKatt, I have StartWrite and I think $20 is a great deal. Since purchasing the program though I found this free site for creating customizable cursive worksheets (they may have manuscript too) http://www.kidzone.ws/tracers/index.htm

Has anyone used Ikea colored pencils?

:( Yup. Oh well. Money saved. :)

I don't think all the items are available for building your own bundle. I can't find the bird notebooking pages or barefoot ragamuffin's 50 states.

The Eclectic Manual of Methods has a section on what to do pre Ray's Primary Mathematics. I would follow those suggestions. Using manipulatives teach a child to identify quantities. Then recognizing how those quantities change when you add/subtract 1, 2, ... ETA that I guess that would still be following a curriculum?

I'm pretty certain the breakfast stations are religion free! ;)

Somehow I completely missed the Ellen McHenry items. Those are tempting! I wish the Knowledge Quest items included their map sets.

I bought and just worked through R&S Sentence Practice. Diagramming sentences wasn't part of my education. So I needed a crash course and this worked. I also read Sister Bernadette's Dog. It's a cute and nostalgic history of sentence diagramming. Believe it or not, originally they used balloons.

Thanks for replying elegantlion. I was looking for something more colorful. I ended up buying a purple themed weekly planner download from etsy. Then I found this for free: http://barelymommy.blogspot.com/2012/11/free-blog-planner-printable.html. Sigh.

The bird notebooking sheets look interesting. I also liked the idea of a breakfast station. Nothing else strikes my fancy though. How about you?

I organize by weeks. But the last two years I was weird about it. New topics/books had to start on Monday and topics/books had to be finished on a Friday. I've dropped that this year. :) I also tried scheduling out history by the day this year. That was an eye opener! I had well over 190 days of history planned for a 36 week year. Yikes! Anyhow, Merry at Hope for Homeschool's blog is a great help in organizing lesson plans, scheduling and planning: http://www.hopeforhomeschool.blogspot.com/2012/08/organization-teacher-binder.html I used her teacher binder idea last year and will again this year.

In the video wasn't some of the "honey making" the change in attitudes and behaviors in the students? Also, with the 8th grade girls, they read and discussed Augustine and then brainstormed applications for what they read. It's been awhile since I watched the video so I'm sorry my answers are vague. I'm trying to figure out how to encourage "honey making" in my kids too and in a book club for 4-6th graders this year. Maybe I should just talk to my kids about how great literature can grab hold of us and change us. That part of reading a book is acknowledging the longing it stirs in us for change and exploring and pursuing it.

Oh and I mean a weekly planner not a lesson planner. I have found cute menu, cleaning, budgeting, and various lists but not weekly planner pages that would work. I must be looking in the wrong spots.

Do you have any suggestions for free planner pages? I am no good at building these things from scratch and I want to put together an ARC planner.

If you have used Webster's Speller, where would you start a 5th grader who reads well but needs help spelling? Would it be too much of a drag to have her orally spell one of each type of word from the 4 letter lists (lesson 3) until she makes an error? Could Webster and Wheeler's be combined for a third (2nd/3rd) grader or is that overkill? Yes, I know I've posted that I've let go of Wheeler's before. But it's so pretty! ;)

I taught my eldest cursive using this site: http://www.kidzone.ws/cursive/ Ray's arithmetic is free online and I'm official switching to it this fall (we've been dabbling for several months now while I read through the MoM and a few of Ray's texts to see where it all went). Webster's Speller is free. So is Wheeler's Elementry Speller. It's so beautiful and I so want to use it but it doesn't fit nicely in our schedule.

Really? Hmmm I may just have to request some paper bags and play with that. :)