Congratulations! We did some ETC workbooks just to review and reinforce the phonics, but dropped them after awhile. I agree with everyone who said to just read! (And do spelling and grammar, too :))

Mark Kistler's online program is awesome for teaching young kids to draw well!

Artistic Pursuits SOTW ancients Science experiments (I've bought some cool looking kits that I can't wait to try!)

I like Sonlight's P3/4 and FIAR for a reading list. For "academics," we just do a letter of the week type thing at 3. When kids are 4, I start ETC primers, Saxon K, HWOT and OPGTR. I'm not sure how much of that could be done by a 3 year old!

I'm not sure how far you have read into the WTM chapter on history, but SWB really lays it out for you how to go about it. You can follow her recommendations for using SOTW and the activity guide, or you can modify it (obviously) to however works best for your family. You really don't need any other background information to teach SOTW in first grade, just open the book and read :001_smile:. If you do a chapter a week, it will take you 42 weeks to finish. You could also double up here and there to get through it faster, or pick and choose from the table of contents. The AG is great for coloring pages, map work, review questions, booklists and crafts. Even if you just read and do the maps, you'll be doing plenty. Lots of people do add in other things (crafts, projects, related read alouds), but they aren't absolutely necessary.

We have used FIAR here and really enjoyed it. We did it for pre K, but I think its great for K, too. We also used ES Intro for science, and liked that a lot, too. If you want to do unit studies for science (and both FIAR and ES Intro are pretty much like that, except that FIAR skips around weekly and ES camps out on each topic for several weeks), I don't think you need to worry too much about following any kind of scope and sequence. You can totally just pick the topics that interest you, and spend as long as you want on each one. That might be just one week, or it might be two months. If you are planning to do WTM science/ history, you will eventually get a very thorough coverage of both science and history. For K, you can just take advantage of your dd's curiosity and eagerness to learn, and have fun diving into the current interest.

I have just used the workbooks without the TM or the other items. I do think the TM would have been helpful for the beginning pages, but I haven't missed it badly enough to purchase it :001_smile:. I made my own letter pieces from craft foam, but honestly we don't use them too often. I would consider $100 for pre K handwriting to be way too much! IMO, phonics and early counting/ math skills are my main focus for pre K, and handwriting is mostly developing fine motor skills.

:bigear: These look so FUN and tempting. I had some in my rainbow resource cart last week, but didn't end up getting them. I still want to try them sometime, but would love to hear some reviews first.

file folders card stock, different colors art supplies + crafty books index cards metal rings (the kind that open and close, can attach to index cards) chalkboard or white board

Having never been, they don't seem immensely important to me. I would like to attend one if the opportunity arose (ie., one on my continent :001_smile:).

We LOVE literature pockets!!! Although I might be tempted to classify them as busy work, my dc are crazy about them. For our reading, we keep a reading notebook that we write down our narrations in and draw pictures of what we read. We also keep our poems that we memorize in our reading notebook. Other than that, we don't do any literary analysis yet.

We like the A and C books, but my dc's interest fizzled out by the time we got to D. I had purchased all the way to G, but they are so inexpensive that I don't feel like it was a waste even if we never finish them.

Our family has such a strange schedule, with travel between countries and long visits, that we will count every weekday we are home as a school day (and the occasional Saturday if we need an extra day). If I tried to pick an end date, it would never work because I don't know ahead of time when we'll be traveling. We'll just keep going and move up in subjects whenever we have finished the current level.

I used ETC in the opposite way- we were already halfway through OPG and then started ETC book 1 as review. I found it simpler to not try to line up the two. We just used one as a spine, and the other as supplementary practice. I think its a great idea to just find the place in OPG that you want to start in, and wouldn't really worry about lining up the two programs perfectly.

I'm sorry I was vague earlier about the Veritas Press "flavor." That was totally non-descriptive. What I meant was that Easy Classical uses some curricula that are recommended by VP, not WTM. I think specifically those may be Shurley Grammar and the VP history cards...? Also, I think they recommend doing a study of the US states in 1st before going on to do ancients in 2nd. Someone else who has uses it can speak up here, I've just looked at the samples. But, it does seem to lay out science for you according to the WTM, and the history is pretty similar. Elemental Science is great for the science portion, too.

I liked it, too! I read Honey For a Child's Heart first, and was very impacted by that book. I buy a copy of one of those two for any friend who is expecting :001_smile:.

Easy Classical is kind of like that. It sort of follows WTM, but it also has some Veritas Press flavor to it.

Some ideas of topics: earth's makeup (core, etc.) volcanoes earthquakes types of rocks weather- clouds, rain weather- tornadoes weather- hurricanes, thunderstorms You could easily find books on each topic, or just use Usborne First Encyclopedia of Earth as a spine.

Our subscription to Mark Kistler's Draw Squad is a lifesaver for us! I don't have to plan anything, and the kids are actually learning how to draw. I want my dc to have some skill at drawing, since they'll utilize that in science and other subjects. I also want them to have a basic knowledge of famous artists, their styles and familiar paintings. Beyond that...? I don't know. Not being very artistic myself, I guess I probably don't value art as a subject to the extent that I value language arts, math, science, history and latin. Basically everything except for music gets a higher priority in our school week. Now, my kids DO love to draw and if they continue to express a huge interest in art, I will consider putting more money and time into it.

We finished: First Language Lessons Spelling Workout (almost) Saxon math Adventures in America Lots of read alouds I can't seem to stick with it: -a single science topic (we do science consistently, but I keep jumping around in topics. I don't think we'll manage a faithful 4 year cycle.) -art!!! How do I find time to do this??? -music? I purchased a bunch of materials, never made a concrete plan of how to use them. I think my poor dc are going to end up musically challenged just like their parents!

Magic School Bus experiment kits Owl pellet dissection kit Butterfly habitat Lauri Fun with Magnets Let's Read and Find Out science books Dover Activity Kits from rainbow resource (these have coloring books, games, posters, stickers, etc. on various themes such as wild animals, birds, pirates, trains, Egyptians...)

Rainbow Resource has a pre-made kit of Let's Read and Find Out books about weather and the earth. You could also just check a different title out from the library each week. Most of the level 2 books have an experiment or activity at the end that you can do.

Well, I jumped around a lot between volumes since I had found vol. 1-3 used for cheap. We did a book every single week, so we covered almost all 3 volumes in just over a year (minus the OOP titles). I think its more common to *not* row a book every single week, though, and that's why a lot of people use only 1 volume in a year. I would say its pretty realistic to use 2 volumes. Even if you didn't get to every single book in each volume, I'd still say it was a good purchase.

We used the pre K and K books before I found a used copy of the K tm. While I think we were okay without it, I did appreciate the tips and fun activities that the tm added.

Well, I appreciated reading through a copy of the teacher manual for Handwriting Without Tears. It gave some good ideas for teaching printing. We haven't started cursive yet, so I'm not any help there.