Are you just using these books as read alouds with RLTL?

The Phonics Road to Spelling and Reading.

It is excellent and doesn't have anything questionable in it at all. I was surprised (pleasantly) to find that the movie only covers about 1/3 of the book! I need to read it to the kids. Thanks for reminding me!

Yes, it will be easy to implement. So many of the assignments are either writing or project based, perfect for the artsy and hands-on student. My daughter is using it right now and really enjoying it. It is all written to the student and meant to be done independently. My daughter and I have a Monday morning meeting where we touch base on what needs to be done for the week and then again on Friday to see how she did, work on any corrections etc. We are *loving* it!

I'll 10th Roald Dahl. My first thought was the BFG, Big Friendly Giant. We laughed like crazy through that book and "whizpopping" has become part of our family vocabulary. I need to read it again to the younger set, they are missing out. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle was one of the first series of books that held all of my older children's attention and that they asked for every night. It was pretty funny, too. If I could get any of her child-training methods to work IRL, I'd be in business. ;-) Ameila Bedelia is another favorite here, too.

Miller Pads and Paper has 1cm square graph paper that works perfect for math problems. I bought a ream of it for my children and its been wonderful. They also use it for graphing projects, art projects, etc., so it has been multipurpose enough to make it worth the cost. I went ahead and bought a ream of their watercolor paper while I was at it and that has been so nice to have on hand!

I'm interested. I will have to see what I need though when I get back home!

Have you looked at the course overview on the website? I would look at the topics covered for 2nd and 3rd and decide what is most interesting to your kids. My first hunch is to go with 2nd, since your younger child is a young 2nd grader.

I still can't believe my oldest is going to be in 8th grade! Good grief, I swear she was just learning how to read a few weeks ago, but I digress.... OM English, Science, Civics. Learn Math Fast to get her up to speed and solid in her math skills. She is making huge progress! Art of Argument, with me English from the Roots Up with her siblings 4-H (a new adventure for us this year) French...TBD what curriculum

I am going to be teaching 1st, 2nd, 6th and 8th. My younger two will use a MLB. I will set it up like OM suggests, LA and Math in one, Science/Social Studies in another. My older two children have a 3-ring notebook for their work. We have already started with the 6th and 8th grade books and I am having Monday meetings with them to determine what assignments they will be required to do. It is a lot of writing, you are right. I am letting mine ease into it a bit, so my oldest is working only on science this month, then we will add English, then we will add Civics. My 6th grader is only doing History/English right now adm we will start Science next month, too. I don't think I will make them do every assignment as written, especially my 6th grader who has some reading/writing difficulties.

I'm not an expert like Ellie by any means, but the 4th edition has a lot less "educationalese" making it much more succinct and easy to use, IMO.

If I remember correctly, I get an email every month that shows what is expiring, and every month Bravewriter is on that list. And every month they return on the first with gusto! :001_smile: I really think you are fine. Unless this month happens to be the exception to the last year or so. I am just trying to decide if I should by PW right now or wait and see if it shows up on HSBC? Mmmm.....

It looks like the 600 smartpoints ends today, but I have never seen Bravewriter expire from HSBC. Not saying that it won't, but as long as I've been shopping HSBC, Bravewriter has been on there.

Mine came with a record, too!! And I would just cut out and laminate or copy onto cardstock the phonogram cards in the book!

We are working through A Long Way from Chicago right now. My boys think it is awesome. I shorten the dictations for them, but the grammar and literary elements have been perfect. We are really enjoying them a lot. Phantom Tollbooth is a great read as well as How to Train Your Dragon. These have all kept my boys attention!

Oak Meadow has an online option.

There is some overlap between Heritage History and Yesterday's Classics. I would check the lists to make sure there aren't too many duplicates. I have both the young readers and yesterday's classics and each are equally formatted well, clickable table of contents and so on. The guides that come with Heritage History are very helpful.

You might hold onto the AAS Phonogram cards if you have them. The ones in the 4th edition are just plain paper, not cardstock and aren't perforated. The sounds for both are similar, but you can mark in a sharpie on the back of the AAS cards the difference, as well as the handwriting prompts.

I have the MapTrek Atlas and maps and it is wonderful. I am debating about the TimeMaps...

Nope...A, then Continuation A or B, then Continuation B. However, after using SWI-A you will probably have a good enough feel of the program to use the TWSS and a Guide - like All Things Fun & Fascinating.

The price just went up the first of this month. In the past she has held pretty impressive Black Friday sales and such, so you might see if you can find something else to use until the holiday sales!

Do the PDF's you use have a lot of graphics? Have you ever found the formatting wonky on the DX? I am seriously considering selling my iPad and purchasing a DX if it means that I can read all of these amazing PDF's that I have in an easier way. The other thing about the iPad that makes it hard to read is every time I start reading, I come across something and think "I need to look that up" and off I go switching to Safari to google something...never to go back to reading the book in the first place! :lol: There are so many other "toys" on the iPad that it is distracting to me...

I have an iPad that I bought mostly to be able to read the 100's of ebooks that I have as PDF's. Of course, it does a lot of other cool things, but mostly I wanted to be able to read PDF's in a more comfortable way than on the computer. Now that I have it, the backlighting bothers my eyes for extended reading. Checking facebook and message boards is one thing, but trying to read a book is entirely different. I much prefer the eInk for reading. The regular size Kindle doesn't handle PDF's well at all, IMO. The landscape mode feels odd and the print is too small in regular mode. Does the Kindle DX work better for PDF's? What if they have pictures on them? Is the formatting good or wonky? I have heard differing reports, especially if the pdf's are graphic heavy.

He's cut out pop before and lost a bit of weight, but this time he cut out wheat, too. It is amazing how much he has lost, his afternoon drag has been eliminated, his appetite is not out of control. It is pretty awesome to see.

We just read the first part of Wheat Belly (thank you Kindle for the sample), but my hubby has not had more than 5 bites of anything wheat/gluten in the last 6 weeks and except for not drinking pop, hasn't changed anything else in his diet and has dropped 35 pounds. It has literally just melted away. I haven't been nearly as good because of multiple trips out of town/visiting family etc., but the first two weeks I dropped 10lbs. and have managed to keep it off for the last 6 weeks as well. Now that we have made the rounds of family trips I am back on the no-wheat wagon!