The "First Steps in Music" curriculum is wonderful! Or I also recommend Wee Sing. "First Steps" though also shows you how to arrange your music time with several lessons given as examples. Each level covers three years worth of music. Level one is for 0-3, and level two for 3+.. They contain simply finger plays, echo songs, story songs, clapping, lullabies, and other such music. http://www.giamusic.com/products/P-4974.cfm ^toddlers http://www.giamusic.com/search_details.cfm?title_id=5281 ^preschool

Logic of English Foundations and Right Start Math A. So much fun!

I was planning on WRTR since I'm used to teaching it. The plan was to use it starting at 5/6. Then DS started trying to read at 4 so I pulled out OPG until he had the fine motor necessary for WRTR. Well, DS hated OPG. I tried the sample and ordered AAR. Then I saw all the posts on this forum about LOE and bought the teacher guide. We're still using the AAR readers because they are beautiful and interesting but sticking with LOE from now on. LOE definitely. AAR uses a lot of craft type activities and the tiles, which are fun, true. But in LOE my son gets to play ( or think he's playing). It's had us do hopscotch, scavenger hunts, basketball, and other fun activities. It really engages him. He loves it. I like it better than other programs I've had experience using. Another favorite activity is anything requiring exploring how sounds are made (voiced/unvoiced/nasal, vowels singable/consonants not etc). Even writing. You "write" in the air. Trace sandpaper letters. Write in sand. On white boards. Only if your child has the fine motor skills are you required to use paper. The directions for writing are memorable too especially when said as a chant.

Doodling Dragons Metropolitan Museum of Art ABC Apricot ABC I Spy Alphabet in Art Anno's Counting House Numbers In Art Math Counts books 1 is One I'm planning on checking out One Hundred Is A Family but haven't read it yet.

I'm using Foundations A with my son. We'll probably move to B in Jan or Feb. So far this is my favorite reading curriculum (I have experience with RIGGS, OPG, AAR, WRTR). Lessons are short. They're thorough. As mom of an active boy it's wonderful he can move his body during the lessons too. He knows more than A covers in many ways (sans handwriting) but the level of awareness in how the sounds work and why (beyond just this is the sound they make) has made it worth starting at the beginning.

Doodling Dragons is a favorite book and app of my son. He's always asking if he can give it as a gift to his friends. Their tactile cards I made my own. At the same time I've slightly changed a few things to be italic friendly in the cursive workbook (whited out loops). I love how they explain the elements of share common to letter formation and then describe how to form each letter using those elements (like swing, swoop, curve, tall, down, etc). T and I are working on chanting the letter formation using the stroke elements. Game cards would be harder to make. Part of it is you are playing with different fonts because the program is trying to help children recognize letters in different styles. So you'd need to make for example a set of bookface and a set of cursive. Plus the extra playing cards.

Covenant Home Curriculum, Christian Liberty Press, and Veritas Press are all reformed in view. You might enjoy one of their Bible programs. CLP is workbook style, CHC more Bible study style/old fashioned Sunday school style, while VP is the most classical ed style of the three. VP's also stands out because the children memorize 36 bible events/stories and their references a year for 5 years in a row. It comes with a memory song, beautiful art cards with a summary/references to investigate, and a teacher's guide with review and projects. Classical Academic Press a pp mentioned is another very solid choice you might enjoy.

I've read both with second graders. All enjoyed Golden Goblet while a few weren't as interested in God King.

These are great! I downloaded the prek list. We're also memorizing nursery rhymes, Bible verses using Children Desiring God's foundation set, and catechism using the songs on Ask Me Whooo Edit to add: Linguistic Development Through Poetry Memorization too.

Our favorites: Child's Garden of Verses Pink Lemonade by Annie Schmidt Animals Animals by Eric Carle Favorite Poems Old and New by Helen Ferris Tibbets Song of the Water Boatman by Joyce Sidman The Mother Goose anthology from Dover and we're loving the poetry selections from Linguistic Development Through Poetry Memorization The Owl And The Pussycat & Ooey Gooey are my son's two favorites

Those look really interesting!

I'm familiar with teaching the VP cards. -edit to add: VP has a different history cycle. Instead of a neat 4-4-4 like TWTM it has a five year cycle followed by two 3 year cycles- The reason VP changes teaching style in 7th-9th is they consider those early teen years to be the dialectic stage. The cards series was created for grammar stage learning with memory work, chanting, singing, etc. Basically it's a "just the facts ma'am" series. Omnibus is VP's history series for dialectic and rhetoric students. In 7th it starts the students down the road of "why?" TWTM has students switching learning styles in 5th-8th instead. There really is a fair bit of overlap as students mature at different rates. VP's history cards are challenging. Despite being designed for grammar stage learning they will work well as an outline/guide for your older as others have said. There are so many different resources listed. Many are there for the parent, which is great for an advanced student! You could have your younger student focus on the memory work/crafts/stories aspect. Let your older focus on research, debate/analysis instead of regurgitating information (although a recitation still works), writing,advanced lit, and either encyclopedia work as others suggested or if you could afford a copy of Omnibus I assign work from there following the order of the cards. So while the younger studies the back of the card for example the older reads the related page(s) in Omnibus. Day 2 your younger is reading stories from the resources on the back of the card while your older is investigating and outlining from the encyclopedia. You'd go through Omnibus slowly just as you'd go through the cards quickly if striving for a four year cycle. Omnibus does list the related history or bible card as an extra resource btw, as you can see in this sample of I http://resource2.veritaspress.com/Book_Views/000906.html and this of II http://books.google.com/books?printsec=frontcover&id=zClmDnl3b3EC#v=onepage&q&f=false To grab your grammar stage student's attention vs your dialectic often takes a different approach. Omnibus I corresponds with Ancients, covering roughly history sets OTAE and NTGR. Omnibus II corresponds with some NTGR and most Middle Ages Ren & Ref cards set. Omnibus III was also written for Logic stage students and covers the end of the renaissance, the Explorers card set, and Modern set. Omnibus IV starts a three year cycle over again but with another change in emphasis/learning style for rhetoric stage students (lots of analysis, opinion pieces, and original source work) That's all a long winded way of saying yes, you can use the cards for your older student. The cards are challenging for their intended grade level. Just pull other sources too and be prepared to ask deeper questions/do more research/outlining with your older.

She made her own.

This is how I was homeschooled in grade school for history. We added in Famous Men books from Greenleaf Press, historical paper dolls and coloring books from Dover, and historical fiction and biographies. Everything was put on a timeline and later in a book of the centuries. Later on towards the end of grade school I also looked things up in history encyclopedias. It was a wonderful way to learn!

All I can think of is a 13 week study on worship by Show Me Jesus curriculum for middle elementary. It's their fall quarter right now. http://www.gcp.org/QuickOrder/Current/Default.aspx

I love Science Is Simple. Rub A Dub Dub Science In The Tub too. We also are working on identifying local nature. We have nature based themes and explore too. Like insects. We checked books out on insects. Found insects everywhere. Played with life cycle bug toys. Rocks- rock hunt, books. Forests. Now zoo animals includes pictures of animals, models, continents puzzle with matching activities, a trip to the zoo and a wolf preserve, books. For human body you can read, play with touch boards, build human body puzzles, doctor kit, make smelling bottles, sound bottles, read. For social- check out books on holidays. Labor day, make thank you notes for the mail carrier. Chinese New Year. wear red. Read and explore hands on. Usborne has a Things People Do book that's great. Me On The Map is a favorite of my 4 year old.

One game we've played with success: get a movable alphabet (even Melissa & Doug has wood letters). Take one letter and say its sound, then go on a scavenger hunt for things starting with that letter. After a few weeks you'll have made it through the alphabet. Go back, start over with a different case set. Floweringbaby had us go through lowercase, uppercase, and sets containing both in matching exercises and writing OR identification exercises. We've also played with letters in pretty much every form. Some days I put shaving cream on the mirror and let him draw in it. As we played I suddenly laughingly may say "look! I can make 'f'" & soon we're laughing and learning what that letter says. We've used cheerios, pretzel sticks, salt, flour, dirt, paint, chalk, written in pudding, cut jello letters. Anything to make it interesting and just incorporate it in play. Instead of flash cards put a set of tactical letter cards next to a sand tray. Sometimes letter hunts can be on book pages, in the grocery store while shopping, or cooking in the kitchen. Point out the letters in the menu ordering at a restaurant. I've also followed other tips from Teach Your Child To Read With Children's Books like when reading aloud to your child always have your finger pointing to the words you speak, slightly pausing at question marks, slightly lifting and returning to the page at periods. Helps make the connection. Leap Frog has a set of letter magnets that make the sounds, too. You place a letter in the holder and it chants for example "a, a, a says 'a' the a says 'a' every letter makes a sound the a says 'a'". Very useful.

Letter Factory is great! I'd also use books like Doodling Dragons (has all the sounds the letters make)and a lot of alphabet books. Dr Seuss' ABC book too. Like you I dislike cutesy! A nice down-to-earth and not cutesy program for prek is Flowering Baby Volume 5 (ages 4-5) or 4 (ages 3-4). Each volume has twelve months of active hands on learning with letters, rhymes, math, fiction and nonfiction, culture/safety, nature, fine/gross motor. It uses things found around the house to teach.

Great Commission Publications has a giant Bible story coloring book. On the back of each page are discussion questions. Christian Liberty Press is a Reformed homeschool publisher with a Bible workbook curriculum that can be done independently. I go to a Reformed (PCA) church. At my church they give the children blank notebooks after they finish their sermon listening training (Godly Play, in which they children learn to listen quietly to the lesson and demonstrate knowledge of what was just taught by re-creating the story). The children then start trying to draw or write about some point they heard in the sermon. Eventually as they get older they learn to take notes. This involves them so well! I remember in Edith Schaeffer's book she recommends having the children listen for some interesting point in the sermon and draw about it. Your children might enjoy a notebook of their own, along with bringing their own Bible to church to look up the passages. Anything to engage them in what's happening! Other churches I've been member of (both PCA and OPC) have not had children's worship and instead the whole family stays in the service. It can be hard, but it seems to work best when you practice during the week! That seems to be the key. Helping the child understand what you're doing, why (we're worshipping God, and learning about Him from His Word) and that Jesus said "Let the children come to me and do not forbid them" means they are welcome to come and learn from His word as much as Mom and Dad. It can be hard. I remember when I was about 8 and first went to a church that included children from 3 and up in the whole service, including sermon. At first my parents took turns taking me out in the middle of the sermon to discuss it with me and stretch my legs. Then I gradually started listening to it more and more as I grew older. I did that with my 4 year old just the other Sunday when visiting my parent's church, a Reformed church that doesn't even have a full nursery. I took my 4 year old out during the sermon for a brief period to discuss what was being preached on and related it to another Bible story. Then we returned and I gave him a Bible coloring sheet that related. So it's very doable! I hope it goes well for you.

I'm on my second year using Flowering Baby. It's been a good choice for us. It's broken in daily schedules yet remains flexible. It covers a lot yet remains simple and approachable.

I have a 4 year old. We're doing level 5 of Flowering Baby. Also playing with math concepts using Making Math Meaningful K (so far we've played with Legos, paper clips, string, and toy cars for math), occasionally doing some Callirobics, and using Teach Your Child To Read With Children's Books. While I'm preparing supper he has art time using activities from Mary Ann Kohl's books. Oh, for penmanship we're working on grip right now.

Hubbardscupboard.org is great! Starts at age 2 with a theme based curriculum. It has everything planned out, week by week. Cost: free I also really like Flowering Baby ($30) which has daily plans using materials commonly found at home or the library.

Seasons of Joy uses many rhymes and stories as the basis for learning.

I've been using Mudworks and also Preschool Art It's The Process Not the Product. Eventually I plan on either buying Artistic Pursuits or ideally signing my son up for Monart classes. They're expensive though.

Mine is using Flowering Baby level 4 (ages 3-4) and sometimes I put out MEP Reception, Montessori (NAMC) or Seasons of Joy activities. He's about to move up to FB level 5 (ages 4-5). Will add in either McRuffy K math or RightStart A, and we're working on phonics too using Teach Your Child to Read With Children's Books.