I just wanted to comment on the book selection that you asked about in your original post. TOG's book choices are a lot more like VP's than Ambleside's in the grammar stage--short non-fiction books versus narrative living books. (My only experience is grammar stage so that may change in the upper levels of TOG.) I really don't see many similarities between TOG and AO's book choices at this age. We used TOG Years 1 and 2 and we much prefer our AO books that we're using now. (YMMV but you mentioned a couple of times how much you love AO so I just wanted to mention it.)

:grouphug: I'm right there with you! 37w3d today and the exhaustion/insomnia + heartburn is making me go crazy! I'm also only about 95 lbs soaking wet when I'm not preggo and i carry straight out so right now I feel like my pubic bones are being ripped apart. Joy, joy... And don't even get me started on my mood swings. My dh is a saint to have been able to put up with me these last couple of months. But unlike you, I carry to term or later (my third was a week late and 8lb 10 oz) so I have no fanciful delusions of it being over anytime soon. Wow, I'm real encouraging, aren't I? :lol:

Ambleside's emergency homeschooling page might help or give you some ideas.

There's also ACSI (Assn. of Christian Schools Int'l) I've seen recommended, but I'm not familiar with them. Here's the Grade 6 book, and CBD's description:

Just for FSR. My curriculum guide for the K program is coil bound, also. I'm not sure if that has been updated or not.

I'm using only parts of the guide as well. I'm not big into "formal" things for Pre-K and K, but I wanted something more for phonics for my son than something like just OPG or PP, which I used with my dd. I am using the Phonics section which schedules FSR, Word Mastery, SRA 1, the Animal Alphabet coloring book, the readers, and Christian Liberty Nature Reader 1. We started the phonics towards the end of his official K year, but really started it in earnest in "1st." (He was not ready for anything academic until last fall.) I have to say it has been perfect for him. I really love First Start Reading. As others have mentioned, there is a lot of handwriting (even without the copybook, which we don't use) if you had an early reader. But again, it's just worked out to be perfect for my ds. And now, having used almost the whole FSR program now, I can see that the amount of handwriting can easily be adjusted. If it's too much to trace the word, then write it three times, then just have them trace and write it once, or just trace. I've upped the writing requirements as my son has progressed. He went from being able to write hardly a letter to last week writing three short (5 word) sentences that were dictated to him. I *really* like the dictation part of the program. I was pretty skeptical the first time I was to dictate words to him, but I just spread that part out over 2-3 days and he did wonderfully! The way the program has your dc blending letters into words and reading sentences and even short stories early on without having to know all the sounds has been hugely confidence-boosting for my ds, also. Plus, you can't beat MP's customer service. I bought the K package when it first came out and some of the books were the beta type with the coil binding. I emailed them a few months ago asking if I could get the newer TM because from the samples it looked like it had quite a bit of teacher helps added in compared to the beta version. They sent me a whole new FSR set of perfect-bound books, including the TM, Word Mastery, and the 3 workbooks!

Saxon publishes the Houghton Mifflin series. I have the 3rd grade book, and I think they are pretty well done for a science textbook. Looking at the Grade 5 TOC, it looks like it may not go into evolution. (The Grade 6 one looked like it probably did.) I found it on ebay for much cheaper. Also, Saxon is now publishing homeschool lesson plans for each book.

Veritas Press Explorers-1815 sounds like it would work. Good lit, TM with notes and worksheets, and a few projects. It also includes timeline cards and a song to memorize the cards (and a US Presidents song). There are a few "spines," including BJUs American history text, it is from a Christian perspective, and the books are scheduled instead of like an open-ended book basket. Oh, and this year is targeted specifically at 5th graders although all VP's elementary materials can be used for a much wider age range.

In that case, look at Brian Cleary's books also. Your library will likely have some of both his and Ruth Heller's. I think we'll be doing a light grammar year next year also. Reading books like the above, reading Grammarland and possibly doing a little Winston grammar with our copywork. We also get some grammar work through our Latin studies so I'm not worried about dd forgetting too much. :)

I'm in the same boat, except my dd is only in 3rd grade right now. We finished up LL1 in January and we've been reviewing (starting with Ch 5) since. I'm thinking I'm going to go ahead with a combination of BB2 and Ecce Romani. However, I'm still concerned that BB2 might be too much for dd right now, so we'll have to take it slow. You could always move over to First Form. It's not really starting over, since the Form series is meant for 4th/5th+. That is another option I've thought about, but I really would like to stick with Classical pronunciation so that's a consideration. And since your dd is in 5th, there's always Latin Prep, which I've seen highly recommended, but for which my dd is still really too young. We might move that direction after BB2, or move into something like Lingua Latina or Wheelock's if BB2 were to take us 2+ years. Sorry, I'm not much help, am I? :D:lol: Maybe I should just do this: :bigear:

My dh and kids love Rifles for Watie. I think they're on their second reading aloud of it already.

Rightstart, hands down. It doesn't just "teach" place value, it makes place value foundational for all other concepts.

We've recently started doing our art (Artistic Pursuits) on Saturday mornings after breakfast. We also start a project for our Time Traveler's lapbook on Friday afternoon, so we've been finishing it on Saturday morning also. Since we're gone most of the day Wednesday for homeschool band and vision therapy, it has helped alleviate some of the time crunch I feel about getting everything done. It has worked so well that next year we'll continue doing art, and add composer study (we can listen to the pieces after discussing the composer while doing our art project), and nature study journals. The kids usually take Saturdays before lunch to go on a long "explore" as they call it (~2 hours usually) so I'm going to take advantage of this. :D

Yeah, I know what you mean. But actually, I felt the same way about lack of connections with TOG. ;) Those connections are really made in the upper levels since it's more of a unit study style, but for LG--nope. Really for LG it's a booklist with an activity page that corresponds with the exact lit book (so no substitutions), and a map. The Teacher's Notes were written with the upper levels in mind, so many times they didn't really have much to do with the LG books that we had read. The other problem I had was that my library carried very few of the TOG books. OTOH, you can substitute to your heart's desire for the history books, though, and SOTW is scheduled as an alternate resource. I also really like MapAids, although for 1st and 2nd grade *I* ended up doing most of them since I didn't want to make labels like TOG suggests for the younger crowd and it's not always easy to find the places they're talking about unless you just look at the teacher's map, so...it's really just a matter of what you want...(which for me, is not always easy to figure out :lol: I.just.can't.decide sometimes!) I mean, I've been there and if you want to get TOG, then do it. No one's gonna be able to talk you out of it if you've got that itch. :D Get a unit and see if you like it. Who knows, maybe you'll beat the odds? ;) Good luck!

Have you checked out the Easy Classical schedules that align VP cards with SOTW and lots of living books--easy readers appropriate for the younger crowd and read-alouds, etc? You could jump into the MARR schedule next year and then Exporers to 1815 and 1815-present focus more on American history than SOTW does. Also, when you check out the Scholar's Lesson Plans on the VP site, you can plug in the age of your student, choose which year plan you want, and it will give two levels of recommendations--one for K-3 and one for 4-6 for additional book ideas. But, it seems that Biblioplan will also give you what you're looking for, too. Why do you not want to stay with that? They have the readers for K-2 that would keep modern times appropriate for your little one when you get there.

Thanks so much for typing this out! "Minishows" are always fun; I overheard my dd4 singing "My Favorite Things" today while coloring so we get some of those already! :D I'll have to think about how this could work at our house. Thanks again!

My kids LOVE musicals. May I ask how you do your study? Do you watch parts of the musical each week? Do you have a soundtrack and focus just on the music? Thanks for any details you can share. :)

I like the IP and CWP (especially IP) and we used both when dd was in K/1st (first with SM 1 and also when we switched to RS) and we're using them now for level 3, but I will not be using CWP again for level 1 for my ds (not decided about IP). I just didn't see much usefulness for CWP at that level. We'll pick CWP up with level 2 without missing much. (But YMMV because I'm not a huge fan of SM at level 1 anyway so we use RS B for 1st. :) )

I just checked out the RR site and the things they have listed with the K-3 book 1 are the same supplies listed in the book IIRC. We use it once a week, on Saturday morning just because that's when we can get to it consistently. It really doesn't matter what time period you're studying, IMO. You get to study some great art pieces...and the kids really don't care if the time periods match up with your history, even if it may bother us mommas. :)

I think the K-3 book would be fine for your 4th grader. We have just recently picked it back up and I plan on continuing it into my dd's 4th grade year next year until we finish it. AP really just gives them a great jumping-off point to create their own masterpieces, so each kiddo can work to their own ability. Also, it would give him familiarity with a lot of the different mediums used like watercolor crayons, clay, and oil pastels. If you decide to go with AP, my advice would be to gather all the supplies at the beginning and put each group into separate tubs. They have them listed nicely for you at the front of the book in groups and then tell you for each lesson which "group" you will need. Then you can just grab the tub and already have everything you need for that lesson. Doing this actually makes it get done at my house. :)

I've been where you are. Bought TOG for my oldest in 1st thinking I would be using it for 16+ years for all the rest of my children...that I'd be educating myself, etc., etc. Yeah, right. Didn't happen. I mean, we've got toddlers right? I don't have time to sit around and read Caesar's Gallic Wars and the Magna Carta. I even bought year 2 thinking maybe, just maybe I'll do better for 2nd grade. :rolleyes: Finally, I realized this was madness. I bought a $300+ program plus over $200 in expensive books that we didn't even love (our library doesn't carry many of the TOG books and while we enjoy non-fiction, most of the TOG books were not that appealing to us--but they sure are beautiful!). And then I just dropped it all to use SOTW. TWICE!!! We weren't using the SAPs because I'm not a fan of comprehension type questions for that age and of course I honestly wasn't going to sit around and read excerpts from the World Book Encyclopedia for fun. :lol: (Oh, and BTW, I think I learned more about ancient times reading SOTW aloud than I ever did in school, so don't discount SOTW for self-education! I also enjoyed SWBs The Ancient World tome.) TOG is a lovely program--for D and R, and likely even for LG/UG if they have older siblings and you're just wanting to keep them on the same cycle. And I know some ladies enjoy TOG even just for LG, but I just wanted to share my very personal experience. There were ladies on this board three years ago saying what they're all saying now and I assumed I would be one of those exceptions--that somehow *I* could make it work when so many others had crashed and burned. And I used Janice's lovely post to bolster me on! :lol: Ah, oh well. It was a lesson that I needed to learn, although unfortunately I had to learn it hard way, and I'm sure I'll even make the same mistake again, and again! :tongue_smilie: And of course if you want to use it, use it! But do so with your eyes fully open. Because honestly at first grade, (shh!) it doesn't even matter if you "do history." Just read, read, read. My dd convinced me of the course to take with my youngers last week by making the comment (after I said something about the Indus Valley people) that she hoped we would study that stuff again because she didn't remember anything about the ancients at all. :tongue_smilie: Best of luck to you, mama! These decisions can be very overwhelming!

Dd LOVES Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History. CLE Readers

I know that it's not on your list but with a 4th grade boy with no Latin experience who wants fun worksheets, I'd say Lively Latin would be a great choice. Lots of variety, color and Roman history.

:iagree: I did FLL 1/2 before they came with a workbook, but I would not want to do FLL3 without one.

There's always unit studies. You could find one that would incorporate science and history, like this one on baseball.