I know I saw it mentioned here and I now have it from the library and it is about parents running book clubs for elementary kids and their parents. I am enjoying it...learning a lot. Need to return it tomorrow, so thanks for the reminder to get it finished tonight! I would love to be in a book club like the one the authors run (I don't want to run it though!).

...and we supplement with Horizon. Since you are interested in the reverse this may not help except to give you an idea of quantity of math in one day. I just have the Horizon workbook (just finishing 2A)--no teacher book, etc. I look through one lesson a day and cross out a lot of it. If there are 3 rows of addition problems, dd may just do one. If they've had similar problems on clocks/time many days in a row, I may cross it out. It's all to keep the workload reasonable. We then do Singapore--usually plan for 1 exercise a day and the textbook material that goes with it. Sometimes 2 exercises if they're short. When we finish a section, we will do the CWP that go with it. We work a lot of them together. We'll use some of the Intensive Practice too. My main reason for adding Horizons this year was to expose her to a different approach and some different types of problems. I think we get that without assigning everything in a lesson. I don't worry at all about whether the two programs line up.

We did this as a read aloud, and I would say it was harder than other read alouds, but dd enjoyed it. She's a big history buff. I remember I did have to explain plot details, but since she was enjoying it we carried on. If she didn't like it, we would have dropped it. Viking Adventure by Bulla is easier and she liked that too. Other good ones: Sword in the Tree Minstrel in the Tower Shadow Spinner

We used Apologia Astronomy from spring (end of first) to fall (beginning of second) when we have a chance for clear skies in Oregon. Loved it, loved doing it over the summer. Planned a camping trip just to see the August meteor shower away from city lights. Then we moved on to Noeo Chem I. It is going well. We did Bio I last year--I think I like Chem I more. Noeo makes is easy to get science done. We really enjoy the books and while the girls enjoy the experiments, they certainly don't mind if we don't have them all the time.

I use Biblioplan now at grammar level and am very happy with it. But I will seriously look at TOG for logic stage. I don't have an answer for you one way or the other, but a few things I would look at: -Biblioplan is just history. Are you likely to use TOG for literature, art, etc. (I'm not sure what all it includes), or are you mainly using it for history? If you want the other stuff, it would make sense to go with TOG. -Cost difference. Biblioplan is ~$25 for a year, and I think TOG is ~$225. How much are TQ guides and how many are needed for one year? Do you already have them? Are you on a tight budget? Could $200 help significantly with other home school needs? -Difference in style between TQ discussion questions and TOG teacher helps? I haven't seen either, but this could be a big factor for me. If one set was closer to my philosophy/teaching style, that could swing it for me. Have you been able to see both? I have not really looked at TOG, but from various posts I get the feeling that there is a lot of overlap in books used by it and Biblioplan. Sorry I can't offer more help--let us know what you decide! We'll be there in a couple of years!

We have the attribute blocks and I like them because I am a geek! No two blocks are exactly alike. The attributes are shape, size, thickness, and color. We used them a lot when going through the Building Thinking Skills Hands On Primary. I just glanced through Building Thinking Skills Level 1 (grades 2-3) and didn't see anything where you would need to have them. So if budget is tight, they're not required. My girls like to spread them out on the floor and put the counting bears and/or cuisenaire rods on top of them--not quite sure what skill that is building! I like the game of removing one block from the set and they have to figure out which one is missing. We have a bucket balance and it come in handy for math sometimes. Fun with the bears if the bears are weighted. Our bears have either a 3, 6, 9, or 12 on their tummies and I think that is how many grams they are. Two 3 bears in one bucket will balance a 6 in the other. We have unifix cubes and I too find them hard to click together. But we do use them from time to time. I think the historical documents sound cool. I'll have to take a look at those!

They post the books used in their courses on their website. The level II books would be appropriate for the ages you are looking at. I used Bio I last year and am using Chem I this year and have been very happy with the books. They are living books and we have found them to be informative and engaging--glad to have them in our home library. I imagine you could check out Living Learning Books (I think that's the name), the Sonlight catalog, etc. for other titles.

If she finishes it this year, great. If not, you haven't lost anything by moving ahead. If she is bored with it and you know you are using something else next year, you could skip review lessons and just condense it to the material you want to focus on.

I may have to drive up from Oregon for this one! Thanks for posting!

I'm using it now for grammar stage, but many say it is best suited to logic stage. It is basically a schedule that will include various possible spines/reference volumes, readers for different age levels including 5+ for you, a family read-aloud, map and timeline suggestions, and writing ideas. It is a wonderful rich course, but it is not exactly "pick up and go". You would be investing in some great books or would need to use your library extensively. You can see samples at Biblioplan.net.

Not detailed "read pg 13-25 Oct 5th" type planning. I like selecting what books we are going to read. For many items I can wait until summer. There is no thrill to ordering the next math workbook or spelling workbook now. But I love to start getting the next year's history books in winter and spring. We use Biblioplan for history which we love. They have a long list of suggested readers and read-alouds and reference books too. I go through the list and check what is in my library, decide what I want to buy, and start comparing prices at Amazon, Rainbow Resource, used, etc. Like others have mentioned, I like having the extra time to find good prices, spread out the buying over several months, and get the books with plenty of time to go over them myself. I have found that I plan and buy from January through August.

For 100th day: I think it would be fun to make up a math worksheet for them to do and listen to them moan and groan about it until they start working out the problems and find that the answers are always 100! Or study the year 100, 100 in several different languages, derivatives with "cent" in them, etc. Valentine's Day is kind of difficult. My kids like to make Valentines, but they don't get any from friends because all of their friends exchange them at school. Last year their valentines from Mom and Dad were Magic School Bus DVDs and they liked that a lot!

And it is 2 or 3 dollars more, and I believe the exercises are essentially the same. I got the sports theme one for SWO B and the corny sports lingo was driving me crazy! You have a "pep talk" instead of a tip (spelling rule), a Game Plan Spelling Lineup instead of Spelling Practice, etc. For a child that doesn't do baseball or football, these phrases are meaningless. I don't think there is a difference in the work that they do, but I felt like I had to translate the section titles because they insisted on using sports language that doesn't explain what you are doing as well!

We will be using it with SOTW 3 next year and dd will be in 3rd grade. It schedules several volumes of Hakim (I went ahead and got the whole series because I liked the library volume I checked out and more volumes are used the next year). Additionally, there are always readers and read-alouds scheduled that will beef up the American history side. I plan to do the Hakim as a read-aloud and I think dd will be able to follow along. Knowing her, she will start reading them on her own outside of school time!

Biblioplan with SOTW and AG here. Love it.