I think The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is hilarious and not smutty. IMO, it's a wonderful book.

We do a lesson in OGPTR every morning. That takes 15-20 minutes. She also reads a book every afternoon, which usually takes about 10 minutes.

My kids are younger, so I don't have a list of books. However, I know Little House by Boston Bay is a living book set in during the War of 1812.

These are not new, but two of my favorites from recent years are: Cold Sassy Tree and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Both are not "Christian" fiction but very clean and compelling.

We don't do notebooking at our house, but I read Harmony Art Mom's blog, and she frequently posts about notebooking. Here's a link.

There are a lot of Classical Conversations threads, which you may find helpful. You meet with your CC group once a week. During the CC time: 1. The tutor presents memory work for the week in seven different 'subjects,' math, history, science, English grammar, Latin, geography and a timeline. You as the parent, decide how much of the memory work you want to learn during the week at home. 2. The tutor directs the kids in a short fine arts component, which covers drawing, music theory, art or classical music, depending on the week. 3. The tutor leads the kids in a science experiment or project. 4. The child gives a presentation to their class. That's it in a nutshell. Check out the website, there probably is a CC information session scheduled in your area.

They do have sales. Last year, they had a sale that if you bought $100 in books, you got a certain amount free. I remember that I got Buffalo Bill by d'Aulaire as my free book. There may have been free shipping too. It wasn't a great sale, but it helped. I think it was in the spring. It may have passed for this year. Sorry, not much help.

I used to be. I love her but didn't like all the messages in the inbox. I'm not sure if she even does that anymore. I credit FlyLady with putting me on the right track with housekeeping. I still basically stink at it, but I'm better.

I'm concerned about this as well. :bigear:

We are wrapping up first grade. FFL - 4 days as week WWE - 4 days a week, 2 days copywork and 2 days narration Spelling - 4 days The reason we do 4 days is because we do Classical Conversations one day a week. For the summer, we'll ramp it up to 5 days a week. Although, I think we'll review the concepts from FFL 1 over the summer instead of delving into FF2.

I used to be an authoritarian type of parent that demanded first time obedience, which I seldom actually got. It wasn't effective. When I read Hold on to Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld, I felt the scales fell from my eyes. I started working on my relationship with my children. Also, I started encouraging the right attitudes in my kids instead of the right behavior. My kids aren't perfect, but they are more responsive to my requests and that response is motivated by love.

The connections with the moms and great kids is one of the greatest benefits to our family. Also, as for giving up a day, it is only for 24 weeks, which leaves almost half the year to have that CC day all to yourself (well, yourself AND your children :)).

I don't live in Claremore, but I also go to The Dairy almost weekly. I think it a great town. Have you seen that community center? Anyway, I consider the area surrounding Claremore to have rolling hills. The drive on Highway 20 on either side of Claremore is very picturesque, especially near the Verdigris River.

This is my son. He used to complain about doing ANYTHING and fight against 'doing school'. He doesn't do that anymore at 7. I don't know why. He now takes it all in stride except the writing. He hates copywork! The reading, math (we use RS, which doesn't involve much writing), violin and narrations, he takes in stride. He's on the fence about spelling.

:iagree:

Ghost in This House performed by Alison Krauss

I like it okay. I have heard other people have negative associations with it from the movie, "Throw Mama from the Train."

Something that hasn't been mentioned is the Draw Write Now Series. I bought the box set last year. I initially regretted the purchase because it isn't cheap. But, these my kids use them all the time.

A book that was inspiring to me was Laddie by Gene-Stratton Porter. It is semi-autobiographical. It is an old book and, of course, quite old-fashioned. However, I loved the characters in the book and their views on education. It may be a little heavy-handed in teaching character, but I like books that bring out the better person in me, which this one did. The children in this book are very well educated and take education seriously. I really recommend it.

My only struggle with CC is the time it takes away from what *I* want to do. However, I don't think that the CC vision runs counter to the Circe vision. If you refer back to THE THREAD, in the first of Andrew Kern's responses, he lists as one of the core human faculties that needs to be strengthened as part of learning is "recollection (ie. a trained memory)". That is what CC memory work does. Cycle 1 history songs are just as wonderful and memorable. Cycle 1 history covers a lot more territory than cycle 3 though. The songs cover from ancient times to modern times, including events from all over the world. We'll continue with CC because it pushes me and the kids to learn more than we would be inclined to learn otherwise. Plus the networking with like-minded people is invaluable to me. There are other benefits too, such as the presentations....I think I could go on, but I have other things to do! :001_smile:

I've used both Phonics Road and AAS. I think that Phonics Road is too much for a 4 or 6 year old unless they are very advanced. The material is presented too quickly and not systematically enough for the little ones. After the vowel, consonant and vowel/consonant teams are introduced the child starts spelling a long list of words each week. They have to apply multiple spelling rules each week in no particular order. AAS uses a slower, more systematic progression. It worked better for my son. Se started PR when he was six going very slowly. We switched to AAS when he was 7. AAS felt like a breath of fresh air...so painless for the teacher as it is scripted. Phonics Road was a burden to use with those DVDs. I think the advantage to PR is that it's a comprehensive language arts program. I, however, am a fan of AAS, OGPTR, FLL and WWE, so I'm not looking for a comprehensive program. IMHO, the combination of OGPTR and AAS is hard to beat in teaching a child phonics. I have not done AAR with my son.

My son learned them easily playing Jax Sequence States and Capitals. It's a fun game even for me. I made him say the state and capital for every play.

For my 7 yo, we spend 2 hours per day 4 days a week, excluding violin practice and time at Classical Conversations.

Sounds like a good plan! My son who is 7 is almost done with OGPTR (only 10 lessons to go!). We started AAS1 about a month ago. I find that although one is reading and one is spelling they are an excellent complement to each other. AAS is reinforcing what he has learned in OGPTR. I think my son reverts to memorizing words. So, I'm glad to have a second chance at phonics so that he retains the tools he learned in OGPTR.

I've used both for level one only (PR1 and AAS1). For level 1, I prefer AAS. It is more systematic. The progression is very methodical and well organized. PR throws all of the spelling rules at you at once. It was a little like drinking from a fire hydrant for my 7yo (started at 6) who needed a slower progression. The scripted nature of AAS works better for me than the PR videos. I found myself delaying lessons because I hadn't watched the video yet. I like PR's rule tunes over AAS's cards, though. Finally, for me, I love FLL, AAS and WWE. I don't want to trade those gems in for an all-in-one curriculum. However, remember that I didn't go past PR1.