I highly recommend VersaTiles by Hand2Mind. I did a review on them awhile back and ever since then we've been hooked. You can read my review here and see the tiles in action. It's easy enough that my 5 year old can do it unassisted. We also had the workbooks geared for First Grade. I bet they have them for younger kids. The tiles and corresponding books are small, light weight and easy to pack!

This one was an instant favorite of mine as a young girl. It left quite an impression on me. So much so,that after I gave birth to my first daughter I ran out and bought a copy of the book for her. She's still too young -- but it's there ready for her!

My 6 year old loves Times Tales. We started it after she hit the section on Multiplication in Miquon. I was amazed by how quickly she had them all memorized and in such a fun manner. She loves those weird silly stories. My adult brain has a hard time understanding how its easier to memorize those characters, then the stories to arrive at having the times tales memorized but she sure did it.

What if she combined the money and got them a cool gift to share. Someone already mentioned an X-box or some sort of video console. And you could easily adapt that for either age with the games you purchase. Or how about, a nice microscope if you don't have one? My girls simply LOVE theirs and don't consider it a boring educational tool. They love whenever I take it down to show them something in it. Or a nice set of binoculars or small beginner telescope? Just some thoughts....

It really depends on if you to read the books to her or if you are looking for something for her to sound out and read on her own. I was always amazed by the longevity with which our Sandra Boynton books have been used. As infants and toddlers they like looking at them. As they grow, they like me reading to them, but as my girls get older they LOVE reading them on their own. But if you are looking for fun read-alouds for that age range I would recommend TumTum and Nutmeg. It was so much fun I actually blogged about it here. My girls ask for chapters to be reread regularly.

:iagree:

That's an interesting take. But here is some more food for thought-- one of the reasons I want to teach my girls cursive, even in an age where it is slowly dying out, is that I want them to be able to read original sources of material without the need for someone else's translation of it. For example, I would like my girls to read the Constitution or Bill of Rights and come up with their interpretation instead of trusting some politician or whatnot to tell them what's in it. But then again, this is partly my reason for teaching Latin too. Who knows how often my girls will actually be reading original documents but I would like to think that they will at least have the tools available. I'd rather teach them the upper case in cursive. It's easy enough to substitute for print letters if need be. All that being said, it probably wouldn't be impossible for someone who doesn't know upper case letters to deduce what it is by reading the rest of the word. And vice-versa, a person who does know all cursive should easily be able to read a mixed version of it.

I really enjoyed the The Joy of Handwriting. I posted a bit about our use of it here. My daughter finished it recently. We really enjoyed it.

:hurray: It's really laid back this time around. I think it would be a great step for you. Pam has already mentioned doing it again in January. I'm going to be stricter with myself that time around. This time, well-- I'm baby stepping it. Can't wait to read about your progress!

My daughter did Lollipop 1 & 2. Then we moved onto Primary Logic.

I'm all for doing this again in January. Maybe I can actually be a bit more productive with it! :tongue_smilie:

Mine is up- We just love STAR WARS here! How about you guys? Anyone doing WW?

I can't believe how amazing well the game has chess has gone over with my 6 year old. I've noticed her strategics and thinking things through more since starting her chess class just a little over a month ago. Also, we LOVE Scrabble Flash. My daughter can sit and play against herself or against an opponent. I'll just leave the cubes out and inevitably she'll make her way over to them to play.

I am using Miquon and Singapore and talk a little about why I felt the need to supplement here.

Best of luck to you! Have fun with it!

My oldest is 6 and in her first grade year. She is currently on ETC6. HOWEVER, she adores the books and LOVES to write. She even started writing in cursive at the end of book 5 and now completes each page in it. I do not expect my other children to follow suit. She started ETC when she was 5 (maybe even right before...) Her younger sister is a completely different breed of learner. Not work-bookey and doesn't like to sit still for any length of time. She is not doing what her older sister was doing at her age but I have learned to shrug and go with it. The joy of homeschooling is that we can tailor it for each child. If you feel you are making sufficient progress with your son then don't sweat it! If he's happily learning and progressing then you are doing great!

I used a couple of the SSRW workbooks that I had picked up at a used-curriculum sale. It wasn't the whole set but I was able to utilize some parts of that and I used it in connection with OPGTR and Explode the Code with great success with my oldest. You can read a bit about it here. I eventually segued into using All About Spelling with my oldest. All About Reading wasn't out at the time so she never utilized it. You can read about my All About Spelling post here and here. Now with my middle daughter I am using All About Reading along with the Before The Code workbooks and a gentle star in OPGTR. You can read my initial review of AAR prelevel here. For what it's worth, I think a parent can teach a child to read without any fancy pre-packaged curriculum. That being said, I do like the fact that I have them to pull out and use. ;)

I picked up 2 thousand cubes just to have but so far have only really used one during our lessons/activities. You can find them for roughly $5 a piece on Amazon here.

We love The Stars and Find The Constellations by H.A. Rey. (The creator of Curious George). We also recently received our Space Atlas from National Geographic. We went overboard and purchased an embossed leather bound edition so we got ours before the regular book was released. It IS visually very beautiful. However, in hindsight, you really don't need a leather bound and I think $30 would be a decent price for such a great collection.

Also not Spy Car, :) but I agree and think one set would be enough. Granted my children are spaced apart in age a little bit so I have some time before the subsequent child uses them. But in the meantime, they get plenty of "play"time with all my kids. You can see my girls using them here.

Welcome aboard!! YES please grab the logo. It was made by Pam over at Everyday Snapshots. Feel free to link back to her. She will be the one keeping tabs of everyone. Can't wait to see your posts!

Also HUGE fans of How to Train Your Dragon. That movie was a big reason why we finally splurged for a 3D tv. A surprise hit for us was the The Secret World of Arrietty. Everyone loved it. Including the grandparents! I was so impressed (especially since I don't care for the other movies made by this studio) that I wrote a blog post about it here.

My daughters received this version last year and all of them were really captivated by the illustrations. Edited to add that at the time my kids were 5, 3, and 1.

Pam over at Everyday Snapshots recently invited me to join her on a 2 week long Homeschool Mom's Boot Camp challenge as a way to give ourselves that much needed kick-in-the-butt for whatever it is we've been dragging our feet on. I'm using it as motivation to complete a mini-art unit I started back before summer and then totally dropped the ball on. Pam is using it as a way to motivate herself to get school started daily by 8:30. We'll be blogging about our progress with our respective issues. Chelli at The Planted Trees will also be joining in and we would love some additional company! You can read my intro post about it here. Let us know if you'd be interested in joining us. We'd love some new recruits! It will be a great way to network and meet some new bloggers. The more the merrier!

Just be warned-- the vision in the mask is very limiting. I had to hold my daughter's hand the whole night. She was probably legally blind with that mask on!