We are doing a geography study with a young 1st grader. Draw Write Now has two books with Ecological information and animals along with "how to draw" continent maps. I am using these as my spine, along with an atlas. I decided against Galloping the Globe. I have had "A trip around the world" and "another trip around the world" recommended to me as preferable. There are some easy reader books... "Look what came from (country)" and "Count Your Way Through (country)" that I plan on getting from the library for almost every country we study. Sonlight has some Core K books that have to do with culture and animals that I ordered as well. HTH

WoW! love it!

I have not seen Guerber's books....any links?? nevermind... http://www.mainlesson.com/author.php?author=guerber

Winterpromise has an American History program that is brand new. American Crossings designed for 4-7th grade, with Time Travelers (which includes hands-on) as a spine from what I have gathered. I know nothing about this spine, but I wanted to throw this out there, as it will be more in-depth and age appropriate than the American Story program by Winterpromise, which Sonlight fans seem to think is too light. Winterpromise has books with pictures and hands-on, Sonlight lacks both, though if your kids are happy to listen to a lot of read-aloud it looks wonderful!

:lurk5:

The workbook will give you specific passages for copywork, narration and dictation exercises, presented for the child. The main text book WWE will give you "how to" but you will have to decide what passages you will have your DC copy, narrate, etc. and find a way to present them. Hope I explained that well. I have decided to go with just the text for now.

Well, at my PS Kindergarten, (Em attended for about 4 months) They do not teach sounding out at all, they only teach sight reading, so that is very annoying when you try to teach them phonics in 1st grade.... so just keep that in mind. Emily hates sounding out. She says it makes her feel like a baby and that she did not have to do it when she was in school. (which I know, I volunteered a couple of times) She would rather sound out in private so that I cannot hear her do it. She hates reading now because it is a new skill and is difficult. It does not mean she will hate it forever. :grouphug:

Will amazon.com ship to Canada earlier? They were taking pre-orders too, I think.

I thought I would add that I went to public school and I could not read at all until halfway through first grade. When it clicked, I then skyrocketed to the top of the class and was at college level in 4th grade. So.... IMO giving it time will not hurt in the long run.

:iagree:I did something similar. My dd tired of CVC words so I put all the rules in her head even when she was still struggling to sound out. When it clicked it was a huge leap. Now we are going back through it, because I think she sight reads quite a bit, and I need to be sure she has the rules, but we can skip more lessons than we have to learn. I also found she fights me on traditional reading lessons (like OPG) but loves ETC, and can usually do it independently, which means even less fighting (I do not require that she does any of the spelling type lessons.)

Well, I am not one to talk, since I am asking questions, but our plan is 5 weeks on, one week off. In the summer if friends and cousins are over, we might take one day off that week, or only work for 30 minutes for the day. (which is my question above, LOL) I remind her that her cousins are in school from breakfast to dinner the rest of the year and that is why they do not have school in the summer.

Thanks for helping. My main question is that the bulk of her work (for the three R's) is taking only 25-45 minutes, depending on whether we do a reader and/or OPG in with it. Are we not doing enough? (She fights because handwriting is hard, she hates sounding out, she wants to do her work without me telling her how, she hates school, life, etc. etc. :lol:)

Threadjacking here, sorry but I feel it is the perfect place for this question. Emily does Handwriting, Math and ETC in about 20-25 minutes all together if I crack the whip. Am I doing something wrong? This is one page in each front and back. (She takes over an hour if she is fighting me the whole time.) Then we generally read for another 30 minutes and have a bible lesson or vocabulary for about 15 minutes, but this is all later in the day.

Well, I have an autoimmune disorder as well and my joints have problems when it flares up. (Ulcerative Colitis) Are you keeping up on your treatments for that?

My idea is to choose between the readers and read alouds and switch them off... a reader this week, read aloud the next. Still choosing between WP and SL. By the time we get to core 6 I am sure we will have lots more choices!

Getting your routine down and working on training your little one to be responsible, like some of the others said. WOW, wish I had done THAT!! BTW....my DD does not like a lot of the readers I bought ahead of time. LOL Maybe start a homeschool savings account.

I would not start hunting down books. I bought a lot of books ahead only to find out they are not our style. Now I have a whole new book list I need and have all of these books that we don't. It is really hard to plan ahead because you don't have a feel for your individual child's needs. I would read more "how to homeschool" type books. And you might start perusing catalogs and have a couple of ideas of curriculum you like... because that is fun!!

Are you doing all of the history program, or leaving some of it out? I was trying to figure out how to cut back on WP. It just seems like an awful lot when our focus needs to be the basics.

We are working through book 3 right now. I looked over 4 and in order to actually sound words out rather than know them by sight, it makes sense to break down the syllables this way. Though it does seem to be a lot of work and rule memorization.

I really like your thoughts on this! I am fighting DD and I was thinking that a more structured curriculum would help me to be firm with her (because I would be sure this is what we need to get done) and would help her to understand she needs to do it (it's not just mom's opinion), and I don't think she really understands that the unstructured approach really is school....since she was in Pre-K with an Abeka program. Glad I read this!

Thank you for your thoughts. I love the idea of independent work and DD despises copywork, so I am still thinking about it, though right now it would be redundant if I get the whole package. She really likes ETC and pretty much hates everything else we do in our homeschool, so I am thinking I may need to change something down the road. For now, I will work on discipline. It will be less expensive and less work time if I just stick to our current plans. Thanks again for the replies!

Oh My. Almost every homeschool program we buy was made by a fellow homeschooler, including TWTM. I would like to know how anonymous feels about Writing Tales, WWE, SOTW.... need I go on??

I thought I had it all figured out and then looked at this. I need reviews of this and contrasting it with classical LA as recommended by TWTM. Thanks!

Thanks for the update!!

This looks good! Thanks for sharing.