Are you considering AG or JAG in grade 4? JAG is recommended at that age, but I would not consider it spiral. Each lesson builds on the previous so material is not forgotten, but material is learned to mastery before moving on.

And even if you don't use it as intended, use the flow chart in the front as your guide to topics, and use the reading lists at the end of each chapter.

I use AAS tiles when I am teaching a new lesson. My children only use them when we are doing syllable division. Otherwise they spell on the whiteboard.

It looks like they only have plans for Sea to Shining Sea and All Ye Lands, but those just came out this year, so maybe the others are on the horizon. I will try to find out.

I really like the Kolbe science lesson plans. They use secular textbooks, but teach from a Catholic perspective through the lesson plans. Kolbe has also written lesson plans for The Catholic Textbook Project, but those don't start until 5th grade. They cover Bible History in 3rd and then Famous Men of Rome and Famous Men of Greece in 4th, although I believe they have another option for American History as well.

I have an 8 year old Ds who struggles to read. He's taken a real interest now, so we have really started to make progress, but that didn't happen until he was ready. I agree that the most important thing is reading daily. Some days we read for 10 and some for 20, but if I push too hard we start moving in the wrong direction. If you want them to read a little extra, give them some books that are easy. We are working on the 4th AAR reader, so I have him read from the first three books after our lesson to boost his confidence. He gets a real kick out of how well he reads them now.

If you buy the student packet you will have the level 1 cards. If you want a complete set of phonogram cards you can buy them here: http://www.allaboutlearningpress.com/basic-phonogram-cards/

Another vote for Mad Libs.

I understand what it's like living in a large school district. Mine serves 170,000 kids and has 132 schools. My elementary school has over 1700 kids. Several years ago (when ther were a couple hundred less children) there were 15 kindergarten classes. Funny thing is my husband went to this school when it was much smaller and it was a great school. The district has just gotten too large and kids are just numbers here. Here is what I would do in your situation. Are you enjoying Sonlight? If not, I believe they have a great return policy. Return the package and buy what you want. If you are enjoying Sonlight keep it and use it. When you finish move onto to something more challenging. Many people (myself included) try to do too much when they start homeschooling. If you are enjoying Sonlight, just relax and enjoy the time together.

Me too. I love the readers and read-alouds, but I couldn't stand the history with all the Usborne books. We switched to MP and we love it.

If you want other suggestions for vocabulary you may want to re-name your post so it is not so specific to the Heidi lit guide. I don't really have any suggestions here, as we tried Wordly Wise briefly and left it to learn vocabulary in context. We did just use the Heidi lit guide although my dd was 9. Do you have the teachers guide? I must admit that I did not have dd look up the words. We discussed them from the definitions in the teachers guide and then she wrote the definition in her book. I also made flash cards and put them on a ring for her. The teachers guide also has tests and quizzes, and even if you don't use them as such, they would work well as practice.

We started three weeks ago with a light schedule - just a couple of subjects. It's not been a great start. Cons: My daughter figure skates, and while I moved all her lessons to early morning this year, we still aren't leaving the rink until 10:00 some mornings. There have been mornings where we haven't started school until 11:30 am. I am really struggling to work my 1st and 2nd graders into the mix. I have had to work so hard to get my 5th grader to do her work over the years, I feel as though they have gotten lost in the shuffle. Pros: The awesome and amazing thing is that my 5th grader has made a miraculous turn-around. For the first time she is working hard at school and at skating. She seems to have finally learned that getting her work done means that I can make her brother and sister do more work (she is always jealous that they have so much less) and that she has free-time. I guess that summer of catching up on homework must have done her some good. Needs work: Everyone needs to know what time school starts - myself included. I need to be ready to start at that time so I don't lose anyone. I need to dedicate more time to my 1st and 2nd graders. I need to help them to understand that they have a certain amount of work that has to be done before they have free-time. I need to get my workouts in again. Morning skating has killed my workout routine. I need to start school on time, so I can have my me time in the afternoon before dinner.

Bumping for you because I have no idea if minecraft is available on Kindle. The drawback I can see to making the switch is the loss of Apple content unless you have another Apple device.

I responded on the duplicate thread, but after reading this I second my recommendation for JAG. There is even a video, although I will say that it is just the authors reading what is in the text and working through a couple if exercises. Video is not necessary, but it is fairly cheap.

I called and they recommended I start my 5th grader on 3rd grade. I like the program, but it does not seem to be the fastest way to teach keyboarding. I still let dd use it for fun, but we have moved to Typing Pal because she needs to get up to speed a bit faster for an online class she will be taking. I am using it with my younger ones and I do really like it for them. It is very incremental and much more appropriate for their ages. I do find it hard to know what they are doing since you cannot go back and because of this you cannot look ahead. I also called about this issue and they promised to email more information to me and after two calls, I still received nothing. They are aware of this issue and are supposed to address the lack of information available to the teacher. ETA: They recommended my 1st and 2nd graders start on grade level.

I didn't care for GWG. It was way to easy to pick the correct answer with no understanding of why you chose it. What about JAG? It's meant to be a condensed grammar program. It can be completed in as little as 11 weeks, and covers the parts of speech and includes diagramming. They also have JAG Mechanics which I believe is completed in about 15 weeks, and covers capitalization and punctuation.

Essentially, AAR teaches how to use the rules to blend phonograms together and AAS teaches how to use the rules to break the phonograms apart. If you have a natural reader, you could easily use AAS with the AAR readers. That is how I taught my oldest to read. My son struggles to read, so AAR has been a good choice for him. He needs a lot more hand-holding and a lot more practice.

I like the idea - mixing art appreciation, art history and projects into one program. However, I agree with a PP who stated that too many of the projects involved watercolor crayons. They were really fun the first few times, but that got old. My biggest issue, however, was that there was not enough guidance for the projects. I suppose that could work well for the creative child, but we needed a bit more explicit instruction on how to do the project. We never made it through the K-3 book either.

The slate chalk board for capital letters and the double lined chalk board for lowercase and cursive are my favorites.

Both of my children started to melt down when we started subtraction with renaming in 2A. Both of them are good at math, but they hated subtraction until they mastered it. Once we past that, things moved much more smoothly. I agree with the PP that mastering math facts is very helpful.

I pulled out my PL CD, and yes it is Leigh Lowe. Her accent could explain some of the differences.

In the first pages of First Form it states that there are long and short vowels in Latin, but that the difference is not always discernible to English speakers, and that in FF, long vowels and consonants would be the focus. It does, however, have a chart with all the long and short vowel sounds. Perhaps you could compare SSL to the chart in FF to see how different they are and get an idea of where Prima is headed. The chart is in this sample from the FF Teachers Guide: http://cdn.memoriapress.com/sites/default/files/products/samples/FirstFormLatin_Teacher.pdf

We used both last year, but FMR was our history for the year. We really enjoyed them.

I love Atelier as well. I have recently seen that they offer it in an online subscription format, but I have been unable to reach them to see if it will replace the DVD format or will be just another option. The online is a three year license but it costs $140. I much prefer the $155 price tag for something I own. I think $140 is too high for something I just get to use for a while. HSBC may offer the online version at a good discount, but I still don't want to pay that and not own it.

I didn't get the impression they were going to allow you to go back once an exercise was completed. It sounded more like they were going to address the issue of being completely unaware of what your child was doing unless you were watching over their shoulder.