http://harmonyfinearts.org/ Harmony Fine Arts does a good job of this I feel.

I imagine her kiddos want to eat their science project before the lesson is even finished!!!! That is why M&M math and Hershey chocolate bar fractions are a FAIL here. I would try to use craft foam.

Sounds like my 7 year old. At this very moment while I type this my ds is using wooden serving bowls, forks, train tracks, and a banana to build a "banana slicer." I don't know!!! LOL. I just let him explore with any material within reason. And I try not to interfere or "help" too much. I have been asking leading questions when he has a challenge. Some things that have helped him explore: KEVA contraption blocks (He loves these!) Balls of all sorts Marble run blocks Random pieces of PVC pipe and connectors Pipes and funnels and bottles and zip ties(outside water exploring) Legos!!! Train tracks (useful for so much more than train play) Dominoes String, rope, tape (duct, masking, painter, Scotch) Erector sets Snap Circuits Free access to the recycling bin! A small tool set (screwdrivers, hammer, sandpaper, square, tape measure) He plays in the garage or outside with scrap wood and I try to give him safe small appliances to take apart. Wide thick popsicle sticks!!! (google popsicle stick chain reaction) My ds is mostly fascinated by Rube Goldberg, so we spend lots of time on youtube getting inspiration. One Way Out and Mythbusters are favorite shows. Occasionally he enjoys building with me from an idea found in Family Fun or on Pinterest. He also has some Chaos track handed down from a friend. I didn't plan on this being our physical science year, so I'm just facilitating his natural interest. ETA: I also try to include him in any house project. Painting, rewiring an electrical outlet, taking apart the dishwasher bottom for cleaning, assembling furniture. We have always found some way he can be involved in that. My ds also stalks repair men! LOL---electrician, plumber, and the guy who maintains our furnace are on first name terms with my ds.

It doesn't seem to be what the OP is looking for, but I'll answer this real quick here. I simply started at the beginning and have been working straight through. We haven't even scratched the surface yet .I keep going back to the beginning again for my younger ds, but the repetition hasn't hurt my older ds's efforts. I have Friday set aside as art day in our weekly routine. It's not always DWC that we do however. We've used HFA and Artistic Pursuits as well. Or an activity from Pinterest or KinderArt. .And my kids are free to explore art whenever. So any art lesson I want to explore with them is done on Friday. We didn't do anything else on Friday except a short math lesson, art, and a Friday Freewrite. This is the same routine we will pick up again this Fall. First you want to work through level 1 exercises regardless of age or ability. Do the assessment in the beginning and also work in some level 2 or even 3 activities if your child seems ready. The assessment helps you know that. But there's no harm in just sticking with level 1 activities first. We haven't done any level 3 (yet). We don't do a warm up every time, just occasionally when we want to. Although when first starting out, it's best to really explore that first basics lesson in detail. The lion we did in one sitting. Most of our art projects get done on Friday. But you can break it up into two different times if you want. Draw one sitting, color it the next time. Usually my time is just spent gathering supplies, and re reading the book. You kind of have to like the book to do it. ;) Finding objects for still lifes or pictures to study/copy can takes some advance planning, but we're always on the look out for objects or pictures etc so it's not something I overly plan. One thing: there were times my children didn't want to draw the thing in the lesson, or to finish it. Don't try to make them. I let my kids stop when they are happy with it, or when they are tired of it. Just pack it up and try again another day. Or do something else. I'm never great at answering these questions about scheduling because I just simply don't plan in this way. I don't think in terms of how long, how many days, etc. We just simply do it. Setting aside a day for it helps. Art gets done because it's Friday!! I don't think DWC needs to be translated into "lessons" because from my standpoint the book is already written in sequential lessons. I've tried to look over "lesson plans" online for DWC as well, and imho most of them are reinventing the wheel. Often my kids ask to do a lesson again because drawing that bird was so fun, and I really then just provide the materials. I let them do any art anything they want whenever they want. The biggest thing I've noticed from using DWC is that it has enhanced their observation skills. It's a natural part of our conversation to find the 5 shapes in things we are looking at. Of course implementing The Private Eye into our routine has enhanced that as well. The best thing to do is closely read it, and to mark sections with tabs. I mark inspirational passages with one color and have another color tabbed at the current lesson we just finished. Read it with a highlighter, and also place a small colored ink dot at a successfully finished project and tab at a project to attempt again. I don't make detailed lesson plans with anything usually, but I am highly organized about my materials so I can pick anything up and jump in. (or jump back in) I wouldn't even worry about trying to make the entire book fit into a 36 week school year, for such amount of time. Honestly, I wouldn't see the point in trying. Also I try to do every activity with the kids myself, or sometimes even before them on my own to be sure I understand. They're better than me. It's humbling. ;)

Your dd can't dive into Drawing With Children on her own. The book is meant for you to read, cover to cover,and then to go through the lessons, preferably with the child. It's more systematic then a simple "learn to draw a thing" book. But I highly recommend it. My children can draw, not merely copy. And I've only ever used DWC lessons.

Now this thread makes me feel like I need to add Story of Science to our reading this year.

I love Miquon, and I'm on my second go through with this program. My main complaint is that there isn't enough instruction at times in the Lab Annotations, and so there were times my oldest ds and I were left struggling to figure out what was expected. But I will use it for a third time with my younger dd when she's ready. I tried Math Mammoth this year and I decided to not continue with it. I don't want to print out lessons this year. I have to print out the Latin I chose to use, but for the most part I'm weary of using materials that are ebook based. I switched to SM because I really would rather have some books on the shelf made from sturdy materials. I can't complain about SM yet, but I didn't want to use it in the past because of all the various different books involved. I use Saxon with my older ds. It works. It gets done. My main complaint is that it's a tad boring and the text is big, so it feels like it will never get done. By the end of the year, math can be a weary task. Because of this we tried to dabble Math in Focus this past year---and hated it. It was too public schoolish for us, and the teacher materials were expensive, so I tried to look through the online teacher materials. I found them too classroom oriented. And plus, I just don't want to be tied to online materials. I found the whole thing just confusing. I feel we're behind in math now because of our detour. I decided against using RS because of the scripting, but we do enjoy the Games Cards. My main complaint with them is the learning curve. It took me several attempts to figure out how to use the Games Book and even how to play the games. I didn't feel it was very clear.

I like this idea. I wouldn't use it as a primary way to teach spelling however. But I can see this being interesting from a vocabulary or creative writing standpoint.

Honestly I don't really feel that anyone is co-opting anything. No religious group has a copyright on a method of education. The curricula (actual books available for purchase) that have a "classical ed" tag may or may not even be "true" to the original classical ed model. BUT I don't live in Ancient Rome or Medieval Catholic Europe...I live in the 21st century Illinois USA...so... There are things about this method of education useful to home educators, secular or otherwise, and other things that I feel one can safely lay to the side without feeling guilty. If one wanted to explore this method of education in their homeschool, I feel it's totally acceptable to adapt it to the family's individual belief values,and the current historical time we live in.

My kids are still too young to read them critically in their original forms. At these ages my kids are familiar with the major Old/New Testament stories. I've used several different children's resources for that. I will use The Bible and Its Influence as a spine in the high school years to supplement Bible readings (I've not settled on a version just yet but I will not be using KJV). Also we have read quite a few picture books by Patricia Polacco, Latkes and Applesauce, It's a Miracle. We will be reading The Tao of Pooh this year, and they will read the Tao Te Ching when older. My little ones enjoy Zen Shorts, and Jataka Tales. When older I would like them to read Siddhartha and some major Theravada and Mahayana sutras. (there are a ton of various collections of these). I would also like them to read Confucius' Analects (excerpts). Under the Ramadan Moon is sweet for little ones, when they are older we will read the Koran. (excerpts). We have several of Vatsala Sperling's Classic Indian (Hindu) Tales for Children. When older they will read the Ramayana and excerpts from Bhagavad Gita. (my Dh actually already has a very nice curricula lesson plan for that one). I try to keep collections of stories from any culture as I come across them. My ds is a huge fan of African Folktales and Native American tales. I would love a good reference for Catholic saints stories for children, and stories for children from Judaism (Talmudic..beyond Old Testament readings). I studied psychology and comparative religions in college, and although I haven't pursued those things in a professional sense after, I'm still very much invested in religious studies of all sorts. This post is likely out of topic for whether a classical education is biased or not, but hopefully it answers the OP's question about studying or reading these books from other cultures. For my part, yes...we do and will. Exactly!

Welcome to the forum. I believe Teaching Textbooks is something your ds can do independently,but I have read that it can be slow. If your ds excels in math you may want to prepare yourself for the possibility that he may become bored with TT (Teaching Textbooks). CTY is an online math program correct? I'm wondering if there's a reason to do two online math programs? I agree with Ellie-- doing two art programs may be too much, unless your ds is really excelling in art. I like Easy Grammar and I've recently been very interested in Winston Grammar. If your ds needs to refresh his grammar knowledge, those two will do the trick. I found Wordly Wise to be a bit of a drag, but Vocabulary From Classical Roots, by the same publisher, was more interesting to my ds and I. BBC DanceMat typing is free and it's been effective in helping my ds with his keyboarding skills. I'm sure there are other free online typing resources. I plan on using Galore Park's So You Really Want to Learn French supplemented with the free Duolingo website and app. They also have Spanish. It would be abbreviated like this on these forums-- SYRWTL I've found Book Depository a good resource for finding Galore Park books. Bravewriter is my go to for all things writing and language arts. http://www.bravewriter.com/

I don't consider myself 100% classically educating. Mainly because I don't identify with most homeschooling labels. I also have noticed that quite a bit of the materials one can find that have the "classical education" tag come from Christian sources. WTM seems to be the most adaptable to a secular homeschool. I haven't read the blog you linked yet, but yes, I do feel that there is a strong bias in some of the materials towards a Eurocentric, Christian worldview. BUT having said that, I have read many posts from these forum members who are identifying as classical educators who don't seem to have that bias slant at all. In my homeschool, we do cover the history and mythology and religions of other cultures. NOT in an apologetic sense. Often I hear that other religions are being taught and it turns out to be nothing more than defense of the faith type nonsense. I find that the big ideas behind this method of homeschooling are appealing. It can be difficult to find materials if you are a secular or non-Christian family however. For history I like K12 Human Odyssey for the middle school years. It goes into so much more detail about Ancient China, India, Japan, etc. We do plan on reading the Ramayana. Actually I wouldn't consider my kids well educated without reading the major holy books. But that's just important to our personal family culture. Joy Hakim writes a wonderful US History series. Pandia Press does its level best to publish history and science materials that are secular. Galore Park is a great source for materials. To homeschool in a secular way, you'll have to get creative. Most of the major curricula publishers, especially those classical ed publishers, are going to have a strong bias.

I'm on the fence about this topic.The plan was to homeschool through 8th and then high school. I'm not entirely satisfied with the state of our local high school. We only have one option (rural small town). But I also feel that high school is the time teens need to be around peers and to challenge themselves socially. There's not a lot of other avenues in my area to accomplish that end goal. My oldest ds has Asperger's however, and he's extremely shy and quiet and a bit of a late bloomer in various respects. So naturally I worry about him in a high school environment. Whatever I choose to do, I am spending these next three years preparing like ps high school is still the goal. I'm also pretty certain that my ds will pursue a fine arts college, so...I have that in mind as well.

My oldest only completed maybe 2-3 of the books. My 7 year old only completed 2 of them.The repetition does get old. I like the Get Ready Set Go books for handwriting practice. I prefer my pre-kinders to learn lower case letters, and these ETC books work well for that. I think ETC is good for spelling practice and handwriting practice, but repetition bores us. Plaid Phonics and SWO books are also pretty darn boring. The only benefit I see to these workbooks is practice putting a pencil to paper.

I would just try to have a quiet time built into the day. You can ask them to have a stack of picture books, kid magazines,etc. You could also sit down with your books or magazines. You could do this even with prek children who aren't reading.

Jeweler's loupes!!! And checkout the book The Private Eye for extra tips in how to use them. Small fishing tackle cases are good for collecting and organizing any found treasures. A clipboard with a pencil attached. Various fun notebooking pages.

For cursive instruction---don't slant. Honestly I can't slant either to the left or right as in the examples shared by the pp. There is no purpose or value to slanted handwriting. It's aesthetics only. Not all lefties hook their wrist. Why would it be hard for us lefties to write left to right? Because of the hooked wrist? Again I don't know what the stats are, but I've personally not known a leftie that hooks in my personal acquaintances. If we lived in a left handed world, believe me right handers would be just as frustrated if right handedness came with a lot of myths and misconceptions.

Can your school continue the therapies, or can you find private therapies to continue? When my oldest had OT/Speech, I didn't really worry about school on those afternoons. That was school, because the therapy was so important. If there are exercises you work on at home,I would suggest starting your morning routine with any therapy homework you do each week. The movements and exercises are great warm ups before a math lesson or anything that requires some sitting time. I would use the 9-12 time when your youngest is gone to get some basics covered--math, language arts (spelling, writing, grammar,etc). You could use that time for your one on one with him and then let him continue assignments on his own. While traveling, you could use audiobooks in the car or on an iPod, videos on an iPad (or something similar), a Kindle for reading. If you have long waits at the Clinic, bring along some fun math books (Murderous Maths type books). If you stay overnight or more than a day, bring some review type work instead of new material to learn. If this is just one day a month, don't worry about it. Have a free day. Build the one day a month you don't do school into your plans. Welcome to the boards!!

About the bolded. My ds just turned 7 this July. I've noticed that he hasn't progressed in his 1st grade year like my oldest did. Well, as my lovely DH pointed out to me,my oldest is a winter b-day and was an older 6 year old/young 7 year old in 1st grade. He had more time before I started introducing certain things. I've often thought about giving my two younger (dd is July bday as well) an "extra year." How does that work in your home?

http://www.etclassics.org/pages/the-national-mythology-exam Here's a link for others curious about this. I've not heard of this before. Now I'm interested. It could be a good addition to our Ancients year.

When right handed people say writing isn't an issue for them, do they tend to be gifted? My children have gorgeous handwriting. I've seen plenty of right handed children with terrible handwriting. Do non struggling right handers assume all righties don't struggle? If handwriting is a struggle, it is either because the child is very young and just learning, or there are learning difficulties, or motor difficulties. My oldest struggled and needed OT as a younger child, NOT because he is a leftie or has LDs (which he doesn't), but because he has motor apraxia (Asperger's). Which affects right handers as well. That's the problem. There is NO difference in left and right handers mental abilities to learn to write...or anything. If you are tutoring people with LDs then that is your obstacle to work out, not the handedness. Adults who have lived their whole life with LDs may not be able to get to a proficient handwriting level. My DH is a GED instructor. He works with adults who are functioning at 3rd grade level. Their handwriting is impossible to decipher. I know, I've tried to help him read essays. Their ability to improve is limited more so than a NT child or even a child with LDs. By the time one is an adult, they have established the habit and personal style of their handwriting. It's a hard habit to change.

I vote no. For me they are little more than educational coloring books. I do occasionally buy the Walmart books for the preschool and K ages, because they can keep my little ones happy when they want a school book. But all I would do with my pre k or Kinder child...no. I don't even bother with any upper graded workbooks like that because they would never get used. My ds would have zero interest. Last year when planning our US History I did buy The Complete Book of US History and Presidents and States. I ended up dropping the US history for Hakim because I didn't feel it was enough. It was something my ds could read on his own if he liked. The Presidents and States book was slightly better, but not by much. I feel the same way about Complete Book of Phonics or Reading, Plaid Phonics, or SWO. They just don't hold enough interest or have any thing worth retaining. Workbooks just rarely work in my home. Even the CTP books flop big time.

Seriously, as a left hander, with three left handed children, it's a non issue!!!! You teach a right handed or left handed child to write the same way. It's the same alphabet. Whether right or left handed, a child should learn to hold a pencil in the tripod grip. They have to write from left to right, top to bottom. They have to form the letters in the exact same way. You may see your left hander crossing the t bar in the opposite direction,that's just normal and no cause for concern. Some left handers do better with cursive that is not slanted. It doesn't matter either way. Some left handers have trouble with ink/pencil smears, some never do. It has never been an issue for me or my children. Mainly because I write, and have taught my children to write, with their hands just below the line they are writing on.That's good advice whether you are left or right handed. They may need to tilt their paper a certain way, but there is no hard and fast rule. I'm an extreme paper tilter, my 11 year old keeps the paper straight up and down, my 7 year old has a barely there tilt. Like right handers, left handers will adjust their paper how they are comfortable. Spiral notebooks bother some children, as do workbook spines. If it's an issue use loose leaf or spiral at the top notebooks and cut the workbook bindings. These things don't even bother other left handers. I have never in my life set eyes on a pair of left handed scissors. Doesn't matter. I teach my kids to use scissors. Not special scissors, just scissors. It hasn't been a problem. It may help your child if you sit on their right hand side. Then they can see your writing and you can see their writing without the writing hand in the way of vision. Handwriting Without tears is a great program--left or right handed. Mostly, just don't borrow trouble. We lefties learn to write in the exact same ways righties do. If either of my children were lefties that curved their wrist to write upside down, I might have gently tried to correct that. But even that is a non issue tbh.

I would use FLL 1/2 with a K-2nd grade child. I use the older combo book and I found FLL1 to be too easy for my ds last year (1st grade 6 years old). He's going to move into FLL2 this year for 2nd however. I would use FLL1 with a Kinder. Not necessary for a Kinder to do it, but it could be done. I don't believe grammar really needs to be started earlier than 3rd grade, but I find FLL easy and gentle. WWE I would start when a child was ready for it. I started my oldest ds on WWE3 in 3rd grade and quickly pulled back to WWE2. He never did WWE1 and did not finish WWE4. I tried WWE1 with my 6 year old last year, but it was too much considering he was still trying to learn to read. We'll possibly try again for 2nd. I would ideally start WWE1 with a 2nd-3rd grader. Here's SWB updated recs for WWE/WWS. When my dd is ready I'm not even going to bother with WWE in 1st grade. And my oldest dropped WWE4 for Killgallon and I'm so glad we did. http://downloads.peacehillpress.com/samples/pdf/WWEandWWSexplanation.pdf?utm_source=Catalog&utm_medium=Print&utm_content=Page%2B9&utm_campaign=2014%2BCatalog&page=10

I usually make a rum bread pudding for the holidays. Bread puddings call for a lot of eggs. It would still be tasty in summer. Breakfast egg muffins are tasty. Fried egg on Spanish rice and beans are good. Eggs are delicious on sub or deli style sandwiches as well.