I voted other because when we have a big project we clear one day a week to work on it. The other days go as planned but we do work on the big project as well but just for a short while. This year my kids are doing Nanowrimo and are both going to write a novel. I added writing to our daily schedule and I also cleared Thursdays so we can just work on our writing. I'm sure my kids will also work on their books after school on their own, but that is up to them not required. AL

If your child or children are young or have never done narration before you start out slow. At first you may have your child just narrate back a paragraph or two. After they get used to that make it a little longer. The goal is to have short lessons so as to keep their attention, so the whole lesson would be 15 minutes which would included the child's narration. But remember start out short and build up to it. As for living books everyone has their own opinion. This is how I pick, open up to the first page and read the page if my kids want me to keep reading we keep it. :D AL

We like Simply Charlotte Mason here. If you go to the website click on the free curriculum guide. It will show subjects, then just click on the subjects you want and it gives you ideas of what to use. It took me a while to navigate the website, but keep trying it is worth it. We are using their history lessons, and I find them a good fit for us. I love that they are set up for multiple grades. Also, you can download a sample of many of their books. They also have free books on getting started with CM. I tried to add the link for the website, but for some reason my phone isn't letting me. Anyway it is called Simply Charlotte Mason. AL

I had never heard of this. Thanks for sharing, my kids and I are signing up.:D My oldest always is starting stories, and I think this will be a help with her writing. AL

Thanks I ordered it from the library. AL

Thanks for the link to the poem! I'm saving that one to use. AL

Thanks everyone for all the replies. I decided to ask my girls! (I don't know why I didn't think of that.) Anyway they picked Anton van Leeuwenhoek and Carl Linnaeus. Since I wanted three I decided on Louis Pasteur. Now, does anyone know of any great living books for any of these scientist? AL

We use this, and both of my girls are really liking it. It doesn't take us more than a half hour. We have only just started our school year, so we are only on lesson 9, but so far so good! AL

:bigear: Looking for favorite living books on scientist.

Louis Pasteur Alexander Fleming Robert Hooke Anton van Leeuwenhoek Aristotle Carl Linnaeus Dr. William Beaumont Luther Burbank George Washington Carver George de Mestral Jean Henri Fabre Jacques Cousteau Roger Tory Peterson John J Audubon These are the scientist who are mentioned in our biology (science) book for this year. I was thinking of picking three to study more indepth. I would like to do one scientist for each term. ( We break our school year into 3 terms.) Are there any "living" books about any of these scientist that are not to miss? Who would you pick, and why? Thanks, AL

I am thinking of doing a Shakespeare play with my girls for one school term. What I would like are other things we could do during the other terms so that our days are about the same length of time. I don't want my girls to feel like our school days are longer just because we are studing Shakespeare, so what fun ideas do you have for me. Thanks, AL

Thanks, Al

I know I should be able to find this, but I can't. What order does SBW recomend for studing science each year. I want to put my girls on the same rotation for science and start them at the beginning. Thanks, Al

:lurk5:

LivriVox has poems read online. How do you find good ones, or favorite ones with so many to choose from? :w00t: If you have found poems on LibriVox that are not to miss, please post them here. Right now my children and I have been listening to Poems Every Child Should Know by Mary E. Burt on LivriVox. http://librivox.org/poems-every-child-should-know-edited-by-mary-e-burt/ AL

Another thing we did was called changing sentences. For sentence changing start with a short sentence. Pass it around a group of friends or if only two people decide on how many turns each. We usually do about three turns. The rules are each person must add or change One word to make a better sentence. For example we changed the sentence: The pig ran. It became: The miniature Boston terrier sniffed prickly raspberries. AL

I always liked the older one because it was more to the book. My children loved the songs, especially when the goose teaches Wilbur to speak. They picked up some wonderful vocabulary. AL

Make a word pool. This isn't a writing curriculum, but worked great for my daughter who hated writing. First you get lots of index cards, and some envelops to put them in. (My daughter glued the envelops onto a page and put it in her binder, for safe keeping.) Then take any book that your child has read and open it randomly to any page. Have your child pick out any words or phrases that she likes. Do a few at a time. Also use a variety of different books. The point is to collect words and phrases so you can use them in your writing. (You can also take it a step further and also color code the cards for nouns, verbs, ect.) My daughter would whine and fuss about writing everyday, until we started doing this. Her favorite game was picking a number of cards randomly and then having to use all the words in a story or poem. After doing this she started writing without whining, then she started writing without being asked. Now, when asked she says writing is her favorite subject.:001_smile: If my daughter can do it, yours can too! AL

Do you have the book? If you do you could see which lessons she needed to do and skip all the review. AL

When we were just starting out homeschooling, I used to buy an all in one box curriculum. When it came I would wrap it up with wrapping paper. Then the first day of school the girls would each open their new school curriculum. They loved it! AL

What's the name of the company? I want a subscription too!:D AL

Thank you Paula. You really answered my questions. Thanks, AL

I am looking for a writing program for my oldest. She has told me she would like to work on her writing this coming year. Writing is a struggle for her. I was thinking Writing Strands would be good because it is broken down into little chunks. Then there is a part of me that wants IEW. My problem is I feel like I get lost looking on their site. I really seem to like TWSS. From what I can tell it is only the teacher's course. Can you use this without any of the other writing programs for IEW? I really would like something that I could use to teach writing but use our own resources, like whatever book we are using for history or science. There are things I like about WS and then things I like about IEW. This is just messing up my mind. How do I make a wise informed choice?:confused: AL

When my girls were younger we used reading games from the book Games for Reading. I believe it was by Peggy Kaye. The games are easy to do and my kids enjoyed them. AL

Nice!:)