I've been looking for about 30 minutes, but my computer is moving SO slowly - at least I think it's my pc, but it seems to be moving especially slowly there. It didn't help that I had to reset my password. I found an old link, but it didn't take me anywhere. Just checking, are you logged into the forum? I think you have to be logged in to view the archives.

Have you checked the FIAR forum archives? I remember someone posting something there about it when I was on the forums last year, but I don't remember if I saw a complete list or not.

Another option to consider is the Kyocera Echo, an android phone with 2 screens. I read it with the night option (black screen, white letters)using the FBReader app. I think the day option (white lit screen with black letters) would give me a headache. I have only had the phone a week and the longest reading session I've had was just about an hour. I get headaches very easily and have had a few migraines recently, but this hasn't bothered my yet (I've gotten in several hours of reading already). Yes, the screen is smaller than an ebook reader would be, but going to the next page isn't annoying and I consider myself a fast reader (not a speed reader though). It does not flash or go all black as it transitions to a new page - I just checked.;) I had really been wanting an ereader (or tablet), but I think I'm going to be very happy with instead, especially when I consider the price. It helps that my hubby works for Sprint!

:iagree: I'm doing WWE1 with my dd6 this year too. We've only done 3 weeks and she's wanted me to read each book. I did talk her out of Little House in the Big Woods because she has listened to it so many times. I found a free copy of The Adventures Of Pinocchio online and read it until I got an illustrated copy through ILL. Rumpelstiltskin was read in one setting (again she requested an illustrated copy, so I picked up a version that our library had on hand). We're still working on Pinocchio and I wonder if she's going to ask for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland too. I have not read many of the books that the selections were taken from and I'm excited about using this as a reading list for the year. I'm not sure how many we'll get through, but I'll try requesting some of the audio stories through ILL too.

I'm glad to hear I'm not alone. I was starting to think I was a wimp.:001_huh:

I'm try to decide if I'm just worn out as we start hs 1st grade or if something else is going on. My DH taught public school for several years and said that he was always exhausted the first few weeks of the school year. I've heard other teacher friends talk about that as well - especially their first year of teaching. Is that common among hs parents as well? I really felt great at the beginning of the summer. I've been working out consistently for 20-35 minutes 5-6 mornings a week. I get 7 1/2-8 hours of sleep most nights. At the beginning of July (right after we got back from camping trip) I had an intensive week of lesson planning and prep work for doing 1st grade with DD6. Now we have had 3 weeks of school and I am wiped out! I know that I have really pushed myself to do a lot of prep work for the school year and I haven't taken much time to myself. I used to lay down for 30-60 minutes every afternoon to read or nap, but I hadn't really felt the need the last few months. I have just gotten to the lowest weight I have been at in years (!) but my weight is in the normal range and I am still just above my target BMI. I am not trying to lose any more weight. While I am not dieting, I often have a chocolate soy meal replacement shake for breakfast because I like it (I often have it with a cup of cold coffe). I am NOT pregnant! My dd6 is at day camp this week and I wanted to catch up on some cleaning and projects, but I just don't have the energy to do anything extra. I do have enough energy to get done what needs to get done during the day, but by mid-afternoon I am physically and worn out and by evenings I seem to be emotionally worn out too. I have rested in the afternoons this week, but it doesn't seem to have made much difference. Schooltime was only taking about 3 hours a day, but it seemed to take much longer as I loved on my 3yo and 16mo too. My 16mo has a 45-60 minute quiet time in his crib every morning and naps for about 2 hours in the afternoon. The other 2 have 1-2 hours quiet time in their rooms each afternoon. I do use 1-1/2 hours of the baby's naptime as school time because my daughter is so much more compliant in the afternoons and it really is nice to not have the boys distracting her. It means I'm lucky to have 30 minutes when all 3 are having quiet/naptime, but school is so much easier that way. We took a very gentle approach to KG, and I know that 1st grade work has been an adjustment for all of us. I feel wimpy for admitting that for myself. This fatigue just doesn't feel right. It's not overwhelming, but it is frustrating. It's not as bad as when I had mono 6 years ago. It's not as bad as when I was having estrogen level problems 4 years ago. I'm not pregnant, not nursing, but I am in the best shape I've been in in years. I felt so good just 2 months ago and I want that feeling back! I'd love to hear if fatigue was something others dealt with as they started hs or as they start off each school year after a summer break. I'm trying to decide if this is normal or if I need to figure out what's going on.

Hmmm...so many to choose from, but where we talk about taking the kids the most is: Washington, D.C. (especially the Smithsonian buildings) Yellowstone Europe

That's a great plan to focus on the intent! My DD6 often corrects me, but it is usually because the wrong word or word order has come out of my mouth.:tongue_smilie:Unfortunately that happens more often than I care to admit. I can't use pregnancy fog or lack of sleep as an excuse any more. Most of the time I think she is sincerely trying to be helpful, but sometimes she does it with a bad attitude. I always try to address the attitude. However she seem so sincere and helpful in her desire for me to use the right word/word order that I usually acknowledge what is correct and move on. When her "helpfulness" is not actually helpful, I try to gently communicate that to her as well. Sometimes I find she is more responsive if I bring it up later rather than addressing it right then and then ask her to remember what we talked about if she repeats the not so helpful correction.

What a fantastic idea! Thanks for sharing.

My dd6 loves audio stories so much that I've had to limit her time. She was up to about 4 hours a day and starting to have an attitude and didn't want to play with her brothers. Now, she can listen before breakfast, during afternoon rest time (which can be 1-2 hours if she stays in there that long) and at bedtime if she gets in bed without dawdling. Her favorites are the Little House series, Anne of Green Gables, but she also liked SOTW and Odysseus. She has liked some of the Adventures in Odyssey but not all of them. She has listened to the Little House series so often that I can incorrectly read a sentence from the books (I usually replace a noun or change a color, etc...)and she almost always catches the mistake.

Someone gave us a couple of the DWN books and they have been a hit with my DD6. I don't use the handwriting portion, but I did want to teach her (and me) drawing this year along with our picture studies. I really want to do Drawing With Children but I just haven't been able to jump in even though I've looked at lesson plans created by several others. For now I use DWN when she asks or as a treat for working hard and fast to get through her school work.

I started AAS1 with DD6 3 weeks ago and I can tell it's going to be a great fit for her. I did cringe a little (or a lot) at the cost because I know we will go through 2-3 levels this year. She is not ready to sit still for workbooks, she likes memorizing (so she likes the rules), and she would much rather play with the tiles rather than have to do a lot of writing. Also, she really need more phonics work (100EZ didn't take her to a 2nd grade reading level as advertised and she did NOT like OPGTTR) and is doing well with phonics through AAS. We are on Step 5 and I have seen quite a bit of improvement in just 3 weeks. I'm just glad she likes it because she was so resistant to any other work with phonics that I had tried with her. Sorry, I don't know anything about Rod & Staff.

I did WWE1 week 3 with my dd6 this week also. She's done very well with narration so far, but like many of the others posted here she had a very hard time narrating the Rumpelstiltskin passages. She couldn't answer a single question until I reread the paragraph with the answer. I'm glad to hear that's normal to have problems with those passages. At least she really liked the story - we got a picture book of Rumpelstiltskin. Unfortunately we read the picture book before the last narration and the version was slightly different. She answered some of the questions correctly for the picture book and not for what I had just narrated.:tongue_smilie:I'll have to keep that in mind in the future. She very much wants me to read the stories from WWE which is great, but I doubt we'll get to all of them. She had already listened to "Little House in the Big Woods" in the past, so she didn't ask for it again, but she asked for "The Adventures of Pinocchio" and "Rumpelstiltskin". "The Adventures of Pinocchio" was free online, but I found a beautifully illustrated copy through our library system and picked it up yesterday.

This is a very timely post for me! My husband and I have been discussing the same thing since we started school about 3 weeks ago with DD6. I tried to start slow, but really did more than I planned. There has been a lot of whining and complaining, yet she admits that she likes some of school and some things are fun. My very extrinsically motivated husband suggested we do the following: She gets 3 small magnets on the fridge each day. She can lose them for 1-dawdling/not paying attention, 2-saying "I don't like..." or "I don't want to do...", 3 - bad attitude. For each day that she has at least one magnet left, she will get a sticker on a chart. After 10 "superstar" days she will get some sort of reward. We started with a trip to the pool with just mom or dad (we have a pool pass but she is used to going with the littles in tow), and the next one is a trip to the movies with mom or dad (which is actually a pretty big treat in our house). I was very intrinsically motivated, and have struggled to figure out how much motivating based on rewards is appropriate. However my hubby is the complete opposite (he lost 85 pounds that way - at 50 lbs he got an xbox 360, and at 75 lbs he got an hdtv) and my dd is like him in so many ways. I'm sure we'll do some tweaking as we go along - I like the idea of going down to 2 and then 1 magnets and we may adjust the number of "superstar" days it to takes to get a reward. I don't know how long we'll continue this, but I'm willing to give it a try to start of some good habits of behavior. I also love the We Choose Virtue catchphrase for diligence. "I am diligent. I start fast, work hard and finish strong." (I think that's it, I'm waiting for our poster/flashcards). I remind my DD whenever she starts to lose focus.

What a great idea! I was just thinking about giving my first grader a bit more control over choosing part of her schedule (although certain things will be done during littles quiet/nap time for my sanity -like math and art), but not sure how I wanted to do it. I think she'd like this!

I'm planning to use B4FIAR with my 3 year old this year. I'm amazed at how much he's learned from just being around big sis during her schooling. He's not interested in seat work yet (except for coloring blank paper or coloring books) but I have a Pre-K workbook and I may do some booklets from enchanted learning if he wants to do school along side his big sis. We go to a co-op one afternoon a week for sister and he'll get to participate in a pre-k class there. At this point, I'm just going to follow his lead, but I don't think we'll be doing a whole lot this year other than lots of reading and some living math - and of course art!

For Kindergarten last year, we used CK regularly as a supplement to FIAR. We covered almost everything in the book. This year, I have some sort of curriculum for almost every subject (many WTM suggestions), so I don't think we'll spend as much time with CK 1st grade. I'll probably keep it in the car for carschooling or use it when we need a break from our regular studies.

Thanks so much for sharing. I think I'll make the Thomas one for my 3yo tomorrow! He desperately wants to do his own school work while big sis is doing school but of course he isn't interested in workbook pages. This looks perfect for him.

I second Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization. I just pulled it out today to start with my DD and it seems that many of them would be appealing to boys. In Andrew Pudewa's list of criteria for his selections, he listed humor and enjoyment at the beginning of the list. The very first poem is "Ooey Gooey" -Author unknown. Ooey Gooey was a worm, A mighty worm was he. He stepped upon the railroad tracks, Ooooey Goooey! Of course the poems increase in quality and classic literacy but I'm really excited to start this.

:bigear: I've been thinking about taking apart our workbooks and teachers manuals too, but wondered if people really liked that or ended up with a lot of regrets.

I thought I read that this book could be used with younger children also. Am I wrong about the age recommendations, or is it your experience that it is better waiting until about 5th grade (or not so long if they have better motor control)? The reason I ask, is that I was hoping to use it with my DD6 this year. I do admit after glancing through it I was thinking about maybe sticking with something open and go like Draw Write Now. I'm getting ready to take a look at your lesson plans now. Thanks for sharing!

I started the first week of first grade with my DD6. I just decided to start teaching cursive and now I'm not sure what to do about our copywork for WWE. Do you think I should wait until she has learned all of her letters (lowercase at least, maybe uppercase too?) in cursive before I begin giving her copywork? Or should we go ahead and start with copywork, but just have her print until she knows all her letters in cursive? Should I do the same with spelling (have her print until she knows all her letters in cursive)? We are starting AAS1. Do you expect your children to do all of their writing in cursive (assuming they've learned all their letters) or do you allow them to print for some subjects?

I'm not sure how old you meant by older :tongue_smilie:, but at age 27 I met a neighbor while walking one day and she has become one of my dearest friends. She was there for me when my baby died and my other loved ones (except my hubby) couldn't deal with my grief and just let me grieve. I've been there for her in the middle of the night during an emergency. She's not afraid to gently (or bluntly) show me the error of my ways. While I would say my DH is my best friend, he and I both know that I need to talk a lot more than what he really listens to, so he makes sure I get "Mandie Time." I'm also very close to my twin sister and mother, but this friend is the first non-family member that I have had a close relationship (didn't really look for it before because I had my twin and later my DH). Funny story: I mentioned that we met walking. I always wore a hat or bandanna on our morning walks. When my friend invited me to her house for a home jewelry party a few months after we met, she didn't recognize me without a hat and with make-up!

I read Cursive First, and am now considering having my DD6 start cursive. She used HWT Pre-K and K. I'd like to hear about your experiences starting with cursive. Since she's already been working on print, should I wait another 1-2 years before switching or go ahead and start cursive now?

Thanks for all the feedback. I think I'll listen to the lecture online, skip the text for now, and go ahead and get the workbook. I'll probably get Startwrite too, because I think my daughter would do better with smaller lines.