My kids have been doing Every Day Math at school. My experience is that they cover most of the EDM book at school, so if you want to supplement, it might be better to add fact drills or a completely different program. We have been supplementing with Singapore at home. For my afterschooling, I don't ever use the same things that they use at school. My purpose in afterschooling is to give them a different view point from the classroom. You can just do WTM and use books from the library, if you want. For an easy history supplement, I have just given my DD SOTW, and she reads it on her own.

I don't have any suggestions for replacements for FLL and WWE. As for using MCT Island with a 2nd grader, you would likely be fine. The problem would be that Town may be too hard for a 3rd grader, and Voyage would be quite hard for a 4th grader. So then you would need something else in between either Island and Town or Town and Voyage.

What you are describing also sounds like afterschooling - send the kids to school and then supplement at home. You might find some good threads from the afterschooling board that deal with this.

My reading of WTM is not that you would be cramming 4 years of history into 3, but that if the child is ready in the 4th year (or sooner), you would help them to start making the connections of Logic or the analysis of Rhetoric. You will still be studying the same material, just digging a little deeper and instead of memorizing, you will be discussing or expecting a higher level of narration/outline. I feel like this is what makes WTM wonderful. I am not locked into a certain level for any subject. If we are ready to dabble in a higher level of thinking, then we can.

The 5 gallon buckets are good. You just have to make sure that they are food grade. If you can't get them for free, you can order them from places like http://beprepared.com. I also have a large family, and we can go through the 25# bags fast enough that I just leave them in the pantry in their original bags. We are pretty dry here though, so that may make a difference in storage life. Freezing won't affect the quality of the food. If you are using whole wheat, it may make it last longer, but the white flour and sugar should be the same either way.

Also, remember that decoding skills are different than comprehension skills. So a child could read the words of a book at a high level and have no idea what they were reading. The same would be true of listening comprehension. You could listen to the word and know what they mean but not be able to put everything together. It should come with time. Maybe take a break from HOD for 3-6 months and just do reading and math and then come back to it when she is slightly older. If she has been reading for that long, she will probably pick it up quickly if you give it some time.

If you just want your children to have a general music education (learning note names, musical terms, etc.), then teaching themselves from a book is an option. But unless you have a good music background, they probably need a teacher to learn how to play well. I think that all kids who take lessons want to quit sometimes. It is a hard thing to learn and practicing is not always fun. So just because they say they want to quit sometimes, doesn't mean that the piano is not the instrument for them.

We are in a similar situation. I am also pulling my dd out of ps this year. I have decided to use TOG for history, because it contains all of the levels. I can have my dd start at one level and change to another later in the year, if necessary. Science has been the hardest subject to find. I bought RSK4, but without the rabbit trails the pp mentioned, I'm afraid that it wouldn't last very long. I just got my Science Explorer books in the mail today, and I think that they will work well. The nice thing about SE is that we can choose our topic and then a few months later move on to something else. I was worried about feeling trapped in one discipline of science for a whole year when dd is this young.

We mostly focus on math, but we also do music and art, since the school is doing less and less of those as their budget gets smaller.

We have been using EPGY for the lower grades. My kids like it so much better than SM, that we are going to drop SM for the summer and just use EPGY. I will just have to re-evaluate in the fall and see where we are at. As for meshing, I think that you will be fine. They cover concepts in a different order, and the presentation is different, but I don't think you will have a problem.

I am planning to use TOG secularly. You can do a search on the board and find others who are doing it also. I looked at the titles of the weeks for Year 1 on the Tapestry site, and I was pretty sure I couldn't do that very easily, so we skipped to Year 2. As I have looked through my materials, I think that Year 2 will work. There will obviously be things that I will skip, but I couldn't do everything anyway, so that should be fine.

I usually chose one or two subjects that I want to focus on and use typical homeschool resources for them. We have been using Singapore math this year as a supplement to their Everyday Math at school. We also do music and art lessons, because those seem to be the first things cut in a budget crunch. And we do a lot of reading. There are afterschoolers who do more, but I find that doing an extra math lesson a day is enough right now. Then we do quite a bit more during the summer. I think that everything you are doing sounds great. If you want to add something else, pick the things that are most important and add them one at a time.

You may want to find parents of other gifted kids in your school. If the gifted program is in danger of being eliminated with the loss of the coordinator, another parent advocate may help. Assuming the program continues, I would start the process early in the fall. Some schools only do one testing session per year, and if you miss it, you have to wait a year. Other schools, (like mine), have a 7-9 month wait from initiation to placement. As for how it will affect your afterschooling, I suspect that it won't. Many gifted programs are enrichment only, so if you already feel the need to do things after school, it is unlikely that a gifted program at school will make your afterschooling unnecessary.

I have found that if I spend some time with my youngest child first then he is more likely to let me work with the older ones without interference. One of my older ones was a tornado 2-year-old who grew out of it pretty quickly. So while that doesn't help you this week, you might not have this problem for all of Kindergarten.

I am in a very similar situation, only I have a dd10. This board has been great. I have spent days searching for good curriculum. My goal was to find the people who were obsessed with math and use what they use, the history families and use what they use, etc. So I will tell what I am planning, just to give you something to start your search. But realize that I have not actually used any of these things - everything is theoretical thus far. (Here is a site with info on the abbreviations http://mysite.verizon.net/violetweb/home_school_abbreviations.htm.) Math - EPGY, SM (ds6), Saxon (dd10) History - TOG Writing - IEW Grammar - MCT Science - If only I could find something good. Good luck!

I had a kid like this. He wouldn't read to me no matter what I tried. In the end, I made sure that there were plenty of books around at his level and we had quiet reading time every day. At least then he was reading to himself to practice, and we didn't turn reading into a fight. Now he reads out loud just fine.

If is not too depressing, you could also move him back by .5 grades. Then he would have some good review as a run up to that concept, and maybe it would click the second time around.

I have never had a problem with that. While you may have to teach them a few sight words, PP walks them through just about everything they need.

You might as well start, if she is interested. A three-year-old is never going to sit through a phonics lesson if she is not ready, so you will know pretty quickly if you started too early.

I have used PP with 3 of my children and I am starting on the fourth. I have used it with more than one child at a time and it works very well. I just used book marks for each one and they all moved at their own pace.

I started three of my kids in Suzuki piano, all when they were 4-5. Two of my kids did well, and the other struggled for the first year, but is doing fine now. They definitely don't need to know how to read before they start Suzuki. I also don't think that they need to ask for music lessons before you start them. It is like teaching them to read. They often don't like it in the beginning, but it is good for them. A few more things: look for a teacher who will also teach music reading. It is an important skill and not all Suzuki teachers will teach it. I have found that my kids hate practicing for the first 12-18 months. After that they play well enough to play some things on their own and enjoy piano much more. Then there are not quite as many fights about practicing.

You can grow lettuce, peas, some herbs and sometimes strawberries in full shade. Tomatoes, peppers, and squash will need quite a bit of sun. Probably at the very least, 4 hours. Also, be careful with herbs, because depending on your climate, they can be weeds. I've had problems with chives and cilantro taking over my yard.

Have you seen Mudpies to Magnets by Elizabeth Sherwood? It is not scripted, but they give you vocabulary to use when explaining things. With my youngest, we have gone through page by page, so I still know what I need to prepare for next.

My favorite books have been Baby Signs and Baby Minds by Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn. They suggest activities for various ages and offer suggestions for modified signs.