Is your 4 year old starting to read or already reading? I am buying Core A as well this year for my (almost) 6 and 4 year old. My 3.5 yr old loves chapter books already. He listens to My Father's Dragon nightly and has high comprehension and narration skills so I am not worried too much about the books. However, I decided to just go ahead and get the LA portion (ie get the complete core) but get the K LA for the 3.5 year old (he'll be 4 when the new school year starts). I think he will be ready for it come the fall as he is already starting to read and write. My 5.5 yr old is too far ahead in LA to use the SL stuff, but I think it will work for my son. Just something else to consider, if you wanted to do your own thing for 1st grade LA, but try the K LA for your younger. I also know a blogger who is quite satisfied with the LA portion of SL. She does add in Language Lessons (the Charlotte Mason LA books) but likes the SL portion too.

You can always at least save shipping by ordering it from Sonlight. They have free shipping over $25. That's where I have purchased mine in the past.

Mathematical Reasoning. Very colorful too. My dd despised math until we switched to those.

You can always get AAS through Sonlight. It is just enough over to qualify you for free shipping. This is how I always purchase my next levels of AAS.

Another thing you could do with MM is give him all the chapter tests and just see which chapters he actually needs to do. I did that with some of MM2 with DD.

My DD was almost done MM2 and SM2B, but I still bought level C (second grade) because I wasn't sure how challenging it was going to be. She is flying through it, so I probably could have gotten the next level, but the point was to get her to like math. I think if you go to the Critical Thinking Company, you can see samples from both Level C and D and see which would be best for him. I forget now which level you said he was in.

My DD did not like math until I switched her to Mathematical Reasoning. We used Singapore first, then MM and RS and a bit of MEP and finally, on the suggestion of two other moms, we made the switch to Mathematical Reasoning (by Critical Thinking Company). The books are bright, colorful, the questions are puzzle-like (makes DD think she is a detective and she loves that). It wasn't my top choice at all for math, but if it is what makes my daughter excited about math, then right now, I suppose, it is the right math program for us. She will go beyond what I assign in MR, but would complain and fight to do a single problem in Singapore and MM.

FLL 1 and 2, the teacher text of FLL 3

We love AAS and used it with tiles only for the first half of level one. We no longer use the tiles because my DD prefers not to use them, so if the tiles were what we're deterring you from trying AAS, rest assured that the program can be used without them.

I am using B with my 5 year old. She turned 5 in August. She loves all the readings and sits through them well. She can narrate back. It really depends on your five year old and what he is willing to sit and listen to. If he sat through and enjoyed Farmer Boy, he'd like the read alouds in Core B. Core B would be fine for your third grader and you could have some great discussions together.

You can see if your library has it. Mine did, so I was able to look through it and try out a few lessons to decide if it was a good fit. We ended up purchasing it.

I print ours in B&W and DD5 likes it just fine.

We got the Young Explorer Set 2 for our 3 and 5 year old to share as one of their Christmas presents. They already have the Starter pack. It may be too easy for my 5 yr old, but I wanted the 3 yr old to be able to use it too, as he is the one who likes to play with the miniLUK more. I would have preferred to get the Advance Collection Set for the 5 yr old, but that will have to be a present down the road. The Young Explorer Set will be about the same difficulty level as the Starter Pack, and says it is for ages 5-7, and the Advance Collection looks more challenging (too challenging for my 3 yr old) and says ages 7 and up. I'm not sure how old your son is. I hope my answer helps:) My son LOVES the miniLUK, but still wants me to sit next to him while he uses it.

This is also how we do CC and SOTW together. Last year I tried to go in depth for each history sentence and went crazy. This year we're doing it as Mt. Hope described. We are really enjoying CC more this year as a result. MFW doesn't become "classical" in the sense of the 4 year cycle until 3rd grade when you can start Greeks to Romans (or whatever that first year of Ancient history is called).

I just posted some of our favorite toys for our 3 and 5 year old on my blog. Honestly, most of the ones on the list are preferred by the three year old. Magna-tiles are truly the big hit with my kids though.

Thank you for your opinion and suggestions:)

Would anyone tell me their honest opinions about this program? Is it worth the money? How easy is the first level. I've spoken French to my children on and off since birth, and they understand a lot, but I am trying to boost their vocabulary and interest to speak the language. If not Matou le Tatou, are there any other resources that may be helpful? I speak and read French, so it doesn't matter if the resources are French. Thank you.

What's LCC? I know the other two. Thanks.

That's encouraging because that is what my 3 year old has done - balked at the work of learning to read, even though he knew his letter sounds before knowing the names of colors and shapes. He can tell you all the sounds and chunk sounds, and read some CVC words but he doesn't like hard work.

While I don't see any problem with what you have described (in fact, it is a wonderful thing to be devouring audio books), I would occasionally have her follow along in the print book of the audio book she is listening to. It is good for them to see the words in print as they hear them. I do this with my 5 year old (who can read well). We recently listened to The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and I wanted her to follow along for that book. She did it begrudgingly, but in the end, liked following along. She then decided to go and reread the book herself.

I also blog about our CC journey and here is the link to all posts related to CC. I was blogging about my weekly plans, but the botany plans have all been lumped into one post now and I am working on a second post of botany experiments we have done or will do. For history, we are reading through Story of the World Volume 1, but I have friends who own all 4 volumes and read the section pertaining to the history sentence for the week.

I'm doing Core B with my 5 year old, so I definitely think Core C is doable for 1st and 3rd.

The one I had expired at the end of August. :(

We got a learning resources scale - its on amazon, but I got it at RR because I was already placing an order and needed to get to $50 for free shipping. it served its purpose. It's like a kitchen scale and is in lbs and grams.

We did this experiment via RSO Life and our worms died and oatmeal got moldy. Our worms didn't bulge like that. In fact, they did burrow, but I think we made the layers too wet. Please post the reason if you find out:)