I think you've gotten a lot of good advice here to go with a non-dated plan for your reading -- whether you number your weeks or just have a list of books you want to read in a particular order. As the pp's said, it's so hard to know how long each book will take. If I were you I would channel your desire for specific goals and schedules into other subjects -- it's much easier to schedule out math or spelling, for instance -- and then try and be more relaxed with the literature. You'll still read plenty of books this year. I think the number is do-able. I read 25 read alouds to my second grader last year reading 30-60 minutes per night before bed. For this next year I have a list of around 35-40 read alouds for third grade including both books related to history and those not related to our history -- but I know we might not get to all of them and some of those will be much shorter read alouds that my 3rd grader could potentially read alone (but I am reading them aloud so my rising K'er can experience some of them as well). And next year we'll read both during the day (with the 3rd grader and the K'er) and at bedtime (just the 3rd grader and me). You also asked about Lapbooks. I think it would not be reasonable at all to make a lapbook for every book you read, unless you are talking just one or two mini-books per book. When we have done a couple literature based lapbooks in the past, it took significant time over a couple weeks to make a lapbook covering just one or two books. Of course, YMMV and you might be able to get thru a lapbook faster if you child loves cutting/pasting/writing. You might want to check out notebooking, since there is a lot less crafty time (potentially) in making a notebook page for each book you read.

We liked Raggedy Ann Stories and Raggedy Andy Stories. I thought maybe only DD would like them, but DS5 liked them too!

:iagree: My DD was never in PS, but one of her best friends goes to PS so there is often a desire to go play with her friend when PS has break/days off. Knowing that she can have a playdate after her schoolwork is done when her friend is on break is a great motivation to get work done quickly! DD's other best friend IS homeschooled, but the friend's family follows a different schedule than ours (they break much longer for summer, but their "school day" is a lot longer/goes later in the day during the school year). So I do occasionally hear complaints along the line of, "Why do I have to do spelling in July when my friend doesn't?" Or whatever...so we have to talk about the different choices our families make even when it comes to other homeschoolers.

Here's another one I just found while browsing through my amazon wish list: Just Plain Nora -- about a girl in Colorado in 1881

Here's a couple we've read: Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer (1890s) (I wrote a review of this on my blog...see my siggy for a link, and you should be able to search for it). the first couple Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace are 1890s If you haven't read the "Rose" books (Laura Ingalls Wilder's daughter), the first few of those are pre-1900. This page at A Book in Time has some suggestions for that time period. HTH!

Very interesting...thanks for sharing those thoughts, Denise!

Great plans! I want to have DD read American Girl books too while we are studying US History ...I had forgotten about Josephena. I need to add her to my plans. There is also Mary Grace/Cecile now around the same time as Kirsten, but they live in New Orleans.

We're doing a "create your own" US History yr 1 (up to 1850ish) this year too. My primary audience is my upcoming 3rd grader, but hoping my K'er will listen in on some too. I'm finding inspiration from Sonlight, A Book in Time, and the free American History plans from Guest Hollow. I want to gather plenty of lap booking/history pocket/other cut-n-paste type of crafty stuff for DD to use since she loves that sort of thing. I'm having so much fun picking my own books rather than just relying on someone else's choices! :001_smile:

It did come out fairly recently. I bought it at a convention, but it looks like Rainbow Resource carries it now too. I wrote more about my initial impressions of it on my blog: http://homeschooldiscoveries.com/2012/06/07/initial-impressions-of-the-logic-of-english-essentials-curriculum/ Short answer, you need a teacher's manual and probably a workbook at minimum. If you want to play the games you'll need at least the games book. If you are willing to spend some time making them yourself you could make phonogram cards or game cards instead of buying them. Spelling journal is pretty optional. If you were really looking to save $, you might be able to skip the workbook, but you would be putting together some of your own exercises. It's a really thick workbook for the price.

I bought LOE a couple months ago primarily for my 8 y.o. DD who is a really struggling speller. But I also have a 5 y.o. DS who is learning to read. I had already been using phonics pathways with him. Learning all the phonograms is going to be wonderful for a new reader. But, something to keep in mind is that LOE moves in one lesson from three letter words (and a couple four letter words) to four and five letter words and more. Unless your new reader is a real whiz at blending, I think you would find yourself hanging out on that one lesson or just playing games and learning phonograms while finding many, many cvc and other easy phonics books to practice with. The two kids that I have taught to read so far have needed weeks of practice just on easy cvc words before moving on to something else. I think it would be easier for most people unless you have access to a really large number of simple phonics based books to practice with, to use another phonics book alongside for practice while your student is also learning the phonograms. My 5 y.o. can learn new phonograms along with his big sister, but he isn't anywhere close to being able to spell all of what she is spelling. I'm not sure that any phonics book is a perfect match to LOE, but I find it is pretty easy to incorporate LOE phonograms and rules into what we do in Phonics Pathways or while reading easy phonics readers.

What types of "digging deeper" and activities are you looking for? Ones specifically related to the books you are reading? Or just related to the historical time period? I didn't use illuminations but we read all of MOH 2 and part of 3 this year, and I even thought all the book suggestions and activities just from the rec'd resources there was more than we wanted to do. I picked a few read alouds this year based on suggestions from MOH and then just picked other books not related to history that I thought DD would like. But she is also not a big "lets do crafts related to history or literature" sort of a kid. She would much rather just look at a book of crafts and pick her own projects to complete that suit her mood that day!

As I recall, most books like that are giving only very general guidelines as to when a book might be enjoyed. They aren't saying, "Read this in 5th grade," just maybe something like "books for upper elementary," and so on. It's not pointless at all if you come up with a list that makes sense to your family. The perfect age for one kid to read a book might be different for different kids. My daughter adored and connected with the first couple "Betsy Tacy" books at age 5 and 6. Another family we know tried those books at the same age with their daughter and it was a flop. But at age 7, this friend now loves them. Curriculum writers and list writers make their best guess, and we as parents take those best guesses and decide for ourselves if those suggestions work.

I have a long list of links to various book lists In this post on my blog: http://homeschooldiscoveries.com/2012/04/30/resources-for-making-a-book-list/ Sounds like a fun project! I'll look forward to seeing the results!

Skill builder spelling is a nice basic free app. My 7 year old DD would rather practice her words on there than writing them out, anyhow. I'm looking for more spelling apps too -- especially ones that are more "fun" practice but also allow for a custom list. Spell Board looks interesting, but I have had a hard time convincing myself it was worth the price without some kind of free trial, and I didn't see a lite/free version of it.

When I was in about 8th grade, I loved "On Numbers" by Isaac Asimov: http://amzn.com/0517371456 It looks like it is out of print, but probably something a larger library would have. 20+ years ago my small town library had it. While a work of non-fiction, it totally inspired me to think about numbers in new ways so I would say it qualifies as a book of "living math". Of course, I still did not turn out like my husband, who literally sits with a legal pad doing math "for fun" (usually somehow related though to his professional work doing R & D at a medical device company), with pages and pages of things that I barely understand even though I took 2 semesters of calculus in college! When I think of "living math" I think what comes to mind is how my husband describes he was raised. He worked on all kinds of home projects with his dad, and his dad was always challenging him to figure out the math needed (often in his head) or his dad would just ask him questions to really make him think (for example, asking him how he would estimate the surface area of a lake they were driving by). Now my husband is the type of guy who instead of just measuring and cutting "as you go" to find the length of boards needed to build a wooden fence gate with a friend, he will sit with a pad of paper and work out the geometry given the size of the opening, and show up to work on the project with all the needed lumber dimensions in hand. While are a totally using a math curriculum (though Right Start is pretty far from the traditional methods used when I was in public school!), I am also trying to help my kids see how math is woven into life. I think we're all "doing math" on a regular basis, and I am trying to remember to think out loud to my seven year old and challenge her to think about math beyond what she is learning in her math lessons in RS. Anyway, maybe a different train of thought than where you are headed, but maybe there is something in there for you. :-)

I think Right Start is a great fit for kids who don't like to write or have struggles in that area. In Level A you could almost skip the written work entirely (or as others have said, scribe for your child), and even the amount of writing in Level B (which can also be a starting point depending on the math abilities and maturity of the child) is still much less than other comparable programs, in my opinion. The lesser emphasis on written work was one of the reasons we chose Right Start when my daughter was half way through K. Even now as we are beginning 2nd grade she tires easily of writing or gets frustrated with trying to make the numbers properly, but as a K'er she could handle almost no writing at all -- yet was ready to progress in math concepts.

We also have a fuze and we bought a cord for a couple bucks at radio shack with a headphone plug on both ends -- we use this for plugging it into the car, into our "big" stereo, and even into an old cd "boombox" that had an auxiliary jack on the back. If you want just two listeners at a time you can also buy a "headphone splitter" at radio shack to allow two sets of headphones plugged in at the same time (we sometimes do this for the two oldest kids on long trips). We love our Sansa Fuze for audio books -- just plug it into the computer, drag the audiobook files to the "audiobooks" folder, and it's ready. Even my 7 year old can find the book she wants on the Fuze and listen to it.

I was about to ask the op which Bio she read that claims this...I've read at least two different Bios of M.H.L, visited her childhood home, etc, and I've never heard that there was any doubt as to her authorship. The last six books are very different than the first four in the series, but I think that reflects the different themes of the books -- a young woman coming of age in the final six books vs. girlhood fun in the first four books. But if the original poster has a book in mind we should check out that makes this claim, I am very curious and would like look at it for myself!

Health is a required subject in our state, and while I don't plan to put a lot of time into it (maybe a couple hours per month?), I want to do something intentional or I won't in good conscience be able to say we've covered it. I've looked at a few textbooks and I just wasn't impressed. I think my ideal curriculum for health would suggest a few books on each topic, give some project or field trip ideas, maybe a few videos to watch, etc. I'm thinking we would include some safety topics too (fire safety, water safety, etc). I know I could put this together on my own with a few hours of research to find the best books, etc...but I feel like I might be reinventing the wheel if someone out there has already put together a free or inexpensive curriculum that does that same thing. I'm looking at early elementary age, BTW -- my oldest is in 2nd grade, and her 4 year old brother would be a tag-along. :-) Is there anything out there that does what I am looking for? Thanks!

There's definitely a complete supply list in the files section of the yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/K5science/

This may sound a little strange, but have you tried different kinds of paper? My DD always disliked and stressed out a lot about anything written when she needed to write in "typical" kids writing paper (with the dotted line in the middle) or in smallish workbook spaces. As soon as I gave her either wide-ruled notebook paper or paper with no lines, she was a lot less stressed out about it, and was a lot more willing to write. Is her handwriting perfectly proportioned? No, but I would rather have her willing to write and have some letters the wrong size than sitting with a DD who refuses to write or gets totally stressed out about it!

As another lefty I would totally agree with this. I absolutely must write with my left hand, but because "back in the day" when computer mice had short cords, it wasn't very practical to always be switching them to a different side, I learned to mouse with my right hand -- even for tasks like games and drawing that require some fine motor control. I tried to mouse with my left hand the other day, just for fun, and it felt about as awkward as if I tried to write with my right hand! I've only played woodwind instruments, but at least as far as those go, handedness wouldn't matter at all because both hands work in coordination.

I would also recommend checking out BFSU if it covers the right ages for what you need. The first two volumes have been published (K-2 and 3-5), and a third volume is forthcoming for middle school grades. My husband has a PhD in Chem. Engineering, and he was unsatisfied with most of the homeschool science options. He was about to start writing his own lessons when we discovered BFSU. I personally found it hard to teach without a lot of prep time, but we decided that it would work for us to have a weekly "family science night" where my husband would teach it as he can "think on his feet" and is able to put together a lesson with very little prep time due to his extensive science background. I then can just supplement during the week with extra library books on the topic, etc.

Oh, I guess I didn't answer your question about age appropriateness. I think it is about right for most 3 to 4 year olds, other than maybe the handwriting suggestions. My DD and DS were not ready for letter writing practice at 3 -- DS4 is just starting to do some now, and DD still struggled with writing at 5. However, each child is different so some may be ready for those activities at 3, and if not, you could skip or modify those activities.

We tried it for maybe half a year when my DD was 4. It is very complete in terms of pre-k skills and has many, many different activities. We gave it up because I just found I didn't like an "all in one" curriculum where every "subject" is scheduled out (aka, on Week 5, day 3 do this for bible, this for math, this for language, this for science, etc). I found myself wanting to go at a different pace in different areas. For example, my DD wasn't ready at 4 for a lot of the writing activities that were scheduled, but each day's math left her wanting more. You could skip around (doing the math on one page, the letter activities from another page, etc), but after trying that for a bit I decided I really just wanted each piece totally separate. I still find that I am not an "all in one" type of person and need to have each subject separate. I tried Little Hands to Heaven by HOD for a couple months this past year with DS, and I had the exact same problem with that. But, I have several friends that used it very successfully (and have gone on to use other similarly scheduled curricula like HOD or MFW). I have a couple other friends that bought to mainly use the "unit study" or topical portion of the curriculum and ignored most of the other activities. Hope that helps!