We took ours last week. Dh had time off and it was 85 here! (normal avg. temp's here are in the 40's during March). ENJOY!! (wishing we were still on break.....)

We're going to try Beautiful Feet Geography next year (it uses the Holling books which I love). It might be too simple for a 13 yr.old, though.

So far, I've learned history, latin, a lot about art history (had to teach a co-op class) and lots of mental math tricks (no more counting on fingers for ME! :lol:) This is one of the many reasons I love homeschooling, I can fill in my own educational gaps.

I don't know about immediately after Magic Tree house, but my 4th grader is loving the 39 Clues series. These are different in that the kids are looking for clues for this treasure hunt (of sorts), and while they are, they find out the Cahill family has all of these famous relatives from the past (I 'think' I'm remembering this right.) Anyway, they talk about famous people, and for my ds, it had sparked an interest in learning more about them. For example, the Medici family was mentioned (the wealthy Italian family who were patrons for famous artists like Leonardo and Michelangelo,) and when we came to them in our history this year he wanted to know all about them (meanwhile I was thinking that I had never learned about them in any history class I had ever taken, :lol:). These would be for slightly older kids, because the other relatives involved in the treasure hunt are pretty evil and mean to the main kids, so I'd preread one and see if it was appropriate for your dc.

My mom had this from when she was a little girl and my kids love it: http://www.amazon.com/The-Fairy-Tale-Book-Deluxe/dp/B001D67Q7A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332523950&sr=8-1 It looks like there is a new reprint, but I'm not sure if the pictures are the same. http://www.amazon.com/Golden-Book-Fairy-Tales-Classics/dp/030717025X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1332523950&sr=8-2

Is there a particular book that is giving you trouble? For history, I use a variety of stuff b/c I want to keep mine together. You could check out Simply Charlotte Mason for other books. We used that (SCM) this year w/ SOTW 2 and some of AO yr 2. SCM books included Famous Men of the Middle Ages and Famous Men of the Ren. and Ref along with several other books depending on what age group they fall. If you look on their website, you can see all the books listed, and maybe that would be a CM program that your family would like better. We do not use straight AO (obviously, from my siggy ;)), but have been using some of year 2 and 3 this year. Books like Pilgrim's Progress and Parables of Nature have been too hard for my kids, so we excluded them. We did use Little Pilgrim's Progress, and will maybe get to those harder ones another year. If I find a book is too hard for them to read on their own, they will often understand if I read it aloud. For example, this year we had Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Pyle. This was WAY too hard for my second grader to read on his own obviously. I figured it would be way too hard for him to understand with me reading it also. But, surprisingly, he not only could understand it and narrate it well, but he really liked it too. If I find they really aren't understanding a book, we break into smaller chunks until they do. Sometimes this means having them narrate after each paragraph, but usually after doing this for a short time, they will catch on and no longer need such short sections.

My kids liked History Pockets, and I bought some of those Hands on dollar books from Scholastic. I also found lots of fun things at my library. More than Moccasins had cute crafts. I also found ALOT of free stuff on pinterest (lapbooks mainly for my kids, but with a quick search of what you need you can find so much~)

A couple of my ds's favorites from this year were: Cricket in Times Square Caddie Woodlawn (even though it was about a girl, he said it was his favorite book ever) 39 clues series Indian in the Cupboard Mysterious Bendedict Society series (these were a readaloud for him) Several of the Marguerite Henty books (Misty of the Chincoteague was one, I can't remember the other titles)

:lol::lol: Now THAT is a good idea!!! I have those too, and had no idea how to fit them in! :D See how helpful these boards are????

Well, considering I already have everything I need for math and science for next year, AND I either can get from the library, or have on my kindle all of the extra history and lit. books for next year, could someone please explain WHY I have about $800 worth of stuff in my Rainbow Resource cart right now. :toetap05: Couldn't have anything to do with the fact I have about 6 writing programs in it for my boys that both HATE to write!!! :tongue_smilie: Or a $100 worth of extra math.... OR.... :glare: OK, off to delete a few things in that cart....

:iagree::confused::confused: I really like it! But I guess it comes down to what Dh says.... I wouldn't worry about ANYONE else, however.

all your curriculum plans finally gel together in the end? I have been so bummed lately b/c we haven't been getting around to art (picture/artist study or creating art). I woke up at 4 this morning and couldn't fall back to sleep, so I decided to get up and finish planning out the last 10 weeks of school (I mean, what else do you at 4am?) :D And looking through my Artistic Pursuits book, I realized that if we did a block of time on Fridays and did the artist study and the art project, we could get through everything I was wanting to accomplish! I also went through the *ahem* 3 history programs that we're combining and I figured out those for the next 10 weeks, and we will finish everything I hoping to accomplish by the last day of school with 3 whole days to spare! I feel like dancing! Or waking up my kids to share the good news! :hurray: So, anyone else have a happy mama moment they'd like to share?? :bigear:

I was just talking about this w/ my dh last night. I have no experience with Dreambox, but I SWEAR they are teaching things that I never learned until middle school to these kids. I guess it's a good thing...:confused: my kids can do math in their heads that I need a pen and paper for (and yeah, my kids are in elementary school.) I just keep wondering if one of these days their heads are going to explode from too many crammed-in math facts :lol: (how's that for a grammatically correct sentence ;))

Thank you so much everyone! I think wanting to do both was wishful thinking, and I will have quite a full plate anyway next year. Sometimes it seems like it would be easier without so many good choices. ;)

:D That is very true!

My oldest will be in 5th grade next year (Logic stage! I'm terrified already! lol!) We just start Classical Writing this semester. I really like it...but tonight I was able to look through WWS at my local bookstore. I think this looks REALLY great as well. So, how could I go about using both :D without my son hating me forever and ever. :lol: (He does not like writing, no matter what I use.) I'll be using Aesop B with him next year. Should I try to get through that during the first semester, then move into WWS, and when that is finished move into CW Homer? Or do you veteran hsers think I should just pick one or the other of the writing programs, and if so, which would be best for 5th?

How important are the student pages? It looks like you have to buy 4 sets (per child!) for the year if you do one book in a year. Is that right? So for my two kids, the worksheets for one year are about $46? (and that is not for the teacher's guide...so it would be more than that). That seems really high for worksheets.....:001_unsure:

Glad you pointed that out! This one says it is for vista and xp (I have xp) http://www.amazon.com/Encore-16841-Oregon-Trail-Edition/dp/B002CMU748/ref=dp_ob_title_)

I was wondering if they had made a mistake....

Thanks everyone! I'll see if my library has it before I buy it b/c it would be for 3rd and 5th grade. We don't have a wii, but we do have an ipod, so I'll see about the app as well. :001_smile:

I wanted to get my ds the Oregon Trail game that we played on the computer when we were kids (obviously the updated one!) I found this at RR, http://www.rainbowresource.com/wldetail.php?&id=030064 but it says it's for grades 8+. Is that accurate? The Oregon Trail game that I'm thinking of was in elementary school. You had to buy your supplies and then try to make it down the trail (hunt for food, ford the river, etc.) I don't want it if they've changed it and made it for high schoolers b/c this is for my elementary kids.

Also, I use to buy everything I could used. However, I've had several things that did not hold up (covers fell off, spines cracked etc). The books were fine when I got them, it wasn't that the person sent shoddy books, but they just had been used so often, that they fell apart for us. This happened with 2 of the teacher guides for math, so I won't be able to resell them when I finish with them, and the price I payed was half of the new price. Well, I'd rather buy new and sell it when I'm done with it and end up paying the same than buy used and have a book that's falling apart.

Rikki Ticki Tavi is in the Jungle Book (at least my version) although you can get it by itself. My library has a nice picture book version (it is not abridged, but has beautiful full page pictures for the entire story). I like Just So Stories for slightly younger kids than Jungle Book. I use AO lit. lists, and I think Just So Stories was used around the ages of 6, 7 or 8, and Jungle Book for 3-5th grade. This worked well for us. The first time I read Just So Stories outloud, I HATED it. But when I read it aloud last year to my youngest, I loved it. So did my kids. I think my problem was that I wasn't familiar with reading that kind of a book outloud, and it was very awkward for me. Jungle Book was easier to read aloud, imo. As far as which of them to choose, I like both. See, I wouldn't want to choose between some of these books...I couldn't pick only 3 per year. :lol: I'm tempted to write down every book on this thread and make sure we squeeze them in. ;)

:iagree: When I started homeschooling, I avoided Abeka like the plague b/c of what I had heard from various forums. However I ended up using their phonics after other programs caused lots of tears. I love their phonics, although I tweak it some.

Well, I try to have my kids pick either at the library or at a bookstore because often they like different illustrations than I do. But we both liked Wind in the Willows and Alice in Wonderland illustrated by Ingpen.