Fourth Grade Life of Fred Decimals & Percents, followed by Life of Fred Beginning Algebra various books from the Key to... series A reading list that is 99.9% finalized :) Lively Latin Writing Tales 2 All About Spelling, probably Levels 4, 5, and at least part of 6, but we'll have to see Junior Analytical Grammar SOTW 4 plus a list of history books and biographies IEW Geography writing lessons Homegrown physics, which is only 80% planned out. At the end of the year, we're going to do some state history, but mostly through traveling to battlefields, monuments, state parks, museums, et cetera. PreK Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading RightStart A Handwriting Without Tears lots of read-alouds - that list isn't entirely finalized, either. If we get to the appropriate point in OPGTR, we'll go ahead and start FLL. Same with AAS, we may or may not start it next year.

Primarily I would buy all the books I think we could ever use. I'd also hire a private instructor for drawing & other visual arts. Oh, and I'd not worry about finding the best deals on science kits, I'd just buy the ones I thought were the best, plus I'd buy a lot of generic lab equipment.

We use it, though we don't spend as long on history as WTM recommends. At that age, I'd read the chapter, we'd talk about it (though not a formal narration - I wish I had done formal narrations at least part of the time), and then we'd do the map work and the coloring page out of the activity guide. I also used the activity guide for the supplemental history & literature recommendations. Overall, we didn't do any hands-on activities, but I still found the activity guide to be a worthwhile purchase for each grade level.

We're going to use it over the summer with a rising 4th grader. She's loving The Elements right now and is interested in doing it, so we'll see how it goes. If it gets too difficult, I'll put it aside for a few months and then pull it back out. :)

I would only add separate spelling if it's a weak area for your dc. Writing Tales will include some copywork. We also are using Writing Tales & the Science in a Nutshell kits for physics next year!

PreK, in the autumn: Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading, Handwriting Without Tears, and RightStart. Explode the Code maybe, because he keeps asking for workbooks. Dd's currently in third, and using All About Spelling Growing With Grammar Writing Tales (the author references a Christian co-op in the beginning of the book, but so far [Lesson 16] there's nothing in the student text or the lesson plans) Life of Fred (the dedication page has a quote about glorifying God, but there's nothing in the curriculum, nor on the site) Key to ... books SOTW 3, with lots of extra (secular) books The Elements Hands-On Equations Next year, she'll be using the following, plus continuing some of the above Editor in Chief Junior Analytical Grammar (which IIRC from a hs convention, the authors are Christian, but the curriculum has no references to religion) SOTW 4, with lots of extra (secular) books Physics that I'm putting together from various experiment kits and spines... I haven't hammered it out yet, hopefully my amazon order that I placed Friday will help. :D Mind Benders I've actually not found it too difficult to find secular materials for these ages, aside from science curriculum. I'm dreading figuring out logic, though!

Dd thought that The Periodic Table: Elements With Style was hysterical and loved it. I've had a moderately difficult time finding living books for chemistry. Most of them are written either well below her reading & understanding level, or are closer to high school/adult level.

I would only do one by each author, so just one of the Lewis titles. I personally feel that Animal Farm and A Tale of Two Cities are do-not-miss titles BUT you could also make an argument for doing them in high school.

We spend quite a lot on the accompanying books, too. I find it really difficult to use my library system, personally, plus I have more kids who will use the books, so we buy the vast majority of the books. I would say $200-$400? That depends on what I can find used (there's a really great used bookstore near my parents' house that I try to hit at least twice a year, plus we use paperbackswap.com) and whether the books I think we need are available in paperback vs. hardback. :) I try to spread it out, though - for instance, several books we're using next year, I bought a couple of years ago at the used bookstore, and when I went this last time, I bought some books for fifth or sixth grade. :)

My high school didn't even offer physical science as a course. It was a high-achieving private day school where 99.9% of the graduates attended college, and the expectation was that 100% of the graduates would earn at least a bachelors degree. We had two general science courses in 7th and 8th grade, though the honors 8th grade science course emphasized physical science. Eleven years ago, the sequence was biology-chemistry-physics, and then a number of us did AP science in 12th grade. Today, they do physics-chemistry-biology-AP, with a large number of girls doing AP Biology in 11th and then either Physics or Chemistry AP in 12th. HTH. (If you're interested, their entire Curriculum Guide is online; the middle school information is as well)

We just started it a few weeks ago and so far we are really enjoying it. I am not much of a projects girl but these are very do-able for us. I think we may follow up with Carbon Chemistry over the summer for fun. If you want something experiment-heavy, it might not be the best thing for you. We are using a few experiment kits alongside it, and there are a few suggested experiments. Dd read Basher's The Periodic Table before we started but it would make a great fun accompaniment as well.

I take things that I would want to teach/do with my kids out of the "school" equation. So for me, handicrafts and life skills would be something I strove to do as part of family life, and I'd keep that separate from official schoolwork. I farm out music appreciation & skills and art appreciation & skills, so that is just one day a week. If I did it at home, I would do it the same way. We currently do history twice a week and science twice a week, though we may have reading that spills over onto other days. We do not do extra history projects, however, except very very rarely. Some weeks history is actually just one day, in practicality. If you are serious about a foreign language and your goal is mastery rather than exposure, I think it has to become a daily thing. On the other hand, if your goal is exposure at the present time, you could easily do it just one to three days a week.

We'll be doing some science over the summer, mainly because we didn't do science for a portion of the school year. I'm also requiring a few books to be read over the summer. Since we started phonics with ds, we'll keep doing that over the summer.

We haven't gone through all of them, but I do own them and have looked through them. I would do fractions first, then decimals, then percents. The second book in measurements uses some fractions material, so I would not do it until after fractions was completed. I'm planning to have dd work through metric measurement after she's finished decimals, but not necessarily after percents - we'll just have to see where we're at with everything else. HTH!

:bigear: I'm planning on using several of these for physics next year, along with outside reading and a couple of the TOPS units. The hard part so far is finding reading-level appropriate physics books!

What we've used this year: Math - Dd finished the Miquon series and worked in several levels of Developmental Math, stopping with Level 12. She's done some work in Key to Measurement and Key to Fractions, and is currently working through Life of Fred Fractions. Math comes very easily to her, though. Spelling - All About Spelling Grammar - Growing With Grammar Writing - Writing Tales 1 Literature - various selections from 1600-1850 plus historical fiction, concentrating on the US History - SOTW 3, supplementing US history with a variety of books Science - The Elements Music, Art, Drama - outsourced through Master's Academy

The state technically requires 4.5 hours of instruction. I think that is a hugely ludicrous number for kids under fifth grade or so, but there you have it. In practice, dd can usually finish her work in two to three hours, depending on how much reading she's doing for history or science on a given day. There are no good 'typical' days - we often have other things that 'interrupt' school so it's hard to say. Yesterday was park day plus they had swim lessons, so schoolwork wasn't finished until 3:30. Monday we were done completely by 10 or 10:30, and that included time for breakfast. :) Dd can be a dawdler, though, so I go for a specific amount of work rather than a specific amount of time. I can see her starting to mature and understand that in the long run, not dawdling is to her benefit... but I don't expect that to fully develop for years to come.

Another suggestion for All About Spelling. It's been a terrific review for dd.

Daily: Spelling (a weak area for her, and that includes dictation daily) Writing Tales Math - one to three pages in a Key to.. workbook, one chapter in Life of Fred, and one timed drill Reading - 35 minutes of assigned literature, plus at least 30 minutes in free reading Read Aloud - her dad does this with her at night. Grammar is done four days a week (next year, for fourth grade, we're going to drop back to three days a week), as is typing practice. We do history two days a week and science two days a week. Monday afternoons she goes to take classes in art, drama, and music, so that's all just one day a week. We've dropped Latin for the rest of this year to concentrate on her spelling and writing skills, but when we do it again, it will probably be four days a week.

I send dd to Master's Academy for her fine arts 'stuff' - music, drama, and visual arts. Those are my weak areas. I'm considering supplementing those even further in terms of drawing skill and skill with an instrument, but they'd be outsourced. Math is basically independent for dd. Occasionally I have to clarify something for her, but not very often. Grammar is also independent for her. I am very much involved in spelling and, to a lesser extent, writing. I suspect that when we re-start Latin (next year) it will be similar to writing - some with me, some independent. Science and history we essentially do together.

I'm planning something sort of similar; I want to do world history in 5, 6, and 7, and then one year of straight American history in 8. I just took the number of weeks (108) and divided by 4 - which gives 27 weeks (more or less) to spend on each 'part' of history. I don't have it fleshed out much more than that since I still have over a year to finalize my plans (thank goodness!).

Ours is up!

Oops, sorry! Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading - OPGTR.

Ds is turning four on Monday, and dd2 was born back in November. He's been begging to do school, so I finally pulled out OPGTR and started it with him. I figure I can do 5 to 15 minutes of phonics with him every day. Dd1 decided to take it upon herself to do the Kumon workbooks with him. :lol: We'll do some handwriting and math activities, but everything else I do with him until autumn of 2010 will be reading books off a really long list I'm still in the process of compiling. :D I figure we can 'cover' quite a bit of ground with good picture books and talking about them afterwards - even if the reading is while I'm nursing and the 'afterwards' is him bouncing around while I change a diaper, KWIM? So, yeah, I wouldn't get too locked into the idea of a 'curriculum,' but you can certainly get things covered in the meantime. HTH!

For us next year, dd will be doing: grammar (a combo of some critical thinking company workbooks and JAG), three days a week assigned reading, five days a week writing (Writing Tales), five days a week, and spelling (All About Spelling), five days a week. Spelling is a weak area, though, and my goal is to move to doing it just three days a week by the end of fourth grade. If it weren't such a weak area for her, I would only do it three days a week. I don't really count it towards 'school,' but she also listens to a read-aloud daily and does lots of independent reading, her choice of books.