We're at 120 out of 180 required. Next year we're going to do more in the summer, though, so that we can enjoy those brilliant autumn days more!

I actually don't do the review the way AAS suggests (10 at a time, shuffling). We review every word, every day. I separate the words into 'tiers' - words misspelled last session, words spelled correctly but not without obvious need to carefully sound out, and words spelled correctly, quickly, and with confidence. She's got to spell the words in the last tier twice that way before it moves to mastered. I don't know that I would advocate this approach with a younger child, but she's eight and I have no issues with making her do a few more spelling words. :)

I was due in mid-November, so we started three or four weeks earlier than we usually did. If I had thought about it, I would have started even earlier than that! She ended up being over a week late, so instead of taking off a week plus Thanksgiving week, we just took off two days plus Thanksgiving week, worked for two more weeks, then took three weeks around Christmas. Honestly, that worked better in terms of the baby, too, to do a few weeks before 1 month and then have a break around 6 weeks.

Our math programs have so far been the cheapest thing we've used. :) Dd has used a combination of Miquon and Developmental Math. She's about to start using Life of Fred, and we'll probably use some Keys to... books as well.

Developmental Math. Some students will need extra drill practice; we've done it with adding calculadder drills and recently Math Blaster on the computer.

Before I even read the body of the message, I thought to myself "He creates chaos, of course." :lol: He will play by himself for short periods of time - very short - and I try to get what I can done then. It helps that dd1 is very independent in some subjects. There are days that I leave our more mom-intensive subjects until the evening when Dad is home, though!

I'm in Marietta/East Cobb.

King Paul Came Over For Good Soup is the one I learned.

Dh & I love this show. I think it grapples with a lot of interesting philosophical and political questions. I really look forward to one day sharing it with my kids and discussing it with them, but no, that day is not soon. Dd1 is very sensitive to some topics, so it may well be even after fifteen before I feel it's appropriate to share with her.

I was in B&N today and asked about it. They have the Feb 4 date but she checked further to see if it was "released to warehouse" and said it was not, so they would definitely miss tomorrow as a release date. Doesn't necessarily mean May, but definitely not tomorrow.

Dd is very strong in math. I don't remember exactly what we started when, but we're halfway through her third grade year (age 8) and by May, she will have finished: all Miquon books Developmental Math Levels One through Twelve part of Developmental Math Level Thirteen some of the Keys to... Series and very likely, Life of Fred Fractions I'm currently trying to figure out what to do for all next year, because she can already do a significant portion of 'pre-algebra' and will easily master the rest of it by this time next year. At the same time, I don't want a 9 yo 4th grader (she's an August birthday, so it's not even like she's an "older" 4th grader) doing algebra!

I've started picking up lit, biographies, and some other history books as I find them - paperbackswap.com, the local used bookstore, and the occasional one at B&N or Borders. I pretty much know exactly what we need and I've bought a few small things, but I'm saving the bulk of it for after the tax refund.

With dd1, I did phonics, handwriting, readers, read-alouds, math, some basic geography (talking about different countries, what they ate, that kind of thing), and some basic science. With the perspective of time, what I plan to do with ds and dd2 is just the basics - phonics, handwriting, readers, read-alouds, and math. We might cover other subjects through what we read aloud, but that's it.

Carry On, Mr. Bowditch. I absolutely loved this book when I was younger and it was extremely gratifying that dd loved it, too! I'd second the titles mentioned above, as well. I'm just now planning for next year (civil war onwards), though.

George Washington's World... I think the most common description is "horizontal history." It's a summary of what was going on all over the world throughout George Washington's life, to sort of put it in context. I was a little concerned that it was above her reading/comprehension level, but she's thoroughly enjoyed it. Foster wrote several similar books - we've only used this one and the one for Captain John Smith, but I anticipate getting the Lincoln one for next year. Oh, and - other George Washington books - *I* really liked George vs. George, which is a National Geographic book IIRC, as well as Cheryl Harness' biography of George Washington.

I just asked dd (8) what her opinion was - she read it just before Christmastime. She said, "It was good, but not as good as George Washington's World." Which, seeing as that's a totally different type of book ;), I asked her if it was interesting and relatively fun to read. She allowed that it had been interesting. She reads on a 5th or 6th grade reading level, and it took her about an hour to an hour and a half to read, altogether (spread out over a few days).

GWG is one of the few things about which dd does not groan. :) As far as retention, I'm not sure. She's definitely learning and retaining, but I admit that on occasion I think "shouldn't she remember that?" So this year I've used some books from Critical Thinking Co - Editor in Chief, Punctuation Puzzlers - to make sure she could apply what she was learning. On the whole, she is! Which definitely put my mind at ease.

Honestly, I would be tempted to put it away for a week or two. Keep reviewing the key cards he's mastered, review everything through step 15, do all of his other work, and then come back to it. Dd is older but I have done that two or three times w/ AAS and it's been a tremendous help. The once or twice I've just kept pushing through, I've regretted it.

I don't know how much is associated with some of your curricula, so I can't say for sure if it's enough/too much/too little, but I will say that I wish I had put a little more focus on copywork and handwriting for dd when she was younger. If I had it to do again, I would do handwriting practice specifically daily and copywork daily, and intersperse other writing throughout the week. Now, granted, handwriting is a weak area for dd, so part of the reason I didn't 'push' was I wanted to give her time to mature, but I do wish I'd required just a bit more, even as I gave her that space to mature... HTH!

Dd read Sign of the Beaver this year and enjoyed it. She liked The Witch of Blackbird Pond more, but we did it as a read-aloud. Right now she's enjoying some of Scott O'Dell's books as read-alouds - Streams to the River River to the Sea, Island of the Blue Dolphins, etc.

Dd is 8, 3rd grade. She's 'required' to read 30 minutes of fiction (this week, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch) every day. Most days she has 30-60 minutes of additional reading in history or science. Plus, she reads on her own a lot too. I'm trying to decide if I should make the required amount 45 minutes next year.

Joining in... Weekly Report.

Right now we are using some of the grammar books, and dd does them in place of her regular grammar one day per week.

We do grammar four days a week - three days are our main text, one day is a mishmash of stuff from Critical Thinking Co. Next year we're going to go to just three days of grammar, flat out. Spelling & handwriting are everyday, because they are dd's weakest areas. We're about done with our handwriting review, though, so she'll just be reviewing through dictation (in her spelling program) and then next month when we start a writing curriculum. Ideally we'll do the writing curriculum four days a week. I wish I could cut back on spelling but, you do what you gotta do, right? Depending on her progress we may go to four days of spelling around this time next year.

That sounds about like what DD is doing (she'll be 9 in August, so they're very close to the same age). We spend more time on spelling because it's her weakest area, and then she does Growing with Grammar 4 (how we ended up in 4 already, I'm not exactly sure!), handwriting practice, and dictation through her spelling program. Her spelling has finally 'caught up' so that we can start a writing curriculum next month - I'm very excited! Still, I'll be excited beyond belief when we can ditch spelling. :)