DD will be using HOD's Beyond for history, science, read alouds, copywork, poetry and spelling. FLL 2 for grammar. Math U See Beta for Math. RLTL 2/3 for phonics.

I schedule six 6 week terms for school during a school year (Aug to July). The amount of time between terms all depends on whatever other life issues are happening that year (such as a new baby, holidays, vacation, moving). Our breaks vary from 1 week to 2 months. I schedule Morning Time (read alouds, character lesson, devotional), Math and English(grammar, spelling, writing, reading) every day of every term. The rest of the subjects get scheduled on a loop during a term. Some terms we touch all of the extra subjects sometimes only a few extra. Due to not having time to plan my own thing for next year (a new baby and a toddler), we are going to try using Heart of Dakota for our looped subjects (we will keep our English and Math as normal).

We participate in a Homeschool Enrichment Academy. It is a K-8 program that they get to take either History or Science and Phy Ed in the Morning and different electives in the afternoon (art, music, spanish, basically whatever someone wants to teach). Parents can choose to teach and get a discount on tuition, but I choose not too. We send the kids for 3 primary reasons. 1) Social time with other kids. 2) I get a day off of teaching that I can focus on my preschool age kids and household stuff. 3) I can not worry about whether or not we get to subjects like Art Appreciation at home because I know they get it there.

We enjoy the Little Lights series https://www.christianbook.com/little-lights-biographies-7-volumes/pd/88577X

We are planning to have two parts to our morning time. One part inside, one part outside. Inside: Devotion (Big Truths for Little Kids) Storytime (lesson from HOD's Bigger Hearts) Character (either Laying Down the Rails or a lesson from Beautiful Feet's Character through Literature) Poetry (lesson from HOD's Preparing Hearts) Latin (Song School Latin) Outside: Either Walk or Nature Study drawing

I would take a look at the table of contents for the different books in the series to see what book best fits. Science in the Ancient World actually takes you from Thales to Leonardo Da Vinci. Also, if you contact Berean Builders they may already have a document created of how their science matches with Veritas Press Elementary History. I know they have one for how it matches Story of the World.

My signature says we are using LOE Essentials, but that has stopped and now we use Studied Dictation for Spelling. The whole program was just too much for me since we are preparing for a new baby!

I have used the game book and cards with different programs very successfully! I have designated Fridays as Phonogram and Spelling game day. I take a break from our normal phonics/spelling programs and just do games for that time. The kids love it! I love that the book is split into different varieties of games/activities (ie, active, paper, etc). My older boys are done with phonics and we still use the spelling games. My boys played spelling basketball yesterday and begin working on creating crossword puzzles using their spelling words. My daughter played spelling basketball right along with the boys, but I dictated phonograms to her instead. I love that most of the games can be used at all 3 of my kids levels at the same time. Enjoy!

My DS9 will technically be in 4th next year his year will look like this: Handwriting: Getty-Dubay E Writing: IEW SID A Spelling/Grammar: LOE Essentials 2nd Edition Level B Reading: 45 min a day of independent reading including various genres. Math: Math U See Epsilon and Xtra Math History: Overview of all history through VP's Pages of History read aloud by Mom and narrated by kids and 24 hours of Ancient History at a 1 day a week homeschool academy Science: Science in the Ancient World and 24 hours of Biology at a 1 day a week homeschool academy Read Aloud: Various novels we choose as a family as the year goes on and poetry and short stories from Book of Virtues

My DS8 will technically in 3rd grade next year. His year will include: Handwriting: Getty-Dubay E Writing: IEW SID A Spelling/Grammar: LOE Essentials 2nd Edition Level A Reading: 45 min a day of independent reading including various genres. Math: Math U See Delta and Xtra Math History: Overview of all history through VP's Pages of History read aloud by Mom and narrated by kids and 24 hours of Ancient History at a 1 day a week homeschool academy Science: Science in the Ancient World and 24 hours of Biology at a 1 day a week homeschool academy Read Aloud: Various novels we choose as a family as the year goes on and poetry and short stories from Book of Virtues Art/Music: Covered at a 1 day a week homeschool academy Bible: Slowly going through scripture with dad and scripture memory Art: Covered at a 1 day a week homeschool academy

DD6 will complete MFW 1st grade along with listening to lots of read alouds and some poetry memorization.

We have a few changes: My DS9 and DS8 changed from spelling with AAS and no grammar to LOE Essentials Edition 2 for both. My DD6 is pausing MFW 1st grade phonics and working through Progressive Phonics books. She needed extra practice of blends. All the kids go to a 1 day a week homeschool academy that has a class in science in the fall and history in the spring; therefore, we focus on the other at home. We changed from using MOH 2 and 3 audio for history, to using BF Geography to look at Geography and Science. We added Sing Song Latin in December because they were begging to learn latin. My DS9 decided he wanted to finish IEW Bible Heros as fast as possible; therefore, he is doubling the speed to finish in March.

Not sure if this will help, but here is our experience. I had the same problem with my first son and we supplemented with progressive phonics and Bob books also, but everyone was getting frustrated. I ended up doing a lot of eclectic stuff after that. I found My Father's World's First grade curriculum on homeschool classifieds for an inexpensive price. We used it only for the phonics and enjoyed it for how quickly it got him reading readers we could get at the library, but I felt like it was not as complete as OPTGR. In the middle of the MFW curriculum I found out about AAR and definitely wanted to get that program, but realized I had already spent too much money on phonics to buy the entire program. So, I bought the readers only. The level one readers were great, but it took a while to get into level two readers because they introduce multi-syllable words earlier than any other program. Eventually, after more fluency was mastered we did go back and finish OPTGR.

I really liked Consider This by Karen Glass. I also have been enjoying Teaching from Rest by Sarah McKenzie.

My kids really enjoyed adding the Magic School Bus books (chapter and regular).

I am posting this for a friend who lives in Mexico. Her husband has dual citizenship between Mexico and the United States. She is an American Citizen with Mexican residency. The husband speaks both English and Spanish and my friend speaks English (she is starting to learn Spanish). The kids mainly speak English, but probably understand more Spanish then Mom. They live 10 months of the year in Mexico and 2 months in the US. Most of those whom they live around in Mexico speak both Spanish and English. Their oldest child is almost 4 and they will be homeschooling. They are in the process of evaluating curriculum and methods. They are wondering how best to approach teaching English and Spanish. Do they try to teach how to read in English and read and speak Spanish at the same time? Do they focus on reading English and Speaking Spanish, and then when older reading Spanish? I would love to be able to share any of your thoughts with her. Also, any Spanish curriculum recommendations would be great.

I am excited to try loop scheduling. I will be trying it with a 2nd grader, 1st grader, and PKer. I have a plan, but we will not start it till August. I plan to print the loop on a piece of paper, put it in a page protector, and use a white board marker to mark what to do next. First, the things we will not do in the loop are Morning Meeting (which includes memory work, calendar, poetry and Aesop's fable readings, devotions, hymn singing, prayer), guitar practice, silent reading (this happens at quiet time daily), read aloud (this happens right before quiet time daily and right before bed), and bible (we do this with DH after supper). Here is our loop: Little Hands to Heaven with my Preschooler English Lessons Through Literature or Spelling (switching every other loop) History Math and Handwriting (I work with one boy on Math as the other does handwriting then we switch) Phonics with 1st grader DITHOR with 2nd grader Science Art/Music Appreciation/Phonogram or Math Game/Music (these will rotate so that we will do 1 each time we go through the loop)

We have really enjoyed Bible Stories for Growing Children by Francine Rivers and Shannon Rivers Coibion.

Bible: Long Story Short and Review of Sunday School Lessons Phonics: Finishing OPTGR Grammar, Writing, Picture Study, and Poetry: ELTL 1 Handwriting: Getty Dubay C Math: Math U See Beta History: Ancients with a variety of resources Science: Finish SIB and begin Science in the Ancient World by Jay Wile Art: Various Usborne Art Books Music: Beethoven using Simply Charlotte Mason and Confessions of a Homeschooler resources Begin recorder lessons at age 7 (half way through the year)

Bible: Long Story Short and reviewing Sunday School Lessons Reading: 30-60 min of required reading a day and 4 genres covered by Drawn into the Heart of Reading Grammar, Writing, Picture Study, Poetry: Finish ELTL 1 and begin 2 Handwriting: Getty Dubay C Spelling: All About Spelling 2 Math: Math U See Gamma History: Ancients with a variety of pieced together resources Science: Finishing Science in the Beginning and beginning Science in the Ancient World by Jay Wile Art: Various Usborne Art Books Music: Beethoven using Confessions of a Homeschooler and Simply Charlotte Mason resources Guitar Lessons

I have a 6 and 7 year old who loves math too! We use Khan Academy Online to supplement our normal curriculum. It is free! We limit screen time, so they are really excited that they get to do Math on the computer.

We have enjoyed Around the World in 80 Tales. http://www.amazon.com/Around-World-Tales-Saviour-Pirotta/dp/075345999X

My family just moved to a 710 square foot apartment and I am homeschooling 2 kids with a 3 yr old tagging along and we are very comfortable. I have found what others are saying about minimizing the amount of stuff you have to be very true. My husband also made me bookshelves that look like a border on the top of the room. I have been able to free up bookshelf space for curriculum and still have small books accessible. Also, if I do start to feel like the apartment is too small we head to the library to study for a little while or we take our read alouds outside. We "do" our homeschool at the kitchen table mainly and have minimized our crafts/homeschool books storage to a 3 shelf bookcase and a small desk. Our preschool school toys are the only things related to school not in those spaces, and they are stored in shoeboxes under the couch. I find as long as I stay on top of picking everything up after we use it we are not overwhelmed (which I think is the case in any size living space)..

Number Hunt http://www.amazon.com/Educational-Insights-Number-Hunt-Game/dp/B00486ZV38/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1384229876&sr=8-2&keywords=number+hunt My son is learning his addition and he loves this game.

I have My Very First Art Book. The contents page describes the book like this "This book is full of art to look at, and arty things to make and do. Start out by drawing, and then explore painting, printing, making paper cut-outs and making models." The five areas of art that it covers are Drawing, Printing, Painting, Cutting and Pasting, and Models. In each area the book shows a famous piece of art and then describes/instructs the reader how to use the same technique. Another Usborne art book that is very close in style, but actually includes a bit more about the history artist/art piece is Art Treasury. I am an Usborne consultant, so feel free to ask any other questions about Usborne books. If I do not know the answer I will find out the answer for you.