I guess you could say we school year round. We travel a lot in the summer, so we don't do much then other than pack a lot of reading, but when we are home we do school work during the mornings. I do try to make it lighter and more appealing. (To be honest - the fun factor is not very high on my priorities through the school year, but I do try to bump that up through the summer months... :)). And we do spend less time working on school work on summer mornings. For instance - this summer will be between 2nd and 3rd grade for my daughter and I'm planning to do Dance Mat typing, a Time Travelers CD or two, some Math Mammoth work plus a lot of RS math games, and a long reading list covering all the disciplines. I do plan our summer work just as I plan our formal school year and aim to revisit material we covered over the school year in a new or fun way. We do a lot of gardening and outdoor stuff in the summer so we're always digging in our guide books and science resources to learn more about something we ran across, but that happens informally.

I would think you could find a lot of them at a site like Enchanted Learning. Or just do a google images search for the country you want? Oh - and I just found this site -

I'm planning for 3rd grade next year too and here's what we're doing - R&S Grammar 3 w/ Daily Grams 3 Writings Tales 1 SOTW 3 w/ AG Trail Guide to World Geography Horizons Math 3 (plus RS math games) MPH Science 3/4 Prima Latina/LC I (doing PL now, so we'll go to LCI sometime mid year, probably) Explorers Bible Study - Beginners II NT survey Classical Conversations cycle 2 piano lessons, swim lessons, gymnastics, etc

I have two to add to the list - viking paper dolls (perhaps not very interesting to your son, :001_smile: but maybe to others reading this thread) and making viking shoes. Also - some Viking runes.

A side comment - I love his creativity! The aliens stole the rocket to run their bbq...:laugh:

That's just what I wanted to know. Thanks, Kel. I'm going to look closer at it.

I know the science curriculum put out by Pandia Press is secular, but would it be objectionable to a Christian family? I wouldn't mind to use it if I have to discuss or explain some things as we come across them - I think it can be valuable to learn about different ways of thinking about things and what other people believe - but if the whole thing is just so... anti God I don't think it would be worth wading through. Any thoughts?

I am pro-CC, so I acknowledge my bias up front ;), but for families that choose to participate in Foundations only (K4-6th) - the program is usually 9am to noon, and then lunch together. We do our library runs on the afternoon of our CC day, and even sometimes do afternoon field trips on those days. I schedule the rest of our work in a four day school week. If you have a 3rd-6th grader and want to participate in Essentials (an afternoon writing/grammar intensive with math drills and games) it usually meets from 1pm to 3pm, but that's a different program than the one people associate with CC memory work.

There are a couple of approaches that families take with CC. Some people do make it their curriculum and do a lot of supplemental reading/experiments, etc to go with the topics covered weekly and that's all they do. I guess that could work ok with youngers, but I'm not sure it's thorough enough for olders. Others just treat it as one subject in their daily schedule. That's what we do - we spend about 15-20 minutes per day reviewing the memory work for the current week, then go on to our work in other subjects.

I'd never heard of gurulib and these are the exact reasons I've never used Shelfari or Library Thing. Thanks for the tip!

We're using R&S2 right now for grammar. We really like it - as others have said, it's both gentle and thorough. As for repeating content- personally I wonder if we're doing our kids a disservice just moving them through content and levels. Just because they finish one book doesn't mean they necessarily need to go straight into the next level. Going over the same content using a different curric seems like a good thing to me because you're working on mastery and not just familiarity. Even if LA is a stronger area for your child, going over it again before moving on can't hurt, imho. Do it orally so it's not a burden to them and you're building good foundations for later grammar work. My two cents.

I was wondering the same thing... ??

Mine's up. February doldrums. Need I say more? :glare: On an upside - I did finally include some pictures. Not so boring as a page of text.

Foundations (morning program gr K-6) registration is $50 supplies are $50 tuition is $312 some places have facility fees of $25-35 Essentials (afternoon program for gr 4-6) Registration is $50 supplies are $20 tuition is $312 may or may not have to pay a second facility fee - depends on the community HTH -

:iagree: That's what we are doing. I've always loved the look of TOG and can't wait to get into it, but we are still doing SOTW for our first rotation. It's so great for the younger ages; my kids truly love it. This week my daughter had to do a presentation on her favorite subject and she picked history. She went on and on talking about all the interesting things she's learned and projects she's done - it's all because of SOTW. I say don't get more complicated than you need to, before you need to.

Once you get further into colonial studies and westward expansion, there's a Daniel Boone homestead here that's open for tours too. It's west of STL, so it might a bit longer trip for you, but it's interesting. http://www.lindenwood.edu/boone/

OK - finally had time to sit and read through all the posts on this thread (as well as the thread Jennefer started about overteaching) and have some comments. I think this is where I need to be going. Up to this point I've been a do-the-next-thing teacher. We decide we're doing R&S grammar this year, so we do a lesson a day and at the end of the book we get the next one and move on. It's not until recently that I started thinking about checkpoints and milestones for long term goals. As for "is it worth the time we're putting into it" - I need to rethink what we are doing in those terms as well. For instance, WTM says to teach spelling, so we do SWO, even though my daughter is an intuitive speller and I suspect for her it's busywork. She'd probably benefit more from a vocab program, as well as enjoy it more. Good words. I need to remember this daily and spend the time to take a walk if they want to. I certainly don't expect this to be easy. If I wanted to do things the easy way I'd be dropping them off somewhere every morning. :) The thing is, I feel like in my quest for an aggressively good education, I'm sucking the fun out of it somehow. I need to remember that these are the "glory days" and enjoy them, so that we all enjoy them, and to balance that with an appropriate workload. Remind myself that we can get aggressive later. I come from a family of PhDs and academics and expect a lot from our children academically, but that doesn't mean we don't need to enjoy the journey now. :chillpill: I like that way of thinking about busywork. And I've already mentioned my SWO thoughts. I like your reading suggestion. :iagree: You've all given me a lot to think about. And I think I'll have a long talk with my daughter too, while I'm at it.

Colleen - this perfectly summarizes what I am coming to see as what my focus needs to be. So much to ponder! And to all of you - as others have said - thanks for sharing your insights. I am truly thankful for this board and the willing and experienced homeschooling parents who take the time to give thoughtful answers.

This is a good point, Angela. I need to think more about this. We're in Classical Conversations (I believe you are as well, right?) and I think I need to figure out how to incorporate my tutor training into our other subjects at home as we learn the grammar of those subjects.

This is the first I could get to my computer today, so I've just now read the replies. So glad to see some of you wise mommas have weighed in on this. I'll read more carefully later and post a follow up. Thanks for taking the time to share!

Hmmm.... I usually get my sleepwear out of my husband's t-shirt drawer. But then I guess that wouldn't meet your attractive criteria. :D

My reading list with comments is updated on my blog.

In reading some other recent threads on this board I've been thinking about the difference between academic rigor and busy days of complicated schedules. I'm in this for the long haul and want an excellent education for our children, but without "burning out" or damaging my relationship with my children by driving them instead of educating them. We're a pretty straight forward neoclassical-approach a la WTM family. Would anyone further down the road weigh in on how they achieve rigor without overdoing it? What is reasonable? What are your overarching goals for each year? Your priorities? What makes your busy-work alarm go off? What do your days look like?

I just now posted about wrestling with science for next year and then came and read this thread. Whew... :chillpill: Comments like this from Lori D. and Angela give me the confidence to just keep reading library books and doing Young Scientist Club kits and calling that good for elementary science. Thanks, Lori and Angela! :seeya:

Our week is up. Finally. And now I am taking a book to bed. :svengo: Yes, I am aware that it is only 6:36 pm.