Id suggest starting with B. It might be easy, but it's the easiest jump-in point in the program. Especially for a kiddo with low confidence.

I LOVE love LOVE our nature notebook. Because my kids are young, and I didn't want it to be stressful, we have a family nature notebook. It's just a watercolor spiral bound sketchbook I picked up at an art store. We go on a hike once a week and we bring along colored pencils and a small watercolor set. Everyone is expected to find something interesting to add, including me. I label where we were and the date, and we are done. After we hit a year my kids really enjoyed going back and seeing what was cool last year this month, and then going back to see if it's there again (like crabapples in bloom). We've also kept lists; flowers we've identified, bugs we've seen, ect. My kids have occasionally been interested in drawing the same thing over a few weeks or months; my son did a series of sketching on dandilions of all things that ended up being my favorite nature notebook page ever. I largely leave it up to them. Neither is an artist by any means. My 5yo drew a snake last week with a big old smiley face. But it's really increased how much we actually SEE on our nature walks. We notice more because we are looking more.

My kids are a lot younger than yours, but we do Morning Reading (basically just reading aloud really good books/poetry/bible) and the Three R's daily (reading, writing, arithmetic). Everything else we've put on a weekly rotation. So we do history for a week, science for a week, art appreciation for a week, ect. We don't get any less days than people who hit each subject 1 or 2x a week, but we get to really focus. Im loving it.

I don't use worksheets either, but I do plan an entire year in advance. This was my third year doing so. For me its a giant spreadsheet with weeks going down the page and subjects across, with books (chapters for longer books), activities, ect all added in. Each week I look two weeks ahead and put those books on my library list or anything special I need for a project on my errands list. I start my planning in January and try to have it finished and printed out by May so I can have a true summer break.

I love where this thread has gone. I was actually knitting just a moment ago, I refused to put my project down while my ds5 gave me a tour of the minecraft amusement park he built. Parents do not worry enough about the addictive quality of the fiber arts.

3rd grade conceptually, aka being introduced to the concept of division and how it works, and 4th grade for consistently being able to do it, aka memorizing their "facts". That was the standard here both before and after CC came through.

We do history, art, Shakespeare, science, and interest-led blocks. I do not use unit studies, I just parcel out our curriculum into chunks that make sense. So a quarter goes... 2 weeks history 2 weeks science 1 week artist/composer appreciation 1 week interest-led 2 weeks history 2 weeks science 1 week Shakespeare 1 week interest-led

I politely disagree about the jump from 3 to 4, I think it's actually rather large. I find it to be the largest jump in the series, which does otherwise tend to be very gentle. There is repetition in the grammar, sure, but the way it moves from copywork to writing projects and literature analysis requires more maturity than the first three levels. :) I would recommend going back to 2 personally. It doesn't do any diagramming, but it does go over parts of speech rather heavily. Then again I may be biased, the lit. selections are excellent- I think its my favorite year. And I will always err on a strong foundation over forging forward.

My kids both love playing Minecraft, but since they only turn it on 1-3 times a week I wouldn't call them addicted. I've seen the addiction play out in some of their friends though, many of whom are no longer allowed to play. I don't know what was different for those kids vs mine. I don't overly limit their access, they are allowed as much screen time they want as long as its after 2 and they have done all their schoolwork. Several of the severely addicted kids were allowed to play much less. We aren't super busy and always out of the house. I don't know. Maybe its simply personality?

Well, what I said was that it's unfair to redshirt a child to give him advantage over his peers. I did not say it's unfair to place delayed children where they appropriately belong. That used to be called holding children "back" back in the days that sort of thing was even allowed and it was done fairly regularly. I'm not that old and I remember plenty of kids doing kindergarten twice. I was also talking about sports teams and activities- not school. But I will explain. When I see kids red-shirted, and I do, often, it's because a. "I want him to be the biggest on the sports team!" or b. "I want him to be the oldest/most mature in the class, not the youngest and wiggliest, so I'm doing one more year of preschool." I get the reasoning in both cases, I really do. But SOMEONE has to be smallest and SOMEONE has to be the youngest. Rampant red-shirting means my 5 year old kindergartener was expected to compete with 7yos in the field and classroom. And since many kindergarteners in this area are (non delayed) 6 and 7 year olds, who have spent several preparatory years in pre-k classrooms, the standards rise, which makes it even harder for the 5yos who are proportionately from the kinds of families that did not drop a few thousand dollars in pre-k classes and are honestly a lot more likely to be delayed in the first place. For the record, my children begin being homeschooling when I feel they are ready, whatever that age may be. For one it was "late" for another "early". They both work both above and below their "grade level" depending on the subject. And I place them in SPORTS and ACTIVITIES according to their birthday-given grade.

I'm left-handed, and like many (not all) lefties I find fountain pens frustrating. My favorite pens for daily use are the Sharpie fine-point pens. http://www.amazon.com/Sharpie-Fine-Point-Black-1742663/dp/B001B66DXU I don't mind high-end pencils, though. We use Palamino Blackwings for handwriting/copywork and they MUST STAY AT THE TABLE. We use Ticonderogas to be thrown in backpacks, carried about the house, ect. http://www.amazon.com/Palomino-Blackwing-602-12-Count/dp/B006YYPIUI/ref=pd_sim_229_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0FQPZC0KCH4TVFAA7VWQ http://www.amazon.com/Dixon-Ticonderoga-Wood-Cased-Pencils-13882/dp/B00125Q75Y/ref=sr_1_1?s=office-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1433195206&sr=1-1&keywords=ticonderoga+pencils

I place my kids where they would be, according to their birthday. And I suppose I do "keep track" in that my kids are often asked, when out in public, what grade they are in and I have taught them to answer accordingly. It's short-hand for "how old are you?". Sports teams and other group activities in this area are also often organized by grade and I would do the same. That's speaking as a mom with a DS that is both immature for his age AND often the youngest in his grade, and another that misses the cut by a mere 2 days. I think its a bit unfair when folks "red shirt" their kids to give an advantage over their peers. The line has to lie somewhere.

I'm in a very similar situation and bringing my younger 5yo into my older 7yo's rotation next year. My reasons are thus: 1. I have stair-step kids so my oldest would NEVER reach modern if I made him start over every time a sibling joined in. Especially since SOTW 2 didnt get finished this year and next is a 2/3 hybrid I'm calling "the renaissance". 2. My younger has listened in to many of our readings, so he has a vague understanding of what's gone "before". Not enough to understand cause and effect or repeating history, mind you, but honestly neither does my older at this point. I agree with Farrar about Chemistry being pretty abstract for a 1st grader, though. Jumping forward to Physics, like she suggested, is a good idea. Or maybe keep them together for History and split them for Science. The younger could do Life or Earth, whichever she finds most interesting, and then they could join back together next year for Physics?

Ages 2,5,7 (plus we foster so 1 or 2 more five and unders on any given day). We do 45-60 minutes of reading and discussion in the morning, m-f. This is quality picture books, poems, bible, saints stories, chapter books ect. I start with the picture books and gradually move to deeper stuff, and children are given the option of being dismissed along the way. Only the 7 year old HAS to stay for EVERYTHING. The 5 year old sometimes does. The 2 year old rarely does. We do another 30 or so minutes of non-fiction school-assigned reading in the afternoon during nap m-f. Anyone not napping participates. And we do about 30 minutes of kid-selected completely "fluff" reading before bed, every night. Each kid picks 1 book or 1 chapter.

I would read the free online paraphrase made available by Ambleside. I would pay for the real deal :)

Ill answer more in depth now that I have time :) I think if you make your own/have the child make his own lab sheets the way it is described in the diary and annotations, fact drill isn't really an issue. That being said, not all kids like to make their own lab sheets. And some kids need a lot more drill to memorize facts than others. :). My oldest, who did Singapore (a drill-heavy program) needed lots of flash card/computer game drill to get his facts. My younger, who did Miquon (little to no drill) got them just fine. Miquon includes both measurements and time. Word problems are a popular supplement, and the only thing I really feels is "missing". Miquon does not include them at all. I suggest Kumon books, Singapores CWP, or Processing Skills. But I also don't think a child, having done Miquon for grades 1-3, will die from seeing his first word problem in 4th grade :)

A has information outside of letter sounds/reading. She would probably zoom through it but it would not be a waste of time, especially considering your dd doesn't write. Maybe you can use it as a summer bridge? Or for the first month or two of next year, doubling up lessons, skipping as needed, and really focusing on handwriting? That being said, you could also easily jump in at B as long as she knows ALL the sounds for her letters (a says a, ay, ah) and you are comfortable skipping the handwriting portions, which will assume mastery of lowercase letters. For the record, each level of LOE does not necessarily equal a year. DS the oldest did both A and B in the sept-may he was 5. DS the next did A from Jan-May at 5. Neither knew how to read or write when starting A and we do not exactly zoom through curricula in general. I'd plan on doing both A AND B in a year. C and D are a bit meatier and might take a whole year, depending on the kid.

I added word problems.

Logic of English Foundations is written to work with an active child. Lots of large and small motor activities. Miquon is very hands on but ime active kids go two ways- semi active/wiggly kids that love all those small blocks and the truly active/crazy kids that end up throwing, building towers and knocking over, ect and cannot focus. But I agree with others- use what you want to use and name it more active with teaching. Math facts while bouncing a ball back and forth, reading sight words during different steps of an obstacle course, spelling on a white board on the wall (so you are standing and using full arm movements to write). Lots of breaks. My oldest does 10 push ups, 10 minutes of listening to me read, 10 crunches, 10 more minutes of listening, ect.

On the one hand I say, let him go at it. Especially if it's interest-based. You will never "run out" of astronomy ya know? Burn out might happen, sure, but that just means moving on to the next big thing. And he'll most likely circle back. On the other hand, if my kids are blowing through several lessons a day in a single subject- it's not challenging enough. Think about moving ahead, but also go deeper. I try to keep my kids within 1-2 grades of their age for maturity reasons but we can always go deeper. This mostly relates to skill stuff, however.

My kids have daily checklists I write out on lined paper and put on clipboards on the wall. I don't plan ahead, I base it on what we accomplished that morning during our one-on-one time, what they need extra practice on, and what the rest of our day looks like schedule-wise. It's just 2-5 items (math facts practice, reading assignments, copy work, piano practice, ect) but it teaches them time-management in an age-appropriate way. They can't use screens until checklists are accomplished. At 5 o clock everyone that hasn't finished yet does so at the counter while I make dinner. When they are ready, I'll switch it to a weekly checklist and check over it with them at the end of the week. I don't know when that will be, though. When I no longer know they will put it all off until Friday afternoon :p

I suppose my advice came from the perspective of being a foster-parent. If you always have a baby (or two) in the house, it's not survival mode anymore so much as life-as-usual. If you feel that you are in survival mode, yes, by all means sleep as much as you can. Sleep deprivation can cause/worsen PPD and I'd hate for my comment to make anyone feel they can't school light, take a few months off, do whatever they need to be healthy.

I think it makes sense; the elementary school is excellent and there's no reason to believe the kids wouldn't do well there. The only "problem" I can think of is the possibility that after 5 or so years making friends in a great school the kids wouldn't want to homeschool. Not that you can't play the mom card, but kids that age are sensitive to change, and to being "normal", and hard enough to deal with without resentment about pulling them from school. That's also a future problem that future you could deal with, though.

Schedule. In the early morning (directly after breakfast) we do an hour of Morning Time all together. It's Read Aloud, Memory Work, Bible, Poetry, Narrations ect. I also have a few things that get snuck in once a week, like Saint Study. After Morning Time DS7 has an hour of one-on-one with me. We do math, then either grammar OR spelling (alternating). I go over his checklist for the rest of the day. It includes reading assignments, finishing up his math workbook, math fact drill, copywork, practicing spelling words, journaling, piano practice, ect. Not ALL of that. Just 3 or 4 things, depending on what we covered one-on-one. Then its DS5's turn. He gets between a half hour and an hour, depending on his attention span that day. We do math and phonics, and I leave him with 1 or maybe 2 checklist items. Simple <5 minute things like writing his name and reading a Bob book to the dog. After a play break and lunch, when babies are put down for nap time, we do our Afternoon Rotation. This year that's an hour of History on Monday, Science on Tuesday, Geography on Wednesday, Art and Music Appreciation on Thursday, and Nature Study on Friday (we do a nature hike in the early morning, and bring home pictures or specimens to sketch/record). Like I said above, next year I want to stretch each subject out a week- so we have a full week of History, then Science, then Art/Music, then Shakespeare. Nature sketching will probably either move to their checklist on Fridays or we will try doing it "live" again.

I think my biggest "tips" would be 1. Learn to babywear. It will save your sanity and your laundry routine. and 2. Utilize naps. Unfortunately that whole "Sleep while baby is sleeping" rule doesnt work for homeschooling mommas. Read aloud while baby is sleeping :)