The Apologia books were too much for my boys in 1st and 2nd, but now in 3rd my oldest is eating up Zoology (flying creatures). I'd try to browse one before deciding and see if it'd be a good fit yet.

To prepare for SOTW, I'd pick either CHOW or a slug of American history picture books.

Switch to Chrome. :001_smile: Yes, the first few times at xtramath were harder and involved more, then after it figured out how to place them, it's easier -- just pushing them in a couple problems rather than all of them. I am so happy with it! Persevere. It will be worth it. Mastering the basics, though frustrating, will make higher math much easier and more possible.

I think the dream PK through 2nd science curriculum is a backyard garden, a dirt patch to dig in, and an animal to take care of. ;)

I bought Amy Pak's map CD and have my sons copy from a master onto a blank map, the same continent twice a week, filling in names for a couple weeks, then they fill in one from memory and I see how they're doing. It's simple and so far seems pretty effective. In addition to that, we use Geography Songs during quiet time.

I'd look at the VP book list, SL book lists, All through the Ages, and just get piles of "supplemental" books and not worry about a cohesive presentation of a stream of history at this age. I don't think a spine is necessary in early elementary.

That's brilliant!

I do my own thing for the most part. For me, that means creating a book list a nd getting a general idea of when we'll do what. I break our year round calendar into 6 6-week terms, so I pick an artist, a composer, a continent for geography, a history segment (we're doing a survey this year with CHOW as the spine, so I broke up how many chapters per week we had to do, then looked at roughly what time periods we'd begin each term). Then I found extra books for history/literature in Christine Miller's History through the Ages. The books I get from the library for each term then correspond to those areas. But I don't worry too much about everything in history and supplemental reading corresponding closely. And we don't do any activities or tests, only narrating and a timeline. Even most of the library books are there mostly to be "strewn" rather than assigned, but that works for me because I have bookworms. So planning for me is primarily making a bunch of book lists, which is my favorite part of the year. :)

I loved MUS Primer! I skipped it with my first, thinking we could just start with Alpha and take it slow, since everything in Primer is covered again in Alpha anyway. But that didn't work so well and we spent almost 3 years in Alpha. I started my second in Primer at 5, and he ate it up and is halfway through Alpha now at 6. He's a math boy, but I was really pleased with the pace and approach of Primer. I was expecting to think it'd be a waste (except that I bought the teacher pack used). I am a big MUS fan. The blocks are just great and the DVDs are great (He can be funny and cheerful 3 times in a row!) At 5 I just do Primer and phonics and then reading aloud and memorizing. Doing a few things to ease into the structure and routines is a great idea!

:D Thankm you! They are still a bit too much for mine, but it's never too early to collect books. :)

There are definitely lots of differences between my experiences as a homeschooling mom now and my mom's experiences. So many options! My mom pretty much had to choose from Abeka, Bob Jones, and Konos (she did BJ). But we read tons and that was howwe learned. The textbooks were just tasks to check off before we could read or play. :) Homeschooling is much more common and accepted now, so when my kids pipe up at the grocery store that they are homeschooled, they get smiles instead of weird looks. My mom gave us a laid-back (few to no outside activities) young childhood with lots of free play and free reading, and that is something we are continuing, also. My husband grew up in the country on an orchard and loved it. So we are hoping to increase the academic end but maintain the slow-paced life. Lots of Lego time and lots of outside dirt play and lots of reading, plus expected obedience and help out around the house and yard -- it's the childhood we had and the childhood we want to give to our kids.

I see in your sig you're doing AO yr0 currently. I don't think you could go wrong following th AO plan all the way through.

:iagree: I'm doing these now in MUS with my second son, and he can easily do them with the blocks but often blanks when he sees the equation on paper. Just keep practicing and it will click. At just-6 I wouldn't worry about it too much.

I've used SS for 3 years now, though it too consistently because so far my oldest seems to be very visual and a natural speller. It is very no-nonsense and visually boring, but it's straight forward and gets the job done without busy work. I like that the words are arranged by patterns and you learn the different endings for the words at the same time. It's true that it doesn't give you teacher-talk or explanation for the spelling conventions, only the lists. I learned spelling with patterns (BJU) and my mom was thorough with phonics, so I'm fairly confident ad-libbing as we go, but I also keep "ABCs and All Their Tricks" on hand to look things up if I need to. I also like that they have to correct a word right away, so they don't practice or visualize the wrong spelling. I let my son use a whiteboard for the lessons, and that is exciting to him and it helps make erasing faster and easier.

Time had a photo essay series by the author of "Hungry Planet" (our library has it) called "What the World Eats": http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1626519,00.html It's not a video, but they are fascinating photos that might spark conversation in a group.

Hi! I've used these boards off and on these last few years to look up information, and so I've decided to jump on in and participate as I can. I have four kids, 8, 6, 3, and 20 months. My husband and I are both homeschool grads ourselves, so this lifestyle is normal life and all we've known ourselves. This year I have a 3rd and 1st grader, so things are intensifying. I would say we are relaxed classical CM, and I blog about education, books, ideas, and organization at A Healer's Geste. A tab at the top of my blog links to the page for our current year materials and posts so far. I school year-round, so we're wrapping up our 11th week this week. I look forward to getting to know more of you and participating in this great community of knowledge.

My 8yo & 6yo do a significant chunk of their work independently. They each have their own daily checklist. They have a memory work binder they each read from for memory review (we also do group time memory), they read their own books then come narrate to me, they do mapwork (copying country names from a master onto a blank map) and drawing. Math we all do at the same time. We use MUS, so the DVD teaches and I am just there at the table keeping them on track and reminding them how to work the equations, but not teaching. History we do all together just reading aloud (Hillyer), but we don't do any activities or tests, only reading, narrating, drawing illustrations, and every couple of weeks we add figures to the timeline. Sometimes the 8 or 6 yo does the reading of the history book so I can leave to change a diaper, and often the teacher-intensive stuff like penmanship and spelling just get dropped. But with a preschooler and 20-month-old in the mix, it still gets pretty crazy occasionally. They all learn pretty early that none of them are the center of the universe and everyone has to give and take. As one of a homeschooled family of 7 kids, I will say that learning to adapt and be flexible with people is a *huge* benefit of growing up in the homeschooling lifestyle. It's not necessarily a problem to be solved, but a reality that will serve them well in life to learn.

Thank you! I'll add that to the Christmas book list. :):001_smile:

Hi, I'm new to the boards (well, I've lurked on and off for years). We're in our third year of "real" homeschooling. My oldest is 8 and we started LFC A this year. We're on ch 9. I think 2 weeks per chapter is perfectly reasonable. Slow and steady and not stressed is better than frustration or giving up. The chant isn't related to the vocab; it's just a common saying. The approach seems very heavy on the memorizing straight without context, then learning the context and logic after the chants are down. That is a pretty standard neoclassical approach. We do Latin 30 minutes or so 4 days a week, but review the chant CD in the car, during our Circle Time, and my son recites one chapter's memory page during his independent memory work review daily. So we sit down with the book 20-30 minutes 4 times a week, but we sneak review in the corners, too. Also, I don't treat the quizzes like tests, and I'm not insisting on perfect memory or mastery before moving on. We just keep going and keep hitting the extra review as we go. One week is the Mensa chant, then just the endings chant, and so it seems like there is built in review. The grammar lessons are very small, bite-sized pieces -- not enough at once to make real sense, but small enough to get the hang of in a week, I have thought so far. I was already a grammar buff, but declensions are new to me. On that lesson, then, I realized declining is to nouns what conjugating is to verbs, but it was only in this last lesson that he began addressing the cases we have been working on memorizing. One reason it might be frustrating is that he is going very, very slow with the grammar explanations, but rather fast with the vocab. So what you're memorizing doesn't make sense yet, but you'll slow and steady get there. LFC does want you to memorize without context. I'm ok with that, but I can see how that could be frustrating, especially if you thought you were supposed to be getting what isn't explained yet. My son's favorite part is the derivatives. :) Oh, and he also loves the headventureland.com games, so that's another avenue of review he gets. Oh, we also don't do all the activity sheets. I let him pick one per chapter. Hope that helps! Mystie