Sonlight, Mystery of History, and The Writer's Jungle. Merry :-)

We just started AAS & are really liking it! You might also read this article about what to expect from young writers: http://www.bravewriter.com/Articles/unscope___sequence.html Merry :-)

If you & she absolutely can't say them w/o the "uh" sound after, what I would probably do is show her how to say them with the vowels. I'd explain, "when we say buh, we're really saying 2 sounds, (show the b & u) but sometimes it's hard to say just one sound." Show her ba & be & bi etc... so she can hear that we don't say buh-a etc... Keep working on it & see if you can say it w/o much of an "uh" sound. We find this hard with the letter r especially. My kids want to say "er" or "ruh." We talk through it & show with the tiles what we're really saying & move on. HTH some! We just started AAS (with level 2, but we had done a lot of work with phonograms with Reading Reflex already), and are loving it! Merry :-)

Actually, have you looked in the back of MOH? There's a huge selection of extra books to read, movies etc... Sorry I haven't heard of the other resource. We used MOH 1 & 2 with Sonlight 1 & 2, loved it! Merry :-)

Take a look at The Writer's Jungle on www.bravewriter.com Great resource, plus she has a wonderful blog, support board & articles. Read around on there & see if it's for you. I especially like that this book goes through the stages of writing & how to help your child transition from one to another. It teaches you, the parent, how to teach writing. Plus has ideas for 4 years worth of LA, lots of great things for the kids to do, ways to combat writer's block etc... Merry :-)

We're just finishing up a year of Core 3 with 5th & 3rd graders. What a great core! I'd use the advanced readers for your oldest, but yes, this will be plenty. The history spine, Landmark, is listed as a read-aloud for 5th graders & up. Your littler ones may end up tuning out during this one, but will probably like many of the other read-alouds. I suggest getting a catalog as I think it's much easier to understand SL from their catalog. But yes, it's basically history & geography, Bible, Literature, and readers in the "core," and is basically a literature-based curriculum. The book choices are wonderful, we almost always love them. Do know that the readers are considered part of the history for this core, so your youngest will miss out on some of the history & may want to do the core again later. You can do tag-alongs but the reading and read-aloud levels of the books are geared towards 3rd-6th graders. My favorite core so far! HTH, Merry :-)

He's 5, I wouldn't worry about it. Reading is a lot of work at that age. And their eyes are usually still naturally far-sighted then too--it's just not fun. He may want to be able to read, but he may also not want the work & responsibility of growing up (not putting in his own CD's) & of reading in general. I'd relax and give him more time, just have him nix the "I'm stupid" talk, reading early or late has nothing to do with intelligence. Merry :-)

Oh no, there goes the price of oreos! Merry :-)

I always make up my own. I use the yearly planner page from www.donnayoung.org to rough out my year, then I make up pages the way I want them--currently I'm using the one I'll attach below. I just can never find exactly what I'm looking for! And I like that I can customize mine as I go each week (plus I really need to see everything on one page if I can, otherwise I start losing info!). Anyway, I hope you find what you're looking for! Merry :-) Oops...guess I can't add it, sorry. If you like color & can use Word, I'd be happy to email it. It's only 49 K, but this board limits to 19 K. Merry :-)

Hi :) Merry :-)

HTH! Merry :-)

If money was no object, I'd probably go yearly. I find it's a fun shot in the arm if you pick the right speakers/seminars to go to, and I really do like to see things in person if I can. I've only been able to go to a couple, but both helped me recharge and get new ideas. Merry :-)

Well, a book that is geared to help you as teacher learn how to teach writing to your children is The Writer's Jungle (www.bravewriter.com). And she has awesome quotes in the sidebars from books by writers for writers. A favorite of mine is Writing With Power (or any book by Peter Elbow). TWJ is a great book to learn about writing for you too though. Read some of the articles & her blog & the sample on her site to see if it might be your style. I took an online class from them this spring on teaching Copywork & Dictation and learned tons! I always knew these were beneficial, but wow, I feel equipped to develop my own LA from these now. Merry :-)

I don't even pay attention to the school's standards. I homeschool to go as fast or as slow as my kids need to in various subjects. But if it makes you feel better, Frog & Toad are 2nd grade level reading material, sounds to me like you're doing just fine! Enjoy the journey :). Merry :-)

They did that just for LA 3 because Core 3 had both regular and advanced readers and 4 and 5 day schedules--it would have been maddening to try to come up with one dictation schedule that would work with all those options--and probably very inefficient to come up with 4 different sets of LA's for this one core! So I think they came up with the best solution they could have (my kids actually liked the dictations anyway, but sometimes I pulled in ones of my own choosing from read-alouds--oh there are some WONDERFUL core 3 read-alouds! The Journeyman is exquisite! But I digress). This year, SL has dropped their 4 day schedules & just offers 5-day readers, so I don't know if they'll take a 2nd look at the dictation selections for LA 3 or not. Merry :-)

I'd give it a break & then pick out some books that look fun (or leave them out & let your kids pick books they are interested in) and just read those. Core C really doesn't have to be done in a specific order, and it's ok to drop books you just aren't interested in (or if you just need a break, etc...!). My kids picked up the Children's Encyclopedia from K this past fall--they were 10 & 8 then), and kept it in the car for 2 months, to read whenever we went on trips! So you never know, your kids may pick a book back up later, too! Merry :-)

I've done different things at different times. Recently this is what is working well for us: I alternate reading aloud history or science or Bible with work the kids have to do on their own (handwriting, spelling, reading etc...) I also do lit. read-alouds before bed. Sometimes we do Bible at breakfast. I do poetry on Tuesdays for "tea time" with a snack. Merry :-)

Put down all the research and spend some time in prayer. Take a sabatical from online forums for a few days or a week, so I can listen to God. I think through what my children need, what goals I'm trying to accomplish (specific & concrete, not just "be better writers" or something like that), I think about their learning style & my teaching style. I ask them questions. What are their goals? What do they think they are good at & what do they think they struggle with? What would they like more help with? I try to et on the same page with my kids, I try to be a student of my children and really learn them inside out. And then I spend more time in prayer. God will give you wisdom. Sometimes the voices out there saying to try this or try that or you're failing etc... are not God-inspired and can even be detrimental. Seek wisdom, God will give it (James 1:5). Praying for you now, Merry :-)

Have you looked at the sample pages? That will give you a feel for it & whether it might work for you or not. We did SL core 3 and LA 3 this year. It worked fairly well for us and we had a good year, but I'm going to branch out and do some different things next year. My kids haven't done much grammar so I'm going to do a grammar program, plus I really want more powerful copywork & dictation passages, so I'll sometimes choose my own & sometimes use the Bravewriter Arrow for LA. I wouldn't rule out using SL LA again, but I'd be much more choosy next time & not try to do all the writing assignments. Here's the review I posted on SL (note that in LA 4 the dictations would go with the readers--LA 3 is different on that point. LA 4 also has *some* tie-in between the dictations & "grammar gems" but in general I'm told the dictations still don't relate to the writing. I'm really not sure how SL chooses their dictation passages.): LA 3 has many good points. One of my favorites was that I could do it with both of my kids together (3rd & 5th grades this year). What a time saver! The writing assignments had good variety and were interesting. Buyers should realize the dictation/copywork for this year do not come from the readers as in other years. The selections are mainly scripture, sometimes poetry or quotes. My kids enjoyed the selections, so this wasn't a negative for us but might be for some. The reason I don't give this product 5 stars: 1, We found the pacing to be a bit fast. Writing and revising on the same day would be overwhelming for my kids, so I never required that. Which meant we either didn't revise assignments, or we had to skip some to do that. Sometimes there were "mini reports" to look up information and write a short report all in one day. I think assignments like this need a bit more time. 2, I really want to do more with dictation. With only a few exceptions, the dictation in LA 3 has nothing to do with what you learn the rest of the week. It doesn't show examples of concepts (or if it does, they are not pointed out)--there's really no teaching included on what to point out to your kids from the passage or why it was chosen. It's just something to do on Mondays without tying into the rest of the week. Overall, a good, strong product that your kids can learn a lot from. The biggest thing my kids took away this year was the value of a good hook. They recognize it in their reading, and try to apply it in their writing even when I don't prompt them to. And their writing ability improved a ton this year between doing dictation (we actually did it as copywork on Mondays & dictation on Fridays to get a bit more mileage out of it), and the writing assignments. In general, the pre-writing assignments helped them (a few in 2007 were a bit rocky, don't know if those got changed for 2008, but overall great), and they enjoyed the few picture "story-starters" included in this core. HTH some, Merry :-)

Here's a fun article with ideas for Tea-time with your kids: http://www.bravewriter.com/BWL/bwlteatime.html Merry :-)

I've always heard people spend, on average, 30% more. Would love to see the actual studies & how they figure that! But I do think there's truth to it. If I have the credit card with me, it's easy to forget, until the end of the month, just how many times I've used it. Especially in places like walmart--cash just makes me see concretely how much money we really have to spend and it makes me re-evaluate needs and wants. When my dh went on disability, we switched to a cash envelope system in order to track our budget more closely (we always had wiggle room before, so it didn't matter if we spent an extra hundred or two some months...or so we thought!). Setting stricter guidelines for when to use credit (gas, medical, homeschool online purchases which I track closely) and using cash for the rest enabled us to make it on 60% of dh's former pay--a feat I would never have thought possible previously, because I'm pretty frugal to begin with. I'm not a big shopper/spender. But this made us be much more careful. Merry :-)

I like modern heat, AC, plumbing, electricity too much to go back in time too far, LOL! Merry :-)

We modified PLL for use in 2nd grade. Generally I liked the memorization selections better than the dictation ones, so I used the memorization for copywork (my 2nd grader wasn't ready for dictation, and especially not for writing the word "squirrel" from dictation on the 2nd day, LOL!). We did almost everything else orally--the writing assignments he dictated and I scribed. It worked very well, great foundation! Just some other ideas on how to use it for a student who is a bit more reluctant to write. Merry :-)

Those are ridiculous! too funny! The poor women's feet who decide to wear those... Merry :-)

My best advice is start slowly & enjoy your children. It's so easy to overdo it with the oldest I think! (I tell my son I get otj training with him, poor kid!). Kids this age learn lots through play, but some are chomping at the bit for more formal learning. Follow your child's cues too :-). Merry :-)