Here's our list for this coming year: Perrault, Charles: The Complete Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault Swift, Jonathan: Gulliver’s Travels Bunyan, John: The Pilgrim’s Progress Wordsworth, William: “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey†“Lucy Gray†“Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802†“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud†Coleridge, Samuel Taylor: “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner†Irving, Washington: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow & Rip Van Winkle Franklin, Benjamin: Autobiography Franklin, Benjamin: Way to Wealth Penn, William: Maxims Henty, G.A.: In the Reign of Terror: The Adventures of a Westminster Boy Melville, Herman: Bartleby Cooper, James Fennimore: The Deerslayer Rosetti, Christina: “A Birthday†Carroll, Lewis: Through the Looking Glass Ellis, Joseph: His Excellency: George Washington Austen, Jane: Sense and Sensibility Shelley, Mary: Frankenstein Twain, Mark: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Pope, Alexander: Essays on Men and Other Poems Dickens, Charles: Oliver Twist Tennyson, Alfred Lord: “The Lady of Shalott†“Tears, Idle Tears†(TF 649 – read note re: Tinturn Abbey) Browning, Elizabeth Barrett: “How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways.†McCullough, David: 1776 Poe, Edgar Allan: “The Raven†“Annabel Lee†Asbjrnsen, Peter Christen: East o’ the Sun and West o’ the Moon Douglass, Frederick: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave Harris, Alex and Brett: Do Hard Things MacArthur, John: The Gospel According to Jesus

My quiet mutiny? I've given up birthday parties all together. Instead, my dh takes off of work and we go to the beach, Disneyland, the zoo, etc, all together as a family. My kids don't seem to mind. I like it :-)

Well, we have been using this for 2 years now without reducing the size. It's a bit squishy on some pages, but we haven't had to omit anything because of a lack of room.

It's the Simply Charlotte Mason one here.

We do 6weeks on/1 week off year round. In the summers we school 4 days a week and are done by lunch time. Just enough structure to keep me from going insane and to keep them from requiring a lot of review in the fall.

That's a great idea (the M&M's on Friday). I really love the Charlotte Mason system. It has been a huge hit in our house, as well.

Mine is in my siggy. It's a family blog, but if you check out the homeschooling entry under labels you can just read the pertinent posts.

Congratulations!! That is fantastic!! My six year old, who has been working slowly through PP for 15 months now, is only 30 pages from the end. He has asked for a party...with cake...when he finishes. I will definitely do it. I am just as excited as he is. I've spent roughly 5 1/2 years doing PP with one child or another :-)

In the past we have done small picture frames with each guests name in it as a place card at the table. During the party I take a picture of the birthday girl and each guest and then print the pictures and send them home with it in the frame.

That's what I love so much about PP...it's simplicity. We just open up and do one page. As they get more proficient, we increase to 2 pages a day. My just turned 6 year old is on p. 190 and does 2 pages/day, which takes about 15-20 minutes.

ETC 2 & 3: 10-15 minutes copywork: 10 minutes read to Mom: 15 minutes FLL: 10-15 minutes Singapore Math 1B/2A: 20 minutes SOTW3 alternating with My World Science Green: 30 minutes We spend about 90 minutes on schoolwork per day.

I completely agree. It is about the process. The grammar-stage recommendations of copywork, narration, and dictation form a fantastic, age-appropriate foundation for the writing that will come in the logic and rhetoric stages. I am very confident that those who are behind are NOT using the classical methods at all (or at least consistently). Let's face it, most people who homeschool do not homeschool classically. As a matter of fact, I do not know anyone IRL who does so. My oldest 2 are in the logic stage now and working through the Classical Writing series. We have followed the WTM recs in writing since the beginning. I am thrilled (really, thrilled) with the writers they are becoming. They have covered all the skills you listed (brainstorming, pre-writing, outlining, writing, editing, re-writing) in one way or another, and they still have a number of years to hone and develop those skills.

I agree. The Whirley Pop is the best popcorn ever!

steak & pepper jack panini, chips, cucumber-tomato salad, watermelon

third grade here.

Given these criteria, I would cross CW off your list. It is a fantastic program, but it is teacher-intensive, takes a bit of time, and is not really designed to be used independently.

Including reading, we do 2 hours.

Well, I currently live within the L.A. city limits, so there it is. (3.8 million, I think?) But I grew up in a town of 3,000. I liked that better :-)

LOL. I like the "rip the band-aid off" analogy, and I completely agree.

Well, of course you are right. I think I made it clear that they had to die because of sin...I never said they didn't die. But I meant they should have died immediately, right where they were standing. It was God's mercy that allowed them to live, and humanity to go on, at all.

Well, I will give you the Reader's Digest version of how I came to believe what I do. First, Genesis 1:29-30 say the following: "Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"; and it was so. " Clearly, according to God's Word, Adam and Eve AND all the Lord's created beings were vegetarian. Otherwise, if he made the point of saying they could eat from "every green plant" wouldn't he also have mentioned the animals that were on the menu? Next, the Lord told them they would surely die if they ate of the forbidden fruit. The Lord was intimate with his creation in those days. They were used to Him "walking in the garden in the cool of the day." (Gen 1:8) How can we guess what their conversations may have been like? I am sure the Lord would not have threatened death if they ate of the tree if they didn't know what death was. Adam and Eve should have been the ones to die, but the Lord, in His mercy, sacrifices the animals and uses their skin to "cover" their sin and shame. This is a theme which runs throughout Scripture, culminating of course in the death of Christ to cover the sins of those who would believe on Him. A look at the Old Testament law reveals very quickly that the Lord required blood to cover sins. Adam and Eve had been naked and unashamed before they disobeyed. Genesis 1 and 2 mention nowhere the death of anything (of course excepting the plants :-) Last, in Genesis 3:22-24, we see the Lord driving Adam and Eve out of the garden lest they eat of the Tree of Life and live forever. There is an assumption there that all things had eaten from the Tree of Life before and, therefore, had been able to live forever. Now that this fruit was being withheld, man would surely NOT live forever. Romans 5:12 also backs this up: Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned-- I interpret that to mean that before sin there was no death. I will agree with others to say, this isn't a hill to die on, for sure. But I do believe that Scripture is fairly clear in this area. I have found no Scripture that would indicate death being around before the fall of man.

Yes, I am talking about the spilled-blood, heart ceasing to beat kind of death. The death of creatures. Obviously, the plants did indeed die when they were eaten :-)

Through my study I have come to the conclusion that there was no death before the Lord slayed the animals to cover Adam and Eve after they sinned. Blood was required to "cover" their sin. Death, in essence, entered the world with the first sin. Abel was the first human death.

I like the Junior League Cookbooks (especially Creme de Colorado).

Shout away!! That is fantastic!!