I will encourage friends to have similar values, whether they are Christian or not. unless they (or their family) are somehow a negative influence on my children, I won't intervene. my dd7's best friend's family are atheists, and attend a UU church. She actually asked me recently if her friend believed in G-d or not, and when I told her I didn't think so, asked if we could pray for her. Our friends know we are Christian. We don't proselytize but don't avoid talking about our faith if it comes up in discussion.

we read a chapter a week, and I try to get some of the supplemental books from the library. Sometimes we only do reading, and other times I will ask the review questions to see if dd7 is following the material. I like the coloring pages and mapwork (it keeps her hands busy so she listens to me read). We did crafts or activities from the guide until midway through volume 3 with a small co-op. When our co-op dropped history and went to just science after Christmas, I honestly was a little relieved, because I didn't feel like we got as much from crafts as we did from the reading and supplemental reading. Now that we are wrapping up volume 3 on our own at home, I don't even bother doing the crafts or activities.

www.pinterest.com/theveganbee/homeschool-science I've got links pinned for a few of the Vol. I lessons and will be working over the next few weeks to get more up.

I don't have any experience with Supercharged Science, but I am in the process of switching us over to BFSU. My dd7 will be 3rd grade, so I am setting up our schedule from volumes I and II. We have been following the classical schedule up to this point, and so we will be focusing on Chemistry this coming Fall. But I love the layout of BFSU where you can move around as needed and the different topics have prereqs or coreqs listed. I planned out our summer to cover topics from C (Physics), B (Life Science) and D (Earth Science) from Volume I to give us a good foundation before working through A (Nature of Matter) threads from Volumes I and II in the Fall and Spring. Even though we have discussed many of the topics in Volume I previously in our other curriculum (we had been using RSO for Biology and ES for Earth Science) I want to make sure we go over them again with the depth that BFSU does. I have a science background and have been so impressed with BFSU - I wish I had known about it sooner. I would have probably started with it originally. The mom-prep required for BFSU is really the only drawback that I see. I am expecting a baby this summer so I am working on getting our lessons planned out now - pinning videos to go along with lessons, looking for interactive websites. I even subscribed to education.com to have access to worksheets to go along with our lessons for reinforcement.

I just downloaded my issue today. haven't made it through the whole thing yet but I am really enjoying it so far!

I had three packages from Amazon arrive this week! I'm still working on my curriculum plans for a couple of subjects so there will be more later in the month, and next week is the Barnes and Noble Educator Week (25% off!) so I will hopefully get some stuff then.

We have used FIAR the last two years as a supplement rather than our main. I have enjoyed most of the selections. The books I thought might be too "outdated" for my daughter to enjoy ended up being her favorites! Because we don't use FIAR as our main resource, I tend to look through the manual and use the topics for discussion after each row. At the beginning of the school year we tried doing lapbooks because I felt we weren't doing "enough" with it, but with our other subjects it became too much. I have gone back to just discussing the various topics as we read.I love the idea of scheduling FIAR weeks though!

My dd is a strong reader, but doesn't seem to have the patience to stick with longer chapter books. She gets distracted and moves onto something else. I'd like to push her a little to finish an entire longer chapter book. I want to work on her writing a bit. We've done handwriting and spelling and phonics, and overall her language arts skills are where I want them to be, but I want to put more effort into her formal writing skills.

We were considering REAL Science Odyssey (we used it for Biology) or Elemental Science (we used for Earth/Space Science). Both of the Chemistry programs look great. We ultimately have decided to switch to BFSU and I'll be putting together the Nature of Matter threads from Vol I and II for us this year, along with a few other topics that are prereqs/coreqs.

I switched to FLL this year (2nd grade). I decided to skim the last part of the book because it was moving so slow, and I felt like we were getting bogged down with all the review of nouns. I didn't realize at the time I could have probably just started at 2. Now I am trying to move through at a more reasonable pace and be ready to start 3 by the fall.

for dd7 (2nd grade) we are using: Evan Moor Daily Spelling 2nd Grade. We will be moving on to the 3rd grade book in a few weeks. We switched to FLL 1/2 this year, but I am skimming through so we can start Vol 3 by summer or fall. For reading comp, I have a Flash Kids Reading Comprehension workbook my daughter likes. I'll be switching to Evan Moor Daily Reading Comprehension Grade3 in April. We have a Flash Kids Handwriting workbook - it is insect themed which my daughter loves. We start cursive this summer with a similar workbook. I haven't done phonics this year since she is reading above her level. I am thinking of adding in some Phonics in the fall though (will probably use Evan Moor). She does a lot of writing on her own so we don't use anything formal (yet). I also have her do copywork from her current reading selections. We do a lot of reading here. I also have FIAR for reading selections, and I try to incorporate some of the topics into our discussion of the books.

We are using Vintage Remedies for Tweens from Vintage Remedies. It doesn't cover things like food groups, but talks about whole foods, wholesome treats, local foods, organic, etc. Each chapter has reading and "projects" to do - the food chapters have food recipes, and there are several chapters that deal with homemade body products as well.

I wanted a hard copy of SOTW AG so I sliced open, hole punched and put in a 3 ring binder. I copy mapwork and coloring pages each week. We also use Evan Moor Spelling, and I have 3-ring bound those as well. I could have bought the ebooks from Evan Moor but I like to get workbooks at Barnes and Noble during their educator week each spring for a nice discount. For RSO and ES I purchased the ebook only and print as needed. Smalle, cheaper workbooks I use as consumables.

We are using Sarah and David program this year. The first part of the program is learning the Aleph Bet and some basic vocabulary.