Have you read WTM? It is overflowing with wonderful recommendations. Apologia is excellent for science. Or you could do geography for a science and use A Child's Geography. These are rich beyond text books - using living books, copy work and hands-on experiments. If you need a built in agenda or schedule, then perhaps you should go a route where it is set up for you - like My Father's World? This next year could be a sweet time for you and your daughter to take her education outside of the "check boxes" for each subject and to ignite her passions of learning. If my child was stressed out all the time, I would love to first give her time to "detox" and give her the gift of time spent of her passions - maybe reading, art, music? Just some thoughts...

I did order them; however, they were not pre-cut. Yet, this was 4 years ago, so maybe things have changed. It was a busy, busy time in my life and I was so happy that someone already did the hard work for me of creating the cards. Cutting was simple.

I so agree with this quote here. In the past I had about killed myself going through books on each subject for each child to know exactly what they were going to do. One lady at Starbucks cracked up at me because I was working so hard for about 2 hours and never even stopped to drink my coffee. I didn't really find this got me far ahead. So, I then realized that what we use is pretty much open up and go - SOTW, FLL, WWE, Spelling Workout, Singapore, Prima Latina. I have a simple sheet for each child that has the days of the week and each subject listed. we check off what they accomplished and then start where we left off. Sometimes I do look a couple weeks ahead and reserve books from the library. Quite often I'm happily surprised when things fall in to place without these massive planning retreats. I call that providence! I do have long term goals - where we should be by the year's end. Until then, we just keep chugging along.

This is probably more of you reading to him... The Billy and Blaze books are my son's most favorite. And he's 4yo :)

Yikes! We live in western Wa and pay $100 for Comcast for our computer and phone. Many friends here use Rainier Connect and it's cheapo. Maybe that's an option? Or maybe you'll just have to borrow a neighbor's wireless network. Oh wait, that's a no no.

We skip them. I think they're kind of silly. Just my big fat opinion :)

I'm a big fan of FLL. This year I'm doing FLL 3 with my dd9. It's taken us a little over a year to do it, but that's ok, as we have days with Classical Conversations and violin. I really like the scripting, repetition of asking the questions while diagramming sentences, and the review. My dd loves the dictionary skills section. I did stray to Growing with Grammar for 3 lessons worth. At that time I was desperate for my kids to be more independent in their school work. Life was a little overwhelming at that moment. I quickly saw that I prefer FLL's method of teaching grammar.

You've got to get a copy of The Harp and Laurel Wreath by Laura Berquist. It's a collection of poetry, copywork, dictation and more for classical education. It's one of my favorite homeschooling books.

I see my "calendar teaching" is very simple compared to these very fun ideas. Each child has a calendar by their beds and we have a calendar in the kitchen. They love to find the day, mark it off at bedtime, write in events, count the days to the next big event and so on. This simple, just living and using our calendars has done it - without a big to-do they all know how to read calendars, the days of the week and so on. Oh no, am I unschooling? :)

N.D. Wilson is an exciting author of "daring fantasy adventure". My dd just read 100 Cupboards. This book is about a 12yo boy who hears scratching on the other side of the attic wall. He discovers 99 cupboard doors and finds out they are portals to other worlds. He also wrote Leepike Ridge and Dandelion Fire.

A must read on this topic - Womanly Dominion by Mark Chanski. I'm almost done with this book and it has been a wonderful read on our role as a Christian woman. Get it, read it!

I guess you have to figure out your purpose for more phonics review. Is it for spelling or to help your child read? By the time my children nears the end of OPGTR they can read quite well. So we use OPGTR to teach reading. I then proceed to 1st grade with an emphasis on language arts - writing (WWE), grammar (FLL) and spelling. For the years we did SP, spelling waited until 3rd grade. I find those things provide more than enough in the language arts department. Spelling Power is to be started at grade 3. Spelling Workout can be started earlier. I bought SP because I could reuse it with all our children. Yet we returned to SW because my kids can do it on their own. SW may provide similar things to the phonics worksheets your printed out.

We've done a couple things after finishing OPGTR. 1. nothing for spelling until 3rd grade (Spelling Power) 2. Spelling Workout A (and following), which WTM suggests beginning after finishing lesson #116 of OPGTR (my kids were K age at this point) Best of all, we have our kids read, read, read.

I absolutely love All Through the Ages. Yet I must say that SOTW Activity Guide offers more than enough in the way of a book list.

I would suggest getting the text book. It has assessment exercises for each level. That way you'll know for certain.

A book that I love and happens to be geared toward Catholics is called Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum by Laura Berquist. It has lots and lots of suggestions for all subjects.

This year we are doing Prima Latina with the DVDs with my 9yo and 7yo. Really we all find them a nice change of pace to our week's routine. It gives me a chance to sit down with a cup of coffee and listen and watch while someone else does the teaching. I waited a little later than usual to start with my oldest (she's 9yo) so that I could double up and have my two oldest do this together. My 6yo is eavesdropping on each lesson (she does a puzzle or coloring) and I bet she's more advanced than I realize. We keep it pretty simple. My goal at this level is to have them enjoy Latin. They watch and listen to the DVD, do the workbook during the week, and listen to the CD (while they are captive prisoners in the van) for review. I don't put a lot of pressure on making sure they memorized the words. We do a lot of memorization in Classical Conversations. My exciting Latin moment was while we were shopping at Costco and my dd7 saw the drink called Vita Water (or whatever). She was quite excited to make the Latin connection - "that means life water!" Love those homeschooling moments.

I'm still restraining myself. My dh continues to tell me, "Stay the course" with what we have.

I'm intrigued by the New American Cursive books that I found on the Memoria Press website. It seems so nice and simple. I'm interested in their idea of beginning cursive at 1st grade. Have you used these books and started this early? What have you thought about it?

:iagree: Just what I was going to say...

Just order WTM! You'll get it sooner than later and then not have to return it :) That way you can get thorough answers to your questions.

Your info meeting will have all the fees ready for you. Really, the fees are not much different than many co-ops. And as many have already said, the great thing about CC is the accountability, predictability and high standards. We are involved in the Foundations program and consider it worth every penny. The science experiments and fine arts sections are worth it in my book. (I always said those were areas we would do as homeschoolers and those are areas I never seem to get to.) Once you calculate the per class and then per hour fee, it is very very small for what you receive in return. And really the tutors and directors work very hard. I have served in both roles. Just like any business or service, the money paid does increase the quality and commitment. Parents are more committed because they are paying tuition. Tutors and directors work very hard because they are earning some money for their time. Just today at a local coffee shop, my dad was quizzing my kids on their memory work. A man at the next table was eavesdropping and was shocked at what they know. The accountability of CC is great for our family and has taken our homeschooling to a new level. For youngest kids (like 4yos), you have to decide what you want for your 4yo and what you want to do with your 4yo. Some people are ready to dive in to something like CC and others want to do things more gentle at that age. Last year our class' 4yo was the star student! Next year we plan to have our 4yo participate, yet he is the youngest of 4 kids.

Just keep sticking with it. My dd is in WWE2 and FLL3. We should be going twice as quickly, but that's another point. Anyway, we're on lesson 70 of FLL and I do remember it being difficult in the middle of the book. Just stick with it! There is review. I don't think we're expecting our kids to master all of it. I find the script to be excellent. The repetition is doing it's job and things are sticking. As for the narration, we skip those since we're doing WWE. I switched to Growing with Grammar and that lasted a week. I much prefer the FLL way to teach grammar.

I did 3 weeks on/1 week off schedule when my 4 kids were ages 5 and under. We did this for my oldest's K and 1st grade year. For those 2 years, this schedule was my secret to success and survival. On one hand I was encouraged that a break was just around the corner. On the other hand, it showed me that my kids would normally do the things I was trying to schedule in. By this I mean they normally read, I read to them, they play games, listen to SOTW on CD, listen to great music, and want to practice handwriting. This lifted my self-imposed burden of my self-imposed crazy schedule. We still took off summer time. Now my kids are older, we do a longer stretch between breathers.

KJV could be confusing. We love the ESV. As for a children's story Bible, you could get your hands on The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones.